tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42341862124434519842024-03-13T14:34:30.210-04:00MONSTER DADGlenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.comBlogger171125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-13675376221817204682021-03-17T23:52:00.013-04:002021-03-18T11:13:29.252-04:00Resurrecting the Past: The General Electric Model 3-5091A Cassette Recorder<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HSa98Nu6d4w/YFLTICnukfI/AAAAAAAAII4/EsSYncHS2xQVHcF92GwwvHiB29c2fkeRQCNcBGAsYHQ/s2592/DSC09933.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1944" data-original-width="2592" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HSa98Nu6d4w/YFLTICnukfI/AAAAAAAAII4/EsSYncHS2xQVHcF92GwwvHiB29c2fkeRQCNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/DSC09933.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div><p>Two years ago in <a href="https://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2019/03/important-dates-in-history-march-17.html" target="_blank">Important Dates in History: March 17, 1981</a> I wrote about the day that I got my first cassette recorder. It might not have been an actual "important date in history", but it was indeed a very important day for me. I had wanted a tape recorder for some time. It might seem like a strange thing to want in the current age of smart phones, the Internet and instant streaming of anything you could ever want to see or hear. But in 1981 there were no smart phones. The Internet would have seemed more like a fantasy of science fiction than reality. And the closest thing there was to streaming was the VCR (video cassette recorder). I would have loved to have had one of those, but at the time they were still pretty new...and very expensive. The humble cassette recorder was a convenient way to capture audio and play it back whenever you wanted. Does that sound terribly exciting? Probably not. But it was something that I really wanted to do. I wanted to make my own "radio shows". I wanted to record my favorite songs off the radio (meaning putting the tape recorder microphone up to the speaker of the radio--not directly recording from the radio). I wanted to record parts of movies, shows and even commercials off the TV (using the same method as recording from the radio).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oB5-WiC162I/YFLWlHQWbNI/AAAAAAAAIJI/zcGk_D2ZOD80NRo7u1DCtAziFjgwQ7fDACNcBGAsYHQ/s268/Screen%2Bshot%2B2019-03-17%2Bat%2B4.51.31%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="268" data-original-width="194" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oB5-WiC162I/YFLWlHQWbNI/AAAAAAAAIJI/zcGk_D2ZOD80NRo7u1DCtAziFjgwQ7fDACNcBGAsYHQ/w290-h400/Screen%2Bshot%2B2019-03-17%2Bat%2B4.51.31%2BPM.png" width="290" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p>After my parents took me to a store to buy my tape recorder on that St. Patrick's Day of 1981 I became somewhat obsessed and started recording my little heart out. It was used so much that after a few years it started to show some serious signs of wear and tear. I replaced it with a cheap model that worked so poorly that the first one was pressed back into emergency service. By 1985 it was finally retired for good when we got our first VCR (which allowed me to actually record the sound AND video of everything on TV) and I had gotten a double-cassette recorder/bookshelf radio (which allowed me to record songs directly from the radio).</p><p>Around 25 years later I recovered hundreds of old tapes from my parents' house along with the original General Electric tape recorder. I had thoughts of listening to all those old tapes on the actual unit that they were recorded on all those year ago. Unfortunately it was in surprisingly horrible shape by then. I remember retiring it when the play button didn't want to lock in place, but it still did work (more or less). But now it was covered in dust, the battery compartment cover was missing, the tape compartment door was broken off and apparently the drive belt must have corroded to the point that it no longer functioned at all. I started listening to the tapes on the more modern stereo we had at the time (which at that point was also somewhat outdated--seeing as how it still featured the capability of playing and recording on cassette tapes at a time when even CDs were becoming an endangered species).</p><p>But I kept finding myself thinking about my first tape recorder and how important it was to me. Since I still had the somewhat decomposed body of that first unit I was able to search for other examples of it on eBay. It seems like you can find pretty much ANYTHING on eBay if you look long and hard enough. There were certainly plenty of old tape recorders for sale, but if I didn't know that mine was a Model 3-5091A I would have been wading through hundreds (thousands?) of auctions for random tape recorders. Having the model number narrowed the search down greatly. It ended up being somewhat hard to find listings for the one I was looking for, but every once in a while one would show up. The condition of the ones I found would vary, and the prices also varied greatly. But I eventually was able to find one in great condition, one which even included the original box! Best of all, it was actually affordable. Heck, it cost even LESS than the one I bought in 1981! In 2012 (a little over 30 years after the original cassette recorder purchase) I went ahead and bought that recorder and suddenly owned a "brand new" version of that old friend from my youth.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qfVfYL44SVQ/YFLV0LzXD5I/AAAAAAAAIJA/JnaekfnzshYt0jyCuvfpoI14_6V30TKhwCNcBGAsYHQ/s594/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-03-16%2Bat%2B6.33.41%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="221" data-original-width="594" height="149" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qfVfYL44SVQ/YFLV0LzXD5I/AAAAAAAAIJA/JnaekfnzshYt0jyCuvfpoI14_6V30TKhwCNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h149/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-03-16%2Bat%2B6.33.41%2BPM.png" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>It was very exciting to put some batteries into the unit, snap in the very first tape I ever recorded back in March of 1981. I had a lot of fun listening to those old tapes once again. Over the years since retrieving them from my parents' house I had listened to many of them, but actually hearing the sound coming out of the speaker of the same model of recorder that had recorded them in the first place made the experience all that much better and more satisfying for some reason. To this day I still like throwing an old tape into that recorder and listening to it to take a little audio trip back in time. It really has been a way to resurrect a small piece of the past for me.