“I ain’t attempting to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we’re dealing with humans, and it ain’t human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat.”
In a memorable episode of the hit PBS Masterpiece show Downton Abbey, Lord Grantham’s valet, Bates, leveraged a rather ungentlemanly skill to save not only the day, but also the crown prince’s bacon. Bates, in a previous season, had been imprisoned after being falsely accused and subsequently incarcerated for murdering his first wife—a nasty turn for which he was later exonerated. His time under the thumb of Scotland Yard was not wasted, and he emerged with a finely tuned hand in forgery. When evidence of Prince Edward’s dalliances, made clear in a letter to his lover, fell into the wrong hands, it was Bates’ ingenious idea to use a false letter of permission to enter the ne’er-do-well’s apartment, retrieve the damning evidence, and let Lord Grantham soak up all the credit.
It really is a fantastic show.
Clever fictional British valets aren’t the only ones making best use of their time in the clink. William Sydney Porter, better known as the writer O. Henry, surely didn’t waste his. Incarcerated for embezzlement in 1898, O. Henry emerged after three years as a highly productive writer with mountains of great material. Between 1901 and his death in 1910, O. Henry is said to have written over three hundred short stories, many of which remain well-known and well-loved to this day.
With a sensitive ear and the belief that a good story was held by all he came in contact with, O. Henry shook gold out of the paydirt gathered ’round the prison yard when he wrote “The Ransom of Red Chief.” Based upon a fellow convict’s predilection for kidnapping the kids of wealthy families, O. Henry’s version perfectly highlights his talent for comic inversion. Here, he took a construct sure to fill any parent with horror and flipped it on its head in a manner sure to make parents of boys tear up with laughter at the final twist.
Please enjoy…
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Taming the Wild: Modern life is full of waiting—waiting for the doctor, waiting for the table or the meal at a restaurant, waiting for the flight to be called. As any parent can attest, waiting and young boys are hardly natural friends.
I had great success over the years keeping a pencil and a few pages of these paper games in my bag, ready whenever the need arose. There is a great game on one side, and a blank side for “hangman” on the other, offering plenty of ways to keep the most rambunctious cowboys occupied with civility while tapping into their natural proclivity for competitiveness.
Verdant Verve: Spring is waking up in full force. What a triumph! I have been drawn to Keith Jarrett’s iconic album, The Köln Concert, all week (Spotify and vinyl). Recorded in 1975 in Cologne (Köln), Germany, it went on to become a touchstone of artistic significance. In this solo concert, Jarrett performs with a confident, playful improvisation that I see in every view out the window…birds flitting hither and thither, daffodils appearing practically overnight with their bold trumpets of gold, the light breeze dancing around at will. What a moment!
“The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane, 1897
“Jean Gourdon’s Four Days, Spring” by Émile Zola, 1874
“Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving, 1819
