This ad used to freak me out.
Whatever happened to Noilly Prat? I haven’t seen it in donkey’s years. Which is just as well–it used to scare me.
Happily, I can now look upon it with unspoiled equanimity. Maybe Heidi was right: maybe the guy in the cloak is a French cop. (Doesn’t he look like Frankenstein? Square head, etc.)
All the same, better cross the street if you see him coming.
The planet Mars–without the scary clouds
Do people have an inborn compulsion to believe things that make no sense at all?
I remember a day at school, in the playground, with a rumor that had the whole fourth grade buzzing. It came in two parts.
*One: The government had a secret plan (which somehow all these kids found out about) to blow up several atomic bombs on the moon… just to see what would happen.
*Two: Every time they talked about this plan, “two dubular clouds appeared on Mars.” Because of this the plan was canceled.
Not one of us had even the foggiest idea what a “dubular cloud” was, but we all believed the rumor and found it rather disconcerting. I was sure I’d Heard It On The News! and it was therefor true. The Martians were out to get us, just like in the movies. Who knew what they were up to, out there on the dark side of the moon?
The scare died away when nothing happened. I don’t remember what new foolishness replaced it. Nor can I remember how I first heard of dubular clouds. But I never heard of them again.
I’m not prepared to say the news has become any more reliable since then. That goes for its viewers, too.
When I was a boy, everybody seemed to have a workbench, either downstairs in the cellar or else the garage. I’ll bet my grandpa had a thousand tools. And my Uncle Ferdie was an inventor.
Were people handier back then? My father made all sorts of things we used around the house. Grandpa made toys (we still have some of them).
But the years flow by, and decades of apartment living have eroded any handiness I ever had. *Sigh*
It was always around this time of year that we had our annual Sunday school picnic. It had to be outdoors–who ever heard of an indoor picnic? One of our favorite venues was Hacklebarney State Park. Is that a cool name, or what?
Ah, badminton! And frisbee. Aluminum tub filled with crushed ice and cans of soda. Grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, when a fireplace was handy. Our teachers were all parents and grandparents–no need think of them as unpredictable spirits that must be appeased. Just pile into the available cars, and off we go to Hacklebarney. Roosevelt Park and Johnson Park were a lot closer, but we could go there any time during the week. Hacklebarney was exotic.
Horseshoes! What’s a picnic without horseshoes?
I would give a lot to revisit one of those picnics. Church was fun, back then: always meant to be taken seriously, but not without picnics and winter retreats. Fellowship was a big deal in our church. I appreciate that now.
Y’know what’s funny? Technically speaking, this animal isn’t even a dinosaur. It’s a plesiosaur, a contemporary of the dinosaurs. But this painting of a plesiosaur–now reposing, I’m told, in the Milwaukee Museum–totally haunted my early childhood and gave me an unquenchable, lifelong desire to explore the prehistoric world.
(I just noticed I’m sitting here in a Jurassic Park T-shirt.)
This illustration can be found in The Golden Treasury of Natural History by Bertha Morris Parker, who will always be one of my heroes. Another one of my heroes, my Uncle Bernie, sat me on his lap and read to me out of that wonderful book. That he butchered the dinosaurs’ names, I didn’t care in the least.
Here’s another funny thing: for some time after first seeing it in the book (a full-page illustration), I was convinced this animal still lived. Somewhere out there in the ocean, it was still swimming.
Here’s another one of those illustrations, this one depicting Dimetrodon–again, not a dinosaur; but always lumped in with them.
Now I know the pictures are only pictures imagined by an artist, not real–but oh yes they are! I’ve seen these creatures in my dreams.
I wonder where the LORD is keeping them.
Somebody did a nice job on this one.
How about something completely harmless, peaceful, and relaxing?
Like putting together a model car.
Between us my brother and I must’ve assembled 100 model cars when we were kids. I have no mechanical aptitude, but I was surprised when I found my old toy-car skills helped me assemble a new computer monitor. Learn all you can: you never know what’ll come in handy someday.
I wonder how well I’d do if I had another crack at assembling my model T. rex skeleton. Maybe this time it wouldn’t fall apart.
In light of the supremely good news of Christ’s Resurrection, I deem it nugatory* to discuss any fallen-world nooze today. Instead, a bit of harmless fun.
I enjoy remembering (or trying to remember!) the theme music for TV shows that were popular when I was a boy… live coverage of the Trojan War, etc. The Peter Gunn theme I always heard it in bed: no way I was going to be allowed to stay up and see it in 1958. But Henry Mancini’s music was hard to forget. How did they ever get him for television?
Anyway, I would love to hear from all of you out there–what were some of your favorite TV theme songs? Maybe I could offer a prize to the reader whose memory clip gets the most enthusiastic response from the rest of us.
How about it, boys ‘n’ girls? Any antique themes you’d like to share?
Meanwhile, please keep up the hymn requests. That’s always the first order of business around here.
*I have always wanted to use that word, but never had occasion for it till now.
How can I remember movies that I never saw? No, it’s not past lives. It was the TV listings in the Star-Ledger. I wasn’t allowed to stay up past 8 o’clock, so all I had was the newspaper. And for a lot of those late-night movies, the description was so minimal as to leave you without a hint as to what the movie was about.
Here are three whose titles tantalized me for years.
*Adventures of Tartu (1943): wartime skulduggery among the Rumanian oil fields. I never knew that until much, much later. Something about the title led me to anticipate a show with puppets instead of actors. Or maybe it was some kind of Flash Gordon thing. WWII movies were a dime a dozen back then… but this was the only one about “Tartu.”
*Scudda-Hoo! Scudda-Hay! (1948): You’d never guess from the posters, but this was a movie about mules. There must’ve been kissing in it, so parts of it would’ve been boring. But I’m sure I would’ve liked watching the mules, if it hadn’t always been on so late at night.
*Sandokan the Great (1963): If I’d only known it starred Steve Reeves as a Malaysian pirate battling the British, head-hunters, and man-eating tigers, I’d’ve surely found a way to see it! But no: I thought it was about a magician. “Italian: 1963” is a pretty sketchy description.
I guess this helps disprove the claim that all movies made before 1970, except musicals, were immortal works of art.
How about you? Were there any movies that you always wondered about but never saw? I’ll bet we can turn up some treasures, if we dig.
Every Saturday morning I used to run across the street to my friend Ellen’s house so we could watch this show, Tombstone Territory, before we went outside to play.
Two things I remember: it had a nice theme song which I still whistle now and then, even though I can’t remember any of the stories.
But I also recall that Tombstone, in common with the multitude of TV westerns we enjoyed in the 1950s, depicted cowboys in crisp, clean clothes that always looked like they’d just been to the laundry. It wasn’t until Spaghetti Westerns came along that you saw cowboys wearing dirty clothes.
Did the Old West provide hosts of cowboy laundries up and down Main Street? And if not, why did Hollywood make it look that way?
Maybe one of you has the answer.
No, I am not going to write up any nooze today. We are taking a day off from that, following the example of Judah the Maccabee.
This video reminds me of a weekend I enjoyed when I was four or five years old. My parents went to a farm –I don’t know what they did there, because I was busy with some cows all day. I sat on the stone wall by the pasture and played with my toys, and a couple of cows always ambled up to watch. I spent a lot of time petting them and talking to them. They seemed to like it.
These are glimpses into Paradise.