The Era -- Day By Day

[LizzieMaine]

Oh, and...

Too soon?

 

[Fading Fast]

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("All gravy and no brisket!")
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Grew up eating Hamburger Helper, which was just a 1970s version of this concept.

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A fourteen year old boy from Peoria, Illinois who convinced recruiters he was four years older to join the Marines has been reported killed in action. Private Norman Gibbs is reported by the Navy Department to have died on December 28th, just a year and thirteen days after he joined. His mother, Mrs. Rachel E. Gibbs, acknowledged that she lied about his age on his enlistment papers because after Pearl Harbor, "he wanted to go. I was proud of him then. I still am."
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Being proud of him was not your job, making sound decisions for him was.

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(Maybe you can get Jack Benny to play third base, and Fred Allen to play first. I mean, they're already pals with Leo...)
..

Rickey's not wrong about the morale value, etc., the problem is reconciling that with the question of why healthy young men who play baseball shouldn't be drafted while healthy young men doing other jobs are. The big picture might makes sense, until you think about your own son, brother or husband...or yourself.

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"Never mind that kid, it's below zero outside and you show up riding a bike with no gloves, no earmuffs, and a light jacket?"
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It's great to see Frizzletop again.

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So that's who Dan Dunn reports to now!
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He said "best," so I believe he was referring to Kay. Hey, maybe this is why Frizzletop was packing her bag.

Doesn't Bim have some unimportant plant somewhere far away where he can send Andy to be a well-paid vice president that doesn't do anything, so that he'd get him out of his hair like most rich families do with their own Andys?

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Most grabber what with a Chicago mobster moll slain and a lad killed for remarking a lady's dishpan hands.

Terrence is beginning to stir but drags and drags. Harold is more in than Flynn and hasn't a clue.
Seems Britain is entirely incompetent, on-strike, unemployed. I need a good film, maybe Everything All at Once.
Help me Fast, any suggestions what I should see.

 

[Fading Fast]

Most grabber what with a Chicago mobster moll slain and a lad killed for remarking a lady's dishpan hands.

Terrence is beginning to stir but drags and drags. Harold is more in than Flynn and hasn't a clue.
Seems Britain is entirely incompetent, on-strike, unemployed. I need a good film, maybe Everything All at Once.
Help me Fast, any suggestions what I should see.

What kind of movie do you have in mind: old/new, drama/comedy/action?

Just tossing one out I saw recently and thought was pretty good, "Sink the Bismarck!" from 1960.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Thanks Fast. I've seen Bismarck. Lovely Dana Wynter my dream girl. A good sea romp. I'd love Tar but its not here yet.
Banshees of Inisherin too much Samuel Beckett absurdity and with Britain on strike and more yet, no.

Think I'll go back to Con Artist. Not reading much these days. A book to lose oneself.

 

[Fading Fast]

If you haven't made your choice yet, another good one I saw recently is 1959's "Odds Against Tomorrow," a solid heist film with a serious racism overtone. Great cast and shot by my favorite lesser-known director, Robert Wise.

 

[LizzieMaine]

("Mary Smith?" snorts Joe. "Ya need t'cawl Mary Woit'!" "If I hadda name like 'Iaquinandi,'" declares Sally, "I'da soit'n'ly been glad t'change it!" "Petrauskas is a pretty good name," declares Joe. "Yes," affirms Sally, as she glops oatmeal into Joe's bowl. "It is.")

A Brooklyn tire recapping company and five tire dealers in the borough were indicted yesterday by a Federal grand jury for bootlegging recapped tires. The indictments on fourteen counts charge that sales were made to persons not entitled to them under OPA regulations, and at prices in excess of legal maximums. It is further charged that those participating in the scheme falsified their books to cover up the crimes. The Belgo Rubber Corporation of 948 Bedford Avenue is named as the firm responsible for the scheme, with the individual defendents charged with feeding customers to the Belgo company, including by means of letters to taxicab drivers outside the city soliciting their businiess. Although the transactions identified in the indictments cover the sales of a total of 124 tires, Acting U. S. Attorney Howard Corcoran charged that the defendents handled "thousands" of such transcations between May and September of last year.

Governor Thomas E. Dewey today pledged that the state intends to do everything possible to ease the farm labor shortage and that an "extensive program" should be in place in time for spring planting. The Governor has appointed an informal committee under Lieutenant Governor Thomas W. Wallace and state Agricultural Commissioner Holton V. Noyes to study the problem and make recommendations. Possible solutions to the farm labor crisis in the state may include recruiting boys and girls from the cities to work on farms during their summer vacations from school, and changing school schedules to allow boys and girls to be released from classes in the spring and fall for farm work. Efforts may also be made to recruit permanent laborers, both men and women, for year round farm work, especially on dairy farms. A new program teaching agricultural practices may also be instituted in the form of dedicated agricultural schools in the cities.

