Episode 114, March 8, 2025 - Jean Shepherd Marathon, Part 8 - Airchecks

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome to air checks. Here is more of the Gene
Shepherd Marathon on w R in New York City from
February fifteenth, nineteen sixty two. The human race is first
days are very important. The first day at the steel mill,
a job gotten through a ham radio contact. Life isn't
exactly the way it seems to be, great Shepherd.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
And oh, where's the Gene Shepherd tape?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Not in the machine?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Here it is okay, Gene Shepherd from.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Nineteen sixty ten.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
These are shows that I was given on the promise
that I would not sell, barter or anyway hand them
off to people. But broadcasting was permitted from this fellow
out in Washington. So let's broadcast them and get them
out there somehow to hear from February the fifteenth, nineteen
sixty two, complete with the jumble of news and strangeness

(01:15):
at the beginning.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Here's gene situation could develop into another Chorea. Mister Kennedy
confirmed an earlier statement by British leader mac Millan there
will be no nuclear testing on Christmas Isle in the Pacific,
at least until the opening of the Geneva conference next Yeah,

(02:02):
you know, I I'm constantly being torn between those those
terrible poles. It's like, well, it's it's it's like an
attempt to see through something that is unseeable through able,
you know. It's like it's like you're swimming in the
four thousand foot deep sea of Lipton's pea soup and

(02:23):
you keep getting hit by onions bouncing around that Once
in a while, a little piece of chickory comes past
an occasionally a little it'sy bitsy piece of uh well, uh,
maybe carrot. I mean you get a little pizaze. It's
a kind of get a little boot there, you know.
Speaking of the little boot, there very difficult to know

(02:46):
which which should well, which pathway you're taking. Now, before
we go any further, I would, i suppose, feel duty
bound to say that the following program does not represent
the viewpoint of Lester Smith or John A. Gambling or
John B. Gambling or John L. Gambling or John D. Gambling,

(03:10):
the fourth who will be on next year. It doesn't
represent anybody's viewpoint actually except my own. And I feel
duty bond also to say this in all fairness, that
if you're not interested in the personal viewpoint, you better leave.

(03:34):
I don't want any unpleasantness here unpleasantness. Yet, on the
other hand, what would we do without unpleasantness? Seriously, if life,
if life were what you think it should be, how
would it be? I mean, do you really want it
that way? Actually, oh, boy, be careful, because I suspect

(03:55):
that there may be are three or i'd say three
ways that we live one way. People take three different routes,
the three different ways to exist, and the most common
way is to exist by the myth. Now, myths have

(04:16):
nothing to do with Greek myths. The myth that could
be called basic folk knowledge, like, for example, there is
a myth that says, well, evil will be uncovered eventually. Well,
people live by this, or they say, oh, there are

(04:38):
millions of myths of that type that say, well, I'm
not very wealthy, but the people who are wealthy are happy,
happier than I am. Or and you can take the
other side. I am happy, but the wealthy people aren't,
so I'm happy not being wealthy. Millions of myths, all

(05:00):
kinds of myths. A man will work in an organization
like where they sell sweet potatoes, and he believes because
he has to, because it's a myth. And a myth
is what he lives by that sweet potatoes are important.
He has to believe it. If he didn't, somehow his

(05:21):
life would suddenly collapse. He also has to believe that
he is connected with an organization that turns out better
sweet potatoes than anybody. He has to believe it. And
then on the other hand, he has to believe a
lot of things. For example, and one of the great myths,
of course, is the myth of love, which is a

(05:42):
real troublesomeone. And it's like trying to find you know
who was it? It was Diogenes that was looking for
an honest man. I would say that Diogenes would have
more success finding an honest man than he would have
finding a happy man, a happy person, a truly happy person. Well,

(06:09):
now do you know anyone who is happy already? I
can just see all the clean, limb young ladies running
for the phone to call up and say they're happy.
In these shrill, angry voices, tell that man, I'm happy. Wow,
down it goes. Now the other way you can you

(06:32):
can choose to live, or it's not really a choice.
You pick it up, you know, you just sort of
do it. The other way, you can choose to live
is by the absurd. Now, people who are who are
bugged by the absurd, who are in a sense conscious
of the absurdities in life, generally because they are not

(06:55):
capable of anything else, retreat from them. And so these
are the people you'll see who will bury themselves in
the file department at BBDNO, or let's say the file
department that even some let's say the Widget bolt Nut Company,
and they cut out from their can everything else that
has to do with anything remotely connected with the outside world.

(07:20):
You will never hear these people talk about krusehav. You
will never hear these people talk about moonshots. You will
never hear these people talk about how deep is the ocean.
You will never hear these people ever once discuss a
tornado that roared across Iowa. These people look at television
and sleep. They have rejected life because of the absurdity

(07:44):
or the impenetrability of it, and yet they rarely aren't
aware that they have. And so they will write you
little letters that will say, and I was wonderful to
get that type. They'll say, well, mister Shepherd, in these days,
who wants gloomy things, Well, gloomy things mean truthful things.
What is a gloomy thing? Is a truthful thing? What

(08:07):
is a gloomy thing? I was trying, you know, it's
fascinating I read. I don't know whether you're interested in
this wild little psychological surmise that was made recently by
a very interesting psychological researcher. And this is not an
American type who was more interested in selling a Wrigley

(08:28):
gum and dad's old fashioned root there. This is a
man who is interested in what is happening? Why are
we the way we are? His whole thesis was based
on the fact that before every major war there is
a major and an all encompassing dance fad that cuts

(08:49):
through all levels of society. By the way, has it
ever occurred to you that most of these people who
are digging the Twist have absolutely no realization of the
fact that what they're doing is rock and roll and
pure rock and roll. I wonder if they know that.
I wonder if Pegine Fitzgerald knows that she's a rock
and roller. She's in a twister, she's a rock and roller.

(09:13):
I remember what the name means. Nothing. And the other
day I heard I heard John or somebody giving a
given one of these polite little announcements of coming attractions
that are going on in all these little neighborhood events.
And he was saying, the Ladies of the Presbyterian Baker
pie A Week Club our meeting in the church basement
next Monday night for a twist party. Uh. The admission

(09:36):
is free. There will be a collection taken for the
Abyssinian Library Fund. Now remember next Sunday or no, it's
it's a Monday night. The ladies of the Baca pie
A Week Club of the Presbyterian Church will have their
twist party. I wonder if those chicks know they digging
rock and roll. See it's again it's a matter of sematics.

(09:57):
You know. It's interesting how how we tag things that imagine.
You know that very same pulpit the the minister has
inveighed against rock and roll. Yes, that that you can't accept.
You can't accept that term. Well, this is part of
the myth you see where the mythical angle comes in. Now,

(10:20):
the the the people who are hung up with the absurd.
Now the absurd, of course, Uh is a difficult position
to be in to to understand or to feel, or
to know about the absurd, A very difficult problem. There. Now,
then there's a third way, and this, this way of existence,
is the least followed and the most difficult of all
to understand, and that is the the following of a

(10:44):
logical path, which, going back to the original Latin derivation
of logic, has to do with developing a structure, literally
developing a structure, a structure that is based on a
few you recognizable and established premises, like I am here.

(11:05):
This is a recognizable and almost established premise. Oh yes.
One philosopher said that when anybody ever attempts to talk
about the myth us, the myth by which a large
percentage of the population exists, he will almost invariably be
called a double talker, a kook, a crank, and possibly

(11:29):
even insane and certainly dangerous. Well, now the last one
is true, because once the myths come tumbling down, be careful.
Then you have to start a whole new situation and say,
you know, speaking about myths, there's a myth. One of
the most probably prevalent myths is that people love the sea.

(11:54):
People say they love it. In fact, I'll bet I
can get twenty five hundred calls in the next five minutes.
If I say, everybody who's listening who loves the sea,
call me, well, I remember a magnificent essay on that subject,
and I think, yes, it was in the It was
in Moby Dick. Melville was talking about the the the

(12:17):
actual fact that men not only do not love the sea,
but the sea is one of the few things that
we can truly fear, because the sea is totally and
completely engulfing and enigmatic, and in addition to that, it
is always waiting, it never relaxes, and is truly unpredictable.

(12:41):
No matter how scientific your tests become, the sea is there.
And yet the myth that you love the sea continually
moves around you. It's it's it's it's the myth that
man does not love war. This is another great myth
by which we live. That man is a logical, rational

(13:01):
creature who does not like war and is led into
war by insidious, cynical people. This is a great myth,
one of the greatest myths, and it's a myth by
which both sides live. This is a myth by which
the Russians are living and a myth by which we
are living too. Of course, the cynical rotten people always

(13:21):
being the other side, invariably. It's a fascinating myth. Well,
the other day there is this little thing came out
in the paper and it was from San Francisco and
it is a wildly funny little item and I read
it to you. It's from the Associated Press. It's about
again touching on the myth. Jeffrey M. Fletcher, craggy faced

(13:45):
captain of the British luxury liner andyes, has a confession
to make about his forty six years at sea. I
hate it, he told astonished reporters yesterday after the twenty
seven thousand ton vessel docked on its first visit to
San Francisco. Why were they astonished, because, he said the truth.

(14:07):
That's why they were astonished, because they, like everyone else,
are part of the myth. I hate it. I'm afraid
of it, he continued, calmly, holding a cup of tea
in one hand and his pipe in the other. Should
see me at sea, You should see mee at sea,
especially in rough weather. I know what the sea can do.

(14:33):
Captain Fletcher, a bluff English sea dog with a sparse
thatch of gray hair and an engaging smile, received the
press in his cabin aboard the flagship of the British
Royal Male. He disclosed that this is his last voyage
before his retirement. When the Andes returns to Southampton on
its round the World cruise, he was asked, and this

(14:54):
is a great answer. Doesn't this describe what happens to
almost all of us in any profession we get into.
He was asked, this is the most truthful ine of
you I've read in years. He was asked, well, well,
well then, captain, why did you go to sea in
the first place? Well?

Speaker 5 (15:13):
It was sort of a family tradition. Actually, I well,
actually I needed to go. I went to see at
fifteen and I'm sixty now I've been too cowardly to change.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
Would you send your son to sea? I happen to
be a bachelor, Thank god, replied Captain Fletcher. Actually the uh,
the sea is not so bad when the sun is shining,
but when the when the weather turns bad. I I
don't like it a bit, oh I I I don't
go around trembling, of course, I wouldn't do you no

(15:54):
tremble actually, but you know, I actually don't like it.
End of interview. Speaking of myths, this is worm and
FM New York.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
Well, that indeed is a myth, because you're tuned to
listener sponsor w BA in New York ninety nine point
five FM. And now back to Gene Shepherd from nineteen
sixty two.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
And we'll be here until I can't. Man was only joking?
What man? How does he know that? Oh? The World
Telegram will not admit that he was saying the truth.
They have to pretend that he's joking. Oh yeah, the

(16:45):
World Telegram has to prove its case to me other
than the other way around. Believe me, you tell the
truth and everyone has to say, oh, he's only kidd
You see, that's what happens. And I want to just
a little, just a little trick you learn in life.
The more truthful you to become, the better you can

(17:06):
get by with it. Because one nobody believes, then nobody
believes it when they hear it, And two, when they
do hear it and believe it, they have to then
make it sounds like, oh, he's just kidding, or he's
a kook, or what a fat he's not Take him out. Now.
Whether or not you can argue the whether or not

(17:26):
you can argue the truth of what the man said
is totally beyond the point. Everyone has to make it
into a joke getting there. And that's why now the
World Telegram, in its own little stumbling ways, has hit
on one of the great facts of humor. This is
one of the reasons why Vaultaire, when you read him,
always sounds like he's just joking around. You know, he's
saying funny little things. And and Jonathan Swift brothers of

(17:51):
weeding thems and all those wahoos and yahoos and the
hell he just get Gulliver and that just funnies, little funnies,
and and Lewis Carroll, all of them funnies, funny funnies,
all kinds of little funnies, like like you know, the funnies.
And the poet has learned this many many centuries ago.
You know that the deeper you dig the more the

(18:12):
more you can become truthful. And as long as they
don't listen carefully, the human races all live where time
and space is their nature. Uniformly bass is. The Nordic
races pop around in continual metasasus, leaving hideous industrial traces.

(18:40):
The Mongol races have flat faces and live in most
extensive places. The Hamitic races play in jazz bands with
wild groomaces and wear purple shoelaces. The Mediterranean races have
many graces and like to fill their lives with embraces.

(19:02):
The Semitic races divide their time between the oasis and
the widest of wide open spaces. The Celtic races drink
whiskey by the dozen cases. Each man can hold as
much as his own weight displaces. The Alpine races live
on top or halfway up or at the bases of mountains,

(19:23):
where the air is vilely cold, but braces. The Coptic
races walk in processions at unseemly paces, carrying enormous races.
The Carrier braces inhabit upturned carra paces, eating seaweed, musselshell

(19:44):
at uncooked dass. The Balkan races live roughly northwest of
the place where traces their conduct. A perpetual disgrace is
the human races all live where time and space is
their nature uniformly based. Is we walk, we walk along,

(20:17):
and you know it. It's it's again a matter of perception.
Down to write a letter, it's a matter of perception.
It's a matter of wanting to perceive or wanting not to.
I think that almost all of us, if we if
we really want to, we really want to pull it out,
have so many secret fears, so many secret not only

(20:40):
really fears, but secret shadows that kind of walk along
with us, not behind us or around us, or behind us,
or the back of us, or in front of us,
but sort of walk in tandem with us, in tandem,
in tandem, and the feeling of of a of a
sort of universe. So dread is probably the most common feelings,

(21:04):
whether we live by the myth, or whether we live
by the absurd, or whether we live by the largique,
and which incidentally is the most dangerous of all ways
to live, because the largerique itself, you see, can be
probably unfortunately the most colossal myth of all. You know,
And so I remember, you know, you have to relate

(21:28):
back to history. Everybody, everybody has a little collection in
his mind in his memory of first days. Do you
know what I mean by first days? Like, let's say,
the first day you were in high school, or the

(21:50):
first day you worked at your job, or the first
day you were in the army, or the first day
that you seem to understand more than was really good
for you, and there is a point where that begins

(22:11):
to bother you. I don't know how many people out
of a thousand are ever troubled by this problem, but
I'm sure it's more than most would ever admit, you know,
speaking of first days, and I suspect that these first
days are the most important of days. For example, if
you go to a foreign country, your first day in

(22:34):
a foreign city is going to be the most valuable
day you will spend there, and for good reason, because
you are suddenly seen. You are seeing with new fresh
eyes things which you will never notice again, and since
you will never notice them again, you will never ever
get to understand them. And so first days are extremely important.

(23:00):
The first day you met someone who became a real
part of your life, the first day, the really first
time you knew this person. Really, those things are always
floating around like a million little quarks on the surface
of our mind, and sometimes they're floating way back off

(23:22):
there in shadow and darkness where you can't see them.
I remember, speaking of first days, I suppose the most
the most vivid first day that I have in my
mind is the first day I ever worked in a
steel mill. You know, again, this is a matter of

(23:45):
perception and myth and reality, dream and the lagique. What
does the steel mill seem to you to be? If
I say to you, steel mill, what do you think
of in your mind? How do you see it? Do
you think that you've even approached it? Do you think
you've even scratched the surface of a steel mill? Well,

(24:07):
let me tell you about the first day. And remember this,
I lived within a mile and a half of most
of my adolescent and childhood life, within a mile and
a half of the greatest steel mills in America. So
logically I should know about steel mills. Right logically, since

(24:28):
most of the people who lived in the neighborhood worked
in steel mills, the steel mill should not come as
a surprise to me. Well, let me tell you about
that first day. I remember this so vividly that it's
as though it was a It was some kind of
a lithograph, even better than that, a steel engraving hanging
in this long corridor of my room, this room of

(24:50):
the mine, with lights properly placed so they can be
seen clearly. And I hardly ever think of it. It never,
I never look at it. It's like a pick that's
in your house that you never look at. It's always there,
you know. You walk in and out of the room,
and there's this thing hanging and you never look at it.
Once in a while you look at it and suddenly say, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(25:12):
Aristotle contemplating a hole buster. Yeah, there he is, you know,
and it suddenly hits you again and again and again.
Maybe one day you get so tired of this picture
you throw it out, but you never can read. You
throw it out because it's always, somehow hanging in your memory.
That first day, let me tell you about the first day.

