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Memphis, TN. -We're back at home now after a nice warm vacation. Talks are starting up about this year's reunion and I will keep you informed as things progress.If you would like to volunteer to work on the reunion plans then please send me an email and I'll pass it along.Please include your class year with your e-mails.
One day last summer my wife, Gudrun, handed me a junk mail flier. Knowing that she does a good job of winnowing the wheat from the chaff with the daily delivery, I took a close look at the item. It was a coupon from a Madison audio-visual outfit offering one-third off their regular charge for transferring home movies to DVD format. Since I’m the family archivist, I ended up with the small collection of 8mm home movies my father and older brother made from 1953 to 1956. Although I’ve had the six canisters of film since the mid-80s (when our house in Darwin Downs was sold), they’ve lain forgotten or neglected in storage closets or basements most of the time. Every now and then over the intervening years I would think about getting them transferred to an easily-viewable format (videotapes and then DVDs), but could never remember where they actually were and then just forgot about them. All the necessary conditions fell into place as I finished reading the coupon: I knew who could do the job, I knew the company was nearby, and this time I knew exactly where the canisters were. Unfortunately, after our move to Madison I had stored them in the garage, a completely inhospitable environment for film stock that was over fifty years old. Uh oh, this preservation project might be too late. Perhaps the films had deteriorated beyond even a reasonable recovery.But I wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip by. I located the film box and was relieved to see that in spite of the fact that the films had been baked and frozen by the changing seasons for the two previous years, none of the canisters revealed a soupy mess or released an alarming smell when I opened them; they just held films. OK so far, I thought.Even with the price reduction, I knew this was liable to be an expensive proposition, but I was sure that my two brothers would kick in their fair share of the deal. Besides, this sort of activity—bringing this collection of films back into the light— almost falls into the category of priceless. It’s a guess, but I doubt that any of us in the family had seen the movies since the late 50s, so at the very least the viewing was going to be a very educational, entertaining, and affecting trip back in time for all of us—the three fellows in the films, our wives and children. Because the audio-visual company was only a two-man operation, six weeks went by before the DVD was ready. The six canisters yielded about two hours of film. For those of us who documented some of the important events of our child-rearing days with video cameras, with all the enhancements of that later technology, it can come as somewhat of a shock (and with a sense of regret at the quality) to encounter the limits of home movie-making of the 50s. For starters, since the cameras had no audio-recording capabilities, the films are silent. You have only your aural memories to evoke the voices and circumambient sounds of that long-ago time. (In a well-meaning attempt to counter the silence, or as something that’s routinely done for their corporate projects, the audio-visual technician patched in a sort of New Age soundtrack that was totally inappropriate. Thank goodness for the mute button!) Another limitation was the resolution (sharpness) of the image. In addition, the photographer had to be very alert to lighting conditions. A cloudy day or inadequate indoor illumination could produce a poor viewing experience.In case you’re dreading it, it is not my intention to bore you with a lengthy account of what the DVD presented. The compilation shares a similarity with all other home documentaries: vacation scenes (Cypress Gardens! Marineland!), parties, holiday festivities, sporting events, nature studies, juvenile hi-jinks—in short, the motley cavalcade of our lives back then. I will mention two segments of wider interest: a parade down Washington Street celebrating Huntsville’s Sesquicentennial in 1955 featuring mock rockets on floats, Southern belles, and the strutting majorettes of Council High. Serendipitously, I also discovered scenes from a Sunday’s outing to Ossa-wintha (a brief topic in last year’s Traveller).What sparked the most excitement and joy for me, though, was viewing a brief scene near the end of the DVD. It showed me tuning in a station on my cherished green radio in the bedroom I shared with my younger brother, Gunter (Lee ’68). Even though I had not forgotten it, actually seeing that radio again was a very moving experience because the device was so meaningful to me at an impressionable time in my life. My parents gave me it to me in 1953. I don’t think I asked for it, and it will always be a mystery why they bought it. But it was one of the finest things they ever did for me because it opened up the worlds of music and entertainment, as well as the world outside Huntsville, to me. It helped continue, in a very enjoyable way, the process of assimilation to American culture that was already underway.One of the first radio shows I became attached to was the Slim Lay Show (WBHP?) and his down-home sounds. Hank Williams had died tragically on January 1, 1953, and his songs were on constant rotation on Slim’s show. As a youngster, the tune that most appealed to me was “Kaw-liga,” the one about the unfortunate wooden Indian. Hank’s plaintive voice won me over to his other songs, too (even though I was too young to understand the travails of love honky-tonk style). Other country singers I grew to love that year were Tennessee Ernie Ford, Marty Robbins, and Webb Pierce.On the pop scene nationally, I fell for the distinctive and captivating sounds of Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Nat King Cole, Eddie Fisher, Johnny Ray, Frankie Laine, Teresa Brewer, Kay Starr, Doris Day, Eartha Kitt, Jo Stafford, and Patti Page ( their hits, “Shrimp Boats,” and “How Much is That Doggie in the Window” were particular favorites of this young listener). Instrumentals that I still remember fondly from that time are “Lisbon Antiqua,” “The Poor People of Paris,” and “The Song from Moulin Rouge.” Much of this music has been enshrined on my iPod.One of the national shows that won my attention was “Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club” that was broadcast from Chicago. Although aimed primarily at an adult audience, it was a very popular variety show featuring interviews, music, and audience participation. Another national show—beamed out of Cincinnati-- that caught my fancy was the children’s show, “Big Jon and Sparky.” Its theme song was “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic.” When my family went to Germany for the summer of 1956, I was thrilled to find that Armed Forces Radio carried it over there, too.The mid-50s were the latter days of radio dramas and serials. I was a faithful listener of “The Lone Ranger” and “Sgt. Preston of the Yukon,” with my enthusiasm whipped-up by their stirring theme music. Confession: I was a closet fan of the sob stories of “Queen for a Day.”The show that had the single biggest impact on me was one of the horror drama shows. I can’t remember its name now, but I think it was broadcast late Saturday afternoon, near twilight. They were produced so expertly that one’s imagination was seized totally. I can’t recall whether I listened to it regularly, but one time I was back in the bedroom by myself and I tuned in. The other family members were in other rooms or outside; it was getting dark, and I got grabbed by this show. It scared me so utterly that when it ended I was literally afraid to move. I think somebody finally rescued me by coming to get me for supper and turning the lights on. Whew! Of course, as television swept the country a lot of the radio shows left that entertainment medium and moved to the new medium. I transferred my allegiance in 1956, when we bought a television, but probably still listened to the green radio as rock and roll took over my listening tastes. I’m sad to say I can’t remember when the radio was tossed out, but I recall that we bought a big combo record player/radio for the living room. Sitting in an easy chair there is when I started listening to a lot of classical and pop music on records and on a local FM station. The music played on in the house!Note: the radio pictured is a GE 450 from 1955. My radio didn’t look this spiffy, and it probably came from Monkey Wards, but the resemblance is close.
