This is one of those realizations over three decades in the making.
(First, I have to say I know little about automobiles other than “Keep fuel in it, or it stops” and “Keep the oil changed, or it stops permanently.”)
Anyway, in this short, Stymie’s mother calls him to get some laundry. Stymie works in the engine of one of those “Our Gang” automotive contraptions. He tells his mom, “I is da ‘Floating Power!’”
OK, so I was about to respond to a thread in another forum about “What did you name your car?” I called my first car, a '69 Dodge Coronet “The Floating Power.” By the time I was finished driving it it was in only slightly better condition than the “Gang’s” car, but still kept going.
So. . . I Googled the name “floating power” to see if there were any references to Stymie or the “Gang” but found a surprise.
There was indeed a revolutionary engine in the early 1930s called “The Floating Power!” So, there was more to it than Stymie apparently making up a fanciful name for his “motorvational” activities.
(Similarly, the the short “A Lad and a Lamp” Stymie says something like "He used to look like me, but know he looks like ‘ingaggy.’ I finally find out what that meant (and how to spell it properly) years later–but that’s another story. . .)
Sometimes I’ve discovered hidden connections and references. Two of my favorites were from John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor. If you’ve read the book, you’ll be delighted to learn:
There was an Ebenezeer Cooke in colonial Maryland, and he did write the poem “The Sot-Weed Factor” that the book refers to.
The secret of the sacred eggplant actually existed, and Barth quoted from an ancient recipe.
This is really strange. Usually, I will think of a question and within a day or two, someone on the SDMB asks the same question. The latest: last night, I was watching the Cartoon Network with my son and there was an old (I think) Warner Bros. cartoon from around the 1930s. In it there was a race and there were various unusual race cars. One was called something like the “Cheerio Special” and had three guys in it with British accents saying “Cherio.” Then another car looked like it was made out of a bathtub with an engine floating in water with Capt. Bligh for a driver and on the side of the car it said: “The Floating Power.” So, there’s another contemporaneous reference to The Floating Power.
