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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 4, 1943)
YA £ Next Time Try the Train... )1S BETTY ANN STEVENS U VDIA’S a darling . . . yes, au absolute darling. She lias that alloof, unhurried air which lends a fascination to her blond .perfection that has dazzled men ar worried women ever since <ghe wore her honey-colored mane in tight, painful pigtails. When she decided to come down to visit me last vacation, I was tickled to a palpitating pink for nothing tips my morale'more than having a ■‘.''•-karat nugget like Lydia on the premises. She always makes me feel that it isn’t too hopeless, and that perhaps I will some day be able to stretch or shrink my chubby chassis into a svelte fac simile thereof. She even inspires me into reckless dreams of per oxde-dieached forelocks. That's the effect Lydia has on me. Lydia arrived at our whistle pause station. That is to say, she descended for her two-week stay in an aura of Prince Marchibelli’s Potpourri, four fortnighters, three hat-boxes, flawlessly applied pan calm, and skunk coat just like the one I’m going to have if Un cle Henry dies suddenly and they discover lie's been running com petition with the Fort Knox mint. It’s very unlikely, since the only Hunts that Uncle Henry is ac quainted with are the ones he eats after dinner when he lis tens to the “Tummy" program. Cl. was over an insipid “victory" coke in the corner hangout that I became conscious of The Per fect. Man for Lydia. We were re covering from the bout with the baggage ... I swear that our old Btuck sagged a full six inches by the time we got to the last hat bo" As Bob Hope would say, “One tire said to the other tire ..." Well, that’s beside the 'point. Lydia was looking' like a mint julep in a pale green gabardine suit, while I was attired in a du bious white sweater that invari ably came back from the clean er,’, giving me the appearance of either a pseudo-Lana Turner or Li mda and Cobina combination . . . large enough for both of them. I was trying to talk Lydia out of one of her moods while con vincing- myself that my falling bangs lent a casual, puckish air. On, tiling about Lydia is that she’s a very sensitive, h i gli sten, ig- girl, conscious of many tilings that other people aren't. Sit, also writes poetry sometimes. Perhaps it doesn't rhyme, but it's blank verse, and lias lots beauti fui -sound ing adject iv ea To get back to the perfect Man For Lydia . . . He was a living example of the old adage that a uniform definitely does something especially with shoulders and blond hair .Maybe a first lieuten ant's uniform heightens the ef fect, too. Leaning up against the counter, with his good-looking nose absorbed in the ages of a magazine, he was obnoxiously oblivious to Lydia's blond charms. .Something clicked in my brain. My ranidly dawning imagination pictured them dancing together, li , tanned face turned laughing ly to hers . . . strolling together, the moonlight shimmering . . . d .pi ling them with silvery mag ic .. . I'd even advanced to the point where Lydia, with luminous eyes and a misty expression fad ing into a fingertip-length veil, was advancing under crossed swords to the tune of Lohengrin and old shoes . . . pre-stamp num ber 17. Something bad to be done. The situation was rapidly becoming unbearable. It wasn't that we were too desperately disturbed about the available manpower ration for this happened before girls began thinking about going to Alaska and Honolulu, and there were still a few civvies in circulation. It was just that the superior specimen had put in an appearance, and I, for Lydia's sake, was not one to ignore it, even though she was being de cidedly uncooperative. At that moment she wa sdiscussing quite intellectually the pres and cons of "Then Chu" nail polish, its ef fect or morale, and “How Our Attitude Toward Material Things Will Prove the Downfall of Civi iation As We Know It.” In what way did-one subtly di rect the attention of a perfect specimen to a blond lovely? I de cided to try a modern version of the D.T.H. eome-on. Lydia seemed just a bit annoyed at having to lend me her handkerchief. With a careful semblance, at least, of nonchalance, I saun tered in my most careful manner to the juke box near the door, which had an electric fan setting thereupon. Bending forward. I frowned intently at an array of uninspiring song titles . . . Lydia's eyebrows were raised ever so slightly. Perhaps I had been a lit tle rude, but after all, what I was about to attempt was for her sole benefit, not my own. ,-y^N airy gesture waa all that was necessary. The breeze from the fan caught my handker chief, carried it up, and shot it in a haphazard fashion over the counter, where it finally came to a fluttering stop between the pages of what the perfect Speci men was reading . . . Praise the Lord that I’ve never liked non glamorous kleenex, . . . The tanned nose rose abruptly, and two intense grey eyes squinted puzzledly at the intruding bit of cloth. Then they relaxed and crinkled at the corners, and a one-sided grin quirked, revealing Literary Page Staff: Editor: Carol Greening Contributors: Betty Ann Stevens Ted Goodwin Marjorie Major “I - scrub - ’em - for - the - grin of - a - cutie” teeth. I smiled back at him uncertain ly. The magazine was laid aside, and he bared his g.