No Description is an odd title for this 1941 broadcast of the Johnson’s Wax program with Fibber McGee and Molly. Well, I don’t always fill in all the fields either when I upload stuff.

 

Yeah – stuff. I don’t know that I’ve ever used that word before, except in the phrase “stuff like that there.”

 

We may call this episode “Fibber and Molly Have their Portrait Taken.” They do try to have their portrait taken, anyway.

 

We’re enjoying the last few weeks of Hal Peary’s and Bill Thompson’s participation in this program. Peary, the booming voice of Throckmorton P. Guildersleeve, will depart soon to star in his own radio comedy, The Great Guildersleeve. The Second World War will call Bill Thompson away to serve his country, and numerous characters will go with him. Thompson portrays the Old Timer, Nick Depopulis, Horatio Boomer, and has just developed a new character, Wallace Wimple, whom you can tell from the live audience reaction is very well received.

 

You may also recognize the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Droopy Dog in the voice of Wallace Wimple. It’s the same voice, same actor. Thompson will return now and then as a special guest during the War years, and after the war is over he will return on a full-time basis for a short while, reviving the popular Wimple character.

 

I own every program that’s available up to and including 1952. Let’s see – that gives me eleven more years of FM&M at the White Lodge.

 

By the way, Edgar Bergen / Charlie McCarthy fans will enjoy a treat in the near future. The Guildersleeve bail-out left the FM&M program suddenly without a major character, and just try to imagine Jim and Marion Jordan’s dilemma then, not to mention writer Don Quinn’s. Guildersleeve had become a big draw for this show. But the ever-churning mill of creative show promotion came up with a Fibber and Molly movie at about that time, and the Jordan’s good friends Bergen and McCarthy starred in it. The immensely popular ventriloquist comedian will also make a guest appearance on a forthcoming episode to help plug the movie.

 

Look Who’s Laughing did a decent box office in 1941. Another movie, Heavenly Days, would not do quite as well.

 

At the end of this episode Jim Jordan takes a moment to introduce the cast members to the radio audience. This is something they probably did for the benefit of the live audience who crowded into the Chicago Merchandise Mart NBC Studio A for every taping, but here it is also being broadcast. Unfortunately, it’s cut off at the end. But that’s OK – we get the idea.

 

And by the by the by the way, the seller of that house I’ve been looking at has come back with an encouraging request for more information on the deal I’m offering. See – getting a conventional mortgage is tough for most folks at the moment, and worse for me, being self-employed, so I’ve come up with a creative alternative. It requires a little more… thought. Well, c’mon – I’m the Squabbler. I walk into the room and complications develop. It’s not easy being me…

 

But the blue lady said if I was good then someday I will be a real boy!

    

These Chinois mantel ornaments are staying with me for a few days. Getting them to sit still for a moment is a bit challenging.

 

Mrs. Uppington is happily reunited with her… mother? – That doesn’t seem right. Mistress? - That’s worse. They seem to be about the same age, both elderly.

 

These little puff balls demand my attention quite a lot more than old Abigail did. It makes good sense that dogs that are bred solely for companionship require a fair amount of companionship. Well, they sleep with me – not under the bed as Abby did – and I cannot sit down anywhere without having their company, the male especially, Cricket by name. Yes, their actual names are Cricket and Emmie – not really White Lodge names, are they? But they get along well with the Squabbler’s children, Daphne Sunshine Squabbler and Mister Sludge.

 

It occurs to me I haven’t mentioned them in a while. They are… well.

 

The Man in Black – not Johnny Cash – introduces Suspense! for the first time tonight. John Dickson Carr is the author of this adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum. The parts of it which are taken directly from Poe’s 1842 short story are very well read by Henry Hull, but Carr has added dialogue with the imagined specter of the protagonist’s wife to advance the story which Poe told in monologue. Unfortunately, the actor who portrays the wife isn’t really equal to the task. A suitably sinister second Inquisitor character is also inserted by Carr into this adaptation. Of course it would have been perfectly OK if Hull had simply read Poe’s story just as it was written…

 

This program aired in 1943.

