The Western’s popularity rises and falls, but has not gone away for at least a century and a half. The last big era for postcards coincided with an era that valued Westerns highly: they were still popular in cheap, kid-friendly movies (“oaters”), proliferated across radio (“Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear”), and were about to explode all over television (thanks to William “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd’s perceptive investment in his own movies.)
During this decade, as in others, there were actual cowboys paying attention to all these phenomena. And one or two voices were always ready to rise and complain “That ain’t the way it was, by Ned!” The makers of mass-market westerns would respond that they were making mass entertainment, not trying to bring out the most historically accurate views of the Old West.
But postcards go back a couple of generations prior to the mid-century adoration of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, the Lone Ranger, Red Ryder, Lash LaRue, etc. So perhaps we can get a more accurate look at what the cowboy looked like. The hat, especially, was an important part of the mythos.
The problem is that the general myths go back even farther than that. In the late nineteenth century, writers like Bill Nye were complaining that cheap magazines had given the folks back East a picture of the cowboy that was romantic, adventurous, and hopelessly inaccurate. (Bill Nye claimed that the average cowboy, given a handgun, was more likely to shoot his own foot than anything else.) This postcard is a hundred and twenty years old, and looks…like a cowboy from the cover of a paperback romance. MAYBE some outfits expected their cowboys to shave every day, but how did he get to be a cowboy without any sign of a tan? (Some sage Native shaman selling an ancient potion called SPF-66?)
There ARE some postcards in inventory which show off drawings by Charles Russell, the great cowboy-turned-painter, so we can see what the nineteenth century cowboy looked like (perhaps modified by memory or the market? This chap also looks rather clean-shaven and pale-faced. Or am I just recycling someone else’s mythical construct of the stubbled cowboy with leathery hide?)
But however far away from reality, we can at least get some truth-adjacent observations on the cowboy’s hat. This cowpuncher’s hat seems a little small, but perhaps in a situation like…I forget what I was going to say.
The brim seems to be the most important part of the hat anyhow, to keep the sun off…yes, I know what I said about tans, but only a very few cowboys, mostly on television, wore hats broad enough to shade their arms.
Another part of the cowboy wardrobe that can be observed in both early and late postcards of the Wild West are chaps, those protective leggings you may have observed various cowpokes wearing in earlier parts of this column.
Their popularity on postcards, though, is due to another sort of joke which also goes well back before the mid-nineteenth century. She does have the right hat, though, and that’s what counts. (It doesn’t seem big enough to prevent a third degree suntan. Zorro never had to deal with these things.)
At the height of the high white flight of stairs was a small landing and a tall wooden door. Bott and his crew studied it for a moment without detecting spikes, poisoned nails, or opening for projectiles. It lacked even a knocker with a nasty expression. One hand on a grenade, Bott turned the knb and walked through.
“Well, when UI milk the president into his own hat!” cried Louba.
Light blue walls were hung with gold draperies. Under each set of curtains sat a handsome golden chair with a blue cushion. Between each display f chair and drapes was another plain white wooden door.
“Leastways, we gets ta rest our foots,” noted Louba, heading for a throne.
Chlorda raised one gold hand. “Don’t, dear. If either of you deposits your poundage on one of those, we’ll have shiny kindling.”
“Neato squeato,” said Bassada, thrusting one hand down the collar of the aristocrat’s gown. “Jes’ right fer toastin’ shiny tiny toes.”
Bott was studying the doors. Bolted to each doorframe, above the actual entryway, was a row of brass letters, different on each. Bott could read none of these: “NOT THIS WAY”, “THIS DOOR AND TWO LEFT TURNS AND YOU’RE FREE”, or “VERY HUNGRY WEIRNETS BACK HERE.”
“Ow!”
He turned to find the gold sitting on the floor next to one of the chairs. “I don’t mind going plop if it entertains little brains.” She said, rubbing one hip as she rose. “But you might’ve smashed my lunch.”
“I was over here, Teeny Top,” said Louba, giving the hangings around another chair a yank, and stepping back to see if anything happened.
“Don’t care where ya sits,” said Bassada, easing herself gingerly onto the seat of another chair. “Long’s it ain’t me face.”
“You’d have to wash your face,” snapped Chlorda.
“Flallop!” Louba spun to face them, looking from one to another. “Still got that rope on ya, do ya, Cap’n?” She rubbed both hips vigorously.
Bott set his back against a door labeled ‘GRENADE STORAGE”. “We’re not alone. Did it feel like an insect bite?”
“Whoops!”Bassada jumped out of the chair. “If it’s a bug, it’s got mighty educated fingers!”
”Let’s leave, shall we?” Chlorda reached for a door marked ‘THIS IS A SHOWER WITH BOILING WATER.”
“No!” Bott shouted. “We’re a crew, remember? Over here! All of you!”
He shoved a hand in one pocket as the Klamathans grouped around him. “We’ve got one or more invisible characters in here with us.” His fingers ground together; he lowered his voice. “They’re here to force us through one of these….”
The gold’s hair floated forward a little on the left side. Bott pushed her away and reached out with his handful of crushed berries. The temptation to go for the face was resisted; farther down, there might be cloth which would hold a stain.
A dark blue smudge hung in the air for a moment. When Chlorda and Louba lunged, it disappeared.
“He’s runnin’ for it!”
“Watch what door it opens!”
The smudge showed again for a moment as its wearer looked back. This second second was the one too many. Three bodies collided at that point.
“Don’t kill it!” Bott had a grenade out in case there was evidence of a larger group. “It may be useful.”
“It’s got hair,” said Bassada, groping the invisible prisoner. “Useta have two ears!”
“I think I’ve found a swotf!” Chlorda drew something from below the smudge.
