Evening star., 1941-04-29
The Coming
Tower
Safety Note.
Drink if you must, at any bar,

]
! But do not try to drive a car.
The tests for drunken driving, ac-
/ cording to the bill signed by the
/ Governor of New York, are to be
scientific. This will do away with
the Coming Tower tests. Many years
ago We asked the time-old question,
when is a man drunk2" The prize
winning answer was When ne kisses
the barkeeper good night
High on a Frangent Hill.
The bartender pursued an imag-
mary drop of water with his cloth
and nodded his head toward the
other end of the bar. The waitress
at the service table beside the bar
pulled up both shoulders, flattened
out her palms and pulled down the
corners of her mouth. The sign Lam
guage of those who serve with a
smile The bartender turned
brandy bottle a sixteenth of an
inch, centering the label, and nodd-
ed again.
He Just talks. My God, he chews
your ear off. Like you gotta have in
this business, I got tin ear. But
this guy-talk, talk, talk"
'I can sympathize"
always the same thing. He comes
in sober. He reads the paper. He
gets a couple drinks. He's a nice
I guy; believe it or not. You wouldn't
( believe it now, but he's nice guy.
Sober, you wouldn't want to meet a
nicer guy"
"Lotsa people are that way. Sober
they're all right-but get few
drinks in eml Some the other
Wav ."
Il know. My God, listen to him
MY friend, do you have your surf
board? Do you have it in order?
Are you prepared to ride the wave
of the future? The frangent wave
Of the future D.. Double scotch ."
The bartender fingered his bar rag
as Chinese finger jade pocket piece;
/ seeking ease for the mind by occu-
pying the hands. He arranged his
features into the grouping used by
bartenders when dealing with trou-
blesome drunks.
Il sure have. pal Wouldn't be
without the old surf board. Why
don't you have q single scotch. pal?
Take one now, another later;
amounts to the same thing as a
double scotch. III make this E. ="
II will break your frangent head
for you, my dictatorial friend Dou-
| bic scotch" To the waitress. You
/ like that word frangent, sugar?
/ Means breakable"
1T don't sound like breakable to
me- 1t sounds more like something
else"
1T means breakable. When Web
ster says word means breakable,
that's what it means. Frangent is
my favorite word High on a fran
gent hill, I felt my heart 3. E"
Don't sing pal" said the bar
tender. Talking is all right. but We
get family trade in here. One per-
son sings, everybody's entitled to
sing. 1t gets disorderly."
"Okay. No singing e.. This a dou-
bic scotch or single scotch? Very
/ smart. Cracked ice very smart
You put cracked ice and half fill the
glass. That is a single scotch. I
ordered a double scotch. Will you
be so kinda
I thought you said single. finally.
III make it double. if you say so.
thought you finally agreed on a
single"
MY friend, YOU contain within
yourself the seed of your own de-
struction. You will be engulfed in
the wave of the future. You and
your surf board. You and your
cracked ice"
At the other end of the bar the
bartender wiped the dry spot on the
bar dryer.
I Hes a college man all right, 7
guess. Honest, he's okay until he
starts reading the paper. Every
night the same thing. Over and
over WARREN MONTROSS.
We haven't a copy of a paper OF
about May, 1902, handy, but that was
about the time of the strike of the
anthracite coal miners-the DAYS Of
George F. cDivine Right Baer,
John Mitchell and Theodore Roose-
velt. And it seems to us that yester-
days Roosevelt Action on Coal Due
Today as Mediation Fails" might
have been in the papers SO years ago.
Last Saturday as a broker was
listening to the Wood Memorial over
the air waves he was heard to re-
mark, Market Wise? Isn't that a
contradiction in termS?"
/ We are not in sympathy with for
mer Col. Lindbergh, but things are
shaping themselves so that We don't
/ see how the Cubs can win the pen
nant this year.
Suggestion to newspapers: Why
not print a photograph of Deanna
Durbin and groom?
/ There probably are no satirists left
in Berlin, otherwise somebody would
/ put on a sketch about Hitler and
/ those conquered nations. called
/ He Can't Take En- With Him"
There is nothing these days that
/ some union or organization doesn't
! see unfairneSs in, or some plot in.
| Now that there is an effort to min
imize drunken driving it would not
astonish us to see pickets bearing
standards to the effect that Cox.
Lehman is unfair to the liquor
dealers.
/ Speaking of inebrlety. an &C.
/ quaintance of ours spends money
like sober sailor. F. P. A.