Lon Gove, K. C. B
These brief sketches of Hanover celebrities are contributed by an Old Timer and are intended to inspire like memories in the minds of alumni who knew them. If you are one won't you send to the MAGAZINE any interesting incident you remember so that we can have a complete story of famous town characters. We may be able to print a more complete story as a result.—ED.
WE OLD TIMERS enjoy reading what you city folk write about our old friends and playmates. What isn't true is just as interesting as what is. There was old Lon Gove known well by more men than anyone in Hanover. Do you remember how Lon used to put on his English accent to women and strangers? When Ben Greet, the English playright, was about to leave the Inn, he said to the manager, "Do you know, I surely have enjoyed talking to your dark. First I thought he came from the North of England and then I thought he came from the South, and now I find he didn't come from England at all."
One time one of New York's elite came with a man friend to spend a night at the Inn. She was most apparently a frequenter of the Lobby of the Hotel Biltmore. Approaching the desk, she said, "By the way, do you have day-light saving time here?" Lon replied, "No, Madam, but we have night time." "How funny," she said, "and what is night time?" "Well, you know," said Lon, "You in New York have long sunny days and short nights, but up here in the country we have just lovely long nights, and how we do enjoy them." The lady hurried away with a faint suggestion of a blush apparent through her Orozco bedecked countenance. That day was Lon's.
Do you remember Lon's flivver which he used to drive so proudly around the streets of Hanover? Lon had the speedometer changed so that when it was going twenty miles it registered forty, etc. He took one of his out-of-town friends out for a ride, and shortly this fellow came running back to the Inn breathless and said to Perry, "Lon's up at the Golf Club out of gas. He's been tearing all over town at fifty miles an hour and around corners at forty. The old fool can stay there till Hell freezes over for all the help I'll give him."
Well, old Lon is gone and how we do miss him. The Inn isn't the same place anymore. A touch of the old world has left us and we don't get the kick of that sweet smile and familiar greeting which used to be a reminder of days gone by. There will never be another Lon.
