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By Root 445 0

in a shabby motel in New England, I sat down on a cold, rainy dawn to a bowl of soggy Wheaties and found myself suddenly, and for no reason, thinking of Rochelle Hudson. Rochelle Hudson! She had not entered my conscious musings since the age of eight. The sound of traffic roaring by on the Maine Turnpike reminded me that Reality was only a hundred yards away. As I spooned up more of the cereal that Jack Armstrong ate and that Hudson High won its football games for, I hurled Rochelle Hudson from my mind. Instantly she was replaced by Warner Oland, the original and definitive Charlie Chan. He grinned at me from under his Homburg, enigmatically, and disappeared. There stood Judge Hardy, about to have a man-to-man talk with either me or Mickey Rooney. The thump of a football, and roly-poly Jack Oakie, wearing a white sweater with a big block C, picked up his megaphone and started a Locomotive as Tom Brown, his arm in a sling, June Preiser clinging to his jersey, trotted out on the gridiron—Center College six points behind and only four seconds left in the game! The crowd roared, blending with the sound of a huge Diesel bellowing by on its way to Augusta.

I was yanked back to the Now momentarily as a plate of toast was clanked down next to my coffee. But I could not fight it. Without reason or rhyme the film unwound in my subconscious, picking up the tempo of the thundering traffic on the great turnpike, as Jimmy Cagney, his Maserati in flames, roared past the immense grandstands at Indianapolis, the mob screaming for blood, his oil line broken, his faithful mechanic—Frank McHugh—dying of burns in the cockpit next to him. The checkered flag fell as Jimmy, his goggles misted from streaming gasoline, a thin, ironical smile on his lips, swerved into the pits. Out stepped Alan Hale, rugged, silver-haired, beaming, in the full-dress uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted. With him, riding easy in the saddle, was Dick Foran. And a string of broad-chested Malemute dogs howled as they headed into the great forest after another Fugitive from Justice.

With an enormous conscious wrench of will power I struggled to break this ridiculous montage of fantasies that continued to crowd irresistibly in upon me. I could not get my mind off these shifting, kaleidoscopic images. I tried to concentrate on my road map as I finished the Wheaties, and the harder I stared at the red lines the more they seemed to resemble Pat O’Brien, in the uniform of a Navy Chief, barking out orders to Wallace Beery.

What the hell is this!? I am a grownup, hard-hitting, Hip contemporary man, and I have no time for such transient, imbecilic time wasters.

I swished my plastic spoon around the bottom of the bowl to scoop up the last few spongy flakes, and it was at that instant that I knew. It was the bowl itself that had caused Rochelle Hudson to make an unscheduled guest appearance!

I stared hard at it. It was unmistakable, a bowl of remarkably aggressive ugliness, made of a distinctive type of dark green glass, embossed with swollen lumps and sworls representing the fruits of the vine and the abundance of Nature. A bowl that had but one meaning. I peered at it long and hard. Yes, there was no mistake. It was genuine—a mint-condition, vintage Movie Dish Night Premium Gift Bowl.

I glanced the length of the lunch counter at the proprietor who lounged listlessly next to the coffee urn, watching the rain fall outside on his gravel driveway. We were alone. I could not resist it.

“Excuse me, but what kind of bowl is this?” I asked.

He looked up.

“What do you mean what kind of bowl? Glass.”

“Yeah. I know it’s glass. But where did you get it?”

“Whattaya mean.…are you an Inspector?”

I never knew there were Cereal Bowl Inspectors working the Maine Turnpike.

“No. It’s just that you don’t see bowls like this very often.”

He looked back out at the rain and I knew that our conversation was at an end. I stirred my coffee and examined the green-glass monstrosity lovingly as I faintly heard Myrna Loy’s mocking voice twitting William Powell through the sounds of the radio