</p><p>Even after buying that "replacement" cassette recorder in 2012 I continued to occasionally search for General Electric Model 3-5091A units on eBay. And they do still show up. Even though I can't really claim to have a particular "need" to have another one, it's still kind of fun to go through the search process. A while back I saw one listed that seemed to be in pretty good shape and even still had the sticker over the top of the speaker that the one I bought in 2012 had. I put it in my watch list and saw the auction end and get relisted over and over. About a week ago I finally decided to pull the trigger and put a bid on it. The starting bid was only $7.80 (with a reasonable $9.55 shipping charge). I figured what the heck? Do I NEED another one? No. But then again maybe I might need to have some replacement parts if the 2012 one starts to have issues. It really can't hurt to have another one around I suppose. I won the auction a few days ago on March 13 and am now waiting for the third version of my GE Model 3-5091A to arrive. It just occurred to me a couple days ago that today, March 17, 2021 is actually the 40th anniversary of the day I got my first tape recorder (the day that was commemorated two years ago in the "Important Dates in History" post mentioned above. The latest purchase is expected to be delivered between tomorrow, March 18 and March 20. It wasn't done intentionally, but that's just a day or two or three after the 40th anniversary of the original's purchase! If only that auction had ended a day to two earlier I could have received it ON the actual anniversary today! Oh well, I'm still looking forward to seeing yet another brethren of my first-ever cassette recorder whenever it does show up...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4w4YC11Mdak/YFLSO039LKI/AAAAAAAAIIw/9ByLwbtLUUE964sbjl7jO_dNJwBRaVb5gCNcBGAsYHQ/s504/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-03-18%2Bat%2B12.03.06%2BAM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="504" height="249" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4w4YC11Mdak/YFLSO039LKI/AAAAAAAAIIw/9ByLwbtLUUE964sbjl7jO_dNJwBRaVb5gCNcBGAsYHQ/w400-h249/Screen%2BShot%2B2021-03-18%2Bat%2B12.03.06%2BAM.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">KEEP CIRCULATING THE (CASSETTE) TAPES!</span></b></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p> </p>Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-14757383196100024102019-12-25T03:34:00.000-05:002020-01-07T10:04:11.110-05:00The Brady Bunch Christmas Ornament<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The Little Monsters are pretty big fans of "The Brady Bunch", and that fact makes me very happy. I loved the show when I was a kid, and realized later on that I never really outgrew it or stopped loving it. I was born in 1969, the same year that "The Brady Bunch" premiered. In fact I was actually born six days before the first episode aired! Needless to say, while I was physically present during the initial run of the show from 1969 to 1974, I don't have any actual memories from that time. I've heard that my family would gather around the TV to watch it, but I was simply too young to recall that experience (and was probably asleep in my crib by the time it came on).<br />
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But "The Brady Bunch" was one of those shows (like "Star Trek", "Gilligan's Island" and many more) that seemed to be in constant rotation via syndication throughout my childhood. I got to know the family very well by watching the old episodes on the Boston-area independent UHF channels (I certainly recall it being on WLVI Channel 56).<br />
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By the time I graduated from high school and entered the Army I had pretty much outgrown "The Brady Bunch"--or so I thought anyway. When I got out of the Army a couple years later I found myself watching quite a bit of TV. And around the same time "The Brady Bunch" ended up having quite a revival in popularity. You could still find it in syndication, but around 1989 or so (which makes sense because it was the 20th anniversary of the show) interest in "The Brady Bunch" spiked. It was not only on some of the small local channels trying to fill time slots with old sitcoms, but Nickelodeon and other cable channels started running it as well. A new generation of kids was introduced to the show and folks who grew up with it in the 1970s and 80s (like me) were re-introduced to it. It was also around this time that Barry Williams (Greg Brady) wrote the behind-the-scenes book "Growing up Brady: I Was a Teenage Greg", one of the first of several Brady-themed books that capitalized on the renewed interest in the show.<br />
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After the big Brady revival the show once again receded in my life. I never stopped loving it, but didn't really have much of an opportunity to see it for several years. When The Little Monster was born in 2005 I found myself thinking about the show once again. The Wife and I had gone to the Grand Canyon as part of our honeymoon, and naturally I thought about the Brady's trip to the Grand Canyon (and their adventure at the ghost town along the way). A few days after we came home from the hospital with The Little Monster we found ourselves pretty much homebound. We were rookie parents getting used to the idea that we had this helpless tiny human that depended on us for her very survival. I needed to go out to Target to get some supplies (it was probably the very first of several diaper runs over the next couple years). I also kind of needed to just get out of the house for a bit of a break. In the time between the end of the 90s Brady Bunch revival and my trip to Target DVDs had changed the world of home video. It was now possible (and affordable) to acquire seasons or complete series of your favorite TV shows. It WAS possible to do this earlier, but putting together an entire series on VHS tapes cost a lot of money and took up a LOT of room. My own collection of DVDs was pretty modest at this point, but while on my little shopping trip I knew that I just HAD to pick up the third season of "The Brady Bunch" (the season that started with the three-episode adventure to the Grand Canyon!).<br />
