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The Vaudevillian

Started by tomwatson · 11 months ago

The world must have seemed a tantalizingly big place to John Edward Noble, because he fibbed his way into the military just to start seeing every bit of it he could as soon as possible. The misrepresentation of his actual sixteen years was, however, only one of two lies that made their way on ... Continue reading »

8 comments

  • Claire

    2 years ago

    Oh wow, Melissa. What a beautifully told story. Fantastic.
    reply
  • Tom Watson

    2 years ago

    I echo Claire's sentiment entirely. Brilliant - reminds me of leafing through the scraps that remain of my grandfather, a WWI fighter pilot and minor politician (Democrat for Al Smith and FDR in the 20s and 30s) who died 14 years before I arrived. Yet, he's so clearly a part of who I am.

    Just lovely. In fact, you get a new tag created just for this kind of post - Memoirs.
    reply
  • Tom Watson

    2 years ago

    That is to say that the post is clearly also about who you are.
    reply
  • Kevin Wolf

    2 years ago

    Just as good this time around, too, Liss.
    reply
  • Dan Leo

    2 years ago

    Thanks, Melissa. Your story got me to dig out my box of my dad's old letters home from the army during WW II.
    reply
  • OutOfContext

    2 years ago

    I vote for more posts in this vein. Really nicely done. Then again, I love any good story about vaudeville. One of my prized possessions is Gilbert's "American Vaudeville: Its Life and Times"--a 1940 book I picked up at a library sale. A great catalogue-like book written pretty soon after Vaudeville's demixe. Alas, no mention of the Richards Bros.
    reply
  • Tom Watson

    2 years ago

    All we need are more bloggers with great-granddads who were top-drawer Vaudevillians!
    reply
  • Danny Reynolds

    1 month ago

    The Vaudeville era was truly saturated with such God gifted, talented people. It is regrettable that the Christian community of the era didn't embrace the giftedness and provide more (if any) outlets for performance and development of the creativity and talent. Who knows how kinder and gentler western culture would be today if the body of Christ would have provided gracious influence to a budding entertainment industry/media instead of ignoring and abandoning it to the (not always, but often) most base elements of society. Mr. Noble was, no doubt, an extremely talented and passionate man who's contribution to the human dialogue could have reached farther if Vaudeville had been taken seriously and seen for the amazing showcase of God's creative genius that it was.
    reply
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