“Think I know what I found, too.” Louba pulled out a dagger she had never drawn in self-defense. “Mebbe I’ll keep it, as a souvenir.”
The Klamathans moved closer as the body struggled. Louba thumped the top of its presumed head. “Nah, more fun if I leaves it on. Cap’n’s right; he might be useful.”
“Don’t grab,” snarled the blue. “Yez’ll get yer turn.”
“I was going to check its pockets,” said Chlorda, with some dignity. “I…what’s that?”
“That” was a bump in the previously flat carpet. As they watched, it rose into a hill. “Bet back!” Bott ordered, rather unnecessarily as they began to slide. “Take him with you!”
“Hooptydoo!” Louba fell backward. “Who yanked the rug frum under me toes?”
Something hissed. Bott yanked open the satchel and dropped the grenade back in. “Where’s the rope? Did we bring it?”
“Here ‘tis,” said Louba, reaching into a pocket. “Want us ta truss him up?”
“No.” Bott took the rope; he hoped it was long enough. :Just stand right there. Bassada, you go to that corner. Chlorda, that one. Come in as the rug comes in. Pass the rope along.”
The hill continued to rise until the sides were nearly vertical. It did not fill the room. “Don’t let it tip.” He finished his loop of rope. “Keep moving.”
The lump, still hissing, continued to rie. Louba’s face shone with hope as she turned it toward the ceiling. The end of the rope came back around to Bott, and he slid it through the loop.
“Okay. Keep moving. Pull it tight and make sure to keep it above the edges of the carpet.
His heels lifted from the floor. There wasn’t much left of it but a large hole, which had stopped hissing. “Hop to it, Cap’n!” Bassada roared.
“Hoopta!” Louba agreed.
Gold hands gripped the rope just below his. Bott hoped it was long enough to accommodate all four passengers. He also hoped whatever gas was filling this cloth bubble was light enough to lift three Klamathans at once. He frowned. And an invisible saboteur as well?
His hope held, as did the rope. All his crew swung in the air. Louba was kicking at the far end. “Sorry, feller! Crew only.”
“Let him get his own balloon,” Bott called down.
“Lala!” Chlorda noted, as the ceiling opened above them. Bott leaned back to see where they were going. Knowing when to let go was going to be crucial. If they were given a chance for that at all, of course.
He forgot to let go. “Fazzlepig!” snarled Bassafa, as her eyes cleared the opening. Chlorda sighed.
It was a vast, beautiful, white room sprinkled with light grey cubes, cones, and cylinders. Bott also felt a mite discouraged at seeing this chamber again, but called down, “If we hang on, we might pass through this ceiling, too.”
“Gonna make a heckuva target,” Bassada told him.
“Captain?” Chlorda’s voice sounded congested. “Was that here before?”
She was pointing up. “Flallop!” Louba shouted.
Bott was too close to the bulge of the balloon to look straight up, and hate to wait until they had risen above the cylinders and cones, at which point the ship was too big for him to miss.
It was a BBB-44; whether it was THE BBB-44 was another question. The cargo ramp was down. “Don’t jump,” he ordered. “It may be a hologram.”
The loud hiss did not come from his crew. “Somethin’ up there’s real enough ta pop our balloon,” Louba pointed out.
“Okay, change the plan a bit,” Bott called down. “Jump!”
He obeyed himself on the word of command, considering the possibility that the ship was real but the cargo ramp was a hologram. The theory was abandoned as he landed hard on the platform. He clawed himself up before his crew could drop on him, and looked for signs that this might actually be the Dragonshelf.
“Don’t let her come along,” gasped Bassada, landing next to Chlorda. “She’ll tip it over.”
“Everyone in this crew has a role to play,” Chlorda informed her, hauling her up toward the body of the ship. “We might need an anchor.”
Bott left them to it, and raced to the cockpit. Experience in dozens of spacecraft had given him the ability to recognize any vehicle he’d flown in before. The contours of a seat, the feel of the controls, a combination of things on the periphery of vision that he could not have listed if asked—a light here, a reflection there—all combined to tell him this was NOT Nubry’s ship.
Looking up and finding the console before him was bright red with knobs shaped like flowers helped, too.
“Quite the decorator, yer sweetie,” noted Bassada, joining the captain.
“This isn’t the Dragonshelf.” Bott rose from the seat. “It’s another trick. We….”
He fell back into the seat as the ship jerked. “’At a trick too?” Louba demanded, “Or is we movin’?”
“One way to find out,” he said, leaning toward the control console.
“Do you think you can play with these toys?” Chlorda pushed past her larger companions to plop into the co-pilot seat.
“If they’re functional. I can fly anything when I’m sober and I haven’t had a drink in three days.”
He shifted a blue blossom; the shipped turned right and dipped. A grinning face appeared in the center of the flower, but he decided to ignore this. He pressed a long yellow bloom forward. The ship picked up speed.
“They….” The ship bounced, in response to no command of his.
“We ain’t alone!” Bassada dropped into another seat and pointed at a screen.
Asecond ship, guns still firing, zipped around the BBB-44. Bott sucked in his breath, then nodded. It was a replica of his own pirate ship: just the thing to amuse an Emperor. Put him under attack by a ship he might hesitate to destroy.
Bott did not feel like amusing His Imperial Worship. Judging by the other blossoms, the ones that controlled the guns should be down her, just to the right.
“Hey! ‘Ey’re callin’ us!” Bassada peered at a monitor. “Wanna see?”
It was part of the show, of course. There would be replicas of his old crew, and perhaps him as well, to plead their case. He could take it. “We’ll listen.”
