Beer by the Bottle

Natty Boh ad, 1940s

Beer was not sold by the six-pack until 1938 and the practice became more widespread in the succeeding decades, with Baltimore's National Bohemian selling by the six-pack in 1940 and Pabst shortly thereafter.  However, Coca-cola was already sold in six-pack bottles which easily led to beer being purchased in the same quantity; this is probably the reason that, in the play, the customer orders "a half-dozen bottles of beer."

Before Prohibition, which ended on Dec 5, 1933, beer was only sold in bottles and had wire baling at the top (see above). After Prohibition, the cap was more commonly used. However, beer bottles were always brown (see below) at this time, as it was thought best for keeping the beer fresh.

Gabby's Villon

John Barrymore as Villon in a 1927 silent film

Excerpts from two poems by Francois Villon, a 15th c. French poet, are read in The Petrified Forest.  The first "pash" excerpt is read by Boze on pp. 13-14 and comes from Stanza VII of "The Complaint of the Fair Armouress" and the second excerpt is from "Ballad Written for a Bridegroom." Villon's poetry proved popular among Victorian poets in the 19th century and were translated by them.  The specific poems read by Gabby are translations by A. C. Swinburne, which means that the book that Gabby's mother sent her is one of two possible editions:  1. Ballads Done Into English from the French of Francois Villon, published by T. B. Mosher in 1904, or 2. A more costly special edition published by Spiral Press in 1933, The Lyrics of Francois Villon, Done Into English Verse By Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Ernest Henley, John Payne and Leonie Adams. The latter edition included wood-block prints by illustrator Howard Simon that accompanied each poem.  (It is, of course, somewhat odd that Gabby's mother was able to find either of these English editions in Bourges).

Francois Villon was a 15th c. French poet and outlaw, a fitting figure for The Petrified Forest. Shortly after Villon earned his MA at the University of Paris, he worked as a quasi-medical professional and as a teacher at the University.  This all came to an end around the age of 26 when he was involved in an incident that can only be described as a medieval alley rumble:  Villon, a woman named Isabelle, and a priest friend met up with another University man and another priest, some daggers were pulled, and the other priest died of his wounds.  Villon fled, was sentenced to banishment, and earned his living singing in inns. He was pardoned by the King for his crime and returned to Paris, but continued to get into trouble with the law for the rest of his life. He was most often accused and/or convicted of robbing churches.  He lived as a vagabond.  His poems reflect and even celebrate his world -- they are colloquial, full of language of the streets, and constantly refer to the prospect of death by hanging, the punishment for thievery.

Villon appeared in a few films and plays in the beginning of the 20th c. By the time Gabby's mother sent her the book, Americans had seen Villon in two silent films (1920 and 1927) and an operetta that was also later made into a silent film (1930).

The poem Gabby reads to Squier, "Ballad Written for  a Bridegroom" is actually subtitled "Which Villon Gave to a Gentleman Newly Married to Send to His Wife Whom He Had Won With the Sword." It refers to Robert VII d'Estouteville who may or may have not been acquainted with Villon personally.  There is no evidence to suggest, as Gabby does, that the Bridegroom was a friend of Villon's.  She might just like to think of it that way.

Gabby reads the first two stanzas of the "Bridegroom" to Squier because she likes it, but also because it signals the beginning of a relationship.  The poem serves to set up romance between the two characters. Other than that, the first two stanzas are not all that remarkable for a marriage poem.  The Villon poem is becomes more interesting because of its appearance in the final scene of the play.  Perhaps, we can think of the poem as book-ending the inclusion of romance, excitement, and possibility in Gabby's life. When Squier, a vagbond with an interesting story, appears in the middle of nowhere, she reads the two first stanzas. Later in the play, after Duke Mantee, the hostage situation, all the shooting, and Squier's sacrificial death, Gabby quotes part of the next stanza in the final scene (p. 73):

And, which is more, when grief about me clings

Through Fortune's fit or fume of jealousy,

You sweet kind eye beats down her threatenings

As wind doth smoke; such power sits in your eye.

Thus in your field my seed of harvestry

Thrives, for the fruit is like me that I set;

God bids me tend it with good husbandry;

This is the end for which we twain are met.

If we were reading this poem on its own outside of the play the image of marital fertility would be typical:  babies and the continuation of family lines.  Instead, Squier's death and bequest to Gabby enables her to get the hell out of Black Mesa and she prays that she will manage that inheritance well in order to live a fuller life:  They share a common piece of fate, but Squier's changes Gabby's for ever.

Deliveries to Black Mesa

It's 670 miles from Denver to Black Mesa, AZ so how did The Denver Post travel to Gramp?

He would have, most likely, received it through the mail.  By the 1930s, places like Black Mesa would have received newspapers from parcel post service and/or rural free delivery, two services available from USPS. Although I haven't been able to pin down any definitive statistics, it would have likely taken 2-5 business days for the paper to get to Black Mesa from Denver.  The time of year would have made it easier, as the Colorado winters would have prevented the postal service from going from Denver over the mountains to Black Mesa with any haste. I wonder--because they were a filling station, they would have probably also sold newspapers, no?

Another question, however, is how and how often did the petrol get to the Filling Station? There weren't pipelines at the time and the petrol company would have had to deliver the gas by truck at regular intervals.

How were hamburgers served in the 1930s?

On a bun.

Although it is somewhat disputed as to who was the absolute first to serve a hamburger on the proverbial bun, Billy Ingram, the founder of White Castle, revolutionized the mass distribution of hamburgers by selling his with a bun starting in 1921 (cf. Oxford Companion to American Food & Drink, p. 65). Following the expansion of the White Castle franchise, other hamburger joints took off and, too, served burgers on the bun. 

The vision of hamburger patties served on a bun took wider circulation with the creation of the "Wimpy" character in the comic strip and cartoon Popeye the Sailor Man. The strip began running in the early twenties and became an animated cartoon in 1933. Wimpy's phrase "I'll pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" appeared in the strip in 1932. 

In the 1936 film version of the play, hamburgers are served on buns, not kaiser rolls. (For whatever reason, the grab application won't let me take a photo from the DVD player).