Listen to the land; The great American funnybone, part one

Listen to the land the profile of a nation in terms of its living language. This week Part 1 of the great American funny book. It's a modern paraphrase of the old saying is true a laugh a day keeps the doctor away. We offer you this week and next year is about supply as we explore the humor of America. Listen to the land is produced by station w h y y Philadelphia underground from the National Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. Now here is your host and narrator Richard S. Burdick. Adorable is an adjective and womankind is a known and I often wonder why although adorable woman kind elects to talk standing up it elects to put on its coat sitting down. What is the outstanding characteristic of matinees tea rooms and toddled of its women sitting firmly and comfortably on their coats. Women at whose talents a contortionist would

hesitate to scoff because they also sat down on their clothes to take them off. What is savoir faire. It is the ability to pick up 85 cents and nickels in a lipstick with the right hand while the left hand is groping wildly over the back of a chair. Yes and if you would desire savoir faire that you could balance a cup on. Consider the calmness of a woman trying to get her arm into the sleeve of a coat she has sat down on too far up on. Women indeed are the salt of the earth. But I fail to see why they daily submit themselves voluntarily to an operation that a man only undergoes when he is trying to butt on his Dodgers in an upper berth. That perceptive and pungent poke at the fair sex biog sets the mood in the spirit of this week's program. The first of two consecutive weekly programs subtitled The Great American funny bone a national sense of humor derives from a country's history its mores its

traditions its regional characteristics and these two programs will offer some outstanding cases in point. It will be difficult to find a person more qualified to introduce a program on humor than Ogden Nash. Mr. Nash is not just a rhetorical mountain bike. He is a genuine humorist whose writings have ethnic dimensions and he is of course a very observing person particularly when it comes to the ladies as you noticed in that first selection. Allow me madam but it won't help this next one will come as a great shock to many of you because Ogden Nash has observed that some women just were not intended by Nature to wear slacks. He put his observation in the form of a quatrain. Sure duck your lower limbs and pants yours are the limbs my sweeting. You look divine as you advance. Have you ever seen yourself retreating.

Nash is particularly adept to a traditional American form of humor called the limerick as in this one. That was a young battle of old notches whose garments were always in patches when comment arose on the state of our clothes. She drawled when I itches I scratches limericks as I've said are one of the basic forms one of the earliest forms of American humor. Most of the really good ones have been repeated so often they're very well known but they certainly have a place in a program such as this as this one. It was an old man with a beard who said it is just as I feared. Two hours in a hand for auction a rain of all built their nests in my beard wraps the most famous of all limericks is the

one that goes there was a young lady of Niger who smiled as she rode on a tiger. They returned from the ride with a lady inside and a smile on the face of the tiger. Some of them are tongue twisters. A tutor who tooted the flute tried to tutor two tutors to toot said the tutor the tutor is it hard to do to go to tutor two tutors to toot. Some of the best unpublished verse in America is to be found of all places on tombstones. Here's where the Native American wit sometimes found its wisest and rawest expression especially in my native country New England is one that is quite well known in that section of the country. Beneath this silent stone has laid a noisy antiquated made from our credo. Talk till death and I was out of breath. Whether

she is gone we cannot tell whether she talks or not she is in hell. If she's in heaven she's there on blast. Well she hates a place of rest. This one which makes no attempt to rhyme. Kind of an ironclad as classified advertisement. Yeah a lot of the remains of Samuel E. untimely joined to his Maker by the fall of a chimney in a windstorm. He left behind Jane his comely young widow whose address is 23 Bedford Street and whose disposition is one woman to be comforted. In the Graveyard of Old South Church in Boston there's a tombstone that bears the inscription. Behold my friends as you pass by. As you are now so once was I as I am now so you must be prepare for death and follow me.

Do what your Harvard student added these words ere I comply with your intent. I'd like to know which way you went and why do you suppose that we laugh at something like that. Actually the subject matter is the most solemn that we encounter in life namely death and yet we don't laugh at death as such. Only at certain aspects of it. And I think there may be something generic about this. All not exclusively the English and the French are known to have this sense of macabre enjoyment but of course there are pronounced hereditary strains from these countries in our own culture but not those of Eastern ethnology as the Orientals in particular see in death and transmissive passage only a cue to profundity and contemplation permitting no quarter to wit or to superficiality. This is not to say that we Americans are either naturally witty or superficial or that we're

