Here’s the next installment of John D MacDonald’s 1947-1948 newspaper column, from the Clinton Courier, when the family was still living in upstate New York. I’ve previously published this piece, back in 2015, where I wondered how JDM got that topaz back into the United States.
We picked up some students headed down the hill toward the village the other day, and they were talking about various types of summer work and the relative merits thereof.
We were reminded of Ceylon. The army graciously dropped us into that garden spot for a time. It is a fine island. We were particularly intrigued with the type of summer work that many of the students perform.
During the spring monsoon, the heavy rains swell the streams and semi-precious stones are torn out of the mountains and carried down the steep slopes. During the summer months in the vicinity of Ratnapura, in the heart of the gem area, the streams are alive with students picking over the pebbles in search of semi-precious gems. They find topaz, blue and yellow sapphires, cat's eyes and other varieties.
We tried it. The standard technique is to find a place where a stream curves and has thus heaped up a mound of small stones. You make yourself as comfortable as possible and then start picking up likely looking rocks and holding them up toward the sun. You spin the stone in your fingers and, when you get a glint of colored light through it at any point, you stuff it in a bag.
When the day's work is done, you take the stones down to the proper alley in Ratnapura where the grinders work, You have to watch those boys.If you find something good, they are inclined to tell you it is worthless in hopes that you will throw it away where they can pick it up.
We squatted in the blazing sun for about two hours, getting very bored with the whole process of trying to look through pebbles. We must have looked through a thousand of them. Then suddenly one jagged hunk of stone gave forth a little gleam of yellow light when we held it up. We felt like a forty-niner.
Down in that alley in Ratnapura, the boys who do the grinding sit on the ground by a crude looking lathe with a grinding wheel on one end. The motive power is a bow string with rawhide. The rawhide is looped once around the lathe spindle. The bow is shoved back and forth and the grinding wheel is crudely geared so that it spins, of course, in just one direction. The end of the bow is held in the bare toes of the operator leaving both hands free to hold the stone against the wheel.
An ancient citizen took our precious rock, which we were sure was a priceless yellow sapphire, and ground it without ever seeming to look at it. It made us nervous.
Instead of a sapphire, it turned out to be topaz, about fifteen carats. And a darn poor color.
The man charged eight rupees for the grinding operation (About $2.60.) We have our topaz here and it is a thing of beauty and a joy forever -- because we found it.
Had not the army suddenly awakened to the fact that we were in a garden spot and sent along a cruel travel order, we would still be ankle deep in one of those streams near Ratnapura trying to see through pebbles and acquiring a terrific sunburn.
It is our nomination for the perfect kind of summer work.
* * *
Speaking of Ceylon...
Now that we are on the subject, it is a good time to do a sales job.
Go to Ceylon!
India, to the north, is a big, dusty miserable country that gives the impression of being a circus ground the day after the circus left.
But Ceylon is a garden spot. Lord Louis Mountbatten is nobody's fool. When he was the big wheel of the South-East Asia Command, he put his headquarters right smack in Kandy in the Ceylonese Hills.
In India you are expected to at least pick up a smattering of Urdu. In Ceylon it is recognized that Sinhalese is far too difficult to learn and nobody questions some of the British that have lived there twenty years without picking up a word of Sinhalese.
It isn't as hot as India and there are miles of perfect beaches where the white surf comes rolling in and you can, with a little practice, ride a surfboard for a quarter of a mile toward the beach.
For between thirty and fifty dollars a month you can rent a huge "bungalow" on Bambalapitiya Road in Colombo. Another nine dollars will provide a cook, a houseboy and a combination chauffeur-gardener.
For recreation you can play tennis and bridge at the Garden Club, dance at a very svelte nightclub called the Silver Faun, swim at the Hotel Mont Lavinia, shop in the bazaars.
So you see, it's very simple. All you have to do is save up a hundred thousand dollars and invest it at four percent. The income will enable you to live like a little king in Ceylon for the rest of your days, where you will enjoy all the languor of a tropical island plus all the comforts of city living.
John Keasler was a longtime newspaper columnist for the Miami News, a now-defunct periodical that folded in 1988. Keasler was a Florida native and, in addition to writing a regular column for the paper, produced over two dozen works of short fiction that appeared in the magazines of the era. This particular column was written the day after the death of John D MacDonald and was published in the paper’s December 30 issue. As remembrances of JDM go, this one is particularly insightful and close to the source. It was headlined "John D MacDonald put it on the line every time".
Keasler passed away in 1995 at the age of 74.
He was the definitive free-lancer, John D. MacDonald was, and writing meant freedom to him.
That was what writing was to the strange tough breed of professionals called free-lance magazine writers, now all but vanished. Writing for a living was freedom.
"John D. MacDonald is dead," my office said the other night when they called me because they knew I had known him a long time.
And, only then, did I think about how well I had known MacDonald before I ever even met him.