She tried a couple of flowers before finding the right one. A small screen lit up, showing the cockpit of his old ship crewed with a number of nude Nubrys, looking as if they’d been liberally sprinkled with red pepper. “In the name of Thomas, Lord Fairfax,” they ordered, I unison, “Stop following us. We are taking the library ship to a safe place. Once we find it.”
Bott’s first impulse was to fire. Then he called, “Can we reply?”
“Could ‘n’ should,” Bassada replied, twisting another flower.
“Hailing the librarians,” Bott called. “Let’s look for the Dragonshelf together. Our two ships together ought to e able to blow holes in this little shooting gallery.”
The ship bounced underneath him again. “That was our last warning shot, Bott!” the Nubrys intoned. “Beware. We are armed with peteseeging missiles. Are we? Yes, we are!”
“Duno if bluetush pushed the wrong petal,” said Louba, leaning over the screen, “But it looks to me like ‘ey don’t has any ears switched on, Bottsy Cap’n.”
“They wouldn’t, of course.” Bott pulled the ship to dodge a direct shot, and reached for what he assumed were the firing flowers.
Every now and then, when I feel like living dangerously, I consider writing a series called “Is That Still Funny?”, in which I would examine the comedy that made me laugh when I was growing up. I have it all figured out: how I will guard myself against laughing simply from nostalgia, how we will skirt the issue of whether something can be offensive AND funny (and how many comedians have banked on getting the balance just right), and so on.
One of the problems with this is that I grew up watching almost exclusively comedy, from sitcoms to stand-up, from Saturday morning cartoons to Saturday afternoon showings of Abbot and Costello movies and, of course, the omnipresent Three Stooges shorts (which, for those of you watching them on television today, were actually run in their entirety ad commercials were stuck in BETWEEN them.)
The sheer variety of the offerings, which necessitates taking into consideration the comedy writers as well as costumes and sets, makes the whole thing impractical. Then you work in the question of catchphrases (as we used to label memes). These are a comedy staple going back decades, and almost certainly centuries, and each generation is mystified by the catchphrases of those before and those after. As “Vas You Dere, Sharlie” gave way to “Tain’t funny, McGee” to “And awaaaay we go” to “Verrry interesting” to “Can we talk?”, youngsters have looked on puzzled as their elders dissolved into helpless laughter.
So you will probably not be seeing me review Captain Nice or TomTerrific or Donald Kaul here. Unless I lose all sense of responsibility and start in on the research again. (I have tried. Erma Bombeck and Alan King, by the way, held up pretty well, while Space Kidettes did not.)
HOWEVER, just to hint at the difficulties, here is a quiz based on some comic mainstays of my formative years. If you know these from your own research into comic archaeology, good for you. If you REMEMBER all these, welcome to what I prefer to call Late Middle Age.
QUESTIONS
Q1.What were the names of the two seagulls Red Skelton used to impersonate?
Q2.What member of the animal kingdom was Dick Martin, of Rowan & Martin, justifiably proud he could imitate?
Q3.What creature spent Saturday mornings foiling Dick Dastardly and Muttley (in their Flying Machines?)
Q5.Who perpetrated knock knock jokes with Captain Kangaroo as his straight man?
Q6.What animal starred in another joke fad, often involving Tarzan or toenail polish or root beer?
Q7.Popular Italian comedian Topo Gigio made many an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. What was especially notable about this very short media darling?
Q8.What singing group turned a popular comedy show into a recording career, in the eyes of some fans eclipsing the Beatles?
Q9.What singing group turned a hit Christmas song into a never-ending series of animated cartoons and movies?
It is with shock that I note the death, at 102 oerthereabouts, of another Book Fair buddy, perhaps one of the most significant, Nathalie F. Alberts. I am sorry the obituary did not mention (or I didn’t catch it) who put the H in “Nathalie”, but she probably spent a great deal of time over her century explaining that it was there. She was the great-grandchild of a man named Eliphalet, though. so perhaps the family LIKED to let people know how to spell names.
Nathalie was not shy about letting people know things, and that is how I got to know her. When the Newberry Library was going through a thin patch, she would tell the institution her great-grandfather helped bring into existence that what they needed was a big book sale. She had volunteered at one her local hospital had sponsored since World War II and she knew it would help bring the neighborhood into the building, raise useful money, and help books from being tossed in th garbage.
She explained this so often, in fact, that the Library decided to go ahead and have a book sale, just to prove to her it wouldn’t bring in enough money to bother with, so she would maybe shut up and let THEM decide how to raise money. Nathalie was always willing to put hr own money where her mouth was (I wonder whatever became of the huge banner she had printed and hung over a bit of the Newberry that didn’t get finished in the big renovation of the early 80s) so she bought an ad I the newspaper, hunting for Book far Volunteers. This caught the eyes of Evelyn J. Lampe, another woman who was not shy about explaining things, especially how to run a book sale. The result was in the low five figures, roughly ten times what the real fundraisers had expected, and the Book Fair Era began.
Nathalie was also one to invest sweat equity, and for years thereafter, she would show up at the loading dock with her SUV packed with book donations she had picked up. The tall, perky lady in blue jeans was a learning experience for staff and volunteers at the Newberry. “She doesn’t ACT like a millionaire!” one of her fans said of her.
We saw less of her as time went on; some busybody doctor probably told her not to risk her back picking up boxes of books. But she would still turn up at library events. No stodgy wheelchair for Nathalie, who drove a small electric golf cart with an antenna that sported a squirrel tail.
Was it an SUV loaded with books or that golf cart with the vinyl leopard skin seat that drove her through the pearly gate of the Great Golden Ultimately? I hope they found her something to do when she got there. Nathalie was also not the type ever to let herself get bored, and she may be organizing an event just inside the gates right now.
“Now, Mr. Edison, about this latest contraption of yours….”
