IBID (16 page)

A side note about Dorothy Musgrove: the poet moved to Washington, D.C., in 1932 and soon became a permanent, albeit minor, fixture in the “den of power” as she liked to call the city. Trading Clara’s literary salon for a political one, she enjoyed frequent invitations to sup with D.C.’s “living monument” Alice Roosevelt Longworth and other capital celebrities. Her low profile generally kept her name out of the local press.

The one notable exception occurred in 1936 when Dorothy found herself the victim of Seattle Congressman Marion Zioncheck’s drunken joy ride through the streets (and sidewalks) of downtown Washington. Struck in the head by an airborne trash can lid, she declined medical attention and proceeded to the home of Mrs. Longworth where she was expected for an intimate dinner party. With her head bloodied from the accident, she launched into a send-up of Teddy Roosevelt’s legendary address following the nearly fatal attempt made upon his life during the 1912 Presidential campaign, parodying Teddy with precision: “I want you all to be very quiet. Perhaps you’re not aware that I have been hit in the head by the lid of a garbage can knocked skyward by a drunken Congressman.” According to Dorothy’s recollection of the evening, “fun-loving Alice was reduced to hysterics, dropping to the floor and pummeling the boards in a fit of apoplectic mirth.” (Dorothy Musgrove,
Things I Remember
, [Baltimore: Boysenberry Press, 1960], 137-40.)

19.
“This is my brother Lyndon.”
Clara’s younger brother Lyndon Tosch Gleason was equally literary and best known for his
Fork Creek Collection
, (Redding, California: Di Prisco Press, 1955), taking as its inspiration, Edgar Lee Master’s
Spoon River Anthology
. The work, originally mistaken for parody, was, in fact, a sincere effort to tell the encapsulated stories of the inmates of a large state institution for the intellectually challenged. Exhibiting the cruel insensitivity of its day, the asylum was officially known as the Illinois State Institution for Imbeciles, Idiots, Cretins, and Morons, and more informally as “Dummy House.” The book sold few copies, for it was nearly unreadable. An example follows:

20.
On April 20, 1930 Clara and I were married by a justice of the peace in Reno, Nevada.
Jonathan Blashette to Andrew Bloor, AnB.

21.
“So, you’re finally tying the knot at the boyish age of forty-two!”
Bloor knew that he would not approve of Clara when they finally met. His intuition was confirmed on a
visit to New York two months later. Bloor wrote in his journal that “as suspected, I found her to be totally lacking in charm and grace,” and “a regular foghorn with hips.” Still, it doesn’t appear that he ever revealed his true feelings to Jonathan, apparently aware that when the relationship finally soured (as Bloor was sure it inevitably would) he would not wish to be among those dancing the “I-told-you-so shuffle”—a dance which, Bloor noted, is never flattering and often “puts one at risk of being removed from the dance floor altogether.” Bloor’s ostensible (but privately grudging) approval of Jonathan’s wife seemed, however, to endear Jonathan to his mentor all the more, the two growing even closer, their correspondence much more frequent and illuminating of their emotional lives during this period. Andrew Bloor to Jonathan Blashette, 27 April1930, JBP.

22.
Jonathan kept his Greenwich Village brownstone as a pied-à-terre.
It was an ideal arrangement. The old farm house in Wallywaycong, New Jersey, was large enough to hold Clara, her family and hangers-on and all her creatures great and small. The house in the city served as the perfect “get-away” when Jonathan needed a quiet break from the “Clarathrong.”

23.
“What do I do with my arboreal stepson?”
Jonathan’s Diary, 18 July1930. Granted, it seemed that half the boys in North America were going for the national tree-sitting record in 1930, but fourteen-year-old Hunter’s choice of Wallywaycong’s venerated Founder’s Oak, which stood on the front lawn of the county courthouse, was a controversial choice. Even when following the crazes of the day, Jonathan’s stepson had a taste for rebellion that placed him in a category by himself. Climbing the oak may have looked to some like a simple act of youthful mischief, but to others it represented a disturbing offensive against tradition and authority.

I have found wildly conflicting accounts of the events surrounding town historian Fitzhugh Dowdy’s hospitalization for nervous exhaustion on the day that Hunter was finally “de-treed.” I am more inclined to believe Dowdy’s own—albeit heavily embroidered—account, passed down to us through his dairy (Dowdy Family Papers). If nothing else, the entries pertaining to the tree-sitting episode shed some light on the man’s fragile mental state at the time.

24.
Clara’s literary circle continued to expand.
Figel, research notes from
Clara! The Musical.
A frequent visitor with adjunct status was poet Davy Kreis who several years later, inspired by the free verse epic
Paterson
by William Carlos Williams, wrote the three-volume nearly unreadable
Bayonne.
It received the 1949 Mrs. Delwood Dandle Poetaster Prize. I sought a copy of the encyclopedia-length poem to excerpt, but was unsuccessful. The New York Public Library’s Rare Books Division reportedly had a set in the early 1950s. It vanished at some point during the intervening years. It is hard to know the exact date of its disappearance, since it was never requested. Librarian John Rathe remembers that the volumes had at one point been used as improvised stepladder to assist diminutive researchers in reaching the division’s water fountain.

