Photo Essay Series Part Two: Will's Old Pal

Picture Postcards Unfilled

This next installment brings us more from someone who may be called George Newberg, although he signs as "Geo." which may mean something else I suppose. Will kept at least a couple of lengthy letters from this gentleman, one of which you read in the previous chapter. My sense is that they served in the war together, and/or both worked with the former Bureau of Animal Industry, established to protect the public from infection or disease contaminated meat products, eradicate animal diseases and improve livestock quality. As in the previous letter, the writer provides astounding mathematical detail about his work slaughtering pigs and cattle. This one talks about being assigned to viscera and then to heads, as if once the animals were slaughtered there was some process with the body parts. I can guess that this involved inspection for disease and/or destruction. He expresses some dislike of the work, which I can certainly believe given how meticulously he counts every task. This letter is dated 1918, which would have been right before Will's son Carroll was born.

On the next page, the writer confesses to drinking his first b-e-e-r (he does a lot of hyphenating in this letter) in 17 years. Obviously, this is a transgression for him, maybe because he's an alcoholic. He swears he won't have another for another 17 years, quoting Edgar and saying Nevermore! Wonder what drove him to have that rare beer. He refers to a speech he planned to see by Rabindranath Tagore, a poet who became active in promoting the rights of Indian poor and ending the caste system. This friend strikes me as a free spirit and possibly more liberal than Will seems.

On the third page, he talks about seeing Hip Hip Hooray (tickets $.50 - $1.50) at the New York Hippodrome...there's a lot of history in the letters from this friend. He seems very interested in what's happening in the world, which contrasts a bit from what seem to be the women in Will's life, and perhaps that's a quality of the time. (More from at least one of these often disgruntled women in the next chapter.) He doesn't mention that Houdini performed in the old Hippodrome though, which was torn down in 1939 and replaced with a more modern and uglier building used now for offices. He also refers to meeting Emil Hirsch, a Jewish writer and activist who wrote a feminist article titled "The Modern Jewess" for a publication called American Jewess. George says that "Although a Jew, he is a fine gentleman and a brilliant scholar..." At that point, the writer provides some interesting characterization of his relationship with Will. Now times were different then, and it's possible men were allowed to express their friendship in ways that wouldn't automatically be considered sexual. But I also think it's possible to call it what it is after the fact. In a particularly sentimental moment, the Old Pal writes: "What glorious shower baths we used to have! Wasn't it a grand and glo-ri-ous feeling?" What would you make of that? He talks of meeting in front of Frank Adair's which I assume is named after the snobby British actor of the time. 

Finally, he refers to attending a burlesque show starring a vaudeville actor named Lew Kelly, who played a character called "Professor Dope" or a great "imitator of a dope fiend" as the writer puts it. (I can't help thinking about Cypress Hill's "Dr. Green Thumb." Classic weed anthem.) This would have been not long after the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act to police coke and heroin in the US. These vaudeville shows featured a lot of racist black brute characters too. Interestingly, dope legislation was highly racialized too. With coke it was black people, heroin Chinese immigrants, and weed of course it was the dangerous Mexican.  (That's right - you can thank racism for the fact that you can't smoke a joint in your own yard.)

There's a short story here, and I think this letter writer for providing all these cultural and historical details. This little card, sent later, features a change in outgoing address, as if the writer was no longer sure where to find Will. The card is blank inside. There are no more addressed to Old Pal.

The cover photos, btw, are of picture postcards that were not filled out. They are of Crooked Lake in Michigan, a popular fishing lake, of which there are two, but this may likely refer to the Pinckney location.