“Yes. I call it the ‘autopen’. You sign your name on this template and load it into the machine, and the stylus follows that signature to sign it as many times as needed. It should be a godsend to the busy executive who must sign a stack of form letters. He can tend to important business while the machine….”
“I understood that, Mr. Edison. What I don’t understand is why my partner, William DeHavilland Smith, tried it and your ‘autopen’ wrote out an invoice for twenty horseshoes.”
“It what?”
“Our office boy, Willie Callahan, took a turn, and the pen wrote ‘Stop giving me the Willies!’’
“I don’t….”
“My own name is Fowler, Mr. Edison. That pen wrote ‘Those other guys had bad handwriting, but yours is worse’.”
“I apologize. I’ll take it back and try to find out what….”
“By no means, Mr. Edison. We’d like to make an offer on an exclusive use of your invention.”
“But it doesn’t….”
“Bill Smith got a bill from the blacksmith, Willie Callahan got a joke for being the second William to try the machine, and I was told that my handwriting was FOULER than theirs. I know any number of writers who will pay plenty to own an ‘autopun’.”
Bott hit the floor, and had enough experience by now to scoot out of the way before looking to see where he’d landed. The most immediate threat was coming down the chute.
“Wheeee-boomps!” shouted Louba, legs spreading left and wide as she tumbled toward the floor. ”Ah…yoo-hah! Wanna watch where ‘em knee bones goes?”
“Felt ‘em?”demanded Bassada, rolling off the expanse of overalls. “Troo all ‘at flab?”
“Got tender flab,” the green replied, rolling to get out of Chlorda’s way and, incidentally, to land on top of her blue companion.
”Git off!” Bassada ordered. “Ain’t heard a gold go splat fer nigh onto a fortni’t.”
As Chlordis landed, aiming unsuccessfully for either of her colleagues. Bott studied this new compartment. They were in a black box, the walls on the left and right punctuated by vast red-framed windows. Thick glass gave a view of red trees. Silver bolts and screwheads formed a double line above the floor on the otherwise blank black wall ahead of them. Behind was a black wall where a circular opening near the ceiling was now closing.
“Spose ‘is’s a doorbell,” said Louba, pressing her thumb on a red button near her elbow.
Bott opened his mouth to object but the screech that followed was not of his making. The red trees in the windows zipped right along toward the entrance end of the chamber.
“Hoo-ha!” The green clapped her hands. “Like to see ‘em akhain ketch us now!”
“Better brace ourselves.” The gold scooted backward to a corner of the back wall. “Wherever we’re going, we’re going to hit hard.”
Bassada sat back, slapping the tops of her thighs. “Sit on me lap, Cap’n! I’ll give ya lotsa cushions!”
Bott frowned, and moved over to a window. “Sumpm?” inquired Bassada.
“Prolly got a whiff o’ yer lap,” Louba told her.
Bott shook his head. He had, in fact, not smelled anything in particular, but now he did. “Smoke,” he said, without alarm.
“Movin’ too fast, ha?” inquired Bassada, crawling to the window. “Burnin’ rubba?”
“Not moving at all.” Bott kicked at a wisp of smoke rising from the floor. “It’s the scenery that’s moving. Another bilstim fake.”
Bassada pointed several not random fingers from Louba to the floor. “Yer the one started it. Fling yerself over ‘em holes.”
Bott moved past them to the fourth wall. “Everybody pick up some tools?”
“Won’t ketch me passin’ up what’s useful an’ free.” The blue took an assortment of implements from about her person. “Let’s try ‘em out!”
Bott frowned from the wrench to the bolts. This had been planned. The tools had been too convenient to the place they’d be needed. But the smoke was building up.
“Tink ya kin get it ‘fore we gits smoked like lumpucks in peco sauce?” the green demanded.
“I can open anything when I’m sober,” the captain replied, waving smoke away from his face. “And I haven’t had a drink in three days.”
“I have small hands,” the gold put in. “Let me have a screwdriver.”
“No time fer that,” Bassada replied. “Gotta use ‘em to get out first.”
There were eight bolts and seven screws holding the door down. Bott felt the door strain as he turned the last screw.
“Grab that!” he shouted, dodging as the sharp metal piece flew free. The panel shot to the ceiling and started back down. Louba threw herself up and under, getting both hands on it before it could slam back down.
“Got it!”
“Can you hold it?” Bott crawled forward to examine the triple row of bolts and screws at the base of the panel waiting a wrenchlength behind the first.
“’Til Blues learn which end ta pray outa, Cap’n.”
“Jes hold that pose.” Bassada came around to kick her.
“Be ready to grab this one, whatever it decides to do.”
What it did was what the first panel had done: shot to the ceiling and then started to plunge back down. Bassada scooted in to catch the descending sheet of metal.
“Minds me o’ me firs’ job,” she said, spreading her legs for support. “Holdin’ a big ol’ bucko lamp fer Empra Drandl whilst he trims his toenails.”
“Whatever became of Emperor Drendel?” asked Chlorida, stepping over Bott as he started on the third panel.
“Dummy choked on one o’ ‘em pearls he useta toss up an’ ketch in his mout’.” Bassada sighed. “We had such a nice plan ta kill him, too.”
The third panel worked like the first two, and gave as little additional space. None of the Klamathans could release their grip without danger of being bounced back into the original chamber. Bott had to work around ankles and shins of assorted colors as he worked on the fasteners at the bottom of the fourth. The gold legs seemed to be trembling. How heavy were these panels? As it happened, the fourth door worked exactly the same way, so he was able to find out.
“We could use a coupla copier o’ yer sweetie,” Louba noted. “Coupla akhain, mebbe.”
