“The story checks out, sir. That was definitely William D. Orcutt walking into the bar and not coming out again.”
“Three weeks after he was murdered. A week after his burial. And how was he dressed?”
“Just like the rest, sir, down to the dirk and sporran.”
“That’s eight murder victims now who made appearances in Highland dress, only to vanish somehow before they could be questioned.”
“He failed to recognize his brother, and ordered a drink far stronger than any his brother could remember him drinking. That fits with the personality changes seen with the others.”
“And our precautions? Everyone was in place?”
“Yes, Captain. All the exits were under surveillance.”
“Except, perhaps…the chimney, Captain.”
“Well, Mr. Holmes! Er, who let you into my office?”
“You know my methods, Captain. I have the killer downstairs. Watson is holding him in the hearse with holy water and haggis laced with garlic.”
“And who is it, Mr. Holmes?”
“The original owner of the land on which the pub was built, Captain. No less than the fourth Earl of Umner, who died in 1715, and was thought to be resting quietly in the family crypt. He is, as you have no doubt deduced, a vampire.”
“A vampire! And a Scottish one! But what was he trying to do?”
“He sought no less than a return to what he considered the golden days of his youth, the seventeenth century. Killing modern pubgoers, he could force their reanimated bodies to be possessed by other noblemen of his time and temperament.”
“You’ve uncovered a vampire conspirator which turned modern men into dead Highlanders?”
“And have brought the culprit to you, Captain. You may now take credit for the apprehension of your first serial kilter.”
I am aware that you do not come flocking to this column to read about ME. Yu come here to learn about my latest research into unsuspected naughty jokes in Edwardian postcards, to learn what new fishing gags I have found on postcards of mid-century, and to share what I have discovered about such culinary treasures as lard sandwiches or bread-and-dripping. (Though this is NOT a food blog.)
But it occurred to me that you probably read my blogs and what I have written on other websites about the postcards I sell there. You may have found the not-terribly-well-hidden site where you can listen to my poetry, my examples of bygone humor, and even, in someone else’s space, those of my short stories which have been performed by an excellent voice actor.
And in all of this, there is still one thing missing. “Is there NOWHERE we can go to escape Uncle Blogsy?”
Well, if you are ever sitting around counting your blessings, I will provide you with a few more. There have, believe it or else, been editors who unwise enough to send me invitations to write something for them. And though I was willing, events intervened to make sure my contributions were left by the wayside, cutting short what MIGHT have been a whole nother career.
Once upon a time, when cable was new and full of promise, there was something called the Cartoon Network, which advertised itself as All-Toon. Even commercials would be animated only, and there would be no live-action announcers or hosts. This was a promising offer, but the new network also began populated almost entirely by Hanna-Barbera cartoons and the occasional Looney Tunes hour. The world, it seemed, had not really been encouraging young animators, so there weren’t many.
To supply the demand for something new, Cartoon Network sent out calls to writers and artists to create ideas for cartoon series. I busied myself with “Wheels For Brains”, a series about a bicycle messenger. His first adventure involved an errand for an aging terrorist who forgot which bag had the bomb in it and which had his payoff money. It was filled with narrow escapes which only you, the audience, would have realized were complete mistakes. But as I was reaching a point at which I could send out the script, a bomb got left at a building in Oklahoma City, and suddenly my plot was no longer suitable for children. Wheels For Brains never appeared, and you had to make do with stuff like Dexter’s Laboratory and Johnny Bravo and like that.
It was not my first failure in the cartoon world. Some years before, I had a note from Gold Key Comics, which was looking for writers for the company’s many comic books based on cartoon characters, particularly Bugs Bunny. I knew I was the one for the job (I had just sold two jokes to Joan Rivers, whose style was not that far off from the Rascally Rabbit’s.) I would need to think up something in the way of plots, but, spotting Bjo Trimble’s Star Trek Concordance on the shelf, I had my inspiration. I had taken fairy tales and turned them into fantasy adventures: why not adapt Captain Kirk’s journeys for the encounters of Bugs? (THEIR styles are not that far apart, either.) Substitute Yosemite Sam for a Klingon captain, and the rest would be clear. Not that these would be set in outer space, Duck Dodgers style. Bugs’s rabbithole would take the place of the Enterprise. Carrots would serve for dilithium crystals, and Elmer Fudd would be useful to take the place of any passing Gorn or Romulan.
Alas, before I got far with THAT project, Gold Key announced they had decided instead to shut down most of their comic book line, so a story like, say, “The Twouble With Twibbles” never happened.
The Dungeons & Dragons folks, TSR, starting up a line of fantasy romances for preteen girls, sent me TWO invitations to submit something to this choose-your-own-ending series. I was warned to keep physical contact to a level suitable for younger readers, limiting the erotic to a “tingling sensation” during a first kiss. I actually completed a book for them, in which my heroine felt a tingling sensation when one of the boys kissed her because he was wearing poisoned lipstick to stop her quest. They passed on this, and, in the end, the series lasted only eight books.
There are more—the second story in a series of three linked science fiction tales based on the human body (I was to be “Torso” but I had to wait for another writer to finish “Head”), the routines for A Prairie Home Companion (this invitation came just a month or so before Garrison Keillor’s first retirement, so the call, like the one from Bugs Bunny, became inert)—but you can’t read any more anyhow, from the tears welling up in your eyes. I will cheer you with a thought suitable, perhaps, for all the upcoming holidays. I sold this to a greeting card company which begged for more, suggesting a career in THAT business.
[Front of card] “I would have sent you some actual cash in this card but I knew you didn’t want to make this festive season a mere occasion for financial gain.” [inside of card] “And my dad said those philosophy courses were a bad investment.” (Er, this greeting card company’s distributor burned down before the card could be printed. You dodged ANOTHER bullet. Go buy a lottery ticket.)
