A couple holiday chestnuts and 9 oddball facts about me & tv over the years

I watched two holiday movies this Christmas, Miracle on 34th Street and Meet Me in St. Louis.  I love Natalie Wood, I love Judy Garland.  Here’s something interesting about these old chestnuts, it was my first time seeing both. 

In a nutshell, they surprised me: 

1. 34th Street was not the charmer I expected—but I enjoyed the ‘retail wars’ and even at this age, Natalie Wood’s talent was remarkable.
2. I’ve seen clips of Judy Garland singing “The Trolley Song” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” so many times over the years, I figured the rest of the movie was unnecessary.  I was wrong of course, and Margaret O’Brien as Judy’s death-obsessed sister Tootie was a real treat. 

Now that the holiday viewing is over, here are 9 boring random facts about myself and television I thought I’d share. 

1.  The movie “M*A*S*H” from 1970 with Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould?  Never saw it, plan to someday.  I’ve never watched the 1970s tv show MASH with Alan Alda either.  I don’t plan to.  

2.  Remember when everyone was wondering “Who shot JR” on Dallas in 1980?  I wasn’t, I’ve never seen the show.  Here’s some other shows from the 1980s I’ve never seen:  Cagney & Lacey, The A Team, Dukes of Hazard, Remington Steele, Miami Vice, Hill Street Blues, Magnum PI, Knots Landing, MacGyver, Married with Children.

3.  Murder She Wrote (1984-1996) & Baywatch (1989-2001) both ran for 12 years and I only saw one episode of each. 

4.  The Mary Tyler Moore Show is my second all-time favorite show—when I was a kid, my Uncle Shane told me that Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show was Mary Tyler Moore’s kid sister and I believed this until MY MID TWENTIES.

5. When Happy Days premiered on January 15 1974, I was more excited to see it than anyone.  But earlier that night I’d been terrorizing my little sister with stories about spooks in our basement, so I got sent to my room and missed that first episode.

When ABC repeated it that summer, I asked if I could spend the night at my friend Dan’s house to ensure I wouldn’t do something stupid and miss it again.  That night at Dan’s, 10 minutes before the show, there was a big storm and their electric went out.   

It would be 20+ years before I FINALLY saw the first episode on TV Land!

6.  For as long as I can remember, The Ten Commandments has aired the Saturday before Easter.  I may be a heathen but I watch it every year, and when God instructs Moses to “Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place where thou stands is holy ground” I become a Christian for the next couple days. 

(I’m usually a heathen again by late Monday, early Tuesday morning.)

7.  I have never missed an episode of Saturday Night Live (which premiered on October 11, 1975) until their current season.  48 years of SNL is quite enough for this old noodle of mine, thanks.

8.  The older I get, the less network television I watch.  I’m down to 2 shows: Matlock (the new one with Kathy Bates) and Elsbeth (from the makers of The Good Wife), both on CBS. 

9.  When I was 10-11 years old, I fell in love with Barbara Eden on I Dream of Jeannie.  When my mom saw a record album with Barbara Eden on the front, she bought it for me—not knowing the various celebrities (and Barbara) on the album weren’t singing songs, but speaking on behalf of the Epilepsy Foundation in 1969. 

By unlucky coincidence, in my early teens I was diagnosed with epilepsy.  When the doctor told my parents, my mom told him about Barbara Eden and that Epilepsy album.  She asked if my subconscious could be causing my seizures, to win Barbara’s approval.  The doctor told her no, the subconscious couldn’t do that. 

Here’s that album.  Mom’s theory sounded good to me then, still does.  Love you Mom… you too Barbara.

 

 

It’s 2025 and this is no longer Carter Country

I saw this reimagined American flag in the New York Times shortly after the presidential election, it’s accurate of course but frightening as well.  I’m still in a state of shock that so many would vote a convicted felon with the moral compass of black mold back into the White House.  All of his poison and “lazy lies” didn’t hinder his path there at all.

“Truth, justice and the American Way” no longer belong in the same phrase of words.  

