I’ve Got the South in My Mouth

By Helen Lawrenson From The Hussy’s Handbook 1944 Every once in a while when I am in a nightclub—which is not any oftener than I get asked—I look around me and am suddenly stupefied by the swift, sudden spectacle of women all over the place bending every nerve and...

First Aid to Inebriates

By Helen Lawrenson From The Hussy’s Handbook 1944 One summer night, when I was visiting an uncle and aunt of mine, we were all sitting in the house, talking and listening to the violent rain storm outside. It was very late, and we were about ready to go to bed, when...

Why I Hate Parties

By Helen Lawrenson From The Hussy’s Handbook 1944 In the George Kaufman-Moss Hart drama, Merrily We Roll Along, there was a scene depicting a typical smart New York party. In one corner sits a very stewed lady. As another guest wanders near her, she looks up at him...

Have I Got Glamour?

By Helen Lawrenson From The Hussy’s Handbook 1944 A short time ago I had occasion to look into my magic mirror, which I had bought from a secondhand fairy godmother but had never gotten around to hanging up on account of the walls in my apartment were made of brick...

Intellectual, Go ’Way

By Helen Lawrenson From The Hussy’s Handbook 1944 Offhand, I can’t think of anything I don’t like as much as I don’t like intellectuals. I suppose they have their uses, the same as adversity and the study of Latin verbs—but they are accordingly as unpleasant and as...

And Yet We Got On

By Ernie Pyle Scripps-Howard Wire Service June 12, 1944 NORMANDY BEACHHEAD—(by wireless)—Due to a last-minute alteration in the arrangements, I didn’t arrive on the beachhead until the morning after D-day, after our first wave of assault troops had hit the shore. By...

Death of a Racehorse

By W.C. Heinz The New York Sun July 29, 1949 They were going to the post for the sixth race at Jamaica, two year olds, some making their first starts, to go five and a half furlongs for a purse of four thousand dollars. They were moving slowly down the backstretch...

The World’s Richest Problem Child

By John Lardner Newsweek 1949 The St. Louis Browns have hired a professional psychologist for the spring training season to currycomb their inferiority complex. The Boston Red Sox, on the other hand, have chosen a simpler way of treating their own psychological...

The Lindbergh Legends

By John Lardner From The Aspirin Age 1949 In May 1927, a slim, comely man of twenty-five years flew an airplane from New York to Paris all by himself, without stopping. His performance was instantly recognized as the climactic stunt of a time of marvelous stunts, of...

Dispatch From Normandy

By Ernie Pyle Scripps-Howard Wire Service July 13, 1944 IN NORMANDY—(by wireless)—Lieut. Orion Shockley came over with a map and explained to us just what his company was going to do. There was a German strong point of pillboxes and machine-gun nests about half a mile...