Aachoo Voo, Private Eye: 2022

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

All 22 Episodes of Aachoo Voo, Private Eye thus far....more coming soon

https://aachoovoo.blogspot.com/2021/07/all-17-episodes-of-aachoo-voo-private.html

CLICK HERE FOR EPISODES 👆

©by Voo Shining Stone

Sunday, May 1, 2022

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MANNY aka Man Nee Joe... Aachoo Voo Alumni.. .. son of BEAR We love YOU!!!!!

But not Manny...Manny Can DANCE!!!!!

Go Manny! Go Manny!

Baby Two Hats aka Little Laughing Pony

HAPPY 16TH BIRTHDAY PRECIOUS BOY!!!!!

Love you with all of my heart!!!!!💓💓💓

(and yes, you may have my car)

Not THIS one......

👇

This one..........

sitting in there on the shelf with

the heart shaped stone, your baby picture

and the

Velvet Elvis.................

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode 22 Tom B. Ozo's HAM BALL HAVEN ( Episode written while in jail)

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode 22

Tom B.Ozo's Ham Ball Haven

(These events happened before Aachoo Voo's

unfortunate incarceration FYI)

Tom was excited. His mom was excited. I was excited. (Perhaps all for different reasons) I'll get to that later. Or maybe not. New York City was holding it's collective breath. A new eatery was opening up down the street from Clapsaddles'. Harold Clapsaddle was not excited. He was chewing nails and spitting unprintable words. Tom B. had worked for him for a few years as a dishwasher and fly killer and had been brilliant at both jobs but what he'd really been brilliant at was creating brain twisting recipes and exotic menus that sometimes required a translator from the UN. Luckily for Tom B. Ozo, his boss would occasionally have some sort of emergency (such as rescuing his grandmother out of a tree who'd been attempting to rescue her cat Roscoe out of a tree on a bi-monthly basis or some other hair-brained exasperating Clapsaddle family drama. No wonder Harold was so grumpy and prone to pull pranks. A kind of revenge, I suppose.

The Fire Department guys had been called out so often to that tree that they'd finally refused to come anymore and told the family that it was their problem but that they'd be happy to come back if the house was on fire. Besides, they were tired of being hissed at and ripped to shreds by that mean little critter. (And by that, I mean the grandmother.)

On these occasions when Harold was forced to leave the city and take care of Clapsaddle Clan problems, he would leave Tom B. in charge of the always full coffee shop/sandwich shop/fine dining (in his dreams) well known, slightly illegal establishment. An occasion for which Tom B. was always ready and he'd proudly whip on his starched white apron and a tall pristine chef's hat and begin taking orders and creating cuisine that would rival that of the most creative and insane French and Norwegian chefs anywhere on the planet. When word got out that Tom B. was cooking at Clapsaddles', people would line up for blocks to see and hopefully taste some of his concoctions. Extra policemen had to be sent out to direct traffic on our street and to keep order while the customers gave their, you know...orders. Once, twelve people were arrested (I forget why) and once, a member of the royal family of England was smuggled by incognito for a bit of Drunken Shepherd's Pie but left deeply disappointed when Tom informed the valet that they were "all out of shepherds."

Have you ever heard of a Bloody Mary Pie or Quack Quack Quiche or (so help me, God) Rabbit Foot Rarebit? I didn't think so. Ever had an edible necklace made of fresh asparagus and new potatoes? A soup that was so thick that you had to eat it with a knife and fork? I think he called it Shoe Leather Soup. (It was delicious.) I have no idea what was in it but it was delicious. And you didn't have to eat anything else for at least ten days, you were that full.

Tom could make a Cracker Jack Sandwich that would make you cry. (And break a tooth.) He'd whip up a Cactus and Cauliflower Casserole that you'd never forget no matter how badly you wanted to and his ever popular Beef-less Wellingtons....well... would make you slap your mama as MiMi Voo would say. In fact, Tom liked that so much that he created a mysterious and savory dish called The Slap Your Mama in her honor. I don't exactly know what all the ingredients were but I know some of them came from MiMi's freezer all the way from Voo Bayou in Louisiana. Coo-ee!

