Starting the day of working on my Capital Fringe Show, The Hello Girls, listening to a popular boy-girl song from WWI ERA – to get my heart, mind and imagination geared into the right time zone. Pete Wendling recorded this for the player-piano in 1917 – the country was charged with patriotic spirit as America entered the Great War, the “boys” wanted to to go “over there”, my grandmother – Louise Cobb Diggle, wrote from New York City that the air was filled with music and calls for people to buy War Bonds, but she had no idea that in 9 months her two brothers would be “over there” in France and that only one would come home. Recently I saw a small dance card from an entertainment on a troop ship on the Atlantic on the way to France – For Me and My Gal was listed on the music program. March 6, 1918 The First 33 – of the Hello Girls, left NYC behind. Proudly wearing their new dark blue Army Signal Corps uniforms they boarded a troop ship along with several thousand Doughboys and sailed to France.

For Me and My Gal