Published Monthly
W. H. Fawcett, Rural Route No. 2
at Robbinsdale, Minnesota
Entered as second-class matter May, 1, 1920, at the postoffice
at Robbinsdale, Minnesota, under the Act of March 3, 1879.
Price 25 cents $2.50 per year
ONE DOLLAR FOR THE WINTER ANNUAL
Contents of this magazine are copyrighted. Republication of any
part permitted when properly credited to Capt. Billy’s Whiz
Bang.
“We have room for but one soul loyalty and that is loyalty to
the American people.”—Theodore Roosevelt.
Copyright 1922
By W. H. Fawcett
Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang employs no solicitors. Subscriptions
may be received only at authorized news stands or by direct
mail to Robbinsdale. We join in no clubbing offers, nor do we
give premiums. Two-fifty a year in advance.
Edited by a Spanish and World War Veteran and dedicated to the
fighting forces of the United States
_Drippings From the Fawcett_
After an extended trip of two months, which led me throughout the North
American continent, it was a rare treat to settle down again to routine
duties on the Whiz Bang farm. The main street of our own little “Gopher
Prairie” looked mighty good to a tired and worn out farmer. ’Twas indeed
a pleasure to view the Howard lumber yard, with its red fence and shed,
and to grasp the sturdy hand of our village postmaster and storekeeper,
Bud Nasett. J. J. McCormick, who is depot agent and telegraph operator,
not to mention baggage smasher for genial drummers, greeted me at the
station.
“How are you, Bill, you old son-of-a-gun?” or words to this effect, was
the whole-hearted way that Mac welcomed back a wayward and prodigal
pilgrim.
Arm in arm we walked along Main Street to Gus Urban’s meat market to
inquire as to the price of livestock. Mr. Urban, in his usual jovial
embonpoint manner, informed us that cows brought five cents a pound, but
that bull was priceless. I disagreed with Gus, insisting that my recent
journeys in quest of the pedigreed animal had left me “flat broke.”
Directly across the street, neatly encased in imitation granite blocks
of concrete, is our only bank, the Security State of Robbinsdale—and it
hasn’t gone “bump” for nigh onto four years. In the reorganization which
followed the last crash, Joe Roche was selected as cashier and Joe has
since successfully piloted this financial bulwark of our happy little
village. Joe also manages the Robbinsdale baseball nine. After making a
small “touch” at the bank it was home and the farm.
My welcome back was so pleasant that the words of that rural gem—“The
Little Old Home Town”—went Whiz-Zing through my jaded mind.
There are fancier towns than our little town;
There are towns that are bigger than this,
And the people who live in a little old town
Don’t know the excitement they miss;
There are things that you see in the wealthier town
That you can’t in a town that’s small,
And yet, up and down, there is no other town
Than your own little town after all.
It may be true that the streets ain’t long,
Nor wide and maybe not straight
But the neighbors you know in your own little town,
All welcome a fellow—it’s great.
In the glittering streets of a glittering town,
With its palace and pavement and thrall;
In the midst of a throng you will frequently long
For your own little town after all.
If you live and you work in your own little town;
In spite of the fact that it’s small,
You’ll find it a fact that your own little town
Is the best little town after all.
* * * * *
Bobby Nelson, our neighbor’s boy, is the worst kid in the world for
betting, and the unusual feature of it is he usually wins. Bobby’s father
took the matter up with the school marm to see if she couldn’t break him
of the gambling habit, promising her a reward if successful.
The other morning when Bobby came to school he wanted to bet teacher she
had a wart on her right knee and the school marm, knowing better, and
thinking she had an opportunity to win a bet from Bobby and by so doing,
discourage his betting habit, accepted Bobby’s challenge. After school
that evening teacher proved Bobby was wrong and won the two dollar bet.
She then called on old man Nelson.
“Mr. Nelson, I have broken Bobby of the betting habit. It was a little
embarrassing, but this is how it was—Bobby bet me two dollars I had a
wart on my right knee and in order to make him lose and cure him of the
betting habit I accepted his challenge.”
“Lady! Lady! Why did you do it? Bobby bet me this morning ten dollars
that he would see your knee before the day was out.”
* * * * *
In naughty old New York you need cold cash to have a hot time.
* * * * *
The other day I went to an Irish wedding and the people who attended were
very ill mannered. Why, I never saw such impolite people. We were all
seated around the dinner table and when they brought the turkey in to
serve, everybody made a grab for it, but the two legs I got tasted very
good.
* * * * *
Out in Idaho it is reported that the natives are making booze in this
manner—women chew corn and then “gob” it into a hollowed-out section of a
tree trunk. Water is added and the mess allowed to ferment, after which
it is imbibed to intoxication. Some drink, we would pause to remark!