When Tom was in charge, sometimes he'd call MiMi and she'd come rushing over with boxes full of things and work as his "sous- chef." She loved it and Poppi loved getting her out of his hair for a while. He'd rub his hands together and pull out his stamp collection and smile a little Mona Lisa smile (which is about the extent of a proper English gentleman's expression of excitement.) Anyway, it kept her out of trouble and the customers adored her. She usually went home with her pockets jangling and her eyes twinkling. When MiMi was around, Mr. D'Sal ate there every hour on the hour and had to starve himself the rest of the month to lose the weight. He was smitten with MiMi and her roux. (She called it Voo Roux) and boy, was it good! He even put it on his doughnuts.

If Harold ever suspected anything out of the ordinary going on while he was away he never said but his beady little German/Navajo eyes would fill with tears when he saw all the money in the till. (By the way, Clapsaddle is an Americanized spelling of the German word Klebsattel which is a nickname for a horseback rider.) I know because I asked Harold where he got that name after spending many sleepless nights wondering where he got that name. And I'm pretty sure you've been wondering the same thing so now we both know.

After giving it much thought and at the urging of myself and others who dared him to do it, Tom had at last, after years of plumbing, cooking, landscaping, fixing broken things, part-time clowning and investigating cases that I couldn't personally do, decided to open his very own restaurant. Tom had come up with a recipe for something he called Ham Balls and they started selling like hot cakes. Sometimes he ran a special deal on a Ham Balls and Hot Cakes twofer which sold like....well, you know. He made and sold them when Harold was away and he was filling in and even when Harold was there on the premises, Tom would meet customers truly addicted to the things out in the parking lot and sell them covertly out of his brother's truck. I'm telling ya, people would do anything to get their hands on those......balls. And that would be his slogan when he began to do radio commercials. (They wouldn't allow him to say it on television.)

They were made of ham, of course and God knows what else but they were very tasty and could be used in all sorts of recipes that called for balls. It was a no-brainer. Tom would open Tom B.'s Ham Ball Haven and fulfill his destiny. Harold would cry bitter tears when that day came but he never lost any of his customers aka dirty old men and soon came to realize that New York City was big enough for the both of them. His cash register would never be that full again but it was alright. MiMi would still drop by occasionally and cook up a mess of somethin' for him and "the boys" and everyone would be happy.

The King of Things, T-Wayne Elliottt, Mr. D'Sal, Man Nee Joe and I would all invest in Tom B.'s new business and would make ourselves a small fortune. The decade of the 1940s was obviously the appointed time for Ham Balls and fulfilling destinies for a lot of us and I was thrilled for my friend Tom even though he was born without a last name and would remain last-nameless for many years until he met a gumshoe named Aachoo Voo (boy, that's a story in and of itself!) who would thoughtfully make him up one that seemed perfect, never dreaming that one day B Ozo would become the name of one of the most famous clowns in the history of clownship! Who would ever have foreseen and imagined that?! It was downright prophetic. (In a non-biblical way.) But it was a magical thing too and eventually, Tom started decorating his smaller ham balls like tiny clown heads and mothers would hire him to cater their kids' birthday parties where the man and his clownish balls were always a big hit. Tom was living the dream.

Tom B. Ozo

who was once swallowed by a carp

on his way to Nineveh.

Nineveh, Indiana........

🐋

Tom's famous Ham Balls...try one!

3 for a quarter or five for fifty cents!

this episode is specially dedicated to Tom

as a birthday present. 🍝🎂

Happy 12th birthday, buddy!!!!

see? I immortalized you in writing and I shaved

75 years off your age! Woo boy!

His super hero moniker.......?

ahem........

"THE KNOT TIER"

(yes, you heard correctly)

He ties knots as a hobby

and also to bore himself to sleep

as well as many others.....

