The Era -- Day By Day

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

I don't imagine, actually, that there's any dust on that book at all.

There's nothing shady about buying horse meat from a furnace repair shop.

"Oh well, I'd better check in and see if the kids need any help with that tire scalper."

Christmas must be a pretty bleak time of year if you're genuinely excited about fruitcake.

THEY'VE got a compass???

"Sorry, dear boy, the meat shortage you know..."

"OH I DON'T WANT NO MORE OF AAAAAAARMEEEEEE LIFE...."

Ya gotta go along to get along, kid.

"Um, didn't you have a sister before? A nice sister? How's your sister?"

As long as you're there, Plushie, might as well get down a few bets...

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Our dear colonel is wearing a nice warm Irvin jacket. Too much the erasure sure it is.

 

[Fading Fast]

(Sigh, kids today. I miss the days when Mr. Schroth's biggest crusade was for first-run movies.)
...

If I was the foot-stomping crying blonde, I think I'd rather they kept my husband locked up.

This paving scandal moves through he courts very slowly, especially for 1942 justice.

...

("Sorry, pal," says Sanford J. Claus to the advertising director for Old Golds. "I told you straight out I don't sign exclusive contracts with ANYBODY. Now I'm sorry, but I gotta go. The rep from Philip Morris is here.")
...

This is what happens when cultural icons slip into the public domain.

...

Reader Louis M. Goren takes note of recent news items indicating that Nazi Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler, acting on the orders of Adolf Hitler, is conducting a massacre of the Jews in which millions have already been put to death. "Such ghoulish extermination of the innocent has no parallel in modern history," he declares. "Let us work, fight, and pray to hasten the day of final victory and rescue Europe and its people from the clutches of this evil."
...

"Buh, buh, buh we didn't know."

...

(So I guess "Mary Worth" has officially shifted the Sunday page from comedy relief hijinks with Bill and the kids to a continuation of the weekday plot, and I guess that means we can get used to Monday being the same thing from a different angle. In fact, maybe the whole week ahead will be just Angel falling down stairs again and again and again.)
...

I know I read that the government discouraged women form having the peek-a-boo hairstyle when engaged in war work as it could be dangerous, QED.

...

There's nothing shady about buying horse meat from a furnace repair shop.
...

The furnace repair shop just slightly outbid Davega for the horse meat.

...

Christmas must be a pretty bleak time of year if you're genuinely excited about fruitcake.
...

Just from what I've read and seen in movies, fruitcake wasn't a joke back in the '40s or '50s or even the '60s. I think it was after that, that it starting getting mocked. That said, I haven't read anything specific on it, so I could very well be wrong. Does anyone know when the fruitcake jokes first became a pop-culture thing?

...

THEY'VE got a compass???
...

I'd feel better for their sakes if Annie was with them.

...

As long as you're there, Plushie, might as well get down a few bets...

Last night I was watching the 1950 Jimmy Stewart movie "Jackpot" and there's a scene where Stewart goes into a candy store that we see is run by a bored older man who has let his stock run down, but when Stewart gives him the right "code" name, he lets Stewart pass through to the back room that is a large and active betting parlor. "Jackpot" is a family entertainment movie, so the candy-store/gambling-parlor thing clearly was as open a secret as there could be in America at that time.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The earliest joking reference to old fruitcake/stale fruitcake at Christmas that I've come across in a bit of quick searching dates to 1928, but it doesn't appear to have really become a proto-meme until the 70s, by which time all that stale fruticake from the 20s was really getting rank.

Santa won't really have totally sold out until we see him show up holding a Pepsi.

 

[PrivateEye]

The earliest joking reference to old fruitcake/stale fruitcake at Christmas that I've come across in a bit of quick searching dates to 1928, but it doesn't appear to have really become a proto-meme until the 70s, by which time all that stale fruticake from the 20s was really getting rank.

Santa won't really have totally sold out until we see him show up holding a Pepsi.

A quality, homemade fruitcake, though a rarity, can actually be very good!

