LINKS
BARBERSHOP
FUN LINKS
tank town—A small town. So called because trains would stop there only to replenish water.
grip—A suitcase or valise.
Billiards—Also known as caroom (or carom) billiards, played with three balls (one cue ball and two object balls) on a pocketless table
Pool—Developed much later than billiards. Also known as pocket billiards, using a cue ball and 15 object balls on a table with six pockets
iron clad leave to yourself from a three-rail billiard shot—leave is slang for a favorable position for a stroke in billiards (circa 1850). Three-rail billiard shot refers to the fact that in caroom (or carom) billiards, the cue ball must contact at least 3 cushions before it hits the second object ball in order to score any points. This sentence seems to imply that the player has, through excellent strategy and difficult maneuvers, put the balls in such a position as to give him an excellent shot at making points.
balkline—A line parallel to one end of a billiard table, from behind which opening shots with the cue ball are made.
pinch-back suit—from pinchbeck - serving as an imitation or substitute; "pinchbeck heroism" (noun): an alloy of copper and zinc that is used in cheap jewelry to imitate gold. Made of pinchbeck; sham; cheap; spurious; unreal.
Jasper—any male fellow or chum, usually a stranger
Trotting race—A horse that trots, especially one trained for harness racing. Very genteel pastime.
Horse race—With a jockey on the horses back, running much quicker than the trotting race.
Dan Patch—(1897-1916) Most famous trotting horse ever, from Indiana. Dan Patch was a pacer, under his second owner he lost only five heats in 56 starts. Dan Patch had his own private railway car to travel in, and at home he lived in a huge barn that was so grand it was called the "Taj Mahal." There is still a trotting competition named for him, and an historical railroad line because "Dan Patch was a famous race horse a hundred years ago, and the railroad was named after him because its tracks between Minneapolis and Northfield passed very close to his owner's farm." There seem to be whole districts in Indiana still named after this horse, and there was a movie called The Great Dan Patch (1949)
Frittern away their time—To reduce or squander little by little; frittered his inheritance away. To waste.
cistern—A receptacle for holding water or other liquid, especially a tank for catching and storing rainwater.
knickerbockers—Full breeches gathered and banded just below the knee (which is why moving them above the knee is such a shocking thing to do)
shirt-tail young ones—1) Very young; shirttail kids. 2) Of little value; inadequate or small; a shirttail cabin in the woods
Bevo—From Anheuser-Busch. A non-alcoholic drink that tasted like beer. "Anheuser-Busch introduced Bevo, its new nonalcoholic beverage, in 1916 and elsewhere the flood of cereal beverages (near beer) were introduced during the 1917-18 period."
Cubebs—the dried unripe berry of a tropical shrub (Piper cubeba) of the pepper family that is crushed and smoked in cigarettes for as a medicine for catarrh, an inflammation of the nose and throat with increased production of mucus. There were several cubeb cigarettes made--Marshall's Prepared Cubeb Cigarettes are perhaps the best known.
Tailor Mades—A tailor-made cigarette referred to any cigarette made in a factory on a cigarette making machine. A roll-your-own cigarette was made by the smoker from a sack of Bull Durham or the like. James Jones in From Here to Eternity mentioned tailor-mades being smoked by soldiers when they had money. Until 1883 cigarettes were handmade. In 1880 a 21 year old Virginian named James Bonsack invented a cigarette making machine that dramatically increased production. A skilled cigarette roller made 4 cigarettes a minute, whereas Mr. Bonsack's machine turned out 200 a minute. These were called "tailor mades" to distinguish them from handmade cigarettes.
NOTE: This section talking about the boys down at the pool hall means they are trying to mimic adults, and look as if they are drinking beer and smoking tobacco, although they are drinking fake beer and smoking fake cigarettes.
Sen Sen—When a country swain went courting his rural sweetheart, he often carried in his pocket an unobtrusive little envelope of Sen-Sen. When his younger brother indulged in smoking behind the barn, he too, had use for the exotic little pellets. For Sen-Sen was to the 19th century what breath mints are to our time. Any country store worth its salt, prominently displayed a box of the handy little packets within easy reach of its customers.
Rag-time—A style of jazz characterized by elaborately syncopated rhythm in the melody and a steadily accented accompaniment.
corn crib—A structure for storing and drying ears of corn.
Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang—Started in 1919 (too late for Music Man, but I guess Willson wasn’t worried about that!). From the book Humor Magazines and Comic Periodicals, "Few periodicals reflect the post-World War I cultural change in American life as well as Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang. To some people [it] represented the decline of morality and the flaunting of sexual immodesty; to others it signified an increase in openness. For much of the 1920’s, Captain Billy’s was the most prominent comic magazine in America with its mix of racy poetry and naughty jokes and puns, aimed at a small-town audience with pretensions of ‘sophistication’" This publication was to the male adolescent culture of the 1920s what Playboy was in the 1960s. Quit publishing sometime from 1932-36. This magazine created the foundation for Fawcett Publications, the publishing company that later created True Confessions and Mechanix Illustrated.
swell—(slang) excellent, wonderful, delightful (mid 19th century)
so’s your old man—catch phrase from 1900. An exclamation, used as a retort to an insult or slur.
The Maine—U.S. battleship sunk (Feb. 15, 1898) in Havana harbor, killing 260, in an incident that helped precipitate the Spanish-American War. The cause of the explosion was never satisfactorily explained, and separate American and Spanish inquiries produced different results. But the American jingoistic press blamed the Spanish government, and Remember the Maine became the rallying cry of the war.
Plymouth Rock—Plymouth, Massachusetts, is the oldest settlement in New England, founded in 1620. Plymouth Rock is on the beach where the Mayflower landed.
The Golden Rule—saying of Jesus, from the Bible -- As ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. Evolved into modern saying — Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
