The high point of What’s My Line?
The mystery guest, of course,
a recognizable celebrity for whom the panelists
all donned masks, as if at a masquerade ball.
That 1966 show with the federal tax examiner?
That night there were two mystery guests,
Walter Cronkite and Art Carney.
Usually it was just one.
In the usual course of play,
each panelist asked questions until
he or she got a negative response,
then the next panelist took a turn,
the guest having racked up five bucks.
With the mystery guest, the rules changed:
each panelist asked one question
before the next got a turn.
We sat on the edge of the couch
watching the masked panelists,
four blind mice, fumble for answers.
What a joy that night Art Carney signed in,
the voices he used to disguise himself.
I remember it prompted Arlene to ask:
“You are a comedian, aren’t you?”
And Carney responded in the high cartoon voice:
“Sometimes. Sometimes I can make people cry.”
How we howled back home in Potawatomi Rapids,
all of us staring at the black and white TV,
as if huddled before a campfire—
Mom, Pop, Dave, Bob and me;
I’m the last of us still living.
