From: "Roy C. Lackey" 
Subject: Re: (urth) the dog-boy of Carnies Past
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 03:16:59 -0500

mantis wrote:

>Ugh, right -- no photo of Doris, just one of Candy (graphic description of
>another one of Candy), and the one with the two guys.  Where Candy is
>supposedly the half-sister to Doris. So Weer's interest in Doris is not
>from his actually seeing Doris.

Ah, yes. I had forgotten that the mysterious Mr. Mason was the father of
Candy and Arline, as well as Doris. That's another strike against the idea
that Weer was the father of Doris. So far as we know, Weer never married at
all, much less twice. It would also make him the father of Candy, which puts
another ugly twist on the girlie picture Charlie sent him. But then, why
does Charlie write: "Anyway, if you have any comments on the picture you
would like to make, go ahead and make them to me and I will pass them along
to Candy; she will be glad to hear from you."? Why should Candy be glad to
hear from Weer? Who is he to her? Surely not her father!

>Dimly I recall going over all this, but still I persist in wondering.  Odd
>that the sepia picture has Smart on it . . .

I said only that it was "possibly" Smart. Against that idea is the near
certainty that the tall man with thick glasses is Tom Lavine. Tom's
constitution is such that, as Charlie writes, he "won't live long". If the
sepia is natural, the picture taken decades ago, how likely is it that Tom
would still be alive to pay court to Doris at a time when Weer was about
fifty? Charlie referred to Tom as a "kid". Weer was president for only about
15 years before he died, not enough time for the photos to have faded and
turned brown on the day he showed them to Miss Hadow. If the sepia was
faked, the pictures still shouldn't have faded in 15 years. In other words,
it would be pretty hard for Tom Lavine to have been a contemporary of both
Smart and Doris.

>Back to Janet Turner.  We know a surprising amount about her family.  Is
>Turner her married name?  Her brother, with wife and farm, does he live
>around Cassionsville? (I know we've wondered about that one before, but if
>Turner is her married name, then gee, she could be related to the Lorns or
>the Greens.  Or even somehow to the Weers?)

We are given no hint as to who Charlie's father might be, but Turner must be
Janet's maiden name; Smart notes that she wears no wedding band (142). The
surviving brother inherited the family farm, but the only hint as to its
location is Janet's accent (or lack of one), which Smart thinks "might be
from Ohio or maybe Pennsylvania" (139).

-Roy


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