not able to be profound or contemplative. But it does suggest that we're a people of adaptability to put it mildly. If we're going to court to death that's a full measure of dignity and reverence and yet when it is presented tastefully and switch our mood to one of lightness or even merriment without losing our sense of balance or corrupting our moral or spiritual proportion. This chameleon like aesthetic morality is consistent with another form and that is our respect for truth. No one believes me no one has a firmer regard for truth nor deep rooted conviction that the next worst thing to a striking mother on Mother's Day is to tell a lie. And we Americans and yet nobody appreciates a good lie better than we do when it's in the form of a tall tale. We even organize clubs to award medals to the best of luck. I won't say that the best hyperbole lies ors. And

you can tell any youngster under 14 that Davy Crocket or Mike Fincke or Paul Bunyan or anything short of evangelistic rock on tours. And if you do you'd better have on track shoes. As the old sutler said to our country Mr. into stories you've got to match the dog buildings and the dog timber you know high on it still talk about Mike Fincke who was half horse and half alligator snapping turtle. It was shit. Don't fish finder everywhere you might think is fish went round and round like a windmill. Never direct in his life. Once maybe I will but baby Crockett's wife Mary Jane will wind thunder and lightning. Grok it just to scare her. Mike dressed himself in an organic gator.

Grow it into marriage jeans. Yeah been married. She'd been brought up on buffalo's milk and she'd cut her teeth in a rush to show she put her arm down a alligator stroker Terdiman shot out like it was Mike. Think it would kick the butt to put her arm down do you stroke what might give a whoop dash. Brother didn't remember if you were there. And when I really know you were going on a rampage ruler no rich banks might think think in America lashing his tail. That's what they say. Texas that's a place where everything grows bigger and better in Texas even the dust storms. Why they say that up in the panhandle all Roger went to

Don to borrow money on his ranch. But fairly good letter I learned that the banker shouting above the high wind. All I have to go take a look at your place. Oh my necessaries are the Roger. Here comes the brothers No. Back around the turn of the century there lived in Chicago a brash perceptive newspaper man by the name of Finley Peter Dunne and in the mind of Finley Peter Dunne. There lived an equally perceptive and brash Irishman by the name of Mr. Dooley Mr. Dooley was a kind of Gaelic Will Rogers. He had something to say on just about every subject under our particular sun the Mr. Dooley stories written in knowing dialect became quite the rage of their time and I think they're among the drollest pieces of writing in American humor. Mr.

Dooley had a knack of making us laugh at ourselves. That's about the healthiest trait that we have. Here are some Mr. Dooley comments directed to his ever present friend Hennessy on the subject of golf and the just about as importantly pertinent The day is when they first came out of Mr. Dunn's head. How does it play with him but I don't exactly know. I never studied the law. But you can get the rules of the game in the public library in seven volumes. You did by the Lord Chief Justice of Scotland and if you have a dispute over the rules the quickest way to get a decision is to hire a lawyer make a test case and carry it to the Supremes court and win the general way all I can say about it is it's a kind of a game of ball that you play with your own worst enemy which is yourself and your man you don't like goes around with me and gloat so he

and a little by followed you to carry the clubs and hide the ball after you've hit it. Now the bottle is made of rubber smiled and filled with appraising the substance and he did a good smash. It bursts and puts out your eye. You supposed to smash this little grenade from place to place in here and they are now up and down and you continue on with an enormous instrument of wood or iron until in due time you get to what is called the putting green of the litter or with a tin can in it in the middle of this place and when you are within a foot or two of this hole you take a small hammer out of the bag and you get the bout four or five times to the tumbles into the pool. Then you wiped the cold sweat from your brow right down fight on it it is carried and walk away a few feet and do it all over again. A great inducement to men to spin their Sundays on the golf course is the presence of the fair sex organ tells me there's nothing as a

present to a tired player as to come upon a TV and find in front of him four beautiful leads never except in a sleeping car in the Marne and I relate is so attractive is when you see them from a tee with a lovely air out of Carol that in their faces and the lively Pink who have a million and a lumberjack boots on their dainty feet. Where are they dad picturesquely at the herbage are standin graceful at that huge in the puttin green correct in each other's scores. Their prisons lights up the landscape and gives the men players a chance to rest and gnash their teeth. Yes sir the bridges to the best in the fairest can be seen east or west north or south of the belt to nowhere a winter in summer at this noble game or hallucination no right to heavy a collet senators judges Congressman grit editors preachers

to view the president himself viddy president. Did I ever see the game plead with faith and I did Hennessy the other Martin and I went out to Douglas Park to watch Hogan play a match with Larken Hogan was standing on what they call the tee which is where you take the first look at the bottom. He had a pole in his hand and was swinging it had a dandy line in Miss And eventually he stepped up to where the bow rooted in a deep pile of sand stood with his legs apart like a statue he calls the galoshes of Rhodes waggled the stick in the air pointed it towards the pole cried out stead the way darken get around behind me Martin stepped off an air boy and screamed for. Gentleman that was at work in a trench three city blocks ahead. Then he rode off with the bat muttering to himself in the

