Thats Entertainment
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Title |
Thats Entertainment |
Subject |
Entertainment |
Transcript |
That's Entertainment One Sunday in April , 1886, half the population of Corpus Christi gathered on Central Wharf and on the beach to see a man walk on a rope stretched between the two wharves. There was a stiff wind, and the rope, the paper said, was poorly stretched between two poles. Technical difficulties. Boys were sent out into the water to tighten the rope. As a band began play, the man, with balance pole in hand, began to walk the rope. Wide-eyed people oohed when the wind carried away his hat, but he did not seem to falter. And what would have happened if he'd slipped? He would have gotten wet. In the pre-TV age, I guess that was entertainment. A more dangerous stunt was when a daredevil of the Nueces Hotel billed as the Human Fly scaled the six stories of the Nueces Hotel. When he reached the sixth floor, he screamed, pretended to slip and dangled by one arm. People gasped, some fainted, but the Human Fly regained his form and continued until he reached the top. Another daredevil walked a tightrope stretched from the City National Bank Building to the Nueces Hotel. A strange street attraction was once recalled by William Fuller in his book, "When the Century and I Were Young." Fuller said a showman came to town, billed as the world's slowest human. A crowd gathered to see him walk one block down Chaparral. Fuller said this man began by spinning himself around a couple of times, then stood rigid until he became glassy-eyed, in some kind of a trance. However he did it, Fuller said, he had an unbelievably slow pace. It took the man more than an hour to walk one block. The event attracted a lot of people, but by the end of the stunt, there were few around to see the conclusion. Perhaps they had better things to do, like watching grass grow. It may have been excruciatingly dull, but you don't get entertainment like that these days. Murphy Givens: KEDT Radio Scripts |
Author |
Murphy Givens |
Publisher |
KEDT Radio |
Date |
December 3, 2003 |
Type |
Sound Recording |
Format |
WMA; Length: 2 mins. 21 sec. |
Language |
English |
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