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Within a couple years I had acquired the first four seasons on DVD. I'm not exactly sure why, but to this day I have STILL not picked up season five. But it's currently available for streaming on HULU, so there doesn't seem to be any urgency to do so. In an interesting bit of coincidence that had never occurred to me until just now while writing this post I realized that "The Brady Bunch" premiered within a week of the day I was born, and then I bought the Season Three DVD set of the show within a week of The Little Monster being born. Perhaps she was destined to become a fan of the show. More likely she was destined to be influenced by me and my nostalgia to become a fan of the show.<br />
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Either way, a few years later I was introducing The Little Monster (and later her sister, The Tiny Creature) to "The Brady Bunch". We had a great time watching the trips to the Grand Canyon and Hawaii--and many other Brady classic episodes--together. It was fun for me to see her discovering the show through her eyes. It's many years later, but The Little Monsters still enjoy watching the show. They've even introduced it to some of their friends, who might not have ever been exposed to the "The Brady Bunch" otherwise.<br />
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So, what exactly does all of the have to do with "The Brady Bunch Christmas Ornament"? Well, nothing I suppose. It was basically just a long-winded introduction to let the reader know that "The Brady Bunch" has been a relatively important thing in my life--and throughout my life. Another important thing in my life has been the Christmas season. Last year the two collided in a small, but unexpected way that seemed worth reporting here.<br />
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While doing a little research for this post I discovered that there have been at least a couple official Brady Bunch ornaments produced over the years. The first one is a Hallmark collectible ornament that was apparently produced in 2014. It is now out-of-production and seems to be kind of hard to find--and expensive to purchase when you can find one. Some can be found on eBay for prices currently ranging between $50.00 and $80.00. Crazy. The ornament is an old-fashioned television set with a picture from the Brady Bunch show opening featuring the family and the show logo on the screen.<br />
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The other apparently officially licensed ornament comes from Carlton Cards and features a Brady Bunch lunchbox that opens like a real lunchbox and includes a thermos, a sandwich and an apple! It's actually four ornaments in one! I'm not sure about the rarity of this one, but it also seems pretty hard to find and rather expensive on eBay.<br />
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They're both pretty cool ornaments. The Tiny Creature loves tiny things and would love to have these to hang on the tree. Unfortunately they're just too expensive to seriously consider at this point. There are also a few unofficial ornaments made by enterprising people and sold on sites like eBay. One that I saw last year is a 1971 Plymouth Satellite station wagon (like the Bradys owned) that appears to be a Hot Wheels toy which has been modified by including a small loop on the roof and a hook to hang it from a tree.<br />
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I meant to write this post last year but wasn't able to get around to it before Christmas, so it got put off until this year. While doing a little additional research recently, I found another unofficial Brady Bunch ornament that looks kind of neat. It's a replica of the infamous tiki idol statue from the fourth season Hawaii episodes. Apparently this ornament can be seen on the HGTV special "A Very Brady Renovation: Holiday Edition". In the past year the original Brady Bunch house (which was only used for the exterior shots on the show) was bought by HGTV and renovated to look like the interior sets from the show. The renovation actually featured all of the Brady kids and was a great way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the show. Unfortunately I still haven't gotten around to seeing any of the renovation (we don't have cable), but am hoping to check it out at some point.<br />
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So, there are indeed a number of "Brady Bunch Ornaments" out there, but believe it or not this post isn't about ANY of them. It IS about an ornament, but it's actually a generic ornament that wasn't designed or meant to have anything to do with "The Brady Bunch". Here it is.<br />
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So what exactly does this ornament have to do with "The Brady Bunch"? If it weren't for me noticing something kind of funny last holiday season it would have nothing at all to do with the show. But, like The Elf Pants ornament (which I've written about in <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-elf-pants-new-holiday-tradition.html" target="_blank">The Elf Pants: A New Holiday Tradition!</a> and <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-return-of-elf-pants.html" target="_blank">The Return of the Elf Pants!</a>) it has become a kind-of special ornament in our family (for all the typical Monster Dad reasons).<br />
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"The Brady Bunch" was on TV for five seasons (not including the animated Brady Kids show, the very strange "Brady Bunch Variety Hour" or any of the reunion specials, movies ("A Very Brady Christmas") and series produced over the years. The original series had only one true Christmas episode, and it was during the first season. The episode is called "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0531154/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">The Voice of Christmas</a>" and concerns the Brady Bunch preparing to celebrate their first Christmas together as a family (Mike and Carol were both widowed parents of three children each). Mrs. Brady is supposed to sing at church on Christmas morning but ends up with laryngitis. Cindy asks Santa to give her her voice back for Christmas. Whether it was the department store Santa, a true Christmas miracle or simply a coincidence, Carol wakes up on Christmas morning with her voice back and ready to sing at church. Here are some scenes from the episode (sorry for the low quality--they are photos taken of our TV screen). Note all the great 1960s-70s holiday decorations!<br />
