STRIKEMEPINK(IFIDON'TTHINK)
I recently heard that there were about three billion websites now operating around the world, but instead of saying like a sensible person "That’s enough" I’ve decided that means there’s always room for one more, and here it is. I took its title from a sports column we used to have in New York which lives in the memory of all its old readers. It featured characters like Al Weill, the fight manager with the wonderful built (sic), Professor Ilitch of the Prosperity Institute with his Secret Play for beating the horses, available to the public for a reasonable price, Phainting Phil Scott, the English heavyweight, and other such individuals often found in the vicinity of Madison Square Garden or Belmont Racetrack.
Not to mislead, I don’t intend to write sports or introduce unusual characters found on my travels, but instead to deal in a general way with issues that bother me, and now and then to retail a joke or a story or a verse that will be a appreciated by a cultivated audience such as I hope to attract. How will I know they’re cultivated? Because I attracted them.
The benchmarks that will find me on a search engine are Catholic, ex-cop, law and order guy, tackles issues with originality and humor too. That’s me. The judges are you. |
TIME AND TIME AGAIN
“Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear”. When I was a kid that was something we were continually being urged to do. The urging came from the announcer on the Lone Ranger radio show at 7:30 every evening. We were too young to have any yesteryears of our own, but we could share those of the Ranger, who flourished in the West at about the same time as Tom Mix or Buck Jones. The time frame was a little vague, but that didn’t stop us from believing in the Lone Ranger with all our little hearts.
At this stage of the game, though, I do have my own yesteryears that I can invite readers to share with me. Dredging them up is not a problem. I have plenty of landmarks and signposts to help me find the way. Is it strange that I can date a number of events in my life through remembering the magazines I read at the time ? For example I can look at a 1943 issue of “Time” and tell you where I was when I first read it. I don’t have to be told it was printed in ‘43 because it’s unalterably linked to the venue I found myself in at the time. Tell me where I was, I’ll tell you about the ‘zine; tell me about it and I’ll tell you where I was.
Nothing miraculous here, it may be a common occurrence for all I know. All it proves is that I was a heavy reader and in those days very much hipped on “Time”. It was the beginning of a lifelong preference for non-fiction over fiction. “Truth is stranger…etc.² So I’ve found it. In fact the magazine in question is a case in point. The picture on the cover was that of Heinrich Himmler, surrounded by corpses. The artist was anticipating here. Himmler’s activities were only rumored at the time. Two years later, when they became known to the world, the shock they gave it outdid anything any fiction writer had ever managed to provide. I think it reinforced my preference for fact over fiction.
Time’s covers were a fixed quantity in those days. They all seemed to be drawn by Ernest Hamlin Baker and all his subjects wore a uniform. It was wartime, after all. Generals, admirals, commanders took their bows in this way. Even kings, if they wanted the cover, put on a uniform of some sort. I confess they all became a blur in my mind. MacArthurNimitzPattonArnoldEisenhowerHalseySpruanceLeMayMarshall, all one shining hero, it seemed, and they were only the Americans. The Brits got the same treatment, they too had their day in the sun. The only one I really remember was a fellow who wasn’t on our side at all. Seeing the picture of a German in a spot sacred to the Allies was calculated to get one’s attention all right. His name was Erwin Rommel and the choice of his picture was a pretty good message to the Germans as to whom we’d like to see in Hitler’s place. Unfortunately Hitler saw it too and made sure we’d be disappointed by eliminating Rommel. No wonder there was always so much talk about the cover picture being a jinx.
As I’ve said, the covers mostly ran together in my mind and I don’t have a specific memory of the great majority. I read the stories, absorbed what I absorbed, and forgot the rest. Every so often, though, there was a break in the regular routine. Some unarmed, non-uniformed individuals broke up the military parade. Bob Hope was one. Just to read about him was fun. The description was perfect: He came onstage, it said, with a unique mixture of arrogance and fear. That described Bob to a “T”. It has stayed with me .
Stan Musial is the next entertainment figure I remember This was postwar, I’m sure. The country was lightening up and was ready to have some fun and watch some baseball. In fact in 1947 there was another baseball cover, none other than Leo Durocher, with his own message for the world “Nice guys finish last”. Gee, Leo, ease up a bit, will you? The war’s over a couple of years already.
Well, maybe it was, but we found another one to take its place. This was the Korean outbreak, from which I remember seeing Rosalind Russell on the cover in December 1952 when I was heading home for Christmas on a train from Camp Gordon in Georgia. The story inside was about her show on Broadway called “Wonderful Town”. Just the place where I was headed.
1952 was also the year in which Governor John Fine of Pennsylvania held the fate of the country in his hands, which naturally got him on Time’s cover. He controlled the state delegation to the Republican convention and could throw the presidential nomination either way, to Taft or Eisenhower. It was all very dramatic and the stories describing the vicious maneuvers in use by the hostile factions were enough to make one’s blood run cold. Governor Fine enjoyed his role as the arbiter of destiny, in the end coming down for Eisenhower, the winner, after which he was never heard from again. Fame is fleeting.
Another Broadway lady that hit the cover in the Fifties was Gwen Verdon, who danced ‘em dizzy from ¢53 to 1960, after which she laid off for six years to raise a daughter. She lived to be 75 and occupied herself with occasional roles in Hollywood. This was her choice, but I thought she was down on her luck when I saw her in a funny show called Nadine. I told the people with me, “You see that woman? She used to be the biggest star on Broadway. She was on the cover of “Time” when they didn’t put entertainers on the cover!” It was good to read later on that life had been treating her right after all.
Who else? Well there was Augie Busch, the Budweiser man in ‘57 or so, which provoked letters from people who disapproved of beer . There was my boss, Police Commissioner Steve Kennedy in 1958, there was Sean Lemass of Ireland in the same year, I think, both surprises, for which reason I’ve remembered them better than more famous people. There was an English writer named Joyce Cary, who used to be the idol of their book section, but he’s as forgotten as Governor Fine by now. There was the time they said John Wayne played Genghis Khan like a Mongolian idiot and John answered with a letter telling them he was a college graduate and could so speak English only Hollywood wouldn‘t let him. There were the Joe Stalin covers where he always looked monumental and deserving of worship. He had his friends at the magazine even if Luce the publisher wasn’t one.
I went on reading Time right into the Sixties, but all the while feeling that they and I were drawing apart as I got to be more and more a cop and Time didn’t dig cops. They were into minorities in a big way and didn’t have the same covers any more, since diversity required pictures that wouldn’t sell copies. Now they have themes. Now I read it in five minutes in a waiting room when I used to take a half hour. But the memories persist.
What else? Oh yeah, I went on reading Time until for a good while into the Sixties, but all the while feeling that they and I were drawing apart as I got to be more and more a cop and Time didn’t dig cops. They had gotten into minorities in a big way and didn't have the same personality covers anymore, since diversity required too many pictures that wouldn't sell copies. Now they have themes. Now, finding it in a waiting room, I read it in five minutes where I used to take a half hour. But the memories persist. | |