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havoc with your team.
Coach: It really is, but we think that within two or
three years we re gonna have another fine card-section
team.
Ed: Speaking of a fine card-section team and about all-
I Shouldn t Even Be Doing This! 45
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American mention time . . . who would you say are the
greats of your former card section?
Coach: Ah, gee, Ed, I don t know. We ve had so many
good boys. Of course, whenever you think of card sections,
you think of names like Up-Fingers Doolan, Lightnin
Larry Strickland, Terrible Tommy Wolf, and, of course,
the greatest lefty of them all, Lefty Lawrence.
Ed: Lefty Lawrence? . . . Well, if I had to name an all-
American card section, I think I would want all of those
boys on my team and, most especially, Lefty Lawrence.
Now, tell me, what made Lefty great?
Coach: Well, Ed, maybe I can give you an example of
just what Lefty s greatness consisted of. It was in 1947. We
had a wonderful card section. . . .
Ed: I remember that one . . .
Coach: It wasn t as good as 28, I don t think . . .
Ed: Well, you won the award in 47 and 28.
Coach: We did, but I think the 28 team was pretty
good.
Ed: Anyway, Lefty Lawrence was part of that 47
team.
Coach: We had a little problem. Of course, Lefty . . . his
best position was in the eyebrows. Everyone knew that. He
was probably the best. . . .
Ed: He was pretty much an eyebrow man. . . .
Coach: He was one of the best eyebrow men in the
game for all time, I would say. I had to take him out of the
eyebrow and throw him into the beard because we had a
depth problem there. We needed a man
Ed: In the beard? How did he take that switch?
46 Bob Newhart
*
Coach: He adjusted right away. That s the amazing
thing. And then later in the year, just to prove his great-
ness even further, I had to shove him into Lincoln s nose
and he had no problem at all adjusting there. I think that s
the sign of a truly great card-section man.
Ed: Well, I think you are being overly modest there. I
think we can attribute most of the credit to you. Coach De-
nut Crown of Midland College.
Next, Ed and I rooted through the agency s sound-effects
records used for television commercials. We found a nice
recording of a train crash. Using the train crash as the blow-
off, or sound effect, we worked backward and wrote a rou-
tine. The entire story led up to this climactic sound effect,
such as Ed playing his typical straight-man interviewer and
me as Gasper Hollingsferry, the head train-switcher and
dispatcher at the Central Shipping Yard.
It went a little bit like this:
Ed: Say, I ve noticed that there s a tremendous amount
of buttons and panels, and, of course, as I look out here
through these windows and into the yard, I see these miles
and miles of track crisscrossing each other, how do you
keep track of all of them, Mr. Hollingsferry?
Bob: Well, it s mostly about trial and error. It took me
about four weeks to learn. After the first week, you find
you make quite a few mistakes. Then the second week it s
less, and the third week it s less, and by the end of the
fourth week, you got the yards down pretty well.
Ed: It seems to me an awfully dangerous way to go
about teaching a switchman his business. You don t have
any supervisors? You don t have any textbooks?
Bob: Well, we tried textbooks. We used both methods.
I Shouldn t Even Be Doing This! 47
*
It s sort of expensive, but when you see the cars strewn all
over the yard like that, it makes quite an impression and
you very seldom will switch them onto that track again.
We find it s the best method.
Ed: That certainly is interesting.
Bob: (Aside to Ed s crew) Uh, I thought I told you guys
you re gonna have to keep your wires and cords off the
tracks. We ve got trains coming through here daily
Ed: Well, speaking of trains, sir, I m sorry to interrupt,
but down here on the main track it looks to me as if those
two trains are going to crash.
Bob: Yeah. . . . Those two ll crash.
Ed: You say those two are going to crash. Aren t you
going to do anything about it?
Bob: No, I never got a D-07 on those trains.
Ed: A D-07, sir?
Bob: That s a form we have whenever they find a mis-
take and we switch a train onto the wrong track, as these
two obviously are. We re supposed to get a D-07. I can t
touch these levers until I get a D-07.
Ed: Well, sir, you mean to say that you ll sit here with-
out using the handbrake to stop these two trains from
crashing?
Bob: It s not my fault. It s somebody in the main office.
Ed: I fully realize that, sir. . . . So you mean to say you
are going to sit here and do absolutely nothing?
Bob: If we were to do away with a D-07, as you re ob-
viously suggesting, we d have nothing but plain chaos. . . .
(A loud crash is heard.)
Ed: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Hollingsferry. We
now take you back to your announcer.
48 Bob Newhart
*
And the routine fades out to the sound of flames crack-
ling and chaos.
With that, I dashed to the post office with the tapes.
Soon we discovered that we hadn t costed things out
very well. Worse still, we didn t immediately realize this
because we didn t bill until after thirteen weeks.
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