New York City in the 1940s.....where Aachoo Voo and her crazy cohorts lived and loved

Saturday, January 15, 2022

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode 21 Solved and Unsolved Mysteries

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode 21

Solved and Unsolved Mysteries

My life was relatively quite quiet for a few months which gave me time to think about things and work on my files and still open cases. I closed some minor cases that were run-of-the-mill things that were almost too boring to deal with but I needed to put them to bed and get paid so I gritted my teeth and closed them. Cases like The Missing Cases of Shoelaces from Griffin's Shoe Store. Yawn. (It had been the gang of feral cats that still hung out in the alleys in our neighborhood. The one I had saved Weiner from.)

What is it with cats and strings and yarn and stringy things? They certainly were sly and sophisticated in their thefts though. We found flashlights and floor plans of shoe stores as well as delivery schedules and small red wagons in their hideout. Hundreds of opened packages of shoe strings. balls of yarn big enough to choke a goat and dozens of half nibbled mouse carcasses and donuts of every variety. There was a poster of a cartoon mouse hanging on a wall inside the wall of McDo's Doughnut Shop where I traced them to that had a bullseye drawn on it peppered with many little darts.

There were lots of cat beds made out of newspapers and old and new clothes all lined up in a row with little Persian rugs beside the beds and little teddy bears lying on them. (Aha! Not so tough, eh Kitty Cats?) I took loads of photographs because who would have believed me otherwise? Griffin's got their shoelaces back in good condition except for the ones that had been braided into ladders and utility ropes. It took a full day to clean the stuff out and nail all the holes shut. That place looked like a luxury hotel for felines! I swear some of those beds had mink coverlets! And matching pillow shams!

Then there was the case of The Missing False Teeth (which I found under an old lady's bed for crying out loud, along with a Bible and six unpaired pink socks.) And there was the case that had baffled me to no end because I had been given absolutely no clues, no identifying pictures, no descriptions and had never even been told what it was that was missing! I finally told the elderly man who'd hired me that I'd found his missing whatchamacallit and put it back on his living room shelf and he seemed quite pleased with that news, paid me generously and commenced to search for something else gone missing that he could hire me to find. (New York City is a lonely place.) Bless his heart.

I also was contacted by Nick's friend Clyde who informed me that Nick had disappeared quite suddenly after his release from the last hospital. He had tended bar a few times but was not feeling very well. He seemed kind of depressed that all the kinks hadn't been worked out of his legs yet. He put on a happy face but Clyde could tell that something just wasn't right. I felt terrible for him. He had been alright until I'd ruined his life. I hadn't meant to but I never meant to ruin any man's life, I just did in one way or another. I investigated things as best I could and spent many days and nights at Nick's Place talking to his friends and customers and following up leads. There were lots of lonely women around who missed him and his unique way of communicating telepathically. Eventually, I talked to someone who had talked to someone who had seen someone see Nick down by the warehouse where his Grandfather Resko's magic equipment had been stored.

I remembered Nick's stories about his grandparents and the way they had vanished in that magic show cabinet and wondered if perhaps Nick had utilized it. So I set out to see if it could be found. Clyde and I searched every inch of that warehouse discovering all sorts of wondrous and magical and spooky things. At last we found the Vanishing Cabinet under layers of dusty sheets and magic show posters starring Nick's maternal grandfather and his lovely assistant/wife, Joy. We uncovered the 4x6 box and stood open mouthed in amazement. There was a shirt sleeve, a pant's leg and a shoe stuck in the door of the cabinet. We finally got the thing opened and that was all that was in it. Not the left sleeve or the left pant's leg or the left shoe, just the right ones. We looked at one another in fear as those items slid down and hit the floor. We then noticed a piece of white paper that said simply in Nick's flowery, unusual handwriting...............

Gone to find my grandparents. But I'll be back.