(25:34):
The first day in the steel mil I was working
in what they call the male department. Now this is
not the mail department like here at the labor house
or at the six sixty sixth building or BBDNO or
wor oh no. Let me tell you that this is
like being a maleman in a wild, fantastic, surrealistic city

(25:58):
beyond all your conception. And it's it's a it's a
it's a job that is that runs runs, runs, You
run constantly, and you're never in offices. You're running between
great trains and screaming, howling cranes and falling pieces of
metal and screaming, moving swirling sparks constantly, and you run

(26:18):
and run and run, and you run until you can't
run anymore. And then they say go home, come back
and start running tomorrow. But I remember the first day.
You see, because the steel mill is built out on
the lake. You see, it's built on what they call
made land. Do you know what made land is? This
is land that's filled. The land moves out. I'm a

(26:41):
kind of slag base and foundation. This is made It's
it's like an animal you see, that builds its own
shell as it goes. You know, you know what I
mean that the ground that the steel mill is on
is made out of the waste of the steel mill.
It's perpetual motion. They just keep dumping it in the lake,
and every so often they say say, Charlie, we've got
three more acres now for crying out loud sticking out there,

(27:04):
and they roll it down with a roller and they
build another mill on it. Eventually, I suspect the steel
mill will stretch all the way to Northern Canada, like
a giant peninsula, all the way up the lake, and
finally it'll work its way down lake Ontario, and eventually
it could very well dock off the battery here like
a big snake going all the way up to the
Saint Lawrence. I'm not kidding. That's the way it is.
And eventually it's going to be one big mill. And

(27:25):
you get that feeling, you know, when you're working at it,
like you're working in a cancer. You just don't know which.
It's going bigger and bigger, and it's always being built,
never being torn down, being built. Well, I'm a kid, remember,
and I'm sixteen. I go down and I get my
working permit and this is a very exciting moment, you see,
and I'm going to work and school has just gotten out,

(27:48):
and I have, like they say out in the steel mill,
you got to have a drag. Well, everybody had to
have a drag. And by the way, is anybody out
there who does honestly have a drag? You know? The
say you know, is anybody out there that's really going
to drag? Or is that a Midwestern expression? Again? You
never heard the expression huh pull? No, no, Paul has

(28:11):
to do with city hall. No, no, seriously, that's a
very different thing. We used to use that expression. Oh
he's got pulled down City Hall. No, I said, oh boy,
that guy's got a drag somewhere. That really means that,
you know, you really got something going in the mill.
You know that there's an important guy. You know. Well,
it's a funny thing. I being an amateur radio operator,

(28:32):
it was funny. I was on the air on this
little feckless youth and I'm on one hundred and sixty meters,
And so I find one night that I'm sitting there
talking to the superintendent of the rolling mill. Actually he's
the superintendent of the roll shop. I mean, this is
like talking to God out there. No, you have no
idea how important this is. And I suddenly began to
sweat because really it's like it's like a little actor

(28:53):
somewhere finds himself on the telephone with Darryl Zenik. Oh
you know, you just you just don't expect I do this.
And I'm sitting here, I'm talking Hi, Gil, how are
you boy? They're coming in here, so and so blah
blah blah. That a pair of two A five's in
the final hair Class B modulation. Yeah, I'm using a
double extended zip with six hundred dolls feed. Yeah, blow it.

(29:14):
What do you do, Gil. I'm I'm going to ham
and High. I'd like to know what you do over there.
I said, okay, Gil, come on. And Gil comes back
and he says, I'm the I'm the foreman of the
rolling mill in the Inland steel you know. Oh, I'm
hot in a sweat like that. Well, I don't know

(29:34):
how to get around to it, you know, So I say, yeah, well,
that's a very interesting job. You must have their, mister, Gil,
that's a very interesting job. You got their uh steel mill? Huh,
well by George. You know, it's a coincidence, Gill. Uh uh.
You know, there's nothing I wanted to work in more
than the steel mills. Strangely enough, you know, always been

(29:55):
interested in rolls and uh, you know, oddly enough, I'm
getting out of next week and say, Gil, I wonder
if Bom well, you know, I don't want to put
you in any trouble, but Tom, well, anyway, to make
a long story short, this poor, friendly, kindly man called
me and I went down to his home. He called,

(30:16):
you know, he said, come on over some night. And
he lived about three miles away, and g I was
in the superintendent's home and here was this feckless youth.
And he said, well, he says, look, son, he said,
and by the way, this was when jobs were not
easy to get. And he says, look, son, you take
this tomorrow morning. Take this to the clock house, the

(30:40):
number one clock house. Well, of course, this was a
name that was so familiar to me. You know. It's like,
say take it to the MG on Main Gate. Say
this to a bid actor in Hollywood. He knows about this.
It's a famous thing. He says. Take this to the
number one clockhouse, and you show this to the man
who's inside the little office just as you get in,

(31:02):
and he will he will send you down to the
place where you'll be talked to. And he said, I'll
call him and it'll be all set. Well, I'll tell
you that night I couldn't sleep. Oh boy, I mean
I was sweating. I told my mind says, I got
a job in the mill. She says, you're gonna work
in the mill. Of course, immediately, you know, Mother's the
mill is this monster over here. Once in a while

(31:23):
you hear this big booming sound and sirens going on
the ambulances and all you know, the whole bit. Immediately
mothers suspect that the ocean is gonna swallow you up
and that's it, you know, and spit you out nothing
but the core and seeds and stuff. Well, anyway, oh no,
I'm gonna don't worry about me. Mo So that that morning,
and I forgot to mention that he told me that

(31:43):
I should get to the clockhouse about five thirty or
six o'clock in the morning. Oh, well, that's the mill.
It's like the sea. I mean, the mill is like
the sea, and like the great plains, you don't sleep,
you know, the crops are taken in early. So I
go down there and I got this paper, and boy,
I'll tell you, I'll never forget it. I've drive this
little car I had. I had this little V eight

(32:04):
my pocket in the great big parking lot, millions of
cars where the mill was. And the sun was just
coming up, you know, it was just getting bright, just
getting light. And there's a strange chill around the steel mill.
I cannot explain this. Do you know the chill that
exists around totally inhuman things like crypts. Have you ever

(32:25):
been inside of a pyramid? You haven't. Have you ever
been inside of a great temple of some kind made
of stone, or there is a chill, a strange, unearthly
inhuman chill. Well, I parked my car and I'm wearing
this T shirt because back home it was warm, you know,

(32:45):
it's summertime. It's June. And I get out of the
car and I walk. I walk through the parking lot
and this chill is beginning to reach out and get me.
It's funny, I'm cold the first time, you know, cold,
and it's not cold like that there, and it's beginning
to get chilly. Well, I get on the main pathway,
which is a big concrete area way that leads to

(33:05):
the number one clockhouse, and there are thousands of men
walking towards me and walking with me. And this was
the first peculiar, strange premonition intimation I had that life
isn't exactly the way it seems to be, not exactly now.
I do not know what it is. I've spent my

(33:28):
life since trying to figure out just what it is.
But it isn't what it seems to be. Because here
were all these men. They were all walking, and they
were walking fast, going towards the mill, and there were
great crowds of them coming back and They had a
kind of dead look on their faces which I cannot
describe except to say that it was the kind of

(33:50):
deadness that is, well, it's deadness that is alive, a
dead qual of a kind of How can I say
it except to say that it's like an automobile or
a machine that looks like it's moving fast, but it's
got a burnt out clutch, and it stands in the garage,

(34:12):
beautifully streamlined and leaning forward, but it's not going to go.
And there is a quality of deadness about a car
in a garage, and yet it looks alive. Is does
this mean anything? And these men were all walking, and
they were all wearing lumberjacks, and they had hats on
with buttons and stuff. And there I am jostling there

(34:34):
with my knit, my cotton T shirt on and I'm
getting cold. Now. I don't know whether I was getting
cold because of the mill or because of this aura
that is emanated from this strange place. Well, I finally
got into the clockhouse, and thousands of guys are going
through the clockhouse. Is just that it's the place where
you punch in. And remember, this steel mill employed something

(34:56):
like forty one thousand men divided by three, and that's
the number of men that went through that clockhouse three
times a day. You see, there were three shifts, and
so this enormous push is going through. And I walk
up to the man. He was in the little desk there,
and somehow my idea of work and working in the
mill was completely different from this. I gave him my

(35:20):
sheet of paper which mister whatever his name was had
written down something call so and so, call number so
and so, check on this kid, or whatever it was
he wrote. And the guy didn't say a word to me.
He just looked down. Okay, picked up the phone, he
dialed something. He says, mister so and so, blah blah, Yeah, okay.
He hangs up. He says, all right, kid, get in

(35:41):
the bus, and he says, go down to tell him
you want to get off at the number one stores,
one of the guys. I'll tell you when the number
one stores is. There's the number one stores, you know.
And suddenly it was becoming very real. And up to
this point, working in the steel mill had been an idea.
Now you see what I mean about the myth and
the reality. It had been an idea. So he says,

(36:02):
get off at number one stores. Well, I had an
idea of stores. What is the stores? You know stores.
I could see places where guys bought chewing tobacco, you
know this kind of thing, and ice cream cones and stuff. Well,
I get into this bus and there was the bus,
and it was a long, flat, strange conveyance where men
sat all hawk to hawk. It was a bus that

(36:23):
looked like it was two hundred feet long, and it
was made out of a black, strange, rough welded sheet metal,
and the windows were wide open. There were no windows
at all, just big squares cut out of the sheet metal.
And suddenly again I was faced with the reality of
everything is there's no nicety, you know what I mean.

(36:45):
And we're sitting on this long metal, this long metal seat,
and on the other side are these guys all sitting
in long metal things, and everyone is just sort of
just looking ahead, carrying lunch buckets, and the sun is
coming up the lake. And remember it's June. I have
just gotten out of school. Do you know what spring
vacation summer vacation is? It was It was no time now,

(37:10):
there was no absolutely no season. It was nothing. It
was I was in a foreign country, not only a
foreign country, a foreign world. And I'm sitting and we go,
we go. The bus. You can't hear anything. It's made
a sheet metal Have you ever ridden in a sheet
metal bus with big flat, solid rubber tires, no air

(37:32):
and riding over what they call a slag road. A
slag road is a road that's made out of big
chunks of iron slag packed down deep. And I'm aware
around me as I look out through this window. No
longer is the steel mill a thing that you see
on the horizon. It's no longer even a thing that

(37:54):
can be recognized. You see, because you can recognize things
on the horizon. You can recognize the moon from here.
On the surface of the moon you won't be able to.
You can recognize problems in Katanga from here, but in
Katanga you can't. I can assure you of that. You
can recognize what should be done by the administration here,
but when you're sitting at a big oak table with

(38:16):
the foreign ministers from Nairobi, you can't. And so I'm
sitting in this bus and it's gone, and I see
outside of these windows. I don't want to look eager.
You know, that's the worst thing when you get into
a terrible foreign country or a strange world is to
let everyone know that you're not a native. And so
I'm sitting, but I'm looking out casually, you know, and

(38:39):
I see these great buildings on either side, so close
that you could reach out and brush them with your hands,
big square cutouts in the buildings, and I could see
enormous ingots, boom boom, back and forth, sparks, and it
sounded like to the ear, which was not trained, it
sounded like there was nothing but a continuous screen cutting

(39:01):
the air, a great, great screen of all the machinery,
everything all together. And I'm sitting, Oh, I'm sitting. And
I said to the guy next to me, say you
know where number one stores? In number one stores? I
want that, kid, I said, the number one stores. I

(39:21):
want to got down, know where they are. And he
turns and somebody sitting across from me says number one store.
To tell hey, hey, Jerry, number one store. Not down there? Body,
Number three? Yeah, down my the number three ac down there.
I can't get off my number three? A c are

(39:41):
you closer there? Well, I didn't know whether the you know, say, well,
I don't know where number three AC is. So I
sat for a couple of minutes and I just sat,
and finally we got to a place where a lot
of men got off, and I looked out. I thought
I'd see something that says number three AC. Nothing, just
great black buildings, smoke and steam and right next to me,

(40:05):
right out you could reach out. Have you ever been
three inches from the side of a steam engine? Shoom
shoom shoom shoomoomoo. Steam came into the bus. Don't gum
dum dum. Oh. I'm sitting you know, I'm really I'm
really worried. Now I don't know what I'm getting into.
And finally I thought, well, I'll have to get off.

(40:28):
So I got off with all these men, and the
bus continued to go with half of the men off
and at the distance and there I am, well, there
was there was an office into which maybe twenty five
guys went, and so I get in. I walk in
the office and there's a man with a guard's uniform
and I said, I'm looking for the number one stores.
Number one stores, kid, that's another mile and a half dollar.

(40:51):
He says, it's past the fourteen inch man. What are
you doing here? I said, well, how do you get there? Well,
the bus is gone, kid. Just go on walk down
there past the fourteen inch mil. You'll see it just
right past the fourteen inch MIIL as for Hennessy, past
the fourteen inch mil asked for Hennessy. Well, I went
walking down this road. And this road was not a

(41:13):
road like you think of roads for cars. It was
a road for what they call hot metal cars. Great
zeppelins filled with molten steel came moving down and I
could feel the heat from perhaps two three hundred yards away.
And I'm hiding, cowering next to this building. And I
kept walking and walking and walking, and sure enough, believe

(41:34):
it or not, there was a sign that said fourteen
inch merchant mill, fourteen inch merchant mill, shipping dock. I'm
getting there. So I walk up to the doctor with
these guys who are all sitting there. A couple of
them have got big air hammers strung over their back.
And I says, any of you men know where Hennessy is?
Hennessy who Hennessy, Bob, Hennessy and the coal strip? I said, no,

(41:55):
Hennessy and the stores Hennessy, Hey, Chuck, do you know
Hennessy in the stores? Never heard of a kid, Well,
where are the stores? Oh, they're down just around the
next turn. You go right past the AC shop. You'll
see the AC shop and there's the stores there. Well,
I made the turn and there's the AC shop. And
finally there was a little sign over the doorway. It says,

(42:19):
do not enter stores unless you have a pass from
your foreman. I had no pass, so I go up
to the door. Figure they're gonna let me in. I
said to the fellow, I have to see mister Hennessy
in the stores. Where's your past? Kid? Well, to finally
get it down to the basic point, I finally arrived

(42:40):
in the stores and I'm sitting there and here's a
man comes out. He said, I'm gonna fit you a
safety shoes. Kid. I say, you gotta know from Glambas.
You gotta get to work the stores where they give
you safety shoes and goggles. I said, well, what am
I gonna do? I don't know. That's none of my business. Kid, Huh,
you're working for Glambus over there, work for Galabas offering

(43:00):
stationary shipping. I have another what the note says, don't
come and ask me about that. That's not my problem, kid,
you get safety shoes and goggles. And I walked out
of the stores with a big pair of safety shoes
at weigh forty pounds each, on pair of goggles, and
the sound rose and rose and rose and rose. It
was screaming and hollering around me. I had nowhere to go,
no place to go, I had no point of reference.

(43:24):
And I went into a doorway where there was a telephone.
I picked up the telephone and I instinctively dialed zero
and I got this voice on the phone. It was
the operator, the plant operator. I said, I want to
talk to mister Glambus, please, mister Glambus. He says, yes,
mister Glambus, who is the superintendent of the rolling shop. Oh, yes,

(43:46):
mister Golambas, of course, sir. She thought I was a
big man. I got mister Glambus said, Hi, gil hykilus
is w and I qew you're in I'm over here
in the two a seat kill please come and get me. Well.
Twenty minutes later, I'm in the stationary shipping department. And

(44:09):
that was only the beginning that today I learned something
very important. I haven't discovered yet what it is.

Speaker 4 (44:21):
This is WI No, it's WBAI in New York, and
that was Gene Shepherd from February the fifteenth of nineteen
sixty two. And I suppose next week, why not, we'll
hear the show from February nineteenth, from nineteen sixty two
from the same tape from a secret source. Actually, no,
it's not that secret. What let's say here from Palo

(44:44):
Alto Microsystems. Gene Shepherd Tapes, I provided not for profit
production of Palo Alto microsystem.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
So there you go.

