Word: wassail
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...hands with Reno Hotelman Charles Mapes, Bobo showed up at a big stone castle on Lake Tahoe, where an even richer lady, Elsinore Machris Gillilan, a bride of 70 who inherited $20 million from her previous oil-drenched husband, was tossing a small, make-believe Hawaiian luau (a beach wassail where revelers cry "Oahu!"). There was no poi or okolehau, but there were oodles of orchids and leis, flown in from the Islands, and, ignoring Tahoe's sparkling waters, lackeys gassed up a swimming pool by spiking it with champagne. Mrs. Gillilan's newly rich bridegroom...
...During wassail, Thurber's ambivalence can snap loose and he may be given to bursts of hooting & hollering. A New Yorker editor once returned to the office after a stormy evening at the Algonquin Hotel and thoughtfully announced, "Thurber is the greatest guy in the world up to 5 p.m." Those who love Thurber ascribe such outbursts to old-fashioned artistic temperament and simply shrug them off. They know that when real troubles arise, there is nobody more steadfast and generous. The jams he has helped and comforted friends through are without number...