“This has to…be the…last one.” Emperors could count. There were no bolts and screws now, which was fortunate, as he lacked a way to turn them. There WAS a pink knob, not coincidentally as the level of Bott’s nose. For lack of anything else to do with his time he took hold of this with his teeth, and pulled.
“Good job, Cap’n,” said Louba, as the door fell away and fresh air rushed into the chamber.
“And now what?” asked Chlorda, shifting under the weight of her door.
“Lemme show yez. Grab ‘is for me, green and globe-shaped. I’ll grab Cap’n’s for him.”
“Well, put me pants in a pot an’ call ‘em supper! Blue brains works!”
A blue hand reached up under Bott’s panel. “Now git ta one side, Cap’n, whilst I jumps troo.”
Bott turned, backing into the flashing lights of the next room, but did not let go of the door. “What about the others?”
Bassada pushed her tongue up inside her left cheek and shrugged.
“Gangway, blue bottom!”
Louba let go of her door and lunged, catching both blue and gold as she came down. The doors came down as well, but she was quicker, and the four refugees rolled together, bounced like a remf ball off the fourth door.
“Yick,” noted Bassada, sitting up. “What I had in mind all along, o’course: a mout’ful o’ beauty mud.”
Bott rose to consider what else they’d fallen into. It was another box, with mirrored walls and a mud floor. Colored lights clashed and combined from lamps in the ceiling to provide light and confusion. A small black box was motionless on the ceiling among these flashing lights.
“Better move,” he said.
“Well, toss a feather over the fire!” Chlorda rose to consider herself in the mirror. “Is this my color, I ask you?”
“Anyting sloppy suits yez,” Bassada replied, reaching up to squeeze several pounds of terrain from her hair. She turned to a corner where she was nodded to by dozens of Bassadas.
“We….” Bott considered the ceiling again. The lights had been flashing randomly. Now, accidentally or on purpose, they were beginning to synchronize.
“Come on, crew,” he called. “The emperor…going to…stick to…what’s the….”
The lights were flashing in unison. When they were all off, there was no light in the room and, apparently, no sound.
“Good f…six years young….” Chlorda arched one leg as she studied her reflections and the reflections of those reflections.
The Klamathans were completely engrossed in the mirrors. Bott watched them appear and disappear as they assumed various poses, and did not realize he had been standing still watching them watch themselves until the head of an akhain joined the scene. The creature stepped…or did it? Dozens of multi-colored Klamathans and akhain stood frozen in assorted aspects as the lights flashed on and off. Were they moving, or were they not?
His money said they were moving. He reached into the satchel and fingers the three remaining grenades. Beneath these, his hands found the plate he’d shoved in there earlier.
“Keep m….” he tried to order. Then he turned and spun the plate toward the ceiling. Each flash showed heads turning to follow it as each flash saw it higher and higher in its arc.
It split the box in a spray of sparks. “Now move!” Bott bellowed. The box had been the timer: all the lights were on now. A hammer hit the mud at his left; Bott ducked under the axe. The akhain fought like the guerillas of Jermockh: one weapon to knock the enemy down, the second to knock him off.
The company of four refugees and six akhain all fought for the use of a tall hill in the mud, at the top of which was a srtaircase with a glowing door at its peak. Bott nodded: those hooves might have an advantage in the mud, but if he could get the mud off them, his feet should be better at stairs.
Clawing his way up through the mud, he found his hand on something white and solid. Not a stair, it was another rack of bones. At the end of the arm was a hand with a gun. “Keep moving!” he shouted, raising the gun toward the akhain. He could handle any weapon when he was sober. He hoped.
The gun had four barrels, three gauges, two buttons, and a trigger. Raising this at the advancing horde, he found three of the barrels pointed at him. He turned it around. Three barrels were still pointing his way.
“Take this!” he roared, and threw it into the face of the foremost akhain, stooping toward a mired Chlorda. Louba grabbed the aristocrat out of the way, and noted “Gack!”
With four loud bangs, the gun broke into eight pieces, spraying out shrapnel that smelled worse than the pits of rotting lumpucks he’d crawled through to escape Gederah. The akhain found this irresistible, clustering around the weapon’s bits.
Turning, Bott found himself shindeep in the mud. The point of this room was obviously to stay in motion. One of the akhain was already down to his haunches as he studied the smoking gun.
“C’mon, Bottsy Cap’n!” Bassada got her hands under his arms and hauled him free of the mud, tossing him onto one shoulder and dealing him what was no doubt meant to be an encouraging pat on the fanny, though the echo bounced around the room. Cheering, all three Klamathas reached the top of the stairs with their captain, and plunged through the door.
“Good…job,” Bott called.
“Are you all right, Captain?” Chlorda inquired, as Bassada deposited him on the floor.
Hs stomach had not been prepared for landing hard on a solid blue shoulder. “Been better,” he said.
“I hope there were no drugs in the food.”
“No, I….”
“Stan’ back, stan’ back.” Louba pushed the aristocrat back. “Took pre-med but they woon’t let a green inta medical exams. I’ll check out our Cap’n. Jus’ bend over an’ I’ll take yer tempercher.”
Bott squinted at her. “Where’s your thermometer?” “Thermometer?”
“Good afternoon, Madame. What can I do for you today?”
“I’m not sure. I found these things in a ditch but when I took them home, I noticed that this, particularly, seemed to attract small birds.”
“Ah yes. I recognize the decoration style. What you very likely have there, Madame, are some of the things Cinderella took to the ball the night she danced with Prince Charming for the first time.”
“Oh, um.”
“Yes, Madame?”
“Well, I had a little trouble with a pair of ruby slippers I found on the beach once. But I guess if I don’t have the glass slippers….”
“No, Madame. They preserved those at the palace for generations until one generation decided they looked too old-fashioned.”
