The Charlotte News

Thursday, August 14, 1941

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: Point One: Should you read carefully Dorothy Thompson's piece of this date, noting the Editor's note as you pass through it, and then go back and read the Cash piece, "Invasion", December 9, 1939, and our note of December, 2006 following it, you are likely to say to yourself: "Now, I get it: the who who does this obviously sometimes reads ahead, cannily so, no doubt, but nevertheless..."

But, you see, as we have stressed before on many such occasions, we do not, unless we tell you so. And we are telling you that on this occasion, we did not. We first read Ms. Thompson's piece and this page of this date on this very date, August 15 of 2008, even if we did scan the print a little yesterday, albeit without reading Ms. Thompson's piece--but that was only yesterday, August 14, 2008.

Now then, you will then say: "But that's of no moment, who who does this. For you obviously do not appreciate, sir or madame who-who, how the human mind functions; that, in accordance with good Freudian teaching, our mind latches on, sometimes, to that which we see, without consciously realizing it, and we "read" things without the concentration normally attendant with conscious reading, and thus is implanted the vision within our brains, within the sounds of silence, only to be brought to the surface of conscious understanding, related and connected later," you of the Thomas choir will say.

But, you see, that is equally invalid as an argument, we can tell you, in this particular instance. For it is the case that we had not so much as examined the microfilm of August, 1941 at any time prior to July, 2008. Not once. We had not even placed it on the spool of the reader and whizzed it by our eyes, not for so much as a nanosecond of time in a bottle. Thus dispels your argument number two, Hoo-Hoo, though credit we give it in certain circumstances not here present.

Now then, you will say, you of the Hoho: "It is plain therefore, who-who, that what you (plu. or s.?) do, sirrah Haha or Mademoiselle Fifi, is something akin to that which Edgar Cayce did: that is to ingest printed material by osmosis, without actually even looking at the print. In short, Haha-Fifi, you cheat."

Well, while sincerely we do appreciate the compliment, Hohoho, and as we have imparted, have the little known hypoallergenic disorder known as chlorophyllotosisalmosis from breathing too much for too long from the gaseous exhalations of the stacked old paper reposited in libraries, and so steer clear of them whenever possible, except when necessary, we do say that to that bit of compliment, we can offer no reply, any more than you may offer proof of same. We simply don't know the who of the who-who on that one.

All we can tell you, Mr. or Ms. Hoo-Ho-Hoo, are the facts as they occur in some degree of chronological order as we experience them within our perceptual reality.

For those who might say that, in whatever way it may occur, we have some direct pipeline to Cash on the other side, likewise, we may not dispute it any more than you may prove it or disprove it. But, of course, even if so, that does not fully take into account the fact that Cash was quite deceased by this date in history. Yet, if the premise be so, the premise would not be disserved by that fact necessarily, for the premise is that, at least in some cases, if not all, life goes on.

We should just say this about that: You better watch out, you better not cry...

Point Number Two: "Metamorphosis", anent Bob Reynolds's third marriage--we think it was only the third anyway, not counting the horse that is, one which didn't last but a year--explaining how he, as a 57-year old, fell so hopelessly in love with his betrothed 20-year old, Denise D'Arcy, a French girl, that he promised her the Hope Diamond, worth at the time upwards of a millon smackers, that is francs--a lot of dough in those days, even if now it will scarcely buy you a gallon of gas--, suggests even further this sort of who-who thing we mention. For in there, it speaks of Gaston B. Means.

Gaston, you may recall, wrote a book about the death of President Harding, titled, appropriately enough, The Strange Death of President Harding, which, back in the late fall of 2005, we ordered and read and reviewed for you--and quite astutely and rightly, we might congratulate ourselves. The stimulus for our foray into that thing was the death of Mr. Means, duly recorded in "Odd, Dead Duck", December 13, 1938.

Gaston, you may recall yet further, was, appropriately enough, from Gastonia.

