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Milty's Mag, March 1942

Front cover

Milton A. Rothman...1730 P, NW, Washington, DC ... March, 1942
For the Fantasy Amateur Press Association

One Way Ticket to Philadelphia

A world of expression in a word is the way Elmer Perdue writes his address: 1218 S. Cedar St., Casper -- in Wyoming! Soon -- perhaps by the time you read this -- I shall be qualified to write: 2113 N. Franklin St., Philadelphia -- in Pennsylvania! For even as I write this the ponderous wheels of Bureaucracy are grinding out the tortuous procedures of a transfer which will take me from the U.S. Civil Service Commission, Retirement Division, Accounts and Records Section, Records Unit, Washington, DC to the War Department, Bureau of Ordnance, Frankford Arsenal, Instrument Department, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Some people (namely one Jack Speer) cannot understand why a person should want to go back to a place like Philadelphia. True, I will no longer have the glamorous atmosphere of the Capital City about me. I will no longer walk to work every morning down the broad, tree-shaded Massachusetts Avenue, 16th Street, and G Street, with the Peruvian Embassy, the American Chemical Society, the National Geographic Society, the Russian Embassy, the White House, and the Treasury Department flanking me on both sides, while the Washington Monument lifts its obelisk above the roof of the White House. I will no longer stand on Connecticut Avenue of a Sunday morning and see the President drive by on his way to church, and I will no longer stroll past the White House and think: "Winston Churchill is in there right now, talking to Franklin."

Instead, I will live on a narrow, cobbled street of row houses, each one like the other next to it up the whole block, while the street cars periodically raise their metallic clatter outside my bedroom window. I will take a street car and then a bus to work every morning and will pass between identical lines of redbrick row houses, petty shops, and dingy factory buildings.

It doesn't sound like much of a trade.

But the Washington glamor is tinsel. The real Washington is school-teacherish female supervisors, rules, regulations, procedures, decisions, office politics, departments, bureaus, divisions, commissions, agencies, boards, promotions, efficiency ratings, filing cabinets, filing cabinets, filing cabinets, filing cabinets, file clerks to put things into the filing cabinets and file clerks to take things out of the filing cabinets.

The worst of which is female supervisors. I hope that I will have a male supervisor at the Arsenal. I don't care if he is as tough as the toughest buck sergeant in the army, but I hope he has enough of a memory to remember the instructions which he, himself, gave from one day to the next and will not change his mind about them. If he has that, then I shall love him.

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Milton A. Rothman...1730 P, NW, Washington, DC ... March, 1942 For the Fantasy Amateur Press Association One Way Ticket to Philadelphia A world of expression in a word is the way Elmer Perdue writes his address: 1218 S. Cedar St., Casper -- in Wyoming! Soon -- perhaps by the time you read this -- I shall be qualified to write: 2113 N. Franklin St., Philadelphia -- in Pennsylvania! For even as I write this the ponderous wheels of Bureaucracy are grinding out the tortuous procedures of a transfer which will take me from the U.S. Civil Service Commission, Retirement Division, Accounts and Records Section, Records Unit, Washington, DC to the War Department, Bureau of Ordnance, Frankford Arsenal, Instrument Department, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Some people (namely one Jack Speer) cannot understand why a person should want to go back to a place like Philadelphia. True, I will no longer have the glamorous atmosphere of the Capital City about me. I will no longer walk to work every morning down the broad, tree-shaded Massachusetts Avenue, 16th Street, and G Street, with the Peruvian Embassy, the American Chemical Society, the National Geographic Society, the Russian Embassy, the White House, and the Treasury Department flanking me on both sides, while the Washington Monument lifts its obelisk above the roof of the White House. I will no longer stand on Connecticut Avenue of a Sunday morning and see the President drive by on his way to church, and I will no longer stroll past the White House and think: "Winston Churchill is in there right now, talking to Franklin." Instead, I will live on a narrow, cobbled street of row houses, each one like the other next to it up the whole block, while the street cars periodically raise their metallic clatter outside my bedroom window. I will take a street car and then a bus to work every morning and will pass between identical lines of redbrick row houses, petty shops, and dingy factory buildings. It doesn't sound like much of a trade. But the Washington glamor is tinsel. The real Washington is school-teacherish female supervisors, rules, regulations, procedures, decisions, office politics, departments, bureaus, divisions, commissions, agencies, boards, promotions, efficiency ratings, filing cabinets, filing cabinets, filing cabinets, filing cabinets, file clerks to put things into the filing cabinets and file clerks to take things out of the filing cabinets. The worst of which is female supervisors. I hope that I will have a male supervisor at the Arsenal. I don't care if he is as tough as the toughest buck sergeant in the army, but I hope he has enough of a memory to remember the instructions which he, himself, gave from one day to the next and will not change his mind about them. If he has that, then I shall love him.