Nick never came back from parts unknown that anyone knows about and he was never seen again. Clyde took over running the club and made Jack Knife James his partner until Nick returned. So I didn't really solve that mystery or close that case but I darned sure tried! And just like in poor Andy's case, I never forgave myself. (Rest In Peace/Pieces, Nick! I'll save your shoe for you!) Then I took a break and went on vacation and came back with a lemur that I named Popeye and he joined our happy menagerie at Lefevre Arms and I loved him dearly. The parrot on the other hand, no. He stayed on his worst behavior with the lemur. He loved to startle the cute little animal at all hours of the day and night. One day I was afraid he'd actually make Popeye's big petrified eyes...well, pop out.

Then the most horrible thing happened. I was arrested, hauled down to Headquarters and charged with the murder of Si, the Shellac salesman! After all that time, I had almost forgotten about him and he barely crossed my mind except when I shopped for Shellac and refinishing products at Marshall's Hardware and Hat Emporium. I was still working on furniture in my spare time on occasion but only occasionally. There was a new guy working there that wore black horn rimmed glasses, a bow tie and seemed to know nothing about the business whatsoever. His name was Eugene. He kept his nose buried in a bird watching book and let dishonest, stealthy customers walk out with coat pockets full of sandpaper and putty. At least I didn't have to fend him off like I did Si but could shop and come and go unmolested. I did miss the free delivery that Si had provided, however.

"What is wrong with you guys?" I shouted as the cops half carried me out of my apartment that late Friday morning just as I was feeding my pets their brunch and making coffee. "At least let me put on some clothes!" But they were impatient and rustled me out to the patrol car in my bunny slippers and pink bathrobe. I bent to get in and looked up and there was the smiling face of the bleached blonde down the hallway. She waved her plump fingers at me and slammed the window. Things began to click into place. I was being framed. Out of petty jealousy and meanness.

Oh, I would fix her wagon!!!! "Just you wait, Missy!" I mumbled as the car sped down the street, sirens blasting. Of course everyone watching recognized me and I ducked my head in shame while the cop beside me patted my knee and smiled. I jerked away and said through clenched teeth, "I did not kill that salesman! You know I didn't! You have no evidence whatsoever!" "We got circumstantial, baby. Lots of circumstantial. And rumors and witnesses and photographs and a very angry wife!" Aha! I knew it!

I called MiMi and she hurried down and brought me some clothes and things I would need. Along with some things I would not need like a negligee and jewelry and perfume. "Take this back home, MiMi, please." I pleaded in exasperation. "Why?" she drawled in her Cajun/Hillbilly accent. "Don't ye wanna look purty for ye mugshots?" "No, I do not!" I shouted. "In fact, I want you to bring me a pair of overalls, braid my hair up in pigtails and black my front teeth out!" I was so tired of law enforcement attention and side and full frontal mugshots! "Oh, I can't do that, babette." she said. "But don't worry about these coppers, honey, I'll protect ye from them critters! They won't lay an eyeball on ye when I get through with 'em!"

And they didn't because MiMi had put the fear of God, Beelzebub and Hell Fire in them before she left, very disappointed that they would not allow her to bail me out. This time. "Please don't tell Mother!" I begged as they escorted her away. "I won't, Cherie." she promised but it was too late. It was all over the mid afternoon news, the papers, the television, the radio, on the streets and the tongues of gossipers everywhere by the time she hurried herself back home. EXTRA!!! NEWS FLASH!! AachooVoo Arrested for Murder the headlines screamed and the cops said they were afraid she was gonna fry for it! Fry! And not in a cast iron skillet with gravy and potatoes and homemade biscuits and fresh corn and peach cobbler. My Lord! I had only been arrested for twenty minutes and already I was starving for MiMi's good ole down home homemade sweet Southern Cajun cooking and sick of prison food! I would have to ask her to cook me up a mess of something with nail files in it so I could break out of here. Geez Louise!! Rotting in jail sure made a girl go crazy, I'm telling you!

