Daddy could have handled Dennis

Remember Dennis the Menace, the bratty little kid who caused next-door-neighbor Mr. Wilson so many headaches? Whenever I see characters like that in fictional media, I just think how my father would have handled the situation. "Come here, son, and let me explain something to you." Once he "explained" things, in stark clarity, a repeat was not likely to happen. He got his point across. I do not think my Dad would have had much trouble with Dennis.

Enough for two

A waiter brought roast beef, underdone, and she took a thin slice. Jerry took two slices, with potatoes, and Gloria in her austere way advised him to be very careful how he tucked into those things,  because she was convinced that it was a lifelong passion for potatoes that had made Sir Gregory Parsloe the man he was . . . or, rather, she added, for she was a girl who liked exactness, the two men he was.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

What is in a pretty face?

George Cyril Wellbeloved was a long, lean, red-haired man with strabismus in the left eye. This rendered his left eye rather unpleasant to look at, and as even the right eye was nothing to cause lovers of the beautiful to turn handsprings, one can readily understand why Sir Gregory during the chat which followed preferred to avert his gaze as much as possible.

But, after all, what is beauty? Skin deep, you might say. His O. C. Pigs had a mouth like a halibut's, a broken nose acquired during a political discussion at the Emsworth Arms and lots of mud all over him, but when you are engaging a pig man, Sir Gregory felt, you don't want a sort of male Miss America, you want someone who knows about pigs. And what George Cyril Wellbeloved did not know about pigs could have been written on one of Maudie Montrose's picture postcards.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Among the worst of the bad

Famous people are notoriously unfaithful. Wealth and fame do not go well with marital fidelity, evidently. But even among the bad, big band leader Charlie Barnet was notorious. He went through eleven (11) wives.

Emotional shock

His intuition had not deceived him. Poor old Clarence was patently all of a doodah. Eyeing him as he tottered up, Gally was reminded of his old friend Fruity Biffen on the occasion when that ill-starred sportsman had gone into Tattersall's ring at Hurst Park wearing a long Assyrian beard in order to avoid identification by the half-dozen bookmakers there to whom he owed money, and then the beard had fallen off. The same visible emotion.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Watch out for ocean voyage lovers

I think I'd watch my step, if I were you, young Penny. There are some queer birds knocking around in this world. You can't always go by what fellows say on ocean liners. Many a man who swears eternal devotion on the boat deck undergoes a striking change in his outlook when he hits dry land and gets among the blondes.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The Battle of Malvern Hill

This battle was fought on July 1, 1862. Few engagements ever fought had a more positive ultimate result from a negative outcome than did the Battle of Malvern Hill. This was the culminating engagement of the Seven Days Battles, during which Gen. Joe Johnson was wounded and General Robert E. Lee took command of the Confederate army. The battle was badly managed on the Southern side and resulted in a resounding Yankee victory. 

Lee was deeply disappointed in the outcome, and several commanders were reassigned. More importantly, the Army was reorganized into two Corps, commanded by Generals Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet, with Gen. Jeb Stuart commanding the cavalry. From that time until the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863, the Army of Northern Virginia was one of the most formidable fighting forces in the history of warfare. 

TROOP STRENGTHS ACCORDING TO WIKIPEDIA:

Second Bull Run (South was outnumbered 77M to 50M)

Antietam (outnumbered 87M to 38M)

Fredericksburg (outnumbered 122M to 78M)

Chancellorsville (outnumbered 133M to 60M)

These battles resulted in smashing victories for the South despite the overwhelming numerical odds, with the exception of Antietam, which was a tactical draw, although a strategic victory for the North, since it stopped the Southern movement into Maryland. Before the Battle of Antietam, of course, the North had accidentally come into possession of the Southern battle plans, and knew that Lee had divided his army and sent Gen. A. P. Hill to Harper's Ferry. 

At Chancellorsville, General Jackson was wounded (and later died), and Lee was forced once again to reorganize his army. It had some remarkable accomplishments after that time, but was never again quite the devastating force it had been while this quartet of generals were in harness together - which organization resulted from an embarrassing loss at Malvern Hill.

Peeking around corners

One of the things in the movies that has long amazed me is how dumb folks are to have cowboys peeking around corners or over barriers with their hats on. I mean, why not just hold out a red flag?! I can't imagine the oldtimers would have been that stupid, unless they were so accustomed to wearing the hat that they just forgot about it. More likely the movie director forgot about it.

The old Third Arkansas

          "Bennie came toward them. "That yelling of his scairt even me," he said. "What was it, Jesse?"
          Jesse shambled back toward them, trailing his deadly rifle and bayonet. "Rebel yell," he said quietly. "Ol' Grandpa Suggs, he was my mother's pappy, taught me it. He was with the ol' Third Arkansas during the Wah Between the States. Part of Hood's original brigade, they was. 'Hood's Texans,' they called 'em. Only Arkansas regiment in the brigade was the ol' Third Arkansas."