All the people came out to wave as the three princes rode away from home. The princes waved back, even though, as Prince Alain whispered to his brothers, “I get so tired of all those people coming around to look at my face all the time.”
Prince Archels looked at the women who just happened to be drying their hair in the breeze right along the road they had chosen to take. “I know,” he said. “It is such a bore how so many of them want to run up and feel my muscles.”
Prince Affretz simply waved. Since he was wearing armor, he could also wear his helmet, with the visor down. No one could see his face and cry out about how ugly he was, so he felt this adventure was already turning out to be a good time.
All that day and the next. The boys rode on, taking turns sleeping in the wagon, stopping now and again to eat and let the horses rest. Whether they were riding or eating, they spoke of little besides what they would do when they came to that silent castle surrounded by the gigantic thorn bush.
“You don’t need to be the smartest prince in the world to see we’re going to do something important,” Prince Alain told his brothers.
“It will be a fine story one day,” agreed Prince Archels. “We must prevail, since we are the best there is at what we do.”
“We may have things to do soon,” said Prince Affretz, who was studying a map. (He loved maps. “I can’t help being ugly,” he would say, “But I can help not knowing where I’m going.”) “We’re nearly out of our own country.”
They were, in truth, out of the lands they knew, since their progress had been steady. This meant they were also moving out of territory where everyone recognized them. The shields they carried did not show their names or coats of arms, for fear that any monster who heard THEY were coming would simply run away.
“I’d hate to miss out on an adventure just because I’m a famous prince,” is how Prince Alain felt about it.
Not long after midday on the second day, they reached a small, sleepy village. They had already agreed to go around villages when they could, so people would not be falling in love with Prince Alain or challenge Prince Archels to arm wrestle. They could have worn their helmets, like Prince Affretz, but the weather was warm. They could have had Affretz go without his helmet, and scare off everyone, but he was asleep in the wagon, it being his turn for a nap.
They had nearly passed the last buildings of the village when a voice called “Hello, my good fellows! Have you any food to spare?”
The princes looked around and found an old man sitting on a wall. He was a wild-looking creature, with a fuzzy frenzy of white hair and beard all around his face. A blue polka dot stocking cap sat on his head, and he wore peacock blue slippers which curled at the tip. Between hat and slippers came a pair of striped pink trousers, a yellow checkered sweater, a bright green shirt, and white gloves with holes in them.
:You look like good young fellows,” he called, in a voice very big for such a small body. “Prices, no doubt. Surely you can spare a bit for a man who hasn’t eaten lunch since Kwaimor Mountain was an anthill!”
“No!” Prince Archels was annoyed by the rude demand, and also by the man’s guess that he was a prince, when they had finally gotten away from all the people who knew them. “We don’t know how far we have to go and may need all our food to get there.”
“Go shout at someone else,” Prince Lain suggested. “Maybe they’ll feed you to keep you quiet.”
The princes rode on, but they had not gone far when Prince Affretz sat up in the wagon. What time is it?” he asked. “Were you talking to someone just now?”
“Go back to sleep,” said Prince Alain. “You have hours to go before your turn’s done.”
“It was a noisy old beggar who wanted food,” his other brother told me, “And shouted about us being princes. Go back to sleep. We’ll wake you if anything important happens.”
“Wait now,” prince Affretz replied. “Did you give him any food? Beggars sometimes know a lot about the countryside, and know where the dangers are.
Archels frowned. “I’ve read books on this part of the world,” he said, “And we’re not near anything dangerous according to them. But it’s true we haven’t been here before. The old beggar might know something.”
“Not he,” said Alain. “Did you look at his clothes? No one who looks like that knows much of anything.”
“But we won’t know unless we ask,” said Prince Affretz.
In the end, the princes turned and went back. The old man was still on the wall, and didn’t look the least surprised to see them. Prince Affretz climbed down from the wagon and took the old man a roast beef sandwich. He didn’t like to do this. When he was riding his horse or sitting in the wagon, no one could see him limp. But the sandwiches were in the wagon, so this was the easiest way to do things.
“Sorry if we were rude, old beggar,” said Prince Alain. “Can you tell us anything about the road ahead?”
The old man, biting into the sandwich, nodded his head. The princes waited until he had chewed the first bite, and learned “It has rocks in it.”
The princes awaited, not really sue if he meant the road or the sandwich. Then Prince Archels said, “In return for the food, which we didn’t have to give you, you know, we’d like to know something about what lies ahead of us.”
“Oh,” said the old man. He swallowed another bite of sandwich and then said, “Naps are good for people. Flowers aren’t always a nice present. If you ignore your problems, they’ll go away sometimes.”
“Ah yes,” said Alain. “Thank you very much.”
“You have been heaps of help,” said Archels. And, grumbling, the princes rode away.
Affretz was disappointed about how this all had turned out. They had not gone quite a mile when he called to his brothers, “You know, I don’t believe that old man is smart enough to know to throw that sandwich wrapper in the trash. It has our royal seal on it, and people might figure out we passed this way. I’ll just go back and remind him not to leave it lying on the ground.”
“You’d be better off sleeping,” said Archels, shrugging. We have to take care of ourselves so we’re ready to face dangers. But if you don’t want to take that nap your wise old friend suggested, go on back and catch up with us when you’re done.”
Affretz, putting on his helmet so he didn’t scare the old man and taking his shield, so he could hde a piece of chocolate cake behind it, limped back to the old man on the wall. He didn’t like to mention that in the books he’d read, beggars by the wayside often turned out to be fairies in disguise. (None of the brothers, due to their history, necessarily thought fairies were a good thing.) When he found the strange old man still sitting on the wall, he handed him the chocolate cake and whispered, “Did what you said mean something? Or were you just talking?”
The beggar looked at the prince for a moment and then said, “Never drop a friend.”