A side note: Mrs. Delwood Dandle is considered by some to be the world’s worst published poet. It has been surmised that her only book of poems was given a limited printing by
Caven-Mulgrove Publishing to satisfy publisher Brennan Mulgrove’s gambling debts. Delwood (also known as “Squeaks”), a loan shark of the Damon Runyon school, worked out a deal to prevent Mulgrove, with his well-documented weakness for long shots at Belmont, from getting his legs broken.

A selection from her poem, “Little Birdy” follows.

Mrs. Dandle never explains why her narrator suddenly lapses into a harlequin Italian accent. Equally inexplicable is Dandle’s decision to illustrate the poems with pictures from the children’s book
The Five Chinese Brothers
.

25.
“The Cossacks’ names were Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.”
Luddy Greco’s Diary, 28 July1932. Jonathan had arrived at the Bonus Expeditionary Force’s encampment in Washington, D.C. only hours before the World War I veterans who had gathered there to demand early payment of the soldier’s bonus due them in 1945, were routed by forces led by General MacArthur under orders from President Hoover. Former doughboy-pals Jonathan, Greco, and Darrell Delehanty were in the midst of trading war stories when 700 troops, aided by tanks, cavalry and machine guns, drove the three, along with thousands of unemployed veteran
protestors (and many of their families) from their nation’s capital.

Jonathan promptly returned to New York, writing in his own diary the next day only the words, “Dark day for America.”

Luddy, scarred by memory of that day, became a Communist, and eventually moved to the Soviet Union.

Delehanty remained silent.

MacArthur and his majors Patton and Eisenhower went on to serve their fellow citizens with distinction in the Second World War, their part in the brutal Bonus Army pogrom all but forgotten.

26.
Caldwell wasn’t mathematically gifted
Reinhold,
The Story of Dandy-de-odor-o
, 202-205. Dandy-D’s chief financial officer’s oft-repeated claim that he had “no head for numbers” was a constant source of frustration for Jonathan who worked hard to convince shareholders and the business press that Caldwell loved nothing more than pulling the public leg. My research has revealed that Caldwell’s lack of confidence in his own numerical abilities can be traced to an incident in the summer of 1934 during a family vacation trip to Atlantic City. As the C.F.O dozed on the beach, one Vivienne Falconi (a vacationer from Newark) accidentally dropped a copy of
Anthony Adverse
upon his head. Caldwell lay hospitalized and comatose for two days. (Hearing of the unfortunate occurrence, the 1,224-page best seller’s author Hervey Allen sent a get-well card that read, “Perhaps I should have written the thing in installments.”)

Regaining consciousness, Caldwell came to the horrible realization that he had forgotten the number between six and eight.
Asked to count to ten by the attending physician, he would either leave out the number seven entirely, or replace it with one of many nonsense words, e.g.: “four, five, six, fish-twaddle, eight.” Eventually Caldwell and the number seven were reacquainted and he came to utilize it just as extensively as he had before the accident. But a happy ease and total comfort around numbers for one of Jonathan’s most trusted lieutenants was never to return. Jonathan didn’t seem to mind. The following exchange from 1937 is recounted by a window washer who happened to be conveniently stationed within earshot. Buddy Browar,
Eavesdropping on the Captains of Industry: Thirty years of Soap and Corporate Dope
(Cincinnati: Mayer Z. Oats Publishing, 1946), 129-132.

27.
Dingleberry also proved to a problem.
Reinhold,
The Story of Dandy-de-odor-o
, 218-19.

28.
The antisocial behavior continued, then abated.
Ibid., 219. However, on occasion, something would set off Dandy-de-odor-o’s director of personnel, and he would return to the periphery of his early sociopathic behavior. As late as March1975, Dingleberry was roughly escorted from a suburban multiplex theatre after hurling a boot at the screen upon which the critically panned film musical
Mame
was being projected. Although he quickly retrieved the boot and apologized to those nearby who felt threatened by it, Dingleberry’s continued mumbled imprecations against Gene Saks and Lucille Ball for ’this protracted cinematic fart,” clearly showed that the man continued to live on the narrow brink of rage.

29.
There was little doubt that Jonathan was snubbing Nelson Rockefeller.
Diary entries and correspondence detail the reason for Jonathan’s refusal to shake the young businessman’s hand at the gala. Jonathan, though no fan of Lenin, felt that Rockefeller’s “baby with the bathwater” approach to resolving the issue of whether Diego Rivera should be allowed to include the image of the Soviet dictator within the massive Rockefeller Center mural, was pure aestheticide. It set a dangerous precedent, opening the way for the destruction of any art with which those in positions of power did not agree, the end result being the loss of artistic freedom for all.