Several years ago, I read the page one headlines, “Will Rogers Follies takes six Tonys.” I thought of this homespun philosopher and comedian. The coveted awards were handily lassoed by the Ziegfeld-like recreation of the life of the famous Oklahoma rope spinner, Will Rogers. These included best musical of 1990-91, as well as best score, lyrics, costumes and lighting.
Will Rogers, it seems just won't go away. Not even 56 years after his tragic death in a plane crash over Alaska with Wiley Post. For, here he is, appearing on Broadway in a hit show - again.
After I had read those headlines, I headed for Seymour Library and came home with two thick biographies. In the front of one, “Will Rogers - Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom,” by P.J. O'Brien, a picture of Rogers grins at you with engaging impishness. One can easily understand the caption which says, “Everybody liked him and he liked everybody.”
Lowell Thomas - remember him? - wrote, “The character and temperament of an age as well as its common sense are reflected in its laughter. If we hadn't had Will Rogers during the last 10 years, if we hadn't appreciated him and had the sense to laugh with him and at ourselves, we should have been a sad people. One of the finest facts about him was that he never took a crack at any man unless he was riding cockily on top of the world. As he said himself with his unforgettable smile, 'I'm always again the party that's up.'”
Thomas continues: “The only pose in Will Rogers was the pretense that he was an ignorant and illiterate fellow. Actually, he was nothing of the sort. Though he made a bluff at concealing it, his writings betrayed an exceedingly wide knowledge. Whether he was conscious of it or not, the system behind his humor was an exceedingly time-honored one. It can be described in one word - truth. And we are always hungry for the simple truth. That in the last analysis, is what Will Rogers gave us.”
Will Rogers wrote hundreds of columns and made speeches all over the world. But the one he made in Boston five years before his death in 1935 was telling. “When I die,” he said, “my epitaph, or whatever you call those signs on gravestones, is going to read: ‘I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like.' I am proud of that. I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. And you come around to my grave, you'll probably find me sitting there proudly reading it.”
Here are a couple of quotes from Richard M. Ketchum's biography, “Will Rogers, The Man and His Times.”
€ There wasn't any Republicans in Washington's day. No Republicans, no boll weevil, no income tax, no cover charge, no stop lights, no static, no headwinds. Liquor was a companion, not a problem; no margins, no golf pants - My lord, living in those times, who wouldn't be great?
€ Never blame a legislative body for not doing something, when they do nothing, that don't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous.
Dorothy Nelson lives and writes in Auburn
After I had read those headlines, I headed for Seymour Library and came home with two thick biographies. In the front of one, “Will Rogers - Ambassador of Good Will, Prince of Wit and Wisdom,” by P.J. O'Brien, a picture of Rogers grins at you with engaging impishness. One can easily understand the caption which says, “Everybody liked him and he liked everybody.”
Lowell Thomas - remember him? - wrote, “The character and temperament of an age as well as its common sense are reflected in its laughter. If we hadn't had Will Rogers during the last 10 years, if we hadn't appreciated him and had the sense to laugh with him and at ourselves, we should have been a sad people. One of the finest facts about him was that he never took a crack at any man unless he was riding cockily on top of the world. As he said himself with his unforgettable smile, 'I'm always again the party that's up.'”
Thomas continues: “The only pose in Will Rogers was the pretense that he was an ignorant and illiterate fellow. Actually, he was nothing of the sort. Though he made a bluff at concealing it, his writings betrayed an exceedingly wide knowledge. Whether he was conscious of it or not, the system behind his humor was an exceedingly time-honored one. It can be described in one word - truth. And we are always hungry for the simple truth. That in the last analysis, is what Will Rogers gave us.”
Will Rogers wrote hundreds of columns and made speeches all over the world. But the one he made in Boston five years before his death in 1935 was telling. “When I die,” he said, “my epitaph, or whatever you call those signs on gravestones, is going to read: ‘I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like.' I am proud of that. I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. And you come around to my grave, you'll probably find me sitting there proudly reading it.”
Here are a couple of quotes from Richard M. Ketchum's biography, “Will Rogers, The Man and His Times.”
€ There wasn't any Republicans in Washington's day. No Republicans, no boll weevil, no income tax, no cover charge, no stop lights, no static, no headwinds. Liquor was a companion, not a problem; no margins, no golf pants - My lord, living in those times, who wouldn't be great?
€ Never blame a legislative body for not doing something, when they do nothing, that don't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous.
Dorothy Nelson lives and writes in Auburn
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