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Harold Dill Fight
Airdate: Tuesday - September 25, 1962

WOR Show
Original Airing

audio

First Spoken Line After Theme Ends

Now is the hour of procrastination. . .

Show Description

Just got back from Toronrto, sitting on plane next to Rube Goldberg Seriously, have you ever really popped your cork? Well, let me tell you what happened to me when I was a kid, see? There was a kid in our school named Harold Dill. Shep was in second grade when he first ran into Harold Dill. I remember he had eyes. If they weren't yellow, they looked yellow. He was a guy who looked, you know, they had the yellow, peculiar, snivelly, snivelly way. Shep goes on to tell a story which is an early rendition of the fight with Scut Farkas in "A Christmas Story" See, and we're about three-quarters of the way home, and we're about a half a block from my house. There were no real blocks there, you see. There were big open places of prairie with houses. This is true Grant Woodism. Really, it is. So we're moving along through this landscape. When I just went to my right to get a ground ball, see, I go over to my ground ball, and Dill sticks out his foot, and down I went right on my kisser, right flat on my kisser on the concrete, and Dill says, come on, get out of the way. Will you kid? And he grabs the ball, and he throws it, you know. He picks the ball up, and he whistles it back to flick like that with those yellow eyes. I remember he had eyes. If they weren't yellow, they looked yellow. He was a guy who looked, you know, they had the yellow, peculiar, snivelly, snivelly way. Well, I got up, and my knees are all battered from the concrete, and I got up, and without any conception of what I was doing. I just screamed and rushed. It just, everything went out of my mind, out of my skull. I go, ah! And I just, right on this guy, and the next thing I know, we're flying around, we're rolling on the street, screaming and hollering, and the issue had been met. I mean, it's just like, it's just like if all of a sudden we all said, all right, let's blow him up! And the Russians are, blow him up! And we're both at it. So I'm screaming and hollering, it just, I'm out of my skull, and I'm beating this guy up against the concrete, and he's beating me, and we're rolling and hitting each other in the eye, and I'm screaming, and all I know is that people started to come out of the houses. The big uproar is going, we're about, oh, we're not little kids, you know, we're maybe 13 or 14, 12, 13, 14, something like that. Not little kids at all. And we were both big for our age, incidentally. So we're out there screaming, just, ah! And I just lost complete, by, my gimmick had been popped completely. Now, I was a very circumspect kid, I want you to know. Seriously. I was a kid, if not in reality, at least in the, my soul had rimless glasses on it. So, I'm serious about that. So, but now, nothing. So, and we're rolling, I'm just like a, I'm like a wad of angry chewing tobacco, rolling out on the screen, just screaming and spitting, and we're hitting, and I grab this guy's head. I grab Harold Dill's head by the ears. I can remember this, and I'm pounding him down on this concrete, and, and a, and a fantastic string of swearing is coming out of me. You never heard such swearing. It's just pouring out, and all the kids are running around. My kid brother, ah! He's screaming home. You know, she's in a fight, ah! And, and the ladies are coming out, and my mother comes out of the house, and she comes circling around, and by the, by this time, you see, the fight is really going red hot. And, and Dill and I are just going at it, but what was really beginning to terrify me now was that I could not control it anymore. It was just coming out, and I was out of control, and I was swearing, swearing fantastically, as I've never sworn since. Seriously. We're rolling on the ground like that, and finally we just break apart like that, and Dill was all, his back of his head was battered, you know, and his eyeballs were, were, were black, and, and he was cut, and it wasn't a scratch on me. Just hardly a scratch. Just my knees, I just had gone out, completely out of my skull, you see, and don't, don't ever talk to me about bravery. It does not exist. I'm just saying there's nuttiness that exists. When you go out of your skull, and you rush in and take the pill box, that isn't bravery. You're out of your skull. Seriously. If I had thought about it, 30 seconds, me and Dill, I'd have been, I'd have been four blocks away. If I'd have thought about it, two milliseconds, something happened, some wire broke, some fuse popped, and I'm out of my skull, but I had sworn, terrible, and I'm the kind of kid, you know, at our house, you know, swearing, you know, little kids, they don't, you don't swear, you don't swear at home, you know, the, the things that I call Dill, I'm sure that my mother had never even heard, and I'll tell you this, I had only heard once or twice, going past an alley fast, where it came from, and I used it apparently all, not only correctly, but with fantastic creativity. I mean, I had woven a tapestry of obscenity that, as far as I know, is still hanging over Lake Michigan. Well, then I turned, and there is my mother there. And, of course, Dill, by this time, he's, he's screaming, he's hysterical, this has never happened to him before, and I'm hysterical, and they're dragging the two of us apart, and my mother is looking at me. And, and she said to me, she says, "What did you say?" I mean, "What did you say?" She said to me, that's all she said. And it was this funny look on her face, and of course, but that instant then, all thoughts of Harold Dill went out of my mind, and all I could think of was this, just this unbelievable obscenity that I'd come out with, all kinds of, I mean, really obscenity. And I went into the house, and she's putting water on me, and of course, I got a couple of bumps, and my eyes are kind of bulged a little bit, and I, I have been, I have been so hysterical now, they're pouring water on the back of my head, and my kid brother is, is cowering over by the hot air register, you know, he's scared out of his skull, and Bruner has been hiding in the basement under the steps now for about an hour and a half. The whole neighborhood is scared, and I'm pouring water on my head, and she said, "You better go in and lay down. Just go on in and lay down." "Just go on in there and lie down, take it easy, and shut up, will ya?" And she's taking me by the shoulders, we go in, she puts me down on the daybed, and I lay there, and I'm scared. Oh, am I scared of what I've done. Not Harold Dill, and I felt no sense of, of victory, no sense of, of, of, of making it over Dill. All I felt was this fantastic thing I had said. All of this stuff that had come out of me. And it's now about five o'clock, and it's getting twilight, and my old man would get home about five-thirty, quarter-six, and I'm just laying there. And you could just see it's getting dark out there, and I'm lying on this creton-covered daybed, and just sweating it out. And I'm sort of half hysterical. You know, once in a while a