I had even told him that once as we were having a drink at Midnight Pass on Siesta Key maybe 35 years ago.
"God, I used to hate you, John," I said. "Every hopeful writer hated you. There you would be, month after month, all over the covers of what seemed like half the magazines on the newsstand ... Street and Smith Detective, Black Mask, Popular Sports, Argosy, Bluebook - man, you purely pumped it out."
"The funny thing is, it never gets any easier," he said, laughing. "The penny-a-word pulp stuff was just as hard to write as the big-pay stories."
John D. MacDonald was the king of the pulps, and went on to become the king of the high-pay magazine suspense stories, and then when the paperback books came in he was a one-man industry there long before Travis McGee brought still more fame and money, and with all that — with 77 books and God only knows how many short stories to his credit - he never wrote any way except the best he could.
"You have to put it all on the line every time," he told me a number of times over the years. "If you ever set out to write less than the best you can produce, you'll sink without a ripple."
I think, personally, that MacDonald's readers always knew, and knew a damn sight better and sooner than the establishment critics did, that this man was producing a lot of fine literature in the guise of fine entertainment.
MacDonald had a string of formal-education credentials, including having been graduated from various high-toned finance and business schools and then receiving his master's degree from the Harvard School of Business.
"That has made my life hell," Knox Burger told me once, when Burger was MacDonald's editor at Fawcett Publishing's Gold Medal Books, which really established John D. solidly as a novelist long before Travis McGee came along.
"His business education has made your life hell?"
"Yeah," said Knox. "I mean, half the truly good businessmen in America waste their time trying to be writers, and are lousy at it. I got the only #%# in the U.S. who is a truly fine writer and wastes his time trying to be a businessman."
Getting my first letter from John D. MacDonald was a grand and glorious thing for me. I was hammering away at short stories, some published, lots rejected. His name, as I say, was known to every writer, at least every writer crass enough to consider money a partial motivation for writing. (And Samuel Johnson said nobody but a blockhead ever wrote for anything but money.)
I never had the nerve to leave a newspaper paycheck with my swiftly-growing family, but I wrote a lot on the side. Eventually things picked up and, occasionally, I would sell a story to Collier's or Saturday Evening Post and, with progressive frequency, Cosmopolitan (which was different then).
MacDonald had the back-of-the-book mystery in damn near every issue of Cosmo. He was a very famous writer, particularly to writers. So one dull day when I pulled a letter out from my bills I could hardly believe it.
He had some kind things to say about my stories that he had read in Cosmo, and he actually knew I was from Florida, and John D. MacDonald asked me to let him know if and when I was in Sarasota. That was a very big day for me.
And when I went to Siesta Key a little later to do a magazine piece on Mackinlay Kantor, John lined it up for me. This was back in the days when there was one bar on Siesta Key, and when Kantor won the Pulitzer for Andersonville which he had written in a bug-filled van down the beach to avoid the gawking tourists he hated, and when (to my thinking) the greatest thing in Sarasota was the Friday writer's "lunch" at a local Spanish restaurant.
The lunch varied in length. Some swore one had once lasted three days.
I do remember one six-hour lunch when MacDonald won all the money at dollar-bill poker, I finally went out to sleep in his car and later learned he had dropped two other writers off at their respective homes due to inability to drive ... then he went home and, that night, finished the final 6,500 words of a novelette with a deadline the following day.
He got plots everywhere. (I was with him once in a bank. A devastating blonde was in line, the object of bug-eyed lecherous stares. He said, "You could rob the joint with her in here, and none of these guys would even know it." A year later I read his short story with that precise plot.) [The story JDM wrote was titled "Who's the Blonde?" and it was published in the August 9, 1952 issue of Collier's.]
He had an innocent look and a diabolical sense of humor. He took me with him to the private screening of Cape Fear, from his novel The Executioners, and had a stranger collect $6 from me at the door for our "tickets."
Last year he somehow talked me into speaking at the Sarasota Library Dinner. I fear public speaking, fear it badly, but he swore on the phone it was “just a few book lovers" who sat around and talked.
When I got to Sarasota he informed me, to my unspeakable horror, that I had to (and somehow did) speak from a podium at a formal luncheon to what seemed like, and I guess was, hundreds of people.
He thought that served me right for allowing myself to be conned.
Now what I remember is John D. showing me the great word-processing system he wrote on. He was enthusiastic as a 20-year-old. His silky white hair was messed up, his eyes bright with life, his laugh echoed throughout his big house.
He had a look of freedom about him. He looked the exact way the definitive free-lancer should look.
Here's the next installment of John D MacDonald's weekly newspaper column, published in the Clinton (NY) Courier during the period when the family was living there. The original from which I transcribed this column was damaged and repaired with tape which developed some serious yellowing over the years, obscuring about three lines of text in two different columns. There's not much to miss here, as JDM offers very little original writing in this installment.