 

No word yet from the seller of that house, by the way. If I don’t again mention it you may assume that he has not seen fit to pay me the courtesy of a reply to my offer. In the meantime, I had the idea of eventually starting a dog kennel business at the site – and, if not at that particular site, then another. I reckon it will cost about ten grand to build the necessary buildings and fences. I have heard so many horror stories from dog owners who have had bad experiences boarding their animals. I know there is a demand for the service, and I know I could do better – especially with the White Tornado to help me. That Mexican fellow on television has nothing on her when it comes to the handling of canines. There are times when I have wished I were a dog, watching her handling them.

 

Say no more.

 

I can say no more.

I awoke from a dream of the lake draining and a shopping mall emerging in its shallows, and my feet are rather sore, my back a little kinked. I require bucketfuls of coffee to chase away the cobwebs.

Yes, and I’ve packed three lifetimes of experience into my meager 46 years, memories which make it seem that life goes on interminably and balance my appreciation of it with a touch of cynicism. I groan, or grunt, whenever I must rise from my knees all of a sudden. I require one kind of eyeglass to see the computer screen, a stronger kind to read a book. And the only women I’m interested in are young enough conceivably to be my daughters. Welcome to middle age, one might say, or worse, “Join the club.”

 

I belong to a club. How dreadfully boring! Like Groucho Marx, I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member. (He’s one of my heroes, by the way. What do they call it these days? – “Role Model.” Psycho-babble rubbish!) And that’s another thing: I use words like “hero” and get blank stares as though I were speaking in Sanskrit. Can you speak in Sanskrit? Or can you only write it? I don’t even know.

 

And my brother’s back at home with his Beatles and his Stones
We never got it off on that revolution stuff.

What a drag...

 

 

Indeed.

 

Anyhooooooooooo, I am waiting to see if the seller will accept my offer on that house I wrote about a few posts back. No, it won’t be my last stand – God willing I should live somewhat longer – but a step in the direction of it, an income-producing property. I hope to move away from the Peoples’ Republic of New York in a few years and relocate to a state where I may still smoke in the supermarket and carry a pistol. I hear some of you saying that’s Columbia. Alas, that may be so.

 

Banco Popular. Who remembers Banco Popular? I had an account there. Does that make me a drug dealer by association?

 

Well, someone stole my paddle – the nerve. It was a hopelessly tiny canoe. Many of us were talking of this and that in a building on stilts with many windows overlooking the lake – glass walls. I knew them only vaguely, and I was in and out of those conversations, periodically looking for my missing paddle. I had hoped to take the canoe out on the lake, now that it was open. I didn’t want the kids along with me. It’s a drag having the kids along. But then, suddenly, I noticed that the lake had dried up almost entirely. A network of roads emerged, Stop Signs and all, houses, and so on. A shopping mall, of all things – the last place God made – stood at the center of this under-lake community.

 

It was festival time. Everyone was walking in the newly dried-up lake. I don’t think we were shopping. It was like a ruin except that everything was intact, everything was clean. The lights worked. The merchandise looked as though it had just been put out. The banners advertising Sales on this thing and that thing were screaming from their plastic colors as always. But no one manned the cash registers. People were just walking.

 

Among them was The White Tornado, who is my friend. She was wearing a little black dress, as she was in the grubby little city to the south on that Autumn day last year I wrote of. And she said, “I’ve got to find a real job.” It was like an invisible wall stood between us. I tried to plead with her: “But if you leave me I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t want to do what I’m doing without you.” She walked away and she wouldn’t listen. Did she really walk? – No, she faded from view, and I could no longer find her in the corridors between the stores, in the blank hallways which led to secret places where broken and unsaleable merchadise was stored.

 

At last I was on the shore. My boys were with me. A woman whom I vaguely know mentioned that she needed someone to escort her to a Bachelor’s Ball, and I realized she was asking me out. Oh, double drag! I despise dating.

 

I awoke. Please insert here the first paragraph of this post.

