May Day

The person issuing this distress call must repeat it three times to distinguish it from similar sounding words. The signal has nothing to do with the first of May, but comes from the French, venez m’aider - come, help me.

Across the world, labor activists, socialists and others have designated May 1 as a day to honor workers. It’s also known as International Workers’ Day, or Labour Day.

The International Workers of the World (aka the Wobblies), led by Big Bill Haywood, celebrated one of the first May Days. I have an affinity for guys named Big Bill.

• There is blues man, Big Bill Broonzy who copyrighted over 300 songs and is best known for his version of Key to the Highway.
• Gangster/bootlegger/gambler, Big Bill Dwyer owned the first professional ice hockey team and first NFL team in New York City.
• Roaring 20s’ tennis great, Big Bill Tilden helped popularize the sport in the US.
• Country music performer, Big Bill Lister toured with Hank Williams. Hank liked touring with Big Bill because they both loved to sneak away and go fishing between gigs.
• Big Bill Thompson, mayor of Chicago and minion of Al Capone, is known not only as the last Republican mayor of the Windy City, but also as one of the most corrupt mayors in US history.
• Big Bill Morganfield, blues guitar player is the son of the great Muddy Waters – real name McKinley Morganfield.

May Day, May Day, May Day! How did musings about the first of May segue into a rant on men nicknamed Big Bill?

Curiouser and curiouser, cried Alice– as ever BB

“All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening.” Woodrow Wilson

Penny For Your Thoughts

It began with an innocuous gift, a pair of penny loafers. The question arose, “Why a penny?” I figured the loafer part came from the fact that they were casual shoes to be worn while relaxing. Wrong!

My quest for an answer began on a dairy farm. Cows who are ready for milking move to a loafing area. Several websites extol the benefits of keeping bovine in this area before and after milking.

Norwegian dairy farmers wore easy-on/easy-off shoes when walking to and from the loafing area - ergo loafers. By the 1930s, Norwegians began selling these comfortable shoes. Esquire, then the final word in men’s fashion, did an article about loafers, and they became a casual wear necessity for American males.

Several U.S. companies began producing them. G.H. Bass & Company named their version Weejuns from Norwegian. To add a distinctive flair, Bass added a slotted saddle across the vamp of the shoe.

By the 50s, loafers had become de rigueur for teenagers. Enter the ubiquitous penny. Here, the streams of time and fiction muddy our search. Allegedly, concerned parents would slip dimes into the slots; so loafer-wearing adolescents would always have change for an emergency phone call. Back when people used payphones and a call cost a dime. Somehow a penny replaced the dime. Why? Several stories abound.

Kids liked the look of a coin in the shoe. Once the dime was used, they inserted pennies because they were cheaper. A shiny copper penny looked better in the loafer. The penny was added for good luck. Whatever the reason, the fad caught on by the mid-50s.

I’m confident about the etymology of loafer as slang for a slip-on shoe, but the veil of time cloaks the reason for inserting a penny. One question remains unanswered. Do I put pennies in my new shoes? – As ever BB

“I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes, I had one thousand and sixty" - Imelda Marcos

Modus Vetatio

Our mode of transportation began with two feet and progressed to the internal combustion engine powering metal, plastic and rubber to shuttle us hither and yon.

The other night sitting with friends at a local public house, the conversation turned to bygone vehicles. This degenerated into a "can you top this" cavalcade of clunkers, jalopies and heaps. The air became thick with tales of mechanical legerdemain that would befuddle Rube Goldberg:

A 1962 Rambler with a push-button automatic transmission that would pop out of gear while in operation.

A 1964 Delta 88 which would not start unless the radio and heat were on and had a horn that sounded whenever the car took a sharp left turn.

A 1966 GTO with a bad starter. You had to make sure to park on an incline and have a couple friends with you to pop the clutch. Once running the carburetor occasionally needed adjusting. If the engine stalled during this process, the push-start was repeated.

A 1973 Vega that burned a quart of motor oil every 250 miles and had a large hole in the floorboard which facilitated emptying one's bladder without stopping. Great for road trips as long as you had a case of Quaker State in the trunk.

A 1975 Granada with power steering so bad Herculean strength was required to turn, brakes that had to be pumped three times before working and a passenger door tied to the floorboards and roof to keep from falling off.

As the evening deepened, our stories transformed from tales of terrible tribulation to paeans of past pals. We had advanced into middle-age; our lives filled with responsibilities to duty and humanity. Remembering these ersatz vehicles sparked a melancholia for an earlier time when the journey was more important than the destination, or the conveyance. As ever - BB

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?" - Jack London