It's Delightful to Be Married:
Through channels too devious to describe, except that one of the links in the chain was one "Scoop" Benton of the Herkimer paper, we have received a society page from the Mayville [...] which tells of a wedding to [...] we print a few verbatim, unchanged paragraphs as they originally appeared in the Mayville newspaper:
"Arrangements for the wedding of Miss Duke are charming in every detail and notable for a number of reasons. Recapturing her idyllic connotation of a wedding in her ancestral home characterized by beauty without fanfare, Saturday's suave and sweet-smiling bride will see a dream fulfilled. Unabashedly sentimental, precious association within her charmed circle where care has only gazed at her wistfully, and enriched by tradition to delight in and to love will forever endear a host of enchanting memories to burn brightly of this important day."
Gosh!
"The recessed windows, prudently protected by inside shutters, will permit a golden ray of daylight brightness to seep through the old glass, tinted and iridescent with the sun and rain of years, to bestow the implied benediction, 'Happy is the bride the sun shines on.'
"The bride as she enters the room lightly elasping the arm of her father who will give her in marriage will be as lovely as happiness, youth and artistry can make one. Living up to her reputation for soignee, her flair for individuality and fastidious smartness will be expressed in a shirtwaist dress of pure silk introducing a novel and vibrant color combination of gold, cherry red and gray -- each shade accented with white polka dot. Cut with discernment, the gold-colored blouse has a high wing collar, push-up sleeves and in the back is buttoned twelve times. Underscored with taffeta to provide sound effects the agate gray twirl skirt -- hemmed a short eight inches from the floor -- swings and sways in fashion's new way. The fascinating aspect of the gown is the deep, boned cummerbund of cherry red tied at the back in a large bow finishing with long ends..."
Can't you just see her?
"Slanted aft and framing her lovely blonde hair will be a gray shadow-play straw bonnet with an upward tilt in front. Yards of matching veiling in large octagonal mesh swathe the head and shoulders."
Nice nautical touch, that.
"After the bride and bridegroom have cut the first slice of cake, the agreeable responsibility will be taken over by Miss Laura Browning who for the occasion will pick from her closet a gown of black crepe and wear with it a large beige felt hat with graceful spreading brim adorned with large black silk roses."
"For her journey the bride will change to a dark brown crepe dress with swish and swank. Deceptively simple in design, a pleated peplum gives its subtle perfection a dressy touch.
"Prophetic of a fashion to come, her costume will reach a sophisticated peak when she 'wings away' in a flattening minoche worn sideways on her head and hugging the right side of her face. The flamboyant bird-wings visualize the palette in brown ranging from deep, rich African brown to a tangerine orange... Topping this striking outfit will be a throw coat of mink flaring softly at the back like a cape.”
It is perfectly obvious to us why the correspondent of the Mayville paper reported this function in advance. Undoubtedly the function itself put the reporter into a swoon from which she may not as yet have recovered.
We go on record right now as saying that something is missing from local marriages up here in the austere North. We must regain that precious quality of breathlessness, buttoned in the back twelve times.
* * *
From the Mailbox:
Dear "Top of the Hill":
Ever since you got into local print, I have wished you well. Some weeks you quite amuse me. Some weeks you don't. All the same, I would rather you had an opinion I didn't agree with than no opinion at all.
The little whimsey of fashion was good, if simple fun. But the careless launching of a campaign for a public address system in the hockey building fills me with horror. If they gave them away, I'd be opposed. What do you mean the games "would be a great deal more enjoyable to all spectators"? People that really like hockey go to watch the game, they don't have to be told about it. Any spectator paying so little attention that he didn't know who made the goal, probably doesn't care anyway. As for penalties, if our side made the errors, the least said, the better. And the opponents should be shown the same consideration.
If you really want to raise money both the College and the village have worthy causes they are plugging. Why not adopt one of them? Or if you want to launch a new project, how [...]
Sincerely yours, Reader.
This letter was typed and, of course, anonymous.
However, we will go out on a limb and make a few guesses about the identity of the person who wrote it.
Something about the tone makes us think it is from a woman. There is a freshness of viewpoint and yet a maturity that leads us to guess she is probably in her late thirties. She can snarl a little, so we will assume she has claws. She takes an interest in local affairs so we can assume that she is probably a "joiner" as far as local organizations are concerned. The tree reference leads us to assume that she is not connected with the college.
She too freely uses the phrase "your home town". No one born here would use this phrase in reference to a furriner like us. So we can assume that she, like us, is in a certain sense also a newcomer to Clinton. Certainly not as much as ten years residence. Maybe closer to five.
And one last guess. She doesn't know hockey. When there's a tangle at the far cage, even the most died-in-the-wool fans are confused.
Has anybody seen a well-educated woman in her late thirties with claws, membership in local organizations, five years residence or so in Clinton, not connected with the college and relatively ignorant about hockey?
If a man wrote the letter, we're going to look pretty darn silly.
* * *
See you next week.
