The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-05-29
<1PRESUME you note many changes
that have taken place since you
u were around this neichhorhood ~

w PRESU ME- you note many changes
that have taken place since you
L were around this neighborhood,
said to the Comet by way of beginning.
Not as many as you might expect"
comotose kind of voice as he tucked his
skirts in under him and settled back with
his hands in the places where his hip
pockets ought to be. I've been coming
back here at regular intervals ever since
Old Man Noah's dog. Hector, was mere
pup and each time I am struck with the
fact that while things may change, people
don't.
II note that the disposition to blame
everything on me is still quite general,
just as 1t was 70 years ago when l
dropped in on my last visit. No sooner do
dawn on the horizon with my tail all
ablaze, like long freight train with a
red caboose, than people begin to put the
bee on me for whatever ails them, from
soft corns to hard frosts. 1t must have
been a great relief to Dick Balllnger and
Uncle Joe Cannon when I skidded into
view. 1t took the public crouch off of
them and placed it on me. I gather that
during the last few months, whatever
Old Black Joe wasn't responsible for
Poor Richard was. But now it's all up
to Halley's Faithful Fido, meaning me-
I learn that l am the party who is being
credited with the fault for the late spring,
the early spring and the lack, in some
sections, of any spring at all; the total
failure of the peach, the cotton and the
tobacco crops and all the other crops that
always totally fall about this time of the
year; the floods, the dry spells, the earth
quakes, the Seven Little Guggenheims, the
Hearst-Gaynor row. the theatrical war,
the unusually early arrival of the Fool
ish Season. the refusal of so many of the
new airships to jell properly; the way the
Giants are not winning the National
league race; Taft's policies and the lack
of such; the kind of clothes the college
boys are wearing this year, and nine or
ten thousand other things. I'm Patsy J.
Bolivar Comet, Esquire, the Heavenly
Goat, and can't answer back and you
can put it up to me with perfect impunity
"All last week and the week before any
gentleman could come in at a quarter to
five a. m. with sailors hornpipe legs and
a Swedish folklore accent, and II he sue
ceeded in entering his home, after a des-
perate struggle with an Infatuated key
hole, he could get away with 1t by simply
explaining to his wife in words of one
syllable that he was late because he'd
stayed up to see me and dizzy because
he'd looked so long after ! showed up.
These last two weeks I've had to stand
godfather to more stewed home-comings
than any convention of Eagles that ever
IL to . ioy.f$ !,
| truth IN speaking?"
| l could not gainsay him. recalled at
least one friend who'd undertaken to win
Wurstburger Marathon against tai
| ented foreigner who enjoyed the advan-
| tage OF having one of those Made-in-
| Germany stomachs, and beer coils run
ming up and down both legs; and when
he got In just ahead of the letter carrier
and just behind the man with the milk,
this friend of mine had used the Comet
as an excuse and pas eminently success
| full. So I merely nodded and the late
Professor Halley's family pet went on:
And now that I've been playing matt
nee engagements and closing the show
| it's almost as bad. Literally inclined
gents who believe in treating themselves
and others kindly use me as an excuse
for not coming home to dinner or not
coming home to several dinners In sue
cession. They have to stay down town
until all hours because the cool of the
evening is the proper time to observe the
Comet and mark Its many peculiarities.
In the bosom of large number of fam
lilies the impression is being created that
can be studied better at cafe with
| the lights turned on, In sthe company of
group of gentlemen suffering from bar
rail instep and plush-lined thirst, than
from the front porch at home. 1 might
state that the, same state of affairs pre-
vailed when was here back in 1896 The
brandy smash and the sherry cobbler
have been succeeded by the Thousand
Collins and the Name Taylor. by the
cocktail and tho highball. but the gen
eral average Of results appears to be
about the same, with the burden of proof