The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-11-26
Gideon PlaniSh
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CHAPTER xxvIII

CHAPTER XXVIH
 nEC. 5, 1941, was a good normal D day in the career of Dr. Gideon Planish, Directive Secretary of the DDD-the Dynamos of Democratic Direction.
 He had returned late the even- ing before from routine visit to Washington, where he had ap- peared as an expert on Eskimos before congressional committee.
 He arose at 8 o'clock, pleas ant, cherubic sight, with his gray short beard jutting out over his cherry -and-blue stripped pajama jacket.
 The morning was chilly, but he took shower with almost no shudders. In the past 10 years he had got as used to daily bath as Winifred Homeward.
 He hastily, for he was man of affairs with an ignorant world awaiting his guidance. put on the short athletic underwear, pale blue, which Peony often declared, made him look as oomphy as the Great God Pan,' and his newly tailored suit of pale brown cheviot.
 He bounced downstairs for breakfast of oatmeal and bacon and eggs and toast and four cups of coffee, with his daughter Car rie, aged almost 20.
 She was pert and pretty fig ure, in sweater and tweed skirt, but she did not seem to him richly and truly feminine, like her mother.
 She was a junior in Hunter College, and devoted to such un- glamorous subjects as physics, mechanical drawing and ethnol- ogy. She did not seem to be even normally soft toward any of the horde of boys who hung about her and about the house.
 It was exasperating to have her, though ordinarily a civil young woman, calmly state that he and Peony were old-fashioned sur- vivals of Flaming Youth era that to her was as antiquated and ridiculous as the Dutch Tulip Craze or MT. Gladstone.
 He had given up trying to be helpful to her young men by giv- ing them valuable inside informa- tion regarding the International Situation of 1941 and the secret plans of fallen France. All of them, skinny and intellectual or stout and bawdy, expected to go to war some day as fighting SOL diers, with no fuss about it; they disliked Hitlerism, and talked ex- pertly about Spitdres and St1kas Yet when he, the secretary of the DDD, tried to inspire them with his best explanations of what Winston Churchill was going to do year after next, they just didn't seem to listen, although paying audiences of the most expensively dressed women applauded him on an average of twice week for bestowing exactly this same revela- tion.
 This morning, he read the war headlines to Carrie, who had read them herself half an hour before until Peony appeared, adorable and soft in a lace-trimmed peach blow negligee, gurgling, Every body here? I can't seem to get up mornings, any more. But, oh boy, did I dance with Hal Home ward and Sherry Belden last night, while you were gadding of to Washington! What, no straw berries?"
 LIS ofilce was 8 square, ruddy AA room, with 8 solid mahogany desk, a silver-framed picture o1 Peony. solid mahogany chairs oi portly fireplace, and case filled with autographed books about Con- ditionS and Situations.
 He read the mail that his secre- tary had opened and arranged ir 8 pile on his desk. He loved read ing mail; it made him feel i'm portant to be denounced in the same batch as an English Tory as a Russia Communist, as a Mid-western provincial; to be asked his opinions; to be invited to address clubs and colleges.
 He dictated the answers as rapidly as windmill. Only one letter bothered him: that from MT. Johnson of Minneapolis, the unpaid local director of the DDE Powerhouse.
 MT. Johnson of Minneapolis wa: nobody and everybody. Some times Dr. Planish remembered hin as lawyer. sometimes as a news. paperman, sometimes as a farmer sometimes as small merchant sometimes as labor union secre. tary, sometimes as 8 millionaire lumberman. He accepted intellectua mama from the professional man. na-handlers, but he could never bs depended upon. At any moment ht was likely to complain that ths mama had too much soda in it.
 MT. Johnson of Minneapolis wrote now: T don't like the way our loca Powerhouse of the DDD is going We are supposed to be still in exist. ence, and notice in your bulletins that you say we are thriving ane doing fine work in acquaintin( the Scandinavian citizens with thu ideals of Anericanism.'
 T don't know. haven't beer