The present day New Yorker magazine has many fine features (and at $8.99 newsstand price it better have). Although the present magazine continues to have an editorial section called “THE TALK OF THE TOWN,” it omits the short anecdotes of overheard conversations, of letters and notes from juvenile campers and semi-literate maids, of missed meetings and mixed-up reservations that were standard fillers a half-century ago—and sources of pleasurable humor.
Here is an item from 1947—and I cannot imagine that any other little tale can match it.
“I want to ride the Make Believe Train, mama . . .”
The “Make Believe” train—how the mishearing (and metanalysis in this case) caused a quickening of desire in a young girl. What delights, what adventures would be open to her.
And wouldn’t you too like to ride the Make Believe Train? Wouldn’t you want a trip away from the everyday, from the prosaic?
Alas, the mother’s voice—the adult world—“Shut up!” intruded and shattered the little girl’s hope for a magical, technicolor journey.
The beige reality was revealed—it was the Maple Leaf train.
The truth—as the poor girl sadly learned, as we all eventually learn—is that the end of the journey is always Toronto.
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