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Prohibition & Lardner
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Ring on prohibition "No one, ever, wrote anything as well even after one drink as he would have done without it."
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From "The Big
Drought" (Hearst's International, June 1923) |
It seems like about the biggest difference
between now and 7 or 8 yrs. ago in big cities at
lease is that in them days most cities had a law
that you must close your saloon at 11 o'clock or
12 o'clock or 1 o'clock. Now days according to
the law, they ain't no saloons so they can and do
stay open as long as they feel like.
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| From "Prohibition" (Bell Syndicate, 27 Jan 1924) |
Well they was a lot of people in the U.S. that
was in flavor of such a forbidding and finely
congress passed a law making the country dry and
the law went into effect along about the 20 of
Jan. 1920 and the night before it went into
effect everybody had a big party on acct. of it
being the last chance to get boiled. As these
wds. is written the party is just beginning to
get good.
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Some drinking stories
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From Roger Lathbury |
This one comes from regular correspondent Roger
Lathbury. "In 1966 when John Dos Passos
visited the school [Middlebury College] I asked
him if he had known Lardner. He said he had 'sort
of.' He explained as follows: He had told Scott
Fitzgerald--it was 1923 or 1924--that he admired
Lardner and Fitzgerald, who was a friend, offered
to drive him out to meet Lardner in Great Neck.
It was quite late but Fitzgerald said not to
worry. They negotiated their way to the 'Mange,'
and the lights were on. Fitzgerald said something
like, 'I told you he'd be up.' He was. When the
butler admitted them, Lardner was sitting in a
chair absolutely stone paralyzed. He couldn't
move, he didn't speak, he registered no
recognition of their presence. That was the
encounter. Would you call that knowing
someone?"
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From Donald Elder's, Ring
Lardner: A Biography, 1956 |
Ring went there [Friar's Club in New York] one
night after the theater and sat drinking and
listening to various people play the piano. With
the excuse that he did not want to go home in
evening clothes he stayed through the next day,
sometimes talking to whoever came along, but
mostly sitting alone in a melancholy mood. At the
end of the third day someone approached him and
said, "Have you heard the one about
the--" Ring got up abruptly and left. A few
minutes later an actor came in and said, "My
God, the statue's gone!"
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From Donald Elder's, Ring
Lardner: A Biography, 1956 |
Ring was sitting with Paul Lannin, a composer and
musical director, in the Lambs club one evening
when a Shakespearean actor with a head of wild,
unruly hair passed by to the bar. When he came by
a second time, Ring stopped him and asked,
"How do you look when I'm sober?"
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From Donald Elder's, Ring
Lardner: A Biography, 1956 |
One time Ring and Arthur Jacks made a trip to
South Bend to visit Ring's sister, who was ill in
the hospital there. At their hotel they had a
stock of liquor which included some good Canadian
whiskey and some raw Midwestern corn moonshine of
very recent date. After a heavy night Jacks awoke
first, in need of a drink. He tried some of the
Canadian whiskey, but it promptly came up.
Undaunted, he tried again, with the same result.
After he had made three or four unsuccessful
attempts, Ring opened one eye and said:
"Arthur, if you're just practicing,. would
you mind using the corn?"
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| From Edmund Wilson's, The Twenties, 1975 |
Ring told this story when drunk. "Once there
were two foxes in the bathtub together, Pat and
Mike. They took turns sponging each other off.
Finally, one said to the other, 'Here.' he said,
'here, you've been sponging off me long
enough!'--so he kicked out the stopper. And, what
do you think? the next morning they woke up in
the same street."
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