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Fruitcake, done right is quite the treat. Add a good coffee with book and cozy fire.

 

[LizzieMaine]

("'At Missus Boehfitz is more unnehstanin' t'en I woulda been," sighs Sally. "I lef' Leonora inna strolleh outsida Bohack's t'utteh day, an'nis dame is lookin' atteh funny, an' I tell 'eh 'take a pitcheh, lady, it'll last longeh!'" "Y'shudda cawled a cop," says Joe. "Lotta kidnappehs aroun'." "Nah," says Sally. "Leonora handled it -- she t'rew her bot'l atta dame, hitteh right b'tweena shouldeh blades." "Attaway, kiddo," chuckles Joe. "Woik onnat fas'bawl, maybe be t'fois' goil pitcheh f' t' Dodgehs!" "Yeah," says Sally, "'cept I got a ticket f'leavin' broken glass onna sidewawk. I ASK YA!")

Red Army troops have regained control of another village southwest of Stalingrad today, killing 3000 frantically-counterattacking Germans over the past day to seize several important hills surrounding the village, as well as the village itself. More than 500 Nazis were mowed down as the Soviets stormed into the village. Besides the loss of men, the Germans lost 44 tanks and 47 guns in the day's action. Meanwhile, Soviet forces have surrounded a German garrison at Velikie Luki, 250 miles west and slightly north of Moscow, and are "systematically destroying it."

Pierre Laval is to confer with Adolf Hitler in the next few days to agree to German "advisors" being stationed in all departments of the Vichy Government, and to negotiate the formation of a new Vichy army by German "experts." Reports reaching Madrid state that Laval has already left for Berlin where he will meet with Hitler and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. Reports from Madrid state that when civil servants in Vichy learned of these developments, many of them locked their desks, disposed of the keys, and left -- leaving signs on their office doors reading "Closed Indefinitely." French Army officers invited to resume duty in a new Army under German control are reported to have "indignantly refused." Laval is quoted as saying to Vichy newspapermen that he intends to move "completely without pity" against anyone who opposes his plans for closer collaboration between the Vichy regime and Germany.

(Are there REALLY enough Joseph Conrad enthusiasts in Brooklyn to make this worthwhile? And why no leather-bound collection of the works of Gypsy Rose Lee?)

Gift-box racketeers today received a practical warning of what awaits them for short-weighing their merchandise, as Magistrate Charles Hirsimaki in Municipal Term Court fined a Manhattan candy-store operator and one of his clerks for selling a half pound of nuts in a package labeled one pound. Store owner Savas Highland, age 58, of 1454 Broadway was fined $200 for that violation, and his clerk, 56-year-old Alexander Bobotas, was fined $100 for ringing up the sale. "The law provides the public is entitled to protection against thievery of this type," declared the Magistrate. "Maybe these penalties will curb other chislers." The case is the first to come to trial since the Department of Markets declared a crackdown on sharp operators who package small quantities of goods in large, impressive gift packages intended to be sent to servicemen. Mayor LaGuardia ordered the Department into action in the wake of a Brooklyn Eagle expose of the practice two weeks ago.

The first application under new amendments of a law intended to protect the families of servicemen from bank foreclosures will be heard tomorrow in Jamaica by Supreme Court Justice Peter M. Daly. The hearing will seek to dismiss a foreclosure order against Mrs. Johanna Ormond by the Nassau Savings and Loan Association of Brooklyn over a missed $35 mortgage payment for her home at 101-29 133rd Street in Richmond Hill. Mrs Ormond is the mother of 25-year-old Sgt. James Lawrence Gibbons, now serving with the Army overseas, and had been receiving a $20 monthly relief allowance from the Army until the payments ceased in September. She has been living on a $60 monthly pension from the telephone company drawn by her husband, who had been retired due to illness, and all of that money is spent on the upkeep of the family, which includes four other children. The Legal Aid Committee of the Queens County Bar Association is providing legal counsel for Mrs. Ormond in the case.

