Item From the Past: A Day Off For LBJ

A few years ago while visiting my mother, I found this scrap of pink paper tucked away among the few relics of my time in grade school, the same place I found this photograph. I don't know why I kept it. Maybe I knew I'd have a special interest in dead presidents some day, but more likely I put it away because it was unusual.

January 24, 1973

NO CLASSES THURSDAY, JAN. 25TH

School will not be held in the Alamo Heights School District on Thursday, January 25, 1973 to honor the memory of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. No make-up is required as the action is authorized by the Texas Education Agency.

For your information, we will have school on February 19 and March 16. These are the make-up days for the "ice holidays." Please change your school calendars accordingly.

George M. Moore, Principal

The school made this announcement during my last year there, sixth grade. Of course, Lyndon Johnson had died two days earlier, on January 22, 1973, of a heart attack, and his funeral was held on the 25th at the National City Christian Church in Washington. No doubt it was televised. I have no memory of watching the funeral or anything else I did that day. I just know I wasn't in school. Texas was honoring one of its own.

The "ice holidays" had happened earlier in January. We got out of school from two whole days because of an ice/snow storm on January 11 (I had to look up that date). We got all of 0.8 inches of snow that day, according to the NWS, but I suppose the ice really shut things down. We did not know -- could hardly imagine -- that there would be another winter storm on the night of February 8, 1973, leaving more than two inches on the ground. The next day was a Friday, which we got off. I don't remember making it up, but we must have.

Those were the only times I got off school for snow during the entire 11 years I went to school in San Antonio. And the only time I got off for a presidential death, all during the same few weeks.

George Moore, incidentally, was the only principal we'd ever had at Woodridge (we, as in the students who finished in 1973). According to this short history of the school, he had been principal since the unimaginably distant year of 1962, but would only be there until 1974. I don't remember much about him, except that he always wore a coat and tie.

The 7Up Deco-Psychedelia Mashup

Hot weekend. But it should be here in the Northern Hemisphere, considering that the calendar says July.

I spent some time roaming the vast aisles of a certain do-it-yourself warehouse retailer one day recently, looking for this and that, but mostly looking at this and that. In the men's room of this particular store, I noticed that both of the urinals and one of the three sit-down toilets had OUT OF ORDER signs taped to them. And where is the one place that broken toilets should be fixed quickly? A do-it-yourself store.

Yesterday's posting, which is also posted on Facebook, got a fair amount of attention on that social media site, mostly from my old friends who are in the picture. But one friend of a friend asked if, indeed, that was a bottle of 7Up on the table. It was a liter bottle, I think, in a style that's probably long gone, though I haven't examined any glass 7Up bottles lately. It just seems likely that a design available 30 years ago wouldn't be available any more.

That bottle called to mind this commercial, made in 1974 and aired for some time afterward. Everyone in the room with me that day in 1981 would have seen it any number of times.

Link for Facebook readers.

Watching it again after so many years, I'm taken with the luminous artistry of the thing, created by the fine blending of '20s and '70s styles, visually and musically. What to call that? Psychedelic deco? I'm sure I didn't appreciate it when it was new, as with so many things.

More on the commercial's director, the late Robert Abel, is here. He went on to be a computer animation pioneer, among other things, and seems to have gotten a Clio for his efforts on the "Bubbles" commercial. I hope so. More on 7Up is here, from Snopes, of all places.

Add Trap Doors and a Gong

Lilly, who has been watching American Idol with some regularity, has stopped doing so. "It's gotten boring," she said. I'm not in a position to comment on that opinion. Her media interests come and go, after all. Only Spongebob has been constant in her esteem over the years.

About five minutes every few months is all I've ever seen of American Idol, but despite that I was able to offer some suggestions that would spice up the viewing experience for her and the rest of the teen demographic. Trap doors, for one thing. Losers go out through trap doors. The producers could rig things so that no one would be hurt, and the effect could be dramatic. Also, a gong for losers. Like on The Gong Show.

Once I mentioned that, I had to explain The Gong Show to her. Well, describe it, since I'm not sure anyone can quite explain it. You could make an argument that it was an absurdist masterpiece, if you had a lot of time on your hands and nothing better to do. But it isn't something that could be revived, since the moment has passed, and since we have YouTube in our time to fill a similar niche hundreds of times over. Naturally, YouTube has a lot of clips from the original show.

