Week Four: The Mother Goose Party

Just in case you're worried the last few parties have been a bit too sophisticated for your guests, Cokesbury brings in Mother Goose to the rescue, in this case, auguring her goose into the ground in a valiant yet vain attempt to bring life to your party. (These pictures, of an octagenarian mother astride a goose, always bothered me as a kid. Either she's a midget, or that's one of the biggest damn geeses I've ever seen. Either way, I decided, I never wanted to meet her in person. The Mother Goose with the goose clad in an apron and bonnet always seemed a lot less threatening.)

We begin, of course, with the invitation, which invites you into the wild, untamed world of Ogden Nash rhymery:

Old Mother Goose, when
She wants to wander,
Rides through the air
On her very fine gander.

She'll stop any place where
Her children will meet her;
SHe likes jolly crowds
To come out to greet her.

She'll meet all Endeavorers, who'll
Dress up just right,
And come to the Smiths,
On next Friday night.

Send the invitation, of course, with a list of possible costume ideas. Better yet, Cokesbury advises buying and ripping up a Mother Goose rhyme book and distributing the pages among your friends, so no one comes in the same costume. Why not just photocopy the pages? Oh yeah. No photocopiers in 1932.

So here's your first lesson. Which ones on the list are real Mother Goose characters, and which are the fakes?

Simple Simon
The Pieman
Old King Cole
Little Jack Horner
Little Miss Muffet
Bessie Bell
Mary Gray
The Little Man with the Little Gun*
Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
Diddle, Diddle Dumpling, My Son John
Little Tommy Tittlemouse
Little Polly Flinders
Wise Men of Gotham
Fat Man of Bombay
The Bachelor Who Lived by Himself*

*Not recommended for men with self-esteem problems.

Answer: They're all real, at least according to Cokesbury. Ten dollars to the first one to regale me with the tale of Tommy Tittlemouse.

Now, it's only natural that once you see all of your friends dressed as Mother Goose characters that you get them to do humiliating and embarrassing things while in their costumes. Cokesbury agrees with you. For your first activity, Cokesbury suggests a grand march so participants can show off their costumes. They do not, however, say to whom you're showing off the costumes, because it goes without saying that folks in the grand march, unless it's organized in a large circle, will only get to see the costumes of those in their immediate vicinity during said march. So I recommend taking the march outdoors, preferably on a busy commercial or residential street, so neightbors, businessmen and random passers-by can see the costumes and wonder what kind of freak show has invaded.

Now that the march is over, head back home for charades.

Of Tom, Tom, the piper's son, it is said (Cokesbury reminds us):

Tom, Tom, the piper's son,
He learned to play when he was young;
But all the tune that he could play
was "Over the hill and far away."

Which is not the way I learned it, but I am not as rich with Mother Goose as the folks of 1932. So Cokesbury continues:

So, Tom might also render this or some other number on a horn of some nature. Little Jack Horner might sit down in the corner and start eating pie. The Old Woman can ride her broom. The Queen of Hearts can display some tarts she has made. These are stolen by the Knave of Hearts. Mary ought to improvise some kind of a lamb which she drags around. The other Mary ought to be quite contrary. Little Boy Blue ought to blow his horn. Jack and Jill ought to have a plain and fall down. The old woman who lived in a shoe ought to spank her children and send them to bed.

The message here is not only do you want your friends to be embarrassed, but also belittled by giving them suggestions (and rather lame ones) on how to act out their parts. If the old woman who lives in a shoe neglected to bring her children, she might select volunteers from the audience, I suppose.

On to the next activity.

Blogger's Note: I make fun of Cokesbury a lot. However, this next activity actually sounds kind of fun. Which probably explains why I thought this book was such a lucky find at the thrift store in the first place:

Blackboard Relay. Secure a large blackboard and place it in one end of the room. The players line up in two or more columns facing the blackboard. At a signal form the leader [don't forget you have a whistle] the first one runs to the blackboard and writes a word and runs back, giving the chalk to the one in the front of the line. This one writes another word and one that will follow the first one written and make a sentence. So both lines continue to build a paragraph. A prize may be given to the side that finishes first and also to the side that writes the best paragraph. The prizes should be something that can be divided, like a box fo candy or bag of peanuts.

Again with the peanuts. At least they're real, and plentiful, this time.