This quote is from The Cold Seas Beyond, by Gordon Shirreffs. The Third Arkansas was perhaps the best-known fighting unit from Arkansas during the War. My own great-grandfather and his brother served in it. The regiment was positioned in the critical position during the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history.

Incidentally, this book and the others in this series by Shirreffs are excellent adventure novels for teenage boys.

Standing a tough watch

It was morale-shaking to stand guard in that creeping fog and piercing cold, staring into the drifting opaqueness with red-rimmed eyes, watching and waiting, listening to every sound that might carry about the incessant drumming of the seas on that forgotten coast. Time became a dawdling sluggard.

(from The Cold Seas Beyond, by Gordon Shirreffs)

A good description of war

He was cold and he was wet and his nerves were held together with string and bailing wire. He knew now that war was less of glory than it was of sheer nerve and patience for the vast majority of servicemen, and that a man had to go on no matter how tired and frightened he was.

(from The Cold Seas Beyond, by Gordon Shirreffs)

Nauseating atmosphere

One of the smells that I really have trouble with is that of grease. We have these little suet blocks that we put out for the birds, and the other day I was thinking that I absolutely would not want to work in the factory that makes those things. I don't know if I could stand it or not - being immersed in a greasy smell all day every day.

Just plain spooky

The cove and the area around it seemed deserted and far from any living human creatures other than the crew itself. But always in those islands, in peace or war, there was the uncanny feeling, experienced by those who have spent time there, that there is something in the fog. Something . . .

(from The Cold Seas Beyond, by Gordon Shirreffs)

I had to look up this one

From Gordon Shirreffs' novel The Cold Seas Beyond, we find this description of a long-abandoned vessel: "An evil type of cold, malignant and foul with the concentrated mephitic odors of years of improper ventilation." Mephitic means "foul-smelling or noxious."

Think he couldn't act?

Walter Brennan was perhaps the prototypical character actor. Even when he was a younger man he was portraying crusty types that seemed to be a lot older than they were. My generation remembers him as Grandpa Amos on The Real McCoys television show.

But could he really act? I guess so! He won three Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (the most by anyone so far), and was nominated another time.

Graphic description of a ship in a storm

"Otter shuddered and pitched, wallowed and swayed, rose and fell in a mad rigadoon danced to the eldritch cacophony of the wind The sea and wind were striking to disable, then maim, then kill. There would be no quarter given that wild night."

(from The Cold Seas Beyond, by Gordon G. Shirreffs)

Skilled workmen

"There are proud ones who look with disdain upon a man who works with his hands. Do not do so. It is not every man who can shape a timber or build a bridge or ship. Work with honor, my son, and build with beauty and strength."

(from Rivers West, by Louis L'Amour)

Iterate

"Reiterate" is really a redundancy. Iterate means to "to say or perform again." Unless you actually mean "to repeat again," then saying "re-iterate" is unnecessary.

+++
(From the Future Perfect website)

Many dictionaries are now listing both of these words. The form ‘reiterate’ is most commonly heard in everyday speech, but crept into the language through what’s known as hypercorrection: correcting something which is already right.

‘Iterate’, on its own, already means ‘to say or perform again/repeat something’. However, many people do not know this, so they add ‘re’ to the word, thinking that this will give the ‘again’ element.

Example:

• ‘He iterated his point.’ NOT ‘He reiterated his point.’

So, you would use ‘reiterate’ only if you actually were iterating again, for a second/third time!

A civics lesson in a capsule

"You must remember, my friend, that if we leave the governing to others, then others will govern, and possibly not as we would like. In a country such as this, none of us is free from responsibility."

(from Rivers West, by Louis L'Amour)

No previous experience at it

          He felt his knees weakening and he let go the rifle to get a better grip on the door jamb, but his fingers lacked the strength and he slid to the floor. Somebody was crying and somebody else was shooting, and far off he could hear the pound of racing hoofs. They kept pounding until their racing seemed to be inside his skull.
          And then he was dead . . . or he felt like it. Never having been dead, he might have been mistaken.

(from Fallon, by Louis L'Amour)

How they became gunfighters

Gunfighters were created by circumstances, not by deliberate choice. Once they had the reputation, they often worked hard to become better at it, but that was simply self-preservation. Nobody in his right mind wanted the name of a gunman.

In a country where all men wore guns and where it was the accepted manner of settling disputes, a few were sure to be gifted with a little more skill, a little more nervy, and surviving, they became know as gunfighters.

(from Fallon, by Louis L'Amour)

Slightly adjusted qualifications

Then I walked back to the cowhand who held my rifle and gunbelt. He handed them to me. "Thanks, I said, and then I looked at him again. "You working, or rustling work?"

"You hiring?"

"I want a man who can ride handle cattle and fight if need be."

"Well," he said, "I can fight and ride and handle cattle if need be. That suit you?"

"You just went to work," I said.

(from Chancy, by Louis L'Amour)

Fair dinkum

"Fair dinkum" is a common Australian term that emphasizes the legitimacy of fairness of a thing or a situation. "Honesty" and "fair play" would be rough synonyms.