Speaker 4 (44:52):
So we thank you Palo Alto. And we'll have more
next week. And I've been max I need it. Next
week we'll be back exploring the popular music of the
mid nineteen sixties for the first ninety minutes of the show,
and then close out with another episode of it Can
Say It and the Gene Shephard. I'll also be back

(45:13):
here Sunday night at seven thirty for the Golden Age
of Radio, the last show before the Big Fun Drive begins.
So stand by and we'll figure out what the schedules
are going to be for those programs. And don't forget
the Friends of All Time Radio Convention coming up the nineteenth.
So the twenty second of this month out at the
newer Holiday Inn North. That's what I'm driving towards at

(45:37):
this point. But time to go, so I will see
you next week or Sunday night. Thanks for listening, and
stay tuned for a wake up call, which we'll follow
after a few important announcements.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
From February nineteenth, nineteen sixty two. At auction a genuine
elephant's leg umbrella stand a street Louis Man breaks into
the zoo and freeze forty six cages of snakes, talking
to ants and rats driving a bed in Britain without
a license. Part of the opening theme has been deleted.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Oh my five point fourteen.

Speaker 4 (46:09):
We should be starting Gene Shepherd, but I need to
remind you very quickly about the Friends of Old Time
Radio convention, and all I have time to do is
give you the contact information. If you don't know about
it by now, check the worldwide web lofcom dot com
and find the nostalgia section. Then FOTR for Friends of
Old Time Radio twenty fifth annual convention, gathering of the

(46:31):
celebrities and stars who performed in radio programming, as well
as dealer's room, galore panels and so forth. I'll be
doing a Gene Shepherd panel Friday at noon. The dates
are October the nineteenth, a Thursday through the twenty second,
Sunday morning. Daytime registration and full day including the evening

(46:52):
banquets are available. For pricing, information and schedules. Contact Jay Hickerson,
the chairman of the convention phone number. We'll just give
you his phone number. The hell with writing it's too
late now two O three two four eight two eight
eight seven two zero three two four eight two eight
eight seven, or email M J hick at a O
L dot com, j A y h I c k

(47:13):
at L O at a O L dot com, or
check the world Wide web www dot lof com, l
O F C O M dot com slash nostalgics slash
f O t R. Time for our Gene Shepherd episode
of the Morning another are Lost and restricted.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Episode from nineteen sixty two.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
Specifically, the hello is the date February the nineteenth, nineteen
sixty two, featuring mankind and his stuff and the divinely absurd.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
So well, that's further ado. Let's get a move in.
Here's Gene.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
Over the weekend, I spent about three hours watching these
canned television shows, you know, the realistic kind where during
always stories, there's there's a scene where where the cops
wind up chasing the guy around the roof Have you
ever seen you know, around the roofs of the buildings
up and down the west side there over by the docks,

(49:41):
and they shoot it out and the lovely girl who
winds up getting you know, getting involved. In the third reel,
he's tearing down the fire escape and he jumps into
the room there and he's always in the room with her,
you know, this beautiful guy. Well, I saw at seven
of those over the weekend, seeing they're running around on
the roofs, and I came to a conclusion there. These

(50:02):
are called realistic television shows because they've shot on real
fire escapes and on real roofs. Wouldn't it be fantastic
if if life really was like that? I mean really,
wouldn't it be if if every twenty minutes you hear
him shooting it out up on the roofs. You know,
you go over in the forties there or about the
word pow pow pow pow and roco the lip you

(50:25):
see it's swinging up and down the fire escape. So
there's a beautiful girl wearing a shawl Oh, Roco, Roco, please,
I love you, wouldn't it be? Well? And think of
the great headlines, and think of the wonderful newspaper stories.
Every day you could pick up the newspapers, you know,
and there would be there would be all those stories
in the paper about all these fantastic things, and invariably

(50:45):
in every story it would say that Roco the lip,
while he was being chased up this alley, ran into
this beautiful girl who had just come in on the
on the boat from Italy someplace. And she was a
beautiful girl, had a strange, striking resemblance to Labeth Taylor,
and she fell instantly in love with him, and she
didn't know he was a crook. But nevertheless, in the

(51:07):
last oh wasn't it pitches? Oh what? But once in
the great while, though, something pomps up right out of
the paper that makes all of that jazz look like
kids stuff, but kids stuff, and you never know where
it's gonna happen. Now, Oh, yes, by the way, before
we go any further, I would like to say that

(51:29):
tonight's text is not for women and children. And if
you fall into either one of those categories, I suggest
you go down to Old Wpat. Maybe they've got some nice,
nice ear to ear music. I imagine QXR now has
a nice hiding string quartet on a couple of other

(51:50):
stations got these gigantic recorded fistfights with these guys hollering
through their nose. You might like that. And you know
you've got a lot of things you can do you
don't have to do, so please without without kicking chairs over,
and please leave now, now getting back to our text here,
did you read that wild story over the weekend? Now,

(52:10):
I tell you how I happened to read it. I
was walking along Third Avenue, and you know, along Third
Avenue way over there on the east side, there all
kinds of little places where they sell used Victorian lamps
and elephant's foot umbrella stands. Hey, by the way, did
you ever see an elephant's foot umbrella stand? A real one? Well,

(52:33):
one time, I'm in an auction and it's a great auction,
And I really did go into auctions, especially auctions when
they're selling some old recluses estate and you know, they've
got all this wild stuff there and they're selling it
all out, and the auctioneer is trying to make everybody
believe that it's wonderful stuff. And I'm sitting down in

(52:54):
the crowd on the camp chairs. You know, I have
these little stores with the camp chairs all sitting there
fun little stage is the auctioneer, and he's selling the
estate of this well known, very ancient and the very
eccentric recluse who lived on the outside of Cincinnati. And
he made all kinds of dough in the yeast business.
So right there, you know, he's got a lot of
stuff going. You could tell it right he made yeast.

(53:17):
So this old gentleman had passed into the great beyond,
and he'd left behind him a collection of the fluvia,
the like of which the average pack rat could not
even comprehend. And here's all this stuff. He had a
chandelier that must have been seven stories high, just the chandelier,
and it had cut glass crystal balls and little cut

(53:41):
glass crystal fringe hanging, and each candle and this was
the final of the little philippe. Each candle imitation candles,
you know, with a little light bulb at the top.
Each candle was held in a brass fist. I get
that sticking out of this great, big pile of glass,
but you haven't heard the end of it. On each
brass fist, right below each brass fist, on each brass

(54:05):
wrist was a brass cuff, and sticking out of each
brass cuff was a rhinestone cufflink. Ah about that. This
thing was seven stories told. I almost bought it from
my pad. Oh boy, three hundred and seventy eight bulbs
going all at once held the loft of a brass

(54:25):
fist with a brass cuff, with a rhinestone cufflink. I mean, George,
And what I say, you cannot give up on mankind
if he's capable of this kind of stuff. I'm just
talking about mankind in general. So anyway, I'm sitting there,
and there they got this big chandlier up there, and
the auctioneer is up there. He's he's pounding away with

(54:47):
a gavel, you know, and all of his assistants are
bringing stuff up, and he says, now, we have number
one seventy two, number one seventy two in the catalog,
Number one seventy two in the catalog, A genuine pacaderum,
a genuine African packaderm umbrella stand, a genuine African pack
of therm umbrellas. This is a pure piece of Victorian artwork,
a very rare piece of Victorian artwork, and probably the
lack of which will seldom be seen again on the

(55:08):
face of the earth. A beautiful piece which undoubtedly will
go for one hundreds of dollars more. Then we are
asking for it this afternoon, number one seventy two in
the catalog. Will you please bring it up? Well, they
put up on the stand there an elephant's foot, actually
it was an elephant's leg. Oh boy, cut off at
the knee, and there is this elephants leg standing with
the toenails, a real elephant's leg, and sticking out of

(55:31):
the elephant's leg there they had hollowed it out somehow,
and you know, the hollowed it out, and they had
a brass thing set down in the middle of it,
and sticking out of it were a couple of sample canes.
And he said, number one is how many two? Number
one seventy two, Number one seventy two, number one seventy
two A genuine packet dorm on beellowstand, genuine packet di
rrim onbelowstand. I guess he was using the phrase packet
him because he figured that everybody, if they didn't look

(55:53):
really sharply enough, would think it was taqwood or or
something else equally acceptable outside of an elephants knee. Have
you ever looked at an elephant's knee really cut off
there at the top of an umbrella sticking on? So
he's gone, well, I'm looking at this thing by George.
You know, you can't give up hope. You just can't
give up hope. And over the weekend, I'm walking along

(56:16):
on Third Avenue and they got all these shops where
they're selling stuff like that. You know, they're selling little
paddle wheel steamers, and they're selling all kinds of just
a fluvie, you know, all the junk. Just can you
imagine what it would be like if mankind somehow disappeared
from the face of the earth tomorrow and left all
his stuff behind him, just left it, you know. Even

(56:40):
better than that, I would love to see a pile
of all the junk, just the junk of mankind, piled up.
I wonder how high it would reach, this pile, how
big the base would be, how much it would weigh,
and how many hopes it would contain, how many distorted, wild,
strange beautiful, exquisite, circumscribed dreams, all piled up there with

(57:07):
those plastic street cars and those those leather whales and
those elephants toes. Oh boy, Well, I'm walking down there.
I'm looking in the window seeing I figure, well, this
is a part of man that has no relationship to
his action. You follow me here. It's the stuff like
you drip off, you know what I mean. It's just
sort of it's the slop off of man. It doesn't

(57:30):
have any real relationship to what he does. Well, I'm
walking along Third Avenue and I come to this little
newstand and there on the newstand is a pile of newspapers,
and I'm walking past, and suddenly a story just came
right out of a page. I don't read. I'm not
a nipper. You know what I mean by a nipper
is the guy and the guy you know that walks

(57:51):
over and reads the front page of the paper and
then goes on, this is a nipper. And boy, they
are the bane of the newspaper sellers. You know that
the newspaper sellers learn very quickly in the game just
how to place that iron weight. So the headline he
sort of catches you. But you can't read it, you
know what I mean. They place it at just such
an angle so she can get just a suggestion of

(58:13):
gigantic this is and that's all. No, no, this is
seventeen hundred sool xtra and that's it, you know, with
a big red thing at the time, and said, whoa,
what's this? And you go over there. You can't just
take the thing, you know, and lift it off and
look because he's looking, he's standing right. So you wind
up by popping for it, and then all you get

(58:35):
is the true life story of Marilyn Monroe. So anyway,
I'm walking past and there's this story. I stopped and
I bought a newspaper for one story. It was this
story that came out of Saint Louis over the weekend.
Did you read this thing? An unbelievable story. It told
about an incident that happened at night in the Saint

(58:56):
Louis Zoo. Have you ever been first ball in the
Saint Louis Zoo. You have to understand, the Saint Louis
Zoo is not like the zoo here. It's not like
it's not like Central Park. Central Park Zoo is a
is a comparatively sidified zoo. You know, there are buildings
all around it, and things are are pretty much under control.

(59:20):
But the Saint Louis Zoo is a big zoo, and
it's it's in set in trees and so on, and
it's almost as though it's removed from from well let's say,
from civilization. It's it's a big zoo and it's a
good zoo. But at night, this is what happened. The guard,

(59:40):
just on the booty there, fooling around, sees a man,
a big man. This man weighed over two hundred pounds,
big tall guy, and somehow he walked with a strange walk.
He was walking very stiff like it, and his shoulders
didn't move. He walked the way the guard put it,

(01:00:01):
he walked like a zombie. Well, you know what a
zombie is. The zombie is more than a phrase. A
zombie has to do with all kinds of Caribbean voodoo cults.
A zombie is, in effect, a dead man who has
been re animated and who has been set into motion,

(01:00:21):
a kind of Frankenstein. Well, anyway, here's this guy at night,
and the guard sees him and he says, you know,
it looked a little suspicious, and so he went over
and got a policeman. And just as he got the policeman,
the man started to walk up a hill toward the
reptal house. Now this is kind of a hill, he zoo.

(01:00:45):
It's built on planes and angles, and there are slow
rolling hills with trees all around, and it's all set
in and it must have been pitch black. But he
walked up up this sharp inclined plane. And the police
is being summoned, and the guard leaves the policeman area
where he had called up for a cup, turns and

(01:01:07):
runs after the man. Now you got the picture. The
man arrives at the front door of the reptile house,
and with fantastic strength, he tears the brass bars down
that had barred the door, tore aside a scream, and
ripped open the door and walked right into the reptile house,

(01:01:29):
carrying with him a long metal pole like a pipe
or something. He walked right down the middle of the
reptile house, smashing the reptile cages one after the other. Well,
the man behind him, the guard is clinging to his
back and hitting him on the head with the butt

(01:01:50):
of his pistol, banging him on the head, screaming at
him to stop this. The man paid absolutely not the
slightest heed to him, and the blows didn't even seem
to affect him. He's just banging him on the head, screaming,
And a policeman arrived and they're struggling with this man,
and he just kept walking down the center of the
reptile house, smashing cages as he went, until finally he

(01:02:13):
smashed forty six cages in that darkened house. With that,
he turns, moves right up the aisle, out the front door,
down through the bushes, over a fence, and into a
car he had waiting, and was gone without a word.

(01:02:35):
And of course the snakes are all out and writhing.
Half of them were poisonous snakes. One of the guys
rushed in, grabbed a hole of a rattlesnake by its
head and shoved it right back in and slammed a
box over it. There were forty six cages busted open.
Luckily he missed the deadly African black mamba, which would

(01:02:55):
have really gone to town had he gotten out. But
what I saw, what a story. What makes this story
even more probably frightening, speaking of a speaking of the frighten,
this is w R A M and FM, New York
and speaking of snakes in Charge, this is w B

(01:03:16):
A I, New York. And we're forty years old here
w O R is and we show every year of it.
But nevertheless, I don't know right in this is I'm
just talking about w R. Now they know what I mean,

(01:03:36):
and I'm one of the family, so I can say it.
Shut up, so they you know, what makes this story
more grotesque than just perhaps it's it's a thing that's
beyond beyond your your your imagination. In other words, what
psychological dilemma was this man in that made him break

(01:04:02):
open the cages of snakes at night in the Saint
Louis Zoo. He did not attack people. We can understand
men attacking people, you know, we can understand men attacking animals.
This we can understand. But a man seemingly possessed, seemingly

(01:04:25):
somehow with a great fixation, moving through the dark, breaking
glass cages to rectose is is almost It's the kind
of story that you don't know whether if it were written, Uh,
you want to know what now? What now? And there

(01:04:46):
was immediately a great search was instigated in UH, was
set into motion in UH Saint Louis. But as far
as I know, there has not been another word on
the story. Have you heard any more about it? Did
you hear the story? Is that a wild one? Well, now,
if you're confronted with a thing like this, how can
anybody say, Now, this is one person, one human being. Remember,

(01:05:11):
this is a human being, just like you are. Now,
how can anyone try to pretend that there is some
kind of absurd logic that man follows in his his
convolutions through time and space. I'm talking about all of

(01:05:33):
man kind, and I'm not even attempting to in any way,
shape or form apply a a an overall or a
universal meaning to what this man did. He is a man, though,
and he did something beyond the imagination of man, even
beyond fictional imagination. Really, now you can say, well, he

(01:05:56):
was he wanted to set the snakes free. That's why. No,
it's a very bad explanation because from the stories, from
the way it came out, he seemed to be doing
it with a ferocity that had little or nothing to
do with snakes themselves per se. Now, I'm sure as
somebody who is an animal lover would say, well, I've

(01:06:17):
felt like that many a time going to the zoo.
Oh no, not quite, And apparently this was done with forethought.
There was a carway. You know, I've often regretted not

(01:06:38):
buying that elephant's foot. I really have, because if I
had that elephant's foot, I would put it next to
my desk. It would cause great consternation here at w R,
but it would remind me of something. It would remind
me of of of of snake cage smashers. It would

(01:07:00):
remind me of of of chandeliers with phony candles being
held aloft by brass hands. Yes, oh lost, oh gone,
oh Peggy. But here we are. We're faced with the
reality of it. And yet yet you know, you can't.