I’ve shared it here before, but my first presidential vote was for Jimmy Carter’s second term.  I’m not as old as many of my friends at the senior center (or ones I know in the blogverse), but Carter still feels like a century ago.  To be honest, I had no plans to even vote back then, but in the summer of 1980 I was 18 and required to register for Selective Service.  All young men born after Jan 1, 1960 had to.

When I went to the Post Office to register, I was asked if I wanted to register to vote as well and that surprised me.  Was I really old enough to vote?  When I was asked what party I said Democrat without giving it a second’s thought. 

I can still remember my older brother Duke having a good laugh at the possibility of me getting drafted should they reinstate that (he was born in ‘59 and exempt) but when I told him I was looking forward to voting for Carter in November, he had a fit and told me to grow up. 

Republican through and through, I wonder what he thinks of Trump?  Actually, I don’t want to know.  We haven’t spoken in decades.

Well, I’m just rambling here and don’t know what to say.  I don’t want to share my forecast for the next 4 years, so I’ll just say RIP Jimmy Carter (and democracy as many of us knew it).  I won’t say “Happy New Year” but “Hopeful New Year” instead.

 

 

Beware the ogre? We have missing water, missing people and strange snow angels

This morning I awoke to no water—I need to brush my teeth, I need coffee!  After checking my phone for alerts from our landlord, headed downstairs to see if a notice was in the lobby.  While waiting for the elevator, up walks my neighbor Darla.  I said Happy Holidays, she said the same.  I asked where our water was, she said she didn’t know.  I said “So where’s our friend Charlie?  I haven’t seen him downstairs for two weeks now.”

(Charlie is the name we gave our 60ish neighbor who talks to no one; he wears khaki shorts and a matching baseball cap, takes a pack of cigarettes downstairs every morning, stands outside our apt building and smokes for 2-3 hours.)

Darla said “Where have you been?  They booted him out after Thanksgiving.”

I said “What?? Why?”  Darla shrugged her shoulders.  I said “I know he wasn’t the friendliest of people.  If you said hi he’d look down and make growling sounds in his throat.  If you tried getting on the elevator and he was on there first, he’d shake his head no and block your way until the doors shut.”

Darla said “Yeah we all have our quirks.”  I said “He did talk to Pearl that one time.  He asked her for the phone number of the girl she’s always with, and when Pearl said ‘That GIRL is half your age and my DAUGHTER’  he said ‘Does she have a boyfriend?’”  

Darla laughed and said “Yeah, other than Pearl he mostly kept to himself.”  I said “That’s right.  When he had an issue with the couple who lived above him, he never confronted them.  He just banged on his ceiling every night with a broomstick, and complained to Steiner the people upstairs were committing lewd sex acts.”

Darla shrugged her shoulders again and said “Well, I guess we’ll never know.”  Right then, Janet comes out of her apartment and her eyes lit up.  She said “I thought I heard voices out here!  I’ve been worried about you, Mister!”  I asked “Who?  Me?”  She said “I haven’t seen you in ages!  I was about to call Steiner to ask about the water and why the tenant in 401 never comes out of his apartment!”   

I said “I don’t live in 401.  I live in 402.  Dee lives in 401.”  Janet said “She never comes out either!”  I said “I’ve been sick and Dee is a hermit.  Please don’t ask Steiner to check on us.”  Janet said “I’m the mama here and worrying is what I do!”

Janet is a stout black woman who lives in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 problem foster children.  Just the other day on my way back from the laundry room, her oldest, an 11 year old boy, was lying on his stomach on the floor between our apartments.  His arms were outstretched and he was sweeping them up & down, like he was making a snow angel, face down.  In the carpet. 

When I asked him if he was okay, he stopped what he was doing and said “Yes”.  He then went back to making his carpet angel as I walked away.

Janet if you’re going to worry about anyone, I think your neighbors should be the least of your concerns.  Still no water, but I just remembered I have a full Brita water pitcher in the fridge.  As for Apt #414, with the new ogre sign on it’s door, a hip young couple lives there and you couldn’t meet a nicer pair.