back. Keep the lift arms straight people to the right foot volley through up grip the dritte instruments and cautious and come with a bird that would have first the Dardanelles ukes pick to deceive the boat's predicted with thousand pieces but disappeared into space. But it didn't it lift the tea right in the piece of turf the size of your floated laser lay off to one side dropped bounced twice in a suit you know what did I do that was wrong what did I do what did I do says he wringing his hands. You dropped your right shoulder says Larkin you two here I off it says Larkins caddy toad It says an innocent bystander. You made a mistake trying to hit it out you should have kicked it says I.

Is the president a good golf player yet as you can see as a gun of player the president could give Lincoln a stroke. We mustn't think that all of the best American humor lies in the past. There's a special gold star opposite the name of James Thurber in modern and theologies in his book My Life in hard times. THURBER recounts a highly original and amusing story of the end of the old family Rio for the benefit of the automatic transmission generation. A radio was an automobile of some years back. This is an illustration of the unadulterated fluid of poetic humor. Our poor old rail came to a horrible end finally. We had parked it too far from the

curb on a street with a car line. It was late at night and the street was dark. The first street car that came along couldn't get by it picked up a tired old automobile as a terrier might seize a rabbit and drubbed it unmercifully losing its hold now and then but catching a new grip a second later tires buton who used the fenders squealed in great. The steering wheel rose up like a specter and disappeared in the direction of Franklin Avenue with a melancholy whistling sound. Bolts and gadgets flew like sparks from a Catherine wheel. It was a splendid spectacle but of course saddening to everybody except the motorman of the street car was sore. I think some of us broke down and wept. It must have been the weeping that caused grandfather to take on so terribly. Time was all mixed up in grandfather's mind. Automobiles and the like he never remembered having seen. He apparently gathered from the talk and the excitement and weeping that somebody had died. Nor did he let go of his delusion. He insisted in

fact after almost a week in which we strove mightily to divert him. It was a sin and a shame and a disgrace on the family to put the funeral off any longer. Nobody is dead. The automobile is smashed. Shouted my father trying for the thirtieth time to explain the situation to the old man now. Was he drunk. Demanded grandfather was who drunk. Asked father. Genius said Grandfather. You had a name for the corpse now. It was his brother's Enos was it happened was dad but not from driving an automobile while intoxicated Xena's had died in 1866. A sensitive rather poetical boy of 21 when a civil war broke out Xena's had gone to South America just as he wrote back until it blows over. Returning after the war had blown over he caught the same disease that was killing off the chestnut trees in those years and passed away. It was the only case in history where a tree doctor had to

be called in to spray a person. Our family had felt it very keenly. Nobody else in the United States caught the blight. Some of us have looked upon Xena's fate as a kind of poetic justice. Now the grandfather knew so to speak who is dead. It became increasingly awkward to go on living in the same house with him as if nothing had happened. He would go into towering rages in which he threatened to write to the board of help unless the funeral were held at once. We realized that something had to be done. We persuaded a friend of father's named George Martin to dress up in a manner and costume of the 1860s and pretend to be Uncle Zenas in order to set grandfather's mind at rest. The Impostor looked fine and impressive in sideburns high beaver hat not unlike a digger of types of Xena's in our album. I shall never forget the night just after dinner when this dizziness walked into the living room. Grandfather was stomping up and down. Tall hawk nosed round

oved. The newcomer held out both his hands. Coal land. He cried. Grandfather grandfather turned slowly looked at the intruder snorted. Or are you white. I'm seeing this. Cried Mark and your brothers Venus. But did the federal unsound of the dollar Xena's my flight. Said Grandfather Xena's died of the just not right in 66. One of the writers who captured the special flavor and spirit of Southern Folkways was a man named Charles H. Smith who wrote under the name of William R.. In one of his tales called Telling kids he tells us they used to have a kissing game up there in the mountains but they still keep up and East Tennessee. A lot of big limbed powerful young man an apple cheeked buxom girls gather and select one of their number as a master of

ceremonies. He takes his station in the center of the room while the rest pare off and parade around him. Suddenly one young woman will throw up her hands and say I'm a poutine and the master of ceremonies takes it up and the following dialogue takes place. Miss Arabella Jane outthought says she's a pine and what is Miss Arabella Jane I thought a pint in fala. I'm a pond in fall this week a young Miss Arabella Jade outthought says she's a pardon for sweet K.S. who is Miss Arabella Jane I thought a pint in for a sweet. OK yes from. I'm a pardon for sweet K. As for Mr. William Mr. Wm OP now walks manfully up and relieve the fair Arabella my ass smack that sounds like a three year old steer drawing his hoofs out of a mine. At one of these entertainments I attended there was a remarkably beautiful young woman who had been married about a