Listen, and learn

"No man likes to think of all he has learned going up like the smoke of a fire, to be lost in the vastness of sky and cloud. Pa wanted to share it with us, to give us what he learned, and I listened well, them days, and I learned a sight more than I guessed." (from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

Louis pretty well summed up the difference between a wise son and a foolish one: the wise one listens and learns.

Watch out for lawyers and doctors - with guns

Now they weren't from the western lands, they were river men, mean as all get-out, but they didn't know Orrin. They'd been told they were to kill a lawyer . . . now there's lawyers and there's lawyers.

Just like there was a dentist named Doc Holiday.

(from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

Widgeon Seven

Characters in Wodehouse novels occasionally drove automobiles called the Widgeon Seven. Since they are not common these days, I thought you might enjoy knowing what it looked like.

She didn't much care for the lad

Tubby, she reminded herself, was just a half-wit, if that, and no girl of intelligence would allow herself to regard any observations which he might make as anything but the crackling of thorns beneath the pot. She did not intend to give another thought to his idiotic droolings. Her conversation with him as just an unpleasant incident of the past, to be buried away and forgotten, like mumps and the time when she had been sick at the children's party.

(from Summer Moonshine, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Did the jar just get too full?

Bach and Beethoven lived a long time ago, but you still hear their music. The same for Puccini, Monteverdi, Brahms, Stravinsky, etc., etc. The list of good compositions does not shrink, but keeps on going. Pity the poor "great composer" who comes along today. How do you get your work heard in an ever-increasingly crowded market? And the same no doubt applies to the other art forms. It is tough to compete against all-time greats. Athletes do not have the problem, because Babe Ruth's performances cannot be repeated.

Ah, wonderful quiet!

Left alone, Lord Emsworth sat for a while savouring that delicious sense of peace which comes to men of quiet tastes when their womenfolk have had their say and departed.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Tom Conway - he drank himself to death

Tom Conway (brother of George Sanders) is one of our favorite actors. He followed two impossible-to-follow acts in a very creditable manner: Basil Rathbone as the radio Sherlock Holmes, and Sanders as The Falcon in the movie series. However, he died of cirrhosis of the liver, flat broke, after having been discovered a couple of years previously in a $2-a-day flophouse in Los Angeles.

Smells are attached to memories

"It was like most country stores, smelling of everything that was in it - good, rich, wonderful smells of new leather, fresh-ground coffee, cured hams and bacon, spices, and the like." (from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

I have often noted how odors key memories. A certain perfume. Mint in a flower bed. That rich smell of the creek bottoms. Prince Albert pipe tobacco. Burning pine knots. I could go on and on.

A strange contest

"Speaking of duels," Orrin said, "as the challenged party I would have the choice of weapons. A few years ago there was a member of the legislature down here who was seven feet tall - he'd been a blacksmith or something. He was challenged by a famous duelist who was much shorter. The big man did not want to fight, thought it useless, so he accepted the challenged and suggested sledgehammers, in six feet of water."

(from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'amour)

A natural politician

Orrin was a man easy to notice and easy to remember. He never made it a point to be nice to folks - he just was. It was him. He was polite to everyone, a man folks talked to mighty easy, a man with a pleasant way about him, who would sooner avoid trouble than have it. He could put you off guard and turn a conversation from trouble into casual talk better than anybody I ever knew.

(from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

Were they all "Doc"?

I grew up watching the old Combat! television series. My Dad really liked it. One of the main characters in the show was the medic, nicknamed "Doc" by the squad. It was a natural nickname, just like "Tex" or "Lefty." However, it raises the question of whether or not most medics in the service were likewise called by that nickname. Not having been there, I could not say.

Not a good frame of mind

The meditations of a man who has recently proposed to and been accepted by a girl, some inches taller than himself, for whom he entertains no warmer sentiment than a casual feeling that, take her for all in all, she isn't a bag sort of egg, must of necessity tend towards the somber: and the surroundings in which Ronnie had spent the latter part of the afternoon had not been of a kind to encourage optimism. At the moment when the skies suddenly burst asunder and the world became a shower-bath, he had been walking along the path that skirted the wall of the kitchen-garden: and the only shelter that offered itself was a gloomy cave or dug-out that led to the heating apparatus of the hothouses. Into this he had dived like a homing rabbit, and here, sitting on a heap o bricks, he ahd remained for the space of fifty minutes with no company but one small green frog and his thoughts.

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Is he middle-aged flabby?

Brad: Look Joan, I'm not in quite as bad shape as you seem to think.

Joan: Oh no? I saw you brushing your teeth this morning. You got so winded you had to rest before you could gargle.

(from the I Married Joan television program)

Knocked him for a loop

Let it rain, was Hugo's verdict. Let it jolly well rain as much as it dashed well wanted to. As if encouraged, the sky sent down a fat, wet drop which insinuated itself just between his neck and collar.