(01:07:21):
You can't, you can't slough it off. You know. People said, well,
that's just a nut. No, that doesn't answer it. What
do you mean just a nut? You can't just say
it that way. People had these beautiful little pat phrases
that seem to be applied to everything, like oh I love,
I'm in love, that's the end of it, or oh,
you know he's a man. Have you ever heard that phrase?

(01:07:45):
Is if that covers it that says something or well,
what are you going to do these days? What do
you mean? What are you going to do these days?
What would you do any days? What if you were
living in eleven sixty six or ten six? Yeah? What
are you going to do these days? Are fighting all
the time out there with the arrows and jazz trying
out loud? That doesn't answer anything. Half of the things

(01:08:06):
we say don't answer anything. So don't come back and
say he was a nut. That doesn't answer it at all?
Speak you know? All right, now I'll give you how
about answer? Please add number two? Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Answer this one now, but you know this one you
all no call it there boys, no home? That's better

(01:08:28):
hold it now? Now now we have great respective course
for for all the the story knowledge, the the uh. Well,
let us say the assembled attitudes. By the way, you know,
speaking of the assembled attitudes, any of you ever read
a book by Angus Wilson called The Anglo Saxon Attitudes.

(01:08:52):
A magnificent title for a book, The Anglo Saxon Attitudes.
We dip peer peer peer thegether. Here's the last peers

(01:09:14):
of the realm. Last night pondered the case of a
noble lord who said his mother in law got rid
of rats by talking to them. The House of Lords
snapped to the alert as Heir Chief Marshal Lord Doubting

(01:09:36):
ride out of Lewis Carroll, hater. Chief Marshal Lord Dowding
announced his belief in the vocal method of scaring vermin.
Lord Doubting, as seventy year old spiritualist who masterminded Britain's
heroic fighter force in the World War II Battle of Britain,
recommended an American book describing the system. He said, the

(01:09:57):
book Kinship with All Life, tell of a man who
cleared his house of ants by telling them of his
admiration for their industry and their communal spirit. My wife's
mother said, Lord Dowding had a plague of rats in
her chicken pen. She practices cure and the fowl runs.

(01:10:19):
The chicken coops were kid of rats. We ourselves have
cleared our house of rats and mice by similar methods.
Not the lords sat up and blinked. All of them

(01:10:44):
assembled in the House of Lords itself up rose Earl Bathurst,
under Secretary of the Home Office, who allowed that some
people do have extraordinary powers over animals. But use, if
we are set about acquiring the powers of Lord Dowding,
we shall merely push our rats another famine upon some

(01:11:07):
other individual who does not have these powers. Oh, the
wonderful spirit of fair play that exists among the English.
Lord Doubting confessed that the last such was the case,
on the last occasion, that my wife's mother cleared her

(01:11:28):
her chicken coops as she found that next day her neighbor.
He said, I cannot imagine what has happened. My garden
is swarming with rats. Hole it, hold it, call up,

(01:11:54):
stop its cut it out. All you guys, now look it.
If you really, if you really examine the case of
the elephant knee, you will realize that there is a
logic to it. There is a logic to everything. Everything fits.

(01:12:18):
Don't you understand that there isn't a single let's see,
bitsy wee tiny drop that does not somehow fit into
the over all scheme. And, as you're probably aware of,
the British long ago uh in many ways explored this

(01:12:41):
theme itself. Oh yes, boil and bubble, toil and trouble.
Oh no, oh no, Vallas shall not push me beyond
the cleeve. So spake. Indeed the lord withdrawn from its
scabbard his long thin or saba. Oh, you shall not

(01:13:02):
push me beyond the cliff. I care fight. I shall
fight with my back to the white cliffs of Doba.
I shall fight tell over her last blood, Oh loud road.

(01:13:33):
We have here a news item, dateline, London, February fifteenth.
A court in all the Short rule today that if
you want to drive your bed through the streets, you
must display l or learner plates, obtain proper automobile insurance,
hang license plates at either end, and install a breaking system.

(01:13:55):
Richard Brown, a nineteen year old student who did not
follow these roles, was fined the equivalent of thirty six
dollars and suspended from driving beds or eyes for one month.
He drove his bed powered by a motorcycle engine for
two and a half miles through Farnborough five months ago.

(01:14:19):
The processional committee that find him was also held for
aiding and a betting Mister Brown Coincidentally today, the student
who is now in the Royal Aircraft Establishment is the
only known bedstead driver in the country. He was barred
from the road. However, we were watching, and we'll watch

(01:14:41):
this youth procedure in the future with a great deal
of interest. All together, now, all together, hold it there,
hold it, hold it all there, all it, stop it
stop all now. Now it's it's just a emotionalism. Will
get us Nowhere did I tell you about the time

(01:15:06):
the lady? Of course, this is this is the kind
of thing that you don't like to tell children, if
there are any children awake, I just all I say
is that you're going to learn it somewhere. And there
was this lady who lived out in Cincinnati. I'll just
tell you the true story of it. I might as
well lay it right out here on the line. There

(01:15:26):
was a lady one time when I was working in Cincinnati,
and I saw the incident happen. I will never forget
it because it was one of those things. You know,
it wouldn't make the reader's dieges, but let me tell
you it made my psyche. It also made my day.
I was walking. You know, Cincinnati is a very hilly town,
you know, very you know, uptown so on, and I'm

(01:15:47):
going uphill one day on Vine Street, and you won't
believe this, but I saw a lady who seemed to
be otherwise normal and all right, writing in an automatic
washer down the middle of Vine Street in Cincinnati, going
downhill against the wind. This chick went through two lights
and didn't do anything but just sit and wave at people.

(01:16:10):
Well I saw her go past, you know, and yeah,
it was, oh you're interested in Well, it was a
maytag and I waved there. Or when she went past,
and she was she was sitting in the clothes dryer compartment.
You know, they have two compartments. She's sitting in the
clothes dryer compartment. And somehow I had the feeling that
she had had a companion when she started out, and

(01:16:31):
he stopped off somewhere and I just went right on,
disappeared in the distance, and I never heard another word
about him. I saw it happen. I was expecting to
read about it in the paper, but you know, they
hush up the real stuff. Everybody's covering up. By the way,
are you covering up? Stop cutting ody? Speaking of covering up.

(01:17:02):
Oh well, I you see the reason I told the
women and children to get out. And I feel very
good about it now, since it's quite obvious that the
theme that came out, of course, the thing that we
had calculated would all along, And that's that that thin
thread of the divinely absurd which runs through all of

(01:17:24):
the actions of all of us. You don't think for
a minute that that that countries, big countries, big countries.
I don't can name any big country really wants to disarm,
do you really, Well, that's that's all that history has
ever been about, is wars and what happened just after them. No, seriously,

(01:17:48):
it's it's like telling it's like telling some guy whose
whole world has been based on killing cockroaches that from
now on, he's got to give up killing cockroaches. Stop it. No, seriously,
it's not going to work. And it's interesting to note
that every time there is a disarmament, any kind of
disarmament talk, everybody gets all flustered. Everyone suspects a trick

(01:18:12):
on the other guy's part, of course, and so naturally
people disarm, even you know, the disarm in the mind,
and then they are more in reality to prevent any
such tricks like this happening. It sort of piles up,
one after the other until finally we wind up with
tiny little bursts of impatience that have nothing at all
to do with with disarmament or armament. It's just kind

(01:18:34):
of the bubble festering to the top of the boil
on the of the psyche just pops like that, you know.
And there's this little thing, you know, comes out of
the news of me, just as you know, the letters
to the editor, it says brookline, wan't the transit authority
do something about them fans? Why don't they do something

(01:18:57):
about them fans? And the new IRT and BM cars
they've been in operation all winter signed a frozen starting
rotten bombs. Well and over there all that all your guys,

(01:19:18):
all of them all they're rotten bombs. I don't blame
your dad. What are they going to get on us?
So when is that? Oh, of course, this is all.
This is all part of the same thing. It's like
it's like the other day, I'm listening to short wave
and uh, I don't recall what country was, was Romania

(01:19:40):
or one of them? They have all these English newscasts
on and you listen, you listen, really care for you this,
and you begin to note that in the voice there
is the sound of a man or a woman, usually women.
You know, there use a lot of women newscasters over there.
These people really believe it, you know, which is really

(01:20:02):
frightening because we really believe what we say, you know,
and yet nobody really does. You know what I mean,
if you carry it all the way to the furthest extent,
it's just a lot of talk. I mean, I'm all
over the world is in fact composed of talk. So everybody,
we're gonna shoot this rocket up now, you know, with
a guy in it, and so everybody talks about all

(01:20:23):
the scientific information we're to get. That isn't why we're
doing it. We want to see if we can shoot
a rocket up. It's like kids. You know, when when
a kid is gonna do something and he's gonna throw
a rock up in the air to see how hyatt goes.
He doesn't try to pretend, you know that what he's
doing it is to measure air currents on rocks. You know,
he just throwns the rock. You know, he throws let's
her go. You know. Well, as man gets older, he

(01:20:45):
does the same thing. He throws rocks up in the air,
or he you know, or he breaks windows, which is
the equivalent of war. But as he gets older, being mature,
he has to learn all kinds of ridiculous rationalizations for it.
This is a kind of a matuire, you know, we
call it maturity. So he invents all these economic things,
and he invents all these these wild beautiful stories like

(01:21:08):
we have to have h we have to have the
information on the upper air currents and the sporadic e
layer there up around Van Allen Belt. We've got to
have that information. So we wind up nobody knows why,
you know, but we wind up well, putting eighty seven
billion dollars into into a gigantic rock to throw. And
I can only say, fine, I can say there's nothing
wrong with that, actually, because what else is there to

(01:21:31):
do on the earth anyway? Really, because this is the
kind of talk that women, I'm not quite sure understand,
you know, because I don't think they have the same
kind of itch that men have. That the that the
itch that men have to to to throw things as
far as they can be thrown, to to fly up
as high as you can fly, to jump as high

(01:21:51):
as you can jump. All these things are tied up,
Oh boy, wow, biologically, psychologically and everything else with the
problem of being male. Women don't have this problem, obviously,
they have others. But what they have, you see, men
do not understand in an equal measure. Now, I'm sure
that all the women who listening. So why is he
mean I understand men? Oh no, no, you don't any

(01:22:14):
more than the man really understands your basic motives. We
have a few little areas of common boundary we share,
men and women, few areas of common common discussion points.
But it's like, it's like, to do you understand what
I mean? It's like it's really like two races sending
notes to each other, written in two different languages, but

(01:22:37):
vaguely written the same way. You know, so hear what
we're going to send these things up? And I think
I think that more and more. Of course, it's not
a matter of thinking. I know this is a fact
that more and more psychologists are becoming interested in mankind
as a whole rather than the individual ill and more

(01:22:58):
and more at the beginning to to impinge or to
dissect that little area there, that that little itch that
mankind has had to throw things up as high as
it can throw it to see what will happen. Just
to see what will happen? You know that that explains

(01:23:19):
a lot. If you say, if you do something, you said, well,
I just wanted to see what would happen. That's right,
But what does it explain. You see, it doesn't really
explain why you want to see what would happen. And
so this, this incessant, insensate drive for knowledge and for
understanding of the physical universe has led us into some

(01:23:41):
very interesting paths. But we've never really explained why we
want to know these things. Really now, there can be
some very very loose broad generalizations and I might say rationalizations.
For example, it betters the lot of man on Earth.
You really believe that, you really believe you're happier than say,
somebody who lived five hundred years ago really happier. On

(01:24:06):
the other hand, you see, the guys who live five
hundred years from now are going to have things you
don't know about. Are you unhappy about it? Do you
feel a terrible sense of being cheated because you don't
have the instantaneous telepathic method of non communication which people
will have in the year twenty seven fifty. Do you

(01:24:28):
think Washington felt cheated because he never saw gun smoke? Seriously,
you know, but we like to think they did. You
know that the poor old Jefferson left this mortal coil
feeling cheated. Hi, George, he just missed out, just missed
out on this a vision we just stuck around. He
might have seen it. And yet you see, the interesting

(01:24:54):
problem here is one is one again of time and space,
the time you occupy a certain amount of cubic inches
of space versus the time and space occupied by somebody
else at another at another point on the graph. Just
it's a big long line there. But nobody quite understands
why we have this this, No they don't. They really

(01:25:16):
don't know. A lot of people are gonna come up
with glib answers, but no one has really explained that
one interesting facet of all of us, and that's this,
that's this thing to know everything, to uh to uh
just see what it would do, you know, just see
what it would do. No one really knows about this.

(01:25:39):
And if you're going to tell me, come up and say, well,
they're doing this because you know, if they, if they
find out how it is on Saturn, they will discover
how they can better the lot on. Oh, come on,
everybody wants to go to Saturn. You see what Saturn's like,
that's all. Why don't we just admit it? We want
to see what's there? Why do we have to come
up with all this, you know, this jazz. Maybe they

(01:26:00):
figured if we said the truth, no one would pay
for it. But I suspect they would pay for it
quicker if you laid it out. You know, they said,
we want to shoot a rocket up. See how high
we can shoot one up. Let's get the do up here.
We're gonna shoot this big one up there as far
as it can go. I would pay. But if they
come up, you know, they want to tell me. We

(01:26:21):
want to find out about the cosmic rays and about
the number of times the gamma ray bounces off the
number three e prime two shield. You know, come on,
lay off. I mean, I mean, after all, my life
is short. I just want to see how high you
can shoot it. I'm sorry, that's my attitude towards it,
which is a terrible attitude. You know. I suppose I

(01:26:44):
should have the proper twentieth century attitude, which is the
non romantic or the academician attitude, where I could couch
all my secret yearnings in very involved technical language, which
when all boil bounces, we want to shoot it up
in the air. Ye, that's what it really boils down to.
We want to find out. Of course, we explain we

(01:27:04):
have gamma rays, we go into we go into quantum mechanics,
we go into the whole routine. You say, to kind
of hide the whole thing. It's it's uh, it's like
a giant speakeasy. We're running of the mind. You know
that that everybody pretends everything else is going on, but
what he really wants is a drink. That's a lot
of drink. We rationalize all over the place, and uh,

(01:27:28):
I'm of course. On the other hand, if people ever
would admit why they have wars, for example, uh, we
might begin to have make some progress towards not having them.
You know, any good psychologists will tell you that the
minute a man who has got a fixation, say, for example,
an alcoholic, admits that he has one, I really admits it.

(01:27:51):
You know, that says, well, all right, now, whatever we
go from here, then there might be a chance of
going But no, no, no, no, there's no uh obviously
no guarantee of a cure, but there is a chance.
But we never admit this. I mean, you can't get anybody,
hardly ever to admit that why ah, what would well
do you mean? Go to war? We get a kick

(01:28:12):
out of that all that shooting, all that holler on,
all the fireworks and people yelling them fist fight and
all that. You know, is there one among you here
who who, if you saw a fist fight across the street,
wouldn't be strangely drawn toward it. Eh, And don't come
up and tell me, well, it's because you know you're
you're against warn out because you're afraid you're gonna get

(01:28:34):
hit in the eye. Oh no, I don't think so either.
I think it's how you get hit in the eyes.
And isn't there one one among you who who never
to himself has said you can see yourself charging up
the hill there at San Juan Hill, you know, and
Teddy Roosevelt's how I charge And you're running up there
behind him, you know, and you take this ball through
your shoulder and you continue to struggle up there carrying

(01:28:57):
the flag aloft. Come on, though, it's true, you know,
it's one of the saddest sights of all, is this
little ninety seven pound weekling standing on the library steps
saying how much he hates football players? Does he really
or does he hate non football players even more? It's

(01:29:19):
very complicated, you know, it gets why don't they turn
them fans up on the BMT. Who's covering up? Wagner?
Wise guy? I know how this works, boy, I nobody's
gonna tell me how it works. I know it works.
It aren't covering up're not telling you nothing. You don't
think they're gonna tell you everything about what that thing

(01:29:40):
is gonna do when it gets up there? Do you
let me tell you they're covering up? Who's cover of
all them guys in Washington? Everybody, the big shots? What
about that match? You heard about that match that they invented?
You light it once, and in fact, you can light
it all the rest of your life. It's a match
that lasts a lifetime. They bought that one up, boy,
and stuck it away in his safe. Listen, you heard

(01:30:00):
about that guy that invented the motor that runs on water.
They bought that one up, stuck it away in his safe.
They're not letting nothing out, them guys, not giving you nothing.
They're smart. They mikerol her doe. How can they sell
her gas? The wise guys, let me tell you fifteen

(01:30:22):
cents fair on us subway. Let me tell you jacket's
gonna be twenty cents for forty years out. And why
who's getting all that dough? Who's sticking all that dough
in his pocket? Huh? I'll do it tomorrow, Yes I will.
Well you think not? You watch me. Now. This is

(01:30:47):
a common attitude, you know, the attitude. Is there anyone
among you who hasn't heard about the carburetor that gets
forty miles to the gallon of gas? And they bought
it up from this inventor. They bought it up. Yeah,
I know you got it in a safe. Speaking of
the safe, boy, I'll tell you who's got a loaded one?

