Thompson 340822

Cliffside, August 22 — Sam (my brother) and I once chased about the green hills of Cliffside with a pet goat. This was a black goat with a few white spots here and there. We often raced on back roads. It was fun to see this goat bring into play a pair of very good fore feet brakes in a sort of jumping, bounding, rearing manner of stopping the superfluous locomotion. For a few months all was well. Finally a certain lady, who has had an awful lot of canning done lately, decided that too much attention was necessary to keep the goat watered and fed while said two boys were away at school. There was a morning when a truck was heard to pull away from our place. In fact it was very early and was a very suspicious incident. Something was wrong and I felt that things were happening fast. Sam and I made immediate arrangements to check up. True. The goat was gone! It had been sold and the conspirator was my mother. I may be ducking a vase the next few days, especially for writing this line.

First, my goat was sold. Presently, I learned there was no Santa Claus. And for some few years now substantial evidence that this stock story is all wrong. Do you blame me for being cynical?

Et cetera: Cocktails For Two, is the smartest in lyric and tune of late tuneful dance numbers…. A recent afternoon we sat with Harry Sarznich’s music on Lake Michigan’s shore in Chicago by the radio here at home. A delightful program is this. They played the beautiful Sylvia! And the Blue Danube. A guest soprano-I lose her name now-sang Romberg’s music from New Moon, the selection, One Kiss… (Seems I’m diverted from Tiger Rag, whimsical that’s me)… A pretty melody arrangement of yesterday tunes was played and included After The Ball Is Over. I could imagine my Dad and Mom would have danced a few modest waltz steps had they been there… Last week meeting the Lloyd Shufords. The younger Shuford a pharmacist of High Point is almost a twin of our well-known Jack Shuford here… Mr. and Mrs. G. K. Moore and sonny are here from St. Petersburg, Fla.

Mr. and Mrs. Dewitt Thompson, Washington, D. C. visited Dr. Harry Robertson last week in Baltimore. They write that Dr. Robertson is much improved. The doctor will again be in Cliffside within a week.

Oddities: O. K. Padgett has invented a radio remote control. It is especially convenient for the Mills Drug Store radio which sits high over your head on a shelf. With a length of cord and an empty spool, the cord in turn geared to the radio volume dial, we have the convenient remote system of control… I have found only two words on the standard typewriter keyboard: We and As… The longest avenue in the world, Michigan Avenue, Detroit extends to Michigan Avenue, Chicago. With Shirley White and John Tinkler we recently drove over the avenue en route to the Century of Progress, the big carnival on Lake Michigan… A matronly lady of today is shocked by the girl of 16… There’s Jimmy (Nose) Durante on the radio… Nearing Tennessee in southern Kentucky all waitresses’ answers become a plain “Yassuh”… Once thru the city only and half asleep, Toledo, O., was a misty blared stretch of white lights.

Cliffside school is getting its stage finally done with necessary curtains, scenery, wings, etc. Dr. John M. Allhands and Mr. Charles Haynes in collaboration with the local PTA organization, we are told are responsible for this admirable step. We are glad to see it. Young Paul Campbell of Greenville, S. C., is doing the painting for his firm, the American Scenery Company.

Michigan Avenue, Chicago, of course is surpassed by Broadway and 7th Avenue traffic of New York City. But it is truly picturesque. With much hullabaloo city bustling about it is constantly infested with interest. Panhandlers hailed me several times within a few blocks space. There are pallid fellows whom you suspect of carrying a “rod” in a holster at his ribs. In traffic a most common sight is large green up-town busses. All equipped with conventional top-deck no top arrangement, they are comparative to the common sight of a New York avenue.

When I was quite a child some years ago in Cliffside, I saw a young man about town playfully talking with a tiny tot. He induced her to dance off the closed top of a garbage can. The kiddy danced until her pants, characteristically insufficiently anchored, dropped. The young fellow pulled ’em in place and adjusted the adjustments. The tiny tot is a sedate miss of about 18 years of age now living in Cliffside!

In the late picture, Girl From Missouri, Jean Harlow pleaded with Franchot Tone, to “unlock the door: I’m a good girl and must go home,” whereupon, a child in the theatre yelled, “Mamma”!