Murray to Rosa, 1938 -- "I wish I knew what to do"

Murray left the Grays Harbor Washingtonian after a year and went to work for the Seattle Municipal News, the publication of the Seattle Municipal League. In August, he became the League's secretary, directing their candidate evaluations. The job brought him back to Seattle, and closer to Rosa, but he chafed at office politicking and the loss of freedom to organize his own time.

July 13, 1938

I wish I knew what to do, my pet. I'd like to travel, but I'd have to have a job and I wouldn't want to travel that way because it would take me away from you. I miss you so darn much just being this far away. And I'd like to go back to school just for the sake of learning more. And I'd like to be on a paper again for the sake of a job with companionship and less responsibilities, but I know that I would rebel again at taking orders at slanting news, etcetera. And I'd like to get a weekly paper somewhere, but I hate the gamble and am not sure enough of my knowledge of printing. If it were only the writing that one had to worry about. So I'm all undecided and restless.

July 14, 1938

...Did you ever read Whitman, hon? I've tried several times in years past to wade into him, but the man's colossal egotism has always gotten in the way. I started again this morning, on the street car going down town ... and I really got something out of it. For instance,

...

Whitman the shaggy hero

Beginning My Studies

Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much,

The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion,

The least insect or animal, the sense, eyesight, love,

The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much,

I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther,

But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.

For the first time I've had the idea that Dad's shaggy hero is talking to me.

...

One compensation of a new job in a more prosperous city was more money, most of which he spent on books and records. In October he won $18.80 in a dice game and spent it on "a whole flock of books that I've been really wanting but, since they are classics, have neglected to buy": Paradise Lost, Dante, Dialogues of Plato, Shakespeare, Ambrose Bierce's "In the Midst of Life," Romaine Rolland's "Jean Christophe." "Hon, they're just beautiful." A few days later he used another windfall to buy recordings of Sibelius and Haydn. And in December he announced the acquisition of Vernon Lewis Parrington's Main Currents in American Thought, all three volumes for $6.70.

Checking in with his friends still in college, he found Depression era financial worries beginning to be superseded by the fear of war.

Sept. 27, 1938

Dearest Nun:

My little office radio is sure coming in for use these days. People from all over the building have gathered in here to hear the Hitler and Chamberlain speeches the last couple of days. I wish that you could have listened in, pet. The contrast between the talks of the two men was probably as impressive as the Praha speech we heard last Friday. Hitler sounded like a wounded animal most of the time -- he snarled and screamed and sometimes whimpered. The English prime minister, on the other hand, had a Milquetoast voice and his understatements were comparable to those of Steinbeck or Hilton. "I found Mr. Hitler's stand most unreasonable."

Seattle people whom I have been talking to are pretty worried. They all think that we're cinch to get into the mess if it boils over, and the kids out at the fraternity were all talking nervously about "That hideout in the Olympics." Hell, they could have a fraternity row 50 miles in from Quinault if they all lived up to their "I'll ditch" promises.

His own response to a likely future as a soldier was carpe diem. He quit his job at the Municipal League, having confirmed his suspicion that he was not suited to organizational life, and dove into research on European history, kayaking, and architecture. He decided to travel, hoping to establish himself as a freelancer. Rosa always said that his marriage proposal consisted of an announcement that he had bought an extra ticket on a freighter headed for Europe, in case she wanted to come. He did give her at least a month's notice, writing on Feb. 1, 1939, that "This idea of quitting one job and getting married without the prospect of another is so beautifully unorthodox that I like it for that reason alone, as well as for romantic ones."

They were married in Murray's dad's church on March 5, with HVM presiding, and left the same day. Since their 10 a.m. sailing meant an 8 a.m. ceremony and little time for chat, Murray and Rosa planned for just the immediate family. But Henry Victor invited the whole church and most of them not only showed up but followed them to dockside. Rosa wore a blue suit and Murray, of course, brought along his typewriter. They traveled on the Norwegian freighter Heranger. Murray had already made two sea trips to Europe. Rosa had never been east of Spokane or south of Oregon.