(01:31:08):
You ought to drop by down to the Mandarin House.
Why's apple The Mandarin House on thirteenth Street between sixth
and seventh. Who are they? Who are they? What do
you mean? Who are they? All them guys in Washington,
the big guys, big shots, guys who all a doe?

(01:31:29):
Who are they? You know who they are? Mandarin House
so the best Chinese food in this whole man's Eastern Seaboard.
And they're open every night by George till midnight. They
are They got everything down there. I got all the
whole works there. They're open seven days a week. You mean,
who are they? You know who they are stop that

(01:31:53):
you're pushing again, say I'll tell you nothing, mac crying
out loud, keep your knees loose some night some nights
it's awful, awful dark. Yeah, just just remember that, Just
remember that elephant foot, and from time to time remind

(01:32:14):
yourself of the man in the Snakehouse and maybe you'll understand.

Speaker 4 (01:32:26):
This is w w BAI, New York Geane Shepherd from
February the nineteenth of nineteen sixty two. It wraps up
today's mass Backwards. We'll be back next week three thirty
to six am with more music from the mid nineteen
sixties from the original forty.

Speaker 3 (01:32:44):
Five monaoral.

Speaker 4 (01:32:47):
Recordings, another Gene Shepherd episode, another Dandelion Wine from Ray Bradbury,
and perhaps a little fundraising. So do think about supporting
WBAI as a fun drive kicks off Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (01:33:02):
From February twenty first, nineteen sixty two. Chewing the Fat
the Mole People. Whoe betide those of you who have
nothing in their lives. They couldn't talk about a fable
of a boarding house and other fables of George da Now.

Speaker 6 (01:33:14):
It's time fall the Jeane Shepherd Shows.

Speaker 3 (01:35:17):
Do you ever have a feeling that it's all gonna
blow over, you know, it's it's really it's all gonna
blow over. It's all gonna be hotsy totsy all the
way in from here on out. You know. Hunky dorry? Oh,
I'm sorry if I'm using phrases which have little or
no meaning to you. Does the phrase hunky dory? Does

(01:35:39):
this relate only again to a Midwestern ism? Hunky dorry?
You've heard it before? Oh? You have? Well, that's good.
You see, we we Americans speak a common language and
it's different. Oh, yes, we two very calm, exceedingly common.
And the other night when I was on the air,
I said, dub something to the effect of chewing the

(01:36:03):
F I says, this is I'm afraid is an expression
that is an American expression. Since we're all Americans, we must,
we must understand each other. We must, you know, grasp
the hand in common distrust. Put your hand right out here, buddy,
where I can see it. I'm certainly glad to see you.
I remember one time I used to do on the air.

(01:36:23):
Do I ever tell you about that long many many eansigo? Oh,
we're gonna have things to answer for, believe me, We're
all going to have things to answer for when we
get up before that great judge. There's gonna be many
things that are gonna come out of that book that
are gonna look awful tough, like For example, me, I know,
I know, it's one thing I'm gonna have to talk
about and I'm gonna have to explain. I used to

(01:36:44):
do a program of recorded music called bing Sings, and
this was on a radio shot of ancient times, back
way back in my palaeolithic days. I would come out
and I would say Bing Sings.

Speaker 7 (01:36:56):
Bah bah ba ba boo, bah bah boooo, bah bah
boo b b bah bah bah bah boooooo.

Speaker 3 (01:37:09):
And right at that point, see i'd faded down. I say, yes,
Bing Sings brought to you by Sam Pollack. Sam Pollack,
the painless dentist who features plates with a smile.

Speaker 7 (01:37:18):
Bah bah ba ba be bah bah boo, bah bah
boo boo boo boo booooo bah.

Speaker 3 (01:37:26):
Bah boo boobe, I'd faded down. I'd say, friends being
will be with us in just a moment to sing
red Sails in the sunset. The first I'd like to
ask you about your plates. Do your plates add to
your personality? Do they give your face, that wonderful, warm
look of a man who is smiling inwardly. Doctor Sam

(01:37:47):
Pollack's plates with a smile are guaranteed to fit perfectly.
Bah bah boo bee bah boo, plates with a smile.
I'm going to have to answer for that. Well, no,
I honestly did. I did a show and his his
his slogan was doctor Sam Pollock, the plates with a smile.

(01:38:08):
And it's kind of, of course, you can't help but
conjure up pictures of Scrooge sitting there wearing a pair
of plates that smile, you know, the old, the old
wonderful we trust you forever loan company. And this man
I'll never forget. One time I used to go to
a bank when I was about twelve years old, and

(01:38:29):
i'd go down there and I was working. It was
just a kid, you know, And I was working for
this grocery store on the weekends, and I'd come in
once in a while at night, maybe two or three
o'clock in the afternoon, sometimes when when I had a
half a day of school, and the guy would send
me down to the bank to get pennies and Nichols.
And there was a man named mister Weatherby down there
at the bank and with one of these little banks,

(01:38:49):
and mister Weatherby would look out at me from behind that,
from behind that thing.

Speaker 5 (01:38:54):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:38:54):
And of course the bank was such an official thing
with me when I was a kid that I never
into this thing other than just to go in and
get pennies and stuff. Well, I remember weatherb Mister Weatherby
would look out at me, and he had plates, real plates.
Do you know what I mean by real store teeth,
the kind of store teeth, Oh yes, oh yeah. You
can hear little springs and stuff go when he opens

(01:39:16):
his mouth, you know. And they had this gigantic, wonderful, brilliant,
bright whiteness. And I used to associate mister Weatherby with
my grandmother, who had store teeth, but never would admit it.
And I remember one time I'm walking down the street
or something with my grandmother and hanging out over there.

(01:39:37):
They don't do this anymore, or did they ever do this?
In the east, hanging out over the sidewalk was a
gigantic sign. And the sign was in the shape of
a pair of teeth, you know, really big teeth, and
they're sort of half open like they were just to
bite in just about the bite into a prune. These
two old teeth were hanging there and over it it

(01:39:59):
says painless or something like that. And I said that
my grandmother chrismas never. I didn't know that. You never
talked about stuff like this. I said, Grandma, is this
where you got your teeth? Because they looked exactly like
my grandmother's teeth hanging up there. And boy, there was
this terrible moment. And my mother, of course later on,
of course, of these things. And to get back though

(01:40:21):
to our common language, putting it out there, you just
put it right out here. May you just put your
hand right out here? You have come to the right place. Now,
it's well known that in our today, our world of
the now, our world of the twentieth century, the friendship
has died. That no longer is there such a thing
as a personal touch, Brothers. No longer can one man

(01:40:41):
say to another man, you are my friend, and I
trust you. No. We are living in the twentieth century, friends,
we are living in the time of hell and that nation.
So I want you to put your hand right out
and put it right here and grasp my hand in
electronic friendship. I want you to come forward. I want
you to put your hands on the top of that radio.
Do you feel that warm warm? Do you feel that
heat that won it's coming up, brought that coming up

(01:41:01):
through your knuckle bones, through your wrist bones, and up
through your up through your elbow bones. That's love. Put
it there. You have come to the right place. Well,
I'm talking about that the other night, I'm I'm discussing
for you know, chewing the fat, And so I figured
that it was a midwesterianism, and I said, well, we've
got this common American language anyway, at least that that

(01:41:22):
uh an America can pop up out of the trench
at someplace and holler, hey, chew the fat mac and
every other American for miles would know that the chewing
the fat. Well, I get a letter from this English
when he says, yes, I listen to the quigram. The
other night, heard you mention ward, you mention what you
called in America, there's a chew the fat doing. This

(01:41:45):
expression has been used for countless generations, and as a
matter of fact, was one of my favorite expressions of
my dear old Manny, who used to refer to my
now sainted mother as a prime Fatua, but who was
a chelder of the fat Thank you, Sir Jeffrey Chaucer Rhodes.

(01:42:07):
One of the very few times I've ever gotten a
letter from it, Sir. You know I put it there.
You've come to the right place. Oh friends, Hell give
me plays once upon a time as we beat the
drum of perdition. The Wilmington Supreme Court has upheld the
force given a man whose wife, by the evidence, constantly
incited their boxer dog to bite him on at least

(01:42:30):
three occasions. As a result of dog bites, the husband
required medical treatment, said the justice who wrote the opinion,
handed down Friday. The case reached the High Tribunal on
an appeal by the wife from a Supreme court granted
divorce to the husband, Layton, on the grounds of extreme cruelty.

(01:42:50):
The family lives in nearby Newark. He is a chemist
and in his forties. The opinion described him as a
man of almost super human forbearons. The judge said that
on various other vaccasions, the wife ripped off her husband's clothes,

(01:43:11):
choked him with his own necktie, chicked him leaving lasting scars,
struck him with an electric fan, threatened him with a
butcher knife, hit him without warning while in bed, threw
hot coffee on him, went after him with a handsaw,
and threatened to hit him with an electric iron a
milk bottle had a hammer. Besides that, the justice went

(01:43:33):
on to enumerate she heaped wordy abuse on the husband,
calling him insulting names and mocking his baldness and his
hearing aid. The two were married for ten years. The
husband had two daughters by his first marriage. The elder
one left home, the Justice said, because she no longer

(01:43:55):
could endure her stepmother's quote unreasonable discipline and also physical punishment.
The court's opinion said that the breakup came when the
wife slapped the younger daughter, and the dog, always on
the wife's side, leaped at the girl. The husband went
to the daughter's assistance, and in the ensuing melee, was

(01:44:16):
himself attacked by the dog. He said he had to
pry the dog's jaws open from where he had been bitten.
The wife's lawyer argued that extreme cruel they hadn't been
proven because the husband quote was not in fear of
his life. The justice concluded, it is obvious that this

(01:44:38):
was not a happy home and that at least these
parties were incompatible chew the fat, and now these it's

(01:45:01):
obvious to me that these are mole people. I have
come to the conclusion that there is a whole population
of us who are not recorded in fiction, who are
not written about, who are not moaned over nor disgusted,
and in fact, in some ways are not even worthy

(01:45:22):
of it. Mole people. Are you aware that among us
their walks, if that phrase covers their means of locomotion?
A population of mole people whose passions, if they can
be called that, burn like a low flame on an

(01:45:44):
ancient stove, barely flickering, barely sputtering, a tiny, almost extinguished
spark of the divine flame of existence in life, and who,
when in the heat of what or want of a
better word where you can call their their most flaming passion,

(01:46:08):
are barely seen to move the moral people. Do you
know what I mean by the moral people? The people
who really are not capable of emotion, real emotion. Well,
they can, they can. They can get irritated when they're
pushed in bush lines and things like that, or when

(01:46:29):
there's a busy signal on the telephone. They they get
irritated over the wrong things. But but the moral people,
well there they are, y you wonder even how they
reproduce their kind. Always speaking of moral people, this is
WRM and FAM New.

Speaker 2 (01:46:50):
York, and uh, this is WB in New York.

Speaker 3 (01:46:54):
Till twelve midnight. This is the fortieth year of WR.
Do you realize that, you know, you hear 'em talk
on the air about it. And I don't know whether
you know anything about that or what that means to you,
But do you realize that I did that? That forty
years is almost a well, forty years in the radio

(01:47:16):
business is like twenty five light years in any other industry.
It really is. And what's really scary about it is
that there are some people around here who were here
very shortly after the spluttering flame was breathed in the
final triods of the final amplifier of WI, once you

(01:47:39):
began to put out a two hundred and sixty watch signal. Lo,
these many eons ago, there are some guys who are
still here. How's that for a rut? Yeah? Well, you
know that Thomas Edison was our morning man long time ago.
You see the picture of him standing down the brother

(01:47:59):
of Mike h. Yeah, he came on there he that's true.
Well how do you think John Gambling got his job?
He had plenty of friends. Yeah, well that's right. Well

(01:48:20):
it wasn't Edison one of the early engineers, or was
he doing the exercise show here in the morning? Who
will be here until midnight? I know, I know all
about it. Never heard it's funny business. The mole people.

(01:48:42):
I'll tell you what the danger of the mole people is.
You know what is it? The mole people? These are
people who are not really interested in and can't find
it within their scoope to become to become engaged in life,
you know, who can't reach out and grab the handles.
And these are the people who are the quickest people
to want to go to war. These are the people

(01:49:04):
who loved the idea of war and all the rest
of the things that make up for a kind of
artificial excitement and stimuli which they would never get out
of existence. You know what I mean by that. It's
it's the little mole people. Did did you ever read
the story of Heinrich of It wasn't his first name
Heinrich Himmler. Was Heinrich Himmler? Did you ever read the

(01:49:28):
story of Himmler, the life story of Himmler. Before Hitler
came along and before the war started, the war was nothing.
The war was made for this guy. I mean, it
was his moment of absolute glory. There was nothing else
for him. And boy, what scares me is that is
that great horde of people who sit in the subways

(01:49:50):
and the only movement that you see stirring in their
soul is when somebody steals their seat. That's the only
time they have any excitem during the day, or when
they hit their wife in the mouth. You know, that's
the truth. There's a whole population of them, and it
always baffles me to find writers and people and well

(01:50:13):
meaning people, you know who march around with signs, who
because the fact of the fact that they are so
involved in life that they will march with signs, they
don't seem to be able to understand the great mass
of the population of people who are just moles, you know,
who are just waiting for something, just waiting for somebody

(01:50:33):
to hit and the moment that that somebody shows up,
that's the moment they live. Let me tell you, I
knew a guy. I knew one man a mole by
the way, you know where the mole person. One of
the places where mole people find their greatest expression is
in the world of the engineers, the world the world
of the people who live by figures and facts. And

(01:50:54):
I remember one time having an engineer who worked with me,
and at any given moment and you could, when you
could let him get onto the subject, he would tell
you about the time he got in a fight in
the cafeteria. He loved that story, he said. You know,
and I never tell you about the time I was
over in Wolfer's cafeteria. I'm in line there, and all
of a sudden, this wise guy comes up behind me

(01:51:15):
and he starts jabbing me in the elbow. I turned around,
I said, quit pushing me. You know, I didn't want
to any trouble. Guy says, mind your own business. Mac Well,
I said, what do you mean, mind your own business.
I'm just going through here, just picking up some pie.
And the next thing I know, the guy's pushing around.
He wants to fight. Well, I'll tell you what I did.
I pulled. I just let a lot of habit man.

(01:51:37):
Within thirty seconds, that guy spread out there under the Yeah. Well,
of course it was his big moment, you know, speaking
of the mole people. Did you read the aftermath of
the guy that broke the snake cages? Did you read
about Hey, come on watch it here, boy, this is
worse than Ellen. Did you ever? Did you hear the
aftermath of the of the of the snake guy last week?

