Hats Fantastic, a marvelous journey introduction

  

Let me tell you about myself. 

I am John Pierpont.

                              

            My business associates call me Professor Marvel. 

            My friends call me Ponty

Contrary to popular belief, I am not a professor. Well, I do not have a degree in fashion or millenary. But why should that stop me? I have wicked sense of style, and a passion for unusual design. A perfect recipe for an outstanding hat.

With my dearest friends we decided to build a hotel with a small park attached. Little did we know what we would accomplish.

We had a few hiccups to say the least....

Edna May. 

She ran the brothel in the Lumber camp in the canyon. As we expanded the park, the oldest profession in the world had no place in a family setting. Safe to say, she was not happy. I soon found out an incident that was all part of the Edna's plan to inherit back some of the parkland that they lost when the founders started buying up everything and closed down their gramma's brothel...

Young Fishington was quite a rascal in his younger days. The stories of his escapades made for quite the gossip fodder. If Stanley Wolf believed any of it, he kept it to himself. Edna set her sights on him, because everyone knew, Fishington was always trying different things. He loved exploration. He loved exotic foods. He was a patron of the arts. She would appeal to his questioning nature. She would seduce him and produce an heir. An heir to eventually take control of the mounting wealth that he had amassed.

So, she assumed. 

(Personally, I think one of the Edna triplets tried to seduce him with absinthe because he certainly would have had to be unconscious...)   

The deed was planned.

But never carried out.

Why you ask? 

Well, there is a story there too.

And amazingly enough, it involves a hat.

Here's where yours truly comes in to save the day. 

To begin, we were all quite young. Headstrong gentleman trying to make a name and fortune for us. Doc Fishington was trying to raise monies and investors for the park while The Major was appearing in Pirates of Penzance's North American tour. As luck would have it, the costumes had been damaged by an itinerant laborer and the production hats had been soaked wet, when the trunks fell into the Missouri River in Omaha. I had been plucked from obscurity from the Omaha's Fancy Goods & Mercantile to savage what I could. The Major, impressed by my work on his Act 1 hat, insisted I become his personal costumer and travel with the company to finish the tour.

Working for the Major was, well, an experience. What I first chalked up to an eccentric scatterbrain was in fact, a calculated persona of proper British manners and posh Mayfair accent. One evening, after a performance in St Louis, the MG pulled me aside. Ponty, he said, your very talented in the Millenary business, " What other talents do you possess? Any other creative endeavors? Interior design? Architecture? Have you ever thought about the burgeoning Trolley Park industry? 

Well, there is something you don't hear every day. "Well, Sir, Architecture has always been a passion of mine. Designing a hat can be like designing a home. A nice sturdy base with fancy trims to make it stand out. But I have never thought about a Trolley Park." "The tour ends soon", the MG quipped. "Return to Peepsburg with me. I will introduce you to Doc Fishington and his marvelous plan to turn a swampy pond into a Lakeside Resort. We could use a talent like yours. You'll be well compensated, and the exposure would put a nice feather in your cap, so to speak." The MG smiled at his own joke and twirled that signature mustache of his. "By the by, how are you with the ladies? Oh, don't look at me that way, that's not what I mean. What I refer to is, can you design a hat for a lady, well, lady is an exaggeration. " He rolled his eyes in what I learned was an uncontrollable action on his part. She has nefarious plans. You, good Sir, can help to derail them. All it will take is a hat. A special hat. Do you think you're up to the task?" He smiled in a way that was impossible to say no too. 

So off to Peepsburg and Rose Lake we did go....

Many years later, about 1950, after the statute of limitations had expired and no one could be prosecuted, the MG, Fishy and I were lounging by the pool at the Fabulous Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. We were guests of the mobster Bugsy Segal. The MG asked what ever became of Edna May's "special" hat. Jason suddenly needed a refreshment and hurried to the Casino Lounge, " Stan, it's been years, why ask now?" "Well, Bugsy inquired earlier about a "special" hat. Something about a debt to pay, etc., etc., I have no clue what any of that is all about." The MG sipped his Mai Tai and deftly plucked the paper umbrella out of it and stabbed the pineapple wedge as he gave me a side eye. 

