Vellanoff’s Journal

An Arm and a Leg?

Our show played in Hoboken for nearly six months. About the third night I noticed this very beautiful lady sitting in the second row center. She was there again the next night and the following night. The show was good, but not quite that good. The fourth night I had the feeling that she was smiling directly at me during most of the show so was not surprised when she came backstage and introduced herself to me. Up close she was even more beautiful and by her clothes and jewelry I guessed her to be rather wealthy. I suggested that we go out for some dinner and she agreed. She insisted on paying for dinner and for everything we did from then on. We saw each other nearly every evening. She was pleasant and as I said very beautiful, but sort of strange in a way I could not explain.

Her name was Lilly. It was sometime during about our fifth week of acquaintance that someone found the dismembered remains of a body buried in Lilly’s back yard. It was identified as her first husband. It was during my trying to be supportive that she told me that her third husband, Johan, had left on a trip two days before for which she was thankful as he was a cur and would not be nearly as understanding as she felt I was being. Lilly was free on bail so could come and go as she desired. On the first day of her trial the judge mentioned to her that it would cost her an arm and a leg to defend herself. This did not seem to bother Lilly in the least.

The next day she came into court with a rather large shopping bag, and after the judge was seated took out of the bag an arm and a leg, placed them on his desk, and asked if that would suffice. The arm was identified as Johan’s by the ring on his finger with the inscription that said, “To Johan from Lilly, I love every bit of you.” The leg was identified as belonging to her second husband, as he was well known for having six toes on each foot. Like I said, she was sort of strange. Well as you can imagine, my ardor cooled somewhat and I stopped seeing Lilly after that. 

One Mule to Go 

One of my first engagements after coming to America was in a small town called Little Rock, in Arkansas. There being a lack of good hotels I ended up staying with a nice farm family outside of town. Not only did they have a nice farm, but they were rather friendly and interesting to be around. Since we were going to be in Little Rock for several weeks, I bought a mule on which to travel back and forth to town.

In time I became acquainted with several of the farm families in my host’s neighborhood. Most of them were nice folks if rather taciturn. That word I learned from another farmer named Zeke, who was reported to be efficient at the healing, or at least the treating, of sick animals. When my mule came down with some kind of malady, I asked Zeke how he had treated a mule of his that had been sick only a few days before. Zeke said that he had given the mule turpentine. I tried the same with my mule and he died. When I next saw Zeke I told him that after giving my mule the turpentine he had died. “So did mine,” said Zeke.  

Give Me a Hallelujah!

We lost one of our troupe, a guy by the name of Joe, in the most extraordinary way. He bought a donkey from a preacher. Not that he really needed one, but he liked to hike and ride in the mountains and thought this donkey would work just fine for that. The preacher explained that to get the donkey to go he had to say “Hallelujah” and get the donkey to stop he had to say “Amen.” So he took the donkey out on a mountain trail and was having a great time. After about two hours he was coming out on a ridge that ended in a cliff. Joe was really enjoying himself until he realized he couldn’t remember what to say to get this donkey to stop. He was coming up to the cliff and was getting desperate so he prayed “Dear Lord, I’m in a pickle here, I can’t remember how to get this donkey to stop so please help me out. Amen.” The donkey stopped, right on the edge of the cliff. Joe was amazed and very thankful. He shouted “Thank you Jesus! Hallelujah!”