-i. haircut. “Lynn Randall is the name,'1 he drawled, with another quirk . . . this time in the old Gable-ish (Please turn to page seven) Mencken the Divine » HEATHEN DAYS, by H. L. Mencken; Knopf, 1943, S3.00. Probably one of the most re freshing volumes to roll from the press of 1943, (year of our Lord and the great war) is this de lightfully cynical recollection whose only reference to the glo bal war is the bald statement that Huey Long was assassinated by the Japs. Henry Louis Mencken, writer, editor and scholar of the English tongue as practiced in these United States, spares no one in his penetration of the American scene as it came under his ob Journey After a while I would search about for the colorless faces For the white faces that are watching For something— But fiast I would gather the blood-stained bandages in the world— I would melt the rapiers and shrapnel in the world And leave them spread on wide fields Like gentle moonlight— I would find red meat in the cities And say, “This is for the people, when I find them.'' I would look for an enamel butterfly So. that when I found a child I could say, “This is for you to hold in your hand—” But I would do these things futilely, since it is the faces, the colorless and watching faces Which constitute the wounds— Which have lost the kindly sky And have no more Kinship with gracile butterflies Or blurred owls in a summer night. So I would search about for the colorless faces For white faces, dull and Uncomprehending. One day I would find them Sitting by a road. And when, after I had found them, We should see rows of men marching Into somewhere— I would gather the people And explain to them by the road the mystery Of tolerance— I would speak to them Of quiet sleep and love, Of warm milk for children—how flowers grow. All night while echos plodded softly Into somewhere, I would speak of roofs glistening in the rain— Of chimneys blowing smoke at five o’clock— Of contentment— Of the bension of hot food and familiar silverware— AH night there by the road I would speak Of the burned bandages—■ Of the metal poured out harmlessly like moonlight—• Of the red meat—• And of the butterfly I had for some child— And they would listen with white faces. Uncomprehending. —By Marjorie Major. servation during: the days of Re publicanism and prohibition. Williams Jennings Bryan, that golden tongued orator of silver and fundamentalism, comes un der the same sharp analysis that recalls vividly the stable boy who hated cats and the vendor of dirty post cards in Naples. Worldly Things The book is not necessarily ag nostic, it werely renders unto Caesar that which is his to the exclusion of God, Allah, Maygog, or Shinto. Mencken’s world dur ing the twenties was of necessity secular. Things of the spirit were somehow repelling to a ma| whose zest for malt Jiquor wall unbaffled by the devilish cunning of prohibitioners. Recollections of his delightful excursions into choice pilsner (while thousands were “dying of thirst” outside decrepit speak easies) would make an evangelist drool. A1 Smith he dismisses as a me diocre politician who couldn’t win because the cards were stacked anyway. The Scopes trial where the magnificent Bryan declared that he believed every word of the King James version “including the typographical errors," was covered’ by Mencken who recalls that one of Darrow’s colleagues won $17, drawing four nines to a six. “Of course,” writes Menc ken, “Bryan was a fraud, but sometimes I think he actually bfjj lieved that Jonah did swallow th™ whale.” Carthage On visiting the runs of ancient Carthage, where Hanibal and Hamilcar fought “Japs and Naz is” more than two milleniums ago, Mencken observed that a fellow citizen of Baltimore had a baseball club practicing there. It was admirable the way Mencken resisted the temptation to tie Carthage and the see of Augus tine in some way with the pres ent battle of Tunisia, in progress as he wrote. Occasionally he shed the bonds of restraint and described with evident glee and profound skill the orgies of living the full life, without women, no wine, and a little song. He writes with ten derness and compassion of tlij days when he had to walk more than a mile for a glass of beer. On one occasion in a political battle, Mencken accused a man of having once been a Sunday school superintendent. He w'as safe from a libel suit because the truth came out that the man ac tually had been. (Please turn to page seven) lUHUMUMSB* SPOT CASH SPENDING MONEY AT THE 'CO-OP5 TURN IN YOUR CASH REGISTER TICKETS — FRIDAY, MAY 7th IS THE LAST DAY! NONE ACCEPTED AFTER THAT DATE! 5% REBATE FOR YOU