After they had fingerprinted me from head to toe, they took my fingerprints and twenty two mug shots, including several of me with the arresting officers, their bosses and their bosses' bosses. Then they lectured me, read me some scriptures, tried to get me to confess to that crime and several other unsolved crimes and just before actually taking me to a jail cell, they looked it up in their cop manuals to see if there was any such thing as an official legalized standard procedure allowing them to spank me. Thankfully there was not. I clutched my black lace negligee to my chest (they had let me keep it when MiMi wouldn't take it home.) (They had tried to make me wear it but I'd refused.) The girls of the night in the cell next to mine offered me all manner of costume jewelry and hose and used lipsticks, etc for the thing but I put my hands over my ears and shut them out.

I climbed into the bottom bunk of the bunk bed screwed to the wall and covered myself with my lace gown and a thin gray blanket. I cried a little bit because although I had been brought in on false charges many times before, I had never been actually jailed. I worried about my pets though MiMi would take care of them. I especially worried about facing the parrot if I ever got out of there after all the times he had taunted me and prophesied that I would one day end up in prison. I couldn't bear the thought of that. I couldn't bear the thought of my mother 'fainting' an average of ten times with her well manicured finger pointing at me and the multitudinous (?) scoldings and threats and the "Oh my Heavens! oh my Goodness! We're ruined! I can never show my face in public agains!" that I knew were coming.

Much to her surprise though, my arrest and notoriety brought her great popularity and an air of glamour and intrigue as well as dozens of Society Page photographs going and coming from balls and charity events, stepping out of limos to the flashbulbs of news hungry photogs. 'The Mother of Notorious Private Investigator Aachoo Voo' they called her, 'Arrested on Charges of Cold Blooded Murder in The Gruesome Death of Well-Known Shellac Salesman' etc etc etc. She was invited to all the best soirees, parties, banquets and gallery openings but never once did they ever film her coming out of a grocery store or a dry cleaners! Patricia Paramore Voo had her moment in the spotlight at last, her fifteen minutes of fame as someone would later coin the phrase and her hour of misguided glory as it were...and all because of me. The perpetual black sheep of the family. (Not counting MiMi and my brother.)

As I laid on the hard bunk pondering my misfortune, I thought about Tom B. and T Wayne and all of my friends who would be disappointed that I had been arrested but not shocked. I thought about my father and Poppi Voo and how they would probably blame themselves for never discipling me when I was a child but had only encouraged my hi-jinks. I felt bad for them. I thought about Nick and Andy and Lance. Especially Lance. A week before my arrest, Lance had taken me out on the town for dinner, dancing and a show. It was Lee Lee's closing night before she headed off for Hollywood and we had gone to see her and celebrate her success and frankly, we had painted the town red. And purple. We got back to Lance's place at three in the morning and slow danced for an hour or so and fell asleep in each other's arms. (Which can be dangerous if you're standing up and still dancing.)

We capped the night off with lots of kisses and sighs and as I made my way off the elevator and past the bleached blonde's apartment at five, her door opened. I tried uselessly to straighten my hair and un-smear my lipstick as she asked sleepily "Have you seen Lancey? I haven't seen him in ages and I need to tell him...." And that's where I messed up. I was half asleep and I said to her, "He's gone to sleep. Don't wake him up." She glared at me with pure hatred and slammed the door in my face. And I was convinced as I lay there on that awful, hard bunk bed crying in my pink bathrobe and bunny slippers that that was the reason I was here in the slammer right now! I would get to the bottom of this, I vowed. I would get out of here and strangle that woman and I would clear my name! So help me.......I......! But then the top bunk of that bed came crashing down on me holding a large still sleeping female felon, knocked me out and I was off to la-la-land. A place I was very familiar with.

To be continued in Episode 22...............

👇💚

https://aachoovoo.blogspot.com/2022/04/aachoo-voo-private-eye-episode-22-tom-b.html Tom B.'s Ham Ball Haven

Special recognition goes out to...

