Summer thunder

The boys I went to school with used to be able to identify every car as it passed by: Thomas Flyer, Firestone-Columbus, Stevens Duryea, Rambler, Winton, White Steamer, etc. I never could. The only car I was really interested in was one that the Get-Ready Man, as we called him, rode around town in: a big Red Devil with a door in the back. The Get-Ready Man was a lank unkempt elderly gentleman with wild eyes and a deep voice who used to go about shouting at people through a megaphone to prepare for the end of the world. “GET READY! GET READ-Y!” he would bellow. “THE WORLLLD IS COMING TO AN END!” His startling exhortations would come up, like summer thunder, at the most unexpected times and in the most surprising places. I remember once during Mantell’s production of “King Lear” at the Colonial Theatre, that the Get-Ready Man added his bawlings to the squealing of Edgar and the ranting of the King and the mouthing of the Fool, rising from somewhere in the balcony to join in. The theatre was in absolute darkness and there were rumblings of thunder and flashes of lightning offstage. Neither father nor I, who were there, ever completely got over the scene [III.iv], which went something like this:

Edgar: Tom’s a-cold.—O, do de, do de, do de!—Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting, and taking… the foul fiend vexes!

(Thunder off.

Lear: What! Have his daughters brought him to this pass?—
Get-Ready Man: Get ready! Get ready!
Edgar: Pillicock sat on Pillicock-hill:—Halloo, halloo, loo, loo!

(Lightning flashes.

Get-Ready Man: The Worllld is com-ing to an End!
Fool: This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen!
Edgar: Take heed o’ the foul fiend: obey thy paren—
Get-Ready Man: Get Rea-dy!
Edgar: Tom’s a-cold!
Get-Ready Man: The Worr-uld is coming to an end!…

They found him finally, and ejected him, still shouting. The Theatre, in our time, has known few such moments.

—James Thurber, “The Car We Had to Push”