Ra-Ra-Rasputin

More snow last night. But only about an inch, so the main effect was covering up the bumps and irregular mounds created by the intense shoveling and snowblowing of the last few days. Weather chronologists say that this has been the snowiest February on record in the Chicago area -- which was already the case by February 2.

So we turn to indoor activities. Lately we've acquired Just Dance 2, a Wii game. Usually I'm off doing something else when the girls or the girls and their friends are playing with it, but I can hear songs from its eclectic selection of dance tunes. The other day I was in the kitchen when I heard:

Ra-Ra-Rasputin
Lover the of the Russian queen
There was a cat that really was gone
Ra-Ra-Rasputin
Russia's greatest love machine
It was a shame how he carried on

What? A disco song about Rasputin? One that manages to rhyme "Rasputin" with "queen" and "machine"?

Sure enough, the Euro-disco group Boney M -- the creation of a German producer -- released just such a song in 1978. If I heard it then, I don't remember, and I think I would have remembered a song about Rasputin, whatever the genre. With certain exceptions, Euro-disco did not play much on American airwaves at the time, and I wouldn't have sought it out in those pre-Internet days. The only song of Boney M's I vaguely think I heard back then was "Rivers of Babylon."

The video for "Rasputin" is all kinds of funny, often unintentionally. Sorry to say, however, that the male member of the group, Bobby Farrell -- wearing the faux beard in the video, which must have made the lip-synching easier, and dancing up a storm -- was in the news recently for dying. On December 29 (N.S.) in St. Petersburg, same day and city as Rasputin.

Naturally, the mad monk's famed death is mentioned by the song too.

Ra-Ra-Rasputin
Lover the of the Russian queen
They put some poison into his wine
Ra-Ra-Rasputin
Russia's greatest love machine
He drank it all and said, "I feel fine"

More than anyone would need to know about "Rasputin" is
here.

"Meet Me in the Petroleum Combustion Unit"

September didn't go out with a bang or whimper, at least in terms of weather conditions in my general vicinity, but like smooth jazz. A light breeze and about 70° F. in mid-afternoon under partly cloudy skies. I didn't have a lot of time to sit outside and read, but I made a little while for it. October will not be so generous with pleasant weather.

Also on Season 2, Disc 8 of Saturday Night Live on DVD (see yesterday) is the May 21, 1977, episode of that program (Buck Henry, Jennifer Warnes). I carved out a few minutes today for that as well, with the advantage of skipping the parts I didn't want to see. During the "Coneheads Return" sketch, Beldar and his family stop for gasoline en route to Manhattan, and the camera caught sight of the price of gasoline at whatever New Jersey Exxon station they filmed at: 60.9¢/gal. I couldn't see the grade.

Naturally, that sent me to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis' web site to use its inflation calculator (isn't that what you'd do?). I entered the variables and it spat out the answer: "If in 1977, I bought goods or services for $0.61 then in 2010, the same goods or services would cost $2.21. That in turn led me to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report, which tells me that the current average (9.30.10) for a gallon of regular is $2.689. So gas is somewhat more expensive for us than Beldar, though I also remember that by 1979, when I was having to pay for gas myself, it was closer to $1/gal., in the wake of the Iranian Revolution and its attendant oil shocks. A dollar in 1979 is $3.03 now.

SNL Mardi Gras Special

Tucked away on Season 2, Disc 8 of Saturday Night Live on DVD -- among Special Features -- is the SNL Mardi Gras Special, which was broadcast only once, on February 20, 1977, and never repeated. I had to see it again after all those years, to see how my fragmentary memories of the show tallied with what was broadcast.

Overall, except for the chaotic setting, it was much like any SNL show from that era. Some sketches worked, some didn't. Some things I didn't understand then, but do now. It's a lot funnier to hear John Belushi scream "Stella!" in the New Orleans night, while wearing a torn white t-shirt, if you've seen A Streetcar Named Desire, which I didn't until some years later. But even in 1977 I thought it outrageously funny for Belushi to impersonate Mussolini on a balcony facing a crowd of revelers, and even better to get the crowd to shout, "Duce! Duce!" As a high school kid I might have been unusual in my knowledge of World War II leaders.

I'm fairly certain I didn't really appreciate the music then, but I do now. Just how many songs are there about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927? Quite a few, actually, and Randy Newman sung one of them ("Louisiana 1927") on the show, with full orchestration. Also featured was The New Leviathan Oriental Fox-Trot Orchestra doing "Rebecca Came Back From Mecca," which probably hasn't been on network television since (and maybe never before, though there's no telling what ended up on variety shows in the '50s). Would SNL have the nerve now to book any musical act that far outside the mainstream, even as a secondary act? I wouldn't know, but I suspect not.

