Marshall Dodge on the Maine Coast. Photo permission and courtesy of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network.
I memorized my first “tall tale” when I was eight–years–old. It was 1958. My Uncle Bob had made a fallout shelter. It was the height of the Cold War. He wasn’t taking any chances.
On March 11th of that year, a six–engine, Boeing B-47E-LM bomber lifted off from Hunter Air Force Base at 15:53 [3:53 p.m. EST], which is just south of Savanna, Georgia . Its eventual flight path had it scheduled for Bruntingthorpe Air Base in England. As part of Operation Snow Flurry, the bomber was being flown by pilot Captain Charles Woodruff, co–pilot Captain Bruce Kulka and navigator/bombardier, crew chief Sergeant Robert Scretock.
Aircraft 53-1876A was accompanied by three other B-47s as part of “Unit Simulated Combat Mission and Special Weapons Exercise”. In other words, this was a nuclear weapons practice bomb test. The bomber was carrying a Mark 6, 30-kiloton bomb, weighing 7,600 pounds. It was ten feet, eight inches long, with a maximum diameter of 61 inches. It had taken just over an hour for a specially trained, two–man loading crew to put it in place above the bomb bay doors of the plane.
Twenty–six minutes after liftoff, the plane was 15,000 feet over Mars Bluff, which is six miles due east of Florence, Georgia. The locking pin that was connected to the bomb had malfunctioned and Captain Kulka had been sent to the bomb bay to see if he could fix the problem. In attempting to get the locking pin to manually reseat itself, he grabbed the wrong lever, which in this case was the emergency, bomb–release mechanism.
The A-bomb became unshackled, and dropped onto the bomb bay doors. The massive weight of the bomb forced the doors open.
At that moment, two sisters, Helen, who was six, and Francis Gregg, who was nine (along with their cousin, Ella Davis, also aged nine) had been playing in the playhouse built for them by their dad, Walter Gregg, amongst the trees in back of their home. They grew bored of playing there and had just moved 200 feet to a side yard.
When the bomb landed, it directly struck the playhouse. The conventional high–explosive trigger detonated. Fortunately, and despite a nuclear weapon falling from the skies onto this part of Georgia, the A-bomb was without its fissile nuclear core. Even so, the explosion left a crater 50 feet wide and 35 feet deep.
37–year–old Walter Gregg, a former World War II army paratrooper, and his wife Ethelmae, along with all three children were injured. Not to mention the girls’ playhouse, the Gregg’s home, garage, car, toolshed and possessions were all destroyed. Their 6 to 14 free–range chickens had been vaporized.
My Uncle Bob was taking no chances. He had been in the Navy Air Corps during World War Two. He understood the fickle relationship between the terminal finality of nuclear weapons and the dynamics of Murphy’s Law.
Uncle Bob’s fallout shelter was built just after August 27th of that year, when Operation Argus went into effect. On that date, the US began nuclear tests over the South Atlantic. We civilians didn’t know that these tests were occurring at the time, but my uncle knew that the nation was pushing the extreme military limits of our knowledge. Testing of nuclear weapons was running at a hectic pace between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Anything could happen.
One of the first of his most prized possessions to go into the shelter was his record player. He had a tendency to get easily sidetracked, which occurred often. I loved it when he became re–engaged in something else as it was always more interesting than what he had been doing. In this case, he had just purchased a long playing record that he had to hear again. He brought it with him into the shelter.
When he started playing the record, I expected to hear classical music, or opera, which were his favorite kinds of music. Neither was playing. Instead, two droll voices held forth in a thick, Downeast accent. Punctuated with startling clear, vocal sound effects made by Marshall Dodge, he and Robert Bryan held forth on sides A and B of the album with a total of 19 stories.
Photo permission and courtesy of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network.
It was my first introduction to Yankee humor. I did not know what to make of it at first. My uncle, totally lost it as he would roar with laughter, and wear a big grin of joy throughout the telling of such stories as “Kenneth Fowler goes Hunting,” “The Sassage,” “Which Way to East Vassalboro,” “Chester Coomb’s First–Born,” and “The Long Fezzle.”