“I won’t,” said the prince. “But why not?”
The old man’s eyes opened wide, and he looked up and down the road before whispering back, “It might hurt.”
This seemed to be about as much help as the old man was planning to be. Affretz thanked him and picked up the sandwich wrapper, which did NOT have a royal seal on it, murmuring, “I can’t help being ugly. But I can help being untidy.” Then he hobbled off to rejoin his brothers.
He found them at the top of a hill, looking down into a valley. “I’ve never read of such a thing,” Archels was saying.
“I’ve never even dreamed of such a thing,” said Alain.
“What is it?” asked Affretz, coming up beside them. Then he stared too.
The valley was filled with red flowers waving in the wind. No person, no tree, no stream, showed among the blossoms, just a tiny yellow streak which showed where the roadway passed through.
“Such perfume!” Affretz exclaimed, as they all started downhill. “It must be from the flowers.”
“Of course!” said Archels. “You don’t need to be the wisest prince in the world to know that.” He yawned.
Affretz yawned, too, since he was missing his nap. He wondered why his brothers were both yawning as well.
“Maybe it’s a trap!” he said. “This might be what the old man meant about flowers!”
Prince Alain pulled his horse to a stop. The horse yawned. “Of course!” said Archels. “I know what these are! They’re magic sleeping poppies. The perfume can put you to sleep forever if you breathe in too much of it!”
“We’ll never make it through,” yawned Affretz. “We’d better go back and go around.”
“They’re only flowers,” said Alain. “Take it in a run and we’ll get through in no time.” He charged forward, pushing poppies left and right. After eight strides, his horse stumbled and fell. The horse and Alain disappeared among the blossoms and did not get up.
Archels jumped down from his horse and peered down the roadway. “We must rescue Alain or he’ll sleep forever,” he yawned. “But how? The ancients, I’ve read, killed such poppies with snow.”
“We don’t have any snow,” Affretz told him, covering his mouth as he yawned again.
“I know, I know,” said his brother, with another yawn. “I’;m sure there’s another way. I just have to sit for a second and think what it is.”
“Good idea,” said Affretz.
“Sknerf,” said Archels, falling backward with his eyes shut.
This seemed very sensible to Affretz. If they all just slept on it, they’d surely cone up with an idea. Anyway, it was his turn to sleep, not theirs. The weather was warm, and the air was a bit sticky. He fumbled with his canteen for a drink of water.
To drink, he had to raise his visor. The poppies nearest him trembled. “Oh,” said Afretz, as an idea came to him.
Hooking his canteen to his belt again, he then reached up to remove his helmet. He sighed, just before he lifted it off.
Then, with a cry of “Yarrrrrrh!” he scowled his fiercest scowl down into the valley.
Such an ugly expression on such an ugly face was effective. Every single flower in the valley collapsed at once.
Unhooking his canteen again, he tossed water on his brothers and then on the face of the horses. “Oh, very good!” said Alain, after Affretz had explained. “That’s why we all three came on this adventure, so there would always be one of us to rescue the other two.”
“I didn’t think you’d be the first to do the rescuing,” said Archels, “But we’ll listen if you think of anything else the old man says that might make sense.”
“Glad to help,” said Affretz. “I can’t help being ugly, but I can help being useless.”
Mounting their horses, the brothers rode through the valley as quickly as they could. At the very edge, Affretz saw one poppy which had not wilted. He wondered if he should take it along, in case they met some monster which needed to be put to sleep. He decided not to bother. It would just be one more thing to carry.
Meanwhile, Alain and Archels were looking at something far worse than a valley filled with flowers. “If anyone ever wanted to look at the ugliest forest in the world,” said Alain, “I think this would be the best place for them to go.”
“This is known as the Forest of Dreary Dreams,” said Archels. “Most people stay away while they’re awake and come here only in their nightmares. No one knows if there is a horrible monster in the center or not, for no one who went in has ever come out.”
“That sounds like the sort of thing we rode out to see,” said Affretz. His brothers agreed.
The fact that fashions change is one of the surest rules of nature. Coming in a close second to THAT rule is the rule that we will laugh at the fashions which have passed. (And I think third place is that we all deny that we will ever laugh about what we’re wearing NOW. This says something about us, but why fight it as long as it gives us something to blog about.)
Today we are not going to consider such issues as the changing lengths of hems (as at the top of this column) and what years a handlebar mustache was the mark of a fashionable man. I thought we might look at some fashions of the past which make people today heave a sigh of relief at having missed THAT style. For example the slit skirt seen here could, with modification, has made numerous comebacks, and that absurd little handbag never really went OUR of style among some people. But the fashion which required an entire bird wing fixed to each side of a hat (and yes, they did use real bird wings) went south a long time ago and would cause too many shudders ever to migrate back into style. (I hope. That any prediction of future fashion will prove wrong is ANOTHER major rule of life.)
We have already blogged about the high starched detachable collar, a fashion so cursed by the wearers even when it was expected in daily life that its demise was mourned by no one (except possibly the makers of collar buttons.)
Yes, the foundation garment has never quite left us. But at least the fashions which decreed that every woman (and many men) simply HAD to wear one have slipped away.
And most of the figure-shaping undies of today are designed to be easier to put on, so that the corset lace beloved of no one but cartoonists and certain lingerie lovers have largely gone the way of the collar button.
We also, nowadays, would member put up with the walking stick, a feature of so many photos and drawings of men of the past that we stop seeing them after a while. Notice how fashionable this young man is, with his high collar, his spats, and his monocle. We may one day SEE detachable collars make a comeback, and even spats, while the monocle has never gone away in some circles. But that walking stick is NOT going to come back. We like our hands FREE (for holding our phone.)