* * * * *
A friend of mine told me the other night he slept in a wagon standing in
an alley, and when he woke up in the morning he had nothing but a dime in
his pocket. He was thirsty and he also needed a shave, so he decided to
toss the coin to see whether he would get a shave or a drink. He tossed
up the dime, and when it came down he missed it and it rolled near a
sewer grating, coming to a standstill just half over the edge of the
grating.
“Gee,” he exclaimed, “that was a close shave. I guess I’ll get a drink.”
* * * * *
We asked Gus what he thought of Helen of Troy, but he said that he had
stopped running around with those laundry girls.
* * * * *
Our Robbinsdale druggist insists that Minnesota Swedes are the most
advanced settlers in this country.
“Formerly we thought the Swedes were crazy for drinking pure alcohol,” he
said, “But present day events prove them to have been about twenty years
in advance of the rest of us.”
* * * * *
A stranger got off the train at our neighboring town of Coon Creek and
went up to the town druggist and asked for whisky.
“We’re only allowed to sell spirits for medicinal purposes,” said the
druggist.
“That’s what I want it for,” the stranger insisted, “this town gives me a
pain.”
* * * * *
Djever Get Fooled?
_A gay young bird is the Flapper, too,_
_If you aren’t very careful she will surely get you._
_She is pretty and hungry, with a vampire’s thirst,_
_Hot Dog! Near Beer! April First!_
* * * * *
On my way to the Pacific coast last month I traded a Whiz Bang to a kid
at the depot in Fresno for a package of raisins which the boy was selling
on the depot platform. On the way back I saw the same kid.
“Say, kid, those raisins were punk.”
“So was the book” he replied.
* * * * *
Now, Fellow Soaks, we’ll touch a few high spots in this grand and
glorious continent as we ramble about with wry faces in pursuit of
the elusive Scotch and Bubbon. San Diego and its fashionable suburb,
Coronado, were tough spots for a thirsty Minnesota farmer. Nothing but a
concoction commonly called “sympathy” gin to be had by a meek and lowly
stranger. But, glory be to Mexico, Tiajuana with its old time western
bar-rooms and music halls, is but an hour away.
We spent one grand and glorious afternoon and evening in this unique
village. It reminded me of slumming expeditions of a quarter century ago.
Visions of Omaha’s famous Arcade at Capitol Avenue and Ninth Street, and
of Duluth’s “Minnesota Point” in its palmy days, not to mention the cribs
of Dupont Street in Frisco, went flitting through my frappe’d brain.
In one solace of joy we sat at a table for Haig and Haig “service,” said
service being delivered by jaded janes who divided their time between
waiting on customers and jazz dancing to the tinny tunes of a tin pan
orchestra. It was a wild place and a wild night. Later we dined at the
Sunset Inn. The inn was flanked by rooms filled with scores of roulette
wheels and faro tables. My sporting blood surged hither and thither but
to no avail, for the Mexican government had placed a temporary ban on
this style of gambling.
Alcatraz Island, that silent citadel that illumines the skyline of
Frisco’s bay like a bleak battleship, is the temporary home of about five
hundred United States soldiers who have become ensnarled in the tough and
tedious red tape of Uncle Sam’s court martial system. Prisons and morgues
are two places I abhor, but it fell my lot to visit both in one night in
San Francisco.
It happened like this: While entertaining some new found Frisco friends
in my room in the St. Francis Hotel, I was pleasantly surprised by the
head director of the Jewish Welfare Board, Shea Swartz by name, who
requested on behalf of the Board, that my pedigreed bunk be spread on the
rocky soil of Alcatraz. The five hundred boys gathered in the barrack
auditorium and gave the Whiz Bang a grand and glorious welcome. It was
one of the bright lights of a very enjoyable tour of the coast.
Later in the evening, accompanied by George Duffy and G. W. DeLano of the
district attorney’s office, we inspected the famous San Francisco morgue.
It was a gruesome visit, I’ll admit, but some of the curse was removed
by the marvelous furniture and apparatus used in the handling of the
unfortunate.
From the morgue we glimpsed a view of the city jail, through the kind
offices of Walter C. Schiller, who is bond and warrant clerk in the Hall
of Justice.
It was next to Chinatown where we were met by the sergeant in charge
of the Chinatown vice squad. Two of his operatives conducted our party
through a score or more of Chink gambling and hop joints that had
recently been raided. We sincerely thank the squad, but regret not having
seen one or two places that had not been raided.
It is the hour of dusk that Chinatown pads to and fro noiselessly. In
the little tangle of crooked streets, blue lozenges of lights, sitting
gods and queer smells that babble of Oriental talk is incessant at this
hour. Women parade in gaudy headdress and beads of jade. The men wear
their gaudiest silken robes. There are dried-up men whose faces are old
with the age of eastern lore, young women who walk with mincing steps and
Oriental grace, cherry-cheeked babies tottering uncertainly.
