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25

   "Mae," said Mrs. Ives, "this is the damnedest pie I ever ate!"
   "I'm sorry, Lucy," replied her sister, "but I had a hell of a time with the oven."
   Charlie looked at them in consternation. "Ladies, ladies," he remonstrated, "what [[underline]] words [[/underline]] you are using!"
   "What's wrong with them?" asked Mrs. Ives. "You use them all the time. We thought you might like to know what they sound like at the table."

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   John had two of Hermann Lemp's favorite aphorisms which I get a kick out of. Hermann retired just about the time I came to Erie and moved to Philipsburg where he went to work for Ingersoll-Rand, so I never got to know him although he went to the Unitarian Church. He is generally credited with being "The Father of the Diesel-Electric Locomotive." He evidently was a character. The two aphorisms follow:

   There was a boy who dearly loved to ride on wagons. He would sit on the tailgate of the wagon and drag his feet on the road as they moved along. But all he accomplished was to wear out his shoes while the horses didn't even know he was dragging his feet.

   Tomatoes grow faster than oranges but raising tomatoes is a hell of a slow way to get oranges.

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This concludes the material I'd collected from John Davis.

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   Maurice Guynes and I evidently got pretty chummy over the years and by 1933, after I'd been working for him for three years, I find we had at least two wingdings which I considered significant enough to warrant preserving on idea-cards for my future writing. The first card, which is dated May 11th, is very brief and I'll quote it in its entirety below:

   Guynes and I make the rounds trying all the beer places in Erie--Lawrence, H&M, Reed House, Ford, Rex, Pisa, New China, Ford, H&M and home. What we see and hear in each one after the manner of Hemingway.

The way such an evening as this would develop usually was when one of Maurice's old pals like Bill Hamilton would come to town, we'd entertain him, and then after putting him on the train, Maurice and I would continue the rounds because Maurice enjoyed drinking thoroughly and also enjoyed a letdown once in awhile.