Week Thirty-Five: Measuring Party

Some time last year, I read a posting on a national news story that went something like this: “Nowadays it’s only the fatties and the Mormons you can make fun of. But at least the Mormons have a sense of humor.” That immediately came to mind when I read Cokesbury’s Measuring Party, which encourages “some organization in the church” to make money for some purpose by charging party attendees a penny per inch of waistline. I can see this party going over very well these days, especially if fatties have developed a sense of humor since that posting was made.

Cokesbury suggests you invite a lot of people. That they be fat may be implied, though it’s telling in Cokesbury’s description that obesity was not yet an epidemic in the United States in 1932:

A hundred people averaging thirty inches waist measure would bring in thirty dollars.

It’s also telling that it’s not only our waistlines that are inflated:

This is more money than the average group will make in one night on a dinner or other feature.

Remember, this was 1932. Most of your guests would have had an onion tied to their belts as well, which was the style at the time.

Here’s the invitation:

This little apron is sent to you,
And this is what we wish you’d do:

A little pocket in front you’ll see,
And for a special purpose it’s meant to be.

Measure your waistline, inch by inch;
Don’t draw in your breath, don’t pull, don’t pinch.

Then for each inch you measure round
In the apron pocket put a penny sound.

This game is fair, you will admit;
You “waist” your money, we pocket it.

Now if the size of your waist you will not tell.
Just slip in a dollar – ‘twill do quite as well.

All “waist” money which the pocket pays
The Woman’s Council will use in the wisest ways.

Bring your apron with you and don’t be late;
Place: First Christian Church; September 1, the date.

So dig up the cash and put on a smile,
And we’ll throw care away for a little while.

The assumption here is that you’ll substitute the name of your group and the place of the party in the invitation. Unless of course you want to enrage your feminist/atheist or feminist and atheist friends with the obvious cultural underpinnings of holding the party at a Christian church for a woman’s organization. Since both are said in company, it’s a guarantee they won’t be burning their bras. Cokesbury also advises sending overalls to the men, rather than aprons. Unless, of course, you’ve got metrosexuals in your midst who aren’t shy about being seen in an apron. Or if the fatties on your list just want to go with a muumuu.



Of course you’re not literally sending aprons or overalls. That would be cost-prohibitive and wasteful, unless, of course, you were planning on later hosting a Hobo Party or School Days Party, in which the garments could play a costuming role. Still, you’re better off following Cokesbury’s advice:

These aprons and overalls are very little trouble to make. They can be made from scraps of material. Just a piece of cloth cut in the shape of an apron or overall with a bit of binding around it will suffice. Be sure to get the pocket on it, for that is the important part.

From here on out, you’re pretty much on your own, party-wise. With this many people at your party, it’s “impractical,” Cokesbury says, to play games. So you’ll want a program. They do offer some advice:

Orchestra. “Almost any orchestra will be glad to give their services for such a program,” Cokesbury says. If, of course, they’re not busy recording music for George Lucas’ next film and you can afford their massive fee. Orchestras aren’t as charitable these days as they were in the ‘30s.

Recitation or Monologue. Humorous, if possible. I’m sure Kenny Kynoch is available. (Understand my ramblings by reading the latter half of the School Days Party entry.)

Comic Skit or Black-Face Comedy. “If there are two who are good black-face artists, they may be able to use material given in Chapter LII, ‘The Minstrel Show.’” That’s a party the Cokesbury Party Blog will handle with nuclear criticality care, to be sure, if I’m not sued into oblivion by the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton before then for even bringing the subject up.

Of course, they haven’t sued Neil Diamond. Yet.



You’re on to refreshments now. The obligatory sandwiches are mentioned. As is this doozy: “Almost any bakery will donate paper plates to a church organization for a party of this kind as a means of advertising.” Try that today and you’ll get laughed out of the store with a sizzling donut hole stuck to your melting forehead.

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.

No, that’s a crummy commercial.

Be sure to tune in next week for Cokesbury’s exciting Fifty Party. No, I don’t know what it means either.

Week Thirty-Three: School Days Party

Now that Christmas is over but Christmas vacation still has its legs, the following party is meant to offer a bit of solace to all those parents who have spent their holiday in the bosom of their family but are now really, really ready for school to start again.

Here’s the invitation:

School days, school days,
Dear old Golden Rule days’
Readin’ and writin’ and ‘rithmetic,
But without the sound of the hickory stick.
We will live all over again,
So don’t come like women and men;
But come like kids you used to be,
And we’ll have an evening of fun and glee.

More proof – as if we needed any – that some people will do anything for a rhyme.

As this is a costume extravaganza, Cokesbury advises thusly:

For the girls, play dresses with bloomers, sunbonnets, middies, and skirts. Some may care to go back to their grandmother’s day and wear the pantalet dresses of that day. The boys should wear overalls, knickers, short pants with old-fashioned waists, with round collars, and perhaps some come barefooted. A toe tied up with a rag would add to the effect.