In Hollywood, the widow of the late Harry Houdini has announced that she has given up hope of communicating with her deceased husband, after spending ten years trying to reach his spirit by means of annual seances on the anniversary of his death. The small white-haired widow of the famed magician and escape artist is now confined to a rest home with a heart condition. and said that she is making the announcement to tell the world that she has changed her convictions on the matter of spiritualism. "Harry could escape from anything on earth," declared Mrs. Houdini. "If he can't get thru to me with a message from heaven, the whole deal is off." Prior to Houdini's death, the couple had exchanged messages in sealed envelopes, and had promised, whichever one died first, to try to convey their message from beyond the grave. "After trying fruitlessly for ten years to pull down a message from Harry," Mrs. Houdini stated, "I'm convinced the dead can't communicate with the liviing."

(OK, Butch -- over to you.)

A proposal to turn the retail sale of liquor in the state of New York over to a network of state package stores is being dismissed out of hand by Governor Dewey. "Someone had a pipe dream," scoffed the Governor when asked at a press conference late yesterday about a legislative report circulating in the state capital concerning that subject. "I am wholly against it," declared the Governor, "and have never been anything but against it."

Ice dealers citywide will no longer deliver to wholesale or retail customers on Sundays. The ice distributors, "most of whom are of Italian ancestry," recently passed a resolution declaring it to be their duty to help the war effort, not only by purchasing war bonds and stamps, and sending their sons to fight for the Allied cause, but also by doing their part to conserve gasoline and rubber used by their delivery trucks, as well as manpower and equipment.

("The Spirit of 43" is an outstanding propaganda cartoon, but you can imagine that our friends in the night club business resent it. "BLOW YOUR DOUGH! WELCOME SUCKER!")

(War is Heck.)

(One thing we've learned about Mr. Rickey is that when he declares, with powerful gestures, that he is not trying to justify his job, you must take him at his word that he isn't trying to justify his job. But if his job is justified as a mere byproduct of the powerful and noble point that he is making, well, that simply cannot be helped.)

Although the Society For The Prevention of Disparaging Remarks About Brooklyn, 20,000 members strong and growing, is absolutely a serious organization with a serious purpose, and not founder and president Sid Ascher's hobby at all, Mr. Ascher will nonetheless be Dave Elman's guest on WABC's "Hobby Lobby" program tomorrow night.

("THE VERY IDEA! THIS IS A HOSPITAL NOT A DAYTIME RADIO SERIAL!")

("Oh, is that all? Look, break out the counterfeit twenties, and call me when it's lunchtime.")

(Flamboyant isolationist aviator and convicted German agent Laura Ingalls roars "I AM NOT BALKAN! I'M FROM BROOKLYN!")

("And I've decided to be a lawyer when I grow up!" AIM HIGH KID)

("Tain't the way I heered it!" -- catchphrase of "The Old Timer," a character on the "Fibber McGee & Molly," who responds thusly to any dubious statement.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

Forget it, Jerry, you're much too old for him.

I've always thought a professional wrestler should call himself "Kill Van Kull."

Hey Mike, what about that time you just had to stand behind that tree for a minutes?

You never know who might be an OPA agent.

Seeza maboiks!

"I'd like to be in Africa where he is." Sometimes Mr. King can be absolutely savage.

"What Jacket Are You Wearing Today?"

Who needs Batman?

In other words, Mr. Gould just admitted that he just makes this stuff up as he goes along.

Harold's been lessons from Dan Dunn.

 

[Fading Fast]

("Mary Smith?" snorts Joe. "Ya need t'cawl Mary Woit'!" "If I hadda name like 'Iaquinandi,'" declares Sally, "I'da soit'n'ly been glad t'change it!" "Petrauskas is a pretty good name," declares Joe. "Yes," affirms Sally, as she glops oatmeal into Joe's bowl. "It is.")
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Yeah, sure, I believe Esquirol and his magic disappearing-reappearing envelope of $500.

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Governor Thomas E. Dewey today pledged that the state intends to do everything possible to ease the farm labor shortage and that an "extensive program" should be in place in time for spring planting. The Governor has appointed an informal committee under Lieutenant Governor Thomas W. Wallace and state Agricultural Commissioner Holton V. Noyes to study the problem and make recommendations. Possible solutions to the farm labor crisis in the state may include recruiting boys and girls from the cities to work on farms during their summer vacations from school, and changing school schedules to allow boys and girls to be released from classes in the spring and fall for farm work. Efforts may also be made to recruit permanent laborers, both men and women, for year round farm work, especially on dairy farms. A new program teaching agricultural practices may also be instituted in the form of dedicated agricultural schools in the cities.
...

