Word: daves
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Rochester, Wash. (pop. 300) is a flag stop 60 miles from Tacoma. Rochester is also the home town and laughingstock in trade of Dave James, 30-year-old Tacoma News-Tribune humorist, whose sly exaggerations are as American as roasting ears, would have tickled Artemus Ward, Mark Twain or Will Rogers...
...country correspondent for a string of six Northwest papers, James once did a piece about Carroll Kjellman, Rochester citizen who said he had seen a robin tugging at a worm in the ground. The worm stretched until it snapped out of the earth, knocked the robin cold. Wrote Dave James: "Faced by a committee of angleworm lovers, Carroll Kjellman ... admitted he planted strips of rubber in the soil. . . . 'I'm sorry I caused the robin to be knocked out . . .' Kjellman said...
Editors asked for more. Dave invented Rochester's Mayor Walter Tripp (in real life proprietor of the Jiffy Lunch), had him announce a Reduced Production County Fair, dedicated to New Deal crop control. Prizes were offered for the scrawniest pig, puniest pumpkin, cow yielding the least milk, the most sterile quart of soil. A special prize awaited the farmer entering fewest exhibits. Appreciative, Associated Press sent the tale over its wires. From all over the U. S. letters poured...
...fair opened, Dave quoted Mayor Tripp's report...
...mayor forgot to file his candidacy for re-election until just before Rochester's primary, found he had five competitors. Although press wires were jammed with primary campaign news, the A. P. queried Dave: PLEASE GIVE us OUTCOME IN FINALS. While Mayor Tripp was counting votes the Jiffy Lunch's door opened, a gust of wind carried away the ballots...