Sandra Parks Bozeman, Class of '67 - The symbols in this weeks mystery photo stand for: man, woman, birth, death and infinity. They were drawn at the beginning of each episode of Ben Casey. He was a tough doctor but Dr. Kildare was my favorite. Thanks for jogging my memory each week. You do an awesome job.
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Lynn Bozeman VanPelt, Class of '66 - Man , woman, birth, death, infinity. The opening of Ben Casey each week. I remember how one had to choose either Dr. Casey or Dr. Kildare as their favorite....even amongst our Moms the camps were divided, although my Mom and I both favored Ben Casey.
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Bruce Fowler, Class of '66 - The mystery photo is from the television series "Ben Casey", which was the "other" medical series countering the series on another network revetting the "Young Doctor Kildare" series of movie fame in the '30's and '40's. The Kildare series was rather upbeat and positive while the Casey series was rather darker.
The symbols were drawn on the chalkboard at the beginning of each episode with an intonation as they were drawn of "man, woman, birth, death, infinity", I believe by the character playing the mentor physician played by Sam Jaffe?
What was always notable here was the association of the symbols. While all of them are ancient they have radically different origins and associations. For example, the "man" symbol is also commonly associated with the planet Mars and the element iron; the "woman" symbol is commonly associated with the planet Venus and the element copper. The "infinity" symbol is most commonly associated in maths with infinity or the class of infinities and its earlier, ancient uses have often be similar. The disconnect comes in the octagram and quadragram ("star" and "plus") symbols. These have widely different meanings across many ancient societies. In modern usages, both in maths, the quadragram is cmmonly a symbol associated with addition while the octagram is associated with multiplication of non-scalar entities and with complex conjugation.
One probably wants to suspect that this dissonance is more than the idle grasping of entertainment composers and has some association with the dark, paradoxical aspects of the series?
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Linda Beal Walker, Class of '66 - I didn't have to look this one up. This is "man, woman, birth, death, infinity" which began the weekly series Ben Casey played by Vince Edwards. He was a prequel to all the new TV doctors that are tough and sure of themselves and think they know more than anyone else. Sam Jaffe played the older, wiser doctor. I can't remember the name of the person that played the nurse, but in real life she was married to Sam Jaffee and I always thought that was gross because he was so much older than she and had all that bushy hair.
Because of the handsome Ben Casey, who never buttoned his white smock at the neck (which was against hospital regs), the fad for us girls was wearing a Ben Casey blouse. My parents did not feel that we had the money to waste on such a purchase, so my mother made my Ben Casey blouse. I remember wearing the blouse with a black straight skirt and having my picture taken by Claudia Duke in front of her house. As if I weren't skinny enough, in that long, white blouse and the straight black skirt, I looked like a popsicle stick with toothpick legs and arms. I probably weighed 60 pounds. Oh, brother, have I come a long way!!!!
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Escoe German Beatty, Class of '65 - MAN... WOMAN... BIRTH... DEATH... INFINITY Began the "Dr. Ben Casey" series each week.... This was a very cool doctor show--- probably the first one of many, many more to come. He was so good looking it made you want to get sick!
This was also the first time I ever heard the word infinity and then consequently began to ponder what it meant! I'm still not entirely sure about the concept....
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Carolyn Burgess Featheringill, Class of '65 - This week's mystery photograph is the introduction to "Ben Casey, M. D." The symbols, as pronounced in the voice-over, are "man, woman, birth, death, infinity." The doctor shows were very big in the early sixties. The primary competitor with "Ben Casey" was "Dr. Kildare", starring a very young, very handsome Richard Chamberlain.
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Rod Dixon, Class of '69 - I do remember these symbols as the beginning of the Ben Casey series. They were man, woman, birth, death, infinity. My best memory of this time was wearing my Ben Casey shirt to Lakewood Elementary. Several of us showed up as doctors but alas no one would play doctor with us! As I recall, they were a fairly short lived fad going the way of "deck pants". Anyone remember those? My favorite outfit was my deck pants with a boat neck shirt with 3/4 length sleeves. I was in the fourth grade which made me about 9 so my "older" brother would have been 13 and I was just the "kid brother" who got it the way at dance parties in our garage!
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Aaron Potts, First Class of Lee High School - Well, the symbols are: Man, Woman, birth, death and infinity. If I am not mistaken, it was a prelude each week to a doctors TV show; either Ben Casey or Dr. Kildare, or I could be out in left field again. I have a lot of experience out there. There are three distinct features of getting old. Loss of hair, loss of memory and……………… I forgot the other one.
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Butch Adcock, Class of ‘64 - Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity. Ben Casey, MD saved the day every week with sage advice from Dr. Zorba (Sam Jaffe). I don’t remember another thing about the show, but I’ll never forget that opening. The quality of the circles for the man and woman symbols was impressive. Much better than I can do at a blackboard. And getting the infinity symbol to be symmetric is nothing short of amazing. The show itself was sort of anti-climactic after such impressive drawing.
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Click on this link to see the opening of Ben Casey
Bonus Question: Does anyone know who was first selecterd to be Dr. Kildare and turned it down which allowed Richard Chamberlain to get the part? Hint: He's still in a series today.
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