SO GUPPA BECAME a sharecropper. He staked out a stretch of land running along one side of our lot, from the back of the garage to the foot of the hill. Every day when the weather was suitable for gardening he came over after work, wearing one of the identical brown suits that he always wore at work, suits that my grandmother, Gumma, called Studebaker suits, carrying a canvas bag in which he had his gardening clothes, a pair of overalls that really made him look like a farmer. When he had changed into his gardening outfit, it was easy to imagine him after the crop came in, standing in the field, watching the weather with a practiced eye, chewing on a stalk of his wheat. Until dusk each evening he worked quite happily with hoe and rake and spade. Under the pretense of helping him, I tried to make my case for his taking one of his inventions to Flo and Freddie. I urged him to rush home during his lunch hour to watch the show. To please me, he did, and then I chattered at him about the virtues and errors of inventions that had appeared there.
I discovered to my surprise that my grandfather was a shy man. He had no reticence at all about plunging into a Studebaker pitch with a complete stranger, but when it came to showing publicly the products of his own imagination, he was timorous and retiring. I wouldn’t give up, though. I dragged Guppa through the entire inventory of his existing inventions and weighed them as possible Flo and Freddie items.
“What about the thing that raises the stuff in the drawer when you open it?” I suggested.
“That’s not a complete success, Peter,” he said.
“Aw, come on, Guppa,” I said.
“Sometimes everything falls on the floor,” he pointed out.
“Or on your feet,” I admitted. “I guess you’re right. Well what about the mailbox?” Guppa had rigged up the mailbox so that a light on top flashed if there was mail in it.
“That’s a good one,” he said, “but it’s not my invention. I got it from Impractical Craftsman.”
“Oh,” I said.
I must have looked glum, because he said, “Look, Peter, I hate to see you disappointed in this. I tell you what. I’ve got a few gadgets in mind for the garden. While I’m working them out I’ll be thinking about the show. Maybe I’ll come up with something right for it.”
“You will, Guppa,” I said. “I know you will. I’m sure of it.”
“No guarantees, Peter,” he said.
No guarantees were necessary. I had already decided that if Guppa just put his mind to it he could come up with something that could get him onto “Fantastic Contraptions”—and win.
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.
The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.
The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, and Reservations Recommended.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document) and at Encyclopedia.com.
🎧 569: So Guppa became ...