" Everyone knew she passed from a bad heart, not from possible arsenic and lead poisoning from, oh I don't know, something she was wearing every day for weeks, or months. She was buried in it for heavens sakes, so it couldn't have been that. Where in bloody hell did Jason go? This drink isn't going to refresh itself and the poolside waitresses seemed to have vanished in this desert heat." The MG fanned himself with a program from the evening performance he was starring in. He glanced at it. " I do not know how, Greased Lighting Tonight, Songs of Nat King Cole, will go over with this crowd." 

 " How did you?" I stumbled on the words.

"My dear Ponty, I asked you to make something, and you did. I did not ask for details. It gave me plausible deniability. We averted a difficult situation, and my Jason was spared an unfortunate dilemma. If Bugsy wishes to employ your services after all these years, who am I to interfere? " 

" I think I'll pass, I'm retired, we all are. My hat days are long over.", my voice trailed off. 

"Oh, heavens, you think you, Oh, no, no, no," The MG scoffed. "Three words. Edna May Jr. The bad apple didn't fall far from the tree. Your hat was a distraction. Nothing more. Merely corroborative detail intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."

I sputtered," Stan Wolf, did you just quote the Mikado again?"

   

     

       

The Forbidden Fruit and a Filthy Fetish

Sifting through several bags of mis-labeled, out of sequence, and uncategorized photos and documents, Bob and I have noticed a disturbing trend in the appearance of Professor JP Marvel.  Well, disturbing to me at least; Bob seems to be unable to stop with the hysterical laughter.

In a series of photos that we're quite certain were taken somewhere in the early 1910 timeframe, it seems that our favorite (ok, MY favorite) historical hat-maker grew somewhat larger than the other founders.  Not exactly Edna-esque in size (although both of our favorite Edna's do tie into this story), but he had certainly become a man with a more rubust silhouette.  And probably a couple of busts themselves.  We followed the trail back in time and it appears this newfound stature of his was first documented in this photo:

"He could stick a four course meal on that hip and still have both hands free to hold a knife and fork," said Bob.   Bob is not wrong in this observation.

I mean, honestly it doesn't even look like him.  I wouldn't have even though it the same person, but Bob was able to remove all the water damage and restore the handwritten caption on the photo's backside:  "Prof. Marvel, Plancovania Fireman's Ball, La Grande Aubergine, 1909."

What's this?  He could sketch photo-realistic scenes, design fabulous headwear, AND fight fires?  Well, no.  As it turns out he was not a fireman at all.  But the story starts much earlier than that, with a tiny shack on the nearby peninsula across from Loggertown where Edna's boarding house conducted "operations."  (Bob asked me to put "operations" into air quotes, so I did.)

And it actually goes back much further than that, to the childhood of Miss Edna Mae Jr. herself, near the turn of the century before the park was even founded.  It seems (and don't ask how we learned this story, we were on a mission) that as a wee lass (her mama said she was never really a wee lass) that Little Edna would spend her days in the fields frolicking amongst some fruity shrubs, staining her clothes and eventually her face, as the berries they bore were quite tasty.  Her mama told her they were called boobieberries.  Little Edna and her purple stained face eventually took to bringing them home with her in the afternoons, and Mother made them into pies that they would have for dinner.  "If it's good enough for dessert, it's good enough for dinner.  And sometimes breakfast," Mama Mae would say, so often in fact that they eventually carved the phrase on her tombstone.

It wasn't long before Little Edna learned to make the pies herself, often taking them to the schoolhouse with her to give to all the boys in the yard.  They liked her pie so much that they begged her to bring more each day, anxiously waiting for her along the path because the pie was so good that they couldn't even wait for lunch.  Allegedly she even had a little song about it as she skipped home each day, to the effect of "My pie brings all the boys to the yard, that's right..." or something like that.

Mother Edna was so impressed by this that she told her daughter she should start charging money for her famous pie.  Little Edna was so excited by the idea of being a real business woman like her ma that she begged to let her sell them in the boarding house.  "There's enough pie floating around in that place already, baby.  We'll see what we can do for you when you're older."

