Picnic or Yonder Comes the Blue

"After a white reception in the crystal room of the Hotel

Kenmore, Mrs. George Eustic (Patricia Hays) and her husband

left on a wedding trip to the Pocono Mountains, Pa. They will

live in good old Noodleville." (Home.)

Where the friendly purple heart is.

I like to do things. I like to eat, and things like that. I like

the things that go on around me. People are nice. And, really, I

like this place I live in. However, some people don't.

Sally doesn't.

Sick at heart, the trembling girl shuddered at the words

that delivered her to this terrible horrible fate of the East.

"Nasty!" How could she escape from this oriental monster

into whose hands she had fallen—this strange man whose face

none had seen.

Smile!

It is only a little picture,

In a little silver frame,

And across the back is written

My darling mother's name.

(Valentine)

Pink and purple and orange ones with Venetian rose buds

Imported from Venetian

In eleven thrilling volumes

I heard a shot—I saw him run—then I saw her fall—the

woman I love. My leg was broken—and my gun was gone! I had

only one thought—(tee! hee!)—his strange, astounding plots

must be avenged—he must die for a coward at my hands! He had

the courage of a lion and the cunning of a rat. He came running

towards me when—suddenly, I—

Ran.

Forgetting the ripped lace, $35, green violence, & free samples.

"I always run when I hear 3 rings!"

. . . and remember those swell picnics in Birch Grove?

Source: The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard (Library of America, 2012)