gigantic sob would come out, and my kid brother's now hiding under the sink in the john, down there among the mops, you know, mewing a little bit once in a while. You know, this is a fantastic, it is an event that is just never going to be surpassed. Well, I hear the car come up the driveway, and I don't think kids know, really, I don't think adults can even remember the kind of terror when you know that retribution is about to be meted out for something that you've been hiding for, like, centuries. Your rottenness. I mean, your basic rottenness is now discovered, and you are going to get the wrath of God, wherever the wrath of God is going to strike, you're going to get it, and not only that, you deserve it. So, shh, I hear the Graham Page come up the driveway, like that. And I hear the old man come into the kitchen, and I'm out there in the front bedroom, cowering on the daybed, and I hear, you know, the hollering around, he's got the newspapers, and it's just normal, see, and my mother says nothing, there's a lot of talk. And finally she says, come on, supper's ready, come on, kids, wash up. Oh, oh, yeah, I get up and I come out, I creep, sort of sneak along the wood, along the woodwork, you know, clinging to the woodwork and clinging to the buffet, and I sneak around into the john and the poor, my kids go, wash and shh, wash and like that, and Randy's saying nothing, I'm saying nothing. And 30 seconds later, I'm sitting there hunched over the red cabbage, like that, just eating away there. And my old man says, well, what happened today? Oh, here it comes. My mother doesn't say a word. She says, you know, she says, Gene had a little fight. She says, how, oh, fight? What kind of a fight? He looks at me, you know, because, you know, kids aren't supposed to fight. She says, oh, you know how kids are. I'm sitting there shoveling in the mashed potatoes. One of the great, one of the great delicacies in our house was to mix mashed potatoes with red cabbage. You see, the kids are doing what a rotten looking dish. But it's great. You see, I'm tasting nothing. I'm eating paste. I am eating old, old, old cucumber rinds. You know, I'm tasting nothing. I'm eating it down. And she just sits there, and she absolutely says nothing. Says absolutely nothing. And about two thirds of the way through the meal, I began to realize that I am not about to be destroyed. And I'm slowly coming out of it, you see. And then a very peculiar thing happened. I'm eating. And all of a sudden, I got this fantastic, unbelievable pain. Have you ever had stomach cramps so that you were heaving the bottom of your shoes right out through your ears? You know the-- Oh, oh, oh, oh. I'm just, oh, I'm purple, I'm green. And they're taking me out of the jar, and they're pouring water. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh. And-- I am so sick to my stomach. It is the conglomeration of it all coming up. The excitement of Harold Dill. The fantastic fear of yelling, the things that I had yelled. My old man coming home. And you know, I-- I heat, and I just-- it just all poured out of me, everything I had had. Like old erasers I had eaten two years before. Paste that I had eaten in second grade began to come out. You know, that kind of blotters that I had-- a couple of nickels that I had swallowed when I was two. I mean, stuff that you would never believe. Two frogs came out. Stuff-- just unbelievable stuff. Ooh, fishnets and all. Golf balls. Awful stuff. Ugh. Ugh. Just-- I'm sorry if I'm spoiling your dinner, but that's the way it was. You want to know the truth. Ugh. Well, uh-- and the old man kept saying, what's the matter with him? What's the matter with him? For crying out loud, I called Dr. Slicker. Well, my mother knew what was the matter with me. She says, no, he's gonna be all right. Now, just take it easy. Now, you go on out and finish eating. Go on. Both of you. She says to my old man, I'm like, go on, get out there. And she's got a wash rag on my neck. You know, she says, no, look. Just take it easy. And the water's pouring. She says, no, look. I'm not gonna say anything. Now, just be quiet. Just take it easy. Just-- just take it easy. Now, just take it easy. And she takes that stuff-- what is that pink stuff? Pepto-bismol. Yeah. Ugh! She says, now, look. She says, now, take some Pepto-bismol. And I started to cry all over again. It's coming on! Yelling and hollering. She says, now, take this. She says, now, just take it easy. We'll tell you-- we'll tell them that your stomach is upset, that you ate something terrible at school. And just take it easy. And you go on in and lie down. Eat the Pepto-bismol. And that's it. Just take it easy. I take-- ah! Down goes the Pepto-bismol. That pink glop goes down. And I'm crying. And now it's really coming out. Now it is really. I'm scared of Harold Dill again, you see. And it's coming out. And I'm scared of everything. I'm-- I'm-- I'm convinced now that I'm rotten. That I will never grow up to be 21. I will never see 21. And that I'm going blind. And I'm crying and yelling and screaming. And I'm lying in bed there. And finally, I fell asleep. Just completely passed out from sheer, fantastic, unbelievable, nervous exhaustion. And do you know-- funny thing-- the next morning when I woke up, I could hardly remember it. It was such a traumatic experience. It was just like erased. And I went down to school. You know, I'm a kid in school. And I go down to school. And everybody's talking about the fantastic fight with Harold Dill. And Harold Dill is not in school. And it's-- you know, it was just like a totally unreal situation completely. And do you know from this day-- from this day all the way back to that day-- that has never once been mentioned in my house. Never once. I just recall one time that it just barely came to the surface. I had gotten home from the Army. And I had-- you know, this had come up once in a while in my mind. I had thought about the time I really popped my gimmick. I really blew my cork. And I remember it was about-- oh, it was a hundred years after that. And I had just gotten home from the Army. And in fact, I was still in uniform. I recall it. And I'm sitting down with my mother. We're sitting around having lunch or something. And I said, "Ma," it just came back to me. I said, "Ma, do you remember that time I had that fight with Harold Dill?" And she looked at me and she says, "Well, yeah, I guess I do. I remember that." I said, "Ma, do you remember all about that fight?" I said, "What do you mean? You had a fight?" I remember it out there in front of Watts' house. I said, "No, that's not what I'm talking about." "Do you remember all that fight?" She said, "I don't know what you're talking about." I said, "Come on, Ma, do you remember all about that fight?" And she said, "Well, I remember you cried a lot. I don't remember any more about it than that." I said, "You sure you know?" She said, "No." "Just look right at me as cold, stone-lying sober as you can look." And she says, "No, I don't remember any more about it than that." And we have never again mentioned that entire incident. My father never did hear about it until the last day of his life.

