The
Grog was originally a British admiral.
An 11-year-old boy goes 30 feet into a well to save a baby.
The composer of I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen, really meant what he wrote.
Can you imagine that?
Yes, friends, this is Lindsay McCarrie back once more with another batch of Stranger Than Fiction facts with which to astound an amazer.
We've dug up some more fascinating peculiarities of this old world of ours,
and in just a moment or two, my cohorts and I will be back with you to present them.
And yes, sir, we're back.
Now, on most of these Can You Imagine That broadcasts,
we're going to give you the picturesque origin of some word now in common usage in the English language.
The word grog today means any hard liquor or alcoholic beverage.
Now, I wonder how many of you know how grog came to possess its present meaning.
Well, it goes a way back almost 200 years to the year 1740.
Let's imagine ourselves back in that year on board an English man o' war somewhere on the high seas.
Oy, this is a night for work, laddie.
You'll be earning your pay in food this night, winds stirring up the sea like a witch's broth.
Hey, look alive there. Oh, grog will be coming on deck soon. Look alive.
Old grog? You mean Admiral Vernon?
The same, my lad, Admiral Vernon. Him and his grogram cloak.
Grogram cloak?
Aye, grogram cloak. Half wool and half mohair, so they say.
He wears it in foul weather. We call him old grog.
But a better sailor never set foot on oak decks, and a tougher admiral never commanded a ship.
Oh, well, let's go up and take on some vittles, lad.
Yes, sir.
Now move over, Mikey. Let the man sit down to his supper.
Oh, I don't like that.
And who? And I'm thirsty.
Nothing like a panic in a woman rum to take the chill out of a man's bones after his walk to wet and stormy deck.
Here's to British rum.
What's this? What's this?
He don't like it.
Who put water in my rum? Foul joke, I call it, after a man has climbed open his sail.
Who put water in my rum?
Admiral Vernon, old grog.
That's a lie. And if I find the one what done it...
Now it's true, mighty. Old grog's cut and extension. And cut and rum does the tree-heating.
Well, I'll be watered rum.
Now ain't that the thing, watered rum?
Taint rum and it taint water. It's half and half and not fit for either name.
I know what we'll call it. Name it after him what thought of it.
Grog. That's what it is, grog.
Grog!
And so the word grog, originally from the French language grograin, meaning a coarse-grained cloth,
then into English as grogram, then as a nickname for a famous British admiral,
then as his concoction of half rum and half water, now means any alcoholic beverage. Can you imagine that?
Now, we're going to take you to Texas, to eastern Texas to be exact, on February 18, 1928,
a group of workmen are busy tearing down the old courthouse to make way for Eastland County's new capitol building.
As the cornerstone is about to be removed, one of the interested visitors, County Judge Edward Pritchard, looks on.
Okay, man, she's on. Hey! Hey! Look at here!
What's eatin' you, spy? Seen a hater monster?
No! But look at this little old man.
Well, ain't you ever seen an horned toad before? Yeah, but this one was in that there cornerstone.
What is it, boys? What's the matter?
Oh, hello, Judge Pritchard. Look what we found. Little old horned toad, dead. Poor little fella.
Oh, let's see. He's been buried there in that cornerstone for 31 years. That's how old this building is.
That's right. Hey! Hey, you all see what I see?
What's up now, spy? Can't you see?
That darn thing has opened its eyes.
Yes, sir, the horned toad opened its eyes and in a little while began to breathe.
Pretty soon, Old Rip, that's what they came to call him, Old Rip became a national institution.
He was the living manifestation of the western Texas legend that a phrynosoma cornutum, horned toad, due,
could live a century without food, air, or water.
As a matter of fact, Old Rip even visited Calvin Coolidge in the presidential mansion.
The whole situation became such a national issue that when another horned toad was sealed in the cornerstone of the new Eastland County courthouse,
a group of humane citizens obtained a court order to have him released. Can you imagine that?
But, Lindsay, I can't understand how any living thing could live for 31 years without air, or food, or water.
No? Well, you know, that's just what a group of scientists do.
So, some of them began to investigate. After experimenting, this is what two of them said.
Dr. William W. Mann, director of the National Zoological Park.
It's absolutely impossible for Eastland toad to have lived 31 years in a cornerstone.
Dr. G.K. Noble, curator of reptiles in the American Museum of Natural History at New York.
It's absolutely impossible for an animal to live without oxygen for any length of time.
So there you are. Did Old Rip live 31 years sealed in the cornerstone of the New York Zoo?