Seven thousand members of the Queens County American Legion have pledged to fight Mayor LaGuardia's citywide ban on bingo. A resolution representing the sentiments of the 42 Legion posts in Queens declares that the Legion will take all steps necessary to "prevent the city of New York from interfering with bingo games conducted by the Legion without the aid of outside promoters." The resolution further declares that the proceeds from such games have always been used for charitable or war-support purposes.

(Well, fine, but shouldn't they be wearing zoot suits?)

In Bisbee, Arizona, the vivacious red-haired daughter of an Army colonel goes on trial today for the murder of Captain David Carr, who married her without telling her that he had three other wives. Twenty-one-year-old Margaret Herlihy found out about one of those wives last August 15th, and pumped five shots into Carr as he scrambled to hide under a bed. Miss Herlihy, daughter of Col. Edward Herlihy, who had been Capt. Carr's commanding officer at nearby Fort Huachuca. maintains that the shooting was self defense, after Carr had beaten and choked her.

The raging controversy over the lack of discipline in city schools that came to a head again last week in Brooklyn, when a teacher at P. S. 93 was struck by the stepmother of a pupil received the attention yesterday of the Delegate Assembly of United Schools. In a letter to the Brooklyn Eagle, organization president Henry Allen strongly denied that there has been a breakdown of school discipline and morale, and attributed the present problems to the "reflection of outside conditions of war and insecurity, intensified by cuts in teaching personnel and in the budgets of all social service agencies dealing with the problems of child welfare." Mr. Allen declared it unfortunate that the solution to the present problem is considered to be "police action," calling instead for an increase in the number of teachers in order that all students may receive individual attention. He also called for the expansion of child welfare agencies.

Meanwhile, at a hearing on juvenile delinquency held in the Manhattan offices of the New York State Department of Social Welfare, solutions ranging from more religious instruction in the home to a sunset curfew for all juvenile in the city to the establishment of a "floor of income thru which our families will not fall into a basement of destitution" were proposed for consideration. Action was also urged to keep pornographic literature out of the hands of children, given the increase noted in juvenile venereal disease, pregnancy, and prostitution. Associate Superintendant of Schools Frank J. O'Brien noted the general sentiment of the hearing by arguing that present responses to the question of delinquency have proven "insufficient, because we are using yesterday's formula in a more complex age," and adding that many parents today have, themselves, inadequate training for what is fast becoming a profession as much as a responsibility.

The Board of Education and the Department of Health were today drawing up plans for a program of instruction in sex hygiene to be given to students between the ages of 15 and 19. Health Commissioner Dr. Ernest L. Stebbins could not specify how the course will be taught, or where it will be taught, but he did emphasize that it will be done under Health Department control, and that it will not be a part of the school curriculum.

("But just the same, I'm sure there's plenty a live-wire traveling salesman can do in the Army!")

(Well, yeah, with a rubber shortage, a cork shortage, and a wool shortage, the manufacture of baseballs just might not be the highest priority. And spring training in the North next year? Well, there's always Yonkers.)

Members of the Midwood Civic League have appealed to Mayor LaGuardia to do something about the "inhuman conditions" now prevalent on borough transit facilities. Among the problems cited are the failure of bus and trolley conductors to call out stops during blackouts, the infrequency of bus schedules compared to the trolley routes they replaced, the discontinuance of all short-run trolley lines east of Flatbush Avenue, and the unacceptably congested conditions during rush hour at the Franklin Avenue station given the crowds changing between the Fulton IND and Brighton BMT lines by way of a single narrow stairway.

Ed Wynn will be back on Broadway with a new revue early next year. Rehearsals for the new show, to be produced by New Yorker cartoonist Peter Arno, are to begin next month. Wynn, the stage's longtime "Perfect Fool," was last seen in "Laugh Town Laugh" and "Boys and Girls Together," but has spent the present theatrical season performing at military camps.