James Ray aka Jack Knife James

Tom B. and T Wayne Elliott

P McDo (Patrick, we miss you)

Clyde Miraculous

Resko the Great and Joy

Eugene

Nick and Andy

S. Griffin

Lee Lee, the Blue Flame

and Weiner the cat

Professor Lance Strait

as Lance (Tony Curtis)

Cleo Moore as The Bleached blonde

Marjorie Main as MiMi Voo

Patricia Paramore Voo, my mother

played by Phyllis Calvert

Si, the Shellac salesman
Craig Stevens playing the part of Si

And me........me me me me! Always.... Me lol

as Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

innocent though incarcerated prisoner

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode 20 The Blue Flame Fan Dancer and What Happened Yesterday

Fan Dance Music start now

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode 20

The Blue Flame Fan Dancer

And What Happened Yesterday

I remember it like it was yesterday. As a matter of fact, it was yesterday. My new pal, Man Nee Joe and my old pal Tom B. Ozo wanted me to take them to the Crystal Peacock to see my former school chum, Lee Lee Lovelady do her fan dance show which had become wildly popular but they were too shy to go as individuals so they went as a group. At the last minute Terrence and Mr. D'Sal joined our entourage with me leading the way while they hid behind me hoping no one would notice them sneaking in and reporting back to wives, girlfriends, pastors and mothers. I don't think anyone even noticed them as I was dressed to kill and slinging my hips like Lee Lee had taught me to do just for mean-ness as they followed behind me two by two.

As we reached the door to the club, I stopped suddenly and they all piled into me like Studebakers on a foggy highway. Crash! Fortunately, no one was hurt but everyone was embarrassed as it caused quite the scene and was flash bulbed and photographed from several angles by a newspaper hound who had the reputation of being in six places at one time. His name was Alec J. Oyershay. When the photos hit the Society pages (not the High Society pages but the...you know..the Society my mother wouldn't allow in her house) pages, two of my friends wanted to hunt him down and hurt him. Except for Man Nee Joe and Tom B. who posed for him proudly wearing exaggerated and goofy grins. I hid my face behind my purse but everyone recognized my legs so it did me no good. My mother would scold me like an angry wet hen later when one of her friends called to tell her my latest scandal but MiMi cut the pictures out of the paper and framed them. I brought her joy, she said.

Once we were seated up front at our long reserved table for five, I went backstage to say hello to Lee Lee and to tell her I had come with a bunch of boys that were full of.... anticipation. She was happy and excited and continued dressing in her...well, I don't know if you could really call it dressing....her blue feathery fans and whatever was or was not under them. She looked fantastic and sleek as a cat in her showbiz finery. The boys would lose their little minds. I watched as she did her hair and makeup thinking about how she had always said she was going to become a nun and live in a convent somewhere in the Himalayas or some place like that.

Why she had changed her mind and become a fan dancer, I did not know but I suspected it had something to do with discovering boys at some point because when we had been school chums together, we had hated boys and looked upon them as Neanderthals totally unworthy of our attention. That changed for me when I turned sixteen and fell in love with a stunning young man by the name of Paul. I drooled over him and on him until he finally noticed me and that was the end of my disdain for the male gender. He went away to college in the midst of my infatuation so I never got the chance to damage him very much. Though I really wanted to.

The house lights went down and the blue spotlights came on hitting the curtains at the right side of the stage as the audience began applauding and whistling. The band began playing music I was never allowed to listen to till now and I watched as Mr. D'Sal, at the end of the table, pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face. Geez! The show hadn't even started yet! What would he do when she hit the stage? The tension mounted, the mostly male crowd held it's collective breath. A waiter dropped a glass. Man Nee Joe who was seated beside me, put his hands over his eyes, shyly peeking out between his fingers. A cymbal crashed and there she was.......The Blue Flame in all her stimulating glory. Terrence gasped and almost fainted at the sight of her. (And it was not his first time.) He had the blue statue he had made of her displayed in his King of Things Shop window on a blue hand carved pedestal next to a painting of Louis the 11th or 14th, I forget which, and a nun's habit. It was quite the attention getter. (And an inside joke for those of us who knew about her former ambition.)