He hardly noticed it. The information confided to him by his friend Ronald Fish had numbed his senses so thoroughly that water down the back of the neck was merely an incident. He was feeling as he had not felt since the evening some yeas ago when, boxing for his University in the light-weight division, he had incautiously placed the point of his jaw in the exact spot at the moment occupied by his opponent's right fist. When you have done this or - equally - when you have just been told that the girl you love is definitely betrothed to another, you begin to understand how Anarchists must feel when the bomb goes off too soon.

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Composing music for television

If you listen to old television series on YouTube, one thing you will notice right off is how repetitive the music is. The composers can get by with it, because viewers are not focused on the music and usually do not notice it. But TV scores basically are constant repetition of a few themes, varied just a little as the occasion calls for it, and made to fit the available time spaces. I doubt it is very aesthetically rewarding, but I am sure it pays well.

Crazy philosophy

Schopenhauer says suicide's absolutely OK. He says Hindoos do it instead of going to church. They bung themselves into the Ganges and get eaten by crocodiles and call it a well-spent day.

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

He was not stern enough

It is an unpleasant thing to say of any man, but there is no denying that the hon. Galahad's face, when he was listening to the confessions of those who had behaved as they ought not to have behaved, very frequently lacked the austerity and disapproval which one likes to see in faces on such occasions.

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Donlevy's colorful early life

Oscar-nominated actor Brian Donlevy played a lot of swashbuckling roles in his career, both on the big screen, television, and on radio. And his early years were just about as colorful as those he portrayed on the screen.

He lied about his age and entered the Army at age 14. (One suspects the recruiting officers were not looking too closely.) When General "Black Jack" Pershing was sent to punish the bandit Pancho Villa, Donlevy was in the expedition. In World War I he was a pilot in the Lafayette Escradille, a unit in the French Air Force composed of American and Canadian pilots. Before entering the movies, he was a model for famous illustrator J. C. Leyendecker.

It was the pig's fault

"The boy bounces tennis balls on pigs," he went on, getting down to the ghastly facts.

Sue was surprised. The words, if she had caught them correctly, seemed to present a side of Ronnie's character of which she had been unaware.

"Does what?"

"I saw him with my own eyes. He bounced a tennis ball on Empress of Blandings. And not once, but repeatedly."

The motherly instinct which all girls feel towards the men they love urged Sue to say something in Ronnie's defence. But, apart from suggesting that the pig had probably started it, she could not think of anything.

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Just use an alias and move on

The Law of Great Britain is a remorseless machine, which, once set in motion, ignores first causes and takes into account only results. It will not accept shattered dreams as an excuse for shattering glassware: nor will you get far by pleading a broken heart in extenuation of your behavior in breaking waiters. Haled on the morrow before the awful majesty of Justice at Bosher Street Police Court and charted with disorderly conduct in a public place - to wit, Mario's Restaurant, and resisting an officer - to wit, P. C. Murgatroyd, in the execution of his duties, Ronald Fish made no impassioned speeches. He did not raise clenched fists and call upon Heaven to witness that he was a good man wronged. Experience, dearly bought in the days of his residence at the University, had taught him that when the Law gripped you with its talons the only thing to do was to give a false name, say nothing and hope for the best.

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

He played them both

Among old television buffs, Howard Marion-Crawford is well known for having played a very creditable Watson on the British-produced Sherlock Holmes TV series. What is less well-known is that in 1948 he had played Holmes on a radio adaptation of "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." That made him one of the few actors to have portrayed both characters.

Can't keep a secret

In many respects the ideal accomplice for an undertaking of his nature, Hugo Carmody had certain defects which automatically disqualified him. To enroll Hugo as his lieutenant would mean revealing to him the motives that lay at the back of the venture. And if Hugo knew that he, Ronnie, was endeavouring to collect funds in order to get married, the thing would be all over Shropshire in a couple of days. Short of putting it on the front page of the Daily Mail or having it broadcast over the wireless, the surest way of obtaining publicity for anything you wanted kept dark was to confide it to Hugo Carmody. A splendid chap, but the real, genuine human colander.

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The fear within our minds

But though the place was secure, there was an enemy within that he had not made allowances for - his own imagination. One does not need enemies as long as the imagination can provide them.

(from Under the Sweetwater Rim, by Louis L'Amour)

Frank McGrath - Charlie Wooster

One of the most lovable character actors from back in the days of television westerns was Frank McGrath, who played Charlie Wooster on the Wagon Train program. He served as the cook, and was one of our favorites when we were children.

Soldiers win battles; factories win wars

The war would be over, and he was wise enough to know the Confederacy could not win. They had the best riders, the best shots, and the most willing fighting men; but they did not have the factories, the mines, or the staying power the North had.

(from Under the Sweetwater Rim, by Louis L'Amour)

August

I believe I read that the July temperatures in Arkansas are slightly higher overall than those in August, but I believe that August is more trying, because by that time the long streak of brutally hot and humid days has begun to sap my vitality (what little remains).

