See Here, Private Hargrove: To Be Young Was Very Heaven

 When I was an undergraduate at Augustana College, there was a metal book rack in the foyer of the library marked "Take a book, leave a book."  There wasn't usually much of a selection: well-thumbed copies of The Godfather and Love Story,  romance novels, five-year old freshman composition textbooks.  But I found a small red textbook of Medieval Latin and Tarzan the Invincible (one of the later Burroughs novels).  One damp, cloudy Saturday afternoon during my senior year, there was nothing but an ancient, yellow-paged paperback, See Here, Private Hargrove.  

Army life during World War II?  Dreary!  But I was heading for a 5-hour shift at the Student Union Snack Bar, which was always deserted on Saturday nights, and I needed something to read.  So I exchanged it for The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin. 

I had a slight sore throat, a sort of lump that made swallowing difficult -- in the COVID era it would be inconceivable to go to work while sick, but back in the 1980s, unless you were dying, you went.  The Snack Bar was a desolate square space with about ten round white tables and a gleaming counter up front. I was the only one working.  We sold hamburgers, french fries, sandwiches, chips, sodas, and some desserts.

 From the cash register I could see the glass wall with doors leading outside, now dark and stormy with rain; the banks of mailboxes to the left, and Adam's Bookstore to the right.   From 5 to 10 pm, I had maybe ten customers.  I had dinner at my post -- a hamburger, french fries, and a carton of milk. 

 But mostly I read See Here, Private Hargrove.  It was a collection of humorous anecdotes, originally published in the Charlotte, North Carolina News, about Marion Hargrove's life as a private at Fort Bragg in 1940 and 1941: "The Boy Across the Table...",  "A Soldier Stuck His Hand....", "I Grinned Weakly...": chores, drills, bellowing sergeants, trips into town to go to movies.  The sort of thing that was popular during the Vietnam War: No Time for Sergeants, Gomer Pyle, Hogan's Heroes (not quite the same, but close enough).

I've done some research since.  The novel was made into a movie in 1944, starring Robert Walker (1918-1951). best known for the gay-subtext Hitchcock thriller Strangers on a Train (1951). He was married twice and had four children, so I doubt that he was gay in real life.

I haven't seen the movie, but according to IMDB, Private Hargrove gets a girlfriend (played by Donna Reed, future 1950s housewife on The Donna Reed Show) and a best buddy (played by gay actor Keenan Wynn).  So there may be some buddy-bonding.

Robert Walker's son, Robert Walker, Jr (1940-2019)., played the boy raised by aliens, Charlie X, on a 1966 episode of Star Trek.  He had three wives and seven children.  Probably not gay.

Marion Hargrove (1919-2003) went on to write two more novels, plus magazine articles and television scripts.  His credits include I Spy, The Name of the Game, and The Waltons.  His humorous account of trying to get a couch for the studio office was published in The Playboy Book of Humor and Satire (1965).  He had two wives and six children, so probably not gay.

Today, I have replaced the small paperback with a hardbound copy -- just to have, not to read -- I don't want any new memories to develop.  I want to see the book on its shelf and flash back to that night -- the sore throat,  the hamburger and carton of milk, gazing out through the glass windows into a rainstorm, all of it.  Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.

See also: Boots: A gay teen and his straight buddy join the Marines. In 1990. With other gay characters and all the beefcake you could hope for

Arabic and Class Rings: Cruising at West Point during my junior year in high school

"House of Guinness": Heirs to a beer empire in 1868 Ireland. With a gay brother, shirtless hunks, Irish hiphop, and a heck of a lot of d*cks

 

Link to the n*de dudes

I've been having trouble recently, beginning reviews of movies and tv shows and then not liking them, or when I like them, there's no gay representation or beefcake, so I can't review them here.   So this time I cheated by checked in advance: House of Guinness has a gay character, and lots of the actors have appeared n*de.

Episode 1 Prologue: Closeup of the beer-making process, with the ingredients, water, hops, and so on.  A sweaty bare-chested bloke adds the fire.  I like this tv series already.  Then comes family, money, and rebellion.  

Scene 1: St. James Gate, Dublin, 1868:  As Foreman Rafferty (James Norton, left) walks through the factory, a dude asks if there will be trouble today. Of course, there's always trouble with the Guinness Family. 

Outside, someone throws a beer bottle at the logo, and Prohibitionists burn an effigy of Benjamin Guinness: "A brewer of sin and debauchery!"  His funeral is today, and they are intent on preventing his procession from making it to the church.

