Life, 1918-05-30 · page 26 of 36
Life — May 30, 1918 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct pieces of satirical content: **"Memorable Days in History"** presents a child's perspective on WWI-era American life. The anecdotes—carrying a drum in a Liberty Loan parade, receiving a trench curio from a soldier brother in France, nearly exposing cigarettes to his mother—satirize how children experienced the Great War indirectly through home-front activities and family connections to the conflict. **"Whom Optimists Should Marry"** is social commentary arguing that optimists should marry pessimists for balance. The humor lies in exaggerating the chaos of a household governed by two relentlessly cheerful optimists, unable to acknowledge any problem—whether "boils or bankruptcy"—as anything but "for the best." **"The Credulous Llama"** is a brief verse about naïveté and reincarnation, presenting a whimsical moral about gullibility. The page's illustrations support these satirical themes with period-appropriate drawings. The overall tone reflects early 20th-century American magazine humor—observational, domestic, and gentle rather than harsh.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Memorable Days in History (According to Little Bobbie) HE day he helped carry the big drum in the Liberty Loan parade up Main Street. The day a trench curio arrived for him from his big brother in France. The day he gave his mother a pair of trousers to mend, but forgot about the cigarette in the left hip-pocket. The day he slid down the spiral banister in the public library—then to be confronted by Aunt Prudence. The day his father lifted him up on the fire truck, and allowed him to grasp the steering-wheel for at least two and a half minutes. The day of examination, when he discovered three of the same problems on the question slip that his mother had worked out with him the night before. The day the family doctor told him he did not have to undergo that operation for adenoids after all. The day his father told him he had secured a job for him as mascot and bat-carrier for the local ball club. The day he asked Aunt Prudence in the presence of company how her nose happened to be so red. The day he was awakened by the bark of a milk-white terrier—his birthday present from Uncle Bill. “T SUPPOSE I DID LOOK LIKE THAT. WELL, THIS WAK HAS DONE SOME GOOD ALREADY” Whom Optimists Should Marry T° all that rising generation of Optimists who are just budding forth, and looking with eager longing to a lifetime of marital bliss, there is a bit of advice that can be given without the slightest hesitation. It is this: No Optimist, be it a he or a she, should ever marry anything but a Pessimist. This rule is invariable, not only because it obeys that wider underlying law that “opposites attract,” but also because it is justified on many specific grounds. A Pessimist serves to soften the high lights in an Opti- mist’s life, to round him out and complete him. A house that has an Optimist and no Pessimist is like a summer sky without a sunshade. There simply must be someone around the house to look on the dark side of things, to make a rigid accounting of the cost of everything and to point out the probable catastrophic results of every pro- posed domestic project. To realize the importance of this rule, one has only to imagine a household governed by two incorrigible Opti- mists, a household where never a wrinkle furrows the brow of an inmate, where everything is considered to be for the best, whether boils or bankruptcy, lumbago or THE CREDULOUS LLAMA soggy muffins, coal shortage or conflagration There once was a credulous Llama, For every Optimist upon this earth there is a good and W he, consalied a Priestess of Brahma. ite pi n your next life,” said she, true Pessimist waiting. Let every effort be made to fulfill “You will probably be this divine law of nature. A dressing-gown, rug or pajama.” comicbooks.oi