“So these things would…. Wait. You mean this is….”
“Yes. Cinderella’s, er, upper underwear.”
“This changes my whole….”
“Everything you have no doubt has a few magical properties. That garment, for example, has the disadvantage that it will completely disappear every midnight.”
“Possibly an advantage. So this tiara will also vanish every midnight?”
“Like the other garments, it disappeared and fell away from its wearer, and was lost because she was running. She could have gone back and found everything in the morning.”
“It looks nice. If I sold it, the person would need to know whose it was and why it wouldn’t stay in the jewelry box.”
“Correct, Madame. But the non-clothing artifacts will have other magic properties, as the Fairy Godmother felt appropriate. That tiara has the enchantment that while you’re wearing it, your nearest and dearest will not recognize you.”
“I understand what that did for Cinderella, but what’s the advantage to anyone else?”
“It would depend on circumstances, Madame. I can make you a nice offer on it, as I may eventually have a customer who needs just that service. Was there anything else?”
“Well. There’s this charming drawstring bag, but I haven’t been able to get it untied so far.”
“Ah! I believe you must have Cinderella’s indispensable.”
“Her, er, ah….”
“Her reticule, or handbag, Madame.”
“Ah! There’s something inside it, obviously. Is there a trick to getting it open? Or do I just say ‘abracadabra’ or ‘bibbidi…. Oh!”
“You know more about this than I expected, Madame. Do be careful. Everything in there no doubt came from the hand of the Fairy Godmother, and will have its own powers.”
“This has to be a coin purse. Looks like pennies.”
“Allow me…yes, very old pennies. I would almost guess that this was the Fairy Godmother’s own reticule; these are all from her territory. Perhaps she thought of the reticule at the last moment and just slipped it into her goddaughter’s skirt pocket, knowing she could….”
“Is this for smelling salts?”
“A lady would never have gone out without her vinaigrette. Don’t sniff it, Madame, until we….”
“I know better than THAT, I hope. What would happen if I opened this fan?”
“It depends on the power given to it, Madame. It might summon up a breeze, a rain shower, a flock of songbirds, or a spell to make someone eager to know what the user is hiding behind it.”
“VERY useful to young ladies at a ball. And a ring! With initials inside it. Why would Cinderella have been carrying an engagement ring to the ball?”
“Another reason to believe it belonged to the Fary Godmother hersel…no, wait, Madame!”
“It fits!”
“Madame? If you are invisible, Madame, say ‘Hello’ or ‘Help’. If you can hear me but not speak, Madame, take the ring off. No? I will pay you for these things, Madame, if you return. I believe I know someone who would like the tiara, and for some reason I always have buyers for disappearing lingerie.”
I was leafing through the postcards in my Music and Songs category, reminiscing about the hoops some of these songs made me jump through, sometimes just to find out the line reference WAS from a song. I still have my suspicions about some others, but the research is seldom simple, as this type of gag seems to have withered to nearly nothing by the 1920s. But as I looked over the array, it made me wonder how much my many fanatic readers recall about these songs.
YOU, of course, have memorized every pearl of wisdom secreted by my computer. But you can try some of these questions on your less attentive friends, and thus garner bragging rights/
1.Bert Williams seems to have contributed dozens of catchphrases (what we called ‘memes’ in my day). Which of the following factoids is NOT true about Bert Williams?
a.producer/writer/star of the first all-Black musical comedy on Broadway
b.got very tired of performing his signature song “Nobody”
c.had to leave the country after marrying a white woman
d.was for most of his career half of the comedy duo Williams & Walker
2.The Merry Widow Waltz was NOT called that in the operetta “The Merry Widow”. Its original title was
a.Queen of Heaven Waltz
b.Footloose and Fancy Free
c.Dreamy Fish Waltz
d.Once Upon a Dream
3.Why was it so hard for the young lady to find her boyfriend Kelly?
a.In search of a stage career, he changed his name to Bert O’Williams
b.She was looking for a redheaded Irish immigrant in New York City…on St. Patrick’s Day
c.He had been sent to prison
d.He had died, thinking she would never come to see him
4.This phrase had great popularity after being used in a song that had nothing to do with romance (sorry). What WAS it about?
a.What to do when pennies rain from Heaven
b.What to do during an earthquake
c.A young man being thrown out by his girlfriend’s father
d.Fixing a car.
5.Which of these is NOT a reason for the lady’s rage?
a.Bedelia is a song about a man leaving his wife
b.Bedelia was so popular in its day that people got sick of hearing it
c.Bedelia is a song about what the young man will do to worship Bedelia if she marries him
d.The singer claims he loves to hear anything Bedelia says, and this lady suspects her husband of irony
6.This postcard was one of several sequels inspired by what song?
a.Bringing Up father
b.Father Knows Best
c.Everybody Works But Father
d.Daddy Long-Legs
7.Only Me did not involve bedbugs. What WAS the trauma faced by the main character?
a.Child neglect
b.Loss of a spouse
c.Being the player who lost the big baseball game
d.Being the last soldier left to defend the fort
8.What American writer supposedly referenced this song–“I’m Afraid To Go Home in the Dark”–on his deathbed?
a.Edgar Allan Poe
b.Eugene Field
c.Stephen Foster
d.O.Henry
ANSWERS
1.c. That was heavyweight champ Jack Johnson
2.a. But if you’ve never heard the Dreamy Fish Waltz, you haven’t truly lived
3.b.I don’t believe she ever DID find him
4.d.AND the hero was wearing his Sunday suit
5.a.It WAS one of the jauntiest pop melodies of its day, so it was everywhere; I still catch myself humming it. Thanks for another earworm, Interwebs
6.c.Another of Groucho Marx’s fond memories of vaudeville days
7.a.Mom, hearing the mighty crash, fears that her favorite daughter has been injured, but she gets the answer in the title
8.d.Does it change the poignancy of his last words to know he was referencing a song about staying out drinking until dawn?