 

 

To be abandoned isn’t a casuse for “issues;” it is merely a fact of life. People die and move away, stop doing drugs and get clean and married, or go to jail and get knifed – people fade from view. Old friends disappear. New ones too. Women find better-looking, richer men. You lose your paddle and the lake dries up. You continue to build your fire but no one comes to stand by it. And there you are, listening to old music, speaking an archaic language no one understands anymore, alone.

 

Some people say, “Come over here and stand by our fire. We’re like you.” But when I look at them they’re old and ugly and pathetic. It’s the club, don’t ya know – the middle-aged- libertarian-white-twice-divorced-somewhat-tired-going-slowly-blind club.

 

All the Young Dudes.

 

I’m none of those things. I don’t belong to any group, any club, any marketing demographic, or any category at all. I don’t participate in movements, causes, economic recessions, consumer fads, age appropriate activities - daffy, hysterical trends the like of which I’ve seen a million times before.

 

 

I don’t generally walk around in Brigadoon shopping malls, but the past is more alive to me than the present. In any event, the way I recall the past it makes considerably more sense than this nonsensical, feminized, fear-filled, hysteria-driven, Orwellian universe of regulated thought, teenage oral sex, disgusting belly rings, gigantic televisions, ugly automobiles, utter moral turpitude, and tightly controlled public speech.

 

I’m the Squabbler, and until there’s a cure there’s The White Lodge. Thanks for letting me share…

 

I heard someone say, “Fear God, fear nothing.” That means if you fear God you’ll fear nothing else.

 

Well, last night I sat down in some friendly geezer’s easy chair to watch a little TV, or I should say big TV. It was one of these HD models. A science/discovery stripe of documentary was the offering – one of these channels devoted entirely to revisiting Big World Little Adam (or Atom? I suppose it was a word play.) One wonders what need there may be for public television with all these cable channels that are just the same. One wonders what need there may be for television in general, but that’s another topic.

 

But I guess my host was interested in showing off his new appliance. I must say the photography was breathtaking and the image quite crisp, not too much contrast as some of the earlier attempts at high definition have been. Just a really good picture, in other words, very impressive. I said so.

 

In the program we were watching, which was produced with the MTV-style cross-fades, quick cuts, odd angles, and overlaps that we have come to expect from documentary television, a team of scientists from this-n-that university were attempting to build and test Leonardo DaVinci’s parachute. Apparently – or, according to the narrator whose well modulated tones we must accept as gospel – such an experiment had never before been attempted, though teams of scientists have had over 500 years opportunity. Just laziness, I suppose.

 

Yes, a group of lions is called a pride, a group of fish a school, a group of crows a murder, and a group of scientists a team.

 

So, DaVinci had designed, amongst many other wonders (as we all know), a parachute which, according to his notes, could allow a man to jump from any height and arrive at the ground without injury. And that’s almost a direct quote, the substance in any case of DaVinci’s claim for his parachute design. It was the mission of this team of scientists to prove that the uber-Renaissance Man’s parachute design would actually work.

 

So, in time lapse photography we see them building the contraption out in the desert somewhere. It looked like a pyramid once it was high up in the air, held aloft by a large hot air balloon advertising Nokia rather prominently. A professional stunt flyer/ sky diver dude was attached to the end of the DaVinci parachute. Other skydivers, flying modern gliders, accompanied him. It was quite the sight, high-def-wise.

 

 

Then at last, once the flying advertising balloon had reached the right altitude, the DaVinci device was released. It floated/flew along quite well, without incident, for several minutes. It seemed that the experiment was going to be a success. The narrator of the program certainly thought so; in fact, he declared it a success in so many words.

 

But all of a sudden, at 1800 feet we are told, the skydiver dude who was flying the DaVinci parachute detached himself from it to make the remainder of the descent to terra firma using a modern parachute. I thought to myself, (and then said aloud), “Wait a minute. DaVinci claimed his parachute would take a man safely to the ground. What have they proven? They have not proven DaVinci’s claim.”

 

My host agreed I was correct.