So, basically, come like the kids from The Little Rascals:



Maybe folks back in the 1930s had it easy. I’ve got my 20th high school reunion coming up this summer and, as far as I can tell, we’re being encouraged to come dressed as we were in high school. And seeing that my high school was about seven years behind the times national trend-wise, that means we’ll be smack in the 1980s, so we’ll have to come dressed like this:



Complete with the Futura font. Eew.

Let’s move on to something less nauseating. Like Cokesbury’s School Days Party decorations:

If it is possible to use a room that can be transformed into one with the appearance of a classroom, this would be ideal. At any rate, try to create this atmosphere by the use of blackboards, globe, maps, etc. In a home, remove the lighter furniture and bring in a desk for the teacher. Borrow blackboards from a school or church to put around the walls.

Use the following dialogue when you ask your church or school for the loaner blackboards:

You: Hello, [principal or clergyman]. I’d like to borrow several blackboards for a school-themed party.

Principal/Clergyman: What?

You: Blackboards. You have them I presume?

P/C: Well, yes we do, but . . .
You: Loan them to me. I paid for them with my tax dollars/donations so by right of payment, they are, indeed, mine.

Let me know how that works for you.

Be sure to jolly it up with your atheist friends that you borrowed the stuff from “the church,” just to make them really antsy and make the more militant ones grumble about separation of church and state. Then explain to them that you’re not a “state,” and that if they really want to whine, what they ought to be whining about is the fact you used Holy Water from the church to make the post-party punch. Then once they’re really riled up, move them into head-explosion territory with the following Cokesbury activity:

Opening of School. School should be opened in the regular customary manner by the salute to the flat and the singing of “America.” Perhaps there might also be a good morning song.

If their heads fail to explode immediately, be sure to emphasize the “regular and customary” portion of Cokesbury’s description. Boom Boom!

A good morning song? Something like this?



In case your party is suddenly getting too artsy, assure your guests that the next game will have them using their mathematical brains. If that doesn’t glue them to their seats, nothing will.

Arithmetic. The fist class should be a class in arithmetic with the students reciting orally. Call one someone to recite the nines of the multiplication table and another to recite them backward. If one pupil makes a mistake, call on another to finish. Ask another pupil to count with Roman numerals to ten, and give the Roman characters to one thousand. Ask others to give some of the tables, such as the table for liquid measure, dry measure, and weights and measures. Those making mistakes should be put on the dunce stool and made to wear the dunce cap. Successful pupils should be given lollipops.

This is a game that separates the men from the boys, literally and metaphorically. You’ll soon find out whether any of your friends are smart enough to know that four gills equals a pint in liquid measure, or that 63 gallons equals one hogshead. Or that a rusty can of corn equals a moosehead, or three sick chickens equals a bag of potatoes. But that’s for barter. I get all confused.

So let’s move on to geography, in which Cokesbury immediately shows its, ahem, colors:

The next is to be a lesson in geography. Give each pupil a paper on which the following questions have been typed, making carbon copies, or mimeographed. Give each one a pencil. A definite time may be set for the completion of the lesson. The teacher should then collect the papers, grade them, and perhaps reward the pupils with lollipops.

(1) What state is the Negro state? Col.
(2) What is Noah’s state? Ark.
(3) What state is a girl’s name? Minn.
(4) What state is a Catholic Church service? Mass.
(5) What state is a physician? Md.
(6) What state is Coolidge’s state? Cal.
(7) What state is a letter of the alphabet? O.
(8) What state is a mineral substance containing metal? Ore.
(9) What state is a personal pronoun? Me.

This game, of course, won’t get past the first question. Maybe you’d best save it for last, and then only if the party is bombing so badly you want the guests to leave angry.

Let’s move on to something less controversial: Declamation.

Yes, there was a time, folks, when people had to memorize things. They couldn’t rely on the Internet to be their long-term memory. So here’s Cokesbury’s memorization game:

Mother Goose rhymes could be recited, and the pupils should use as much rhetorical display as possible.

You know, this kinda reminds me of something that happened to me in high school. A few friends and I were in a study room off the library when we heard what we thought was either an argument or a person having a nervous breakdown in the next room. One of our group ventured next door to see what was happening, only to find our resident Thespian with the capital T, Kenny, reciting a declamation for a drama competition he was heading to. We, the callow, shallow talentless souls that we were, thought it was really weird that he was making such a spectacle of himself. Now one of us is an artist-slash-mailman, the others have dropped off the face of the earth and I work at a dump. Kenny’s still out there:



So it’s time for refreshments – box lunches consisting of random sandwiches, cakes, fruit and the aforementioned Holy Water punch. The randomness is meant to afford the activity of lunchroom trading. Eat your lunch in peace, while I try to figure out how to recover my shattered hull of a life. And Kenny, I’m sorry we laughed at you.

Be sure to tune in next time for an enlightened Cokesbury look at the Native Americans in its Indian Party. Ugh, and How!