Among the greatest inventions in world history is the ability to record sound and movement. Until Thomas Edison came along with a waxed cylinder that preserved sound, there was no way to hear the great singers, orators, preachers, reformers—or others who shaped cultures unless you were where they were.  And until the motion picture, there was no way to preserve moving images of those who made those sounds.

Part of President Benjamin Harrison’s speech in 1889 is the oldest known surviving recording of a President’s voice. The oldest moving image of a President dates to 1897, a film of the inaugural procession of William McKinley.

The combination of sound and film appears to have been demonstrated in 1900 in Paris but it was more than twenty years before motion pictures with sound became commercially affordable to produce.

This around-the-barn-and-through-the-back-door kind of story-telling in which we sometimes indulge brings us to the story of the death of Judge Harry Stone on April 16.

Judge Stone was the fictional judge of a Manhattan night court, played by comedian and magician Harry Anderson.  A video of Anderson’s “Hello Sucker” night club act is available on YouTube.  At the end, Anderson passes along some advice from famed New York newspaper columnist Damon Runyon.

The advice is useful to heed during campaign years.

If you are a fan of great Broadway musical theatre or Hollywood musicals based on Broadway musicals, you recognize the names of Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson as being creations of Runyon and main characters in Guys and Dolls.

The advice comes when Detroit bets Masterson one-thousand dollars that Mindy’s delicatessen sold more strudel than cheesecake a day earlier. Masterson refuses to take the bet and explains:

“When I was a young man about to go out into the world, my father says to me a very valuable thing.  ‘Son,’ the old guy says, ‘I’m sorry that I am not able to bankroll you a very large start.  But not having any potatoes to give you, I am going to give you some very valuable advice.  One of these days in your travels, you are going to come across a guy with a nice brand new deck of cards, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear.  But, son, do not take this bet, for if you do, as sure as you are standing there, you are going to end up with an ear full of cider.’”

Every two years when campaign time comes around, it’s advisable to recall that advice.  If you don’t, you need to always carry a towel.