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When we watched the episode last year I noticed something that made me think of the ornament above. After the boys bring home the Brady's tree and set it up they begin the process of decorating it. Alice and the girls come down the stairs with boxes of ornaments and tinsel. Alice tells the girls to be careful because the ornaments are fragile. When Cindy asks what fragile means Alice (with perfect timing) trips a little bit and drops a box of ornaments on the floor. One of them breaks. She lifts the damaged ornament up to show Cindy and tell her that is what fragile means.<br />
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It was that moment that something clicked in my brain. The smashed green ornament looked very familiar. I looked at our tree and saw what appeared to be a broken green Christmas ornament that had some bells, a little ribbon and some Christmas greenery on display inside the open cavity. The opening had a rippled edge that looked astonishingly (imo) like the ornament that Alice had just broken.<br />
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Of course our "Brady Bunch ornament" was never meant to be related to the show. But in some way it almost seems even more "official" than the officially licensed ornaments from Hallmark and Carlton Cards. After all it's an actual ornament from the 1960s or 70s that was probably produced around the time the show was on the air, and would have looked perfectly at home on the Brady's tree.<br />
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I'm not exactly sure where our "Brady Bunch ornament" came from, but it most likely came from a yard sale that The Wife and I visited during out first few years together. We have a number of ornaments from her childhood, but unfortunately none from mine. Over our first few years together we purchased quite a few vintage ornaments for our Christmas trees. The box of four plastic "Brady Bunch ornaments" most likely came to us during this time. Little did we (especially The Wife) know that one of these random, kind of cheesy-looking vintage ornaments would eventually come to be known as "The Brady Bunch ornament". At least in our household anyway! It's hard to imagine that anyone else who ever bought a set of these ornaments ever had the thought: "Hey, these things look a lot like that ornament that Alice broke in the Christmas episode of 'The Brady Bunch'!"<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;">MERRY</span> <span style="color: lime;">CHRISTMAS</span></span></b></div>
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<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-53980763849926173892019-12-17T22:44:00.002-05:002020-12-08T21:57:18.725-05:00The Return of the Elf Pants!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last year I wrote (in <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-elf-pants-new-holiday-tradition.html" target="_blank">The Elf Pants: A New Holiday Tradition</a>) about something that I hoped would become a new holiday tradition in our household. Perhaps tradition is a bit strong of a word for it though. What I was actually writing about was a new "ornament" for our Christmas tree that I hoped would become a regular part of our holiday season as we decorate the tree each year. And the reason I used quotes around the word ornament just now is because this so-called ornament was never intended to be an ornament. In fact, it was never intended to be anything at all. If it weren't for a small but hilarious misunderstanding, that "ornament" could very easily have become a bit of refuse, thrown into the trash and forgotten about.<br />
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The whole story can be found in that post from last year. But to recap, in August of 2018 we were spending some time at the In-Laws' house. The Tiny Creature enjoys crafting and also loves all things tiny. She found a tiny wicker basket that was being used as part of a centerpiece on the dining room table. She decided it needed to be filled and went to work crafting some "food" out of duct tape. She put a piece of green tape onto a piece of red tape and cut out a triangular shape to make a slice of watermelon. It was a smart bit of crafty thinking and a cute little piece of fruit for the basket. I knew that she was working on some project, but didn't really know the details. When I went over to see what she was making I saw not the watermelon slice, but the about-to-be-discarded remnants of the tape she cut the watermelon out of. My reaction was to say that she did a good job with the red "elf pants" (with green shoes) and to wonder why she didn't finish making the rest of the elf.<br />
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Once I realized my mistake I instantly found it to be about the funniest thing in the world and couldn't stop laughing--which pretty much made everyone think that I had gone crazy. It was a bit tough to explain just why I was laughing so hard and why I found it to be so funny. But once I calmed down I knew that there was no way I was going to let that little scrap of tape be thrown away. I hid it in my stuff and brought it home in secret. It was not seen again until a couple weeks before Christmas when we had our tree set up and were ready to decorate it. After seemingly finishing up the trimming of the tree I announced that there was a special, brand-new ornament that we were going to start using that year. Naturally nobody remembered the "elf pants incident" from four months earlier when I brought it out, so I had to remind them. We had a good laugh (I think The Little Monsters laughed harder than The Wife) and the Elf Pants ceremoniously became the final ornament to be put on the tree.<br />
