The Snipe Hunting Season’s On . . .
(As Usual)
(P) Newsfeatures
By ARLENE WOLF i
(JP) Newsfeature Writer
Ever see a drip pan for a grid
leak? Or a can of assorted dia
lects? Perhaps you’re more famil
iar with the left-handed monkey
wrench, dear to all left-handed
mechanics, and the bucket of
steam used to spur a sluggish
boiler.
These fabulous articles are all
ammunition used in the continu
ous open season for hunting the
snipe and other gullible game—
namely, people. Every trade and
profession has its own collection
of hazing gags traditionally used
on newcomers. They’re a particu
larly American brand of practical
joke.
That drip pan for the grid leak,
for example, is the way a radio
engineer welcomes a neophyte to
the control room. He may spend
hours shopping before he discov
ers a grid leak is an electrical
register in a circuit, and doesn’t
leak at all.
The can of assorted dialects is
a theatrical gag as is the key to
the curtain, a box of wrinkles,
► —.. I
and a new box for the prompter.
A dialect, of course, is a language
variant and does not come from a
grocery store. Curtains open on
ropes without the aid of locks.
Wrinkles come from a make-up
kit.
The prompter’s box harks back
to the days when prompters had
a little booth under the stage from
which they fed lost lines to actors
who fluffed. The prompter’s hab
itat somehow got christened
“box,” and since then uncounted
stagehands have scurried around
trying to buy the poor prompter a J
new one.
Vocational hazing is an old}
American custom. Even Mark
Twain, once a Mississippi pilot,
wrote about the nasty turn the
skipper gave him one day. When
Twain called for a sounding, the
playful skipper primed the men
to call the wrong figures and had
Twain believing he had steered
1 the boat on to a sandbar.
Seafaring has been a particular
ly fertile field for snipes. Tyros
are sent to find the key to the fog
locker for a bucket of fog. Many’s 1
T-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-7-T~ '
LADIES’ AFTERNOON
and
EVENING DRESSES
50% Reduction
Attention
Deliveries are now leaving store
at 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Bon Marche
Sto *e
I
the new man on board who, when
told he was selected to welcome a
personage named Charlie Noble,
spiffed himself in his cleanest uni
form only to discover the gentle
man was the galley smokestack.
Tyros on the sea are invariably
dispatched to the skipper to get
the key to the keelson—which is
the inner frame of the ship’s keel.
Pretty much in the same boat is
the baseball rookie who wears out
his shoe leather looking for the
key to the pitcher’s box. Football
newcomers may be sent to bring
the fifty-yard line. The Coast Ar
tillery specializes in sending
through a rush order for a couple
of hundred yards of shore line.
Mechanics love to send a new
man out for a glass hammer, or
a double-curve calibers. Airplane
mechanics are likely to request a
bucket of prop wash—the air cur
rent created when the propellor
revolves. And anybody setting out
on a really big job is sure to be
told to take a sky hook along to
make things easier for himself.
I
Even the staid banking business
I
' isn’t immune. There was the new
man, for instance, who was asked
I
if he wanted to be a draft teller,
and was put to opening and clos
ing windows for a couple of hours.
Other new tellers have been sent j
out for check stretchers, and to a
neighboring bank to borrow the
general ledger. If the second bank
feels playful, it will send him
back staggering under the load of
a valiseful of bricks. In days gone
by, the new men used to be sent
to the local blacksmith shop for
a check file.
Newspapers have their gags,
also. Cub reporters visiting the
printing plant go away itchy at
the though of all the mythical
type-lice infesting their clothing.
Photographic dark room workers
look in vain for sharpeners to
make bad photographs clear.
Most of these gags are one-shot
laughs. But snipe hunters have a
longer one. They take a would-be
sniper out at night with a gunny
sack and a lantern, and set him
down in the woods near a snipe
runway. The veteran hunters say
they’re going back to drive the
snipe toward him. Hours and
hours later, the unsuccessful new
hunter returns to camp to find his
companions comfortably discuss
ing the inadequacy of his tech
nique. The more gullible the new
man, the greater the number of
nights he will spend waiting for
the snipe to arrive.
And by the way, the reason the
editor could get this whole story
in the paper is, of course, because
he made good use of his type
stretcher.
NEW PLASTIC
SKINS A PIG
WILMINGTON, Del. — (JF) —
Tough bristles can now be re
moved from pigs in a simple
s ripping operation, the Hercules
Powder Company reports — and
the result is more and better pork
products.
The pork carcass is coated with
a resin chemical. When the plastic
is scraped off, the pig is minus
hairs. *
The removed plastic is remelt
ed and used gaain.
! " ~~ ' f
\
You can make a cultivated pearl by drop
ping a grain of sand inside an oyster.
The oyster surrounds this irritating
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When it’s as big as a seed, you might
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But you’d be much wiser to leave it
there—month after month, year after year,
while it continued to grow. By and by it
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you’d be surprised how your fortune would
growl
Your Bonds work the same way. And
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If you keep the Bonds you now have till
maturity, they’ll be worth four dollars for
every three you invested. And if you keep
on buying more and more Bonds, you’ll
find you’ve done an amazing thing—ac
cumulated enough to make many a dream
come true!
Keep buying Bonds—and hang on to
theml For security. A home of your own.
College for your children. Leisure in your
older years. For those Bonds are thc safest
investment on earth 1
VICTORY BONDS... to have and to hold
Pacific American
FISHERIES