Eric Idle had a memorably funny turn as well, at an empty outdoor cafe doing the old broadcaster-stuck-with-nothing-to-report bit: "Here, there's an atmosphere of almost unbelievable gaiety -- [glances around the empty outdoor cafe] and festivity. You can practically smell Mardi Gras here! The atmosphere, for four days, has been a feeling of Carnival, which was, uh, really here up to, uh, well, just a few short minutes ago, uh -- before you came over here.

"The place was literally packed with revelers, partymakers wearing beads and singing and dancing -- it was a real Carnival atmosphere, and we were all having a really, really fun, fun time -- up until a couple of moments ago. Literally, crowds of people were literally thronging these streets, literally hundreds of gay -- uh, happy -- folks were... lurking all over the place! What a pity, they've all gone..." That goes on for a while, and toward the end Idle holds up a postcard of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, which he moves up and down to give the audience a sense of the vanished festivities.

Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live (1986), by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad, details how difficult the New Orleans episode was for the SNL cast and crew, besides simply being a logistical nightmare. This 2008 article by Dave Walker of the Times-Picayune covers the subject well. The payoff, in terms of ratings at least, was mediocre. In a way, it's too bad that the concept of SNL broadcasting occasionally from other places died with that single show in 1977. Over the years, the show could have done other interesting things from other interesting places, had the New Orleans foray worked out differently.

The Bronze Fonz

Back in the early 2000s, cable channel TV Land was seeding the nation with bronze statues of characters from the golden age of US television comedy -- Ralph Kramden, Sheriff Taylor and Opie, Mary Richards, Bob Hartley, et al. -- but has since dropped that particular marketing campaign. A statue of Arthur Fonzarelli was nearly orphaned when TV Land changed its mind about bronzes, but local boosters (especially VISIT Milwaukee, the local C&VB) took up the cause and raised enough dough to install the statue on the Milwaukee Riverwalk about two years ago.

I couldn't visit the riverwalk without seeing the Bronze Fonz.

It's the creation of sculptor Gerald Sawyer, but I didn't see any plaque saying so, or even explaining who this curious fellow with two upturned thumbs might be, though at the base there was a list of donors. Sure, most of the people now strolling by the statue know who Fonzie is, but that collective memory will vanish. Maybe the thing will be long gone by then anyway, relegated to a warehouse by the Milwaukee Historical Society, or even melted down to make ordnance for a war with Canada. But if it does stay by the riverfront across the decades, the people who see it will probably think of it as just another piece of public art.

That's because there's more art on the Milwaukee Riverwalk, such as this.

By John Ready, it's one of the few pieces I've ever seen that makes use of bowling balls. A bowling ball salad, you might call it.

Also using the sphere motif is this, which I think looks like something under an electron microscope.

I'd cite the name of the artist, but I've misplaced the Milwaukee Riverwalk art guide pamphlet that I picked up. Which, curiously, doesn't mention the Bronze Fonz. Maybe the publisher of the pamphlet took umbrage at Fonzie's turquoise pants, which didn't look very cool, but maybe the artist was trying for blue jeans.

I didn't tell my family we were going to see a statue of an old TV character. I wanted to see how they'd react, since I was pretty sure none of them knew him (and boy, did they miss out). Their reaction was almost no reaction: there's another sculpture. They didn't even ask why his thumbs were up. Sic transit gloria Fonzie.

RIP, Dolph Briscoe

I never met the late Gov. Dolph Briscoe, but we all have a soft spot for governors of large states during the 1970s, don't we? I would say that I hadn't thought about him in years, but it isn't so. In terms of posthumous notice, he's had the misfortune to pass at about the same time as Sen. Byrd, also a politico but more of a national figure. (Groucho Marx was likewise eclipsed in death by Elvis Presley.)

Late last summer, after posting about Gov. Briscoe and his part in the song "Freeze a Yankee," Helen V., whom I went to high school with, added this to the Facebook copy of my posting: "My husband, Terry from Vermont, used to be an AP reporter, and had an assignment to meet and interview Gov. Briscoe at his ranch in Uvalde about the soon-to-open Cactus Jack Garner Museum. I sang what I could remember from the song and asked Terry to ask Gov. Briscoe if he remembered it. Terry did and the governor politely chuckled."

