Smith and Dale

Charlie Dale and Joe Smith

Thoughts fly into my brain like pigeons come to roost on steel girders under train trestles. I don't try and discourage these thoughts. I now write about them.

Take the date February 22nd. We have one every year. For those with an elementary school education that took place in the '50s and early '60s it is easy to remember this is George Washington's birthday. Not Presidents' Day, the artificial holiday meant to honor Abe and George with appliance and car sales, but his actual birthday when he was born in 1732.

I can still see the calendar hanging in the kitchen from Bill's liquor store on Murray Street, just north of Northern Boulevard, where the adults in my family were good customers. We always had a calendar from Bill's.

And the maker of those calendars used icons on holiday dates to depict what the holiday was about. February 12th, a head shot of Lincoln; February 22nd, a head shot of Washington.

Separately, Lincoln and Washington's birthdays were celebrated (at least in the North) with a day off. The South was still mad at Lincoln for what he did during the Civil War, and refused to honor February 12th in any form.

Employers eventually tired of giving people two days off in so short a month. Thus, Presidents' Day was born. A quasi holiday designed to set grammarians off on how to use an apostrophe. Think about it: How do you pronounce an apostrophe? Never mind arguing about Covid relief bills. There should be legislation eliminating apostrophes.

Regardless, I will always associate February 22nd with George's birthday, and the day in 1968 when a friend of mine called me to tell me his father had passed away.

The father, Sidney Piermont was quite sick with emphysema and one lung, with a tank of oxygen in his bedroom. Nevertheless, he still managed to get to work at CBS where he was a television producer for the Carol Burnett and Gary Moore shows. I've written about him before.

The CBS building (Black Rock) was not far from where he lived at 101 West 55th Street. Getting to work was not impossible. He was born in 1902 and eventually became a booking agent for Loew's theaters when they booked vaudeville acts, the form of live entertainment before radio and television took over.

The pigeon that flew into my brain on February 22nd was the funeral for Mr. Pierpont at Campbell's Funeral Parlor on Madison Avenue. My father was with me, since he knew the two sons I was friendly with. At one point there was a bit of a ruckus as an elderly gentleman came in and seemed  distraught at the death of his old friend. The fellow was Charlie Dale, from the comedy team Smith and Dale. Mr. Pierpont's wife, Susan, helped calm him down.

Charlie Dale lived in the same building as the Piermonts. Smith and Dale were a famous vaudeville comedy team performing many classic sketches, notably the Dr Kronkite sequence that is absolutely side splitting, and gives you an idea of what made people laugh, and can still make people laugh without cursing up a storm. YouTube it.

Sometimes with a another person dressed as a nurse, a chair and a desk, the two men unleash a barrage of facial expressions and silly one liners that win you over. I remember my father getting the biggest kick of seeing Charlie Dale. He grew up with the humor of these guys.

As often happens now, I research the obituaries of people that come to mind to see how the news of their death was presented. It turns out when Charlie Dale passed away in 1971 it was fairly big news. The obit is not bylined, but extends for two columns, with photo

A sample of dialog from their famous Dr. Kronkite skit is provided. But also mentioned are the odd jobs they had during the day that they did just to make enough money to get by on while they looked for bookings in vaudeville, performing in the evening at a wide array of locales, theaters and bars. Sidney Piermont did many of those bookings, thus the friendship.

The reference to a daytime job they both held, "as hash-slingers during the rush hour at Childs' restaurant at 130 Broadway..." is nearly as funny as their skits.

Childs' was a chain of restaurant that were still around in the '70s. They were a step above eating at a bar or the Automat. There were communal tables with waitress service. 

The menu was simple fare, but notably included "corned beef hash." You just don't hear the word "hash" these days unless it's "hash tag."

But back then, it was a popular food choice, that I was astonished to see is still available in cans. Buying a meat product in a can is something that always struck me as completely unappealing.

As a kid in Flushing there was a one-story factory on either side of Murray Street between 41st Avenue and Barclay Street, Claridge, that prepared meat in cans. I think they may have been big during the war creating rations for the soldiers, but even after the war they were producing meat products in cans.

I only ever saw their cans once in our local supermarket. I don't know what markets their products were sold in, but on warm days their doors were open and you could see the workers stirring meat in huge tubs. It looked disgusting. 

A hash-slinger would be a counterman who would be preparing the orders, somewhat like a burger flipper of today. Dive restaurants could be referred to as "hash houses" that served up edible, but rather foul looking food that was chopped up—hashed—and presented with say eggs. You had to be hungry to eat that stuff.

I'm not sure I ever ate at a Childs' restaurant, although I saw plenty of them in Manhattan. Another staple of a restaurant of the era would be Salisbury Steak, chopped beef formed as a patty and served with gravy. I think there were plenty of TV dinners that were Salisbury Steak.

Smith and Dale performed their routine several times on the Ed Sullivan show, itself a bit of a vaudeville show billed as a variety show. Sullivan shows were Sunday nights at 8:00 and featured the most eclectic selection of entertainment you could imagine.

In that era harness racing was big, and I distinctly remember Cardigan Bay in full harness on stage with Ed. Cardigan Bay was a champion pacer and the first to win $1 million. The show was a circus.

The comedy of Smith and Dale was of its own era. Perhaps it died with the  passing of its practitioners. But it never really went away.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com