Horse Learns to Stop at Bootlegger's -- Finger Bowl Faux Pas -- The Mailed Jeep

The following account is in the tradition of stories about unsuspecting people who end up owning horses that have learned to stop at drinking establishments or brothels.

Sheilah Roberts Lukins, Bottoms Up: A History of Alcohol in Newfoundland and Labrador (St. John’s, NL: Breakwater Books, 2020), 121, 238n15.

It is said that by the late 1940s and early 1950s, nearly every house on or near Princess Street [in St. John’s] bootlegged liquor.

The local police soon found a clever way to catch some of the local bootleggers. They simply watched the horses. These clever delivery animals knew their routes well and knew exactly where to stop with their wagons. One of the soft-drink companies had a delivery wagon with a driver who was less than hard-working. In the middle of his deliveries, he would regularly scoot down to Princess Street to visit a bootlegger. Here he would stop the horse and pick up his drink. The fellow soon lost his job for various reasons, and the company hired a new driver. They never bothered to train new drivers because the horses knew the routes so well. So when this new driver steered the horse and wagon in the direction of New Gower Street one day, the horse went about its business “training in” the new driver by turning onto Princess Street, where it stopped at a house. The driver looked around confused, but soon realized what had been going on. It was said that the horses showed the police the location of every bootlegger in town. This helped the police apprehend many of them. [n.: Patrons of Fiddler’s Pub in discussion with the author, July 2017.]

=====

Stories about naïve diners’ experiences with finger bowls typically involve the water therein being sipped or drunk. In Woody Allen’s memoir, however, the situation is reversed: he mistakes a bowl of clam broth for a finger bowl, and washes his fingers in it. (On the finger bowl faux pas, see Véronique Campion-Vincent & Jean-Bruno Renard, 100% Rumeurs (2014), 344-56.)

Woody Allen, Apropos of Nothing (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2020), 34.

======

“Dear Dad.” M*A*S*H, season 1, episode 12, 17 Dec. 1972. Corporal Radar O’Reilly mails a jeep home piece by piece, telling Colonel Blake the packages are toys for orphans. Dr. Pierce (voice over): “Radar is not the first guy to do this, of course. It’s an old army bit. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of George Washington’s soldiers hadn’t mailed home a horse one piece at a time.” (There’s an unintentional double negative there, I think.)

C. H. Moore, “On the Level,” Crime and Punishment #12, March 1949. “A soldier in Germany stole an army Jeep and had mailed half of it to his home in the U.S. before he was caught!”

 

 

Sewergators (Barney Miller episode) – Cigarette Brand Slogan on Test – Soviet Mincing Machine

“The Mole.” Barney Miller, season 2, episode 22, 18 March 1976.

A thief (Ron Carey) is chased by cops through the New York sewers, captured, then brought back to their precinct house. Later on, one of the cops (Max Gail) is irritated when the thief starts to limp.

“Now what’s the matter?”

“I banged my knee when I tripped over that alligator.”

“What alligator?”

“Didn’t you see it? It was about two feet long! Sewers are full of them. You know, Jewish kids bring them back from Miami and then they flush them down the toilet.” He sits in a chair, rolls up his pant leg, and points to his calf. “Here, look. Teeth marks!” He adds, “It’s a jungle down there.”

=====
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/entertainment_life/smiley_anders/article_aa9d6218-53b6-11eb-a5d7-23096b98c85f.html

The Advocate [Baton Rouge, LA], 11 January 2021

Smiley: Is there ever too much chocolate?

BY SMILEY ANDERS

Initial reaction

Mike says, "My late father-in-law, Warren Weilbaecher, was a Jesuit High graduate.

"He told about one of his quick-witted fellow students. Instead of putting the abbreviation 'A.M.D.G.' (Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam, the Jesuits' Latin motto, meaning 'For the greater glory of God') required at the top of all tests, this student put L.S.M.F.T. (Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco), the advertising slogan for Lucky Strike cigarettes.

"When called for an explanation by the teacher, who did pay attention to such things, the student quickly blurted out that it meant 'Lord and Savior My First Thought.'

"Though the teacher knew better, he had no response.

"Warren said that student went on to a distinguished career as a trial lawyer — which made good use of his ability to think quickly."

=====

Florian Huber, “Promise Me You’ll Shoot Yourself.” The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945, tr. Imogen Taylor (New York: Little, Brown Spark, 2020), 98-9.

The tanks of the 65th Soviet Army rolled down the main street [of Alt Teterin] early on the morning of 29 April, on their way to Demmin. Some families hid in the woods or in a ditch just outside the village; others stayed in their houses. That night, groups of soldiers went on the prowl, raping women and rounding up men. They took the men to the neighbouring village of Stretense.

As the people of Alt Teterin waited, tense and frightened, they heard a strange, menacing noise coming from the direction of Stretense – a hideous, nerve-shattering drone, like nothing they had ever heard before. It was to become the soundtrack to the horrors of that night; in the minds of some, the grinding, pounding sound became linked to the propaganda they had heard about the Soviet steamroller. Among the women, the rumour soon spread that the Red Army soldiers in Stretense had started up a ‘hell machine’ – a gigantic mincer, like a huge motorised human press, which they were feeding with the men they’d rounded up and led away.

[Source: Günter Jacobi, in: Nils Köhler, ‘Das Drama von Alt Teterin 1945 – ein Projektbericht’, in: Zeitgeschichte regional. Mitteilungen aus Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 14:1, July 2010, p. 93.]

STD Caught from Face Mask – Blank Town Clock Face (Kingsbridge, UK) – Elephant Sits on Car (Australia)

https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/26/woman-believed-husbands-claim-caught-chlamydia-face-mask-12908829/

 

Metro [UK], 26 June 2020

 

Woman believed husband’s claim he’d caught chlamydia from face mask

 

A woman believed her husband’s claim that he’d caught chlamydia from a face mask. The woman responded to a Facebook commenter moaning about a new law ordering residents of Columbia, South Carolina, to wear the face coverings at all times while in public. She commented on the page of local TV news station WIS on June 25, and replied to another commenter who had moaned about how a mask had given her a skin infection by saying: ‘My husband had to where (sic) a mask on a business trip and now he has clamedia (sic).’ […]

 

=====

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/heartbreaking-local-legend-behind-devon-4268246

 

Devon Live [UK], 28 June 2020

 

Heartbreaking 'local legend' behind a Devon town's faceless clock

 

[…] The residents within Kingsbridge are all too familiar with one tale that has been resonating within the community for many years based around the town's cuboid clock, which is missing the fourth face. Nicola Fox of Kingsbridge Cookworthy Museum said: "Local legend has it that the clock's western face was left blank so that the workhouse inmates wouldn't be able to see it." The workhouse located on Union Road is only minutes away from the location of where the clock was built in 1837. […]

=====

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/an-age-adjustment-for-this-unused-year-20200625-p5569r.html

 

Sydney Morning Herald [Australia], 28 June 2020

 

Column 8

 

[…] John Swanton of Coogee relates a tale from the 1980s when a travelling circus was passing through Keith in South Australia. "The small town had an overzealous young policeman from Adelaide, who drove his highway patrol Commodore into the arena with lights flashing and blasts of the siren during the grand parade at the showground. One elephant (C8) took offence and broke away, strolled over and sat on the bonnet of the police car, causing considerable damage. A standing ovation was given by the whole town." […]

 

=====

“The Chosen One.” Maniac, episode 1, Netflix, 21 Sep. 2018. A convenience store clerk says to a customer, “Did you know that most quarters have been swallowed and defecated by a human?”