http://www.ep.tc/realist/64/24.html
The
Realist, #64, February 1965, p. 24
By
Alan Whitney
[...]
The Pope may or may not be infallible in matters religious and/or political,
but he is definitely odds-on when it comes to matters commercial. When he
visited New York, lapel buttons, plastic holy
medals and pennants bearing the holy image left vendors' boards like birth
control pills going to Fort Lauderdale.
And, an occasionally reliable source swears to me on the soul of his contact that this really happened:
A
vendor sold out his entire supply of Pope buttons and went to the wholesaler to
get more, only to find that there just weren't any more. He pleaded eloquently
about this historical opportunity to make a bundle, and the distributor finally
did the best he could. He yielded 150 "I Love Paul" buttons intended
for Beatles cultists. The vendor took them to Yankee Stadium and sold out in
half an hour.
The House of Blue Leaves, (New York: Samuel French, Inc., 1994, p. 33), Act 1.
BUNNY bursts in, flushed, bubbling. She
has an enormous "I Love Paul" button on her coat.
BUNNY.
He's landed! He's landed! It's on everybody's transistors and you're still
here! And the school kids! -- The Pope drives by, he sees all those school
kids, he's gonna come out for Birth Control today!! Churches will be selling
Holy Diaphragms with pictures of St. Christopher and saints on them. You mark
my words. (To us, indicating her button.)
They ran out of Welcome Pope buttons so I ran downstairs and got my leftover
from when the Beatles were here!
[John
Guare's farcical play, first performed in 1966, is set in New York during the 1965 papal visit. Text
via Google Books.]