Or did Old Rip live 31 years sealed in that cornerstone in Texas? Or didn't he?
Well, I'll leave it to you because apparently the scientists and the citizens of Eastland can't agree.
Can you imagine that?
Well, now let's see. Oh, yes, here's an odd little story that I found in a newspaper of 1912.
It was on May Day of that year in the town of Dothan, Alabama, that a group of workmen had just finished lunch
and were returning to their task of boring a well.
All right, boys. Get to work.
All right, boys.
Hey, what's this?
This Tom Papa must like a picking in it.
Oh, hey. Looky down there in that well.
Man, oh, man, it's a white baby.
Come on, come on. Let's get to work. What's holding up the parade?
Looky, boys. Down there in that old well. Little white child. Doesn't fall in.
Well, don't stand there. Get him out.
We can't go down there in that hole, boys.
It's 30 feet down to the bottom and only 15 inches across.
None of us can get down there, no.
Yeah, you're right. We can't widen the hole. It doesn't fall down there on the baby.
What's happened?
Oh, run along, young man. Run along. Run away.
Come on, tell me. What's that?
Hey, there's a baby down that well.
That's right, white boy. Baby doesn't fall down there and we can't get him out.
Of course you can't. You're too big. But I can.
What? Well, sure you can. Will you do it, boy?
Sure I will. Come on, tie a rope around my feet and let me down that way.
Sure. Go on. Get a rope out.
Well, sir, young Henry Matthews, a tailor's apprentice, 11 years old,
was lowered slowly down into that 30-foot well.
Down, down, down toward the little three-year-old Benny Grant he went.
Twice he tried and failed. Twice he had to be drawn up without the baby.
Then, on the third try, at last his voice rang up the narrow excavation.
Hold it.
Okay, I've got him. Pull his up.
And the two were drawn up to the surface, both safe and uninjured.
When the baby's father, bank cashier B.J. Grant, warmly thanked Henry Matthews,
Henry said bashfully,
I toward nothing.
Uh-huh, but the Carnegie Foundation and Mr. Grant thought differently,
for Henry received not only a Carnegie Medal for valor,
but a trust fund to provide him with a college education.
Can you imagine that?
You know, a great many of our popular songs have had a strange inspirational origin.
Most of the so-called pop tunes today are written to fit a particular situation
in a motion picture or a stage musical production.
But some of the old ones can boast of a much more romantic beginning.
For instance, well, let's go back to a home in Louisville, Kentucky in the year 1875.
Thomas Payne Westendorf, a native Virginian,
is sitting in the parlor with his beloved wife, reading.
Tom.
Yes, honey?
Tom, I've been thinking.
You know, the doctor says that since, since our baby died,
he thinks I should have a change of surroundings.
Yes, Kathleen, I know.
And I think you should go back to New York in the spring to visit your mother for a while.
Would you like that?
You know I would, but, well, I feel dread that long trip all alone.
Alone, oh, honey.
You don't think I'd let you make that trip alone, do you?
Don't worry. In the spring, I'll go with you, Kathleen.
I'll take you home.
Thank you, Tom.
I think I'll go to bed. Good night.
Good night, honey.
After his wife had left the room,
Tom Westendorf couldn't concentrate on his book.
Something seemed to draw him to the piano.
Music would prove a solace in the recent sorrow he and Kathleen had experienced.
As he improvised on the ivory keys,
his eyes fell upon an old song by George Parsley,
Barney, I'll Take You Home Again.
The words of the title struck him.
Immediately, a melody seemed to drip from his fingers.
Suddenly, he left the piano and began to write words.
Verses flew across the paper before him.
Within an hour, Thomas Payne Westendorf
had written the words and music of one of our most beloved ballads.
I'll take you home again, Kathleen
Across the ocean, wild and wide
To where your heart has ever been
Since first you were my body bride
The bones of all have left your teeth
I've washed them fade away and die
Your voice is sad when e'er you speak
And tears bedip your loving eyes
Oh, I will take you back, Kathleen
To where your heart will feel no pain
And when the fields are fresh and green
I'll take you to your home
Again
Yes, Tom Westendorf really meant what he wrote
when he penned the song I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.
Can you imagine that?
Well, I'm afraid it's time to bid you all farewell again.
This is Lindsay McCarry reminding you that we'll be back again soon
on this same station with another batch of amazing facts and fancies
for the next session of Can You Imagine That?
Can You Imagine That?
Can You Imagine That?
Can You Imagine That?
Can You Imagine That?
Can You Imagine That?
Can You Imagine That?
Can You Imagine That?
Can You Imagine That?