YES OR NO
Quite often we chance upon stories related to product, procedures, places and personages. Some of them are true. Some are not.
Some such tales in circulation, however, which are not founded in facts, can, if allowed to continue unchecked, can bring real harm, to the stars of radio, stage, big screen, small screens {getting larger all the time}, cell phones and Internet pages.
It is true, for instance, that our nation's favorite beverage for many years Coca-Cola,(R) did, indeed, in it's early days, have at touch of cocaine, but - and this is the part of the story which so often remains untold - in l909, I think it was, the owner of the celebrated Coke(R) formula insisted that that element be entirely eliminated.
So often stories about foods and medications make gross misuse of terms "poisonous” and “toxic”.One can make you even unto death while the other can make you so sick you sometimes wish you could die - well, not really, but close enough. There must be entire shelves of tales out there about what harm can come from certain food combinations. When I was a kid it was forbidden to eat cucumbers in the same twenty-four hour period with ice cream. I don’t remember what was supposed to happen, but we were careful to pass up cucumbers if ice cream was thought to be somewhere in the future.
The “Statler Brothers” Quartet - now retired - will, themselves, tell you they are not Statlers at all. In their early days of travel, they stayed at Statler Hotels so often they came to feel they were part of the family.
There is another rich lode available to those seeking such information: the “used-to-be.”That pert , little red-haired girl growing up in Jamestown,N.Y. named,MacGillicuddy, I’ve heard, became the western world’s prime commedienne - Lucille Ball. And, there are scores of others in that group.
There is one story which keeps coming up to which I have not found a straight answer.
Some of you see signs of it every day. The next time you drive past a "Day's Inn " take a good look that sign. The art work. Does it remind you of a sunrise or a sunset? If you chose the setting sun you are right in tune with the original owners plan for the motel chain. When his first inn was completed and ready for opening day, the big sign for out front on high poles was not completed. Artists and glass-tube benders worked overtime to get it finished. The day before the opening the poles were well set and that night the giant sign was raised to the top and secured,
Everything seemed fine until someone realized that our wonderful English language - as heard and spoken in the Deep South - had dealt artist or tube-benders.,or both, a dirty blow. The sign read "Day's Inn" but their instructions had been to build a sign showing a sunset and the words "Day's End."
Done in by a dialect! Someone had mis-heard the words. There's a happy ending,. however. The name stood. It stayed and has served very well.
Was there a Mr. Day? I wonder.
A.L.M. January 28, 2004 [C520wds]