"Strip For Action" will end its run at the National Theatre on January 3rd. The producers stress that the play by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse is not closing due to the censorship campaign that shut down "Wine, Women, and Song," but rather because the show isn't taking in enough money at the box office to keep going.

("Fool! You should have KICKED!")

(Uncle Jeff paints those big posters they put in front of theatres. You know the kind.)

(THAT's the "Dan Dunn" we know and love!)

(NOTHING'S TOO GOOD FOR AMERICA'S NUMBER ONE HERO DOG!)

("WHAT?? WHAT??? WE'RE LAYING OUT THE CLASSIFIEDS!")

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

A drunk and his bear? Hey Sturges, here's a great idea for a script.

"There!" says Jimmy Savo. "They'll never know!"

Ahhhh, there's always a bright side.

"Ah, well. Down the hatch. Gee, wish I had some ginger ale."

Never try to put one over on Ma!

Now here's a guy who really deserves to get tied up in a cellar.

"And not only that, we're out of gas. All right, we camp here. Break out the rations. Uh-oh..."

I TOTALLY MEANT TO DO THIS

Hey, it takes a lot of practice to move in perfect sync like that.

Shadow's too short, and Beezie's too fat. But Lilacs and Poison better get their affairs in order.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Oh, and...

"Hey, I bet there's some guys down in the club car. Where's my dice?"

 

[Fading Fast]

...

Pierre Laval is to confer with Adolf Hitler in the next few days to agree to German "advisors" being stationed in all departments of the Vichy Government, and to negotiate the formation of a new Vichy army by German "experts." Reports reaching Madrid state that Laval has already left for Berlin where he will meet with Hitler and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. Reports from Madrid state that when civil servants in Vichy learned of these developments, many of them locked their desks, disposed of the keys, and left -- leaving signs on their office doors reading "Closed Indefinitely." French Army officers invited to resume duty in a new Army under German control are reported to have "indignantly refused." Laval is quoted as saying to Vichy newspapermen that he intends to move "completely without pity" against anyone who opposes his plans for closer collaboration between the Vichy regime and Germany.
...

...

Gift-box racketeers today received a practical warning of what awaits them for short-weighing their merchandise, as Magistrate Charles Hirsimaki in Municipal Term Court fined a Manhattan candy-store operator and one of his clerks for selling a half pound of nuts in a package labeled one pound. Store owner Savas Highland, age 58, of 1454 Broadway was fined $200 for that violation, and his clerk, 56-year-old Alexander Bobotas, was fined $100 for ringing up the sale. "The law provides the public is entitled to protection against thievery of this type," declared the Magistrate. "Maybe these penalties will curb other chislers." The case is the first to come to trial since the Department of Markets declared a crackdown on sharp operators who package small quantities of goods in large, impressive gift packages intended to be sent to servicemen. Mayor LaGuardia ordered the Department into action in the wake of a Brooklyn Eagle expose of the practice two weeks ago.
...

I often make fun of LaGuardia for focusing on too-many small issues (which he does), but you can't accuse the man of not trying and, sometimes, his arrow hits the mark perfectly.

...

In Bisbee, Arizona, the vivacious red-haired daughter of an Army colonel goes on trial today for the murder of Captain David Carr, who married her without telling her that he had three other wives. Twenty-one-year-old Margaret Herlihy found out about one of those wives last August 15th, and pumped five shots into Carr as he scrambled to hide under a bed. Miss Herlihy, daughter of Col. Edward Herlihy, who had been Capt. Carr's commanding officer at nearby Fort Huachuca. maintains that the shooting was self defense, after Carr had beaten and choked her.
...

We see it time and again, apparently, polygamy was a real problem in the 1940s.

...

The Board of Education and the Department of Health were today drawing up plans for a program of instruction in sex hygiene to be given to students between the ages of 15 and 19. Health Commissioner Dr. Ernest L. Stebbins could not specify how the course will be taught, or where it will be taught, but he did emphasize that it will be done under Health Department control, and that it will not be a part of the school curriculum.
...

