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After test week ended in December I worked at the Salt Lake
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        my duty had been to deliver the mail in an ordinary foot route in the city.
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        test I worked in the primary distribution center. I worked all the hours
        they would allow, arriving at 6 a.m. and working until 10 p.m. each day.
        The work paid 75 cents per hour – well above the 50 cents the Parks
        Department paid. The work would end abruptly the day before Christ-
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        enough in a week to pay the entire tuition for the following quarter at the
        University. Jean had been attending LDS Business College in the fall
        and she worked in the toy department of ZCMI for the holiday season.
        We hardly saw one another for a week.
               Christmas night we went to Dad and Mother’s house, where my
        aunts, uncles and cousins came to the traditional Holmes’ Christmas
        party. Jean and I had decided to go to a honeymoon to Los Angeles and
        we told my parents. They were worried. Dad said, “What will you do if
        the Japs’ aircraft carrier planes bomb the airplane plants in Los Ange-
        les?” I doubted that would occur.
               Jean and I left the day after Christmas on the Greyhound bus
        bound for Los Angeles. There was a happy atmosphere on the bus. One
        fellow played his guitar and many of us sang periodically during the
        night.  We arrived about 9 a.m. in Los Angeles. The sun was out and the
        weather was pleasant (we had left amid ice and snow in Salt Lake). We
        carried our suitcases a couple of blocks, selected a mid-price hotel (the
        Lankershim) and settled in. In subsequent days we explored downtown
        Los Angeles and took a bus out to Hollywood. As we walked down
        Sunset Boulevard, Jean looked at a fellow walking toward us and said,
        “I know that fellow from Salt Lake.” In a minute, we had a good laugh.
        The fellow whose face she recognized was the actor Alan Hale, whom
        we had seen in the movies.
               On New Year ’s Eve, we lacked the money to go to fancy par-
        ties. Jean said that she had always wanted to be able to stay out all night.


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