Whatever Briscoe did as governor -- signing the Texas Open Records Act, for one thing -- his lasting legacy isn't that. Instead, he co-wrote the legislation that gave Texas its Farm-to-Market system of roads that remains of enormous value to agriculture and Briscoe's own cattle industry, but also good for those of us who enjoy buzzing down rural roads. From his Daily Texan obit: "Before he was governor, Briscoe served as a member of the Texas Legislature from 1949 until 1957, where he co-authored legislation creating the farm-to-market road system, which linked rural farmland to major Texas cities."

Evel Knievel, Daredevil of Yore

A press release showed up in my inbox unexpectedly today that said: "Wednesday marks the 35th anniversary of Evel Knievel’s famous Wembley Stadium jump in London, and in honor of that anniversary, the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee announces 'True Evel: The Amazing Story of Evel Knievel,' an exciting, exclusive exhibit on Evel Knievel’s life and career running July 10 – September 6. Read below to learn more about the exhibit and about why the Harley-Davidson Museum is the perfect summer travel destination.

"High-resolution images of Evel as well as interview opportunities are available. We’ll look forward to being in touch about this incredible exhibit in the coming weeks!"

I guess they don't mean interviews with Evel Knievel, since he's been dead a while. Died of natural causes at 69, he did. I would have missed the Wembley Stadium anniversary all together without the release. Then again, it isn't even the anniversary of a great daredevil triumph of his, but the time he broke his pelvis in front of thousands of spectators. Come to think of it, that might count as a triumph -- way to cheat Death, Evel Knievel.

He had a knack for cheating Death. His try at the Snake River Canyon was the subject of much discussion among junior high school boys at the time. Its 35th anniversary has already passed, since the jump was on September 8, 1974. ESPN tells us: "Despite two failed unmanned practice attempts, Evel decided to go forward with the jump for the fans in attendance and ABC, which was televising the event live. In place of his signature Harley Davidson, Evel attempted this jump in a sky cycle -- a jet-powered sled that took off from an inclined metal runway constructed on the edge of the canyon by the Knievel team.

"Seconds after Evel Knievel's sky cycle cleared the edge of the canyon, his parachute ejected prematurely. As fans, family, crew and ABC watched Evel descend into the canyon, it appeared he was heading directly for the river. Landing in the river would have meant certain death. Luckily, Evel and the sky cycle were saved because they landed on the rocks on the far edge of the river."

Harley-Davidson Museum, eh? I just might have to go see that.

Sixth-Grade Finale

Wet world out there today, and still cold for May. Cold rain by night, rain in the morning, drizzle since then, or at least clouds. May showers bring what? Junebugs?

We got a letter from Lilly's school the other day. It said, in part, "Before they go on to bigger and better things, the class of 2010 will 'celebrate' [sic on those quotes] their memories, experiences and accomplishments at Quincy Adams Wagstaff Elementary School. Events include:

"6th Grade Commencement Breakfast: Wednesday, June 2, 2010.... the students will dress-up [sic] for the occasion and are honored by their teachers and parents in the school gym...

"6th Grade Day of Fun: Thursday, June 3, 2010. The entire 6th grade will depart from Quincy Adams Wagstaff at 9 a.m. for the Schaumburg Sports Center. There they will enjoy many different group activities. Afterward they will travel to Streamwood Lanes for a pizza lunch and bowling."

This is enough to inspire my inner curmudgeon, who really isn't buried very deeply, to come out and make a statement. The kind of statement that begins with, "In my day..."

In this case, though, I'm thinking of a specific day, one in May 1973, when I finished sixth grade. I don't remember what we did. I'm fairly sure it didn't involve schoolwork. But it also didn't involve a breakfast or an outing for pizza and bowling or any notion of "commencement." We did what we did and when the day was over, that was that.

Why is it different 37 years later? I suspect it's because the self-esteem movement got its mitts on elementary education between then and now. There are probably entire tomes about "milestoning" children to promote that elixir of personhood, self-esteem. At least the school doesn't seem to want to dress them up in caps and gowns.

Item From the Past: "Freeze a Yankee"

On August 25, 1978, a girl named Kathy B. broke my thumb. While I was still wearing the splint, I told people that and got weird reactions. "We were dancing," I said. That didn't seem to clarify things, since I still got weird reactions. "Really, that's what we were doing." People didn't believe it, somehow. Pretty soon I gave up explaining it.