Back in November I posted a transcription of an article on John D MacDonald from a 1978 issue of Maclean’s titled “The Dauntingly Prolific Beige Typewriter Keys”. It contained a photo of MacDonald, lying on the floor, propped up on one elbow, in back of a spread of dozens of copies of his paperback novels. I had never seen the image before, or at least had no memory of doing so. Well, I’ve since discovered its creator date. The photo was taken by Jill Krementz, the noted photojournalist who eventually focused on taking pictures of writers. She was also married to one, Kurt Vonnegut, who was a friend of JDM. In 1980 she published a book of her author photos, titled The Writer’s Image. It contained portraits of many, many noted writers, including Joseph Heller, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut (of course) and E.B. White, who is pictured on the cover of the book. MacDonald’s image is accompanied by the following caption:
JOHN D. MACDONALD
Sarasota, Florida, 1973
That would make MacDonald around 52 years old when he posed, the year he wrote The Turquoise Lament. Here is a nice, high-resolution scan of the photo.
Another installment of John D MacDonald’s 1947-1948 newspaper column, published in the Clinton Courier in upstate New York.
This is a fascinating entry, an insight into MacDonald’s political views early in his career, in the beginning years of the great Red Scare that eventually exploded into a national obsession in February 1950 with Joseph McCarthy’s “205 Communists” speech in Wheeling, West Virginia. (One can see from the column that these accusations did not begin with McCarthy.)
In one respect MacDonald’s views should not come as a surprise to readers of his early novels, which included two commie-rat potboilers, Murder for the Bride and Area of Suspicion. On the other hand, read this and recall MacDonald’s later-day opinions, especially his characterization of fellow author Richard Prather as a writer who “had some extremely strong right-wing political tendencies. He saw socialism and communism crouched behind every bush…”
MacDonald’s point here is to differentiate a Communist from a pro-Soviet, an interesting argument given today’s political climate.
Mr. Lewis and the News:
A taste for the newscasing of Mr. Fulton Lewis, Jr., is something that must be acquired, like a taste for smoked oysters. It is typical of him that his radio editorializing is often delivered in a tone of voice like that of an oracle on a hilltop yelling to the poor average citizens fumbling around down in the shrubbery.
It is not newscasting, which implies an unslanted survey of the day's news.
Sometimes we are agin him, but more often than not, we find ourself cheering him on. When he gets on the track of something he lets the news of the day go hang, while he devotes himself to an exhaustive analysis that may extend over two or three of his fifteen minute broadcasts at seven o'clock each weekday night over Mutual.
Mr. Lewis has recently devoted several programs to an analysis of the published reports of the committee which recently looked into the State Department in order to make recommendations on their budget requirements.
Mr. Lewis is very upset to find that many men in responsible positions in the State Department are sympathetic to Communism.
So are we upset.
The educator now in Milan, Italy, in charge of indoctrinating the Italians with all of the pro-democracy arguments available, has been a member of seven Communist front organizations. An investigation of this educator says that he desires "the advantages of the right as well as the popularity of the left."
In other words, a parlor liberal.
Another character with pro-Communist leanings is in charge of the policy desk in New York, editing the Voice of America short-wave radio programs beamed abroad.
There are dozens of others. The State Department is the ideal place for them to be, from a Moscow point of view. There is probably no other organization within our government more sensitive to the gentle, guiding touch of the parlor liberals.
What this "cold war" needs is a definition of terms. Communism is a very loose word, as it is used today.
Today's pro-Soviet is not a Communist. Any person who today is having himself an affair with Russia is pro-dictatorship, pro labor camp, pro-liquidation, pro-death, torture and violence.
We feel that the word Communist should be dropped as far as referring to these characters in our midst is concerned. It is too feeble a word. It implies a leaning toward a particular form of political ideology, exclusive of country.
There is not the slightest iota of difference between the men who are pro-Soviet today and the men of yesterday who came ashore from a German submarine and buried explosives in the sand. Those men from the submarines were not concerned about political ideologies. They were all hepped up to blow up something with a resounding bang.
So are these pro-Soviets in the State Department. Their explosives are words, hints, innuendos. They encourage a dilution of public opinion, splits and waverings in policy, a feeble approach toward world problems. Our weakness is Russia's strength.
The silent explosions which go on in the State Department are certainly not less destructive than those blow-ups planned by the men who buried explosives in the sand during a dark night.
The whole thing is incredibly important and too many of us are incredibly unconcerned. It is a truism that in the history of the United States, we have consistently paid for our casual attitude in blood.
Come on, Lewis.
* * *
Research:
The editors of the pulp magazines are remarkably concerned about the accuracy of background material. So, the other day, engaged in a thud and blunder thriller which has part of the action taking place near the East India Docks in London, we got hold of a London street guide. We were fascinated with the names of some of the streets and thought you might be, also. Here are a few:
Droop Street -- Epple Road -- Glaucus Street -- Honeypot Lane -- Ion Road -- Back Alley -- Black Boy Lane -- Blunt Road.
