Perelman Tonight: Departure day looms -- Part 2 of "Westward Ha!"

"In the cold gray light of a winter dawn they gathered at the airport to bid me Godspeed, the gallant band of relatives who had stuck by me through thick and thin like leeches. Tears streamed down the cheeks of cousins and nephews who now would have to go back to work."

-- from tonight's installment of Westward Ha!

by Ken

In last night's installment of Westward Ha!, our man's announcement of his plan to travel round the world for Holiday magazine -- accompanied by his old pal Al Hirschfeld, doing illustrations -- didn't produce quite the effect he expected from his family.

"Well, folks," I said casually, "Daddy's off to the Seven Seas." Unfortunately, at this precise moment my foot encountered a roller skate lying athwart the threshold. As my wife and the dwarfs looked up in astonishment, I ricocheted across the room, clawed ineffectually at the toile de Jouy drapes, and stemming myself with a Christiania turn, crashed to the floor, taking a cloisonné vase with me. The memsahib sighed heavily.

"It's no use trying to conceal it any longer, children," she told them. "He drinks."

"Does he beat you, too, Mummy?" demanded the boy, a manly little fellow of ten, as he took a step forward and doubled his fists.

Neverheless, the soon-to-be world traveler finds himself in a whirlwind making preparations for departure.


FOR TONIGHT'S INSTALLMENT
OF WESTWARD HA!, CLICK HERE


COMING SUNDAY-THURSDAY IN BOB AND RAY TONIGHT: Act II of Bob and Ray: The Two and Only


UPDATE: The continuing saga of Westward Ha!

By popular demand (yes, I can read minds), we're going to return to Westward Ha!, probably the week after next, and see if we can't at least get our intrepid world travelers the heck out of the country.


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, JEAN SHEPHERD, and PERELMAN TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

#

Perelman Tonight: It started in Philadelphia -- Part 1 of "Westward Ha!"

"Actually, the whole business began sixteen years ago, as do so many complex ventures, with an unfavorable astrological conjunction, Virgo being in the house of Alcohol."

-- from the opening chapter of Westward Ha!,
"Goodbye Broadway, Hello Mal-de-mer"

by Ken

In 1947 Holiday magazine asked Perelman and his friend and collaborator the brilliant theatrical cartoonist Al Hirschfeld ("a remarkable combination of Walt Whitman, Lawrence of Arabia, and Moe, my favorite waiter at Lindy's") to . . . well, he'll tell you the story in a moment. The saga of their round-the-world trip appeared in Holiday and then were collected as one of Perelman's most successful books, Westward Ha!. I don't know that we're going to get very far into it, but tonight and tomorrow we're going to have the first chapter, as the crazy project is set in motion.


FOR OUR MAIDEN INSTALLMENT OF THE ODD
ODYSSEY OF WESTWARD HA!, CLICK HERE


THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, BOB AND RAY, E. B. WHITE, JEAN SHEPHERD, and PERELMAN TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

#