Hollywood (1938)

He Had Plenty of Nothing [Continued from page 27] Jimmie had appeared on the school platform to "give a little talk," further added, "Gee, a fellow has to have poise to be an actor, doesn't he? Well, do you remember this . . . ," and so the old story was recalled again and again, so that ex-schoolmates, now grown and some of them married, recalled it to their spouses across the dinner table, and in a short time the whole town was laughing. The incident had been this. Jimmy as a young boy, in his awkward teens (and he has never quite outgrown them physically), was a radio addict. That was in the days before radio was the all-talking show that it is today, and if Jimmy even got music over any one of his fifteen homemade sets, he was deliriously happy. His sets were made of oatmeal boxes, laboriously wound around with a fine wire. His bedroom was one mad scramble of wires, antennae and control panels. He had one panel covering one whole wall on which there were fifty different switches. "One of those foolish things where you pull all fifty of the switches and then maybe one little thing happens," as he has since explained. When the loud speaker horns came in, so that Jimmy no longer had to rely just on ear phones, he made a special trip to Pittsburgh, bought a loud speaker, came back on the train carrying it in his arms, guarding it and cuddling it with as much fond care, as though somebody had entrusted him with a baby. Then, to see how good the horn really was, he attached it to the radio, set the radio in the window, then got into his father's car and backed the car off down the street, to see how many blocks away he could still hear his radio. Which is just to give you some idea of what his family, even with cotton in their ears, had to put up with. ■ Came the time of the Harding inauguration, and the announcement that it was to be broadcast. Jimmy had never yet heard any "talk" on any of his radios, but for this great event he prepared weeks in advance, and his efforts were successful. Jimmy, with a fanatic frenzy on his face, heard every syllable and band note of the entire proceedings, and when he went to school the next morning, he couldn't help telling some of the other boys about it. Word spread from boys to teachers, and later in the day at the school assembly, Jimmy was invited to tell the school all about it, too. From this moment on, his interest in radio waned. After that, he could never quite disassociate it with the embarrassment and the misery it caused him on this never-to-be-forgotten occasion. It was bad enough to be shoved out there on the platform. It was bad enough to just stand there, feeling all hands and feet (he had already reached the six foot mark and was destined to grow further). It was bad enough to see countless rows of grinning, smirking faces swimming there before him. But to have to talk on top of all that! What his speech finally amounted to was mostly a series of stammerings and stutterings with numerous "Well's" cast here and there, but eventually it came out that there had been a lot of talking by them, there in Washington, and a lot of band playing, then more talking, and then the final band selection, which as Jimmy finally managed to blurt out was that grand old selection, "Columbus, the Germ of the Ocean!" If he had said it in the embarrassed mumble, like the rest of his speech, he might have gotten away with it, but in his relief to have finished with the whole miserable business at last, he fairly shouted it. That was enough; it brought the place down; even the pictures of past presidents on the wall shuddered and shook — and from that day to this, the mention of any patriotic song has Jimmy in a jitter, remembering the embarrassment-boner of his first public appearance. | Nor was Jimmy any more at ease with young women than he was in front of an audience. "Somehow or other, I C0L6ATE DENTAL CREAM COMBATS BAD BREATH 'You see, Colgate's special penetrating foam gets into thehidden crevices between your teeth that ordinary cleansing methods fail to reach . . . removes the decaying food deposits that cause most bad breath, dull, dingy teeth, and much tooth decay. Besides, Colgate's soft, safe polishing agent gently yet thoroughly cleans the enamel — makes your teeth sparkle!" 42 Nationally Advertised Brands Are Your Assurance of Value and Protection