China Charlie is now the Jetage Bum  

Previous installments of "China Charlie" and "The Jetage Bum" are on our archive page (click on "To our Archives" below).       

To our Archives   

I’m back, and No, I don’t  know why….. . . .   .

          O.K., so it’s been a while since I’ve been online, and I don’t have any excuse other than we’ve moved and are no longer living in the “Middle Kinkdom”. Now we’re living on a sunny island in the “Land of a million Smiles”.

Here in the islands for urban transportation, they have what were originally World War II Jeeps left after the War, that were modified to carry passengers called  “Jeepney’s (since replaced by small bus like vehicles)”. As the passengers get on and off through a door in the rear of the “Jeepney”,  there’s a “helper” riding (or generally hanging) on the back. His job is to attract riders, make sure the driver stops for people that are waiting for a ride, and collect fares  Some of the younger guys get quite acrobatic in attempting to attract riders, but some  also bear a striking resemblance to the old cowboys in the Leanin’ Tree card collection (deep wrinkles, missing teeth and all).

Recently, I saw one of the younger “helpers” jump off at a stop, pull a comb out of his hip pocket, and take a few swipes at his hair, and put the comb back in his hip pocket.

          As I’ve written before, my mind is basically a warehouse of useless information, and for some reason, this move made it “flash back” to a character in a late1950’s/early 60’s T.V. series called “77 Sunset Strip”. The character had the name of “Kookie”, and he carried a comb in his hip pocket for emergency adjustments to his hair, before returning it to his hip pocket.

Kookie was a slang talking valet (played by Edd Byrnes) at the snazzy restaurant next to the hero’s detective agency office at 77 Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. In the series, he later left his job as a valet, to become part of the agency, and Kookie, along with a secretary named Suzanne, played a big part in helping the hero’s (Jeff and Stu) solve the mysteries in each week’s episode.

Stu, Jeff, Suzanne and Kookie were joined later in the series by a couple of more detective characters named Rex Randolph and J.R. Hale.

Actually Kookie had a big influence on the “Rock n’ Roll” generation, and most of the (then) kids carried a comb in their hip pocket for emergency purposes. The “Ducktail” hair style was big at the time as the symbol of the “rebel” generation, and with Elvis and his hair making the scene about the same time, the combs generally got a work out.

Some of those of us that still have enough hair to comb continue to carry the emergency combs in our hip pockets. Although the ”Ducktail” hair style has been replaced by multi colored Spikes as a sign of rebellion, the pocket combs still get a fair amount of use. In fact one of the items I’ve seen in Department Stores here is the Ace Hard Rubber Comb (plastic combs break when you set down with one in your hip pocket, hard rubber combs don’t).

And no, I don’t have a clue why the action of the “Jeepney Helper” caused my memory to jump back to the 1950’s, but it did.