"NEW YORK (AP) -- It's a simple proclamation that can bring you instantly back to the land of Oz: "As coroner, I must aver / I thoroughly examined her / And she's not only merely dead / She's really, most sincerely dead!"
The munchkin coroner who made that familiar recitation in "The Wizard of Oz" -- a confirmation that the Wicked Witch of the East was killed -- was played by Meinhardt Raabe.
Raabe's role is just one chapter in a life that has included flying with a Civil Air Patrol during War II and crisscrossing the country with the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile.
The 4-foot-7 Raabe, now 89, has published a memoir about his adventures, including his time on the set of the 1939 film, which he says helped eliminate derogatory terms for little people.
"Since the picture, we've all become munchkins," Raabe (pronounced RAH'-bee) said Tuesday on his way to a book signing in Manhattan. "It's like knighthood."
The book, "Memories of a Munchkin: An Illustrated Walk Down the Yellow Brick Road," describes what it was like to be on the "Oz" set -- real trees rooted in the ground, mushroom-shaped Munchkinland houses supplemented with backgrounds painted on muslin and, of course, the yellow brick road.
He recalled dressing for his part, which included wearing a skullcap and being outfitted with dyed yak hair molded into a handlebar mustache and long beard.
Raabe, who walks with a cane and has a hearing aid, still readily repeats his famous lines from the movie -- a task he says he's asked to do "every place I go."
I once read that about one third of children born in Cleveland have issues with them.
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