I memorized tracks “Bert and I,” “Virgil Bliss,” and “Albert’s Moose.”
I “tried them on” everyone I knew. Most of the telling went flat. I did score some good responses, but they were few and far between. I had to perfect my timing of the story better, ensure my Downeast accent sounded more authentic and select an audience that was patient and willing to listen to me share a story with them, rather than just telling them a joke.
Fast forward 17 years: Maine Governor James B. Longley (1924–1980) appointed me to serve as a member on the Maine State Commission on the Arts & Humanities (1975–1978). My fellow appointee was Marshall Dodge.
It is not often that one gets to work with his or her childhood hero. I was blessed enough to have such an opportunity. I have never known anyone who worked as much and as “smaht” as Marshall. I consider him not only an entertainer’s entertainer, but a consummate storyteller as well. His ear for sound, especially for the patois, or distinct vocal utterance, of a regional accent was uncanny. All you need to do is listen to his audio or video recordings and you will see how apt he was in his performance.
Like Charles Farrar Browne (aka Artemus Ward, 1834–1867), Samuel Langhorne Clemons (aka Mark Twain, 1835–1910) and Will Rogers (1879–1935) before him, Marshall had a particular genius in knowing how, when and where to make people laugh. He was supremely gifted in knowing how best to use a rural, local dialect like a rapier in skewering the ego of a sophisticated, urbane flatlander—otherwise known as a tourist.
Tourist: “Say, farmer, how do you get to Bar Harbor?
Mainer: “Weellll: my fahtha takes me theyah.”
Once I moved to Maine in 1973, I went to as many Marshall Dodge “tellings” as I could attend. After a while, I stopped watching Marshall and started watching his audiences delight and roar their approval of his stories. Many times, his humor would stay with you, in an aftermath and afterimages of lasting laughter, sort of like a time release pill that keeps giving medicine over the next eight hours. People would walk away after his “concerts” and be repeating lines from his stories, all accompanied with much laughter.
Marshall knew how to poke fun at our own foibles and shortcomings. He knew as well, exquisitely so, how to use satire and irony as doorways and windows into laughter and merriment. Often enough, he would take us through those doors and let us glimpse some of the universal truths about human nature. No grandstanding allowed, though; well, maybe just a mite.
Though I am a native and a resident of the city of New York, the State of Maine is closer to my heart. It was 15 years ago that I started delving into Maine humor. Since that time, I have worked to put out six records of Downeast stories and I have performed them from Maine to Texas. I am going to tell you some Maine stories. Some of them have been told to me. Some, I have come upon in books. And some I have made up myself. All of the stories reflect the spirit of Old Maine; and all are stories not jokes. They end gently, with a poke rather than a punch; and, most have a message that lives on through many tellings.
— Marshall Dodge < http://video.mpbn.net/video/1351825681 >
Working with him on the MSCAH, now titled the Maine Arts Commission, was an education in itself. We started getting together on a somewhat regular basis to consider some of the ideas discussed at the formal Commission meetings, along with how we could help the arts thrive in the state. He was always trying innovative ways to help others find performing venues and to connect people with the artists he knew.
We often would get together in Portland. He would ride his bicycle to get to our meetings. Marshall loved getting around that way. He said that it was the most efficient form of transportation ever devised by human ingenuity. Rain or shine, mostly any time of year, he would hop on his bike and travel around the city that way.
In 1976, Marshall started the Maine Festival of Arts at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. It was an incredible event because of the variety and scope of the people performing there. Marshall did an enormous amount of work in creating that event, including facilitating its successful emergence into Maine culture at that time.
He often talked with me about a book he was writing. His working title for it was The Architecture of Philosophy. Little did I know then that these talks would help inspire my own graduate work in philosophy of education at Harvard University’s, Graduate School of Education (1981–82; 1984–1992).