When asked if reports that the Slither sisters would be technical advisors to the new course, Health Commissioner Dr. Stebbins responded with a curt "no comment" [As he discretely picked and discarded a curly blonde hair from his lapel]

...

("WHAT?? WHAT??? WE'RE LAYING OUT THE CLASSIFIEDS!")

Doesn't anybody in 1942 know how to pull down a shade?

...

"And not only that, we're out of gas. All right, we camp here. Break out the rations. Uh-oh..."
...

I think this is the first comicstrip we've seen so far portraying the foot-soldiers and sergeants (as opposed to the brass) as incompetent. This entire mission has been unprofessionally planned and executed from the start. It's frighteningly haphazard. Parents with boys in the service can't be enjoying this.

...

Hey, it takes a lot of practice to move in perfect sync like that.
...

I'm guessing they get a lot of practice moving in sync.

Oh, and...

"Hey, I bet there's some guys down in the club car. Where's my dice?"

"Two in every lower berth."

Well, that's got to be, umm, cozy?

"Hey, could you move your sidearm, it's poking me in the back?"
"That's not my sidearm."

 

[PrivateEye]

In Bisbee, Arizona, the vivacious red-haired daughter of an Army colonel goes on trial today for the murder of Captain David Carr, who married her without telling her that he had three other wives. Twenty-one-year-old Margaret Herlihy found out about one of those wives last August 15th, and pumped five shots into Carr as he scrambled to hide under a bed. Miss Herlihy, daughter of Col. Edward Herlihy, who had been Capt. Carr's commanding officer at nearby Fort Huachuca. maintains that the shooting was self defense, after Carr had beaten and choked her.

Self-defense may be tough to sell when he was trying to hide under the bed, but it's arguably justified regardless.

 

[Fading Fast]

Self-defense may be tough to sell when he was trying to hide under the bed, but it's arguably justified regardless.

Bette Davis in "The Letter" also said it was self defense.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Self-defense may be tough to sell when he was trying to hide under the bed, but it's arguably justified regardless.

I read law decades past with my BA Law course at Cambridge and although qualified to sit Solicitors for bar
never quite seemed to register SQE. Cambridge, regiment, for the City then after, so never a real wig silk.
But wig or none this chapter of polygamist shot inside marital bedroom or another room while crawling beneath
bed is the goods. Young Miss Herlihy is a vengeful lass by likes. She more likely had flight open her. Killed the man,
and then there is the real scrambled eggs. Why not flee when occasion allowed?

 

[LizzieMaine]

("Solly useta tell me t'eah was allehgatehs inna seweh," comments Joe. "Sez he seen one oncet." "When was Solly eveh inneh seweh," scoffs Sally, shooing Stella the Cat away from the spoonful of Leonora's beets that has just landed on the floor. "Well," explains Joe, "he fell in. It was afteh woik, an' we was havin' a beeeh oveh t' one a' t'em jernts on Graham Aveneh, an' we was leavin' an' Solly fell in a open manhole." "How many beeehs wazzis?" queries Sally with a gimlet gaze. "Oh, I dunno," demurs Joe. "I jus'hadt' one, but, you y'know, Solly, well, he had enough..." "How much enough?" "I guess -- um -- enough t'see allehgatehs inna seweh.")

The 77th Congress, which began its work in peace, finishes today in the midst of a war to which it has pledged all of the country's resources for victory. Sin die adjournment is scheduled for the close of business today in both the House and the Senate, as the 77th establishes a new record for the longest service of any Congress. Some measure of the cost of the war so far can be found in the fact that war appropriations alone over the past two years exceed, by $17,000,000,000, the total appropriations of the entire Fderal Government over the past 150 years combined.

A joint declaration by the United Nations condemning Nazi outrages against the Jews and promising stern punishment will soon be issued, it was learned today. It was already understod that the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union have reached an accord on the form of the declaration, and other members of the United Nations are expected to adhere to it. It has also been learned in Washington that Adolf Hitler, realizing the revulsion his acts against the Jews have created is attempting to unload the guilt on the German nation as a whole.

