When Grandma Was A Little Girl- #13

Story #13 - My favorite book - A Sort of a Sage by Bill Mauldin

I read this book when I was about 13 years old and I loved it! My father read it and would tell us snippets of the story here and there. He had got the book and we had it for years. Later when I was married and moved up to Oregon, I checked it out of a library and read it again. I laughed as much that time as I did when I read it at age 13. Bill Mauldin lived near Cloudcroft, New Mexico, which was about half an hour from where we lived. He grew up there. He served in World War II in the Army. He later became a cartoonist and his cartoons were syndicated in the newspapers. Some of his cartoons were war characters and other times they were political figures. His cartoons were always funny. He also wrote a book called ‘Up Front’ and ‘Back Home’ (printed before ‘A Sort of A Saga’) that were about his war stories and how life was when he returned home. I enjoyed ‘A Sort of A Saga’ the berst of all!

His book ‘A Sort of A Saga’ was so funny! He told stories about when he grew up. I guess the reason I liked it so well was because I knew what he was talking about as we lived kind of in the same area. One of his stories I remember was---A neighbor that lived down the road from Bill had an old 2-door sedan probably 1929 or 30’s model. We’ll get back to this guy in a minute---Bill’s friend caught a skunk and de-sacked it and put the skunk musk in a bottle. The problem was that it stunk so badly! They buried it in Bill’s backyard. They wondered what they should do with it. They wrote a letter to Sears and Roebuck Co. and said that they had ‘skunk musk’ and would they be interested in purchasing it for their perfume. They heard that musk helps perfume cling better. Musk was supposed to be valuable. They waited two weeks and did not hear a word from either Sears or Wards and gave up on the idea and kept the musk ‘buried!’ So much for striking it rich selling skunk musk! Ha! Ha! I thought that was so funny! Well, they didn’t know what to do with it.

Now-- Back to the neighbor with his car. About 3 times a week in the evenings Bill’s folks had friends over at their house and they played bridge. Bill and his brother Sid had to go to bed while the adults played bridge and Bill and his brother didn’t like that too much. This guy with the car had a big voice and was rather loud and obnoxious. Bill and his brother Sid didn’t particularly like this guy; perhaps it was just because he was loud and obnoxious. The guy didn’t exactly talk in a low voice, it boomed! One particular night while in bed the ‘voice’ was loud and Bill’s dad told him that the kids were sleeping and try to keep the noise down. The guy with the ‘big voice’ said that if kids worked hard all day that they would be so tired that they would probably be sleeping already. Well Bill and his brother Sid heard that and didn’t like it. So they slipped out of bed and snuck outside to the guy’s car. Bill wanted to smear the skunk musk all over those new leather car seats. His brother Sid had a much better idea. He put some down the carburetor. They snuck back to bed. Well the next time the guy drove he had to roll down his windows. He thought he hit a skunk and checked his whole car over top to bottom and end-to-end but could not find the skunk. So all winter long he had to drive his car with the windows down because he couldn’t stand the skunk smell. I thought that was so funny!

After writing this story, I went to Amazon.com and found there were still copies available. So for $5.95 plus $3.99 shipping-a total of $9.94, I ordered it. It came in the mail and I read it in 2 days! If any of my children or grandchildren is interested in reading it they can borrow it from me. It sure is entertaining reading!