86

[Mike Salovesh]

"Albert E. Krahn" wrote:

> Has anyone ever checked out the date of the Johnny Verbeck song in relation
> to "hot dog?"
>
> the greatest problem
> since, well, the "hot dog."

If I've got the right song, you must be talking about some alternate to
the verse I learned as a boy -- while living in Milwaukee, no less!

. . .  Now all the neighbors' cats and dogs will nevermore be seen
       They'll all be ground to sausages in John Verbeck's machine.

In my neighborhood, anyhow, kids played with pronunciation variants of
"sausages"
(with ae in the first syllable and schwa in the second, for example) but
never, never did Mr. Verbeck get accused of making hot dogs in his
machine.

Location: Kenwood & Maryland; time: 1938-1942.  (Last time I looked,
while in Milwaukee for a meeting, the house we lived in had become the
Lutheran student house for UW-Milwaukee.)

"John Verbeck", a.k.a. "Johnny", did alternate with another name:

. . .  Oh, Mr. Dunderbeck, how could you be so mean?
       We're sorry you invented that sausage-making machine . . .

Which is the only name my wife heard for him when she learned the song
from her Chicago-area cousins in about the same epoch.  We're both
uncertain about the words of the second line cited immediately above --
it doesn't quite scan if you try to
sing it.  Anybody?

This question got us to singing the song, and that verse is frustrating
us no end.  That sort of makes us like the dog who backed into
Dunderbeck's machine.  Poor thing came out cur-tailed.

Then there was the firefly who backed into the same device, and was
delighted no end.

--  mike salovesh             <salovesh at niu.edu>        PEACE !!!