The old-fashioned dinner pail is giving way, in the war factories of Great Britain, to the clean, streamlined factory canteen -- and the workingmen of our British ally are the better for it. So declared Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt today before an audience of several hundred in Manhattan. Speaking to a conference of the Joint Legislative Committee on Nutrition at the State Office Building, the First Lady described seeing very few workmen, mostly older men, carrying their lunch to work from home -- with the majority partaking of the nutritious hot meals provided in factory canteens. Mrs. Roosevelt observed that the food is "dull, very dull," but it is also better balanced than a dinner pail lunch, at a cost of about twenty cents for a three-course meal.

In Boston, a mysterious fire tore thru two buildings in the city's shopping district yesterday, injuring 57 Coast Guardsmen and 2 fire fighters, and causing damage that may reach $1,000,000. Thirty businesses were destroyed or severely damaged by flames, smoke, and water, in a fire coming just 17 days after the horrific conflagration at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub that has so far taken 488 lives, and a month after a fire in East Boston that killed six firemen and injured 40 other persons. The injured Coast Guardsmen were brought in to help fight the fire, after the ranks of the city's fire department were thinned by the draft and by injuries suffered in the previous two conflagrations. The fire yesterday started in the basement of Sallinger's, a women's speciality store, and swept quickly thru the store's expensive stock of Christmas furs.

Three former employees of the Railway Express Agency in Queens were found guilty yesterday of grand larceny in the theft of $39,484 in diamonds from the Agency's terminal in Long Island City. The jury in Queens County Court deliberated for twenty minutes before returning verdicts in the case of 39-year-old Samuel Forgash of the Bronx, 39-year-old Joseph Kinsella of Woodside, and 41-year-old Nicholas G. O'Brien of Astoria. They will be sentenced on December 22. Several other Railway Express employees pleaded guilty to grand larceny charges, and one other to charges of receiving stolen property, relating to the theft of silk underwear and a radio from parcels at the terminal.

(Bingo for sale at Sears? DON'T LET BUTCH FIND OUT!)

(Sarcasm becomes you, Mr. Pollock.)

Brooklyn City Councilman Peter V. Cacchione writes in to defend the Council's recent decision to provide free subway rides to servicemen, and refutes charges by the Mayor and the Board of Transportation that the granting of free rides will cost the city up to $800,000 in the installation of new turnstiles and register cloc"tks, and the hiring of up to 400 additional clerks. He points out that the Board of Transportation some 10,000,000 special tokens marked "One Fare -- IRT" which were purchased for use in the event of a fare increase, and he says these tokens could easily be distributed to servicemen at the same USO centers already used to distribute free tickets to shows, sporting events, and other affairs. They could easily be exchanged for nickels at any subway or trolley station and the expense of administering such a program would be negiligible. "Certainly our armed forces receive a little enough in pay now," he concludes, "and free rides could be one of those little things that creates stronger morale."


(It's like Mr. Lichty is a visitor from the future.)

("Ah do love the fans, though," proclaims Dixie. "Wah, we got us this one felluh's out to the plant tells me his wife done went inta labuh durin' a game 'gainst th' Giahnts, an' he kep' runnin' out t'check th' sco'! Y'all cain' make that up, no suh. An' then he says this boy Pete Cosc'ra't, we use' to have heah, this boy done got traded away, wah, Pete done run inta this felluh's wife onnuh stayuhs inna Prospec' Pawrk station one time, an' evuh since that day wah, she done covuh'd t' kitchen wawl with newspapuh clippin's an' pic'chuh of' 'im an' all whut not. Yuh jes' don' FINE fans lahk that nowhur's else, I tell you whut. But no, I ain' holdin' out, no suh. Say, I wonnuh if theyuh's anybody clippin' MAH pic'chuh outuh t' papuh like that?")

