Perelman Tonight: Aboard the President Cleveland -- Part 1 of "The Wild Blue Yonder" (Chapter 3 of "The Swiss Family Perelman")

Six hundred escapists beyond the reach of Milton Berle
and the National Retail Credit Association

[drawing by Al Hirschfeld]

"As he perched on a stool in the Hurricane Bar, pensively sipping his aperitif and appraising his features in a small hand-mirror, he knew a moment of deep melancholy. What a chasm separated him from the trivial, shallow creatures about him, he thought sadly. Would it ever be possible to bridge the gulf, to free these poor blind grubs from their cocoons and aid them to soar with him onto the astral plane?"

-- from Chapter 3 of The Swiss Family
Perelman, "The Wild Blue Yonder"

by Ken

When, last June, we left the Swiss Family Perelman -- son Adam (12) and cello-toting daughter Abby (10) plus our narrator and his missus -- were trudging up the gangplank of the SS President Cleveland, heading west across the Pacific from San Francisco. The family had pulled up stakes from their New York City and rural-Pennslvania domiciles and were bound for Siam, based on the master's effusions, which he had already come to regret, from his earlier journey, the round-the-world jaunt in the company of his old pal Al Hirschfeld, the iconic theater illustrator and bon vivant, documented in Westward Ha! The last words we heard came from the mistress:

" 'Move over, Asia,' she said compassionately. 'Poor old continent. You don't know what's coming at you.' "


TO SEE THE PERELMAN FAMILY AT SEA, CLICK HERE

THE SWISS FAMILY PERELMAN: OUR STORY SO FAR

Chapter 1, "Rancors Aweigh"
Part 1 -- Launching yet another journey
Part 2 -- San Francisco-bound
Chapter 2, "Low Bridge -- Everybody Down"
Part 1 -- The journey begins!
Part 2 -- Hooray for Hollywood!
Part 3 -- "Move over, Asia"

THURBER TONIGHT (including WOODY ALLEN, ROBERT BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, S. J. PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

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