We passed up Honolulu until later in the year and made a transcontinental
jump to New York to try and “Get Gertie’s Garter.” Don’t believe I’ll
ever be contented “down on the farm” after all the wonderful people and
wonderful sights of the past two months. But here goes for Lil’ Ol’ New
Yawk, as seen through the eyes of a farmer.
_Blistering Broadway_
In the old days we used to hear startling tales of the decadence of the
Paris theatre. It is no longer necessary to cross the pond to have one’s
aesthetic (?) senses stirred. The New York stage will do it for you this
season. Right behind the Broadway footlights you can see everything done
in the name of Art from witnessing a young lady actually climb in a bed
already occupied by a male to observing a squad of girls play strip poker
until—
But let us go back to the beginning. They say that it is a dull season in
New York and that no one is spending money—at least for theatre tickets.
Hence the frantic effort to whet the jaded appetites of the elusive
theatre-goers.
Let us list some of the more sprightly attractions. Bear in mind that
some of them have excellent qualities. There is, for instance, Somerset
Maugham’s “The Circle,” telling of an old couple who have broken all the
conventions and of a younger couple about to follow in their footsteps.
It is told with lively cleverness. No, indeed, the young people do not
find a moral in the experiences of their elders. At the end they dash
away to investigate the illicit love-in-a-cottage stuff themselves and
Mr. Maugham points out that in life it doesn’t matter “what you do as
much as what you are.” And also that “you can do anything in this world
if you’re prepared to take the consequences and consequences depend on
character.” All of which is excellent mental food for the 1921 flapper.
Then there is Cosmo Hamilton’s “The Silver Fox,” a little epic of a
philandering wife with a penchant for young men and abbreviated socks.
Clever, too, but decadent.
Also we might note “Ambush,” the opus of a young woman who likes
pretty things and who is aided and abetted by her mother. Papa is a
poor commuter who wakes up when daughter introduces a flip and married
gentleman friend. When he protests, daughter slaps his face and snaps
“Damn you!” Still, there is some excuse for “Ambush.” At least it is well
written.
Here we turn to the plain every day efforts to be insolently sensational
at any price.
“Getting Gertie’s Garter” (note the chaste title), was one of the
earliest of the sexly stimulants. But garters have lost their vogue and,
anyway, the short skirts have ruined their novelty. So the piece did not
seriously upset New York.
Then there’s “Lilies of the Field,” for instance, a demi-mondaine
treatise anent certain lilies who “toil not neither do they spin,” or
however it was that the Good Book let down the gold diggers of the old
days. This is especially recommended for the eighteen-year-old flapper.
With which we arrive at the real blush producers of the year. Consider
“Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife.” Here a young woman, newly married, invites her
old sweetheart to her boudoir at midnight, gets him squiffy and persuades
him to undress and climb into bed. And undress he does, right down to his
B. V. D.’s in front of the footlights, the appreciative heroine and the
audience. Said heroine then clambers in—and friend husband appears. Yes,
it’s all to teach hubby a lesson (one must make some concession to the
police) and the B. V. D. person gets the air.
Broadway had been busily getting out its shekels to see Bluebeard and the
B. V. D. youth when along came Avery Hopwood’s “The Demi-Virgin.” Now,
Mr. Hopwood’s demi-virgin is not the demi-vierge of the French, from whom
the noun comes. Since this is a family paper, we will explain demi-vierge
as a young and ambitious lady who is broadminded up to a certain point.
Mr. Hopwood’s heroine, however, is a movie queen who deserts her husband,
another movie idol, on their wedding night. Although the husband finally
succeeds in capturing his demi-wife in her boudoir and thereupon starts
out to—well—anyway the real incident of the piece is the aforementioned
strip poker party, where a half dozen film fillies discard garment after
garment in a game designed to be thrilling. It isn’t a mere strip poker
party but a “strip cupid” affair, the first to arrive at the cupid state
to be the winner—or loser. The game progresses until it is a mere matter
of a card’s turn who is to be cupid when, of course, the thing is ended.
This, then, is the state of the New York stage at this moment. Meanwhile,
film fans see life on the screen through the eyes of little Rollo while,
just around the corner, six young women are in the act of taking off
their pink envelope thing-ums while an appreciative audience applauds.
Not, of course, that we’re for censorship anywhere. But the New York
stage producer seems to be able to get away with anything.
It is making it awfully hard for the musical comedy producer. Years ago
he reached a certain limit in bare revelations and now the drama comes
along and wins away the tired business man. Of course, the musical
comedy maker isn’t giving up without a fight. Now and then he has an
inspiration, as when, in the new Greenwich Village Follies, he reveals a
lady to personify Art dressed exclusively in three golden leaves, each
placed with fine discernment and discretion.
The next step on the New York stage will probably come when the musical
comedy producer raises—or lowers—his limit. Despite our youth, we can
recall—vividly—when he made the step from tights and stockings to bare
legs, the only thing left is for him to ape the Parisian producer and
have costumes stop their upward trend at the waist. We shall see, we
shall see!
* * * * *