The Yankee Network, 21-station New England radio combine helmed by WNAC in Boston, has been purchased by the General Tire and Rubber Corporation of Akron, Ohio. The deal, which gives the tire firm ownership of the fifth largest radio network in America, "figures in the postwar expansion plans of the company," according to General Tire president William O'Neill. The purchase also gives General a 6 percent share in the ownership of the coast-to-coast Mutual Broadcasting System.

("What an opportunity! BOTH OF MY RIVALS -- GONE AT ONCE! IT IS DESTINY, I tell you! DESTINY!")


(Suddenly, Uncle Jeff suffered a massive coronary and died. NEXT STORY.)

("Now just a minute, this is going too far! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I PAID FOR THOSE GLOVES?")

("Just a walk-on part, eh? I'll SHOW HIM!")

("Other things? I guess so. So -- you think Walker is really holding out?"")

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

Ew.

Ew, lkewise.

After all, how long has it been since you were in a good death trap?

"And not only that, the only job he can get is selling brushes!"

"And I might as well come clean -- I'm just a supply sergeant. So if you need your pants taken in, I can do that."

Mr. Gray really does listen to too many soap operas.

"Oh, and get that coat fumigated. I can see the moths crawling from here.'

"You wouldn't have liked it anyway, canned corned beef hash..."


It takes real skill to hold a cigar and a coffee cup like that.

Pipdyke sure does change his mind fast.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

I had thought the dear colonel bound for the heavens. And I see yet another matrimonial spat pistol at ready.

 

[Fading Fast]

("Solly useta tell me t'eah was allehgatehs inna seweh," comments Joe. "Sez he seen one oncet." "When was Solly eveh inneh seweh," scoffs Sally, shooing Stella the Cat away from the spoonful of Leonora's beets that has just landed on the floor. "Well," explains Joe, "he fell in. It was afteh woik, an' we was havin' a beeeh oveh t' one a' t'em jernts on Graham Aveneh, an' we was leavin' an' Solly fell in a open manhole." "How many beeehs wazzis?" queries Sally with a gimlet gaze. "Oh, I dunno," demurs Joe. "I jus'hadt' one, but, you y'know, Solly, well, he had enough..." "How much enough?" "I guess -- um -- enough t'see allehgatehs inna seweh.")
...

That floor has got to be stained red by now.

...It has also been learned in Washington that Adolf Hitler, realizing the revulsion his acts against the Jews have created is attempting to unload the guilt on the German nation as a whole.
...

Not quite sure what that statement really means, but it has alway said something that, despite all the bile the Germans spoke about the Jews, they still took pains to hide their systematic murdering of Jews from the rest of the world. At some visceral level, even they knew they were doing evil. Heck, for a brief period, they thought they were invincible, yet even then, they hid the truth of what they were doing from the rest of the world.

...

(Sarcasm becomes you, Mr. Pollock.)
...

Censorship, no matter who or which side practices it, always descends, eventually, into parody and farce. It would be hard to think of a more patriotic, uplifting and supportive of traditional values movie than "In Which We Serve." This only makes the Hollywood censors' fretting over a few words that are organic to the situation and story in the movie look like the pedantic moralizing tyrants that they are.

...

("Ah do love the fans, though," proclaims Dixie. "Wah, we got us this one felluh's out to the plant tells me his wife done went inta labuh durin' a game 'gainst th' Giahnts, an' he kep' runnin' out t'check th' sco'! Y'all cain' make that up, no suh. An' then he says this boy Pete Cosc'ra't, we use' to have heah, this boy done got traded away, wah, Pete done run inta this felluh's wife onnuh stayuhs inna Prospec' Pawrk station one time, an' evuh since that day wah, she done covuh'd t' kitchen wawl with newspapuh clippin's an' pic'chuh of' 'im an' all whut not. Yuh jes' don' FINE fans lahk that nowhur's else, I tell you whut. But no, I ain' holdin' out, no suh. Say, I wonnuh if theyuh's anybody clippin' MAH pic'chuh outuh t' papuh like that?")
...

Why does a manufacturing company like the Sperry Gyroscope Co. need an athletic director?

And in the Daily News...

