The Cauldron No. 4
Fourth in the series titled “The Cauldron” – the circa 1930’s and 1940’s musings of Nelson Douglass Jr. aka Granville Douglass. Enjoy his views and insights of yesteryear, laced with humor, honesty, and sincerity.
Nelson Douglass Jr. was my paternal Grandfather. A man I never met on the physical plane but know intimately through the wealth of writing, notes and stories he left. I am working on a book about a small segment of his life, which you can read about on my website dedicated to this work.
The Cauldron No. 4 by Granville Douglass
When a bit of sunshine hits ye,
After passing of a cloud,
When a fit of laughter gits ye,
And yer spine is feelin’ proud,
Don’t forget to up and fling it
At a soul that’s feeling blue,
For the minit that ye sling it
It’s a boomerang to you.
– Capt. Jack Crawford
Leadership –
Owen D. Young, former Board Chairman of the General Electric Co., and one of our greatest industrialists, has this to say about leadership: “The average business man never becomes a leader because of his unwillingness to pay the price of responsibility. Such responsibility means hard, driving, continuous work – the courage to make decisions, to stand up under adversity and perplexing problems – and the honesty of never fooling yourself about yourself…….. You travel the road of leadership heavily laden. While your ‘nine-to-five’ associates take their ease, you must toil and work toward your goal through the night. You laboriously extend mental frontiers…….. Every new effort wears a new groove in the brain. The grooves that lead to high success are not made between nine and five. They are burned into the brain by midnight oil.”
Things I Don’t Like About People –
The habit a certain fellow has of talking with a cigar in his mouth. And speaking of cigar smokers, you can get an interesting slant on their personalities by observing whether or not they leave the bands on.
Something I’ve Always Wondered About –
I don’t understand radio or anything about it, except that sound travels in waves. Somebody told me that these waves never completely die out. Well, if that’s so, won’t somebody, sometime, invent a means of picking up sound waves that originated long, long ago? I’d be rather interested in hearing what Nero played on his fiddle while Rome burned – and I’d like to tune in on Anthony and Cleopatra about suppertime. The radio permits us to hear Hitler yelp six thousand miles away, and thirty years ago we’d all have said that was impossible, so why should it be impossible to reach out and contact the waves that still carry Napoleon’s mumblings at St. Helens?
Men of History –
Much history is being made today – and out of the maelstrom of world events will come new names for history. Some men already have made their marks – others will join the famous before the world is calm and settled again. Some will be warriors, some statesmen. And some will come from more obscure and more humble fields of activity. Collectively, they will be symbolic of a crazy, mad struggle which began before the war started and which will have ended long after the last shot has been fired. The passage of time will greatly dim the rivalry and feeling that exists between many of these men of destiny. This is pretty well borne out by what time has done with regard to the feeling that Disraeli had for Gladstone. Each made his mark but it appears that England’s famous premier had little regard for the Great Gladstone. Disraeli once said this of Gladstone: “A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at al times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.” Disraeli is the one who always said, “If you are right, never explain.”
Reflections of a Bachelor –
Never blame the girl you love for flirting with other men. She is only trying to prove to her own satisfaction that she loves you.
Things I Miss –
Nat Goodwin’s – out on the pier. The original Ship’s Cafe and the old Ocean Park bath house. The swell fish dinners we used to get for two bits. Sneed’s old place up on Broadway – and that crazy little trolley that ran up Angelino Heights. A lot of good times sans motor cops and high taxes.
Miscellaneous –
Why don’t kids collect cigar bands nowadays? ……..Remember the races up Mt. Wilson back in the good old days? Ed. Dietrich wond the first one. He was as good at endurance contests of that kind as he was at chess. Ed, a retired attorney, still lives here in Los Angeles…….. I ate dinner the other evening at a restaurant recommended by an easterner, a connoisseur of good foods. Why is it we never seem to know where to go in our own home town?…….. Well, it’s a great life if you know when to weaken.