Rosalind Russell and Edie Adams – "Ohio" (1953)

Why, oh why, oh why oh

Why did I ever leave Ohio?

I read Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust when I was in college . . . but that was a l-o-n-g time ago.

I don’t remember much about that book.  So I had no clue how to answer the following question when it popped up at trivia earlier this week:

“What enduring animated TV character shares his first and last name with one of the main characters in the 1939 novel, The Day of the Locust?”

None of my teammates had ever heard of that book, much less read it.  So it looked like we were in trouble.

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Nathanael West, the author of The Day of the Locust, was born Nathan Weinstein in New York City in 1903.

West dropped out of high school but managed to get admitted to Tufts College (now Tufts University) by presenting a forged high school diploma.

After Tufts got wise to West and expelled him, he got into Brown University by appropriating the transcript of his cousin, a Tufts student who was also named Nathan Weinstein. 

According to his biographer, West did little schoolwork at Brown but read extensively.  I bet he would have been a good trivia player.

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Speaking of trivia . . .

We ended up turning in “Homer Simpson” as our answer to the question posed above.  

The first episode of The Simpsons aired in 1989, so Homer certainly qualified as an enduring character.  Of course, you could say the same about Bart Simpson.  

My team thought about going with Simpson fils instead of Simpson père as our answer, but we couldn’t decide whether to refer to him as “Bart” or “Bartholomew.”  (Our trivia host is a pretty picky guy.)

Homer Simpson at work

In the end, we stuck with Homer – and that turned out to be the right choice.  Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

(Here are some of our other correct answers from that night: Enola Gay, DeLorean, Tom Selleck, Tampa Bay Rays, Y is for Yesterday, 1984, Carli Lloyd, Napster, and La Paz.)

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In The Day of the Locust, Homer Simpson is a bookkeeper from Iowa whose doctor advised him to move to California for his health.  

Homer has been described as a “soft-mannered, sexually repressed, and socially ill-at-ease” man whose inner torment is manifested through the seemingly uncontrollable movements of his unnaturally large hands.

Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, told an interviewer in 2012 why he chose to name his protagonist after The Day of the Locust character.  “Homer was my father's name,” Groening said, “and I thought Simpson was a funny name in that it had the word ‘simp’ in it, which is short for ‘simpleton’ – I just went with it.”

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The Day of the Locust is set in Hollywood, and most of the book’s characters other than Homer Simpson work in the movie industry.  

Nathanael West knew that industry well.  He had been employed as a screenwriter by several Hollywood studios, and his wife Eileen was Walt Disney’s executive assistant.

A year after The Day of the Locust was published, West and his wife died in an automobile collision resulting from his failure to stop at a stop sign. 

Coincidentally, West’s friend and fellow novelist-cum-screenwriter F. Scott Fitzgerald had died from a heart attack the day before.

Eileen’s body was cremated and her ashes placed in her husband’s coffin for burial.  I wonder if their family chose to do it that way so they only had to pay for one cemetery space instead of two.

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The Wests died just a few days before they were scheduled to fly to New York City to attend the opening night of My Sister Eileen, a play that was based on autobiographical short stories written by Eileen’s sister Ruth.  

In those stories – and in the play based on them – Ruth and Eileen are sisters who move from Ohio to New York City to seek fame and fortune.  (Older sister Ruth wants to be a writer while younger sister Eileen is an aspiring actress.) 

My Sister Eileen was very successful – it ran for 864 performances, and was made into a 1942 movie starring Rosalind Russell.  

My Sister Eileen also inspired the 1953 musical Wonderful Town – which won five Tony Awards (including Best Musical).  

My Sister Eileen is also the title of a 1955 musical comedy film that’s based on the original play, but doesn’t use the music from Wonderful Town.  (Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia Pictures, had wanted to make a movie version of Wonderful Town, but couldn’t agree on a price for the film rights for the musical.  So he had a new score written and ordered other changes to avoid running afoul of the copyright laws.) 

Last but not least, My Sister Eileen was turned into a sitcom that aired during the 1960-61 season on CBS.

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Ruth and Eileen didn’t have it easy when they upped stakes and moved to New York City.  In today’s featured song from Act One of Wonderful Town, the sisters wonder if it would have been better for them if they had stayed in Ohio.

Click here to listen to the original cast recording of “Ohio,” with Rosalind Russell as Ruth and Edie Adams as Eileen.  (If you don’t know who Edie Adams is, click here to watch her singing “Big Spender” on behalf of Muriel cigars.)

Click here to buy “Ohio” from Amazon.

Edie Adams – "Big Spender" (1966)

The minute you walked in the joint

I could see you were a man of distinction

A real big spender

(Hey, if the shoe fits . . . )

On day two of the 2 or 3 lines "Tour de Missouri," I rented a bike in Defiance, Missouri, rode it from Defiance to Dutzow (one of the oldest German immigrant communities in Missouri) and back to Defiance, and then hopped in my rental car and headed west on Missouri Route 94.