And that's what she did.  On her thirteenth birthday, Mama put a blindfold on Little Edna and led her across the footbridge to the wooded empty peninsula across from the camp, and when the blindfold came off her daughter could not believe her eyes and squealed with delight:  A modest structure to be sure, but the words "Little Edna's Pie Hole" were right there in great big letters.

Not only did Little Edna have her own business, but she no longer had to go to school each day because really, school was just Mama's way of getting her out of the house for a few hours while she went to work.

Well, this brings us to the summer of 1909, when a certain Professor Marvel was out and about on his weekly walk and stumbled upon the shack he had not noticed previously, and he look up to see Little Edna Mae Jr. standing upon the porch with her pie in the breeze, hoping to attract some business.  An excellent business plan, as the professor took one taste of that pie and he was hooked.

(We comissioned an artist to render a drawing of this historic event.  Little Edna was known for her red dresses as they seemed to conceal the boobieberry stains.  And while the professor may appear to have white hair in this portrait, that is actually the sun glaring off of the back of his now balding head.  The professor was said to believe his premature hair loss was caused by the massive weight of the hefty hats that he wore.  This theory does not explain why none of the women who sported his creations suffered any hair loss of their own.  Profound neck and severe back pain, but not hair loss.)

Those weekly walks over the footbridge turned into daily walks, and not just once per day.  Modern day park goers to Rose Lake know that "Little Edna's Big Gaping Pie Hole" obviously survived it's startup status and remains in operations to this day (thankfully not in that same tiny shack), mostly due to the frequent trips made by the Professor during those early days of operation.

But back to the (lengthy!) story.  In the autumn of 1909 the Plancovania Fire Department held their annual ball in the Grand Aubergine Ballroom at the Grand Cocotier Hotel, by which time Professor Marvels' waistline had become rather grand itself.  Before his addiction Professor Marvel had been in training to actually apply as a fire-fighting volunteer, partly because he knew the park would eventually need someone of such a skillset, and partly because he really wanted to wear the shiny hats.  He suited up for the soiree (dress for the job you want, they say) in hopes of impressing the fire chief, Captain BJ Hornblower.

(photo taken from a subsequent ball, as Rose Lake did not have a fire department in 1909 and all attendees were members of the Perseverence Fire Company in Peepsburgh)

(captain Hornblower himself, standing next to a horn.)

The story goes that Hornblower was not at all interested in the advances of Professor Marvel, not so politely shooing him aside as he was rather starstruck by local celebrity Major General Stanley Wolf and followed him around all evening like a lost puppy, continuously offering to demonstrate his impressive hornblowing skills.  The Major General himself was preoccupied with several firemen of a younger variety, and both Captain Hornblower and Professor Marvel went home that evening alone and forlorn.

This experience of course, did nothing to curb the Professor's appetite for Little Edna Mae Jr's. perfectly precarious pie.

----------------------

"What's with all the alliteration?" Bob asked me while proofreading this story.
"What?" asked me.

The Delicate Flower.

The Plancovania Historical Society would like to apologize for the profound lack of Rose Lake Park updates in recent weeks, seems our historian Mabel Mabel has come down with some sort of flu virus and has been bedridden since the early part of February.   She indicated that she should probably have checked herself into the hospital by now, but laments the lack of health insurance provided to our volunteer employees renders this effort to be cost prohibitive for her. 

We thought about reminding her that her Medicare would probably absorb the majority of any costs, but then we thought otherwise, as it occurred to us that we can bring several boxes from the archives to her house, and set up her scanner next to the bed where she spends her days drifting in and out of consciousness.

Here are her most recent set of scans.

Above is a rare photo the Mae girls, Sr. and Jr., stepping out of the church following weekly services.  It was said that Pastor Paul held a special additional service for the girls, as each of them would take up an entire pew to themselves.

Also noteworthy, in later years the small cemetary to the left of the chapel had to be greatly expanded to accomodate the space needed to bury Edna Mae Sr., whose health began to deteriorate shortly after this photo was taken.   Edna Mae Jr. went on to continue her mother's legacy, not just at the hotel but eventually um, expanding the business into an entire empire encompassing all corners of Rose Lake.

The Burns boathouse along Fisherman's Cove, complete with upstairs apartment for the Captain and his wife.