Diary of a New Yorker

Pasadena Post

May 21, 1929

 

Another Park Rowgue has passed on and those of us who never even met him are saddened. T. A. Dorgan he was christened, but the world over affectionately called him Tad, the initials of his tag. It was not our luck to have ever known him, personally. But his letters came frequently, and to one who migrated from the “smallies” and was scared, too, those letters from one of the mightiest of the biggies were comforting, indeed.

An invalid for seven years, they say. And he penned those hilariously comical “Indoor Sports” and other copy from his bed! Sick as he was, Tad found time to prepare words of cheer to contemporaries whenever they wrote something that tickled his fancy. We quote his last letter in his own hand, chiefly to reveal the sort of fellow he was. “Dear Winchell:” it read, “laughs come so seldom these days that I simply must thank you for the belly-yowl you handed me today with the Bank of Italy quip. Drop over some time, I’d like to help you with some I know. Good wishes, Tad.”

ALWAYS BELITTLIN’

Judge, a three-jitney mag, contains, among other things, this repartee:

Mr. Winchell: How about a little giggle-water so we can drink the health of that phrail you’re Garbo-Gilberting with? She’s some voom-voom, and I’m that way about her myself.

Mr. Chinwell: Thanks for them coined words.

I get it, I get it!

INCIDENTALLY

Judge probably more than anyone else will appreciate this classic from a Chicago para-grapher, who recently quipped: “F. P. A., Ashton Stevens, Walter Winchell, Skippy, and others have been fired off Life by the new editor, who has also dropped the price down to a dime and it’s worth it!”

SHE BEGGED FOR IT

Mary Horan of the Henry Santrey act hastens along the one about the waitress in a Childs restaurant, who was irritated almost to the point of murder. The cranky old lady at one of her tables, it seems, had changed her mind at least half a dozen times. Finally she ordered a cup of cocoa, but the waitress carelessly placed a cup of coffee before her.

“What is this?” almost screamed the old woman, “what is this? I say!” Everyone in the vicinity looked up. “That, madam,” said the flushed waitress, sweetly, “is the Panama canal!”

NIFTY

Credit Ashton Stevens with the report that Richard Bennett, the actor, telegraphed a hostess that he could not come to her party on account of having partaken of a dinner that contained much garlic. She wired back: “What’s a little garlic on a man who will play a part like Jarnegan?”