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It's hard to believe that a whole year has passed, but we now have another Christmas tree set up in our living room. When last year's tree came down in January I packed all the lights and ornaments away until December. Well, I packed everything up except for the Elf Pants ornament, which I put aside to ensure that it wouldn't be forgotten about or lost among all the other Christmas stuff. Instead I put it in a box of stuff that I keep handy, and hoped I wouldn't manage to lose or forget about it over the course of the ensuing spring, summer and fall seasons. I will admit to semi-forgetting about it over the following months, but when it came time to look for it, there it was--just waiting to be put up on the tree again!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>They're Back!!!</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The 2019 Christmas tree arrives</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The lights go on first</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>And the first ornament is added!</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The finished product. Can you spot the Elf Pants?</b></span></span></td></tr>
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We have a pretty large number of "special" ornaments that have meaning to us for various reasons. There are a few ornaments from The Wife's childhood. The Wife and I have some "First Christmas Together", "First Christmas in Our New House" and "First Christmas as Husband and Wife"-type ornaments. There are ornaments from each of our Disney cruises and visits to Disney World over the years. We also have MANY "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments from when The Little Monster was born. And then there are a few less "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments from The Tiny Creature's first year (much to her chagrin). Throw in some ornaments that The Monsters have made over the years and a few other special ones, both old and new, and it makes for a pretty full and special Christmas tree. But now the Elf Pants have made their second appearance on the tree. I think that means they have indeed become a true family tradition of sorts! It's still a pretty young tradition I suppose, but a tradition nonetheless!<br />
<br /></div>Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-3856468509606948982019-11-14T06:20:00.000-05:002019-11-14T09:12:39.706-05:00The Little Monster Turns Fourteen!<br />
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Yes it's true, today is the day that The Little Monster turns...fourteen(!!!). Wow, now that's really something to think about. Last year at this time I wrote (in <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2018/11/draclea-vs-frakenstein.html" target="_blank">Draclea vs. Frakenstein</a>) about the scary thought that our Little Monster--the one who was the main inspiration for this blog when she really WAS little back in 2010--was turning thirteen and becoming a teenager. Somehow we survived this past year, and now suddenly another birthday is upon us. Fourteen doesn't seem like as monumental an age as thirteen, but the simple fact that she just keeps on growing and growing does give me pause to think and wonder just where my Little Monster went?<br />
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<span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Here are some of our adventures over the years! </b></span></span></div>
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There's a lot I could say about this situation. The Tiny Creature is a ten-year-old herself and I can really see the end of childhood for both the Monsters coming toward us very soon. It's kind of a sad thought. But, of course it's also exciting to see them growing and thriving in their world. From little girls to young women, I guess it's what happens to us all (well, except that some of changed from boys to young men of course!). But I don't want to go on and on here about my continuing issues and battles with my old enemy <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2010/09/monster-dad-vs-time.html" target="_blank">Time</a>. That can wait for another post. This one is actually something quite different from the usual kind of stuff that I write about. Instead of being a post about my thoughts on The Little Monsters, my past or any of that kind of stuff, this post is meant to be a Birthday Card of sorts. It is meant specifically for The Little Monster, so the rest of it will be written for, and to, her...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: yellow;">Then and now from last year when she turned 13</span></b></span></td></tr>
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Happy Birthday, Mini! I can't believe that you're fourteen years old today! I know it probably sounds corny, but I still remember the day we brought a tiny, newborn you home from the hospital fourteen years ago--and promptly left you strapped into your car seat on the dining room table (asleep) while we both collapsed for a quick nap. And we also failed to even remember to close the front door! Luckily we got a little better at the parenting thing over time. We were rookies and there was much to learn. I'd like to think that we've taught you a lot over these past fourteen years (at least I hope we have anyway), but at the same time you (and your little sister) have also taught us everything that we know about parenting!<br />
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I'm sure I say something like this every birthday, but I hope that this year will be your best one so far! I hope everything goes your way and you will be healthy and happy throughout. Obviously you have been around long enough to know that life doesn't always work out the way we hope or plan and there are no guarantees, but I can still hope, can't I?<br />
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I do have to admit that I miss the "old days" when we'd watch so many movies and old TV shows together all the time (Godzilla films, "Eegah!", "Ghostbusters", Abbott & Costello, "The Brady Bunch", "The Incredible Hulk"...). But I'm glad that, even with changing tastes and many more time commitments, we do still manage to find a little time to watch some fun stuff together ("The 'Burbs", the Rocky movies, "Seinfeld", "The Office"...). You're definitely not little anymore (though at least you still aren't taller than me...yet), but you'll always be my Little Monster. At least I hope so!<br />