And, you may recall also, that we just mentioned Flo and President Harding in the last two notes of two and three days ago--without having read ahead to this day's pieces--though we admit that in this one, we did pull the page off the microfilm nearly a month ago, yet without reading it or laying eyes on it for more than the few seconds necessary to frame it in the reader and copy it--whirrrr-zippy-zippy-zoom.

So, your first point as to the who-who, here, would be wrong; the second, subject to open speculation; and the third and fourth, as usual, unprovable, within the realm of traditional empirical inquiry anyway.

Maybe some of you readers read ahead and help us across the waves, telekinetically, just as E=IR. If so, we tip our hats. We always admired the French ohms, ourselves.

But we don't know what you do.

It's not that we don't care; we just don't know.

As to the Hope Diamond and Senator Reynolds's love affairs, as well as his canceled trip to Iceland to investigate the newly enunciated policy by the Administration of providing naval protection to the land, lest it fall as a critical Nazi submarine base and air refueling station so as to enable them to hop more easily to Great Britain or, via Greenland, to New York, we don't know. What was private unto Bob, in our estimate, that which in any event did not directly impact his public duties or endanger national security, should have remained private unto Bob, as with anyone else, agree or disagree with him, like him or not.

Yet, it would appear that, as he lost the 1944 election for the Senate to Clyde Hoey of Shelby, (pronounced incidentally for those not familiar with North Carolina history, as "Hooey"--no joke intended, it is the way it is), the Senator's plan for becoming the new Reichsfuehrer of North America, once his pal Adolf took over from FDR, had a few holes in it, holes all the way from North Carolina to Blackburn Lancashire and Plymouth Hoe to Plymouth Rock, at least that many. It was not, unlike the diamond he coveted, flawless.

Senator Hoey died in 1954 and is buried a few feet from Cash, as we have before made the point.

The "Evalyn" of the piece was socialite Missus Evalyn Walsh McLean, who married The Washington Post, and, as any sleuth may discover, even one of no greater means than Gaston, who tried to swindle her, she was immortalized in a certain Cole Porter song of 1934. She was the current owner of the diamond and remained so until 1947 at her death, at which point it was sold from her estate to pay debts. One Harry Winston bought it and in 1958 donated it to the Smithsonian. Bob never acquired it. Perhaps in that, the legend of its bringing bad luck to its possessor was somehow reversed. Missus McLean also owned the Star of the East.

Whether the piece is in error, as Missus McLean was then 55, or whether it was her daughter, who took her mother's name, who was the intended who never was, we don't know. The piece so seems to translate accordingly.

Missus McLean was also a friend of Flo.

Ah, so, he who wears the Ring...

And, we are glad the stuffed shirt was not missing the ace, even if the jack was not there.

We note, too, from Hugh Johnson's piece, that the extension for the draft in the bill passed by a single vote in the House two days earlier, may have been to extend service of draftees by eighteen months, not just to eighteen months, as we first thought. We shall let you, should you have a particular interest, research the point yourself. For it proved itself a moot issue by December anyway, as practically every mother's son across the country sought then to volunteer, nearly regardless of age, infirmity, or background. It became the patriotic thing to do.

Likewise, we find the continuing colloquy between Ms. Russell and Ms. Hendricks on the page today to be of interest.

But, most of all, we like that first letter, from Mr. Bagwell. Whether it was Mother Hubbard soft-soap itself, or Truth, we couldn't exactly say. But it does have a kind of ringing sound to it which is interesting and thus fun to read.

"I said, 'You know they refused Jesus, too.' He said, 'You're not him.'"

It's called, incidentally, the Circle of Truth.

But, you have it your way, Ho-Ho. For, after all, as the Wave said, in those unforgettable ten or thirteen words: "If it, say you like want to."

Oops. We reached the margin and hit the bell. It's full hangout today.

Framed Edition
[Return to Links-Page by Subject] [Return to Links-Page by Date] [Return to News<i>--</i>Framed Edition]
Links-Date -- Links-Subj.