(01:52:00):
You want to hear about it? You remember the guy
that went through and busted up this They caught him.
They caught this guy. Police today held a man who
admitted smashing forty six cages which held poisonous snakes in
the Saint Louis Zoo. Friday watchman at the zoo reported
a man tore a screen off the reptile house, ripped

(01:52:21):
off the brass retaining bar, and plunged for the building,
smashing cages. Police said when he was picked up, I
get worked up once in a while. He was found
sleeping on a sidewalk on the North side of Chicago. Yeah,

(01:52:42):
and one of the great mass of the young recorded, well, look, man,
I get worked up too once in a while. Somehow
you and I have something in common, and I'm not
quite sure what it is. I'm not quite sure what
it is. I said, It's like George ade said when

(01:53:08):
talking about the great mass of mole people. Once there
was a home like beanery where one could tell the
day of the week by what was on the table.
The stroke ore this food bazaar had been in the
business for twenty years, and she never had earned her heart.
In fact, she'd taken it home three times over. The

(01:53:29):
prune joke never touched her, and she had herself trained
so as not to hear any sarcastic cracks about the olio.
She prided herself on the atmosphere of culture that permeated
the establishment, and on the fact that she did not
harbor any improper characters. A good many improper characters came

(01:53:50):
around and sized up the layoff and then blew it
was a sure enough boarding house, such as many of
our best people know all about, even if they don't tell.
The landlady was doing what she could to discourage the
beef trust, but she carried a heavy line of oatmeal.

(01:54:11):
She had oatmeal to burn and sometimes did, and she
often remarked that spinach had iron in it and was
great for the blood. One of her pet theories was
that rice contained more nutriment than could be found in
spring chicken, but the borders allowed that she had never
seen a spring chicken. In the cast of characters were

(01:54:31):
many old favorites. There was the lippy boy with the
Williams and Walker shirts, who knew the names of all
the ball players and could tell when there was a
good variety show in town. Then there was the other kind.
Hold it, hold it, hold it. This is one of
the most beautiful descriptions in all of English literature of

(01:54:52):
a true mole person listened carefully. The reason our reading
this magnificent little George Aide fable is because of his
description of people who are never described in literature, in drama,
who are never carved into frescoes, who never decorate mosaics.

(01:55:14):
Then there was the other kind, with a straw colored
mustache and a prominent Adam's apple, who was very careful
about his pronunciation. He belonged to a social purity club
that had a yell. His idea of a big Hurrah
was to get in a parlor with a few sisters

(01:55:36):
who were under the age limit and sing the base
part of pole for the shore. And then there was
the old border. He was the landmark, having lived in
boarding houses and hotels all his life, he had developed
a gloom that surrounded him like a morning fog. He

(01:55:57):
had a way of turning things over on us, as
if to say, well, don't know about this. And he
never believed anything he saw in the papers. He said
the papers printed them things just to fill up. And
the Circassian princess that brought in the victuals paid more
attention to him than of anyone else, because if he

(01:56:20):
didn't get egg on his letters, he was liable to
cry all over the tablecloth. Then there was the chubby
man who came in every evening and told what had
happened at the store that day. And there was the
human ant eater who made puns. One of the necessary
features of a refined joint is the slender thing who

(01:56:43):
likes music and is taking lessons on the piano, and
is usually the daughter of the establishment. This boarding house
had one of those mother and child combinations that was
a dream. Daughter was full of Kubalik and Joseph Hoffmann.
Away back in the pines somewhere there was a father
who was putting up for the outfit. She was a

(01:57:05):
consistent little booster. Mother's job with just a boost and
sit around and root. If what mother said was true,
then Effie's voice was a good deal better than a silment.
She said. The teachers were just crazy about it, and
all of them agreed that Effie ought to go to
Paris or Milan, and third to study opera. A slangy
boy with the ragtime shirt lent them one better, he said.

(01:57:29):
All the pony Melbourne in the country ought to pull
for the old country and wait till they were sent for.
At this same boarding house, there was a widow whose
husband had neglected to die. Being left all alone in
the world, she had gone out to make her way,
since which time she had gained about thirty pounds and

(01:57:51):
was considered the great company by the young man. Necessarily,
there was a pale lady who loved to read and
who stuck to the patterns that appeared in the ladies magazines.
Then there was the married couple without any furniture or
children of their own, and the only reason they didn't

(01:58:13):
take a house was that Henry had to be out
of town so often. Henry's salary had been whooped five
hundred dollars a year, and she was just beginning to
say gown instead of dress. She had the society column
for breakfast, and things looked dark for Henry. For many months,
this conventional group of ordinary size six and seven eighths

(01:58:37):
mortals had lived in a rut. At each meal time,
they rounded up and mechanically devoured what was doled out
to them, and folded their napkins and broke ranks. Each
day was the duplicate of the one before it, and
life had petered down to a routine. One evening, just
as they had come in for their vermicelli, a new

(01:58:57):
boarder glided into their ranks. She was a tall gypsy
queen with about twelve thousand dollars worth of clothes that
fit her everywhere and all the time, and she had
this watch me kind of walk the same, being a
cue for all the other girls to get out their hardware.

(01:59:18):
When she moved up to the table and began to
distribute a few sample smiles so as to indicate the
character of her work, the musical team went out with
the tide. The grass widow curled up like an autumn
leaf that touched me. Not married lady dropped into the
scrub division. The lady who read was shy a spoon
and was afraid to ask for it. The men were

(01:59:38):
all goggl eyed, and the help was running into chairs
and dropping important parts of the magu on the floor. Presently,
the landlady came in and explained. She said that missus
Williams was in the city to shop for a couple
of days, and that her husband would be up on
the night train. Whereupon five men quietly slid uh the table.

(02:00:02):
The moral nothing ever happens in a boarding house or
anywhere else for that look at thinking they think the
things that they're they say, could think of the thing
they that they think? They al I told it, they're y.

(02:00:27):
You see if if but al is there anything on
the on the uh log for me there check with
Jack check here you know if if there is such
a thing as I suppose you might call a theme. Uh,
we are taking tonight, brother, as our text. We are

(02:00:51):
taking tonight the existence among us of the moral people
and uh the danger pertaining they're tool. I'm quite convinced
that hardly anybody who is a mole people knows he is.
And yet I'm also equally convinced that there isn't a
single one of us walking around today who doesn't suspect

(02:01:14):
that he himself isn't a mole people. I mean, you know,
he himself doesn't feel Have you ever had the feeling
that somehow the blossoms blossom, blossomyre or somehow the pulse
beats harder? Have you ever really wondered about the lives

(02:01:36):
of other people? Actually really wondered about it? I mean
about the real things, you know, you know, the kind
of stuff you never talk about, the stuff you never
discussed with anybody. Have you ever wondered about this side
of other people? Or do you pretend that that doesn't

(02:01:59):
exist with us people? I can already hear the letter, now,
is it? Because when these letters come in, you hear
him dead. They just lay there on the desk and holler.
Dear mister Shepherd. I have no idea what you're talking about.
And as far as the part of my life that
I do not discuss, there is nothing in my life

(02:02:20):
that I am not afraid to discuss. And as a
matter of fact, I was telling Charles the other day,
get me that you eat on the radio. What's he
talking about? Get some nice music. I'm a John Gambling
fan and I like good things. Signed an indignant x
W O R listener, Yes, that's true, baby, I'm afraid

(02:02:43):
that is true. Woe be tied to those who have
nothing in their lives that they couldn't talk about. Oh
but you know when you sit there on the bus
and there was a very funny, little odd moment, and
today it was a very no. No, it isn't an
odd moment. There is a kind of secret communication that

(02:03:08):
exists between people. I think it's between people. I don't know.
I guess I don't know what the reverse of the
mole people would be called. I suppose measuring us with
what is available, I suppose the reverse of the mole

(02:03:30):
people or the obverse. I suppose you could say, of
the mole people are the ant people, most of us
are ant people. And then, on the other hand, I'm
inclined sometimes to say most of us are mole people.
Once in a while, stalking among the ants and over
the moles, comes the giant, who could roughly be called

(02:03:53):
a grasshopper person. Once in a while jumps up in
the air. You know, I mean, as compared to the tigers,
we could be. I mean, we could really be tigers.
I mean, do you realize what we've got the world
by right now, at this point mankind. You know what
it is. We got the world by I don't have
to tell you. Ah yeah, but we're gonna we're gonna

(02:04:18):
fool around and the next thing, you know, guess what's
gonna have us by? You know what? Yeah, just because
we're you know, we're pooling around, we're standing around, scratching, hollering. Okay,
you shoved that, and I'll shove back the next thing,
you know, the principle's gonna come out and we're all

(02:04:40):
gonna be up well, you know you you know, you
know about the creek. You've been there, and uh believe
me that there ain't gonna be no Abercrombie and Fitch
at the other end selling paddles. I can tell you that. Okay,
all right, are we on the same wavelength here? We
understand hey each other? All right? Then, well what is it?

(02:05:03):
It's up to my bloom of nickers, you know already,
and we are just in the shallows. But we get
up there with that where the rapid snipe. You know,
sometimes I have a feeding I'm in this little canoe,
you know, speaking little canoes. I have a favorite little
canoe in my mind that keeps popping up it's a
little canoe that my grandmother had. It was a little

(02:05:25):
phony birch bark canoe, a little tidy one, you know,
and fascinated me when I was about six, a little
birch bark canoe, and the ends of it were stitched
with red imitation leather, you know, stitches around it. And
there was this little phony Indian sitting there, and he
had this little paddle. He had a paddle, which is
more than I can say for most of us. But

(02:05:47):
he was the same place. You know, his paddel never
touched whatever it was he was trying to row in.
He was holding it up there at high Port, and
he was looking out over the over the underneath it
said Hiawatha, Hiawatha, Souvenir of all danill Illinois, souvenir of
all dan Illinois. As far as I know, hia Wanta

(02:06:08):
didn't come within a thousand miles of all dan Illinois.
But that didn't stop the citizens of all dan Illinois
was associating themselves with greatness. So I used to look
at that little canoe there, and that little canoe was
on the library table. You know, it is a library table,
to my knowledge, a book never entered my grandmother's house,

(02:06:29):
including even a Bible. In fact, she even objected to
the Chicago phone Book come in there. She didn't believe
in reading, said, reading hurt your eyes. Now I do
need it. Hurt your eyes. Put funny ideas in your head.
Sometimes I have a feeling like I'm putting funny ideas
into your head out there. I don't want to put
no funny ideas into your head. And so I'd come.

(02:06:54):
Then I'd look over the top of that library table
which was covered with a Paisley shawl, Paisley being the
name of the woman who sold shawls in the neighborhood.
Emma L. Paisley, large heavy set woman who wore squeaky shoes,
health shoes you know, you know, the kind of strapped
in the back and had buckles on the front and

(02:07:16):
had three low heels on each foot. Another kind of
woman who at the age of seven or was already
nursing mankind. Now she made Paisley shawls. Have I I
have you ever wondered how the name came to be Paisley?
Did they call 'em Paisley? Out here? Was her Mamma Paisley.

(02:07:38):
She worked with uh Easter egg coloring produced a terrible shawl,
but she meant well. And right in the middle of
this library table was this Indian. And by the way,
on the other end of the Paisley shaw was another
Indian died right into the Paisley shawl. And this one
said souvenir of kanky Key, Illinois. Big for Indians around there.

(02:08:05):
I used to watch those Indian pictures. And in my
grandmother's bedroom there was a picture of an Indian, the
only picture she had in their house outside of a
picture of a waterfall that hung over the top of
the calendar. And this picture, and now I I may
be wrong, it just seemed to me in my childish
imagination that there was such a picture, although I I
can't comprehend the picture being painted of this kind. There

(02:08:28):
was an Indian and he was sitting on a horse,
and he was looking down, kind of depressed, like like
a fuller brushed man. At the end of the long trail,
you could see the sunset or the sun rise, was
hard to tell which cause these pictures were of a
peculiar coloration. And underneath it it said the end of
the trail, and it hung over my grandmother's bed and

(02:08:52):
my grandfather's bed. These two people who came it's certainly
not from Chicago, but who had lived all their lives
on the on that on that long, that long sandy sward,
overlooking that great lake that hung down there like a
like a gigantic grape hanging there on the bottom end
of candle. Somehow they got hooked on Indians. Well, being

(02:09:19):
a kid, I got hooked on canoes. And it's funny,
funny thing. One day I came in to see our
boss here, and I said, Boss, it's about time, don't
you think So he knew what I meant it was,
you know, he knew what I meant. I was kind
of nudging him, it's about time, you know. And he

(02:09:44):
looked at me and he said, don't push your luck. Oh.
I said, come on, Bob, come on, for crying out loud.
What's gambling got that I haven't got? He says, one
more crack out of you and you I'm gonna have
to start hunting for a paddle. And immediately I see

(02:10:05):
this little birch bark canoe, and you know, funny thing
about it, The cockles of my heart warmed, and because
you know, i'm'a sendimental cuss, you know, me, send the
metal little cuss. And and I've been just like that
ever since. I don't talk much about it anymore, but
I'll tell you what I do. Keep behind my desk.

(02:10:28):
I keep this small folding paddle because you never know
when all of a sudden the flood gates are gonna open.
Are you still out there, Oh, mold people, Oh amp
one old grasshopper? Which these thou though thee thou dost

(02:10:52):
them in thy travail? Alw is it out there in
the vineyards tonight? Huh? I'm sitting in the bus. Like
I say, there's a kind of uh. There must be
a communication between the ants, as I'm perfectly aware there

(02:11:14):
is a communication between the moles, and there must even
be communication between the grasshoppers. Although I can but stand
and admire a grasshopper from afire the other one that
said it out me. I'm sitting down on the bus tonight.
Snow is swirling down. Oh it's a great knight, by
the way, The snow is swirling down around that bus,

(02:11:38):
and I'm I'm sitting there, and there was this person
looking out of the window, Hey, looking out just a guy, ordinary,
sort of lout looking type. He's looking up, but I
can see he's digging, you know, he's looking out at
sixth Avenue there and he's he's somehow it's there. I'm

(02:12:00):
looking down the island. I'm digging the scene too. He
he looks over at me, shrugs. I shrug. I never
saw this guy in my life. He turns back, looks
out of the window, continues to dig, reading the Chinese
restaurant signs as as the bus moved once in a while,
picking up a picking up a big my favorite sign

(02:12:20):
on sixth Avenues. A big sign has a has a
has a has a big neon hand, just a great,
big neon palm and it says uh. Says underneath it
it said uh in doubt about your future tea reading
s free luncheon served, big neon palm on the second

(02:12:44):
floor and above it is an enormous sign. It says
for the truth, for hard hitting news. It's Channel two
every time. So once in a while we drive past there,
you know, on the bus, and I get reassured. And
so this guy's looking out the window there, and I'm
waiting to see if he digs this, And sure, enough,

(02:13:05):
he looks up there and he just sort of digs.

Speaker 8 (02:13:08):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:13:10):
That's the end of the end of story. Are there
any ants out there like to hear from an ant?
One thing about grasshoppers? Though? Is that I I I
suspect about him? Of course I I I I must,

(02:13:30):
I have to admit them. Probably I'm a grasshopper most
of the time, because I I think this about grasshoppers,
they're too busy jumping around and hollering to really communicate.
You See, the mole, because of his moleness, has instant
communication with other moles, even though the communication is on
such a deep primal level. But the only time he

(02:13:54):
feels warm is when he is marching over some sad
hero like cliff together with all the other molds than
he knoweth Oh oh, speaking of a knowing, I got
this here, little thing I I like to like to
show you here, if you don't mind. It was It

(02:14:17):
was once said by uh George aide, who said it
better than most people ever do. Yes, yes, uh, Well,
I don't know whether I should bring it up. You know,
there's sometimes you you f you figure you better not
say it, see, because well it it can get dangerous. Well, alright, alright,

(02:14:44):
I'll I'll see it. No, I better not I can
tell you that the moral to the fable. Maybe I
better not tell you the fable. You can build a
fable yourself. The moral to the fable is the react
is something terrible? Hold it? How do you like this

(02:15:21):
for a for a name of a fable? Speaking of
the ants? Interested? Uh? The patient toiler who got it
in the usual place. Once there was an office employee
with a copy book education. He believed it was his
duty to learn, to labor and to wait. He read

(02:15:44):
pamphlets and magazine articles on success and how to make
it a cinch. He knew that if he made no
changes and never be for more salary, but just buckled
down and put in extra time and pull for the house,
he would arrive in time. The faithful worker wanted to
be department manager. The hours were short, the salary large,
and the work easy. He plugged on from many moons,

(02:16:05):
keeping his eye on that roll top desk for the
manager was getting into the has been division, and he
knew there must be a vacancy soon. At last, the
house gave the old manager the privilege of retiring and
living on whatever pittancy had saved ah. This is where
humble merrit gets its reward, said the patient toiler. I
can see myself now counting money. That very day, the

(02:16:27):
main gazooks led into the office one of the handsomest
tennis players that ever worked on Long Island, and introduced
him all around as the new department manager. I shall
expect you to tell Archibald all about the business, said
the main gazooks to our patient toiler. You see, he
has just graduated from Yale, and he doesn't know a
thing about managing anything except the cat boat. And his

(02:16:50):
father is one of our principal stockholders, and he is
engaged to a young woman whose uncle is the head
of the trust. I had been hoping to get this
job for myself, said the fiful worker, faintly. You are
so valuable as a subordinate, and have shown such an
aptitude for detail work, that it would be a shame
to waste you on a big job. So the main kazooks, besides,

(02:17:11):
you are not equipped. You have not been to Yale,
your father is not a stockbroker, you are not engaged
to a trust. Get back to your high stool, and
whatever Archibald wants to know you tell him tomorrow. One
who wishes to be a figurehead should not overtrain.

