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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 1943)
Essay on Chow (Private Randall was a sopho more itt journalism at Oregon last year, and is now at Fort Lewis, Washington. These are his private sentiments on chow. .—Ed.) B> Private Vernon R. Randall 4»/jf'OME, fellows, it is several 4 minutes past the hour. Time for us to adjourn for our meal," in the best Etonian man net', is not the way one becames informed of meal time in the army. More likely, it is: "Jesus Christ, the line will be backed Hip to the attic!” Then begins a scramble that would make the five o’clock rush look like a cor set-hound minuet. I know. The first few times I acted as the girgplank from the squad room to die mess hall. After the rush to tire mess nail door, which no one ever reaches as there are always a hundred met’ ahead, one stands patiently waiting for the Great Door to open. This waiting is a chummy af fair, I have made some interest ing acquaintances from it. It usually begins by looking down at: the place where your feet are supposed to be and finding vari ous and sundry sorts of shoes, with legs in them, hiding your own. tootsies from the sun. Then you gradually carry your gaze up. speculating all the way as to what you will meet at the top of th torso. If the trip is short, you co ; usually prepare to curl a lip and mutter: "Crowdin' a little, ain’t yoh, bud?” On the other h i, if you find yourself grad ual, y twisting your neck to peer into higher climes, then prepare a well phrased statement to the effect: Do you mind? In some cases it is best to remain silent, adding, if you like, a Slight curl of the lip and a furrowed brow. Tr se seldom penetrate. Then comes the great moment! Ti - Great Door swings open. Art ists have, for centuries, tried to Catch emotional impact behind such occasions. Tschaikowsky's "ft th Symphony.” the rich lines ejujpioyeJ in the paintings of It ibrandt Van Rijn, and oven a t’.i' le of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sa nta,” trickle in to partially convoy the spirit. Yes, the Great Do./1 is opened. After that, this sec riiing mass becomes a whole, like a hopped-up jelly-fish, cov ering everything as it moves. I dc not know what my individual reactions are for those brief few secrmd.3 In the army one loses his identity, they say, but never quite so completely as during the Charge of the Mess hall brigade. Somehow, you find yourself sitting at a long, spotless, wooden table. It doesn’t remain spotless very long. Usually it is the sugar first, then someone becomes a little too anxious with the large, metal pitcher of coffee. From then on, the spots begin to merge. If you are meek-mannered, or even plainly “mannered,” the veneer soon wears off after a few sessions at the table. It is a “sur vival of the fittest,” and some thing inside says in the most res olute manner: Go to it; you, too, can be a chow-hound. A few dis traught stomach muscles can do much to disturb the placid theo ries of Emily Post. jyjAINLY, one must develop a 1 technique. In the mess hall it is “King's X" on “by the num bers.” The "Fork-mid-air-thrust” works for many men. It requires alertness. As the platter skims by, one must be prepared to give his all and bring his work from a raised position into the center of the platter, twist it, and with draw as quickly as possible with whatever he has managed to har poon. Some of the fellows declare it is quite a simple procedure when using the “open - palm - thumb - lock.” This has its advantages in that the palm is held at the same level as the container be ing passed. As it streaks across the Individual’s palms, the thumb must act as a bi'ake, clasping it self over the edge in such a man ner as to halt the container’s passage. However, during the course of a meal, the thumb be comes overly abused, developing a lobster-red from its constant frying, boiling and steaming in the various containers that are passed. Having gotten at least a few morsels of food on your plate, you settle down to the anticipat ed event of eating. I may add here that it is best to ignore the gravy when it is passed. Butter on your potatoes serves just as well, and is considerably more palatable. Of course you learn to sprinkle salt on everything in your plate before starting to eat, even on the dessert, which you have tucked around the outskirts of the main meal in your plate. There is nothing you can do about the coffee. The boys in '17 could do nothing about it, and this generation seems destined for the same quagmire. Just drink it and keep your mind occupied with other things. My own personal formula for dispelling the “G.I.” taste of coffee is to evolve schemes by which I would dis pose of the German paper-hanger and his East-side crowd. Some of the men simply hum “Home Sweet Home." rjiHE conversation at the table J is varied in subject, seldom the entire table discussing the relative merits of one particular issue. Somebody is usually con cerned about their own sex life. Another is leading a tirade against the “sarge.” Others may be entwined in last year's discus sion of “For Whom the Bell Tolls," or whether the Garand ri fle is much of an improvement over the Springfield. Usually the meal ends with the man who is discussing this sex life still hold ing forth, and a few novice “learners-of-facts” ti’ying to look indifferent, though their wrinkly red ears belie the fact. Before the meal is over, how ever, one is afforded the oppor tunity of observing men, their appetites and what they do with them. Too, you notice, peculiar eating habits and customs. Men from southern states al ways seem to glow like an over watted electric light bulb when corn on the cob is served. They will eat perhaps a half-dozen ears, and then begin their main meal, more corn ears. Their meth od of attack is quite plain. They bite, withdraw, munch and bite again. I have never caught them swallowing their food. At times, under close surveillance, I have wondered if they have pockets in their cheeks. There are extravagant eaters, thrifty eaters, neat eaters, clum sy eaters and slovenly eaters. The extravagant eater can be noted by the amount of butter