The rousing of the stomach

A sudden quiver ran through Tubby. The words had started a train of thought. It was as if his stomach had been a Sleeping Beauty and that crack about cold beef the kiss that had wakened it to life. For there was no mistake about it having been wakened to life. It was up and shouting. Until this this moment, having been practically pure spirit, he had been able to ignore the frequent complaints which it had been endeavouring to communicate with G.H.Q., but now connexion was established. He continued to fold her in his arms, but it was with a growing feeling that he wished she had been a steak smothered in onions.

(from Summer Moonshine, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Snoot-poking

"And let me mention that if you persist in refusing to come clean, I'll poke you in the snoot." It was a policy which had suggested itself to him once or twice since this interview had begun, and he had found himself more and more drawn to it. It had worked wonders, he reminded himself, in the case of Mr. Bulpitt, and who could say that it would not prove equally effective now? Snoot-poking, moreover, is a thing which grows on a man. Once let him acquire the appetite, and he becomes like the tiger that ha tasted blood. Just as such a tiger goes about calling for more blood and refusing to be put off with just-as-good substitutes, so does he yearn for more snoots to poke. He gets the feeling that he wants to do it to everyone he meets, sparing neither age nor sex.

(from Summer Moonshine, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Not fond of his step-mother

"You've never met the Princess Dwornitzchek, of course. . . . Yes, you have, though. What am I thinking of? If that boy's your brother, she's your stepmother."

"No getting away from that."

"Then you know what a perfectly ghastly woman - I beg your pardon. Shouldn't have said that."

"On the contrary," Joe assured him warmly, "your words are music to my ears."

"You don't like the Princess?"

"I regard her as the sand in Civilization's spinach."

(from Summer Moonshine, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

"Slip the plaster on him"

In P. G. Wodehouse's novel, Summer Moonshine, one of the characters is a process server. He comes to the main residence saying, "Miss Prudence Whittaker is suing this T .P. Vanringham for breach of promise and heart balm, and I've come to slip the plaster on him." Plaster, then, refers to the official summons.

87th Precinct television show

This was a well-done police detective show that ran for only one season in 1961-62. It was in a slot against some tough competition on other networks. However, it was one of the better programs of its kind that I have seen. It was set in the squad room of the detective group in one of the precincts of a major metropolis. One of the detectives was named Meyer Meyer, and played by Norman Fell. Another interesting feature was that the wife of squad leader Steve Carella was a beautiful deaf-mute, played by Gena Rowlands.

Just a real sweetheart, she is

"Oh, I've nothing against her, except that she's a hard, arrogant, vindictive, domineering harridan, if harridan's the word I want."

(from Summer Moonshine, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A strange kind of fear

Many men avoid battle not from cowardice but from fear of cowardice, fear that when the moment of truth comes they will not have the courage to face up to it. (from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

Looking for a home

Folks had it down that I was a wanderin' man, but most wanderin' men I've known only wandered because of the home they expected to find . . . hoped to find, I mean.

(from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

Gunfighting and western Arkansas

Whenever old-time gunfighters are discussed, one of the names that arises is that of Luke Short. (There was a western author who took that name, but is not that man.) His encounters with Charlie Storms and Jim Courtright have become the stuff of western legend. Short (one of ten children) was born in Polk County, Arkansas, of which Mena is now the county seat.

Concerning discipline

It takes a mighty fine discipline to hold men together when trouble is creeping up on you. Yet without discipline there is surely disaster. The best discipline comes from within a man, but you'll never get a party of men together where all have it.

(from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

Some things never change

They had their way of life, and we had ours, and when the white man moved in he did just what the Indians had done before him. He took what land he needed. There were mighty few Indians for the size of the country, and we crowded them like they crowded others

Life had been that way from the beginning of time, and I could see no end to it. Over there in Europe the Celts crowded the Picts, and the Saxons crowded the Celts, and then the Normans moved in an took over the country, and it was the same story all across the world.

(from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

The stillness of the wilderness

          For over an hour I just set there, a-listening to the evening. There was sunlight on the mountain across from me, but it was high up, toward the crest of the ridge. There was stillness in the canyon below, and a marvelous coolness coming up. Somewhere an owl spoke his question to the evening, and the aspen leaves hung as still as you'll ever see them, for they move most of the time.

          It was a mighty fine thing setting there getting the feel of the night, a kind of stillness like you never felt anywhere else but in the far-off wilderness. There was no vanity here, nor greed; there was only a kind of quietness.

(from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

Rogue vs. Diamond

Actor Dick Powell portrayed two different hard-boiled detectives on the radio, both with a little twist to them. He was Richard Rogue in Rogue's Gallery, and also acted the part of Richard Diamond. Both were well done and classic radio shows. Since Diamond came second, they probably had time to refine their game by the time it came around, but Rogue still was well done. He would get knocked out every program and would end up on a cloud with his alter ego Eugor. Diamond was the singing detective, and for a while in the program would close by singing a song at the instigation of Helen, his millionaire girlfriend.

Jane Powell on the Golden Age of Musicals

People are always fascinated by the so-called golden age of musicals, but it wasn’t all that great. Everything was glazed. Those movies didn’t reflect reality. I was at MGM for 11 years and nobody ever let me play anything but teenagers. I was 25 years old with kids of my own and it was getting ridiculous. Publicity was froth. Everything you said was monitored. With me, they didn’t have to worry. I never had anything to say, anyway. It was hard work, I had no friends, no social interaction with people my age and the isolation was tough. But I had to support my family, so I did what I was told and had no other choice.
(Rex Reed, New York Observer, July 31, 2000)

Jane Powell was just irritating

In the 1940s and early 1950s, Jane Powell was a big name in Hollywood, back when big ticket musicals were the thing. She had a coloratura soprano voice that made her "another Diana Durbin;" and even though she never quite became the mega-star that Durbin was, she was a big name for a decade or so.

