STARRING: ART VAN HARVEY, BERNARDINE FLYNN AND BILL IDELSON
It's noon and the Gooks have finished eating. It's time to relax and talk and try not to nod off...
MIS' CROWE SAYS:
Just a pleasant lunchtime (or, as they’d say, dinnertime) conversation.
This is a fun episode even though nothing happens in it. I think this
one is especially interesting from a historical standpoint — so many
“Vic and Sade” episodes are timeless, but this one really tell s us a
lot about how people lived in their time. The whole family comes home,
eats lunch together, and even has some time to laze around in the living
room and chat, a ritual very similar to the Spanish siesta — just a
little shorter and with no nap (as much as Vic wants one). This tells us
that Vic’s and Rush’s lunch hours were probably a lot longer than those
in modern times (most of us get a thirty-minute lunch, and elementary
and high school students are lucky to get twenty). Vic and Rush walk
home from the office and school, showing us that people’s commutes were
much more reasonable back then. Vic expresses shock that Rush, a high
school student, “cannot differentiate between Greek junk and Latin
junk,” which tells us that the expectations of public school were
changing from Vic’s generation to Rush’s — Latin and Greek were probably
foundations of a good education in Vic’s day, but not so much now. One
detail that surprises me a little is Sade’s mention of a “fancy grocery
store” that she will pass by on her errands today. I think of the
specialty grocery store as a product of our time, interested as we are
today in trying exotic foods and buying organic, natural products. I
wonder what kinds of items Sade’s “fancy grocery store” carried, and how
similar or different it would be to a Trader Joe’s or a Whole Foods.
I’m starting to notice that Paul Rhymer uses the “eccentric smart person” trope quite a bit:
RUSH: …He’s funny about stuff. Wears garters but no socks. Wears a
necktie but no collar. Wears cuffs but no sleeves. Wears bicycle pants
clips and don’t own a bicycle. Smokes away on a pipe that’s got no
tobacco inside.
VIC: Is he a halfwit?
RUSH: Yeah.
SADE: He is not! Smart as a whip. Took all the honors when he
graduated from high school. What do they call the fella that does that?
VIC: Valedictorian.
SADE: Sure. No, when it comes to brains, there’s no flies on Frederick Henderson.
Recall the episode “Mr. Sludge Calls his Mother,”
in which we find out that Mr. Sludge — an eccentric if there ever was
one — was quite the intellectual in his younger days. I wonder if Rhymer
encountered a lot of people who excelled academically but floundered
when it came time to enter the “real world.” This is, of course, not
uncommon. Maybe Sludge and Henderson ought to have been sheltered in a
university somewhere.
SEE THE SCRIPT (transcribed by Lydia Crowe)
________________________
Uncle Fletcher-type stories, without Uncle Fletcher!
Trivia:
+ Sade says
Mr. Erickson was there the day before and this morning also; he is trying to make excuses on how to avoid wallpapering upstairs, including the ruse of informing Sade that there is a shortage of wallpaper and the South Americans are hanging on to their supply.
+ It is inferred that
Mis' Heddles lives on West Monroe Street.
Mis' Trogle also lives on that street. Sade plans to visit them both.
That street is almost infamous because that is the street where
Smelly was accidently hit in the head with a falling hammer.
+ Mis' Heddles is married to
Charlie and
Mis' Trogel is married to
Alvy. Vic knows both of the husbands.
+ It is also inferred that Mis' Trogle either has a daughter or daughter-in-law named Margaret who recently had a child and has some new photos to show Sade.
+ Sade says "slippery as an owl" rather than perhaps the better simile, "slippery as an eel." She then says
Mis' Donahue says it too: {{{
HEAR}}}
+ Market Street is the home of a "fancy grocery place", but it went unnamed.
+ Rush seems to like very large black olives.
+ Rush (Billy Idelson) sounds like he may have a cold or some other sinus sickness in this episode.
+ The show keeps incorporating Sade's eccentric Uncle Fletcher, even though he doesn't appear. We know that he actually will appear within 4 surviving audio episodes. Brace yourself!
+ Fletcher may or may not be coming over for dinner at the Gooks. He's hard to pin down.
+ Frederick Henderson is mentioned. He's described as very odd. Wears bicycle pants clips but doesn't own a bicycle, puffs on a pipe without any tobacco, wears garters but no socks, wears a necktie but no collar and wears cuffs but no sleeves. Vic and Rush assume he is a "halfwit", but Sade says he was Valedictorian of his graduating class!
+ People who live in the Henderson household: Al, George, Cora and her man, Henry and his college chum and the college chum's cousin, Edna and her man and baby, Charlie and his wife, the old folks and now Frederick, his wife and two kids.
+ Vic infers that Volume 7 of his lodge "libary" contains R.J. Konk's wisdom about the noon hour, then recites at least part of it from memory, in Latin. It includes the "Latin" phrase,
easy money: {{{
HEAR}}}
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