"Alger Hiss Was Framed"

So, last night our CALL OF CTHULHU group started a new adventure, with new Keeper, new characters, and new adventure: Steve 'Stan' Brown running MIDNIGHT HARVEST, written by Owen Stephens (a friend from days when we were both at WotC) and published by Super Genius Games. I had fun coming up with a character who's good at investigation but hopeless in combat, an 82-year old folksinger named Willis DunLaoghaire Foster. Essentially he's an old rabble rouser who actually knew Woody Guthrie, Will Geer, and other activist of that bygone era. I usually know more about my characters than ever comes up in the game, and in this case I actually wrote up one of his typical songs, "Alger Hiss Was Framed", which would have been written around 1952. That he'd still be singing it fifty-plus years later says a lot about the character. In any case, thought I'd share.

--JDR

current reading: THE PAPYRUS OF ANI (as a read-aloud), THE DEAD IN THEIR VAULTED ARCHES (the newest Flavia de Luce novel, just started)

current audiobook: CATCHING FIRE

Alger Hiss Was Framed

Alger Hiss was framed

Alger Hiss was framed

We all know Nixon's dirty game

And Alger Hiss was framed.

We all know Nixon's game

We all know Tricky Dicky's game

They found the goods in a pumpkin patch

When Alger Hiss was framed.

They found microfilm in a pumpkin patch

A pumpkin patch, a pumpkin patch

They found microfilm in a pumpkin patch

Whittaker Chambers' private stash

When Alger Hiss was framed.

Whittaker Chambers' private stash

It wasn't cocaine and it wasn't hash

They planted it there in the pumpkin patch

When they led us up the garden path

The day Alger Hiss was framed.

Nixon's in the White House now

Since Alger Hiss was framed

He rode Eisenhower's coattails

While Alger Hiss they sent to jail

And that's how it goes in the land of the free

For the likes of you and the likes of me

Since Alger Hiss was framed.

—Willis DunLaoghaire Foster  (1926 – ?2008).