(Editor's Note: This week I shall share with you an extract from my first book. The italic text is my journal entry back in 1964 and the observations were made in 1989 when I wrote the book. I'll be posting more info on the book next week. I hope you enjoy.)Woke up at 8:30 A.M. but rolled over and went back to sleep. Missed Sunday School. Got up at 10:15 A.M., got ready, and walked to church. I was a few minutes late. Today's Scout Sunday. I invited myself home for dinner with William.We came back to the church at 2:00 P.M. We had our Westminster Fellowship Rally today. Anne W. came. I gave her my address and told her to write to me. She said she would. We got the "Generals Three," a folk singing group from Lee, to sing at our recreation. They sing pretty well.Hurried home after the rally to see the "Ed Sullivan Show." The "Beatles" from England were on it. They're great. After that I worked on my letter project then did some physics homework.Ran the tests on Sam. It's 10:40 P.M. now and I'm about to go to bed. I need to catch up on some sleep. I didn't get to take my nap today.Of all the events that happened on this date in 1964, only one would have a true place in history. This was the day that we had all been waiting for. This was the day when the Beatles would finally be on television. I don't know how we all knew about it, but we did and there was nothing that would make any of us miss the show. Their songs had already changed the music of the American teenager. Because of them anything British was in style. We loved and craved British music, clothes, cars, and movies. The Empire was growing again, and the colonialists were surrendering to their invasion.With any revolution, old is replaced by new. The invasion of the Beatles and their music was killing off a different style of music. The folk songs that were shared by the youth group at the church rally, were starting to fall from their crest. Folk music was about to be buried by a tidal wave of music that was rolling in from the British Isles. The slow, meaningful music of one man and one guitar was being replaced the group of four who were famous at first for their "Yeah, yeah, yeah." They sang songs that the kids loved and the parents made fun of. They were songs which were the source of many arguments between several generations."Tonight, we have a reallllly big shoe." Those lines made Ed Sullivan famous and a lot of impressionists rich. In those days, everyone did impressions of Ed Sullivan, with his thin cheeks, his grey suit, and his arm movements and facial expressions. Some teenagers of the day thought he was a little old fashioned. Most thought he was a lot old fashioned. He was the person our parents watched on TV. He had their kind of show, with the Chinese Acrobats and Senior Wenchez or somebody or another with his "Sallright, Sallright." His show was not normally the show that the younger generation rushed home to watch. Every once in a while, he surprised us. He did it with people like Elvis, Buddy Holly, and now the first American network television performance of the Beatles. This was the night we'd all waited for. It was our chance to see the Beatles, and most of the teenagers of Huntsville and the rest of the country were sitting in front of the tube waiting.There were a few other acts on that night, but who they were or what they did will never be remembered. Finally the words came, "And now, from England . . ." and the "Fab Four" were there on our television sets. They were there with their hair and their Beatle boots and their suits. We met John, Paul, George, and Ringo, the Beatles. The screams were deafening as the cameras zoomed in on them. The time we had all waited for had finally arrived. I sat alone in my living room as I watched them on my 21 inch black and white Magnavox television. I was alone, but I was with millions of other teenagers across the country. As great as we thought they were on that night, none of us ever really knew the true effect those four singers would have on the music industry and on many other parts of our lives. In the coming years they would influence hair styles, fashion, music, poetry, politics, and film. They would pass along to the teenagers who sat in their living rooms that night the undying desire to go to England, and see Carnaby Street and Penny Lane, and Strawberry Fields.Their first album was a "must have" record for everyone of the day. I bought mine at Montgomery Wards out at the Parkway Mall. The one I bought wasn't even stereo. The stereo album cost a dollar more than I had. On this night, the world wanted to "hold your hand." We all wanted that. My generation sang along with the Beatles. "She loves you, I saw her standing there, and please, please me." Those were the phrases that blasted from the radios, poured from juke boxes, and played over and over on our record players. They had arrived, and we were glad.