month. Her husband was present at a huge beetle browed black eyed young mountaineer with a fist like a ham. Understandably the boys fought shy of the bride for fear of the anger of her hulking spouse when the game went on for some time when suddenly symptoms of anger developed in the giant and striding out into the middle of the room he said Boys my wife as per day are nice and sweet as any guy oh yeah your one does no you're not. This game has been a go on I have an hour and nobody has wants. Now if somebody don't produce soon but I'm going to be trouble. You can well imagine. After that she was the belle of the ball everybody crying for. Clarence day's God and my father life would father and life with mother tenderly and ironically characterize upper class family life in New

York in the latter part of the 19th century. The characterizations are witty satirical always affectionate. One of his more delightful delineations of father in action is this one by Clarence Day called Father hires a cook from life with father one late afternoon when father came up from down town he found his home much upset our cook had walked out and left us. I was a child of four George was two and it was a new baby besides mother was ill. She hadn't been able to leave us to go to an agency and as she was no hand at cooking herself the outlook for dinner was poor. This state of affairs was unprecedented in all of father's experience in his father's home. They never change their servants suddenly they seldom change them at all. Not as his mother was a past mistress of cooking. He had always been doubly protected and since as marriage she had had to live a much bumpier life but this was the worst yet. He asked mother who was

lying in bed what she was going to do about it. There were no telephones then and she couldn't do anything at all at the moment but she said she would try to go to an agency in the morning and see what she could find. Yes I'm on a break fast my father said where is the place anyhow. He clapped on his hat and strode out again over toward sex that no as I heard the story years afterward it was late when he got there and he bounded up the front stoop two or three steps at a time. He had never been in such a place before and to his surprise in the gaslight it was empty except for a severe looking woman who sat at a desk at one side. Well what are you keeping. She looked at him got out her pen opened a large book deliberately. I will take your name and address and then if you please you may give me the details as to what kind of person you require and when you would wish you to call. But father had no time and he told her any follower I know where you keep him. She was standing in the way of his dinner.

I can imagine how his face must have reddened and I was I must have blazed at her. I am asking you where you keep them. Why the girls are in there. The lady explained but clients are not allowed in that room. Now if you will tell me the kind of position you wish me to feel for you I will have one kippah but before she had half finished father had thrown open the door and gone in there is not a crowd of the girls young and old sickly and brawny of all shapes and sizes some ugly some pretty and trim and stylish some awkward nurses ladies maids waitresses washer women and cooks. The manager was by not father's elbow trying to make him get out and insisting that he tell her the position he wished her to fill. But father was swiftly glancing around the room and he paid no attention. He noticed a little woman in the corner with honest gray eyes who sat there shrewd looking and quiet. He pointed his cane over her and said I'll take that one. The manager was flustered but she still kept trying to enforce her authority. She protested she didn't yet know the position. Okay said Father but

Margaret doesn't wish to be a cook. She you can cook got you. Father demanded. Margaret's plain little face was still pink with excitement and pleasure at being chosen above all that roomful was such a masterful gentleman. Father had probably smiled at her too for they liked each other at once. Well she said that she had cooked for one family of course. You can call Father I said. He said afterward when describing the incident I noted once she could cook but the manager didn't like this at all the discipline of the office was being spoiled. If you were going to take her in a hollow she said one day would you wish to comment would you please give me your name as yes yes yes. Come on Margaret father said any plank to fee and walked out. Margaret followed him through the door and trotted over to our home at his heels. He sauntered down to the kitchen immediately while he went upstairs to dress. I don't know why you make such a fuss about engaging new servants It's simple enough he said comfortably to mother that evening after Margaret's first dinner. It was the first of a long series but Margaret stayed with us.

But twenty six years. And so we have heard America last hated by Ogden Nash Finley Peter Dunne James Thurber Bill Arp Clarence Day and assorted tombstone and scribes and spinners of tall tales. Next week we'll continue with part two of the great American funny bone and we'll meet more of the articulate observers of the American way of life. Among them Mark Twain Joel Chandler Harris Robert Benchley and other jolly companions not just in this pursuit of happiness but in the search for an understanding of it. Until then this addict Burdick saying thanks for listening and so on. Listen to the land was produced and recorded at station W.H. why why Philadelphia under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center and being distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is James Keeler inviting you to be with us next week for Part Two love a great American funny bone with your host on the right here Richard S. birding.

This is the n AB Radio Network.