* * *
See you next week.
One of the oddest entries in the canon of John D MacDonald’s writing has to be his single piece written for the “Adult Humor” magazine National Lampoon. Published in the November 1985 issue titled “The Mad as Hell Issue,” the issue featured scores of brief rants by noted writers and celebrities on things that particularly irritated them. MacDonald’s piece was titled "Exploitation of Grief" and I transcribed it back in 2010 for the blog. It reads like an aside in a Travis McGee novel.
Four years earlier JDM was the subject of Nat Lamp’s particular brand of humor in its July 1981 issue they called “Endless, Mindless Summer Sex”. (I suppose nearly all of their issues could have been labeled thusly.) A piece written by Sean Kelly and Ted Mann titled “Would You Like Something to Read?” was a satire of a regular book column and featured “reviews” of new novels by John D MacDonald, along with a handful of made-up writers like Angelica Sitwell, E. Claude Boll and Hugo Lestoil.
Here is a transcription of the Crime section, featuring the review of JDM’s new Travis McGee book. Like most of National Lampoon’s humor, it is adult and politically incorrect.
CRIME
Monthly, John D. MacDonald issues a new paperback private-eye thriller from his costly Florida bunker chronicling the adventures of that "slightly tarnished knight in tanned and lanky armor” Travis McGee. But fans of the series have detected a certain drop-off in quality recently. The Awful Yellow Chinaman was just a reworking of last year's The East Is Terribly Red; and The Horrible Key Lime Pie was not so much a murder mystery as a Miami restaurant review. The Terrific Pink Gin and its successor, The Scary Purple Elephant, suggested that John D. was losing his battle with the bottle, and one feared that an appropriate title for the next McGee caper might be A Black Eye for Detective Fiction.
But we are pleased to be able to praise without reservation Mr. MacDonald's new book, another in the Travis saga but in every way a superior departure from the norm. Set in the demimonde of the homosexual writing community in Key West, it sheds new light on the relationship between Travis and his swarthy longtime boat buddy, Meyer. Most exciting scene? The bitchy brunch chez Tennessee Williams, after which Meyer salves Travis's many psychic bruises and seduces him gently with a twelve-page monologue explaining supply-side economics. We can heartily recommend this new and different Travis adventure, The Winking Brown Eye.
Angelica Sitwell, heiress apparent to Agatha Christie's title as queen of English detective fiction, has another elegant whodunit in the bookshops this summer. It features the intelligent and charming amateur detective, herself a successful writer of detective fiction, Angela Standgood, to whom we were first introduced in Ms. Sitwell's previous Murder Most British. This one is titled, in England, Murder at the Women Writers of Detective Fiction Club, but it has been released in America as Scribble Scribble Die Die! The plot? In a series of gruesomely fitting murders, Ruth Rendell, P. D. James, Amanda Cross, Catherine Aird, and Mary Stewart are all bumped off, leaving the indefatigable and delightful Ms. Standgood as the only member, and thus president, of the club. The identity of the killer is a real surprise!
Aficionados of offbeat European detective fiction -- and aren't we all? -- will be sure to enjoy A Specter Is Haunting, the latest case for Eurocommunist vegetarian Interpol inspector Marco Venzetti to solve. Marco, a "big, hairy, lovable, mystical bear of a proletarian intellectual of a man,” this time investigates a series of Swiss industrial accidents, and proves, with the aid of his underground pal, Carlos the Jackal, that reactionary capitalists are the real culprits! Marco's many American devotees, will eat this one up like mung beans!
The next entry in John D MacDonald's weekly newspaper column from 1947-48 when the family was living in Clinton, New York. Back in 2016 I presented this in its entirety as one of the entries for this blog. Here it is again.
As mentioned in that previous post, this "contains a cat story that was omitted from The House Guests (the mole) and one that was included, albeit in a more detailed version (the Mattingly’s Gothic cat door)."
Personals:
We have a subscription to a magazine called Writer's Digest, and we are fond of it not only because it has information about changes in editors and magazines and such, but because it has one of the most fascinating "Personals" column we have ever seen anywhere. This week we'll give you a random sample.
"GUAM POSTMARK -- Your letters mailed from Guam. 25¢ each -- five for one dollar."
Right there, friends, you have the perfect method of handling those eager creditors. Acknowledge receipt of your bills from Guam.
"A PLAN OF ACTION lies behind every success. Write me about one thing you desire. A specific plan by return mail. $2 Box...."
Think of the incredible wisdom of someone who can whip up a plan of action for you and get it off by return mail!
"A YOUNG MAN struggling sincerely to achieve writing success. I need time. Your dollar may turn the tide. Box...."
After the first three dollars arrive, this paying for the ad, our unknown friend is in the only business I've ever heard of with a 100% net. And whatever he gets is apparently subject to gift taxes, not income tax.