You want to straightening out a city kid who complains too much, have him work on a farm for a summer. "How's life in the city now, kid?" "All's good."

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(OK, Butch -- over to you.)
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"...Mrs. Rosenlicht somewhere had influence with the police department."

"Had influence," is a lovely euphemism for envelopes stuffed with cash being passed to dirty cops.

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Hey Mike, what about that time you just had to stand behind that tree for a minutes?
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Looks like somebody hired Basement 'r Us' subdivision Tunnels 'r Us or, maybe its new Secret Paths 'r Us subdivision - they keep expanding, business is just that good.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Miss Elizabeth and Fast, I hope New York has shaken its polar cold.

The Estelle Carey murder and that poker ring circus which claimed several ladies their lives packed punch I'll say.
I had believed Lana Turner was wed bandsman Artie Shaw. Last eve Fast I dipped back inside Tetro's con/artist memoir with a vodka. Thanks so much.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We saw Artie and Lana's marriage flare up and burn out in all its glory on Page Four a couple of years ago -- they both had some not-nice things to say about each other, which made for lively reading.

As for the cold, we had a pipe blow out over night in our hot-water building heating system at the theatre and are in all-out disaster mode. Water leaking down thru the ceiling over the stage, due to a frozen pipe rupturing in the main air handler. We have a bucket brigade trying to bail out out before it damages any of the stage gear, while I'm trying to get someone in here to deal with the pipe -- unfortunately all HVAC companies are on emergency duty this weekend due to such problems, and our regular heating guy, who's simply a burner-service man, was little help. I wish Sally's Uncle Frank was here.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Aww Elizabeth. Truly sorry to hear that pipe burst. London isn't bad thankfully. Cold blustery but winter has been worse.
And the economy better.

 

[Fading Fast]

We saw Artie and Lana's marriage flare up and burn out in all its glory on Page Four a couple of years ago -- they both had some not-nice things to say about each other, which made for lively reading.

As for the cold, we had a pipe blow out over night in our hot-water building heating system at the theatre and are in all-out disaster mode. Water leaking down thru the ceiling over the stage, due to a frozen pipe rupturing in the main air handler. We have a bucket brigade trying to bail out out before it damages any of the stage gear, while I'm trying to get someone in here to deal with the pipe -- unfortunately all HVAC companies are on emergency duty this weekend due to such problems, and our regular heating guy, who's simply a burner-service man, was little help. I wish Sally's Uncle Frank was here.

I'm sorry and understand as we, living in a 1928 building, always worry when we get these deep cold snaps as something usually breaks every second or third one. Good luck, hopefully, it doesn't get worse.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, we've got the access panels off, and out of fourteen coils in the main heating core, twelve are neatly ruptured along the outer loops. I've got a guy with a brazing torch up there now trying to seal them up and see if it'll still hold pressure. I wish I'd signed up for one of those welding courses advertised the other day.

 

[LizzieMaine]

("Don'worry," pronounces Sally. "It might just be a presentm'nt now, but he'll get indicted soon enough!" "I awrways t'ought'tat guy was a crook," adds Joe. "I neveh voted fowr'im." "Ya neveh lived inniz distric'," replies Sally. "Ya Ma does t'ough," notes Joe. "I wonneh if she eveh voted f'rim." "If she did," replies Sally, "she had a good reason." "What?" interjects Joe. "Nut'n." "Hey," adds Joe, after thinking a bit. "Did'n his name come up innat pinball racket t'ing a coupla yeeahs ago?" "Izzat so?" replies Sally. "Hey, you t'ink Camilli's gonna sign?")

The Republican leader in Brooklyn's 18th Assembly District today denounced the War Manpower Commission's "Work or Fight" order as "a New Deal scheme" to give the workers of New York City a "raw deal." Abraham H. Goodman of the Kings County Republican Committee asserted that the order requiring all men in Selective Service class 3-A, regardless of the number of dependents they may claim, who are not presently employed in a war-essential job to move to such a job by April 1st or face induction into the Armed Forces, is "a grave injustice, because there is no war work for the large number of men affected." Goodman argued that since New York City has received "such a small number of jobs" under present war contracts that "the thousands who clamor at the offices of the United States Employment Service" will find that "there are not nearly enough jobs to take care of even a substantial proportion of these men." Goodman recommended that as an alternative to the "work or fight" order, that war jobs could be listed with local draft boards, and then offered to men in class 3-A, with refusal to accept such jobs made grounds for immediate conscription. He further suggested that, unless such a plan is adopted, Congress should take a hand in the matter.

