Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, June 1922 · page 13 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #34 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is a humorous semi-autobiographical defense of Captain Billy, the magazine's founder, responding to reader curiosity about his background. Harvey Fawcett (the Business Manager) provides a tongue-in-cheek biography claiming Billy grew up among wild horses in North Dakota, recovered a drowned body at age fifteen, rode the rails as a hobo ("Knight of the Blind Baggage"), served in the Spanish-American War, worked various jobs including WWI captain, and founded the magazine. The humor relies on absurd exaggeration and tall-tale conventions typical of *Whiz Bang*—a satirical magazine known for irreverent humor. References like "Blackjack Pershing" (General John Pershing) and being "burned by hot tea in Japan" appear designed as mock-heroic flourishes. The closing note about finding letters "in the smokehouse" reinforces the publication's comedic, anything-goes tone. This is self-parody masquerading as biography.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 11 would be too difficult a task for Captain Billy to attempt to analyze his own "locoed" make-up, so I will endeavor to handle the difficult job. If you wish a glimpse into the statistical side of my older brother, I will gladly supply this information. He is about forty years old and was brought up among the wild horses of North Dakota until his fifteenth birthday. On this natal day, with the aid and assistance of five dol-lars obtained through his recovery of the body of a drowned man from the muddy Red River of the North, he hied himself to the railroad yards of the Great North-ern at Grand Forks, N. D., and for a few months became a Knight of the Blind Baggage and Rods, enroute to dis-tant meccas of the "bindlestiffs." The next year Bill allied himself with the American army, then at the age of sixteen, and made himself eli-gible for a Spanish-American War Veteran button. He denies the report that while in the Philippine insurrection, Blackjack Pershing was his orderly. However, he ad-mits that he was burned by hot tea in Japan. Returning to the States, he took up the occupations, of steamboat deck hand, railway mail clerk, newspaper re-porter, captain in the World War, and then launched the old Whiz Bang midst the crowing of the hens and the bulling of the bull, which undoubtedly excuses him for spreading the bunk. Can't quite see what satisfaction you might glean from this semi-autobiographic conglomeration of junk, but if it does nothing else, it will at least show that we appreciate your letter and your interest. Yours until the pedigreed cat comes home. (Sgd.) HARVEY FAWCETT, Business Manager. (Editor's Note—Copies of above letters were found in the smokehouse upon my return today from the snow drifts and pine trees. It is spring so I have the excuse for further slinging of poetical muck. When you finish reading this