But that's just what happened. We were at a party with a sizable number of other kids. I don't know that I was exactly dancing with Kathy, a sometime girlfriend of one of my group, though she didn't attend our high school. I was just dancing in her vicinity. She was wearing some kind of hard-soled shoes. My hand went down, her foot went up, and they made contact. I didn't find out I had a cracked knuckle until the next day, at the emergency room.

But that's not what brings that evening to mind. Someone at the party had a 45 of the song "Freeze a Yankee" and he played it for us at least once, probably a few times, and we were greatly entertained. I never heard it again after that until today, when I found it on YouTube (where else?). Occasionally over the years I'd mention the song, but no one else -- the non-Texans, that is -- had ever heard of it. The group that cut the record was from Dallas, it seems, and whatever success they had with it was mostly in Texas. For reasons that might be obvious once you listen to the song.

The Gov. Briscoe mentioned in the song is none other than Texas Gov. Dolph Briscoe, who was in office from 1973 to 1979. I'm not sure what he might have said that inspired the lyric -- some bravado about keeping Texas oil for Texans, maybe, though I'm pretty sure the governor of Texas wouldn't have had much power to impede interstate commerce. But it may be the only song anywhere that mentions Briscoe, who is still alive and who also happens to be one of the largest landowners in the country.

Item From the Past: Disco Was Not on My Mind That Day

It seems that someone you might not expect visited the Superman statue a few years ahead of me (see previous post). Then again, as a Senator he probably got around Illinois a lot.

I noticed a couple of articles in the Tribune recently about Disco Demolition Night at old Comiskey Park, the 30th anniversary of which is today. Steven Dahl, the radio deejay whose promotion it was, did one of the articles. Dahl isn't on radio here at the moment, but he does write a column as "vice advisor" for the Tribune. Or at least, that's what they used to call him.

I'd forgotten about the incident. But I remember a lot of people were bent out of shape about disco. Near the end of Airplane!, the airplane knocks down the radio tower of a disco station, and that got a rousing cheer from the audience when the movie was new. I don't remember caring enough about disco to hate it, though a few individual songs were irritating, or liking it enough to spend any money on it. Mostly it was just background. And considering some of the noxious things that have oozed out of the music industry since, not really that bad.

I'm not sure I heard about Disco Demolition Night when it happened, either. I was busy on Maui that day, possibly at Iao Valley State Park, home of the Iao Needle, or that might have been the day I went to the rim of Haleakala. I made images of those places, but they are slides -- an inconvenient medium these days. The Iao Needle was very green; Haleakala was very much the color I imagined Mars to be.

He's No D. B. Cooper

I was able to include the following in a story I filed recently: "Only last week, Marcus Schrenker was just an obscure Indiana financial industry businessman up to his eyeballs in legal trouble. Now his 15 minutes of fame have arrived after he allegedly did a variation on the D. B. Cooper maneuver by parachuting out of an airplane in a vain attempt to fake his own death..."

It's the first time in all the thousands of articles I've written (counting five-graph shorts) that I ever remember referring to D. B. Cooper. It was a bit of a stretch, comparing Mr. Schrenker's efforts to the one and only D. B. Cooper. About all they had in common was a willingness to parachute out of an airplane in order to disappear. I guess Schrenker expected the plane to crash into the Gulf of Mexico, which might have avoided the embarrassment of having the authorities find empty wreckage. That would pretty much give the whole thing away, and in fact did.

D.B. Cooper, on the other hand, is still on the lam after nearly 40 years, provided he's still alive. Even if he's not, he belongs in the Vanished Without a Trace Hall of Fame, members of which include Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa and Judge Crater. It's certainly one way to be famous, if you do it right. How many other noted pre-WW II aviatrix, crooked '50s labor bosses or minor New York state judges in office nearly 80 years ago immediately come to mind?

(Wiki notes that even the least known of those three -- Judge Crater -- still gets pop-culture references: In the episode of The Sopranos entitled "House Arrest," the doorbell rings at Uncle Junior's house. When Bobby asks who it could be, Junior responds, "Judge Crater. How should I know?" A puzzled Bobby asks, "The one who ordered the house arrest?")

Item From the Past: Saturday Night Live, December 11, 1976

What's a day without a new fact, preferably obscure? Here's one. It's good to know that off in the cold reaches of the Asteroid Belt, 3834 Zappafrank quietly orbits the Sun.

