Two weeks ago in this column, I mentioned that I had some books someplace, about George Armstrong Custer. I am happy to report that after much searching I did turn up about 30 books and have now drawn up a four page list titled, “Books on Custer, Civil War, The West.”

Not only that, but I have successfully found a close relative (two generations younger than I am) who has an interest in the books so they will soon be out of my condo. The oldest of the books was written the same year in which The Battle of the Little Bighorn took place which was June 25th & 26th of 1876. Note that next month we are coming up on the 145th anniversary of that battle.

Before moving on to other topics, I can’t resist mentioning a bit of trivia that I have always found a bit fascinating. Custer’s wife, Elizabeth B. Custer, spent several years on the Great Plains with the general as he was involved in some earlier skirmishes (some quite tragic for the native Americans).

Elizabeth (Libby) ended up writing several books about those earlier years and as could be expected, was an “apologist” for Custer and protected his reputation as much as possible even after he died at the Little Bighorn. The trivia is that she lived for 57 years after his death — 1876 to 1933!

jtr

Ten years ago I happily received from Donna D. a book about Cedric Adams (1902-1961). Remember him?

Okay, you do probably have to be closer to my age to say yes to that. It would also help if you were from the Midwest and maybe better yet if you were from ‘CCO land. He was born in Adrian (Nobles County) and moved with his family to Magnolia (Rock County) at age two. Yes, not just Minnesota, but Southwestern Minnesota.

Now I wasn’t really in Minnesota until 1968 and didn’t move here until 1969. However, the book, “Everybody Called Him Cedric,” was published in 1970 so I was at least around when it came out even though Cedric had died in 1961. The book was published on the tenth anniversary of Cedric’s death by Twin City Federal Savings and Loan, one of Cedric’s sponsors.

I did grow up in the radio generation as well as the beginnings of the television generation and Cedric transcended both. He made it onto national shows and was a substitute for Arthur Godfrey so I had enjoyed his “down-home” delivery albeit not quite as regularly as Minnesotans probably did. A survey in his time found that ninety-eight per cent of the people in Minnesota knew who Cedric Adams was.

Cedric was a natural for humor, both written and spoken. Here is a bit from a column he wrote in December 1925 for the University of Minnesota audience:

“By the Hired Hand… The outstandin event of the last wk. is that the Faculty a round here has been tryin to work out a pension system for the old an the infirm. Personaly I think they aint embodyin the right features in the plan. Like for inst. If a Prof has never missed any of his classes or if he has been in the habit of flunkin a large percentage… or if he thrived on long papers…that should ought to be put on a pension say at the age of 28.”

Unfortunately, I have not found a library that still has this book about Cedric Adams – I will have to do some more research to see if there are copies someplace handy. If I find any copies, I will post it in a future column. It is a delightful read that says much about life here in Minnesota during the time of Adams’ life. I intend to keep the copy I have. jtr

To bring this bit of nostalgia a little closer to the twenty-first century, I note that the last of the original Honeymooners sitcom shows was produced in 1971 after productions for the previous twenty years. It is a bit hard to believe that fifty years has passed. I am not sure I ever missed one of Jackie Gleason’s appearances as Ralph Kramden and his sidekick Ed Norton (played by Art Carney). Though Audrey Meadows was not Ralph’s original wife’s characters Alice, she also was memorable as was Joyce Randolph who played Ed Norton’s wife Trixie.

As I recall, Ed worked in the sewer system and Ralph was a bus driver and the two of them usually had some sort of scheme going which always led to trouble until the day was saved by the two wives. Somewhere in there, Ralph would get so wound up that he would swing his arms around and act as though he was going to pound Alice with a “POW! Right in the kisser.” Of course he never did.

jtr

And a final bit of trivia: Audrey Meadows was the younger sister of Jayne Meadows who was married to late night host Steve Allen who can rightly be called the first of the Late Nite Show hosts. He was followed by Jack Paar and then by Johnny Carson in the very early days of the late night shows. At the time, our family did not have a TV, but a friend who was a year older than I am lived across the street was one of the first in our neighborhood to have a TV.

As I recall, once Steve Allen signed off at night, the only thing that appeared on most TV channels was the test pattern that appeared after the playing of the national anthem.

Now that was a long time ago. Do they still show test patterns on any stations these days?

Until next time: Oh, Fiddlesticks!