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"Pappy-isms"
- Sage advice often heard on the weekly installments of the
western adventure MAVERICK/ABC/1957-62.
The frontier members of the Maverick family Bret
(James Garner); Bart (Jack Kelly), Brent (Robert Colbert), Ben
(Charles Frank) and Cousin Beauregard Maverick (Roger Moore) often
extolled the familial philosophies of patriarch, Beauregard
"Pappy" Maverick.
Pappy's most revered proverb was: "He who plays
and runs away lives to play another day." Other sage observations
(preceded by "As my Pappy used to say") included:
Pappy Maverick
- "A coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero dies but one." A
thousand to one is pretty good odds."
- "A man does what he has to do - if he can't get out of it."
- "A fox isn't sly; he just can't think any slower."
- "A man does what he has to do - if he can't get out of it."
- "Early to bed and early to rise’ is the curse of the working
class."
- "Faint heart never filled a flush."
- "Hell hath no fury like a man who loses with four of a
kind."
- "If at first you don't succeed, try something else."
- "If you're ever served a rare steak that is intended for
someone else, don't bother with ethical details - eat as much as
you can before the mistake is discovered."
- "If you haven't got something nice to say about a man,
it's time to change the subject."
- "Love your fellow man, and stay out of his troubles if you
can."
- "Man is the only animal you can skin more than once."
- "Marriage is the only game of chance I know of where both
people can lose."
- "Never cry over spilled milk... it could've been whiskey."
- "Never hold a kicker and never draw to an inside straight."
- "Never play in a rigged game, unless you rig it yourself."
- "No use crying over spilled milk, it could have been
whiskey."
- "Son, the best time to get lucky is when the other man's
dealin'."
- "Son, hard work never hurt anyone - who didn't do it."
- "Son, stay clear of weddings because one of them is liable
to be your own."
- "The only time you ever quit when you're winnin' is after
you've won it all."
- "Work is fine for killin' time, but it's a shaky way to make
a living."
- "You can be a gentleman and still not forget all you know
about self-defense."
- "You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of
the people all the time and those aren't bad odds!"
- "You can tell more about a town by looking at its gambling
emporium than any other building."
Bart, Beau and Brent Maverick
So determined was Pappy to keep his gambling offspring's from the
straight and narrow that when his sons went fighting for the
Confederate Army, Pappy admonished them "If you either one gets
back with a medal, I'll beat you to death."
In addition to Pappy's
wisdom, he also left each of his boys a
$1000 bill for security
against bad times which they tucked inside their traveling
clothes.
TRIVIA NOTE:
On the
animal adventure series NATIONAL VELVET/NBC/1960-62, James McCallion appeared as
Irish born ex-jockey who helped a young girl Velvet Brown (Lori
Martin) train her horse for the Grand National Steeplechase.
When playing chess with Velvet he liked to espouse the philosophy
of his grandmother (for example, "As me wise grandmother used to
say, the wise man laughs at himself, and the fool laughs at
everything else."
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