My interest in Frank Zappa has waxed and waned at unpredictable intervals ever since there was a "Phi Zappa Krappa" poster on the wall of a bathroom that I often visited. It waxed briefly today when I watched the December 11, 1976, episode of Saturday Night Live, which is on the fourth disk of the Season 2 DVD set.

Zappa was the musical guest that night and did "I'm the Slime," "The Purple Lagoon," and "Peaches & Regalia." All very interesting, but not the reason I wanted to see that episode, and in particular see it before Christmas. I wanted to see the "Killer Christmas Trees" sketch, actually called "The Killer Trees."

I missed the entire episode when it was broadcast. I had a social life in those days, the beginnings of one anyway, and had other things to do. But I heard about it later; SNL was often discussed at school the Monday after, and people who'd seen it seemed most impressed by the Killer Christmas Trees. Later, the show was repeated, but I missed that too. In the days before VCRs, that was that. But what I'd heard about it -- Christmas trees sneaking up on people who were singing "O Tannenbaum" and spearing them to death with their branches -- stuck in my memory, vaguely. You never know what damn thing is going to stick in there.

Turns out the sketch was only OK, and not the best one of the show, at least according to my opinion 32 years later. "Let's Kill Gary Gilmore for Christmas," though intensely topical, was a lot funnier.

Gilda:
There's a little guy in Utah with a single Christmas wish
For one special thing that can't be substituted
Doesn't want to get electric trains, get toys or get pet fish
All he really wants to get is executed.

Cast:
So let's kill Gary Gilmore for Christmas
Let's hang him from atop the Christmas tree
Let's give to him the only gift that money can't buy
Put poison in his egg nog, let him drink it, watch him die

Dan:
Let's throw another yule log on the fire
And then let's throw Gary Gilmore on there too
With a ribbon so gay and a card that will say,
"Dear Gary, Merry Christmas to you"

Jane, Laraine, Gilda:
In the meadow, we can build a snowman
One with Gary Gilmore packed inside

John, Garrett, Dan:
We'll say, "Are you dead yet?" He'll say, "No, man"

Cast:
But we'll wait out the frostbite till he dies

Gilda:
I've one Christmas wish

Jane, Laraine, John, Garrett, Dan:
Just ask it

Gilda:
Please put Gary in a casket

Cast:
So let's toll the silver bells for him
While he can still hear what they say
Ding dong ding dong
You're dead, so long
We can thrill Gary Gilmore
If we kill Gary Gilmore
On this Christmas Day

Upon the Mock Brine of a Luna Sea

I insisted at about 9:15 this evening that Lilly go out and see the lunar eclipse. That's the kind of dad that I am. She objected that the pit of winter this year has been unusually long and narrow, with clay walls that are making it difficult to scale. Actually, she said, "But it's cold, it's cold!"

And it was. Around about 10° F., but at least it didn't register colder, since there was no wind. From our backyard deck, the full Hunger Moon had been dipped copper-orange and parked slightly above a leafless honey locust, the one overhanging our driveway. It was all very painterly. It could have been a lost canvas of Casper David Freidrich. After a few seconds, we were back inside.

I probably saw one earlier, but the first lunar eclipse that I remember was in May 1975 -- late in the evening of May 24, but according to the records of such things, the eclipse was on the 25th, Greenwich time. It was a Saturday night for me, and what did us 13- (almost 14-) year-olds do for fun in San Antonio on Saturday nights in the mid-70s? Watched repeats of Star Trek that aired (I think) at 10:30, in case we hadn't gotten enough during the weekday airings after school. Before Saturday Night Live, Saturday nights were an underutilized time on TV.

After the episode was over, or maybe during the commercials, I went outside to see the copper Moon. Unlike Illinois in February, Texas in May is warm and lush, encouraging a longer gaze at Luna.

This doesn't have anything to do with the Moon, but the only other thing I remember about wasting mid-70s Saturday nights watching Star Trek was the August 3, 1974, "We Interrupt This Program" report on the bloody conclusion of the Huntsville, Texas, prison siege. Not as famed as Attica (not nearly as many people died, and Al Pacino never used the name in a movie), but it was big news in Texas at the time. We did not live in a 24-hour news world then. Programs were interrupted when the story was violent enough.

