Dave Wood

My Grandpa Wood shocked me one Sunday when, puffing his corncob pipe said, “Davey why don’t you and me go to the movie house and see a movie?’

Grandpa wants to take me to a movie? Is he going off his rocker? You see, my grandpa was a fine man, but entertainment or any other frivolity other than fishing was out of bounds with this Baptist-bred old-timer, who had shucked the doctrine but retained its codes of conduct. So I said, “Sure, Gramps! Let’s go!”

And off we went to the Pix, a new movie house which often showed elderly-popular movies. On the marquee was Will Rogers in “David Harum.” The credits rolled and I translated the roman numerals as produced in 1936.

“Gramps, this is really an old one!”

“Shush and pay attention to Will Rogers. He’s really something.” muttered the old man, who later admitted he’d seen the movie 10 years earlier!

Rogers plays David Harum, a small-town banker who is not above fixing horse races and other fiduciary hijinks and has a servant played by Stepinfetchit. Much of the humor was out of my league, but I later commented that David seemed kinda mean to the black guy. Gramps explained that Will Rogers was also colored (Cherokee) and was being satirical, whatever that meant. Good enough for me because I was 10 and in my pre-”woke” stage of life.

What a fun afternoon after Gramps bought me a box of popcorn AND a Holloway sucker which I sucked on for the entire film and he sucked on a rock-hard sliver of Champagne Blend plug tobacco.

I’ve been a Will Rogers fan ever since and went to a biopic of Will starring his son Will Rogers, Jr. at the very Pix where I sat just that once with my dear grandfather.

I recently read a profile of the elder Rogers that stated he was apolitical, and now that we’re in for yet another presidential election, I figured I might cool things off with a rundown of the 1926  presidential election which pitted Herbert Hoover against Al Smith—and Will Rogers, who thought all campaigning was Bunk, so every week on the pages of the old humor magazine, “Life,” Rogers ran on the Anti-Bunk ticket as the “bunkless” candidate.

His campaign promise was that if elected he would resign.

Asked what issues would motivate voters, he replied “Prohibition: What’s on your hip is bound to be on your mind.”

Asked if there should be presidential debates, “Yes! Joint debate –in any joint you choose.”

How about the appeals of the common man? “Easy, you can’t make any commoner appeal than I can.”

What does the farmer need? “Obvious. He needs a punch in the jaw if he believes that either of the parties cares a damn after the election.”

What of ugly campaign rumors? “Don’t worry, the things they whisper aren’t as bad as what they say out loud.”

When the votes were tallied, Rogers received no votes, but as promised, he resigned anyway.

Dave would like to hear from you—but not to talk politics! 715-426-9554