A nineteen-year-old Sunset Park youth is expected to receive a life sentence in prison for the murder two years ago of a Bay Ridge woman. William Petersen of 251 48th Street was convicted by a Kings County jury yesterday for the slaying of Mrs. Catherine Watson in her apartment at 404 61st Street on January 2, 1941, with the jury adding a recommendation for life imprisonment. Judge Samuel J. Liebowitz commended the jury for its verdict and its recommendation, stating that, while Petersen "is as dangerous a criminal as Brooklyn has ever had," he was also a youth who "never knew his father, and as to his mother the less said the better. He was brought up in the mud gutter and as a boy was kicked out of his home. He never had a chance from the day he was born." The judge added that, had the jury disregarded his recommendation for a life sentence, and called for death, he would have gone to Governor Dewey to plead for commutation of that sentence. The prosecutor in the case, Assistant District Attorney James McGough, concurred with Judge Liebowitz's remarks.

(Get it? Got it. Good.)

Proposed legislation calling for the assignment of one armed guard for every four subway cars operating on the city's transit lines was ridiculed today as "silly" by the New York Transit Police Association. A bill drawn up by Assemblyman Matthew J. McLaughlin of the Bronx, ranking Republican member of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee is now under consideration in Albany, but the Transit Police Association is opposing the measure as "obviously a case of not being informed of the fact that there is already a large force of men on the transit lines doing this kind of work." It was further pointed out, that the Transit Police now in use are under the direct supervision of the Police Department, and in fact replaced the old-time "Special Police" formerly used to patrol the subway lines. Members of the Transit Police are selected from a special patrolmen's list governed by the same examination as the regular police department, and all 600 of the men on the Transit Police force receive special training for their assignments. At least 150 of these men are on duty at any given time, most of them uniformed -- but there is, according to the Association, a "sizable plainclothes squad" assigned to actually ride back and forth on the trains and to patrol individual stations. Rather than establish a new subway guard service, the TPA recommends merging the Transit Police into the regular city police force, which will both enlarge the number of men available for subway duty and aid the police department in its present manpower shortage.

President Roosevelt will defend his $25,000 wartime wage ceiling in a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee, to be read today to committee members meeting in executive session. Chairman Robert L. Doughton (D-S. C.), who will read the letter, told reporters today that it "contains about what you would expect." The limit faces opposition by Congressional Republicans, with Rep. B. W. Gearhardt (R-Calif.) introducing a bill to repeal the wage ceiling, and arguing that it "is costing us a tremendous sum that could be used for war financing."

(As one of the slogans used to go, "Let's Make Every Week "Brotherhood Week....")

The oldest retired employee of the Frederick Loeser & Co. department store has died at the age of 98. Joseph Tuthill, a Brooklyn native who lived in the Bedford section until a few years ago, began his career with Loeser's in 1899, and remained with the firm in the delivery department until his retirement in 1928. Mr. Tuthill, a member of an old Jamesport, Long Island family, died Thursday at Fordham Hospital after a long illness.

("What infield?" Yeah, Leo, if you do report to camp, bring your glove. Oh, and Robinson actually lost a fight? You really can't count on anything anymore.)

Debate is raging in the pages of "Yank" magazine, the weekly published by and for the men of the Army, over the question of whether professional baseball should continue in 1943, with the editors urging readers of the paper to send in their views on whether "baseball should be turned over to Clark Griffith and Connie Mack" and all players under the age of 38 taken into military service. The paper noted that its First World War predecessor, the Stars and Stripes, took a firm stand against the continuation of the professional game, and backed up that position by discontinuing all publication of sports news for the duration. "Maybe our old man had the right idea," concluded Yank's editorial. "What do you guys think?"

("People used to be narrow minded. You should hear what they used to say about me and Bill.")

("OK, you guys," says Russell Stamm. "You want cheesecake? I'll give you cheesecake!")

("Hmph," snorts Kay Fields, Secret Operative 49. "'You'll travel as my fiancee,' huh? Doe-eyed simpering little child, falling for that old gag.'" "What's up," says Harrington, sidling smoothly up to Kay's desk, and slipping a hand around her shoulder. "Nothing," smiles Kay. "Nothing at all." "Wuf," adds Wolf, as Harrington slips him a cookie.)