Speaker 1 (02:17:34):
From February twenty second, nineteen sixty two, Shepherd almost sells
out the plan of prayer system. I am an American.
Cards Ogg and Charlie are sitting by the shore of
a lake. When Charlie's nee starts to bend a doomed romance.
Part of the opening theme has been deleted.

Speaker 3 (02:18:13):
Well, things are getting interesting. Things are getting interesting in
the many areas, and I, I uh feel by way
of a theme, let I say that, uh we introduce
no no I I I don't. There's no sense really

(02:18:35):
in being uh formal about it, is there? Really? Let's
just sit here and well, I I happen to be
in a position which is a kind of a I
suppose you might say, an ambiguous position. It's difficult to
know how these things happen. But I am constantly being
bombarded by great, great collections every day of junk mail

(02:18:58):
a long time in front of jump. I don't call
it junk mail. I think it's the most significant mail
because the junk mail really lays it on the line.
I mean, it doesn't fool around now, I hope I
didn't confuse you by using the expression lays it on
the line. I understand this was purely an Indiana expression
and one which is hardly ever heard out here on

(02:19:18):
the Eastern Seaboard. Laying it on the line means laying
it on the line. Okay, Well, I get this piece
of junk mail the other day, and it contains one
of the most interesting propositions I've seen in a long time. Now.
The only reason I'm bringing these things to you is
because I am perfectly aware that, oh, i'd say, almost

(02:19:40):
all of the people, the percentage of people who are
not involved in daily brew haha, hullabaloo, pursuit of whatever
it is that makes it possible to buy a new
breezeway next year, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera, odd infinitam, odd nassim. You know, the whole jazz,
the rigmarole, the brew haha, the hoopla. Well, most people

(02:20:01):
are involved in that, you see, well, by a lot
of tricks of fate and inclination and probably probably even
the inheritance. I find myself not really involved in that,
and so I am and have been enabled by the

(02:20:23):
very nature of the slot into which I have fallen.
I have been able to examine minutely millions of things
which most people, if they even see them at all,
don't have the time to fool with. They just throw
it a side, they'll go into it. You know. You
know what I mean by this. This is the role
I suppose you might call it loosely, of the gadfly

(02:20:43):
just fools around, you know, hollers that sits in the
bushes and watches the stuff go by and shouts. You see. Well,
the thing about the non gadfly I can see this
is that is that he is involved. I mean, he's
walking along the trail. You know, it's like a great,
great big wagon train there, and they're all flobbing along there.
And somebody's out there in the bushes who is not

(02:21:03):
really part of the train. Somehow he got off somewhere
along the line. And he's valuable because once in a
while he sees the Indians coming, you know, he's Indians,
and everybody else is all busy hitting the horses and
you know, and fooling around with the water and stuff,
and he keeps how Indians here they come home. Well,
that's the job now it's a very important job. Albeit
I can say very unpopular, particularly if you happen to

(02:21:26):
be an Indian, very unpopular. And also it's very unpopular
to the guys in the wagon train because half of
them are asleep. It's easy to be there, you know,
asleep and fooling around with the oats and stuff. And
this guy keeps halling. Oh, it's no good. Look at
what's happening. It's starting the rain, it's coming down. Hey,
get up the tops.

Speaker 5 (02:21:44):
What out?

Speaker 3 (02:21:45):
Well he's unpopular on both sides, no questioning about it. Now,
I have every reason to believe. Have you noticed, for example,
w R has taken the position here they've been celebrating
their fortieth I say they because I really don't feel
part of it. They've been celebrating their fortieth anniversary. And
it's like one little, big, one little big happy family,
you know, with all of the Eastern Seaboard all going

(02:22:06):
back through memory Lane with Pegeen and Albert and Dora
and Dorothy and Dick. And I notice they don't mention
Dorothy and Dick too in this car. They're not part
of the family either. No, they're not really, And it's
a funny thing. Even though they've been here longer than
most it strangely enough, they've never become part of the family,
nor has long John, I hope you know that, nor

(02:22:28):
have I hope you know that. That's right now. And
so when these people are all talking about how wonderful
and how warm it is to be part of the family,
and they're talking about, yes, you have your favorites, your
old favorites, there's John B. Gambling, John L. Gambling, John G. Gambling,
John G. L. D. Gambling, John Gambling the third. There's

(02:22:48):
all the Gamblings, and then there's Dora and Albert and
little Patty and all the families, and all the family families.
They never mentioned me, they really don't, nor do they
mention John, nor Dorothy and Dick. And that's true. So
we're with this way, you see. It's it's just like

(02:23:08):
I'm mount in the bushes. So now my value to
you is it depends on whether you're an Indian. Again,
I must say that it also depends on whether you're
half asleep at the switch there and you're just fooling
around with the oats. Now, I see, the thing that
I feel is a profound sense of and this has
always been the position of whatever passes for the artists

(02:23:29):
at any given time. He has a terrible desire to
become either an Indian or an oat dealer on the
top of the way. No, that's true. You can't help
but want to be either driving the wagon there and
half asleep in the sun with you know, eighty seven
kids in the back there and the wagon and the
and the you know, just to fooling around and sleeping

(02:23:50):
away there. This is a must be great. That's that's
all I can say. It's a great. Then on the
other hand, the Indians seem to have something on the
ball too. You know, they've got a they've got a
real position there. They're identified. They're Indians. I mean they're Indians.
They're coming charge out of the hills. And the guy
in the wagon, he's got the thing too, he's a slop,
so he's identified. Okay, Now what is the guy who's

(02:24:12):
skulking on the bushes, who keeps hollering, hey, the Indians
are coming. He's not on the wagon. He secretly wants
to be somebody didn't make the train when they started,
and you know, one thing and another. And on the
other hand, he doesn't really feel as angry about the
Indians as the other people, because he can see their
side too. You know, he never made it, So you

(02:24:33):
got this ambivalent problem. Now now I can. I'm gonna
put it up to you. If you want me to
become an Indian, I can easily become an Indian. As
a matter of fact, that's one of the most difficult
problems of all of the of the person who's in
the bushes. He has the tendency to listen to both sides,
that's true. And you know, this can be very very
unpopular in our time. It can be a terrible thing

(02:24:55):
to have to to have to admit that, you know,
some the Indian has a point, you know, and I'm
using the Indian it purely as an allegorical Indian. Here
it's a very difficult And on the other hand, I
can admit the guy sitting in the wagon there, sleep
in the sun, he's got his point. Who doesn't want to,
you know, flow along there with a wagon full of
stuff with all the dough in the world and the

(02:25:17):
sun coming down? I mean, why shouldn't Who doesn't want
to be this? So you're very difficult problem to be
in the bushes here. You want to be one or
the other. Now I'm going to I shouldn't really do this.
I'll put it up to you. Do you want me
to become a wagon driver here? Or do you want
me to become an Indian? Or do you want me
to stay in the bushes? It's up to you. No,
it isn't up to you. What are you talking about

(02:25:37):
stopping at Sheppardy? Not up to you. It is not
up to you. I don't care what you think. Frying
out loud? What am I doing here? Boy? I was
just about to sell out? Do you realize that I
within thirty seconds i'd have sold out. Well, now, look
it's easy to sell out, and I almost did there.

(02:25:58):
I want one guy to call up a shepherd. That
was a close one. I just want to hear that
you're with me out there? Oh pretty quiet? Well, getting
back to the junk mail, you see, I'm looking at
all this junk mail, and I get one here the
other day that I thought is deserving of notion and
mentioned it tells about this device. You see. It's for

(02:26:20):
people who are really Americans. Again, they're the wagon drivers,
you know, who really are wagon drivers who really have
a load full of a load full of oats there,
and the whiskey in the back there, and the whole
business in the wagon. And it's for these real Americans.
And the ad said this, dear American. So do you
have trouble from time to time answering what you really

(02:26:45):
believe in? Do you have trouble when people confront you
with a question of ideological nature about being an American?
Do you have difficulty studying involved books on political philosophy? Well,
we have what we call the new plant, a prayer system.
And yet you go to bed. You see, if you're

(02:27:05):
a real American, you stick this thing under your pillow
and you turn on the tape. Yeah, and it says
things to you in your sleep. And I kind of
like this thing you say while you sleep. It says
it You're an American art You're a great person. Americans
are the greatest people in the world. You are a

(02:27:28):
right thinker, a ray forer very gold water water, a
ray forer very goldwater water. Hooray for Edwin Walker. You

(02:27:51):
are a right thinker, incarding you are conservative above all things.
You believe in the individual. Do you understand and to
believe in the individual is to believe in the American
way of life. And to believe in the American way
of life is to make talk. Who can argue that

(02:28:14):
downward social security? Repeat it over and over to yourself,
and do not allow thyself to be me. Repeat this
prayer after me. Oh, in all things I will think
right right, I will believe in all things good and

(02:28:39):
true and clean. I will never be subverted from right thinking.
I am an American recan good heeded. Uhued. The Democrats

(02:29:18):
are unnoing dupes heeded. They are the dupes of the blind,
monolithic forces of atheismsedded end of tape. Please turn over

(02:29:53):
in your sleep. You will now sleep soundly. You the
sleep the sleep of the just and the righteous. You
know what you're standing for. See it's an interesting tape,

(02:30:25):
wasn't it. I mean that sets the record straight. Speaking,
you're setting the record straight. This is poor old forty
year old w r am FM, all the rest of
it here in the Big Onion, and we'll be here
until twelve midnight. Somehow I can't help but feel a

(02:30:50):
great compassion for people who know so little about what
they believe in and how they feel and what they
are that they have to play a tape stuck under
their pillow to keep reminding them and somehow implanted in
them in their sleep. And then in the next in
the next page of this junk male, is this magnificent

(02:31:13):
little item here. I think I think this calls for.
It's just a little of soups on there. Papa, oh

(02:31:42):
up now available. I am a card carrying American cards
with flag and pledge of allegiance in gold scrip.

Speaker 8 (02:32:00):
Walk coming up, fuma, Oh why why walk up?

Speaker 3 (02:32:08):
My wife altogether?

Speaker 8 (02:32:12):
Now I'll be down to guess you win a second

(02:32:36):
the money you better be ready for to have that day.

Speaker 3 (02:32:40):
I'll bet it don't be there.

Speaker 8 (02:32:42):
I'm gonna be ride some we don come a wedding
that you tell I'm gonna have the more, gonna wear I.

Speaker 7 (02:32:50):
Bum my shoes when the wedding Jelli over all tomorrow.
I'm not at the dark times stern.

Speaker 3 (02:33:11):
And then there was this little one ad that came
through in this piece of junk mail, this little classified
ad that said ultra spartan conservative aesthetic slaves to work,
duty and far future one half rich associates wanted no investment.
Protect your business from pilfering by your dishonest employees. That

(02:33:41):
tells more about it. I know, it's pretty hard, you know,
to tell, because everybody has the right answers, and everyone

(02:34:02):
has learned the right things to say. Whether it be
about calendar art, or whether it be about the kind
of gasoline you should burn in your car, or whether
it's about cigars, or whether it's about sex, or whether
it's about bee's knees. Everyone has the right things to say.
A question about it. But you know, it's a funny thing. Uh.

(02:34:24):
Most of the things that are really happening among us,
the real things that are not theoretical but that are
right there in front of us, are hardly ever discussed,
and in fact, they're hardly ever touched upon. Only rarely
do we recognize them for what they are. I remember
one time when I was a kid. You know, you

(02:34:44):
you pick these things up, and I guess this is
how you kind of get to be. I suppose the
guy in the bushes, this is one little example of it.
I I I suppose the people who are riding the horses,
if they're Indians, are deeply involved in Indianism. I mean,
no other thing. This is what they're involved in. The

(02:35:06):
Guys who are sitting on the front end of the
wagon are deeply involved in wagon sitting, and so hence
nothing else seems to be able to get in. But
then if you're not involved, if you're sitting out there
on the bushes, you're in a completely different situation. I
believe the difference is this that those who are on

(02:35:26):
one side of the fence completely believe everything that's said
about that side of the fence and never question it.
No matter what side of the fence. It is must
be wonderful to have an unquestioning attitude about yourself, it
must be wonderful. And I imagine this is one of
the reasons why well, of course it is not a

(02:35:47):
matter of imagining. It is undoubtedly one of the reasons
why there has been ever since the very first two
or three guys sat on the banks of this antediluvian lake,
there has always been some sort of strong dogma that
has filtered through the mind of man, because if you

(02:36:07):
can get dogma strong enough of any kind, it removes
all elements of self doubt. In fact, self doubt just
doesn't exist. It's just not there. That's what the whole
idea of dogma is. And so if there are two
guys you know, it must have been interesting to sit there.
In fact, I have this friend the University of Pennsylvania
who is a famous anthropologist, an archaeologist, and he who's

(02:36:29):
trying to put it together a couple of years ago,
how it must have happened. And they have a few
little storms and rocks around that are left over about
these two guys sitting on the shore of this lake.
One guy's named Og and the other was named Charles.
And they were sitting there, and once in a while
they get down and bust up a clamor or two.
And then one day it became quite apparent to Og

(02:36:53):
that his left knee was hurting things. See, that's funny,
how there You know there was a time in man's
in man's history, when he was not even aware of
the passage of time. Are you aware of that? Time?
Seems so natural to us now that we can't comprehend
anyone not knowing the time didn't pass. But there was

(02:37:15):
a time when they didn't know about this thing of time.
You know that they never they didn't recognize it. And
are you aware that they can almost pinpoint historically when
the concept of time became a part of the sum
of human knowledge or myth. Oh, yes, well, how you mean,

(02:37:36):
how do they pinpoint it? Well, that's very complicated. But
there is a time, you know, when this came into
the knowledge of mankind, how well, it began to develop,
about the time that man was a little lighter, actually,
when man began to develop techniques for what you might
call abstract communication. Writing. Writing is an abstract form of communication.

(02:38:02):
It is a symbol for the word. And at about
that time, a little bit later, it began to creep
into the various things that were left around that men
were beginning to be aware that there was such a
thing as time. Now. Their concept of time was very
different from our concept of time now. And I'm not
nearly not even just merely recognizing the fact that we

(02:38:25):
measure it differently, but their idea of what it was
was a very different thing. And so these two guys
are sitting there, and one of them is having trouble
with his knee, a little recognizing the fact, or even
understanding it, or even knowing that the trouble with his
knee was that he was over the hill. His knee
had never hurt before, and since as he stood up

(02:38:48):
to go down to the lake, to pick up some clams.
His left knee gave him trouble, and he limps down
there and he limps back with the clams squats down. Now,
we ourselves would say, but he's getting old, because we
recognized time. But they didn't have that out then. You see,
all he knew was that something was happening that hadn't

(02:39:08):
happened before, and it was a worrisome thing. It could
be easy to lead you to sing the blues of
the night there on the shore of that antediluvian lake
as you crack your clams. Well, Charles being the first
wise guy, and incidentally, that is pinpointed historically that up
to that point there were no such thing as wise guys.
But this was the first one. He later has of course,

(02:39:31):
the wise guy. Now I'm using it in it's a
classical sense wise man, wise guy, capital letters wise, the
one with all the answers. Now, if you believe in
what he says, he is a wise man. If you
don't believe in what he says, he's a wise guy.
You see, the shade of difference is very subtle, very

(02:39:54):
very subtle. And so this wise guy slash wise man
looked at Og and said there's a reason you said,
the reason it hurt, He says, there is a reason.
The whole concept of reason hadn't come into being yet.

