Emptying out our garage after it collapsed (a story we shall not dwell on here), we came across a small stack of an obscure and obsolete publication once known far and wide on The Hill—the Cornell University campus—as The Cornell Widow. It was especially known far and wide on its date of publication each month, when intrepid Widow staffers hawked it shamelessly on all corners of the campus. (My spot was usually Triphammer Bridge.)

Alas, the little stash of Widows we found was far from complete, and I'd still like to find that 1955 issue that—um, nearly got us banned. If anybody out there has a copy, please e-mail me so I can arrange to get a scan of that infamous yellow cover with its huge bed surrounded by shoes. (Thanks to Joan Steiner Stone '55, who found a copy in her basement after it flooded. I'd still like to find one that I don't have to repair pixel by pixel, although it may come to that.)

What we did find was a small stack of one of The Widow’s best-known features, its parody issues, and so I've scanned a few covers and highlights for those who weren't there in those halcyon days and also for those who want a trip down memory lane....

This was perhaps the most brilliant parody The Widow ever did, incorporating literary and artistic styles that could scarcely be told from the originals. Typefaces matched. Names of New Yorker artists and writers were only slightly changed to protect the—um, innocent.

Some of you non-dinosaur Cornellians will appreciate that one column was headed "Radio, TV, Victrolas."

Under "Miscellany" it was noted:

Strange Music. When a woman looked askance when Monty Woolley belched, he was moved to inquire what she expected, chimes?

For Instance. When Mrs. T. J. Locke of Boston remarked that in Boston breeding was everything, Mrs. W. W. O'Flaherty of Abilene, Kansas, informed her that in Kansas they thought it was important but they had other interests too.

The chic outdoor café on the right, as stolen from a fashion layout in the magazine, was called Chez Louis. Mike Freed, on the left, was a Widow staffer who drove around in a 16-cylinder 1936 Cadillac touring car, which he was wont to back down State Street till the police caught him at it and fined him what he could sell the car for.

I still wonder what happened to the little red fellow at the upper left (the one with the bicycle pump). He was so funny! He excelled at that peculiar Widow art of reading your own copy aloud and rolling on the floor, while looking rather bored and blasé at anybody else's similar reading. (But he once laughed at something of mine. Just couldn't help himself, I guess.)

Ten bonus points to anyone who recognizes the drunken sot at the upper right.

And the fellow at the lower left was the only one of the bunch of us who became famous. Fifteen bonus points for that one.

Send your guesses to Mimi.