The door they tumbled through was coated with smiling faces on the inside but sharp orange rock on the outside. Louba’s hips caught in the doorway but Bott was behind her this time. He threw a shoulder against the obstacle and they popped out together.
“Ya woon’t have problems like ‘at if ya’d lose a couple tons o’ suet,” said Bassada, jumping out of the way.
“Nifty advice. Drink it an’ water flowers wit’ it.” Louba slapped at a few smoulders on her overalls. Deep gouges showed on her arms. Bott brushed his hands on his knees to shake some green skin from under his nails. She had not offered a lot of useful handles where he needed them, and the sweat had caused frequent slippage.
“Cap’n plays rough.” Bassada slapped him on one shoulder. “Nex’ time I gits ta go last an’ git stuck.” Chlorda looked him over with frank admiration.
Bptt turned eyes still dazzled by afterimages around their new prison. They had lamded in an oblong orange case. The ceiling looked low, but he doubted he could reach it from the floor. Darl brown rock formations sprang like blemishes along the floor and walls. A ridge of brown and orange rose far ahead of them, blocking any vision of what might be waiting behind it.
He leaned forward, squinting. A spot of white gleamed between two rough brown ovals. He eased toward it, one hand on his satchel. The skeleton he found was far beyond making any kind of threatening gesture.
”Someone else lost this game,” said Chlorda, who had advanced with the captain.
Bott knelt by the bones. “The Emperor said this place had never been tested.” He blinked twice to banish the black and white squares still flitting across his line of vision. “It’s either a prop to scare us or something that was fed to…something else in here.”
He looked up at the ridge. “What’s ‘at?” demanded Bassada, moving up between Chlorda and the captain to point at metal among the bones.
Bott blinked again. “Wrenches,” he said. “So, a technician who got lost during construction, maybe.”
”Any meat on them bones?”
The other three looked up at Louba, who was still slapping out incipient flames. Each slap was now leaving a handprint.
Chlorda nodded. “She’s becoming frenetic. She does that when she’s hungry.”
“Lotsa her ta keep fed.” A blue finger jabbed Bott’s back, a little too low. “I gets kinda frenetic meself when it’s too far between meals. If we ain’t getting’ et right away, Cap’n, I wish ya’d call an’ find us a food slot.”
“I tried that.” Feeling it was better to demonstrate than complain, he drew out his command card. “Ship, where is the nearest food outlet?”
“He still hasn’t learned to say ‘please’. It’s in room 8W5/3T0/3C5.”
Bott looked up, shrugged. Bassada reached over his shoulder to press his fingers against the card. “Hey, ship! What room’s ‘is?”
“Your voice is changing, lummox. You are in room 8W5/3T0/3C5.”
“Well, staple yer pitcha ta me frame!” Louba stepped forward. “Where at?”
“The order slot is in a crack in one of the rocks around the corner from your current position.”
“Corner?” Bott took two of the wrenches and put them in his belt, nodding to his companions to take the other tools. “What corner?”
“My maze is filled with corners, lummox, so I can tell you you’re cornered.”
The four looked to each other, and then started forward, Louba still swatting herself but less strenuously, not that she was holding a wrench and two screwdrivers. They found that the ridge ahead of them formed one wall of a corridor with another ridge beyond it. Following this path, they walked nearly to the end of it before Bott noted a thin line on one of the rough outcroppings. This was a handy thing to find, but it was also handy to whatever might come around the edge of this corridor. Waving his crew back, he leaned around the end of the ridge to check.
Beyond this canyon’s end was another that looked even longer. One difference was that it lacked yet another ugly brown ridge at the end. In the distance a broad grey wall waited, with ornate moulding around what seemed to be a massive hangar door.
Bott nodded, and Louba tucked the screwdrivers away and brought out the ration card. She shoved it into the slot among the rocks. “Gimme the best eatin’s ya got!”
“You again,” sighed a voice from the speaker next to the slot.
“Jus’ give out.” She turned to Bott. “We knows ‘is guy from way back. Waters ‘a soup.”
A panel slid up in the rock, revealing a cubical white chamber. The floor of this slid back to allow for the rise of a broad silver platter with a silver domed cover. Four rolled napkins sat next to this, apparently holding cutlery. “Hot hoopdydoo!” shouted Bassada. “Pass me a plate!”
Chlorda reached out two fingers to raise the lid from the platter. A curlicue of steam rose from a pyramid of tiny translucent cubes. Snorting, the gold aristocrat tossed the silver cover over one shoulder. “Mashed lumpucks again!”
“An’ still no maynage,” sighed Louba, chest heaving.
“Izzat as best as ya could do?” demanded Bassada.
“Due to the demands of the Imperial company,” the foods computer replied, “It is necessary to….”
“Excuse me.”
“What do you want?” the first voice demanded of the second.
“I want to chat with my pet lummox,” the main computer replied. “He got out of his cage before I could complete his obedience training, and I THINK he’s forgotten how many cards he’s carrying.”
“Oh!” Bott reached for the collection of command cards he carried: light blue, dark blue, pink, orange, red, green…. “Bilstim thoughtful, for a slave ship.”
“Keep in mind, lummox that you refused to pose as a slave, and are therefore a prisoner. One of my jobs is to ensure that you are maintained in a condition which will provide a good game.”
That seemed reasonable. “An instrument of torture AND a slave ship. I’m proud to have you buy my lunch.” He glanced at the card Louba held, and selected one nearly the same color. Sliding this into the slot, he said, “Let’s try a little harder.”