(AMERICA'S NUMBER ONE HERO DOG ALWAYS SHARES WITH THE LESS FORTUNATE. HE DOES.)

(Who's this guy Astaire?)

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

'Glory be'. She's a gorgeous rose.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

Flynn must really be scared if he shaved off his moustache.

Ahhh, Connie Boswell -- one of the most influential and most talented jazz vocalists of her generation. I never imagined Adolphe Menjou would be her type.

Burma would've hogtied this guy long ago.

"Hah!" laughs Sally. "Hey Joe, lookit. Whozis remin' ya of?" "Nobody likes beets," shrugs Joe.

'Course, Houdini's dead now. I saw it in the papers!"

"Sorry, toots, you're not his type, if he had one." -- Tess.

Listen, Nina, I know you're trying to be honest here, but you're talking to a kid who was left in the back seat of Walt's car, and whose brother was left in a basket on Walt's doorstep. In this family, technicalities really aren't all that important.

If they ever come up with a vaccination for amnesia, half the cartoonists in this country will go out of business.

Tsk, Mr. Willard. Stealing jokes from Olsen & Johnson.

"And I leave my controlling interest in the common and preferred stocks of Pipdyke & Company, Inc., to my protege, Harold S. Teen." That's one way to stay out of the draft.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Terrence is a drag that would finish off even Hector.
Harold seems a strip-tease with only tease and with a war on the home front news stories were red hot.

Erroneous Flynn scrapped the razor's edge by a nick. I believe he went to Spain where he rubbed elbows with Hemingway. Odd duck no doubt. A movie of his life would certainly need this trial spiced pie.

 

[Fading Fast]

("Don'worry," pronounces Sally. "It might just be a presentm'nt now, but he'll get indicted soon enough!" "I awrways t'ought'tat guy was a crook," adds Joe. "I neveh voted fowr'im." "Ya neveh lived inniz distric'," replies Sally. "Ya Ma does t'ough," notes Joe. "I wonneh if she eveh voted f'rim." "If she did," replies Sally, "she had a good reason." "What?" interjects Joe. "Nut'n." "Hey," adds Joe, after thinking a bit. "Did'n his name come up innat pinball racket t'ing a coupla yeeahs ago?" "Izzat so?" replies Sally. "Hey, you t'ink Camilli's gonna sign?")
...

Conversational chess.

...

The Republican leader in Brooklyn's 18th Assembly District today denounced the War Manpower Commission's "Work or Fight" order as "a New Deal scheme" to give the workers of New York City a "raw deal." Abraham H. Goodman of the Kings County Republican Committee asserted that the order requiring all men in Selective Service class 3-A, regardless of the number of dependents they may claim, who are not presently employed in a war-essential job to move to such a job by April 1st or face induction into the Armed Forces, is "a grave injustice, because there is no war work for the large number of men affected." Goodman argued that since New York City has received "such a small number of jobs" under present war contracts that "the thousands who clamor at the offices of the United States Employment Service" will find that "there are not nearly enough jobs to take care of even a substantial proportion of these men." Goodman recommended that as an alternative to the "work or fight" order, that war jobs could be listed with local draft boards, and then offered to men in class 3-A, with refusal to accept such jobs made grounds for immediate conscription. He further suggested that, unless such a plan is adopted, Congress should take a hand in the matter.
...

He's got an argument.

...

("What infield?" Yeah, Leo, if you do report to camp, bring your glove. Oh, and Robinson actually lost a fight? You really can't count on anything anymore.)
...

That's a bit of sport history on this page today as this was the first of six Robinson-Lamotta fights that would take place over the next eight yeas in one of boxing's great all-time rivalries.

...

("Hmph," snorts Kay Fields, Secret Operative 49. "'You'll travel as my fiancee,' huh? Doe-eyed simpering little child, falling for that old gag.'" "What's up," says Harrington, sidling smoothly up to Kay's desk, and slipping a hand around her shoulder. "Nothing," smiles Kay. "Nothing at all." "Wuf," adds Wolf, as Harrington slips him a cookie.)
...

And we all know what kind of club they have on airplanes.

And in the Daily News...

Flynn must really be scared if he shaved off his moustache.
...

The judge dropped a lot of bombshells into his instructions to the jury and those are just the ones captured in this short news story.

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Burma would've hogtied this guy long ago.
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She would have. Heck, had it been Hu Shee, she'd have captured the base and turned it over the Chinese/American forces by now.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

The Terrence pencil man really started all innuendo by this bargain jazz and how he'd collect full charge,
then all sizzle no steak. Plus plot line is a linear road to Coventry. Cannot help but resent cartoonist.