Smell the roses

          "I could love this if it weren't for the circumstances," Belle commented. "I've never been so high before."
          "Love it anyway," Brian said. There are always dangers, even when you believe them to be far away. Man have lived with both danger and beauty from the beginning."
          "I did not know you were a philosopher."
          "Nothing of the kind. But when a man lives with a gun beside him, he comes to savor every moment if he has any sensitivity at all. The trouble is that most of us live in anticipation or in memory, never in the present moment. There must always be times like this when you just sit still and listen, feel, see. You live longer and live infinitely better."

(from Under the Sweetwater Rim, by Louis L'Amour)

Cotten sounded like the disease

Actor Joseph Cotton just sounded like throat cancer. After you listened to him talk for about thirty seconds you marked him down as a chain smoker. Sure enough, in 1990 his larynx was removed due to cancer.

Stop him at any cost!

Once a man of the Hon. Galahad Threepwood's antecedents starts taking pen in hand and being reminded of amusing incidents that happened to my dear old friend So-and-So, you never know where he will stop; and all over England, among the more elderly of the nobility and gentry, something like a panic had been raging ever since the news of his literary activities had got about. From Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, of Matchingham Hall, to grey-headed pillars of Society in distant Cumberland and Kent, whole droves of respectable men who in their younger days had been rash enough to chum with the Hon Galahad were recalling past follies committed in his company and speculating agitatedly as to how good the old pest's memory was.

For Galahad in his day had been a notable lad about town. A beau sabreur of Romano's. A Pink 'Un. A Pelican. A crony of Hughie Drummond and Fatty Coleman; a brother-in-arms of the Shifter, the Pitcher, Peter Blobbs and the rest of an interesting but not strait-laced circle. Bookmakers had called him by his pet name, barmaids had simpered beneath his gallant chaff. He had heard the chimes at midnight. And when he had looked in at the old Gardenia, commissionaires had fought for the privilege of throwing him out. A man, in a word, who should never have been taught to write and who, if unhappily gifted with that ability, should have been restrained by Act of Parliament from writing Reminiscences.

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A man of modest hopes

The ninth Earl was a man of few and simple ambitions. He had never desired to mould the destinies of the State, to frame its laws and make speeches in the House of Lords that would bring all the peers and bishops to their feet, whooping and waving their hats. All he yearned to do, by way of ensuring admittance to England's Hall of Fame, was to tend his prize sow, Empress of Blandings, so sedulously that for the second time in two consecutive years he would win the silver medal in the Fat Pigs class at the Shropshire Agricultural Show.

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Wellington's ugly cousin

"Torpid Wellington is my first cousin once removed, which everyone agrees wasn't often enough."

(from Fibber McGee and Molly)

Historical markers

One pervasive feature of the Texas highway system are the historical markers that are found regularly along the roads. It might be an interesting project sometime to undertake to read all of them. Of course, I do not know how many there are, so that might not be a realistic undertaking.

Victorian

Victoria lacked Elizabeth's high intellectual qualities, though she was sensible, if somewhat stubborn. Perhaps her most distinctive contribution was the restoration of the crown to a position of respect which it had lost under the Georges. Victoria was the personification of respectability, and the term "mid-Victorian" now connotes the ultrapropriety of "middle-class morality" in that period when legs were "limbs" and many other things were unmentionable. Later generations might sneer at such extremes, but they were a decided improvement over the coarseness which reflected the character of her uncle George IV.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Good old confusion

"There is nothing like confusion when you are in the minority, and that includes politics or if you are in a brawl." (from The Adventures of Frank Race radio show)

Overkill - literally

In the early nineteenth century [in England] there were over two hundred crimes for which the punishment was death. "It was a capital offense to pick a man's pocket, it was a capital offense to steal five shillings from a shop; it was a capital offense to rob a rabbit warren; it was a capital offense to cut down a tree." This state of affairs tended on the one hand to cause occasional oversevere punishment, and on the other hand to discourage juries from bringing in a verdict of guilty.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Interesting quote from John Locke

"Whenever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another's harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate, and acting without authority may be opposed, as any other man who by force invades the right of another."

About those railroad ties

"He wondered why they laid the ties so that a man could not walk upon them decently, but had to go a step and a half and then a step or so . . . arrah, a bothersome thing!" (from The Man From Skibbereen, by Louis L'Amour)

We spent a good bit of time in my youth walking along the old Rock Island line that ran just south of Highway 10, and I remember wondering the same thing.

Monumental event

In 1844 Samuel F. B. Morse send from Washington to Baltimore the first long-distance telegraphic message. In 1866 transatlantic cable service was permanently established. In this day when we take instantaneous world-wide communication for granted, we may forget just how important were these two advances in communication. Commerce took a giant step forward.