"25 CENTS WILL BRING a poem written just for you. Any subject, any length."
One of these days we're going to send in two bits and ask for a poem on the subject of writing a newspaper column.
"HELP WOMAN. Unpublished novel yours for $1.50, cash. Box...."
Sadder words than these were never written. As a short, short, short story, it is superb.
"LUANA: Please write. Joe."
If we ever meet Luana, we'll certainly tell her a thing or two. Poor old Joe has been putting the same line in for month after month after month. We suspect that Luana is a rich, cool and heartless debutante who. during her war career with the WAVES, was stationed at some little town where she toyed heartlessly with the affections of poor, but honest Joe. Luana has gone back to the dizzy whirl of the big city, leaving Joe with enormous tears in his eyes and no way to find her except by paying his forty cents a month for those four little words that are like a moan in the night.
Luana, why don't you at least write to him?
* * *
Local Animal Life:
One of our cats, Geoffrey, the adventurous one, has insisted a dozen times this winter on being dropped out one specific window. It is not politic to ignore the demands of our cats. They have high, nasal voices and limitless persistence.
Each time he was dropped out of this one window he proceeded to dig a hole in the snow in which he would wedge his head, and we had about decided that he was psychoneurotic. We thought maybe the endless winter we getting him and he was trying to finish himself off in a suitable manner.
Then the snow melted, and we find that deep under where Geoffrey was digging, a mole had rooted up a patch about two yards square, going around and around and around where we had optimistically hoped to have grass, come summer. Friend mole operated like a miniature trench digger.
Anyway, Geoffrey has vindicated himself by depositing the body of the mole on the side porch, and has been walking around looking smug ever since.
But even with all the snow, we suspect that Geoffrey has been getting his mouse ration regularly. Our neighbor, earlier in the winter, asked us to bring him over to the barn. We did so and introduced him to a new, small Gothic arch cut through the barn door. Since the introduction, his tracks have led directly to the arch.
* * *
College Hill Driving:
Driving a car up and down College Hill is the most exciting winter sport available in this vicinity. Ski enthusiasts, well versed in high-tempo turns and forty degree slopes have been known to turn pale before making even the first turn on College Hill.
As a topic of conversation, the condition of the Hill is unexcelled. Old residents spend many happy hours comparing techniques and methods for the proper approach.
There is no thrill comparable to rounding the first turn on your way up, only to find someone bearing down on you sideways. Strong men, having zoomed all the way up, only to come to a dead stop with wheels spinning a scant fifteen feet from the crest, have been known to sit behind the wheel with the tears dripping off their chins while the cars slowly sagged backward toward the abyss.
Coming down the hill is most exhilarating. The moment of suspense arrives when you let the car take over and let it decide whether it will carom off a snowdrift, or off another vehicle on the way up.
A few times a winter there comes what is known as a "tangle". This is a technical term and refers to that moment when two or three cars, with fenders locked, slide slowly and majestically down to the foot of the hill, where they provide a sort of backstop for any number of other cars which crunch into the group.
The happy people laugh and shout, and their cheers are punctuated by the crinkling of fenders and the tinkle of breaking headlights.
Unless you have participated in one of their "tangles" and unless your car bears the honorable wounds and scars of the icy battle, you cannot claim to have really enjoyed the sport.
A much gayer time would be had by all. of course, were it not for the spoilsports who are all the time sprinkling the grand slide with salt, ashes and sundry abrasive materials.
* * *
See you next week.
John D MacDonald was so associated with the state of Florida that the casual reader of his fiction could be forgiven for believing that he and his family had always lived there. MacDonald was born in Pennsylvania and spent his first ten years there before his father moved the family to upstate New York, where he (John) would spend the next 23 years (minus three years overseas during the war). It wasn’t until 1949, when JDM was 33 years old, that he, Dorothy and Johnny moved to Florida permanently. And by then the three of them had deep roots in the Empire State.
The MacDonalds never really left New York. In 1944 John had sent wife Dorothy some poker winnings from Ceylon and she used the funds to purchase a lot on the southwestern shore of Piseco Lake, located in Hamilton County in the Adirondack Mountains. Dorothy knew the lake well: her father Roy had purchased a cabin there when she was young, which they called Wahnahoo, and she spent most of her summers there as a youth. When John returned from the war in 1945 and decided on a career in fiction, finances were tight and there was no money to develop the lot. It remained empty until 1950, when the MacDonalds designed a cabin (they called it a “camp”) and began construction. As the family was now living in Florida, the work was supervised by JDM’s brother-in-law Sam Prentiss, who lived in Albany. Beginning the following year they would follow an annual pattern of spending the summer at the camp and the rest of the year in Sarasota, a practice they continued -- with the exception of a seven year period from 1963 to 1970 -- every year of their lives.