Now, remember back to our first Cokesbury party? Remember the makeup kit and red cord you had for the tie-em-up and doll-em-up game? Get them out again because Cokesbury wants you to do that fun all over again. Boys are to "do up" the girls to resemble Mary Pickford, Colleen Moore, Nancy Carroll, or some other popular actress. (Warning: If you click on the Colleen Moore link, you will never, never, never want to go cross-eyed again. This lady has extremely limber eyeballs.)

One you get that image of Colleen Moore's dancing eyes out of your head (allow two to three years for this) you're ready to move on to your next Mother Goose game: Old Maid. Or as Cokesbury calls it, Poisoned Penny, viz:

This game will cause a lot of excitement and hilarity. A penny is given to one player in the circle and passed around among the players as long as music is played. The player who has the penny when the music stops must drop out of the game. No player must hesitate to take the penny when offered to him, but must take it and pass it on quickly. If the group is large, more than one penny should be used.

Whoosh. The party is over. Cool off your guests with either punch and cake, or hot tea and cake. Cokesbury reminds you that "as this party is not connected with any particular season, any refreshments that are convenient and within the means of the one entertaining may be served." So possum stew is obviously an option.

That's it for this week from Cokesbury, folks. Get ready next week for the Valentine Party which is celebrated on a holiday that, according to Cokesbury, is the day of the month of February "that is most conducive to having a good time." Take that as you will. And stuff it, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Week One: The Watch Party

Okay, boys, get out the red cord!

The watch – it is a funny thing,
to never wash its face;
It doesn’t even scrub its hands.
What a shame and a disgrace!
And more about the watch you’ll know
When our watch party’s ended.
You’ll see the years come and go
And may meet your intended.

I must confess at first I thought this party, timed for early January, was meant as a New Year’s Eve bahseroo. I thought perhaps “watch party” was an early colloquialism for the kind of party that set revelers tipsy, awaiting the coming of the near year clad in lampshades and drinking bathtub gin.

It’s not quite that. Unfortunately it’s the kind of New Year’s Eve party I would host, or one that Lenny Leonard would host – remember, he didn’t even have a clock. Planned right, there will be watches and clocks here. They’re central to some of the games and stunts. As is a whistle, like those used as basketball games. Make sure you have one of those.

Here’s how Cokesbury introduces this one:

Watch Night is one night of the year when almost everyone expects to go to a party that will last until twelve o’clock and enable them with their friends to watch the old year go out and the new year come in. It would be well to have the guests come late, for it is hardly possible to keep everyone enjoying themselves together for more than two and a half hours. Invite the guests to come at nine or nine-thirty.

I have a problem with this. I, myself, am a dull person. Even being a self-confessed dull person, I’m fully convinced I could keep a group of people entertained on New Year’s Eve for more than 2 ½ hours, without breaking out my collection of rocks that look like pig noses.

Anyway, on to the rest of the party.

The invitation we already have – that bit of poetry at the beginning. Decorations: Crepe paper with bells of red and green, plus sprigs of holly, cedar and other evergreens. Here’s a great tip: “Cotton makes a good imitation of snow.” I never would have thought of that.

It’s a game you want? Well, when it comes to New Year’s Eve, only one game comes to mind. Spelling.

Letters should be printed with crayons on cardboards six inches square. These can be used for numerous other games in this book. If you have four groups [of people, into which you divide your guests as they arrive] you will need four sets of the following letters: J, A, N, U, A, R, Y, F, E, B, M, C, H, P, I, L, R, G, U, S, T, E, E, O, O, V, D. All these letters with duplications are needed to spell all the months of the year.

That’s right. Your first game will have people racing about your room at each blast of the whistle, holding cardboard letters and arranging themselves, like manic DNA molecules, to spell out the months of the year. This is the highlight of the evening, gamewise.

Next, resolutions. You write them for yourself. You write them for another in the group. Cokesbury advises: “It would be well to suggest that these resolutions be humorous.” So nothing like “Agnes ought to resolve not to be such a worrisome nag to her husband, Clarence.” That would be out of order and would stifle an otherwise pleasant evening, unless, of course, Agnes’ husband is Harold and the milkman is Clarence.

Next comes conversation, watch-themed:

Give each guest a card on which has been drawn the dial of a watch and on which has been placed the numbers on a watch face. Hang up a large cardboard on which has been drawn the face of a watch with movable hands. Below the dial of the watch has been written topics for conversation numbered 1 to 12.