I think the same thing applies to the parasol. (Look over at THIS young man, by the way. Was the pocket watch just a distant ancestor of the phones of today? I think so, but really, that’s a whole nother blog.)
The parasol does have its place in modern fashion, but like the monocle, it looks out of place as the bearer walks along a crowded street. Parasols are limited to photo shoots, or events where a person has the leisure to twirl (kind of like the handlebar mustache.)
And the hatpins you have probably noticed in this and the previous postcard are also largely gone, except as things you turn up at a flea market and say “What the heck is THIS for?” Maybe women don’t wear hats the way they once did, or maybe they don’t wear hair that would hold onto a hatpin, or maybe they’ve just found a better way to handle the whole problem. (Anyway, don’t you have to let that hat blow off anyhow if you’re planning a Meet Cute for your rom-com?)
Men as well as women wore shoes that buttoned way, way up, one of the reasons the buttonhook was invented. The only current use of a button hook is for people to find it at a flea market and mistake it for a hatpin. These buttons way down near the floor added extra complexity to getting dressed and undressed every day.
As, of course, did the long johns with the buttoned trap door at the back. These, also, can still be purchased, but most people just turn up the thermostat instead. And gone from most of modern civilization is the custom of being sewn into your flannels at the first frost and not being able to take them off again until the world thawed out months later. You may think the usual jokes about keeping your trap shut would mean this column has come to the end.
But nay, I say thee. Linger just long enough to consider that before the snap and the zipper were invented pants were secured with buttons. (Remark also on the spots for attaching your suspenders.) In fact, before the invention of elastic, underpants needed that same array of buttons. This allows me to revive an obsolete advertising slogan of the 1930s, when the first boxer shorts with a popular brand of snap closures hit the market. The man in the ad proudly announced, “I don’t need a wife! I wear shorts with Grippers!”
See what I mean about the relief at changing fashions? Until now, you’ve been able to avoid THAT.
Ah, the Interwebs are a wonderful place to spend an afternoon. You think you are looking up something, and find you have gone down another rabbit hole. This, of course, can happen in any style of research: print, audio, video, or digital. But out here in the Interwebs it is not only possible but even common, to find you are coming up out of an entirely different rabbit hole than the one you THOUGHT you were exploring.
Maybe I should have used the phrase “fishing hole” instead, since I was actually trying to find out where and when people say “tunafish” instead of merely “tuna”. And while I was at it I would find out why one of my favorite authors declined to use either term, preferring “tunny” instead.
But that hardly became even a shallow rabbit hole. Some people, not all of them, refer to “tuna” when it is swimming or when it is hauled aboard a boat, and use “tunafish” ONLY for tuna which comes out of a can. Hence you will find tunafish sandwiches and tunafish salad (if you hang out with those sorts of people) but never see a tunafish swimming in the wild. Tunny, it seems, is used mainly to refer to a specific species of tuna which is used primarily for oil instead of food. Why my hero insisted on using it may simply reflect his upbringing.
But as long as I was involved in fishy pursuits, I thought I’d just check on why some people say “anchovy” and some people say “anchuvvy”. This, too, was hardly even a detour. The online experts say the first is the American pronunciation and the second is the British. No puzzle, really. Then I thought I’d inquire why anchovies are used mainly on pizzas and sardines are seen in sandwiches, if at all. Are they really the same thing, like tangerines and Mandarin oranges?
NOW I was stepping into an area where dozens of experts want to explain your error. Before I knew it, I was swimming in a sea of anchovies, sardines, pilchards, and sprats. I had failed to mention before I went in that I objected to being seated in the sprat section, and there I was.
But it was a learning experience, especially for someone who has eaten anchovies exactly once, and has never even been offered sardines, pilchards, or sprats. With all of these, we are dealing with small oily species of herring. But assuming all herring are alike is like going to Chicago assuming everyone is a Cubs fan (good luck getting out of certain bars in one piece if you make THAT mistake.)
One website insisted that sardines are from the Mediterranean Sea while sardines come from the Atlantic Ocean. Another was just as determined to tell me that sardines come from the EASTERN Atlantic and anchovies from the WESTERN Atlantic. (They may have been mixing up their anchovies and pilchards.) A third website seemed to be on firmer ground (water?) by explaining that sardines are a lighter color: especially after they are canned, anchovies are much darker. But then they spoiled it by explaining to me about “white anchovies”, which throws off the whole explanation. Anyhow they also pointed out that sardines are usually canned in one piece, while anchovies are sliced into filets (though how the fishermen tell which is which, then, eludes me.)
Pursuing that line, however, several experts pointed out that the sardine has a more delicate, complex flavor, somewhat buttery, while anchovies are saltier and fishier. Several cooking sites suggested we CAN substitute anchovies for sardines in a recipe as long as we know to use fewer anchovies, But one epicure insisted this will NOT do, and suggested tuna (or tunafish, if you have to open a can) as a substitute for sardines.
If you are interested, they went on to say that pilchards are much fishier and saltier than sardines, and went on to explain the difference between the two species by pointing out that pilchards average about three centimeters longer than sardines, and are known by the scientific names “Sardina pilchardis”, while sardines are known by the scientific name “Sardina pilchardis” (yeah, I’m still working that one out. Beats having to take a ruler into the kitchen and measure fish.) I think the fact that you can go online and buy cans of “pilchard sardines” kind of gives the game away.
Anyhow, they ARE unanimous that anchovies and sardines are distant cousins, not twins, and that the Interwebs sees them primarily as SALAD ingredients rather than something for snacks, sandwiches, or pizza toppings. On the way, I also picked up the incredible information that “The lard sandwich is a popular dish in many regions of the United States and it is a favorite among people who enjoy eating lard.” Ours is a world filled with wonders.
Meanwhile, as mentioned before, Dimity was growing up into a beautiful princess in her own country. But a princess can no more sit around being beautiful all day than a prince.
