Judge, 1929-06-15 · page 25 of 36
Judge — June 15, 1929 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous essay titled "High" and "Swat" by Judge Jr., satirizing American vacation culture in the early 20th century. The piece mocks the impracticality of vacations: promotional pamphlets waste time deciding where to go, leaving little actual vacation time remaining. The main joke concerns three mosquitoes encountered during summers in a Catskill Mountain village. The author develops a comedic love triangle: he abandons a blonde mosquito for a brunette, triggering a jealous battle in his hair that leaves a bald spot. Years later, the abandoned blonde still waits at the railway station for him. The satire operates on two levels: it ridicules vacation marketing hype while using the absurd mosquito narrative to parody romantic melodrama and women's supposedly irrational jealousy ("women are like that"). The accompanying pen-and-ink illustrations depict the author in various vacation scenarios and the climactic mosquito confrontation. The piece targets leisure industry exaggeration and early 20th-century gender stereotypes simultaneously.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IMIG: A note on my desk from my editor, It “This week's isa special num- In plain view of the fact that you, Junior, are a naturally inclined Vacationist-Loafer, 1 very firmly believe that could do copy relative thereto, I'm in a it. Call Mac on the phone immediately you're through y reads: ber, ‘The Vacation Number,’ you some rush for for hurry-up drawings. You can find him at North Hempstead, Lakeville, Cherry Valley, Lido, Inwood, or Piping Rock Country Clubs.” ething about vac: 1 should tions, have zone ont Vacations are naught but meet- dumb pretty girl after ! There was that blonde at You by the Se that brunette at Dentpurse vund; that week-day widow at Nice-limbs Beach Personally [am against: vaca tions. By the time you've waded th hh several hundred bally- hooing pamphlets in an effort to ing one another, ny way on decide between mountains and sea, your vacation is half over. The average vacation lasts two weeks. Who can you possibly learn to safely care for ina wee Pamphlet covers will display a bathi girl who looks sick ‘n’ tire f winning beauty contests You rush to the station and buy a ticket to that resort, You ar rive light-heavywe in tight-fitting stockingless, and ladies wearing high button shoes You can spend the entire two weeks battling one mosquite. 1 spent three summers: running in a Catskill Mountain village. Each time [arrived at the little rail way station the same mosquito was there to meet me, : to the hotel sat onomy hat and rede with me. She was blonde and rouged her stingers. ‘The last summer TL spent there she stung me on the tip of my nose. ‘T She explai was going too far, it was leap year. The stur red welt on the tip of my nose would protect me from other mos- quitos, she said. 1 was pretty hot under the collar. I had given her no encouragement. It was brazen, no end. 1 immediately be; company with a brunette mosquito. The blonde saw us together one night down xan keeping LK by the Jake, under a full moon The brunette was fyir mse to my ear and buzzing a little love song—"Digey Diggy Do-0-0-0!" if 1 remember correctly. ‘The blonde attacked the brunette. Primitive stuff, I know, but women are like that. The battle was furious, It was fought in my hair. A small bald spot marks the battlefield. When I stoop over to tic my shoes, look closely and vou will a tiny stone slab inscribed, “The Battle of Buzz Run.” TP never returned after the third summer. ‘They say the little blonde still sits on the bs truck waiting, waiting, waiting. IT ran inte the president of that railway not long since and he told me she was looking badly—rings under her eyes and wearing a wooden stinger, mark of battle o'er me. He saw the brunette, too, and she still carries a lock of my hair under her wing. She brightened perceptibly when told I was still a bachelor. She'd heard U'd Point, L k 1 pla on Sands Island, for the sum mer. She plans to spend part of the season in the marshes near Flushing and may buzz out to see me. Tf she does, I hope she little stone slab. Jupor, Jr. embraces me on the “Battle of Buzz Run” comicbooks.com