You see where this is going. At the blast of the aforementioned whistle, conversation begins on the assigned topic, of which no examples are given. Each conversation is expected to last less than a minute, with each subsequent conversation given less time to complete. “The entire game,” Cokesbury says, “should not last for more than ten minutes.” This takes small talk to an entirely new level, especially if Agnes and Harold have left the party in a huff.

Next comes the Watch Trick, in which the host amazes, AMAZES! His or her guests with the following trick, involving a watch (or clock), natch.

[The host] asks someone in the group to decide on a number on the face of the clock. This may be done by groups, each group being asked to select a number, any number between one and twelve. The leader then tells the group to start counting [silently, it is explained later] with the next number after the one selected and count to twenty and stop. They are to count one number each time the leader touches the face of the watch or clock with a pencil or pointer. When they reach the number twenty, the leader’s pointer will be on the number selected by the group.

How is that done? The leader starts counting too and may move the pencil or pointer to any part of the watch or clock dial he chooses until he counts seven. Beginning with eight, however, the leader must start with 12 and follow the figures of the clock in the reverse order . . . until he is told to stop. Try this to convince yourself it works, and practice some before the party.

And then say to yourself that counting out the numbers on a clock face with a pencil or pointer is going to be any more entertaining than watching paint dry and astounding your friends except the moron who's seen this before and blurts out the trick at the last moment, unless of course you use a laser pointer, with which you could entertain the group more successfully by using its beam to entice the cat to leap off the back of the couch and into the wall chasing that funny little red spot.

Now that your guests are absolutely reeling from the magical pointing of the guessed number on the watch face, they’re read for watch-themed riddles. Here are a few, under the heading of “Some Things We Find on A Watch.”

(1) Breadwinners (hands)
(3) Something you should not take in vain (maker’s name)
(7) Caesar, Mark Anthony, and Brutus (Roman characters)
(15) Something of which every pretty woman is proud (face)
(17) Something to ride on (wheel)

This is the Cokesbury Party Blog’s disclaimer: If you try a themed party from this book, or even one of the games and stunts, they should only be attempted on friends who revel in the irony of entertainments from a bygone era or whom you wish to get rid of in a hurry.

And if that game doesn’t work, try “Current Events,” in which your guests will be encouraged, at the blow of your whistle, to discuss topics such as “the drought in the Middle West,” and “King Alphonso Abdicates,” with anyone in the room, hoping to be named as the evening’s “Best Talker.” For fun at your own party, try this with avowed disciples of Ron Paul, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin and such and watch the game get so entertaining even the Quakers in the room are shouting at each other.

Once everyone’s calmed down and those who got too excited are sent outside for a brisk walk around the block in the snow, it’s time to tie someone up:

A couple is selected from each group. The man is given a box containing a red cord, rouge, lipstick, eyebrow pencil, and powder. The leader tells the man that he is to take the cord and tie the girl’s hands behind her, and then he is to take the make-up material and make her up as he imagines the girls of 1950 will make up. A prize should be given for the best in the estimation of the judges.

The Cokesbury does not advise making clown faces on the paintees or engaging in any unauthorized hanky-panky, and the Cokesbury Party Blog does not want to know if you decide to do anything exceptionally crazy.

Next comes the leaping over lit candlesticks (twelve of them). If you leap over one and it goes out, that’s the month in which you’ll marry. Unless you’re already married. Maybe that’s the month you fall into an adulterous affair. Cokesbury isn’t clear on the subject, and, frankly, with the trouble Agnes and Harold have had during your festive evening, it’s probably wise not to bring the question up.

Now this heady, hedonistic night is coming to a close. It’s time to “Watch the New Year Come In.”

As the New Year approaches, different groups will want to do different things. Church groups will want to have a worship service. Others will want to make a noise and shoot off fireworks. If the Watch Night chances to be on a leap year, the girls are privileged to propose to their loves at the hour of midnight.

Only one noise, mind you. Perhaps a simple blast from the host’s whistle.

One last thing: Refreshments. And what says refreshment better on New Year’s Eve than:

Hot oyster stew and saltines would make splendid refreshments. Another suggestion would be hot chocolate with whipped cream and sandwiches.

Whatever you serve, just remember to untie the ladies first. Unless you want to continue the evening with a little spoon feeding.

That’s it for the Watch Party. Next week, we continue in the boring theme of observing the passing of time with the Calendar Party, which is a costume soiree.