{New Article} 1940: Mrs. Goldilocks and The Bears

Here is one of these articles that I had in a pile for years and I swore I had already typed and posted it, but turns out I didn’t. So here it is. It’s about Clark Gable and Carole Lombard and their friends in Encino–Andy Devine, Phil Harris and Lum and Abner.

It all started months ago when Andy Devine, Lum and Abner, Clark and Carole, and Phil Harris kind of struck up a close friendship over hunting and fishing. Sunday mornings, or whenever they had a free dawn, they’d get up at the crack of it, and rig up duck blinds in a marsh some forty miles from town. If the boys got up at five then it’s a sure thing that Carole was up at four, because when they arrived at the appointed meeting place she always had a basket of sandwiches with her, and a thermos of hot coffee, all of which she had prepared herself. If she were anyone but Carole you might figure that that’s why they let her come along—because she could be counted on to look after their hunger. Most women are a darn nuisance on any kind of a man’s expedition like that and are not to be tolerated on ay but that one food-circumstance. But Carole can be tolerated on a dozen scores. In the first place, if she falls, she picks herself up. In the second place, she willingly takes her turn at bird-dogging, scaring up the birds for the shift back there in the duck blinds. Third, she doesn’t complain about mosquitos, and in fact wears her face so full of oil and grease as a protection that you can scarcely tell who she is anyway. We can’t think of all twelve of the scores right now, but anyway she is not only to be tolerated on a hunting spree, she is even to be appreciated.
But even with such harmony, the group was not too happy about its morning expeditions. The bugaboo was this: on entirely too many occasions they ran into “Keep Out” signs, or a farmer with a cross-patch disposition—one of those unpleasant fellows who says, “I don’t care who you are; this is my property. Now get out!” Well, you just can’t imagine what a disappointment it is to get all set to go hunting or fishing someplace—and then to find out you can’t. And the worst of it is that you have to eat your sandwiches just sitting on the running board of a car, when you haven’t even had a chance to work up a hunger. But nobody seemed to know exactly what to do about it, until suddenly one day Andy Devine had an idea. He waited to spring it until they were all gathered one Sunday afternoon at his house in the valley, within a stone’s throw of the Gables’.
They hadn’t gathered formally, or anything like that. At noon Clark and Carole just naturally showed up. Carole had a couple of brown paper sacks under her arms, and she headed right for the kitchen where she found Dogie preparing the lunch for the four Devines, as it was maid’s day out. Dogie is Andy’s wife, and although her real name is Dorothy, Andy has always called her Dogie since the first year of their marriage—because Dorothy, like the dogie calves, was motherless, and had no mother to run to, like other wives have, when the first-year-of-marriage problems come up.
“I’ve got junk here, so don’t get alarmed,” Carole announced as she dumped her bundles on the kitchen table. “I’m going to be chief cook and bottle washer and you just run in and sit down. I have one helper here anyway,” and she smiled down at little Tad Devine, four-going-on-five, who was standing there, gazing up at her with his eyes crinkled a bit, as though he were facing the brightness of the sun. “Hyah Tad—what are you looking at me like that for?”
“I just thought of a new name for you,” he said shyly. “From now on, I’m going to call you Goldilocks.”
“Mrs. Goldilocks to you!” Carole called out gaily, since this was shortly after her marriage. “Now come on, Tad, where are the onions and the frying pan, and we’ll get busy!”
When Mrs. Devine apprised Andy and Clark, in the living room, of the new name just then bestowed on Carole, they agreed that it was a good one. “Sure,” said Andy, “Goldilocks and the bears. That reminds me: there are really five bears in this group. Why don’t we call the rest of the gang, and later we can have a game of pitch? Besides, I have something to take up with all you fellows.”
Before the hour had passed, the gang had increased. Lum and Abner arrived, and so did Phil Harris.
“Well,” drawled Andy, after the smoke of the hamburgers had cleared away, “I’ve been thinking about this hunting problem of ours, and why didn’t it the best thing for us just to buy some property of our own someplace?”
“You mean so we can put up ‘No Trespassing’ signs of our own?” Mrs. Goldilocks shrieked delightedly. “Now, that would be something! ‘Keep out, and this means you!’ signed ‘Carole Gable!’ Say, I’d like that!”
“Yours wouldn’t be the only name on the sign, if we all owned it. So stop hogging!” Gable put in, in a genial effort to pipe her down.
“Hey, I’m serious, fellows,” Andy went on. (It’s indicative that Carole is always addressed as part of the “fellows” too.) “I’m so serious that I got a real estate agent to dig us up a property or two. Now there’s a tract of land about thirty miles from here. A hundred and eight acres, and if we incorporate and buy it together, it won’t cost us very much.”
“Oh, you mean we’re going to incorporate!” shrieked Carole again. “Wow! ‘Carole Gable and Company, Inc.’ That sounds marvelous. Who’s going to be president? I nominate Clark Gable.”
“Now, wait a minute!” Clark said. “We ought to pick a name for the company which would look good on freight cars and trucks, in case we ever raise anything on that land, or get into the lumber business, or something. You know, we’ve got to look ahead.” (Practical Gable.)
“Well, what’s the matter with ‘Carole Gable and Company’? I think that would look just darling on a freight car!” she teased.
“Now, fellows, I really am serious,” Andy said again. “Here are pictures of the property, facts and figures on it, now all we have to decide is do we want it or not.”
Well, to put a long and talkative afternoon into a paragraph or two, they decided they did want it, and they also amazingly enough decided on a name under which they should incorporate: The Hardrock Land Company. That was after they had decided to make Abner president, and for some reason or other the others have for a long time called Abner “Hardrock—” nobody knows why, exactly; it’s just his nickname—so the company took that name too. They had discussed several others: The Stars Outlet Company had seemed a humorous possibility for a while, but it was ruled out because it might sound as though they really took themselves seriously as stars, and people might think they were looking for publicity. No, what they wanted was something just plain and simple, so The Hardrock Land Company it became.
The company elections were as follows: Abner, president. Devine, first vice president. Phil Harris, second vice president. Gable, third vice president—and chairman of the board. Goldilocks Gable, treasurer (and cook).

Sadly, after Carole’s death Clark cut ties with most of their former group. Andy Devine lamented how he didn’t hear from him anymore but knew it was because it was just too painful for him. The Devines’ younger son, Dennis, wrote a book a few years ago about his father and commented how he never got to know the Gables but loved the tales of their friendship.

You can read the article in its entirety here.

(Article #27 posted in 2019)