As a small girl, Dimity was very curious, and she went on asking about things as she grew older. “Why does the food have to be carried all around the banquet hall before it’s brought to the table?” “Why does the guard who rides at the head of parades always have two blue feathers in his helmet?” “Why don’t we have walruses in the garden pool?”
The king and queen quickly ran out of answers, and took to sending the princess to the royal library and the royal archives, where she could hunt for answers among old books and documents. Dimity liked reading the old stories—the older the better—and when she couldn’t find answers in the library and archives, she would talk to the oldest people in the castle, or in the village not far from the castle gates. Sometimes she didn’t have any real question, and would just ask them what it was like to live in the old days, once upon a time. People were always glad to see Princess Dimity come to visit, as she was both very beautiful and interested in whatever they had to say, something they did not find in their own daughters and granddaughters. Besides, she usually brought some plum jelly or rhubarb conserve from the royal pantry.
One day, when Dimity was just seventeen, she went to visit Otruna Opscassel, who lived in a little cottage halfway between the castle gate and the village. Mistress Opscassel was exceedingly old, and remembered all sorts of stories of what life in the village was like when she was a little girl. Because this was so long ago, she of course sometimes got things mixed up.
“That was just after Bodell opened the candlestick shop next to Gludius the Baker,” she’d say. “Or was he still in Goose Street in those days? I can remember just how the shop looked inside, and the big silver candlestick he had hanging out front. But was he on Goose Street or Swan Way?”
“I always thought it was a terrible shame,” Dimity said, “That nobody made a good map of the village, with the names of all the shopkeepers and their shops.”
Mistress Opscassel sat back and slapped herself on the lap. “Ah, yes! That’s what you need!”
Dimity nodded, and spread more plum jelly on a muffin for her hostess. “Oh, yes. We do need that. A map.”
“That’s not what I meant,” the old lady replied, nodding thanks as she took the muffin. “You need my old quilt!”
Dimity didn’t feel the least bit cold. “Oh? Your quilt?”
With the muffinless hand, Mistress Opscassel raised her cane toward the ceiling. “When I was no older than Your Highness, the village made a quilt with one block for each shopkeeper, and they were all stitched together in the order they were in the streets. They had a drawing for the quilt and I won. It’s up in the loft, there, but it really ought to go into the royal archives. I was going to give it to my youngest granddaughter, but I expect she’ll just throw it away, since it got torn a bit at one corner the last time I washed it.”
“It’s in the loft?” Dimity looked to the narrow stairs along the wall.
“I put it there myself,” said Mistress Opscassel. “Should we call in Your Highness’s coachman to fetch it?”
But by now Dimity, afraid the old lady might change her mind, was halfway up the stairs. The attic was dark, except for a bit of light from a tiny grated opening. She tripped at the top stair. “Ouch!”
“The quilt’s right there on the left, in a bag!” called Mistress Opscassel. “I hope you didn’t step on my knitting needles. They’re up there somewhere, too,”
“I’m all right,” said the princess. “I just stubbed my toe. Maybe this bag…this must be it!”
She brought the quilt down, opened it out, and had Mistress Opscassel tell her all about each person who had helped make it. Then she carried it home to the royal archives, and told the archivist to make a proper label for it to show it had come from Mistress Opscassel, so that people would know what the village was like in the old lady’s girl days.
She was so excited about having secured such a valuable artifact that she could not sleep at all that night. In fact, long after midnight, she went down to the royal kitchen for a glass of milk and an apple dumpling.
While she was eating, the royal cook ran in waving a breadboard and shouting, “I told you to stay out of the…. Ah, Your Highness! I thought it would be one of the stableboys again.”
“That’s al right,” said Dimity. “You can’t have EVERYBODY stealing apple dumplings at this hour of the night.”
She took the dumpling and milk back to her bedroom, where she read through all the notes she’d written down about Mistress Opscassel and the quilt. Then she read a book. It was nt an interesting book, which was why she had chosen it, but it did not make her feel sleepy. She tried lying dow with her eyes closed, counting a hundred. All that happened was that she was wide awake with her eyes closed.
She could not sleep the next night, either, or the night after that. This might have gone on for numerous nights had the royal cook not mentioned to the queen that princess Dimity kept coming down to snitch dumplings after midnight. At about the same time, the royal librarian told the king that Dimity had read her way through almost the entire library. “And she always seems to need a new book at two in the morning,” he said. “I’m not getting enough sleep!”
His Majesty had started to say, “She’ll probably give that up when it’s apple picking season again” but when the librarian mentioned losing sleep, he turned pale and concluded the discussion. He thought for a moment, chewing the knuckle of his left thumb, and then went to talk to the Queen. She told him about the royal cook’s complaint. When she heard about the royal librarian, she also became very pale.
Not long afterward, she stepped up to Princess Dimity’s room, and asked, “Dimity, my dear, have you hurt either of your feet recently? The left one, say, or maybe the right one?”
The princess put out one dainty foot. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Oh, well, yes, now I think of it. I did stub a toe last week, but it was nothing. I didn’t even get a bruise.”
“Nothing,” whispered the queen. “And…and on what did you stub your toe, dearest?”
Dimity frowned, trying to recall. “It was dark there. There was a great big wooden box: as big as a horse trough, if they ever made horse troughs out of wood. “Why? Mother, do you need to sit down?”
The queen looked quite bloodless now. She put one hand on Dimity’s dressing table and swallowed twice. “And where…where would you find a wooden horse trough?”
“Oh, that’s only what it LOOKED like.” Dimity could tell from her mother’s face that there was some sort of problem, and she didn’t like to think Mistress Opscassel might get into trouble. “That was days ago anyway. Does it make a difference?”