he plac es on the edge of his plate. The thrifty eater eats moderately, which does necessarily mean del icately, and leaves the table with half of the cake or cookies in his pocket for future reference. The neat eater allots a certain amount of space on his plate for each kind of food that is served, and looks like a divinity student throughout the meal, praying that each kind of food remains in its separate domain, and not gradu ally mix together. The clumsy eater is the man who knocks your half-pint of milk to the floor with his elbow, hands you the coffee, asks for the toast, and feeds his lower lip a spoonful of Wlieaties at the same time. The slovenly eater is a composite of the afore mentioned varieties, and is suc cessful in each of the spheres. There is one other variety of eater, considered far below any Russian Warfare By Caldwell AL-.'j NIGHT LONG by Erskine C uldwell Duell, Sloan, and Pierce. $2.50. "All Night Long,” Erskine Caldwell's latest, is a striking ex ample of a good witter gone very wrong indeed, Mr. Caldwell had a let of ex cel nit material on Russia. He spout some time on the Russian Front atvl doubtless encountered many of the “Partisan” guerillas about which he writes so melo dramatically He wrote an eye witness factual account of his exa .ii r. -es in Russia, called “All Out on the Road to Smolensk.” r ed with, the heroism of Rus-' Hi an with the bloody holocausts, the brutality of the Nazis, he pt ’ged head first into a novel i\>. • was intended to give the Russians the full share of credit due to them. The idea was fine. But Cald well used a "Tobacco Road" tech nique of omitting no act of bes tiality in its full horror; blood and gore flow in copious streams throughout the book; murder upon murder and horror upon horror are piled to the point of the ridiculous. Understatement rather than overstatement would have been much more effective. The best expression of the Rus sian sentiment towards the Ger mans is given in one of the mild est passages of the book. Two Nazi soldiers are talking: One says: 'T don't like the looks of things. Did you ever notice how . these Russian peasants look at us? Ev eryone I've ever seen acts as though all he thinks about is how many bullets it’s going to take to kill you. Even the chil dren that are no taller than your thumb have that same kind of strange look in their faces.” But the rest of the book is a rather confused tale full of pas sages such as this: ‘‘The throat had been cut in a straight line above the Adam's apple . . . their bodies, bored with steel-tipped bullets . . . fluttered to the ground like insects.” ‘‘When he was jerked to his feet, there was a crimson stain on the ground and blood ran from his ear and soaked his jacket." “Then she came leaping over the body in the doorway and fell into his arms."—C. G. Gkoo-UecH eMoHesi Qkkhfet Bridget says the moon is just A piece of pumpkin rind, a Crooked Holler man once chucked into the sky. A’course she never saw the man, But once when she Was just a little gal, she saw The stump that he was sittin' on The time he slung the rind' across A row of pines, As high, as high most Any tree can grow. But Pa says Bridget’s got a pixy In her brain, and can’t Be trusted for her talk. But he don’t know— He ain’t from Crooked Holler. And Bridget says All folk from Crooked Holler Got the pixies in their souls, ’Cause all the wondrous things Have witched them there, Until they just can’t leave. But Bridget left And came and wedded up With brother Jake, but she Aint like us, ’Cause the pixy whispers To her all the time Of Crooked Holler folk. That’s what she said to me One day When we had gone To hunt for mushrooms. But we didn't find them, ’Cause she got to crying, And ran away and cried Until my brother Jake Went out and found her. But she’s alright; I like to hear her talk of all The folk in Crooked Holler, That she used to know. But best of all I like it when she gets her fiddle, That her pa made out Of resin wood, And plays The Crooked Holler tunes. —Peggy Overland. of the preceding;. He is the “cinch eater,” the little man who never replenishes the empty bowl. If most of the members at the ta ble are buck-privates, this indi vidual may often be identified by sti'ipes worn on the sleeve. If the assembly is composed of more variety, this individual may go un-noticed for several meals, or until each member at the table has served a few rounds between kitchen and mess hall. At this point, nerves become tense. A cold meal does something to one’s frame of mind, particularly when it was a hot meal when you placed it in your plate. Everyone becomes suspicious of the other man. Come to think of it, didn't he hand me a plate that was al most empty at the last meal, each will think. Finally, each man be gins to pin plans of settlement on this man and that, and when you do corner that “other man,” he will say: "Why not let me get more potatoes? I believe I did take the next to the last one.” And so you bellow: “Aw, no, I can get it all right,” waiting for Courtesy of the British Army! "FLYING FORTRESS" Richard Greene and "Omaha Trail" James Craig Panela Blake EZZjESa Now Playing! "MY FAVORITE WIFE" with IRENE DUNNE also “IRENE AND VERNON CASTLE” Ginger Rogers Fred Astaire Literary Page Staff: Editor: Carol Greening Contributors: Pvt. Vernon Randall Peggy Overland him to insist. He doesn’t. I often think of the refrain, “Oh, la~*^ lord, fill the flowing bowl . . and wonder if there were ever such a person. The meal wears itself to a slow death. Men wander out, carrying their plate and utensils with them to the kitchen. Each man scrapr^J out that portion of his meal tha\. rang up “No Sale” with his ap petite into a large garbage can. The dishes are stacked and each man lazily tosses his eating uten sils into a separate tray filled with water. He turns to adjourn to his bunk. A delayed splash of water jumps across his neck. He indifferently saunters on. His stomach follows him faithfully. ... Of what inexorable cause makes Time so vicious in his reaping.—E. A. Robinson. ^■1 LffljJJiLs It’s ALL New! "ICECAPADES REVUE" Ellen Drew Richard Denning “SEVEN MILES FROM ALCATRAZ” James Craig Bonita Granville Opens Thursday