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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)
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