"Ladies and Gentlemen!! The Crystal Peacock is proud to present...the one, the only, the magnificent.......Lee Lee Lovelady...The Blue Flame!!!" The place went wild. Men stood to their feet. Some of them wept. I reached and pulled Mr. D'Sal back down in his chair and handed him a drink and tried to pat his flushed face but Joe got in the way so I patted his. I didn't know if he was going to make it through the show but I knew he would certainly try even if it meant watching from an ambulance gurney in the back. Bless his heart, to quote MiMi. I then had to pry Man Nee's fingers off his own face and shush him because he was mumbling something in some kind of language that no matter how you translated it, it just sounded dirty. He stood to bow in apology and spilled his martini all down Mr. D'Sal's back but I don't think he even noticed. I sighed. It was going to be an interesting night.

If you've never seen a fan dancer dance, well, I don't exactly know how to explain the performance. It involves bumping and grinding and teasing and taunting and raunchy music and lots of feathers placed just so to hide the fact that there's very little if anything behind them (in the way of apparel.) If done tastefully, it really is quite lovely and if not done tastefully, it really can be....on second thought, there's no way to do it right without doing it wrong. Let's just say that it's not a dance one would ever do in front of one's mother unless she, herself, was a present or former fan dancer. And no one wants to think about that.

Lee Lee had class, I had to say that for her. Although I don't think many men cared about her class but were focusing primarily on her.......posterior. I heard several praying that her feathers would blow away but I don't think God heard them and if He did, He was ignoring them. Several of the ladies that had given into temptation or had been persuaded to attend the performance wore shocked expressions and kept muttering "Oh, my heavens! That's simply disgraceful!" While some were heard to sigh, "My goodness! I wish I could do that!"

I was pretty envious myself of her grace and balance, knowing that I would have probably lost my feathers or flown away on them like some cartoon character, ripping the stage curtains to shreds and endangering the band or innocent bystanders. I couldn't even do regular dancing without breaking somebody's ankle. Joe still had a slight limp but was healing nicely though he seemed to limp much worse when I was nearby and needed me to put an arm around him and help him hobble here and there. T Wayne usually looked at him and gave a wry grin when he saw us. I eventually caught on though.

The blue lit stage was decorated with blue flames shooting up from the floor, whether real or not, I don't know. I hoped they weren't real because you know me and fire. Or maybe you don't. You know about me and rain but I don't remember if I've yet recounted my fire stories. Never fear, I rarely got badly burned up though several shotgun shacks in Voo Bayou did once as well as a candy store in New York. And a car dealership. Or two. But never mind. You want to hear about Lee Lee's backside and those blue feathers. It was rather remarkable the way she made her entrance and danced like Sally Rand and Isadora Duncan with a lot of Salome thrown in. She spun like a top, she twisted herself like a snake around a silver pole decorated like a tree, she leapt, she danced on her tippy toes, she charmed the pants off every man there. Well, hypothetically. She put on a show that would make your mother mad and Harold Clappsaddle proud. She was amazing.

The boys were still pretty well behaved at this point until I noticed Tom, sitting on my left, pulling things from his coat pockets and aiming and throwing them.They bounced and went skipping across the stage but The Blue Flame merely raised an eyebrow and kept on dancing. Everyone in the club glared at Tom and hissed until he stopped or at least until I grabbed his wrist and shook several round wooden objects out of his fist like he was a baby with a hand full of cookie crumbs and T Wayne picked them up off the floor and bit one of them.

"What is it?" I whispered to him across Tom's startled face. "It appears to be a wooden nickel." he answered, puzzled. "It is a wooden nickel!" Tom said proudly. "I invented them." "Oh, you did not!" I snapped at him. "Did, too!" he said petulantly. "Did not!" I huffed and we continued until T Wayne gave me a wink and patted Tom on the back. "Sure you did, buddy. Sure you did." So now you know where the wooden nickel came from. Or at any rate, those wooden nickels that were scattered all over the stage at the Saturday night fan dance show at The Crystal Peacock.

