Wall Street Turkey and Bermuda Triangle Down Under

Excerpt from The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

June 20, 1945 Masters Field Miami, Florida

As part of my daily routine I stopped by the operations office every morning, and on this day there was a lot of activity -- something was happening. I looked at the large hurricane advisory board and immediately realized what the hubbub was all about. It was the 20th day of June and the Miami Weather Bureau had just posted its first notice of the season. A tropical depression had formed north of Honduras and was growing in strength as it moved to the north-northeast. I hadn't thought much about it at the time since the activity was many miles away. But later that same day when word came that the first event of the season, a tropical depression had, in fact, grown into a tropical storm with winds clocked at 50 miles per hour and gusts up to 65 I began to pay close attention. Aircrews were on a rotation basis and the luck of the draw dictated whether you got in on the chase or not. After confirming the news I hustled to the barracks and called out, "Hey, Primrose. Looks like something's brewing in the Western Caribbean and the standby crew just took off to take a look. I kinda wish it had been us." Primrose chuckled. "I'm not sure about that. I'm thinking about those high altitudes and the fact that we'll be freezing our arse off." "You've got a point, but I expect it's like jumping into ice water "“ just hold your breath and if it doesn't kill you in the first minute you'll probably survive." (To be continued.)

UFO's and The Bermuda Triangle still get attention from a mostly skeptical public because of that little voice inside all of us that keeps saying "“ well, maybe. For another take on the subject a British-Australian film company is about to produce a thriller called Triangle based on happenings inside the Bermuda Triangle.

Back to the Algonquin Round Table

Dotty Parker wasn't the only person at the table with troubles. Robert Sherwood had writers block and couldn't get going until Edna Ferber talked him into getting out of town as a possible remedy. He took her advice and left his friends of the Round Table, not to return for a year and a half. Sherwood didn't come back empty handed, for in this time away from the city, he had written The Road to Rome and The Love Nest; both becoming Broadway hits. Kaufman had another kind of problem; he needed a crutch in the form of a collaborator. The round table provided him a smorgasbord in that department with Connelly, Ferber and Woollcott all working with him at one time or another. It was fun to exchange witty barbs and banter but who's going to pay the tab. Life in America inside and outside the Algonquin was geared to high jinks and high living on fat credit lines and margins set by wall street brokers by day and bathtub gin by night. Then it happened, "Wall Street Lays an Egg," is the way the show business trade paper Variety put it.

The 1929 stock market crash sent a chill throughout the country. That's when the scramble for real income outweighed the normal, theatre biased, and snob instinct toward the movies and Hollywood's lure began to be too much to resist. Round Table regulars were not exempt, from this need for cash, so more and more eastern based writers began to take the bait and travel west. Those giant weekly paychecks were of unheard of size in those days. Some writers were cashing five thousand-dollar checks as compensation for their six days work, while a mill worker in Georgia was getting sixteen for the same time spent on the job.

Two years before the crash, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had been formed to bolster the industry image. It was in that same year 1927 when "The Jazz Singer" brought sound to the silver screen and the Hollywood call for writing talent became very loud indeed. Not all writers could adapt to the new format. F. Scott Fitzgerald is a good example of the celebrity author who wanted to, but could never make the transition to film. Fitzgerald was a complete bust as a screenwriter. Hemingway never really tried it and his novels, as was Fitzgerald's, were a challenge to put on the screen. Ben Hecht, a darn good screenwriter, talked about trying to translate Hemingway to pictures; he said it was like working under water, murky water.

Westward bound Round Table regulars were, Parker, Benchley, Connelly, Kaufman, Sherwood and Stewart. Benchley wrote much of his own comedy material and then performed his "Treasurer's Report" on screen. Parker teamed with her second husband, Alan Campbell, to compile almost a score of screen credits including Academy Award Nominees, "A Star is Born," the original, and "Smash Up - The Story of a Woman." Marc Connelly kept busy working on motion picture projects and TV. His many screenplay credits included "Captain's Courageous,"Reunion in Paris," "I Married a Witch," and several adaptations of his play "Green Pastures." Kaufman wrote, coaxed and cajoled the Marx Brothers into their early film successes. Sherwood had many credits and garnered Academy nominations for his work on "Rebecca", and "The Best Years Our Lives-" Donald Ogden Stewart had numerous credits and Academy nominations before winning an Oscar for his work on "˜The Philadelphia Story."

Writers Corner:

Maybe I dwell too much on rewriting, but then it probably is the most important part of writing. That being said, there is no consensus on how to go about rewriting and that will probably never change. However, here's one system that strikes my fancy. "Once you've begun a novel, finish it before you revise a word. Don't polish as you go. Finishing not only gives you a sense of accomplishment, but you'll really know your characters and can spot pitfalls. Make notes of necessary changes that occur to you as you write," says writer Jill Marie Landis.

About the Author

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter. Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.
www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com