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So this blog post has sort of been my birthday present to you. But don't worry, there WILL be actual presents too! I just wanted to do something a little different, and kind of make my own personal e-birthday card for you. And now, to wrap things up I actually have a special surprise. Here's someone else who wanted to wish you a happy birthday. Take it away special guest star...<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>HAPPY 14th BIRTHDAY CUTICLE!</b></span></span></span></div>
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<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-14069847111915565002019-11-11T23:42:00.002-05:002019-11-12T00:05:46.807-05:00That Time Superman Destroyed My Hope of Finding True Love<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: yellow;"><b>aka: Superman vs. True Love</b></span></span></td></tr>
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As the summer of 2019 wound down I found myself thinking about an incident that happened during the summer of 1983. It was actually a very minor incident, and to be honest, calling it an "incident" might be going a bit far. But even if it was in fact a very small and forgettable event, it has still managed to remain with me all these years (and even decades) later.<br />
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Starting a story by telling the reader just how "minor" and "forgettable" it is probably isn't a technique that would be recommended in a class called "Blog Writing 101". But this is going to be yet another of those little "slice of life" stories that, while not really seeming to be all that important or monumental, have nonetheless become a part of my history and my life. All these little things (along with the big ones of course) add up to equal who we are in life.<br />
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I've written about a few embarrassing moments from my youth recently. They've all been similarly "small" events, but ones that caused me some level of embarrassment and, like this story, have stayed with me throughout my life. There's no NEED to be sharing these stories. They've all happily remained in my own mind all this time and nobody has ever heard most of them until I decided to throw them out on the Internet. This story is like those; it's a small personal memory that never really seemed like it NEEDED to be shared. And in fact it wasn't shared. I had actually NEVER told this story to anyone until a couple months ago when I shared it with The Little Monster as we were talking about the summer. I thought she might find it interesting, and possibly kind of funny (maybe even somewhat relatable to her own teenaged life in some way). So what happened? And is it really worth spilling all these words over, or should I have just kept it to myself? I'll let the reader decide...<br />
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During the summer of 1983 I was 13 years old. Yup, a brand-new teenager--with all of the awkwardness and confusion that go along with that phase of life. It was a time when I was in an "evolutionary" phase, moving away from watching monster movies and playing in the backyard and toward listening to music on the radio and hanging out with my friends. And, oh yeah, I was also a LOT more interested in girls than I had previously been. That's kind of an important detail to mention for this story.<br />
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At thirteen I was still a kid of course, even if I didn't always feel like it. It's a strange time where you really do kind of find yourself stuck between two worlds--childhood and adulthood. I still liked to do a lot of the things I liked to do as a "kid". After all, I was only months or a couple of years removed from actually being a true kid. One of the things I liked doing as a kid--and have actually never grown out of--is swimming at the beach. It's the kind of thing that most people like all their life (if they like it at all). As a kid you're more interested in playing by the water and building sand castles. Later you get more into the actual swimming, laying out in the sun and girl-watching (or boy-watching, depending on your preference).<br />
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On this particular summer day in June of 1983 my sister took me and a couple of my nephews to a beach area at a lake near our hometown. I don't really recall specific details about most of the day. I'm sure it was a nice day that included enjoying the warmth of the sun, playing in the water and having a picnic lunch. Pretty standard fare for a nice summer day for a small town kid. If that were all that had happened that day it would most likely have simply faded into the recesses of my memory and probably would have become a generalized event, remembered more as part of a "typical" beach day rather than for anything specific. So what made this beach day different from all the other ones that came before and after it? Well, to put it simply, I fell in love that day.<br />
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Before explaining further I need to remind the reader that I was just thirteen at the time, and not really very experienced in all things love. Heck, I'm now fifty and I STILL find love to be quite a mystery. But toward the end of our day at the beach something happened that has remained with me all these decades later. I believe it was kind of late in the afternoon and the sun was getting lower in the sky. It would be cool to be able to say it was setting over the water to really set up the romantic mood, but seeing as how it was around the time of the summer solstice I doubt we were still at the beach late enough for that to be the case. As we were preparing to leave, a girl in a black one-piece bathing suit showed up. She seemed to be all by herself. As everyone else I came with was busy picking up all our stuff and preparing to head back to our car, I kind of felt like I was there all by myself (even though I obviously wasn't). The girl was about the same age as me, so it should have been obvious that she wasn't actually by herself. But in the mind of a teenager strange things can happen and strange things can be imagined. For a brief time it really felt like this girl and I really WERE there on our own. It almost felt like we were the only ones on the beach. Maybe even just a little bit like we were the only ones in the whole world! Okay, that's going a bit far, but I'm just trying to get across the kind of feeling that my pubescent mind was experiencing at that moment. I suppose it felt like a case of love at first sight, seeing as how this girl simply walked onto the beach and I simply decided that I was hopelessly in love with her.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z8JDKBxGR0g/Xcov8Pb_xOI/AAAAAAAAHwc/coqTmeza_JARu17w1VwEaDX7g8vNEw6GgCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/IMG_4231.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z8JDKBxGR0g/Xcov8Pb_xOI/AAAAAAAAHwc/coqTmeza_JARu17w1VwEaDX7g8vNEw6GgCNcBGAsYHQ/s400/IMG_4231.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Summer 2019, The Wife unwittingly and unknowingly recreating the scene from June 1983</b></span></span></td></tr>
