Thompson 341004

Cliffside, October 3 — Personal trivials: Al Cavillon’s theme melody, “Love Has Gone,” is one of the best, to my taste, of any on the air…. The style of this dance orchestra’s tango playing immediately clicks with me…. Have you heard that football song “10 Yards To Go?”…. I well remember the Stevens Hotel in Chicago…. It, incidentally is the world’s largest…. And in connection, the matter of big feet comes to mind. Broad Moore’s and mine are the same length.

In Chicago on a Sunday there are many people drinking, gambling and dancing. They are rushing to grab a surface car, an elevated car, a taxi—and those who are seen entering The Blackhawk supper club, the Drake Hotel or the Chez Paree will be hurriedly instructing their chauffeurs to drive those well-kept black limousines to those spots—the Chez Paree on Ohio street and the Blackhawk on Wabash Avenue. Your ears are filled with noise of changing automobile gears, horns and the whine of high-powered motors. The slambang of taxis mixed with Hispanos and Roll-Royces and the glare of city lights fill your vision. Chicago is going out to supper and to dine, dance and drink. There is the clique who, thank goodness, are finding their way to Sunday evening services. And we hope there is a small number who drive afterward to a supper club. This is the great midwest city at play while many Indiana farm towns are asleep. In the small town [such as Cliffside], some of the people, at least, seem to know where their bounds end. A drive over the countryside and about the Blue Ridge mountains will constitute their afternoon’s entertainment. Some will be seen at barbecue places, passing the time, imbibing a sandwich and a cold drink. In the evening a few will be pouring bottled-in-the-barn liquor into ice tea glasses. In well-shaped parlors and behind carefully closed doors, a few step on partner toes with the rhythm of a Wayne King melody pouring from their radio. In referring to the small town, you notice I have said. “A Few.” Quite a jump from city to village and their respective activities.

About the boys and the girls: Myles Haynes is a trim young fellow in a dark hat, dark suit and riding in his black coach…. B. B. Goode: Remember when we [used to say] “out on the hill somewhere” and now it is “somewhere in the village”…. Hollis Owens is a well-dresser…. Andy Love, the youthful postmaster of the village…. Peggy Blanton is such a neat little lady at the age of 4…. Anzie Phillips: Remember George Washington’s cherry tree…. New faculty members of the local school I remember now are: Miss Freeman, Louise Blair, Naomi O’Neill, Virginia Owen, Emily Phillips and H. M. Raper…. Mrs. C. E. Alcock, who edits “Society” in this newspaper, was driving in the village Monday.

A fellow who is sure to meet success and goodwill in Cliffside: J. J. Tarlton, superintendent of the local Schools.

The lady at my side prevents me from rolling in the aisle at a W. C. Fields show. O. O. McIntyre, under the brand of Trade-Lasts, said last week that W. C. Fields is the funniest comedian alive. After seeing Fields in his latest film-flicker, “The Old Fashioned Way,” I found him still very funny. This nonentity came to mind.:

“You can have Garbo and Gable,
The Tracys, Spencer and Lee,
And while I’m laughing ‘[??]under the table’
It’s W. C. Fields for me.”

I do not endorse woman’s smoking and drinking. But traditions and conventions fall. The public with their next cigarette puff merely says: pouf. As much as to say what of it? Her clothes change and the manner in which she cocks her hat, but she is still woman, making a fool of man. But times change.

The new home for school teachers here, a brick structure, is growing into a finished building. It will be occupied soon.