This does have something to do with the Moon: I'm glad that the writer's strike is over, but only because it's good that people can carry on with their livelihoods. Otherwise, who cares? It isn't as if there isn't enough entertainment that I haven't seen yet. Even if 90 percent of that total is worthless -- a reasonable rule of thumb when it comes to movies and television -- that still leaves plenty left to see. Taken at a pace that people who have work and other obligations should watch it, enough to last for years.

Take the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon, the final episode of which we saw on DVD last week. It's 10 years old now, but every bit as extraordinary as when new. I especially liked the sometime focus on people other than the astronauts, and the focus on Apollo astronauts other than the usual suspects (the crews of 11, 13 and maybe 8). And who would have thought Dave Foley would do such a good turn as Alan Bean?

Who's alive and well, I'm happy to say, and putting moondust in his artwork.

Snow Day, Mr. Butz

All though the early morning hours of Friday, February 1, snow fell on metro Chicago. At about 6:30 am, the phone rang. It was Lilly's room mother -- you know, I'm a little surprised that term is still used -- who left a message: no school. When there's no school, there's no preschool either, just as a matter of policy. And Yuriko has Fridays off. So we were all here for the Snow Day.

At least a foot of snow. Certain bushes near the house were all dressed up by it.

But it didn't evolve into a Snow Weekend. By Saturday morning, the roads were clear. On Sunday, I learned about the death of Earl Butz the old-fashioned way: in the newspaper.

Earl Butz. I would say that I was surprised he was still alive, but I already knew that. At some point last year, I considered a DPD posting about Secretary Butz, but didn't do it. Whatever his impact on ag policy, Earl Butz achieved one thing few, if any, Secretaries of Agriculture ever do: notice. Notoriety, in fact. Quick, who's the current secretary? Turns out that Congress only confirmed someone new to the post last week, Ed Schafer, whose name isn't on the lips of Americans far and wide.

Who remembers Butz' predecessor, Orville Freeman? His successor, John Knebel? Or the first such Secretary, appointed by President Cleveland? Norman Jay Coleman. Not me. Even a presidential buff has to look these things up (but not that Vice President Henry Wallace was once Secretary of Agriculture).

As long as the 1970s remain in living memory, however, Earl Butz will be remembered, and maybe even after that.

The October 18, 1976, issue of Time set the scene:

"En route to help dedicate a screwworm eradication plant in Mexico, Earl Butz took a plane to California just after the Republican National Convention in Kansas City... In the first-class compartment, the Agriculture Secretary spied Singers Pat Boone and Sonny Bono, and John Dean, the former White House counsel who had blown the whistle on Richard Nixon and had just worked the convention as a writer for Rolling Stone. A gregarious man who likes to flaunt his snappy country—and often barnyard—sense of humor, Butz, 67, wandered over to make idle conversation...

"Butz started by telling a dirty joke involving intercourse between a dog and a skunk. When the conversation turned to politics, Boone, a right-wing Republican, asked Butz why the party of Lincoln was not able to attract more blacks. The Secretary responded with a line so obscene and insulting to blacks that it forced him out of the Cabinet last week and jolted the whole Ford campaign."

The following also speaks to the Earl Butz legacy. It is not for children or most places of work. Amazing what turns up on YouTube.

Match Game 07

Before hearing about the passing of Brett Somers this week, I hadn't thought much about Match Game in years (or Somers, for that matter). I mean the 1970s version of that show, of course, not any earlier or later version. I used to watch it, especially in its early years. Many, many people about my age could say the same. It was a way to waste time, but pretty much a perfect way to waste time, and I don't regret it for a moment.

You'd think as a time-waster, though, Match Game would be a thing of the past. Not so: With YouTube, all frivolous video pastimes of yore are back!

The name of the show actually included the number of the year, beginning with Match Game 73. On the last show broadcast each year, they would change the sign to reflect the upcoming year. I remember those occasions better than most of the rest of the show. This is one example.

I was also interested to learn, from that clip, that MAD writer Dick DeBartolo was also a Match Game writer.

...And You're Not

Recently Vol. 1, Disc 1 of Saturday Night Live came in the mail for my entertainment. Wish I had time to watch it all the way through at once, but in any case I've been watching the first episode at length. It's a bit rough, as you might expect, but you can also see why the show caught on after it was polished a little. For instance, this this is the first joke ever told on Weekend Update, Chevy Chase hosting:

"Our top story tonight: dedication ceremonies for the new Teamsters Union Headquarters building took place today in Detroit, where Union President Fitzsimmons was reported to have said that former President Jimmy Hoffa will always be a cornerstone in the organization."