When things started changing faster

Every decade since 1760 has seen a greater development in communication than took place in the whole fifteen hundred years before that date. In the England of 1760 a speed of one hundred and fifty miles a day was considered fast even for couriers riding night and day with important messages. The normal rate of travel on the main roads was about forty miles a day, while freight moved at about half that speed.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Justin Tarr on The Rat Patrol

Of the five main characters in the first year of this television series, "Tully" was the least colorful. A laconic Kentuckian, he chewed on a match stick and rarely contributed to the dialogue. Yet, the writers managed to make him a vital part of the action even with very limited dialogue. He is always before the camera doing something, although rarely speaking.

The effects of women and children working

Long hours in the factory left the women no chance to care for their homes properly. As a result their dark, cheerless rooms were dirty, untidy, and ill-kept. With no time for cooking, the family meals became too largely a matter of baker's bread. The children were dirty and half sick from neglect and the wrong sort of food. Bad enough as these conditions were for the strong and well, they were the more deplorable for the sick and the aged. The home atmosphere was not improved by the too frequent presence of the unemployed husband and father, spending his days idly in the nearest "pub" or in half-hearted attempts to improve the house-keeping. A by-product of the bad home conditions was the insecurity of the aged. There was, for instance, no room in the crowded tenements for aged parents, nor money to support them.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

When women and children moved into the workforce

Concurrent with the hardening of class lines came an enormous increase in the employment of women and children in industry. The new machinery, particularly in the manufacture of textiles, made their labor more profitable than in the old days; for a premium was now placed on quickness and agility rather than on strength. Tying broken threads and tending looms was not hard labor from the standpoint of sheer muscle, and most tasks of this description could be done more easily by women and by children than by men. The results were unfortunate. Women, drawn from their homes, competed with men in the labor market, thus depressing the wage scale; and children placed in factories were unable to fend for themselves and were subjected to harsh and inhuman treatment.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

They moved to the city - in a hurry

The typical English worker became a city dweller instead of a countryman. In 1750 about three quarters of England's population was rural; in 1851 the census showed that the rural and urban populations were almost exactly equal; in 1901 more than three quarters of the population was urban; and in 1931 four fifths.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

That was his name?

Danny Thomas (he of the big nose) was a very familiar name to television fans for a number of years. However, he might have remained a complete unknown in show business if he had used his real name: Amos Muzyad Yakhoob Kairouz. His parents emigrated from Lebanon.

A hero of English agriculture

Robert Bakewell was a pioneer in the field of the breeding of livestock in England. His attention to that discipline brought tremendous benefits to the farmers of that country. "The records of Smithfield Market at London show that between 1710 and 1795, when Bakewell died at seventy, the average weight of sheep rose from 28 to 80 pounds, while cattle jumped from 370 to 800." (from A History of England and the British Empire)

File this under "intimidating"

18th Century Campusology

The universities were at much lower ebb in the eighteenth century than in the seventeenth. Oxford was described as "steeped in port and prejudice," and Cambridge was not much better. Occasionally a young student like Charles James Fox would develop a real passion for absorbing all the learning he could find; but most of the young aristocrats did little more than grace the university with their presence, receiving at the end a "pass' degree without examination."

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

A unique movie credit

In the movie Buck Benny Rides Again, there is a credit for Carmichael, Jack's pet polar bear. I figure it is a safe guess that he is the only polar bear to have a credit, at least in a non-nature movie.

Inexpensive independence

It has been estimated that it cost England some 110 million pounds to lose the American colonies; France spent 55 million pounds to help the Americans gain their independence; and the Americans, who gained most, spent only 20 million pounds.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

How the American Revolution cost the British navy

Time and again throughout the war came the tale of masts split open and tumbled into the sea. The explanation was that since Cromwell's time the navy had depended on New Hampshire and Maine for its great masts; the colonists had cut off the supply at the opening of the war; and Sandwich neglected to seek substitutes elsewhere. When France entered the war, she dispatched a fleet to America. Admiral Byron, the poet's grandfather, was sent with thirteen ships to head them off. A mild gale struck his squadron in mid-Atlantic, the rotten masts broke, the ships limped away in every direction, and only one reached New York ahead of the French. So it went throughout the war.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

But he did invent the sandwich!

It is hard to say whether Lord Sandwich, in charge of the navy, or Lore George Germain, in charge of military affairs, did more damage to the British cause. Sandwich, a cynical debauchee, termed one of the most dissolute men of Georgian England, won immortality of a sort of having meat placed between slices of bread so that he could lunch without having the leave the table and break his luck while gambling. By neglecting the material condition of the ships and by alienating the Whig admirals, Sandwich probably did more damage to the navy entrusted to his care than any hostile French admiral had ever done.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

They wanted the war

It is difficult to say at what time the American Revolution became inevitable; but it is likely that a successful compromise might have been achieved if it had not been for two men: George III in England and Samuel Adams in Boston. The king was to display several times that the colonial defiance should not go unpunished, though many Englishmen were ready to smooth things over. So, too, were many Americans; but Samuel Adams, by continual inflammatory correspondence, strove to keep alive the original indignation engendered by the Stamp Act.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Just ship him out!

