Jack the Bear

[GEORGE THOMPSON]

It may be that some astral force has set itself against all efforts
to solve the "Jack the Bear" problem.  Gerald Cohen sent me a message
a day or two ago, saying he had submitted a comment of Jack the Bear
to the list, but thought it might not have gone through.  Indeed it
had not, or at least had been deflected from my terminal.  Today,
Cohen resubmitted his message to the list and sent it to me directly.
 His resubmission seems also to have vanished into the ehter, or,
again, was deflected from my terminal.  Last week I had submitted two
trivial notes, neither of which went through.  I didn't follow up,
since they were trivial, and no loss.  But is something sinister
afoot?

The core of Prof. Cohen's message is below.


   George Thompson recently asked: "Is anyone familiar with the
phrase ' like Jack the Bear'?"  In reply,  see _Really the Blues_, by
Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, (NY: Random House), 1946.

    On pp.216-219 Mezzrow presents a stream of African-American
lingo, with a translation given on pp. 354-360.  Here is the relevant
part for "Jack the Bear"; see the next to the last sentence of the
p.217 quote:

p. 217: FRANKIE: "Don't pay that razor-legged axe-handled slew footed
motherferyer no mind, Milton.  He's a Jeff Davis from down under and
ain't been up here a hot minute.  Look at them cuckaburrs sittin' up
there coverin' his fusebox that blew  out long ago.  If the drp ever
hit him in the kitchen it would roll up like a window shade, you ole
hankachief-head signifyin' half-hipped square from Delaware, you're
just like Jack the Bear, ain't nowhere, and like his brother No
Fu'ther.  You snapped your cap long ago."

p.357---[G. Cohen: I'll skip much of the lengthy translation and
notes]

     "...You went crazy long ago."       Mezzrow then adds in
brackets: "Obviously when you're like Jack the Bear, you ain't
nowhere, because for a good part of the year a bear is just
huddled snugly in a hole, oblivious to the world.  His brother, No
Fu'ther, is in the same sorry predicament, far from alert."

----Gerald Cohen

This passage deepens the "Jack the Bear" mystery, since it uses the
phrase in a negative sense: Jack the Bear is a Square; while
the passage from this past weekend's Times used it in a positive
sense.  Junior Johnson had won a race in an underpowered car because
he followed close behind the more powerful cars and forced them to
carry his car in their draft.  It was one of his associates who is
quoted as saying that Junior's car "could draft like Jack the Bear".

A number of our pen-pals in this group come from the NASCAR belt, yet
no one has spoken up to report being familiar with this phrase.
Should we suppose then that it is an idiosyncratic usage on the part
of the speaker quoted?

GAT (sending this message off on a wing and a prayer)