Now the queen really did need to sit down. Setting her back against the back of the chair, she looked into her daughter’s eyes, blinked once, and told the whole story of the royal christening, the irritable fairy, and the curse of a wooden horse trough and unsleeping death.
The princess was simply amazed. “Did all that happen? Really? It’s like a fairy tale! You never told me!”
“We believed all the wooden horse troughs had been burnt,” the Queen said, shaking her head.
“And here I thought I had a plain old royal christening!” Dimity exclaimed. “Well, what do you know? A curse from a….” Before she finished the sentence, it dawned on her that there was more to this than just an exciting story.
“Well!” She leaned forward to take her mother’s right hand. “What do we do now?”
This seemed to enhearten the Queen, who took a deep breath. “Well, I suppose we must find you a prince.”
“Oh.” Dimity patted her mother’s hand. “I don’t have to marry him, do I? There were some other things I wanted to get done before I married anybody.”
“I don’t know,” her mother said. “I don’t recall the exact words of the curse. We’ll have to look it up.”
So the two of them went down to the royal archives and had the archivist fetch out all the documents dealing with Dimity’s first year, which Dimity herself had never read because they were far too new to be interesting. These, however, contained just the words spoken, and not necessarily all the conditions and provisions implied by them. They took the papers to the King, who called in all the wise men of his Council to discuss this urgent matter.
They argued and conferred, discussing comma placement and grammar, and finally, when the King started tapping a foot, announced that, in their opinion, Princes Dimity did not necessarily have to marry the prince involved, she WOULD, according to the curse, have to find him herself.
Dimity immediately searched the royal library for every book dealing with dashing princes or daring princes: where they were to be found, how to tell a real one from an impostor, how to attract them, and how they could be captured without damage. She checked not only the books but documents as well, and talked to everyone in the place who might know something about princes. She put a great deal of work into this, as she never had to stop to sleep, to the great inconvenience of the royal librarian and archivist.
“You’re entirely too busy,” the royal librarian told her, when she inquired why he had hidden inside a cupboard when she entered. “I do need my sleep, even if you don’t.”
Dimity did not know that, behind her back, people had started to refer to her as Unsleeping Beauty. But when the people you talked to kept yawning in your face, you couldn’t help but notice THAT. So Dimity decided to take all she knew out into the world, so her friends could sleep.
She filled a backpack with supplies. “I don’t need a sleeping bag: that’s for certain. Bread and cheese, and a little money to buy more when that’s gone. A nap or two, and a notebook, and a couple of these charms to keep off trolls and evil genies. I think I’m ready.”
Once packed for the journey, she kissed her parents goodbye. “I hope you can find a prince who will break the spell,” her father told her, holding her hand for quite a while.
Dimity smiled. “Or at least one who can keep up with me,” she said. And with that, she set off from the castle into the rising sun.
Earlier this week, we considered the classic saloon, as portrayed vintage postcards. We considered particularly the swinging doors, the bar rail, the spittoon, and free lunch. And we allowed as how there was one feature we needed to consider in a blog, that indispensable dispenser, the bartender.
The customer, of course, is the only really indispensable human feature of the bar in cartoons (and to the establishment’s accountants, to be sure.) But the bartender runs a close second. Waiters and cigarette girls belong to postcards set in nightclubs, and the barmaid, or female bartender, is seldom seen. Postcards set in bars generally demand a man behind the bar, frequently a robust soul in a white shirt, with a handlebar mustache above a ready smile. This depends on the kind of bar being portrayed, of course.
The bartender’s role in most postcards is similar to the job he performs in the three-dimensional world: straight man. He is there to react to what the customer says. Sometimes this is a mere question of etiquette and custom.
Sometimes it’s an observation on the weather, or the service, or the beverages on sale.
When a customer offers advice, the bartender is there to nod.
Action is reserved for times of need: as when a customer orders another drink and the bartender has a faint suspicion that this would be a bad idea. Knowing when and how to cut off a customer is nearly as important to a bartender as knowing what kind of glass to use for an Old-Fashioned. The postcard, as opposed to poems and songs in American literature, usually takes the side of the bartender in these discussions.
But the most important job of the retail mixologist is that straight man role. Listening to the concerns, worries, and opinions of the customers is the way to encourage return trade. The best bartenders have developed an ability to read body language without actually listening. The customer’s gestures and tone can tell a skilled listener whether they are telling a joke, sounding off about politics, complaining about their kids…it may be necessary to listen long enough to catch up a word or two for guidance (Is he complaining about his kids, his wife, his girlfriend, his boss?) but the best can respond with sympathetic nods or grunts and never take in the cascade of lubricated monologue.
The stress of actually listening might spill over otherwise. (I herewith apologize to any bartenders and/or bartender substitutes whose attention I may have monopolized over the years…though one of them said my conversation was very cost-effective. It saved them the expense of turning on the radio to provide background noise.)
We have several times in this space considered the actions of alcoholic beverages on the people seen on vintage postcards. This alcohol appears in many roles depending on the angle the artist has decided to take: the toast at a banquet, the beer keg in the cellar, those cans and bottles in the fridge, the still up in the hills. But no artist could produce pictures for picture postcards without being able to draw the good old saloon.
The good old saloon, which had become a vision in American nostalgia somewhere around World War I had certain features essential for its portrayal. One was the entrance: a set of double-hinged swinging doors to push through on your way in or be thrown through on your way out.
Known in the trade as “café doors” or “batwing doors”, these seem to have become associated with bars in the wild west and migrated eastward. They had a certain practical appeal: a LOT of saloons, despite what you’ll see in the movies (or on postcards) were tiny hole-in-the-wall establishments with packed crowds and no ventilation, so they allowed for a little air circulation. They also did not obstruct the sounds of laughter and song, which helped guide strangers to an establishment.
