Sunday, March the 4th, 2007

back to: title, date or indexes

hear this 

At Long Last, An Answer To The Blodgett Duffel Bag Query

A week or two after the inaugural parade for the Hooting Yard website, as long ago as December 2003, I received a plea in the post from a concerned reader. Dear Frank, my anonymous correspondent wrote, I have heard it said that Blodgett always maintained an alphabetical contents in his duffel bag. Is this true, and if so, can you give an example, drawn from a typical Blodgett day?

I have not ignored this question, but coming up with an answer has taken a lot of research, sometimes perilous. If you have undertaken perilous research, on any topic, you will know how it can make you a bit wobbly on your pins. Anyway, I did finally manage to find out what Blodgett kept in his rucksack on a typical day, and now that I am less wobbly on my pins, I can at last respond to that long-ago question.

Yes, Blodgett did always maintain an alphabetical contents in his duffel bag. The twenty-sixth of March 1965 was, for Blodgett, a pretty unremarkable day—neither muckling nor mickling, as Fisher would say. Here is a comprehensive list of the contents of his duffel bag on that day:

Aniseed. Blötzmann diagrams. Cake. Dust. Ectoplasm. Flippers. Grease. Hinges. Incunabula. Jam doughnuts. Kaolin. Linctus. Marmalade. Nothingness. Orpiment. Prunes. Queen Esmerelda's Toilet Water. Ransom money. Sandpaper. Turps. Ullage. Vinegar. Wax. X-Ray Spectacles. Yeast. Zinc blobs.