 

Let us hope that scientists, whether in teams, prides, schools, or murders, take their science a little more seriously in real life than they do on television. The program, and the apparently aborted experiment itself, were a complete waste of time. Well, perhaps not complete. Like the prognistications of Hula-Bula the Hippie Psychic, it was a scientific experiment for entertainment purposes only.

 

If the skydiver decided to detach himself from the device because he believed his descent was too quick for a safe landing that’s one thing. Surely, it would prove DaVinci wrong if that were the case. But if the skydiver and the team of scientists never intended that the craft should be flown to the ground in the first place, well that’s just plain daft. Either way, I think I’d soil myself at that height. Better him than me, right? Brave fellow, in any case.

 

I’m really not afraid of heights. I’m not even afraid of falling. It’s the landing that bothers me – that bit at the end.

 

Anyhoooo…      

My caterer friend tells me she found a house for me on 22 acres in the Crumhorn Mountain area, 1830’s or 50’s, Greek, needs a little work. I’ll go look at it on Sunday. I drove over the Mountain last Sunday on my way back from the grubby little city to the south. There is a large Boy Scout camp up there, a Girl Scout camp too. If the land abuts the State Park land it is unlikely to be selling for as low a price as my friend told me, but we will just have to see.

 

In the 30’s – 1930’s, that is – there was a celebrated murder committed up on the Mountain. The murderer was a sometime Madame of a bawdy house down on the state road going to Albany, her victim a simple-minded handyman upon whose life and limb she had taken out a sizable insurance policy. She whacked him with a hammer, did she, along a seldom-traveled road near an old farmhouse on the Mountain. Then, seeing that he clung to life still, she ran him over several times with her car.

 

 

(The murderess Eva Coo is pictured here, as well as a newspaper’s re-enactment of the grisly crime – a little “real world” nudging its way in the White Lodge. I don’t mind – on rare occasion – writing about something that isn’t entirely a product of my imagination.)

 

 

The trial was a carnival. People came from all over. Vendors and peddlers descended on my little town, where the County courthouse is located, and the little jail behind the adjacent Sheriff’s house where she was held. No less a personage than Dorothy Kilgallen came to interview the famous murderess. A witness for the defense (yikes!) made a quick couple of bucks selling miniature mallets which he claimed were replicas of the murder weapon.

 

Anyhooo, despite the folk-legend status the murderess managed to attain – being photographed and interviewed, and celebrated, and so on – she was eventually put to death in the electric chair. Goodness, after all that fame she was as shocked as anybody.

 

Well, more so…

 

I complain in these pages about crime news in the media, how it serves no other purpose than to provide entertainment of the most perverse kind – worse, I think, than pornography. Stories like this one of Eva Coo demonstrate that this isn’t a new phenomenon, by any means. But, like most notorious crimes, its fame was fleeting. The story was all but forgotten until a local historian, who is old enough himself to vaguely remember the incident from childhood, discovered a scrapbook that had been put together by someone who had followed the trial quite closely. He then wrote a book about it, published by North Country. I interviewed him for a newspaper article several years ago – part of a series on local writers.

 

I went to his house. He showed me the scrapbook. Nice fellow. Niles Eggleston by name.

 

Who knows? Maybe on Sunday I’ll put in a bid on a Greek Revival farmhouse on 22 (now wooded, formerly farmed) acres on Crumhorn Mountain. It may turn out to be the house I hope to die in.

 

Relocating the White Lodge to where it properly belongs – in the Hills. I can promise you this: it will be painted with many colors and not a trace of white. I don’t really like white houses. In keeping with my restoration interests the house could be a yellow ochre. When it was built, white paint was cheapest and so it was most commonly used. White was also appropriate to the Greek temple columned style of the grander, or more purely Greek, examples. We have a few of those in the area. They really have to be white. But most houses of that period did not aspire to the complete Parthenon look, and it was a common practice, particularly during the Victorian period, to re-paint them in colors other than white.

 

Here's a white one with columns and the more frequently seen variety without columns. The one I'll be looking at isn't likely to be as large as either of these, but just so you get an idea...