“Why didn’t you use that one in the first place?” grumbled the foods computer.
“I rtold you he was a lummox,” said the Drover.
The platform with the lumpucks withdrew, to be replaced by a plain white platter holding four covered plates. Under each cover waited a steaming chunk of meat, a tangle of something brown and crisp, and a tumble of blue fruit. Bott sucked in his cheeks at the aroma.
“Better take a small taste so we know whether….”
Louba had seized a plate and, pulling out a screwdriver, shoved a large gobbet of meat into her mouth. “Poison’s quicker’n starvin’.”
Bott claimed a plate as Bassada and Chlorda pushed in. He didn’t THINK they’d take his food, but they did have two hands each. “Let’s keep moving, at least,” he said, tossing one of the fruits into his mouth. “It won’t be safe to stand long in one place.”
They went slowly around the corner, careful to spill none of their provisions. “Should we aim for that?” Chlorda asked, crunching on the brown frieds as she nodded to the vast door.
Bott took another step forward, his mind really on whether they could go back and have the foods computer send the forks and knives back. “Seems easy,” he said, around a mouthful of berries. “Been harder to get through a room than to get out so far.”
“Real dr cd be behin’ a rock,” Louba noted. “Er all of ‘em.”
She leaned on the corner of the ridge they’d just come around, and jumped away at a click. A section of the ridge slid back.
“No tanks very kindly kindly,” she said, looking at the hole this revealed in the floor. “No more tubes. Gotta double dose las’ time.”
Bott balanced his pate and reached for Dunny Bunk. “Well, the book says to turn left. That would be right there.”
“I’m facin’ ‘is way.” Bassada stuck her free arm out. “So lef’ is ‘at big door.”
“I’d hafta to walk backward,” Louba pointed out.
Bott understood the reluctance to slide into any more tubes, especially with lunch to be taken care of. But as he started to give an order he hadn’t quite made up yet, Chlorda cried, “Lala!”
A crack shot up the middle of the huge door at the end of the corridor. In the same amount of time, the door pulled back to the left and right.
“Akhain gubrath!” cried the company behindthe door, apparently as surprised as the prisoners that it had opened.
“Come along, lover!” Louba set her plate on a low rock. “I’ll put a arrow troo yer head an’ call ya me beau!”
“What are they?” Bott demanded, a hand in the grenade satchel.
“Akhain,” said Bassada, “Ey’ll eat just about anythin’.”
Bott lifted a grenade. “What won’t they eat?”
“Anythin’ ‘ey can drink.”
Bott took a mouthful of the fried side and watched them come on, galloping among the rocks. Long waving hair made their outlines hazy, but he could see each had four legs and about a thousand teeth. They had two hands each as well, one holding an axe. The other hand differed from Akhain to Akhain, carrying daggers, hammers, or a long double-bladed device he had no desire to sample. One long spear held Nubry’s head on the point.
“Better go.” He let the grenade slide back into the satchel and, snatching food from the plate, dropped the berries into one pocket and the fried brown mesh into another.
Chlorda grimaced at the advancing horde. “It might be their job to chase us, not kill us. There could be something especially dire at the end of this tube.”
“That’s true for any of them.” Shoving the last of the meat into his mouth and hurling his plate at the Akhain, he jumped into the tube.
It seems like just the other day that I was going through my inventory of postcards showing old cars so that I could illustrate a column filled with fine old jokes. Come to think of it, that WAS just the other day. You can go back and read the last blog any old time you feel like it. Don’t rush; the jokes won’t suddenly become new.
Anyhow on my way to THAT column, I was impressed by the number of times one bit of wordplay turned up. Jokes on postcards worked then the way jokes on TikTok do now” one person uses it and suddenly everyone is. It’s the Bennett Cerf joke philosophy—Who CARES Who Said It First?—in action.
We have looked, hereintofore, at similar phenomena: the fact that Old Fishermen Don’t Die (they just smell that way), the folks who go out into the wilderness and embarrass themselves running around with a bear behind, and the cow stepping on ones of its tender buttons, to name but a few. So I thought I’d take a look at the postcard use of “auto” for “Ought to”.
Postcards are perfect for this joke, of course. Telling people that they owe you a letter or a visit was a major strength of these pre-cellphone texts. But I noticed something odd.
The vast majority of these gags accompany pictures from the very early history of the auto itself: the small, primitive, open vehicles, some of them looking homemade. (Because you could DO that in those days: four bicycle wheels, a box to sit on, and a motor, and you had a car.) Was this a joke which was just so overused by 1910 that the next generation of postcard artists didn’t dare haul it out of the attic?
I did find a few. Having worked in the trade of writing humor, I am aware that an old joke is better than no joke at all if a deadline is looming. There’s always a little nostalgia value: a customer might say “Oh, I remember when THAT used to b funny!”
And you will notice that this artist (since these cards obviously come from the same hand) has four lines in the caption, so that the “auto” pun can be concealed under the camouflage of poetry.
Other artists weren’t quite so shy. I know people who are like this about their automobiles, in fact. “Why do I need a new one when this one still has some mileage in it?” This artist has, furthermore, employed an entirely different sort of camouflage. If the picture is full of action, the reader might skip over the well-worn tires and sputtering engine of the caption.
Here, in fact, the joke is the FOURTH most important part of the postcard, as the artist has clearly spent time to make sure you look at the ladies and then that elegant car, and then rush past the “ought to” to get to the gag about streamlining. I’ll have to try something like that myself with the joke I realized I did NOT make a few paragraphs ago. Surely in all the clutter on the Interwebs I can make a joke about “autopuns”. See, the whole “autopen” busin…no? You auto see some of the other jokes I didn’t make.
Blogsy Babbles 