291111 - Topic: Armistice Day; a story of Over There

This episode of Empire Builders was initially scheduled to be a story about the Old Timer’s hound dog, named “January” (no doubt because that’s the month in which the series began – January, 1929).



Empire Builders publicity photo from the final season, showing the Old Timer encouraging "January" to speak into the mike.  Author's collection

Early press releases said the story would be a melodrama “into which rushes the Fast Mail at the opportune time.”

 

 

At the last minute, a new program was prepared in its stead. I’m not sure if Harold Sims just didn’t initially notice this date on the calendar and make the connection with its being Armistice Day (which had only been around for ten years – not quite the age-old holiday that we know it as now). In any event, a story was written that put the Old Timer on the Western Front. Here’s a portion of the updated press release that corrected the broadcast information:

An ammunition train which develops asthma, neuralgia and paralysis just as it gets within range of the enemy’s guns is the beginning of considerable excitement on a certain French railway around which Empire Builders’ Armistice night story is woven.

As might be expected, the Old Timer, although somewhat over age, just naturally talked his way into the service and, of course, bobs us right in the middle of things.

In Monday night’s story Andy Sannella and his orchestra are all “over there” entertaining doughboys between fighting, as is also Bob MacGimsey, the three-part harmony whistler.

It’s a wartime railway story, dedicated by the Great Northern to the railway outfits which manned French lines during the war.

The continuity for this broadcast has not surfaced yet. In the meantime, it’s probably a good bet that George M. Cohan’s classic “Over There” was featured, along with a few other patriotic tunes from the era of the “Great War.”

 

 

Veterans Day – as Armistice Day became known in the U.S. during the WWII era – has always had a coincidental twist for me. It happens to be my own father’s birthday. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy right out of high school. I used to tease him that he’s such a special fellow, they made a national holiday out of his birthday.

 

Happy 88^th birthday, Dad!