Despite its remote location, the Piseco camp wasn’t all that removed from civilization. There was a small store and post office located a mile and a half away, and the town of Speculator was a 16 mile drive up Route 8. The MacDonalds made frequent trips to Speculator while living at the camp, for “serious grocery shopping” and to enjoy eating out at a restaurant and inn called Zeiser’s. The establishment was a great favorite of the family: they had their own table and were good friends with the owners, John And Genevieve Zeiser. Back in 2016 I posted a transcription of a newspaper article published in the local Hamilton County News following the death of John, where this strong relationship was clearly evidenced.
In 1980 Barbara Crossette, a travel writer for the New York Times, published a guide to America’s Wonderful Little Hotels and Inns (in fact that was the title of the book). It was a collection of over 300 individual pieces on various off-the-beaten-track establishments throughout the country, written by various travelers that included “doctors, authors, lawyers, musicians, people who travel on business, a couple of Jungian analysts in their seventies, two United States senators, two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, the director of a film institute, distinguished professors, local historians -- and many people who did not identify themselves…” John D MacDonald was one of those authors, and his entry described Zeiser’s. Here is a transcription of his piece.
"I really believe you should include Zeiser's in Speculator, New York. It is owned and operated by John and Genevieve Zeiser (and Ludwig, the cat). The operation is housed in what used to be the Annex of the Sturges House, which was built in 1858 by David Sturges, back when the crossroads near the hotel was called Newton's Corners. The Zeisers have been in business here for twenty-three years. There is an attractive bar, lunch areas-including a long screened porch in season-and a handsome formal dining room, with lighting, napery, silverware and table settings beyond reproach. Every part of the operation is spotlessly clean. There is no American plan. You are expected to find your breakfast elsewhere in the village. There is no room service for drinks or food. The food is excellent, tending toward the German. The wine cellar is heavy on good Moselles. Mr. Z, a tidy and formal man, reigns at the bar. His no-nonsense attitude has given the bar the flavor of a good, small private club. Service is swift and courteous, and one would go a long, long way to find a better dry martini. Or more civilized conversation at a bar. Mr. Z is a host!
"Speculator, incidentally, is in Hamilton County, which is in the middle of the Adirondack Park Preserve and is the most sparsely settled county in New York State. It is reputed to have more black bears than people. The crossroads a couple of hundred feet from Zeiser's is the intersection of Route 8, which begins way down at Deposit, N.Y., on the Pennsylvania border and ends at Hague, N.Y., on the northwest shore of Lake George, and Route 30 which begins, or ends, down at Harvard and Shinhopple, N.Y., near the Pennsylvania border, and ends, or begins, at Trout River on the Quebec border.
“Lest this sound too obscure, let me say that Zeiser's is 42 miles from Gloversville, 61 from Utica, 75 from Schenectady, 90 from Albany, 94 from Troy and 109 from Syracuse. The most handsome way of driving up to Speculator is to exit the Thruway at exit 29, Canajoharie, and drive north on Route 10 to Route 8, and turn right on 8 to Speculator, twelve miles farther. The last seventeen miles of Route 10, before it intersects Route 8, is known locally as the Arietta Road. When it was repaved a few years ago, the Park Authority did not consent to the usual ‘straightening.' So there are sixty-five curves in those hilly miles, beautifully graded, a feast in autumn, but special at any time of year. Speculator is lakes and camping in summer, hunting in the fall, skiing in the winter.
“Room reservations are a must, and dinner reservations almost as necessary. This past year, the Zeisers had a Bavarian festival with tent, music, fantastic German food, superb beer on draft and the best zither player I have ever heard anywhere, an engaging chap named Toni Noichl.”
---John D. MacDonald
Open all year.
6 rooms, all with private bath.
Rates $9.50 single, $18.50 double.
Credit cards: American Express. Bar.
German spoken.
I’m not sure if Zeiser’s is still open for business. There are online reviews from as recently as 2018 and apparently Genevieve was still alive and running the place (John passed away), but some of the reviews seem to indicate a business on its last legs. They used to have a JDM display in the front lobby. I wonder if it is still there...
Another edition of John D MacDonald's 1947-1948 Clinton Courier newspaper column.
Box-Pleated Language Overlaid with Tulle:
Ever since we read Gibbon's Decline and Fall we've kept an uneasy eye on New York City for signs of mad decadence.
In a spirit of pure research, we have been dipping into the current issue of Vogue. The only trouble with criticizing such a periodical is that you are somehow placed in the position of a coarse character of the "dese, dem and doze" type.
Those people frighten us. Since they are the spear-laden phalanx of the "new look," the "thirteen inches from the floor" type of person, we have been looking furtively into the magazine.
One ad says, "For your grand manner, gentle lines, eloquently underscored, reach their crescendo in a skirt!" How about that? Slip into your crescendo, lady.
Happily they tell us, "Yours is a fragile, delicate beauty." How did they know? And they try to sell us a "butcher type rayon." We wonder if that's a weave designed to wrap meat. We are told to "follow spring around the corner on happy, dancing feet." In Clinton those happy dancing feet would freeze solid going around the corner.
