The Pittsburgh Press (April 16, 1942)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
CLOVIS, N.M. – Some time ago (up in Oregon, I think it was) I mentioned how hotels seem to have a national conspiracy to start painting the halls as soon as I move in. Paint gives me a headache, and I wish they’d paint while I’m somewhere else.
One result of that item was a dirty letter from a painter saying that my complaints were subversive, and no doubt would throw 15,000 painters in New York out of work.
But that fellow overestimated my strength. Instead of discharging their painters since then, hotels seem to have doubled their painting programs. It’s got so now I can hardly get through a hotel lobby for the falling paint.
Literally, half a dozen times since that Oregon column, painters have started splashing outside my door as soon as I moved in. The latest one was here in Clovis.
Start painting in few minutes
I registered one evening. The room had a connecting door to the adjoining room. I couldn’t get the lock on my side to work, so just put a chair against it.
Early next morning I was propped up in bed smoking a cigarette, when that door opened and the chair was pushed back and a woman stuck her head in, then quickly withdrew it.
To make sure that she got me straight as a Sir Galahad, I called out, “I tried to lock that door last night, but it won’t lock.”
And she replied, “Oh, that’s all right. I’m the housekeeper. We’re just clearing out this other room. We’re going to start painting in here in a few minutes.”
I threw my cigarette away, took one last deep breath of fresh air, and jumped out the seventh-floor window. I’m writing this column on the way down.
Humor in the high schools
My little girl friend Shirley Mount in Albuquerque (remember, she helped me build the picket fence last year?) writes that the high schools are seething again with humor.
She sends along. some samples, a few of which follow:
Q. What is Hollywood’s newest war-dog hero?
A. Rin-Plastic-Plastic, to replace Rin-Tin-Tin.
And the next one:
Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider, and stood beside her, and said
“I’m rigormortis, may I set in?”
Next and last, for this is killing me: Use the word “regiment” in a sentence,
“Regiment well, but he got his face slapped anyway.”
Thank God, I’m 41, and too old to laugh any more.
Soldier pays, and Pegler loses
It is with pleasure that I am able to report today that Mr. Westbrook Pegler lost.
You remember the bet we had – whether or not the soldier hitch-hiker I lent the 10 bucks to would send it back. Peg bet I’d never see it again! I bet I would.
The $10 has just arrived, from the young soldier’s father. It was accompanied by one of the nicest letters anybody ever received. After getting the letter, I wouldn’t even have minded if he had forgotten the $10.
Now that it is paid, I can tell the soldier’s name. It is Pvt. Robert Henderson, and his father is R. F. Henderson, 524 East 13th St., Dallas, Tex. He said in his letter that his son arrived home 48 hours after leaving his camp in California, was married the next evening, and immediately started back for California.
Better luck next time, Peg. It wasn’t a fair bet anyhow. The law of averages was against you.
When I wrote recently about Maj. Bateson, the gardening man in Long Beach, there was a paragraph quoting him as believing we may run short of insecticides before the war is over.
Several letters have come in saying the major is all wrong about us facing either a vegetable-seed shortage or an insecticide shortage. There’s no way right now for me to check officially on the situation, but maybe later I can.
In the meantime, a lady reader from Pueblo, Colo., sends in her solution for the insecticide shortage, if one comes. She says her recipe has stood by her for years, and she’s had no bug trouble yet on either her flowers or vegetables.
She says she simply boils one 5-cent sack of Bull Durham tobacco in a gallon of water, lets it stand for one day, and then sprays it on her plants. Result – no bugs.
And here I’ve been smoking Bull Durham for 20 years, and I’m still alive.
Ernie Pyle to rest
For some weeks, Ernie Pyle has been in ill health. He finally has been compelled to take a rest, so this will be his last column for a while.