If you were wondering, the trademark saloon entrance did not make up the entire door system. In winter, or during closing hours, there was usually a second pair of doors that filled the whole doorway to keep the cold or the after-hours intruder, on the outside.
The smallest bars generally had the smallest variety (in the early days of the west, you paid for a shot of whatever they had on hand) but the tradition of different vessels for different beverages was essential at any saloon which wished to be considered a “drinking establishment”. (If this were a worthwhile column, we would consider the differing expectations of people who went to a “bar”, a “pub”, a “tavern”, a “saloon”, or…well, maybe after I get that genius grant I’ve applied for.
But people who reminisced about the good old saloon were less likely to recall what they drank than what they ate. The “free lunch” was a feature which New Orleans claims as its own invention, but which spread throughout the United States, becoming almost as essential to saloon nostalgia as those swinging doors. This “free lunch” was not free: you had to order a drink before you had access to it (the restrooms worked on the same principle). The pale descendants of the Victorian free lunch can be seen in the bowls of peanuts or pretzels or chips now seen in drinking establishments (often brought to the table AFTER you order.)
Once upon a time, though, there were wedges of cheese with a knife in them, big joints of meat with a knife there, sausages, eggs hardboiled or pickled, sauerkraut, pickles, pickled onions, stewed tomatoes, boiled potatoes…the variety was limited to the imagination of the owner, the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood, and the budget. This food array did, if you were wondering, cost more than the price of one beer would cover. But if you look over the possible menu items, you’ll see that salt was a major ingredient: starch was also important. The owners counted on their customers eating something to go with their drink and then having to order more drinks to wash down the food. The art of turning a profit by putting out free sides was delicate and arcane.
Coming down toward the floor, we find two more articles essential to a postcard saloon. One of these is the cuspidor, or, more vulgarly, the spittoon (there were less pleasant names for it, but we were just discussing food, after all.) The custom of chewing tobacco, at one time apparently nearly universal among Americans (visitors from Europe were always commenting on this), was on the wane, partly because cigarettes had become cheaper and more acceptable socially. But even though tobacco spitting gags were pretty much retired by the time postcards came along (thank goodness), the habit itself never disappeared, and the saloon liked to be known as a place where men could relax and indulge in habits that society (and or wives) didn’t care to see could be indulged. (This also explains all the pin-ups you see tacked to walls in postcard bars, but that’s a whole nother blog.)
And no self-respecting cartoon bar could do without the footrail any more than they could the spittoon. These were designed to make it more comfortable for a man to stand for hours at the bar, and went right on to the Modern Era (defined as the time when it became legal for women to order a drink right at the bar. Before that they had to sit at a table while a man brought the drinks over.)
We have not hit ALL the cliches of the old-time saloon, of course: there’s that big mirror, the piano player, the poker tables, the “two doors” (restrooms), the…but it is important to recall that not EVERY drinking establishment had all these things at the time, as seen above. All a saloon really needed was alcohol, a counter to sell it across, and one other thing. But that will be discussed on Friday.
That was a good year for fairies. News of how Sleeping Beauty’s christening had gone wrong spread far and wide, and the story of princess Dimity’s christening added to the buzz. Any king or queen with a new baby sent invitations to every fairy imaginable, come the christening. In one land, where the queen had been delivered of three baby boys, each and every fairy was invited to attend, with twenty-seven extra places laid at the tables so as to honor any fairy the court scribes had forgotten but who showed up anyhow.
At the same time however, the Fairy Queen had called her court together to work things out. “What with every fairy having to give every prince or princess a present,” she said, “There are just too many chances for a fairy who’s having a bad day doing someone a nasty turn, and giving us all a bad name. Besides, I’m worn out from having to attend all those parties AND think up some new present. I can’t get any other work done. Teeth are piling up under pillows. From now on, one fairy will be sent to take a gift from all of us. This fairy shall be known as a Fairy Godmother.”
When this was explained to the queen with three sons, she exclaimed, “What an excellent notion! I won’t have to worry so much about doing or saying the wrong thing and maybe upsetting one out of a hundred fairies!”
Three Fairy Godmothers, then, attended the christening of the three new princes, each lining up at the bedside of the prince chosen for her. The fairy who stood by the cradle of Prince Alain was named Orchid. She gazed at the small prince and declared, “He shall be the handsomest prince in all the world.” The other guests nodded their approval. and the Queen smiled.
A fairy named Fennel stood next to the cradle where Prince Archels was sleeping. She tapped her wand on the railing and said, “He shall be the strongest prince in all the world.” The court applauded softly, so as not to wake little Archels.
Then a fairy named Snowdrop leaned over the third cradle, where Prince Affretz waited, looking around and blinking at everything. Waving her wand over the cradle, she announced, “He will be the ugliest prince in all the world. And for a while, he’s going to have a really serious limp, too, I think.”
Everyone stared. No one could remember doing anything to upset her. But she just smiled, and then the three fairies disappeared, taking with them the Queen’s gifts.
Rues were rules, so that was all there was to the fairy gifts: no one could come along and make amendments to what Snowdrop had given Prince Affretz. The Queen ordered her soldiers out, commanding them to find Snowdrop and ask what was meant by such a gift. But no one saw Snowdrop for many years.
Everyone could see, as the princes grew up, that the fairies had meant exactly what they said. Prince Alain was so amazingly beautiful that for so long as he lived, he never saw a butterfly. Butterflies were so ashamed of their own looks when he was around that they flew away to hide. Prince Archels was so strong that four soldiers accompanied him whenever he played on the lawn, to keep him from accidentally knocking the castle over. And Prince Affretz was so tremendously ugly that people used to follow him when he went for a walk, begging him to come around to their garden and scare the crows away.
The Queen knew better than to leave everything to the fairies, og course. Prince Alan had training from the best soldiers in the kingdom, so that he was not merely good-looking, but also brave. “Too many soldiers have bright buttons on their tunics but no courage inside,” she said,.