Did you know that "fashion dictates veiled loveliness for Spring"? We assume that if you're minus the loveliness, you merely select a slightly heavier veil.
Editorially the magazine says, "There is more than one way of dressing; one method may be as good as another, always provided it is a method." That's pretty profound, you know. Our method has always been to get the clothes on as quickly as possible.
They admire a debutante of the current season, because she believes "that day clothes must be purisms, very casual, very simple." Our self confidence is vastly improved, as nothing could be more casual or more simple than this wool shirt and G.I. pants we wear during the day. But from now on, we call the shirt and pants "purisms".
One ad says, "Picture sheep grazing on a sunny slope. That's the beginning of this important fashion story." With their curly locks hanging thirteen inches from the ground, we assume. Can't say we'd approve of the silhouette.
Did you know that there is a new fashion for smoky, grey taffeta after five? That pink lipstick belongs in any wardrobe involving grey? That a little-bistro evening with red-checkered table cloths demands violent debates, gentle reminiscences, and artistic flights of fancy, and that bird-brain chatter simply falls to the sawdust and gets lost?
Next time we find ourselves in such a little bistro, we'll check on the feminine customers and see if all of them are restraining their bird-brain chatter, keeping the crumbs off their smoky grey taffeta, gooing up with the pink lipstick, smoothing the wrinkles out of their crescendos, scuffing their happy, dancing feet in the sawdust, and wearing their fragile, delicate beauty with the proper grand manner.
Free Stuff:
The other night our favorite radio comedian, Abe Burrows, was talking about the welter of modern songs which talk about all kinds of things being free. Birds and moons and June and love and wind in the willows and such. Abe says, "You ever stop to think that in that whole list of free stuff there isn't one thing you can put in a sandwich?"
Accordiana:
Had you listened Sunday night you would have heard Dick Cantino win again, provided you could have stomached hearing the name of a cigarette mentioned exactly thirty-seven times. We counted.
Who Made That Goal?
Ed Stanley says that there are only about a half dozen more games scheduled for the Clinton Hockey Club this year. Thus it is a little late for us to be starting this program. At least we'll mention it and get your reaction.
The games in the college rink -- both the CHC games and the college games -- would be a great deal more enjoyable for all spectators if there were an adequate Public Address System. Goals and penalties could be properly announced, as well as substitutions.
An adequate Public Address System would cost in the neighborhood of eight hundred dollars. It is apparently up to the citizens of Clinton who enjoy the games to get this idea rolling. If you show that you are interested we will set up a committee to rake in the voluntary contributions -- with representatives from the faculty and student body of the college, as well as the town. One buck apiece from 800 ardent hockey fans will make all games in the college rink next year more enjoyable. What do you say?
* * *
See you next week.
Back in March of 2016 I wrote a piece on John D MacDonald’s 1961 Saturday Evening Post short story “Kitten on a Trampoline.” This work of fiction was MacDonald’s first to appear in the Post, and it’s interesting to ponder why it took so long for this most popular of general interest magazines to publish the author. Perhaps it was because JDM had such a good relationship with another popular periodical of the time, Cosmopolitan (in its pre-Helen Gurley Brown era), which had a long tradition of focusing on fiction. His work appeared in Cosmopolitan 36 times, the most of any other non-pulp publication. Beginning with “Kitten on a Trampoline,” MacDonald would go on to write a total of five stories for the SEP, including “Funny Man,” which would be included in JDM’s 1966 anthology End of the Tiger and Other Stories under the author’s original title, “Afternoon of the Hero,” and 1961’s “Sing a Song of Terror,” which was later reworked as the opening chapter of the 1970 Travis McGee novel The Long Lavender Look.
When I wrote the piece on “Kitten” I neglected to look through the entire magazine, which I did recently, only to discover a brief entry on MacDonald in the SEP’s “Keeping Posted” section. It contains a photo of MacDonald I have never seen before, the author without his signature glasses. He looks kind of like a deer in the headlights.
I went through the rest of my Saturday Evening Post collection and found one other photo of MacDonald, included in the same magazine that featured his short story “The Obvious Woman” (which I haven’t written about yet). It has another glasses-less photo of JDM, this time looking much more at ease. I include them here for your enjoyment.
The entire run of The Saturday Evening Post has been digitized and archived, and is available for viewing for $15 a year, for those of you interested in reading the JDM stories listed below. You can sign up for the archive (including a current subscription) by clicking here. (I'm not a subscriber -- I include this only for readers who might want access to the stories.)
John D MacDonald stories published in The Saturday Evening Post:
April 8, 1961 “Kitten on a Trampoline”
September 9, 1961 “Sing a Song of Terror”
September 16, 1961 “Hit and Run” (one of two JDM stories bearing this title)
March 30, 1963 “The Obvious Woman”
May 21, 1966 “Funny Man”