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Considering how strong the feeling was and the fact that I still remember it to this day it seems kind of strange to admit to this fact: I don't actually remember what she looked like. I don't recall even seeing her face at all. I think I did as she walked by, but I can't actually REMEMBER what she looked like. What's imprinted on my mind is that she walked into the nearly empty lake and stood alone with the water about up to her knees. She was facing away from me, with the lowering sun in front of her. It was an image I thought was so beautiful that I had a spontaneous fantasy where I was sitting near the shore with an easel, drawing a picture of this perfect being--a drawing that she of course would appreciate so much that she would simply have to fall as deeply in love with me as I was with her. I was trying to figure out some way that I could talk to her (knowing that I'd probably never actually have the nerve). Those few moments seemed to last a lot longer than they actually did, and I wished they could have lasted forever.<br />
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But then the moment was broken. I was pulled back to reality by my sister telling me that it was time to go. Suddenly I was just an awkward thirteen-year-old leaving the beach without ever having a chance to find out if what I thought was true love could ever actually become something real. Suddenly I was leaving without even getting a chance to meet or talk to my dream girl. Suddenly my chance at finding true love was gone, like the sun setting over the horizon--as it would have done not too long after we left.<br />
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Okay, I suppose I've written enough to get the point across that these few moments were pretty special to me. Special and painful enough to have remained with me for the rest of my life. But the funny thing is that the object of my affection, the perfect girl in the black bathing suit, almost certainly doesn't share ANY of this memory with me. It was most definitely a one-way love affair. As far as I know this girl was not only not affected by this incident in any way even close to what I felt and experienced, I'm pretty sure that it's likely that she didn't even SEE me when she walked past me and into the water. I suppose the one good thing about an unrequited love like this is that I can always imagine that she DID see me and she DID feel something too--even if I'm pretty close to being sure that she DIDN'T.<br />
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So that's the story of how I found and lost the love of my life at nearly the same time in June 1983. I'd say the story is done, but obviously I'm leaving the reader with one extremely big question: what the heck does all of this have to do with Superman? And, how did Superman ruin my hope of finding true love?<br />
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Well, it's actually pretty simple. As I've mentioned, this incident happened in June of 1983. That seems like a pretty precise narrowing down of a date that I didn't record in a diary or anything like that. How could I remember with such confidence that it happened in June of 1983? Well, if it weren't for one thing I really wouldn't be able to remember the date. If it weren't for that one thing I would probably only be able to tell you that it happened during a summer in my youth. I might have guessed that it was when I was twelve, thirteen or fourteen. That means I could have (not terribly reliably) "narrowed it down" to the summer months of 1982, 1983 or 1984. That's not very specific at all. But, in fact, I can even narrow it down a bit more precisely than just the month. I can confidently say that it was during the second half of the month. What is it that makes me so certain of the small window that I can narrow this event down to? Well, that's where Superman finally comes into the story.<br />
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You see, the reason I know I couldn't talk my sister into letting me stay on the beach even a little bit longer (besides the fact that I'd probably have to explain to her the ridiculous notion that I had suddenly and spontaneously fallen in love with a girl whose face I may or may not have even seen) was because we had plans for later that evening. We had to leave because we were going to be making a real event out of it. After spending the day at the beach we were going to the movies! And we weren't going to just any movie. No, it was going to be something pretty special. We were going to see "Superman III"! "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086393/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Superman III</a>" opened on Friday, June 17, 1983. That's the reason I know when this incident happened right down to an approximately two-week window. It had to have been on or after June 17th. And that's also why I blame Superman for causing me to miss my opportunity to find the love of my life.<br />
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You have to remember that in 1983 comic book-based superhero movies weren't as plentiful (ubiquitous?) as they are now. I remember the release of "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078346/?ref_=nv_sr_6?ref_=nv_sr_6" target="_blank">Superman</a>" in 1978 as being a pretty major event. "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081573/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Superman II</a>" was also pretty special, and I had no reason to think that "Superman III" wouldn't be more of the same. Heck, they were even upping the ante by adding Richard Pryor into the mix! There was no way I could know that "Superman III" was actually going to be the beginning of the end for the franchise--to be sadly finished off a few years later with the poor excuse for a sequel that was "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094074/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Superman IV: The Quest for Peace</a>".<br />