[ Courtesy: Gary Hines - - ]   
  Harold Dill Fight, Rube Goldberg, Hammond scene, Liston-      
  

[ Courtesy: Max Schmid - - ]   
  Lost JEAN SHEPHERD from the Hines Collection
from WOR-NY on Tuesday September 25, 1962

"�Harold Dill Fight"

He flew to Toronto and back

Rube Goldberg is on the flight. His name has entered the English language!
"Somebody Loves Me"

Transcribed and taped girls (or men) for losers.

(Dramatic percusive music with tuba)

Speaking of fights (into comml - Esquire Mag on Barry Goldwater)

"Sometimes I'm Happy"

Have you ever really popped your cork? - into Kid Story

Bullies - Harold Dill
Speaking of running, this is WOR-NY

Hammond Ind, ground frozen half the year, then wind and sandstorms
Kids fight the elements all their lives

Looking for Indian arrowheads in sand dunes

kneedeep in grasshoppers from July to September

Dill - a juvenile delinquent
Shep attacks him - a red-hot fight full of obscenities.
He's out of control! Dill a mess, Shep unscathed.
Mother looks on, shocked. Randy is scared.
Old Man comes home - he fears wrath of god.

He gets horrendous stomach pains, then hurls up everything!
Finlly passes out. It's never mentioned again.      
  

WOR ID

Time	Station ID (All times approximate)
• 12:45	This is WOR AM and FM New York

Commercials (All times approximate)

Time	Sponsor	Notes
• 08:36	Esquire Magazine	Barry Goldwater - Oct edition

Music (All times approximate)

Time	Music Title	Notes
• 00:19; 05:03; 09:39	Somebody Loves Me
• 08:10	Signs and Alarms

Engineers, Staff, and Guests in Booth

Time	Engineer, Staff or Guest
• 14:27	Ed Beaty

Instruments and Special Effects Played During the Show

Instruments Played

None

Rating

None Yet

Related Plots / Story Lines and Other References Used

Time	Category	Date	Title	Comments
• [ 12:29 ]	People		Dill, Harold / Grover
• [ 13:20 ]	People		Bruner, Ralf
• [ 13:20 ]	People		Flick
• [ 13:20 ]	People		Shepherd, Randy
• [ 24:01 ]	People		Schwartz, Paul
• [ 28:35 ]	Movies		A Christmas Story	Scut Farkas fight

Airdate History ' - Original' date is earliest known broadcast)

	Date	Title
	September 25, 1962 Recno: 3326	Harold Dill Fight	Original Airing

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Show	Replay Date
Dustbin of History	September 24, 2026

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"Can you imagine 4,000 years passing, and you're not even a memory?
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