Ew.
...

They deserve a full and fair trial with a robust defense, but if found guilty, I'm fine with the death penalty. Sorry, but you committed your horrible crime on government property.

As to the 15% pay boost for city employees, I thought the government was trying to keep wages and prices down?

...

Ew, lkewise.
...

This is a confused judge. He states, "We cannot sanction by law what he [Jose] did," but then he - the Judge, the man representing the law - gives Jose a suspended sentence, which implicitly, sanctions what Jose did.

...

After all, how long has it been since you were in a good death trap?
...

In what appears to be a not-large town, Prune Face will now have an untrained-in-police-work old lady and a scruffy kid following him - that shouldn't be obvious.

Where is Frizzletop?
"No I don't want a permanent; do I look like I need a permanent? What I want is the opposite; I want you to straighten this mess."
"That process hasn't been invented yet."
"Darn."

...

Mr. Gray really does listen to too many soap operas.
...

Hunter/Schmutter, while it didn't happen that often, when I was single, I liked being asked out by women.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The bluenosing over "In Which We Serve" is even more hilarious given the world that we know 1942 actually to be, with burlesque shows playing to top-dollar crowds on Broadway, sex on the rampage at every Army camp and every seedy New Jersey town, and "hell" and "damn" turning up pretty much every day in the newspapers. Maybe when they're done blue pencilling Noel Coward, they can do something about the "Voice of the People" column in the News.

I have to think hiring Mr. Walker was a PR move on the part of Sperry, but most big industrial concerns at the time did operate at least some level of recreational programs for their workers -- at the very least sponsoring teams in the local industrial sports leagues. There's a Sperry bowling team, a Sperry basketball team, and I am sure, come the spring, there will be a Sperry baseball team. Maybe Dix can get Camilli to come back east and play first base.

Tracy's city seems to have a real problem with unauthorized policing. Maybe they need a chief who does more than spend his days poring over luggage catalogs. And meanwhile, Frizz should go ahead an open up a private-eye office. With all the hard-boiled types going into the service, the field is going to be wide open.

We have a Coast Guard base in my town, and Coasties are universally considered to be wholesome young people who never make any trouble for anyone. Hard to imagine something as grotesque as this happening here.

Speaking of my town, incidentally, the night before last someone went out with tools and vandalized the menorah set up near the Ferry Service terminal, a couple of months after someone covered a children's playground at the other end of town with swastikas. That's how it starts, you know.

 

[Fading Fast]

... Maybe they need a chief who does more than spend his days poring over luggage catalogs. ...

...Frizz should go ahead an open up a private-eye office. With all the hard-boiled types going into the service, the field is going to be wide open.
...

A perfect replacement strip for the awful "Hugh Striver."

..

We have a Coast Guard base in my town, and Coasties are universally considered to be wholesome young people who never make any trouble for anyone. Hard to imagine something as grotesque as this happening here.
...

I have a good friend who was in the Coast Guard and whenever I met his servicemen friends they were always nice guys, but of course, that's, one, just anecdotal and, two, all it took was two very bad apples at the lighthouse.

...

Speaking of my town, incidentally, the night before last someone went out with tools and vandalized the menorah set up near the Ferry Service terminal, a couple of months after someone covered a children's playground at the other end of town with swastikas. That's how it starts, you know.

I agree and support vigilance and strong enforcement of existing laws. But the flip is that in my fifty-plus years on earth, everywhere I've lived has seen periodic incidents of antisemitism (and racism and attacks on homosexuals) pop up and, appropriately, the concern is raised that this is how it begins, but thankfully, in all that time, the incidents remain random and have not led to a mass movement. I fear it is a fringe that will always be with us, but hopefully, it will never be more than a fringe.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

It's all same fish and chips bag over here. Hooligans and lesser skinheads. Mostly football or rugby matches.
Inside the Tube. There and abouts sometimes seen seldom Regent Street environ. Economy dead for jobs and not much school to save them. And now cold winter stirs pot all the more.