Photo by A. Keith Carreiro (March 2016).
The height of my concert career at that time in New England occurred when Marshall offered to be one of two guest performers at a benefit concert. The purpose of this event was to help raise money for me to play at the annual conference of the National Association for Campus Activities , which was held that year in San Antonio, Texas.
I’m not sure my playing that night was stellar. It just wasn’t in the same league as Marshall’s storytelling and sense of onstage presence. He had them laughing. I would have preferred him holding forth for the rest of the evening! He was very gracious, always. That night he was spectacular.
Life took me in other directions. I stopped playing the classical guitar and touring. I lost track of what Marshall was doing. I lost track of what everyone I knew was doing in the performing and visual arts at that time in my life.
In 1982, the year I obtained my master’s degree, Marshall was visiting our 50th state. He was in Waimea, bicycling on the northern section of the Big Island of Hawai’i. He was just south of the Pu’u O Umi Natural Area Reserve. I’m fairly certain he was having a great time and using his finely honed skills as a keen societal observer of the people there—natives and tourists, of course—and gathering more material for his stories.
Riding his beloved bicycle, a van fatally hit him from behind. He was 45.
The sense of loss we all felt was beyond measure. A memorial service for him was held in Maine. Friends, fellow performers and the public at large went to a concert exclusively dedicated to Marshall and his lasting impact on all our lives.
I still mourn his passing.
Just think what he would have created had he lived even a decade or two longer. What we have of his that is left behind provides us all the more reason to listen to his legacy with an even greater appreciation for what he achieved during his lifetime.
I am positive that he would have risen to international prominence. I have no doubt that his sense of comedy would have exposed even more of our nation’s eccentricities. There was a tremendous amount of material that he could have used between 1982 and 2002, don’t you think?
What happened to those three tall tales of Marshall’s that I first learned when I was a boy? I can still recite them to this day. Not as good as Marshall and Robert, but “pretty wicked close.”
Thanks, Marshall, for inspiring us with your love of life, the sharpness of your levity and your deep appreciation and joy of learning . . .
Related Links:
Maine Governor, The Honorable James B. Longley:
http://blainehouse.org/governors/James_B_Longley.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_B._Longley
Charles Farrar Brown:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Farrar_Browne
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6946/6946-h/6946-h.htm
Samuel Langhorne Clemons:
https://www.marktwainhouse.org/man/biography_main.php
http://www.cmgww.com/historic/twain/about/bio.htm
Will Rogers:
http://www.cmgww.com/historic/rogers/
http://www.willrogers.com/will_rogers.html
Maine Arts Commission:
To obtain Marshall’s audio recordings:
To view Marshall’s MPBN recordings:
http://video.mpbn.net/video/1351825681
http://video.mpbn.net/video/1351805496
Works Cited:
Dodge, Marshall, and Robert Bryan. Bert and I. Narr. Marshall Dodge and Robert Bryan. 1958. LP.
“A Downeast Smile-In: The Farm.” MPBN Specials . Maine Public Television. 6 Dec. 2009. Web. 15 June 2013. <http://video.mpbn.net/video/1351825681>.
“A Downeast Smile-In: The Sea.” MPBN Specials . Maine Public Television. 6 Dec. 2009. Web. 15 June 2013. <http://video.mpbn.net/video/1351805496>.
Information about the 1958 Mars Bluff B-47 nuclear weapon loss incident was derived from the report listed below:
Rumrill, Clark. ” ‘Aircraft 53-1876A Has Lost A Device.’ How the U.S. Air Force came to drop an A-bomb on South Carolina.” American Heritage 51.5 (2000). Web. 22 Mar. 2016. <http://www.americanheritage.com/content/%E2%80%9Caircraft-53-1876a-has-lost-device%E2%80%9D?page=1>.
If you enjoyed reading this post, please share it with others.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products or services that I have mentioned here. I am disclosing this information in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
© 23 March 2016 by A. Keith Carreiro