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Christmas week, 1941?

Right. It's at Arrowhead Lodge, where we are put up not at the hotel, because it's overcrowded, we're put up at the Kleinman's, that's the relatives of Harold Leventhal, in like almost a dormitory situation, we're all in there, Sammy and his wife, my wife, you know, and it's like an open shop kind of thing. And Anne never forgave me for the fact that that entire week, the honeymoon, was spent -- I was in the band playing. I guess she forgave me, but she never forgot it. So then I'm drafted.

And when is that?

I'm drafted shortly after we're married, and I'm drafted and I am in basic training, you know. I'm sent to Fort Dix on Long Island, and suddenly I am sent back to New York, and I'm sent to 65 Broadway, Special Services. I am assigned to the company that is preparing the Irving Berlin show for the Army, directed by Kurt Kasnar, all the big names were there.

How did this happen?

On my background, it must have said that I was a musician who had done programming, social, that kind of thing, I was an emcee, that kind of thing. It was like a mini-computer that was pulled out and I was sent there. I was there for no more than a week when my records caught up with me, and I remember Kurt Kasnar came to me and said, “Look, there's a problem. You can't stay here. It's against the rules because of your background. We'll send you in the command to Governor's Island. If you want to, we'll send you to the band.”

I said, “Don't send me to the band.”

“He said, “Okay, we'll sign you then to--”

To which band?

To the band at Fort Jay, Governor's Island. I didn't want to be in the band. So I was sent to the headquarters post, and I was assigned in the commissary. I was a clerk in the commissary.

Where was this?

Fort Jay. And what had happened is that, meanwhile, Anne had moved in with three other women, from the student movement -- Terry Sadin, Maia Turchin Scherrer, who is now dead, died recently, was head of the ASU, and Barbara Wolcott, she is the niece of