Capt. Shafer: Miss Hale, didn't you tell me that we had a request for a dentist at our Greenland base?

Miss Hale: No, sir. I think you made that up, sir.

Capt. Shafer: You're right, I did. Now, I want you to cut orders assigning Dr. Blair overseas.

Miss Hale: Where overseas, Sir?

Capt. Shafer: Pick someplace! Wait a minute! . . . Guam! Yes, that would be a good place for our millionaire playboy to spend the winter, don't you think so, Doctor?

(from the Hennessey TV program)

Interestingly, I once worked for a man who had been stationed on Guam, and from what he said, that would be exactly the place to take the wind out of the sails of a high-life sort.

The Black Hole of Calcutta

The Bengal prince was annoyed at the defenses which the British began to make at Calcutta as soon as they learned of the outbreak of the Seven Years' War. He swooped down on the city, captured it, and herded one hundred and forty-five Englishmen and the half-caste wife of one of them into a little room, the "Black Hole," barely eighteen feet long and fourteen feet wide. All day and all night the suffocating group called in vain for more air and for water. On the following morning only twenty-three still remained alive; among these the woman, who was taken to Surajah Dowlah's harem.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

The ideal wife

"Now there's a woman that's got everything a man could ask for: enough muscles to pull a plow and not enough brains to start an argument." (Grandpa McCoy)

Leo the Lion

What is the name of the MGM lion? There actually have been seven of them through the years, and all of them have been called "Leo," although that is the actual name only of the current holder. In order, they have been:

Slats (1916-1928)
Jackie (1928-1956)
Telly (1928-1932)
Coffee (1932-1935)
Tanner (1934-1956)
George (1956-1958)
Leo (1957-present)

Jackie appeared in over a hundred movies, in addition to his logo work, including the Johnny Weismuller "Tarjan" films

Not an impressive peer

Newcastle was a master politician, but a ridiculous statesman. A fussy little man, who enjoyed power for its own sake, he bustled around with an air of great importance. One wit remarked that Newcastle always "lost half an hour in the morning and spent the rest of the day running after it."

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Unwieldy name for a Lady

She is Lady Stuart, the wife of the 2nd Viscount Stuart of Findhorn. Her birth name was Grizel Mary Wilfreda Fyfe.  Sort of an awkward name for a blueblood, one would think, wouldn't one?

Grandpa McCoy's name for an old man with glasses

"A four-eyed fossil"

Heroic, but futile

The high point came in 1745 at Fontenoy, on the Scheldt. Cumberland attacked a position strongly fortified by Saxe. The British infantry made one of the most remarkable attacks in its history. Forming under heavy artillery fire, the thin red line marched slowly in perfect order for half a mile, constantly closing up the gaps torn in the ranks. Not firing a shot, the redcoats advanced until within fifty yards of the enemy. A French commander, according to legend, stepped out in front of his line, bowed low, and requested the English gentlemen to fire first, an English officer responded to this courtesy by proposing a toast to the gallant foe. Then the British fired, and several crack regiments of the French army simply melted away under their crushing volleys. But the attack was in vain, for the Dutch and Austrian allies had not cleared away their sections of the French line, and the British had to retire.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

One main result from this war

By 1742, the "War of Jenkins' Ear" had died of inertia, becoming involved in a more general European conflict. England's only worthwhile gain from this effort to loot the Spanish empire was Anson's demonstration that lime juice is an excellent preventative for scurvy, a disease prevalent among sailors deprived of vitamin-bearing fresh foods on long voyages.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

The old queen is doing them a favor

Queen Elizabeth is popular in England. Prince Charles, next in line for the throne, is not. Prince William, his son with the three cute little children, is very popular.

Queen Bess is doing them a favor by hanging in there. Every year that she lives is a year less that Charles will reign, and a year closer to the coronation of William.

Cabin fever

"Scott Collins was restless and irritable, but he fought down the feeling, knowing that there was nothing worse in the confinement of a snowbound shelter than a man who grumbles and complains." (from Down the Long Hills, by Louis L'Amour)

The more confined the circumstances, the more essential courtesy becomes. Thus the contrast between the lack of restraint in the western USA and the exquisite courtesy of Japan.

Learning to see

From hearing the mountain man talk, he had learned something about looking and seeing. All people look, but few really see; and they can rarely give details of any place they have passed - its appearance or what might be found there.

(from Down the Long Hills, by Louis L'Amour)

Women? Argue? Perish the thought!

One thing you could say for Betty Sue. She would do what she was told, without making a big argument. A sight better than most grown-up women . . . always arguing a man. Even Mrs. Andy. She couldn't do anything without making a lot of talk about it. Fussed more than a jaybird over a garden snake.