(That story would one day become legendary and those wooden nickels would become collector's items. Very hard to find. But I'm sure you can probably still find a few of them at The King Of Things Shop.) Oh, and by the way, we later discovered that the image of The Blue Flame herself in various poses, had been carved into exactly 45 of those wooden nickels. And yes, Lee Lee was indeed honored and unharmed by that sweet but senseless act. Tom B. went on to create the not so widely known plastic penny some years later though his wooden nickels became very popular as worthless tokens and advertising implements. He lost his fortune however, when he came up with the big idea of making dimes out of 24 carat gold. (No matter what they were made of, they were still only worth a dime, you see.) Sad, really. Thank goodness I had had the foresight to sell him my green stamp collection for a bag of those dimes.

After several numbers with the traditional ostrich feathers, Lee Lee came out wearing peacock feathers with dazzling rhinestones on them and threw blue roses to several moonstruck men. Mr. D'Sal almost broke his neck trying to catch one but it ended up in Man Nee Joe's hands and for a few awkward moments they wrestled violently over the thing until it fell to pieces all over the table as we stared at them in disbelief. Finally they gathered up the crushed petals and shared them with one another, however grudgingly. That scene alone was worth the price of admission. I leaned over and shook my head at them, kissed Man Nee Joe on the cheek and said, "Pass it on." And guess what? He did. (bless his heart) "Hey! What the hey!?" Mr. D'Sal shouted, rubbing his face and shoving Man Nee Joe away. I quickly stood up, pulled Mr. D'Sal over to my chair, moved Joe to his seat and sat down between them and put my arms around their shoulders. That seemed to diffuse the situation but every now and then I caught Mr. D'Sal glaring over at my sweet and still so very inexperienced, so very innocent Japanese/Portuguese friend. Men!! You gotta love 'em!!!!

The three act show ended with drum rolls and the stage going dark and the audience wondering where Lee Lee had gone. I wondered if she was angry about the wooden objects coming at her instead of roses. Tom B. had meant it as a token of affection and honor, I was sure but still, she could have slipped and fallen on her....class. There was nothing but anxious breathing for a few minutes and the drum rolls and blue lights flashing while we all looked around for her to appear. I noticed that Mr. D'Sal had stopped breathing altogether and Man Nee Joe had his head between his knees praying or something.Tom B. was mumbling "What have I done? She hates me now! She'll never come back!" And T Wayne had Tom's left arm in a death grip that was cutting off his circulation. Things were tense. And strange. Very strange. But normal.

Just as I was about to stand up to go check on my friend, the blue spotlight went to the ceiling while the room went dark again and with a flourish and cymbal crash of exceedingly high decibels, there came Lee Lee in her invisible underwear sans feathers sliding down that long silver pole sans tree to the astonishment of all who witnessed it. She hit the floor gracefully and swung herself round and around and up and down the pole as the crowd went berserk and stood to their feet applauding wildly. And that was the night that would go down in history as the night Pole Dancing was invented in New York City! Believe it or not.

Lee Lee came out to our table after the show and gave all the boys a blue rose and a kiss on the cheek, gave me a hug while they begged for autographs and then handed them 8x10 glossies of herself wearing a feather and a smile and charged them all three bucks a piece. Which they happily paid. They talked about it the rest of the night as if it was the highlight of their lives, poor boys, and guarded those glossies like gold. The Blue Flame was set to star in a Hollywood movie (of the same name) in the near future and would probably grow rich and famous and leave us all behind to pursue fame and fortune and Robert Taylor. But that was alright. I was happy for her. And my darling, sweet, pitiful friends would have something to brag about for years to come complete with many embellishments and several long smoldering kisses that I can tell you right now...... did not happen.