[Leica] Dan's Eleanor Roosevelt story

[Mark Langer <mlanger@ccs.carleton.ca>]

If this story is true, Dan, then Eleanor and the sailor were stealing
lines from W.C. Fields.  The exchange appears to be adapted from the end of
the Fields film It's a Gift(1934), where his character, Harold Bissonette,
has spent his life's savings to buy an orange ranch.  The orange ranch
turns out to be a dust bowl, and a disconsolate Harold begins to drink his
troubles away.  But Bissonette discovers that his land is the only place
where a grandstand can be built where the sun isn't in the spectators'
eyes for a racetrack that is under construction adjacent to his property. 
The owner of the track tries to swindle Bissonette by offering far less
than the property is worth.  Harold turns down his offer and asks for an
astronomical sum. The track owner makes a lower offer and Bissonette says
"You're crazy".  The owner counters "You're drunk".  "Yes," says
Bissonette, "but tomorrow I'll be sober and you'll be crazy for the rest of
your life." 

The other possibility is that Fields was moonlighting as Eleanor
Roosevelt's gag man. :-)

Mark

> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 11:24:25 -0400
> From: "Dan Post" <dpost@triad.rr.com>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Canadian lenses
> Message-ID: <003501c0d89c$21f3d6a0$32d25818@triad.rr.com>
> References: <200105090701.AAA12792@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> <3AF95A35.B57F3FB4@t-online.de>
> 
> Hans- ( Und Franz, auch!)
> It reminds me of the story- probably an anecdote made up for just such a
> purpose as mine, which describes a meeting of the former first lady, Eleanor
> Roosevelt with a drunken sailor on one of her inspection tours during the
> war. ( The BIG one!)
> It was said the sailor, very impolitely stated that the first lady was the
> ugliest woman he had ever seen in his life, to which she replied that he was
> the drunkest man she had ever seen in hers.
> His retort was, "But I'll be sober in the morning...."