Nice delivery by Chase, though of course it helps to remember that Jimmy Hoffa's whereabouts was a constant source of speculation in the summer of '75. The same sort of long, dragged out news coverage would make the "Francisco Franco is still dead" joke funny a little later that year.

Yellow Ribbons

Work is now forming into a black hole that sucks in most available free time. The sucking force will be especially strong next week, since I aim to have some kind of spring break to coincide with Lilly and Ann's break the week after next. So it's good, actually, that cold air blew in today, followed by icy drizzle late this evening. An incentive to stay inside.

In yesterday's comments, tied to my apron strings noted that she, too, has had a re-understanding of a well-worn song, in her case "Tie a Yellow Ribbon." I'm some years older than she is, so I remember when the original was on the radio in 1973. It is indeed about an ex-con coming home to his wife or lover or girlfriend, uncertain in his future status with her, etc., till he sees "100" yellow ribbons round the old oak tree.

Later I wondered exactly how the thing morphed into a welcome home for the hostages in Iran in 1981, and then for returning soldiers in later wars, but in fact song "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" was the variation, since earlier songs -- and a John Wayne movie, for that matter -- used the symbolism of a yellow ribbon as a mark of affection for a distant soldier. The practice may in fact have roots going back centuries, though as with most folk customs, no one knows. Anyway, the lesson here is that almost nothing is new under the sun, to paraphrase some very old writings.

As far as I know, Tony Orlando and Dawn never did a follow-up of their big hit. You know, the one in which the ex-con violates parole by passing bad checks a few months after that yellow-ribbon incident, and is returned to the hoosegow. But that probably wouldn't be a sentimental favorite.

That ’70s President

The passing of President Ford, only the third former president to die since I became an adult, naturally sends me to the well of presidential facts and figures. The various items I read about him today invariably mentioned his non-elected status, though of course that happened entirely within the rules set down by the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution. Also mentioned (sometimes) was the fact that he lived longer than any other person who has held that office, besting old intramural rival Ronald Reagan only about six weeks ago. Ford also was the third-oldest vice president, a topic I took up on November 16.

I didn’t see any discussion of Ford as a member of that informal club, presidential short-timers. In fact, among all holders of the office, he was president for less time than all but four others: William Henry Harrison, whose famously abbreviated term lasted about a month in 1841; the unlucky James Garfield, who died that the spoils system might end, after 199 days as president in 1881; Zachary Taylor (one year, 128 days), who withstood bad army food much of his adult life but not bad cherries on the Fourth of July, 1850; and Warren Harding, who shocked the nation in 1923 by dropping dead before the enfeebled former President Wilson, serving only two years and 151 days.

Gerald Ford was president a little longer than Harding, two years and 164 days, and among presidents who survived their time in office, his was the shortest service. Millard Fillmore, who lived on after his presidency to be the first citizen of Buffalo and a Know-Nothing besides, was in office a little longer than Ford, occupying the White House for two years and 236 days.

Short time is actually fairly common in the rough-and-tumble of the US presidency. Among the 41 individuals who were president in the past – not counting the current officeholder, since history isn’t done with him yet, and counting Grover Cleveland only once for this purpose – only 11 have held the office eight years or longer (FDR being the obvious “or longer” in this category), 12 if you count George Washington. The time between Washington’s inauguration on April 30, 1789, and the end of his presidency on March 4, 1797, was only seven years and 308 days, but the government was new and things couldn’t be ready in time for an on-time swearing in, so I’m inclined to credit him the full eight years. Another seven men held the office for less than eight but more than four years; a dozen held office exactly four years; and ten didn’t even get a full term.

Eight years or more (in order, including Washington): Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Grant, Cleveland, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton.

Between four and eight years: Lincoln, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon.

Four years exactly: John Adams, John Q. Adams, Van Buren, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan, Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, Taft, Hoover, Carter, George H.W. Bush.

Less than four years: William Henry Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Garfield, Arthur, Harding, Kennedy, Ford.

Lest we forget, Ford owed his presidency not so much to Richard Nixon, or even the leaders in Congress who advised Nixon that Ford would be easy to confirm in the Senate, as to a formerly obscure yet crooked ex-governor of Maryland, Spiro Agnew, who suddenly and unexpectedly made way for Ford. In some alternative universe Agnew either didn’t get caught, or didn’t commit any crimes, and somewhere in an alternate Maryland is an Agnew Presidential Library.