But to me, Powell did not add to the movies she was in. In the first place, she was not pretty. I realize that is not a crime, but if I am paying money to see a movie, I want to get what I pay for. In the second place, her singing voice, although flexible and with a high range, had a piercing quality that was unpleasant. Finally, she never was able to project a screen presence that was pleasing. Her personality came across as just, well, irritating, and that in characters that were not supposed to be irritating. (Given that she went through five husbands, it may just be that perception was fact.)

Allergic to lead

I've been shot at now and again, and I've taken some lead here and there, but I never cared much for it. To tell you the truth, I'd as leave let it lay. There's something mighty disconcerting about a bullet in the brisket . . . lead sets heavy on the stomach.

(from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

When the good days come to an end

They'd lived mighty easy most of their days. They'd built themselves a style of life they preferred, and then they discovered that money did not last forever. Ahead of them was loss of face and poverty, and all that would go with it, and they had no courage to face what many face with dignity their life long.

(from Treasure Mountain, by Louis L'Amour)

Not much to look at

The Squire of Matchingham was seated in a chair, looking fixedly at the photograph of the speculative builder in the pink frame. He plainly did not think highly of the speculative builder. Indeed, if questioned, he would have said that he had never seen such a bally bounder in his life. And it must be admitted that, as speculative builders go, this one, considered from the angle of personal beauty, was not much of a speculative builder.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Parkyakarkus

Honestly, this was the stage name of comedian Harry Einstein. (Say it, "Park your carcass.") He was a regular on the Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor radio programs, and appeared in several movies. He is pictured below with the inimitable Sheldon Leonard and Betty Rhodes.

How to write a murder mystery

          The inspiration for it had hit him like a bullet the moment he had set eyes on Mr. Lancelot Cooper. The junior partner of Caine and Cooper, though a man of blameless life, had one of those dark, saturnine faces which suggest a taste for the more sinister forms of crime, and on one cheek of that dark, saturnine face was a long scar. Actually it had been caused by the bursting of a gingerbeer bottle at a YMCA picnic, but it gave the impression of being the outcome of battles with knives in the cellars of the underworld. And on top of all that, he had been wearing lavender gloves.
          It was those gloves that had set Jerry tingling. His trained mind saw them as the perfect box office touch. There is nothing so spine-chilling as a dressy assassin. All murderers make us shudder a bit, but when we encounter one who, when spilling human gore, spills it in lavender gloves, our backbone turns to ice.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Less-than-cushy accommodations

The Emsworth Arms, like most inns in English country towns, specialized in beer, and when it came to providing it patrons with anything else was rather inclined to lose interest and let its attention wander. Beds, for instance. It did not worry much about beds. You could have one, if you wanted to, but Jerry, having inspected the specimen offered to him, shrank from the prospect of occupying it for an indefinite series of nights. If he had been an Indian fakir, accustomed from childhood to curling up on spikes, he could have wished for nothing better, but he was not an Indian fakir accustomed from childhood to curling up on spikes.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

How to cure a cold, Galahad style

"Hullo, Clarence," said Gally. "How are you feeling now? I've been thinking about that cold of yours, and I'll tell you the stuff to give it. You want to take a deep breath and hold it as long as you possibly can. This traps the germs in your interior, and not being able to get fresh air, they suffocate. When you finally exhale, the little sons of guns come out as dead as doornails and all you have to do is buy a black tie and attend the funeral."

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Stravinsky's earliest musical memory

In his autobiography, famous composer Igor Stravinsky records that his earlies memory involving "music" was purely rhythmic. The "village idiot" would entertain the children by making a rhythmic pattern by clicking his tongue and producing smacking sounds by placing his hand in his armpit and moving that arm up and down.

Not exactly a whiz

Over at Matchingham Hall, Sir Gregory Parsloe was in his study doing The Times crossword puzzle, his brow wrinkled as he tried to think what a word in three letters, beginning with E and signifying a large Australian bird, could possible be. He liked crossword puzzles, but was not very expert at them. Anything more abstruse than the Sun God Ra generally had him baffled.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Master of the Queen's Music

Do you want a lofty-sounding job in the field of music? Here it is. Master of the Queen's Music, which is a post in the Royal Household of the United Kingdom. The post dates back to 1626. Some of the more famous names to have held the post are Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir Edward Bax, and most notably of all, Sir Edward Elgar, the famous composer. The current holder is Judith Weir.

Confirmed woman-hater

He was a man who since the death of his wife twenty years ago had made something of a lifework of avoiding women. He could not, of course, hope to avoid them altogether, for women have a nasty way of popping up at unexpected moments, but he was quick on his feet and his policy of suddenly disappearing like a diving duck had had excellent results. It was now pretty generally accepted by his little circle that the ninth Earl of Emsworth was not a ladies' man and that any woman who tried to get a civil word out of him did so at her own risk.

(from Pigs Have Wings by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

In their own class

With the possible exception of Mrs. Emily Post, a few of the haughtier Duchesses and the late Cornelia mother of the Gracchi, the British Barmaid, trained from earliest years to behave with queenly dignity under the most testing conditions, stands along in the matter of poise.

(from Pigs Have Wings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

What was it like in the trenches in World War I?

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)