The Temperance Movement was nearly as popular in 19th century Ireland as in the U.S., attributing almost all crime, poverty, disease, and insanity to alcohol consumption.  

Meanwhile, Fenian Leader Patrick (Seamus O'Hara) tells his followers than the Guiness heirs  are weak and divided, so this is a perfect time to free Ireland -- by attacking the funeral procession!  "Grab whatever weapons you can find, but spare the horses -- all horses are Catholic."

England occupied Ireland until 1922, forbidding the use of the Irish language, discriminating against Catholics, and promoting stereotypes that are still common today.  There were lots of revolts, rebellions, and terrorists acts, notably from the Fenian Brotherhood.

In the factory (very impressive set, lots of workers), Foreman Rafferty tells the men to arm themselves.  They have to fight to get the boss's corpse through to the church.

The battle is accompanied by the hiphop song "Get Your Brits Out," by Kneecap. Ordinarily I dislike contemporary music in a historical drama, but not when it's mostly in Irish:

Ach Stalford agus an DUP

Gach lá, taobh amuigh de mo theach

"Go back to Dublin if you want to rap"

Anois éist, I’m gonna say this once

Yous can all stay just don’t be c*nts

 

Scene 2: Iveagh House, the Guiness family home (built 1736, now the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade).  Femme, decadent Edward (Louis Partridge) complains that his button-down conservative brother Arthur (Anthony Boyle) has been in London so long, he's lost his Irish accent.

The third brother, Benjamin (Finn O'Shea, top photo) is asleep on the couch, still hung over from one of his benders.

They discuss the hypocrisy of everyone pretending to grieve, when the Irish hated him, and the English are happy that he is gone: now they can manipulate the children.  

Sister Anne tells them to shush their bickering; it's time for the funeral, and they have to act like a civilized Christian family: "Decadent Edward, change your shirt. Drunken Benjamin, change into some clothes you haven't slept in. Conservative Arthur, just change." 

More after the break

Whoops, My Dear: The Evolution of a Homophobic Slur

When you research the pop culture of the past, you occasionally come across a mystery.

In an Archie comic book story from the 1960s, Archie has to hold Veronica's purse.  Reggie see him, flashes a limp wrist, and exclaims "Whoops, my dear!"  He is "accusing" Archie of being gay, but how? What is the implication?

In a comic strip from the 1940s, Mickey Mouse decides to put up flowered wallpaper.  His friend then "accuses" him of being gay by dancing around and saying "Whoops, my dear!"

The homophobic slur appears on The Carol Burnett Show (1970s), in popular novels (1950s), and on the Burns and Allen radio program (1940s).   But what exactly does it mean, and how did it come to mean "I think that you are gay?"

The earliest use I have found is in a 1910 song by Bert F. Grant and Billy J. Morrisey:

Georgie was a dainty youth, well known for miles around.
Up on the street both night and day, he always could be found.
With his natty little cane and flaming crimson tie
When he'd come strolling down the lane, you'd loudly hear him cry, "Whoops, my dear."

He's a turn-of-the-century dandy, his cane and red tie symbolic of gayness, although in this song, he's courting women.

A Dictionary of Criminal Slang  (1913) lists it as a "jovial expression of fairies and theatrical characters"  Fairy, of course, was a derogatory term for a gay man.

An  undated "vintage" birthday card from about the same era has a little girl bouncing around, with the caption reading: "Whoops, my dear. Another year!"  Apparently not a homophobic slur.

In a 1915 story by Elinor Maxwell, we read that Mr. Clarkson Porter is "not much on hair, or a slim waistline, but when it comes to a bank account, whoops, my dear!"

Sounds like a mild expression of surprise.

"What Do We Care for Kaiser Bill", a World War I song (1917):
Now Percy left his home one day to join the flying corps
He said I'll make those horrid boys and girls feel very sore
The first time that they took him up, it made him feel so queer
When in the clouds they looped the loop, he yelled out "Whoops, my dear."

Percy (a gay-coded name of the era) yells out the phrase because he's feeling dizzy.  He's probably been turned gay ("queer").

In the 1920s, tourists to Paris could go to the Petite Chaumiere at 2 Rue Berthe, where the "men dressed as women...cavort around and swish their skirts and sing in falsetto and shout 'Whoops, my dear.'"



"I Wish't I was in Peoria" (Billy Rose and Mort Dixon, 1925), tells us that:
They're yelling "Whoops my dear" in Peoria tonight.
They've got a big red-blooded warrior, he wears a red tie in Peoria,
Oh, how I wish't I was in Peoria tonight.