(02:40:16):
So you see, Charles was a groundbreaker, an icebreaker in
many areas. This is also typical of wise guy and
or slash wise man. He says a reason. The reason
is because last night the white owl on the fir
tree hooted twice. He did, He says, yes, every time

(02:40:39):
white owl on fir tree hoots twice. Trouble with knee
had answered it? Then he says, always this way, always. Well,
sure enough, the next day he had trouble with his knee,
which was natural, but because he was a sound sleeper,

(02:41:01):
he couldn't stay up to see whether the white owl
hooted or not. However, oddly enough, and coincidentally, guess who
was there listening, right, And so next day I got
problem with knee, he says, my knee hurts. True, said Charles,

(02:41:22):
white owl hoot twice last night. Oh, And that was
the beginning of dogma right there. And so it became
axiomatic that every time the white owl hoots twice, problem
with knee? And you see, it removed doubt and somehow

(02:41:42):
Ogg felt better about it. His knee had a reason
for hurting. And furthermore, it became very comforting to know
that you could foretell knee hurting. And then the next week,
after this week of hurting with the knee, I got

(02:42:02):
tired of it because my knee is hurting. What what
can we do about this? Charlie says, there is a cure.
So what is the cure? The cure is bring seven
hundred clams to this point by high sun up and

(02:42:25):
I will speak with the white owl. Well there there
was starting there. It's downhill ever since. Just thought you
ought to know so. Uh No, it wasn't payola. No,
it was the first tribute. It's not payola, it's tribute.

(02:42:46):
Of course, tribute is also payola, but paola came later. See,
if you don't like what people are doing, it's called payola.
If you like what they're doing, it's called a contribution.
It's the very big difference there. We got to understand
that language plays a great part in the symbolic life
of man. Okay, understand that. Well, I'm this kid. Now,

(02:43:09):
here's here's how you get yourself thrown onto the brambles.
If you don't watch it. Oh yes, I'm this kid,
and I'm sitting around the house. And at the time,
my father was working in an office, and that you
had all these people with him there, and occasionally they
would come home to dinner, and of course the people
from where my father worked from the office. Now, I'm

(02:43:31):
sure that only a kid who is listening to me
would understand this. The adults don't remember it. But the
people who work in your father's office have a very
special place in your world. Oh yes, a very special place.
They are. They're really sort of important. They're kind of
extensions of your father, do you know what I mean.
They're important people. They're kind of celebrities, and they're they're

(02:43:55):
they're they're rock like I can't. It's a very difficult
relationship of a kid to the peace people who worked
with his father. It's very very difficult. But they used
to come around once in a while, and there was
there was always a special and a very secret thing
that went on between my father and those people. It
was the office thing, which was never really brought home

(02:44:17):
except near the end of the month, when there would
be ledgers spread out all over the all over the
dining room table, and my father would work on them
with blue ink, and he would get mad and stay
up till four o'clock in the morning and yell and
throw long streamers of paper you know that had had
numbers on it from the adding machines around and stuff
like that, and swear and stuff. And one time he

(02:44:37):
spilt the Indie ink on the laced tablecloth and to
this day it remains there. Well, this is all part
of that world of the office. And once in a
while I would be taken down there and the big yell, Oh,
this was a big deal, you know, to go down
to the office, and they had all these cages, and
there was a true office smell, you know, the smell
of rubber stamps, and the smell of rubber vands and

(02:44:58):
paper clips, and the smell of the oil stuff that
they put on the floor, and that the smell of
waste paper. You know what waste paper smells like, just
before it's going to be swept up, when the guys
throw all this stuff that they throw on the floor,
all this sawdust with the oil, you know, and it's
all it's got that smell. It's not a bad smell.
It's the waste paper smell. It's kind of the school

(02:45:20):
hall smell.

Speaker 5 (02:45:21):
You know what.

Speaker 3 (02:45:23):
That smell is kind of an oily, papery, inky rubbery smell,
and it's a very good smell to a warm smell.
It's a smell to most people, which spells one wonderful thing.
It spells security, warmth, it does. And it also for
many men, I might point out, it spells peace, it

(02:45:45):
spells order, and it spells love. To many women, it
spells their world, their life. Well, I just began to
understand that through this little incident that occurred. There was
a woman who was a middle aged woman. And of
course I don't know. I was a kid. She might
have been nine years old, I mean, but she seemed

(02:46:05):
middle aged to me, but she really was. She was
in her in her I would guess now about her
middle forties. Now, yes, I think that's about what she was.
And I remember her name. Her name was Kate, and
Kate worked at the office, and she was one of
these efficient women who when I would come down there.
Of course I didn't know about her being efficient. I
just knew she was important and I was a kid,

(02:46:25):
and I would come down and she would be behind
the cage there and all the all the people would
be walking past, checking in and turning in the books
and turning in the strips, and she'd be hitting this
little machine and she was working the comptometer, and everybody
would be talking to her. She had pencils stuck in
her hair and roomless glasses, and she was reading part
of this whole scene. Well, you don't expect or with
what you do expect, and yet you don't to see

(02:46:48):
these people out of that context. Well, once in a while,
Kate would come over to our house for dinner. And
she was an unmarried lady of an uncertain age. She
was she was a maiden lady. They didn't call him that.
She was just not married, that's all, you know. She
was a middle aged lady who wasn't married. And she
had this flat, and she had this mother that she

(02:47:10):
was always writing to in Saint Louis. Well, Kate would
come around once in a while, and she was always
with this man named George. Well, now, the one thing
they used to say about George was the George drink.
I never saw him drink, but that's what they always said.
George drinks, you know. And Kate had been going with
George for years this I knew, and George had been

(02:47:32):
an ex boss of hers and he worked at some
other place where she had worked, and she was always
going with George, and she was always going to marry George.
She and George were always on the verge for years,
and they were always talking about furniture, and they were
discussing where they were going to live and stuff. And
so when they would come over to our house to

(02:47:54):
have dinner, we would sit around, we would eat, and
everyone would talk about George and Kate just sort of
like they were married, you know, George and Kate, and
George would talk about when they were gonna get married,
and Kate would talk about when they were getting married,
and everybody would talk just just like they were married people,
you know. And I'm just this little kid. I'm sitting there,
eating away there. And George and Kate became an entity,

(02:48:15):
you know how couples become entities like Fred and Ruthy,
like Merton, Marge or something. It was George and Kate. Well,
Kate was always down at the office and that let
and let kind of an extra thing of glamour around it.
She was the fairy because she she and my father
you see, could talk that special language. And they would
sit there at the table and they would laugh about

(02:48:36):
stuff about Clarence. Clarence the other day when they were
turning in the when they were turning in the inventory
books on the on the number seven, stop around right on, aye,
you know Clarence the other day, no one. And they
had this special talk which meant nothing to any rest
of us, but it seemed very glamorous and very special
and very exciting. Well, so George and Kate would come around. Well,

(02:48:58):
one night, after George and Kate left, I'm sitting there,
my father's sitting there, my kid brother's sitting there, and
the lady from across the street was sitting there, Missus Striker,
who was a thin, angry lady who kind of looked
like a sick parakeet. Yeah, Missus Striker looked. You know
that the parakeets they sort of hold their heads down.
And this is the way Missus Striker was. Well, Missus

(02:49:20):
Striker was married to a tough guy who operated a truck,
and she had three tough kids. At the age of seven,
were already tough guys. They were drinking. They were beer
drinkers before they even heard of beer. I mean, these
kids didn't even know about beer, but they were already
you know, that kind. So Missus Striker is sitting there
and there was a kind of a relationship. Everyone knew

(02:49:40):
everybody else, and there wasn't any jazz going on. And
Missus Striker said, I wonder when George and Kate are
going to get married? Well, nobody ever approached it that bluntly,
you see, she said, I wonder when George and Kate
are going to get married. Well there was a little

(02:50:02):
moment there for regrouping. And I'm sitting there. I'm a kid,
you know, as they always to say, oh oh, there
are little ears. I can remember my mother always saying,
be careful some ears in this room, or bigger than cabbages?
Mean he shut up the kids here. Well I'm sitting
there in my ears are bigger. Boy, you talk about cabbages,

(02:50:23):
they're going see cause anytime you talked about men and
women and stuff like that, I was ready. So oh yeah,
you know, there was all kinds of mysterious stuff went
out between men and women. So I'm I'm sitting there
and I'm listening, and she says, when are they going
to get married? Do you wonder? Well, my mother says,
they're not going to. And of course this astounded me

(02:50:45):
because I had been hearing this talk and and uh,
Kate was always talking about George. George is always talking
about Kate. My mother says, they're not going to. Missus
Strikeer says, well, what do you mean always talking about it?
My father kept his mouth shut, he worked the office,
he knew. So she says, what do you mean. My

(02:51:05):
mother says, well, you see, Kate doesn't want to. And
that really got Missus Striker going, what do you mean
doesn't want to? Why every woman wants to? My mother says, oh, no,
she doesn't want to. And the reason she goes with George,
he says, she knows that George is not about to
marry anybody, especially since George has a wife and three kids. Boy,

(02:51:34):
I'm sitting there, my eyes are bulging, and my ears
are getting wider and wider. And she says, you see,
Kate just doesn't want to get married, that's all. She's
afraid of it, and furthermore, she hates men because of it.
But yet she knows that she should be talking about

(02:51:55):
being married, and she wants to be married. On one
end of the scale, and on the important end of
the scale she doesn't. And so then they started to
drink coffee, and that's all I heard about it. Well,
now that stuck in my mind, and from the time that,
from the time that was said, and Kate and George
would come around, I would look, you know, it was

(02:52:17):
very different then. It was so different. They kept talking
about being married, they kept talking about it, they kept
talking about the furniture. But me, being a kid, I'm
listening now with a very different set of values. And
my mother kept talking very politely about it. She was
playing the game. I didn't realize that it was part
of the game. This is the adult game that she

(02:52:38):
is pretending and my father is pretending and everybody else
is pretending. But I'm a kid, say, well, the head
had to finally pop. It's just like something fester and
you know, it finally had to happen. So one day
they're over there and it was a beautiful summer day,
and it just came right out of me, I said
in a very loud, clear voice. And I remember I'm

(02:53:00):
were distinctly saying it. I said to Kate, I said, missus, Kate,
if somehow they always had me calling her missus Kate
or aunt Kate or something like that. I said, Aunt Kate.
My mother says, you don't want to get married to George?
And I didn't, you know, I just thought it was
the thing that she would want to talk about. Well,

(02:53:26):
my mother just says, oh, he's kidding, you know, he's
just kidding. What do you mean, Genie? When did I
say that? I said, well, don't you remember the day
missus Striker was over here and she says, now, what
are you talking about? What are you out of your head?
And Kate just sat there and George didn't say anything.
He crossed his legs about four times in opposite directions

(02:53:47):
until finally he had them tied in a bow knot.
And I says, don't you remember you said that the
reason that she didn't want to get married was it
because she was scared of it, and because George wasn't
going to marry or anyone. And that's why she liked
going with George, because she knew that George would never
make her get married. And George didn't want to get
married because he's married and got three kids. Don't you remember? Well,

(02:54:12):
I don't have to tell you the rest of the story,
except to say that George and Kate never came to
our house again. And I remember after they left that day,
they left very early. My mother didn't know what to
say to me. I didn't know it at the time,
but all I knew was that there was a very
peculiar atmosphere hanging around the house. And everyone sort of

(02:54:35):
laughed about all this and says, oh, you know, he's
just a little kid. He's just making put the funny's there.
And after it was over, my mother just looked at
me and said, you shouldn't have said that. And I said,
how come uh? And she said, well, someday you'll understand.
It's one of the very few times that I remember

(02:54:58):
having been told someday you'll underst stand, And now you know,
I do. It's very spooky. And I have been observing
this phenomenon ever since the age of seven, and I
have come to realize that in this town, particularly in
New York, there must be fifty thousand women who are

(02:55:19):
of uncertain age, who are vaguely in love with their boss,
and who probably even at one time had a little
thing going with them, and they're living out their world
in this little apartment someplace where they grow plants and
have cats, and they read mystery stories and they knit,

(02:55:39):
and they go to the theater on Thursday nights, and
once in a while they will take a vacation trip
to Nassau with some other women. And they're vaguely in
love with the boss. Not vaguely, really totally and completely,
but very covertly. Plus himself, of course loves it. He's

(02:56:03):
perfectly aware of it. And every day when he comes
into the office, his stomach feels hard, and he has,
for that brief moment when he comes in and that
moment when he leaves, he has a sense of genuine
power over somebody in the very real sense, not the
kind of power that comes from writing memos and hanging

(02:56:23):
them on the bulletin board, but real power over someone's
emotional life. And he feels good. He feels big and important.
And as a matter of fact, there are probably fifty
thousand men in this town who are deadly afraid of
their wives finding out the real story about the girl

(02:56:45):
at the office or the woman at the office. And
on the other hand, you see, he knows she never
will because she doesn't want to know either, and so
the game gets bigger and bigger, and more complicated and
more convoluted, and more deeply were deeply ingrained into our subconsciousness,
until finally we don't even know it's a game any longer.

(02:57:07):
That Kate really does believe she wants to marry George,
and George Reedy does believe he wants to marry Kate.
And yet in the very important, that dark, little scurrying
thing underneath the liver where the decisions are made, it
will never be done because Kate has been systematically shutting

(02:57:30):
off men who really did want to marry her all
of her life. The first thing that she throws aside
is a man when she finds that he really does
want to do it, And then she says, oh, I
couldn't stand the one that's that silly fool brith of flowers,
all that idiotic stuff they all want an what a
silly idiot. Somehow, these men who want her don't excite her.

(02:57:53):
The only persons who really do excite her are the
men who do not want her. And this is the
mosting thing of awe. And so this, this population of
these people is growing by leaps and bounds. To use
a wonderful low Midwestern cliche. You can just see it
leaping and bounding down the highway there. But it is growing,

(02:58:14):
and as as our as our offices become more and
more abstract, with less and less actual responsibility. Where the
men who come into these offices make no decisions. Really,
the decisions are made by outside polling organizations. The actual decisions,
the suggestions come from the sales management concern, which is

(02:58:37):
hired by an outside organization to just make suggestions to
the men inside and to finally, nobody has any responsibility.
And yet there is a terrible desire for it, an
awful desire for it. And so this this, this growing,
this growing involvement with the people around you. Where where

(02:58:57):
the where the woman of uncertain age. Every morning, when
the man walks in and he finds that she has
laid out for him the hot cup of coffee, she
has laid out for him his pencils, and she has
opened his mail, he feels suddenly, he feels that Leonine Heart,
that great stalking farrow beast, that beast that lurks in

(02:59:22):
the jungle with long claws and thin white teeth. And
for that moment, his eyes, his eyes are shining and glistening,
looking out of that primeval forest of the carnivore. Oh,
I'm important and I'm dangerous. Life and death. I control

(02:59:43):
with that woman. And she goes back to her machine
and sits. The sound of her stays squeaking slightly, her
doyly over there on the air conditioning machine, vibrating quietly,
her fresh geranium plant nicely watered, And the game goes
on and on and on on and on and on,

(03:00:06):
just never mentioned, just never mentioned.

Speaker 1 (03:00:49):
Well, that's it for air Checks this week. We will
have more Gene Shepherd next week. I can't always tell
how long each episode is going to be, but we
keep on doing this until we hit the last episode
in nineteen seventy seven. Air Checks is normally a three
hour podcast, uploaded weekly and can be heard every Sunday
on the k TI Radio network. See you at the
same time and same channel, and

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Episode 114, March 8, 2025 - Jean Shepherd Marathon, Part 8

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 114, March 8, 2025 - Jean Shepherd Marathon, Part 8