(from Down the Long Hills, by Louis L'Amour)

A word that just does not fit

Doughty means "brave and persistent." Well and good, but it just does not sound like it. Some words sound like they ought to mean what they do. For example, "curmudgeon" sounds like a gripey old man, which is what it indicates. But "doughty" looks like it ought to have something to do with the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

An old story

Man for man, the Redcoats [of the 1700s] were as good as any soldiers in Europe. Too often it was a case of "heroes led by fools" or "lions led by asses;" for in battles like Bunker Hill the men executed, with utmost bravery, stupid orders which should never have been given.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Press gangs

To man the fleets, the same Parliament which talked so much of the "fundamental rights of Englishmen" and the "sanctity of private property time and again authorized impressment, which was virtual kidnapping. Sailors in the merchant marine, looking forward to shore leave after a long voyage, would often find themselves taken off for naval service before they reached land. The men of the coast towns were always on guard against the press gangs which made sailors, willy-nilly, out of anyone upon whom they could lay their hands. Once caught in this way, the poor devils often had to remain in naval service until disability released them.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

They couldn't cut it on their previous engagement

Fred Allen said that Rodney Smythe Beddington and his Gut-Bucket Gondoliers wanted to get on with him because at their previous gig the audience had thrown wet tea bags into the French horns.

The problems with shipbuilding

[Ships of the line during the 1700s] required for the hull some two thousand oak trees, averaging a hundred years old, and England was cutting down her oaks much faster than she was replacing them. There was particular difficulty in securing great trees for the massive sternposts, and crooked timbers for the sixty or seventy ribs of the ship. For the planking of the bulging yellow sides England had to send to Danzig, Riga, or other ports of the Baltic, whence also, from Polish forests, came the masts of middling size. The little spars had general grown on some Norwegian mountainside; but for the great lower masts, anywhere from two feet to forty inches in diameter, the royal navy depended upon colonial pines in New Hampshire and Maine. More than once, as we shall see, the navy was to be handicapped when its supply of masts or oak was curtailed.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Anthony Caruso: not what he seemed

He had the name and the face for it: Anthony Caruso, with a cleft chin and chiseled features that looked exactly like what he was - the son of Italian immigrants. After he made his film debut in 1940, he had a variety of roles, with a good number of them being gangsters and heavies.

However, in real life Caruso was far from a "heavy." He was happily married for 63 years, and he was described as "the consummate family man" who was very fond of gardening and cooking. The Carusos were a "tongue-twister family: Tony and Tonia were the parents of Tonio and Tina.

The British navy

England's chief pride and interest, of course, lay in her navy. The royal navy has probably enjoyed a longer record of power and success than any other fighting organization in history except the Roman army. England maintained it on a two-power basis, ordinarily keeping it as large as the combined forces of the French and Spanish Bourbons, who might always be expected to join forces. It consisted during the eighteenth century of three or four hundred vessels, about a hundred of which belonged to the important category known as ships-of-the-line or line-of-battle ships Counterparts of our modern battleships, they were used in squadrons or fleets to fight the major battles.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Nice work, if you can get it

Best of all were the official appointments, where drawing a salary was frequently the only work involved. Some of these, like the post of Master of the King's Buckhounds, were absolute sinecures in which no work was expected. More frequent was the practice of accepting a well-paid position and then appointing a deputy who did all the work for a small fraction of the salary. One George Selwyn, who controlled two or three votes in the Commons, was "at one and the same tie, Surveyor-General of Crown Lands, which he ever surveyed; Registrar of Chancery at Barbados, which he never visited; and Surveyor of Meltings and Clerk of the Irons at the Mint, where he showed himself once a week in order to eat a dinner which he ordered but for which the nation paid."

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Verna Felton - another of those familiar faces

She played lots of parts, and folks always knew her face, but hardly anyone outside Hollywood knew her name. Verna Felton was one of the stock grumpy old women.

Scottish highlanders in the early 1700s

Beyond the Highland line was another Scotland, wilder, less civilized, and even poorer. The clansmen of the Highlands cared little for the authority of Kirk or king; to them the paternalistic chief, with his power of life and death, was everything. They preserved more of their Celtic inheritance than that, in their speech, in their romantic belief in the supernatural, and in many other ways, while in religion a large section of them were still Roman Catholic. No Sir Walter Scott had yet appeared to give to Lowlanders and Englishmen a glamorous picture of this Highland life; to the outsiders the kilted clansmen in their plaids were dangerous relics of an older and lower civilization. Physical danger and the utter absence of roads in those wild hills discouraged most southerners from venturing beyond the line.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Freeze them into submission

By 1709, France was bled white and ready for peace. On top of her defeats and an empty treasury from such prolonged warfare, she was faced with famine after an especially bitter winter, the "Great Frost," which froze crops in the ground and peasants in their huts.

(from A History of England and the British Empire)

Pete and Gladys

This is an old television sitcom that starred Harry Morgan and Cara Williams. It involved the typical familial situations, usually brought on by Gladys' lack of common sense or overreaching confidence. Williams was one of the prettier of the female comediennes, with large, expressive eyes. It was an entertaining program. Some of the episodes are currently available on YouTube.