Prince Archels was attended by numerous teachers and professors, to nake sure he was not only strong but smart. “Too many strong men have muscles in their arms and nothing in their heads,” the Queen said.
And she simply assigned any spare academicians or wise men to study with Prince Affretz. “He needs any help he can get,” his mother said. So he took singing lessons, and dancing lessons, and went to classes on etiquette and geography. He learned swordsmanship and penmanship, interior design and gardening. Astronomers came to speak with him about the moon and stars, and cobblers came to show him how shoes were made.
As the brothers talked to each other about what they’d learned, they all grew up into pretty good princes. When prince Alain rode his horse through the streets, people would sigh, “Oh what a prince is our Prince Alain! He’s so handsome and brave!”
“Prince Archels!” they would shout, when the second brother rode among them, “Prince Archels! Don’t you just adore him? He’s so strong and intelligent!”
And when Prince Affretz rode down the street, his horse wearing special blinkers so it wouldn’t glance back and see him, people would sigh, “Well, there goes that nice Prince Affretz. Pity he’s uglier than a mudtoad.”
Other princes might have grown angry, or envious, but Affretz had been much taught about manners and logic, so he threw no tantrums. “I can’t help being ugly,” he said, “But I can make up my own mind about being nasty.”
So when there was a ball and no one would dance with Prince Affretz because he was so ferociously ugly, and limped besides, he simply smiled (which made things worse.) Then he’d go over to sit with the musicians and play any instrument that would hide his face.
One day, the three brothers decided it was high time they headed out into the world to seek some of their fortunes. “I’m tired of staying around the castle doing good deeds,” said Prince Alain. “Besides, everyone around here has already seen all my outfits. I think I should look up some dangerous places and find out if dragons are as dangerous as everyone says. It’ll be a change from all the duchesses who want to dance with me all the time.”
“I’ll ride with you,” said Archels. “I’ve read about other countries, but I’ve never seen one up close. Besides, when I dance with a duchess, I almost always break at least one of her ribs.”
Prince Affretz nodded. “We might as well all go. I don’t suppose the duchesses will miss me much.”
The Queen, learning of their plan, gave them permission to go. “You will learn things you wouldn’t at home,” she said. “But take care of yourselves, since one day you need to take over things around here.”
Putting on their finest armor, the princes rode out from the castle. Each rode one of the best horses in the stables, and were followed by a fourth horse, pulling a wagon. So eager were the brothers to see new lands and make the acquaintance of dragons that for the first couple of days they would not stop to make camp, one brother sleeping in the wagon while the other two led the way, and eating a quick meal before mounting a horse and giving another brother a turn in the wagon. In this way, they could keep moving until familiar lands were left behind and there was a chance to find something interesting.
It wasn’t until the third day that Affretz, climbing into his saddle, asked, “Where are we going, by the way?”
“Good question,” said Alain. He turned to his brother Archels. “You picked the road. Is it leading anywhere in particular?”
“I have read,” said Archels, “That away to the west there is a high, dark castle under a curse. A high, bitter forest of thorns stands around it, and no one has come out of that place for seventeen years now. I thought we might go have a look at that.”
“Sounds like trouble,” said Affretz. “Good.” And the three brothers continued westward.
In our last dissertation in this space, we considered the image of the placid milk cow, and how postcard artists revealed a darker side, showing rebelliousness of which city folk had never herd. (No, I will NOT apologize. You knew what blog this was when you clicked on it.
This time, we will look into the lives of, primarily, city folk who were not expecting cows to be anything more than rural decorations, devoted to eating buttercups, providing butter for the morning muffin, and acting as calm reminders that city folk had left the hazardous, random ways of the city for safer zones. Sometimes, this sudden appearance of a cow is presumably pleasant, as in the many “deluded lover” postcards which appeared on postcards for well over seventy years.
Both sexes were liable to this delusion. But we’ve discussed that whole phenomenon hereintofore. (Cows, by the way, seem to be the most common actors in this gag, though pigs, bears, and even elephants sometimes take on the job. Goats, I suppose, were too ornery to be used in that context, but what did the postcard artists have against, say, sheep? This suggestion of a thesis or dissertation topic is offered without charge. Just one of the services your Uncle Blogsy provides.)
More often, though, the context of unexpected cows comes when city folk trespass in a meadow. THIS job is often taken by the bull, a subject also discussed with some brilliance in this space before today. (No, I do not employ guest bloggers. You’re staying after class and drawing cows one after an udder.)
Tramps are often shown dodging bulls I fields, but often the trespassers are clueless city tourists who assumed the cows were no more likely to come after them than the trees or fence posts they wind up using as shelter.
These trespassers are sometimes taking a shortcut while walking out in the country, and make the acquaintance of the bull right away. Other tourists, however, have time to make themselves comfortable on a random patch of grass before they attract attention. They find this unreasonable.
After all, why would any animal object to the presence of a harmless tourist, just trying to enjoy the great outdoors, and perhaps record the moment for that photo album back home.
Or even record the sweet, dreamy peacefulness of the pasture for viewers in an art gallery or museum. Some cattle have no regard for their artistic legacy.
Perhaps SOME of the blame should be applied to the city folk themselves. They came out to enjoy the sights and sounds of the country, and look at the farm animals, even bringing a tent so they can enjoy those sights and sounds through the night. So why the shock on hearing those sounds and seeing those sights? What did they THINK cows did of an evening?
After all, the city folk are just as exotic to the cows as the cows are to the city folk. In fact, um, I suppose this particular postcard sold on the basis of people who wanted to look at these city folk, rather than the fearsome, alien silhouette on the tent wall. But everybody to their taste, as the old lady…yeah, another Dickens joke. Were you expecting Shakespeare in this spot?
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