My first destination was the Blumenhof Winery, one of ten or so wineries accessible from Route 94 between Defiance and Dutzow.  

Blumenhof, which has been producing wine for about 30 years, uses mostly its own grapes.  (It buys the rest from local growers.) 

The majority of its wines are made from hybrid grape varieties that were bred to be grown in the United States, including the Vidal and Vignoles (which are made into white wines) and the Chambourcin and Cynthiana (which are made into reds).

The Cynthiana is genetically identical to the Norton, which is the official grape of Missouri.  The Cynthiana/Norton not only makes delicious red wines, but is high in anthocyanins, which are the antioxidant compounds that make blue, purple, and red fruits especially beneficial to your health.  So drink up, boys and girls!

After sampling half a dozen Blumenhof wines, I headed south across the Missouri River and then proceeded west along Missouri Route 100 until I reached New Haven, which is home to the Röbller Vineyard winery.

When I got to the Röbller tasting room, the winery's very personable owner – Robert Mueller – was on duty.  I not only got to taste some very nice wines, but also heard the story of how Röbller got started in 1988.  (The name "Röbller" is a contraction of "Robert Mueller.")  We ended up talking about wine, music, and other topics until well after the tasting room's posted closing time.

Robert Mueller

Like many Missouri wineries, Röbller produces a number of semi-sweet German-style white wines, including a Traminette (a hybrid grape that's related to one of my favorites, the Gewürztraminer).

Röbller grapes

But the tasting highlight of my visit to Röbller was its Norton, a red wine that was easily distinguishable from Bordeaux and Burgundy-type reds but just as enjoyable.  I bought a bottle of Röbller's 2011 Norton and enjoyed it greatly when I returned to my parents' home in Joplin a few days later.

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From New Haven, I continued west to Hermann (population: 2431), which was founded by the German Settlement Society of Philadelphia in 1837.  

The statue of Hermann in Hermann

Hermann is German through and through.  It was named after Hermann der Cherusker, a Germanic warrior who defeated the invading Roman legions in the Battle of Teutoberg Forest in the year 9 A.D.

The town claims to be the sausage-making capital of Missouri, and the immediate area is home to seven wineries, including Stone Hill (the largest winery in Missouri).

Oktoberfest in Hermann

Hermann is a charming town.  There's nary a chain hotel to be found, but there are dozens of bed-and-breakfasts and guest houses.

Based on a local's recommendation, I ended up eating dinner at Wings A-Blazin', an unprepossessing restaurant on a side street that featured spicy chicken wings and "chicken lips" (which are sliced chicken breast pieces prepared like hot wings).

Wings A-Blazin' is an aviation-themed restaurant.  The facade of the building features a replica of a World War II fighter plane:

Inside there are airplane-related signs on the walls:

Here's another one:

Someone has made model airplanes out of beer and soda cans and hung them from the restaurant's ceiling:

The restaurant was crowded when I arrived, so I took a seat at the bar and ordered catfish fried in cornmeal, curly fries, and baked beans.

Wings A-Blazin' had an interesting selection of draft beers, including several from Missouri microbreweries:

The Wings A-Blazin' draft beer list

I struck up a conversation with the only other person eating at the bar, a young woman named Sarah.   (When I call a woman "young," that means younger than my daughters, who are 28 going on 29.)

Sarah was a soil engineer who was staying in Hermann temporarily while she worked on a construction project at a nearby nuclear generating station.  (I hope she studied hard when she was getting her engineering degree.  I wouldn't want a C student working on a nuclear power plant.)

We talked mostly about bike riding and music – she was a fan of the White Stripes and Sonic Youth, who are favorites of 2 or 3 lines, and recommended several other groups I wasn't familiar with. 

When I ordered a second beer, I bought one for Sarah as well.  Later, I found out that Wings A-Blazin' sold pints for two bucks on Tuesday nights.  "Hey, big spender," indeed!

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Are you old enough to remember the Muriel Cigar TV commercial that featured Edie Adams singing "Big Spender," a Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields song from the 1966 Broadway musical, Sweet Charity?  (You didn't have to be a big spender to smoke Muriel Cigars, which sold for a dime when that commercial was filmed.)

Edie Adams

Edie Adams earned degrees from the Juillard School of Music and the Columbia School of Drama, and also studied at the Actors Studio.

Adams first gained fame as the co-star of The Ernie Kovacs Show.  (She and Kovacs were married in 1954).  She appeared in dozens of other TV shows and a number of movies, and won a Tony for her portrayal of Daisy Mae in the musical Li'l Abner.  

When Adams died in 2008, the New York Times said she "both embodied and winked at the stereotypes of fetching chanteuse and sexpot blonde."  

Click here to listen to Edie Adams singing "Big Spender."