The song is about how the "hick town" of Peoria, Illinois is far more sophisticated than Manhattan.  For instance, they have gay people there.  Red ties still signified gay identity.


In 1932, the Green Street Theater in San Francisco was playing "the continental spicy musical cocktail Whoops, My Dear.", aka Die Guckloch (peephole).  Mild expression of surprise at sexual shenanigans.

In the 1930s, a gay couple named Frankie and Johnny performed at the Ballyhoo Club on North Halsted in Chicago.  Among their numbers was:

Whoops, my dear, even the chief of police is queer.
When the sailors come to town, lots of brown
Holy by Jesus, everybody's got pareses in Fairytown

A mild expression of surprise at the existence of gay people.  I can't even guess what "lots of brown" means, but "pareses" is an inflammation of the brain that occurs in the late stages of syphillis.

In 1946, the Cocktail Guide and Ladies’ Companion by Crosby Gage, a theatrical producer and president of the New York Wine and Food Society, included such drinks as Euthanasia, Whoops My Dear, and Psychopathia Sexualis.

(Shown: Gage Crosby, no relation, a University of Arizona swimmer).

Lucille Ball sang the phrase in "Hey, Look Me Over" in Wildcat (1960), about an attempt to strike oil in Texas (top photo: her costar, Keith Andes):

We're hitting the road
Loud as a Shanta Clare but jittery as hen
The road to glory running a "whoops my dear,"
but here we go again. Yeah!

A "shanta clare" is a chicken.

She seems to mean that the Road to Glory is surprised to find her trying to strike oil again. 

In 1967, a Virginia newspaper was running a column with beauty tips.  The author disapproved of mini skirts unless you wear "mini-type  underpinnings," because otherwise, "Whoops, my dear!  Everything is showing."

 So by the 1960s, you could use the phrase to mean both "I am surprised!" and "I think you are gay!"  

Both meaning vanished from popular use during the 1970s, but probably not due to gay activism, since slurs like "fag," "homosexual," and the mor recent "yag" are still going strong.

Beefcake and Bonding in the Green Library

When I was studying French in high school,  if I ever tired of Tintin, Alix and Enak, Corentin, and Spirou and Fantasio, I could move on to the small square children's books published by the Librairie Hachette, the Bibliotheque Rose (pink) for humor and the Bibliotheque Verte (green) for action/adventure.

I preferred the green, especially Georges Bayard's Michel series, about a 15-year old and his older brother who sleuthed like the Hardy Boys (Michel a Rome, Michel en plongee, Michel et Monsieur X, etc.)  Except there were more kidnappings and last-minute rescues than the Hardy Boys faced, more stories set on boats and at the beach, and  unlike the American adventure boy series of the 1940s and 1950s  Hachette was not skimpy on the beefcake.  He was as physique-intensive as the British boys annuals.  Apparently being a teen sleuth gives you a magnificent physique.

I also liked the Italian street urchin of David Daniell's "By Jiminy" books in his French translation, Cricketto (Cricketto de Napoli, Cricketto et le petite prince, Cricketto dans la foret vierge, and so on).  He became a lean, muscular teenager, who adventured and buddy-bonded with his older friend and benefactor, Tom Trevor.  The illustrations favored black speedos for Tom and red for Cricketto.

Willis Lindquist's Haji of the Elephants is about a young Indian mahout and his Western boyfriend, in the tradition of Sabu, Jonny and Hadji, and Terry and Raji.  But in the French translation, they both became teenagers in dhotis with beautifully drawn chests and shoulders.

Rene Guillot wrote many juvenile adventure stories about massive Tarzans raised in the wilderness, such as Le Chef au masque d'or. 

And I can't even begin to count the homoerotic subtexts in Philippe Ebly's "Conquerants de l'Impossible" series, about three buffed, eternally shirtless teenagers from different time periods: Serge (modern France), Xolotl (Aztec Mexico), and Thibault (Medieval France).  They band together in a complex plot arc that decides the fate of worlds, while never so much as looking at a girl.

Ebly also wrote the "Evades du temps" series (Time Runaways), about two  teenagers, Thierry and Didier, who are hiking through a mysterious woods when they become unstuck in time, like Paul in Spellbinder.  They meet the prehistoric teenager Kouroun, who doesn't own a shirt, and band together to fight supernatural enemies and look for a way home.

They even had gay-themed novels, such as Pierre Loti's Iceland Fisherman.

I wonder if my French teacher noticed that I only borrowed the books with the beefcake covers.

In college I discovered a whole new collection, the Signe de Piste.