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Being thirteen, I was pretty excited to see the film. I wasn't exactly a tough critic of movies at the time (or now for that matter). I vaguely remember it having a different feeling from the previous entries. It had a strange air of silliness that came along with having Richard Pryor added to the cast. But I also remember being very disturbed by the image of Superman getting all angry after being exposed to the synthetic kryptonite. Seeing him in his dirty costume sitting in a bar was something I never expected to see from the Man of Steel. The movie might not have been as good as the first two in the series, but it will always be remembered by me for a reason that has nothing to do with what happened on the screen. Instead I remember it because of the fact that it took me away from the promise of love that I thought I had at the beach that summer day so long ago.<br />
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To this day I have never seen "Superman III" again (though I think I might after ruminating about it so much while researching and writing this post), but I have always associated it with that beautiful summer day when the image of the mystery girl standing in the water at the lake was etched onto my mind. I wonder just who that girl was? I wonder what that girl is doing today? I wonder if she had any idea of the connection that I thought existed between the two of us that day? I wonder if she even saw me, or was even aware that I was on the beach when she walked by? I wonder if she has any memories of that day at all? I wonder if she ever saw "Superman III"?<br />
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Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-21178365110161917992019-10-31T23:53:00.001-04:002019-11-01T01:09:14.349-04:00Halloween Oreos, 2019 Edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's that time of year again. Halloween is always a special time for The Little Monsters (and me too for that matter). But I'm not sure just how much longer it will remain the special thing that it has been in the past. It will always be Halloween of course, but as kids grow up they tend to see Halloween in a different way from how they probably had experienced it over their first decade or so. The Little Monster is about to turn fourteen, so I can really see many of those changes happening now. I just wrote about some of my thoughts on those changes in <a href="https://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2019/10/an-especially-eerie-halloween.html" target="_blank">An Especially Eerie Halloween</a>. And this morning (October 31st) the first thing The Little Monster did after she woke up was to come into our room, sit on our bed and say, "I'm sad. I think this might be my last Halloween." Apparently she's become aware of those changes herself. She knows that Halloween will continue of course, and she still has many Halloweens ahead of her. But she also realizes that they just won't be the same as what she's (and we've) experienced in the past. There are obviously a LOT of changes that happen around this time of life. Losing the innocent enjoyment of Halloween is an incredibly small part of those overall life changes, but the realization of it can be a sobering thought nonetheless.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H3C_qZ6IRnE/XbuvNhbKluI/AAAAAAAAHtY/odUtDAi2ti0c5ZJh1olXz7i1BI5-Zb6twCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Halloween%2B2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H3C_qZ6IRnE/XbuvNhbKluI/AAAAAAAAHtY/odUtDAi2ti0c5ZJh1olXz7i1BI5-Zb6twCNcBGAsYHQ/s400/Halloween%2B2012.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Little Monsters in 2012</b></span></span></td></tr>
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But this post isn't about the sad realities of outgrowing the childlike enjoyment of Halloween. No, this post is about a very specific aspect of Halloween that has become quite a tradition for The Little Monsters and myself. It is about the strange phenomenon of Halloween Oreos! Oreos come in a dizzying array of flavors and varieties these days (a trend I chronicled in <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-overwhelming-onslaught-of-oreos.html" target="_blank">The Overwhelming Onslaught of Oreos</a> back in 2015 and a topic that I've been meaning to revisit). At first glance this might seem like a very small and insignificant aspect of Halloween, considering all the decorating, trick-or-treating and candy involved with the holiday, but it's something that I feel is an important part of the overall celebration of Halloween for our family.<br />
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Unfortunately the annual unveiling of the Halloween Oreos hasn't been well documented in our home. I know from photographic evidence that we've been celebrating the limited edition cookies since at least 2013, and have photos of us doing so from that year, 2015 and 2018. I'm pretty sure we had them in at least some of the years I don't have photographs from, but it was during my extended period of writing hibernation, when my blogging output was extremely sparse. In both 2015 and 2018 the Halloween Oreos were written about in the posts <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-overwhelming-onslaught-of-oreos.html" target="_blank">The Overwhelming Onslaught of Oreos</a> and <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2018/10/halloween-oreos-2018-edition.html" target="_blank">Halloween Oreos, 2018 Edition</a>.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Little Monsters in 2013</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2l-8LEK9-PY/Xbu3nyy6WCI/AAAAAAAAHuc/QwYhLAwyiMMqmVdbMlNzCyU4wh02DgwIQCNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Halloween%2BOreos%2B2015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2l-8LEK9-PY/Xbu3nyy6WCI/AAAAAAAAHuc/QwYhLAwyiMMqmVdbMlNzCyU4wh02DgwIQCNcBGAsYHQ/s400/Halloween%2BOreos%2B2015.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Little Monsters in 2015</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BcHZceaYGLs/Xbu4pK3q4AI/AAAAAAAAHus/ClVQHh8DvFYqXJyGJKMyDLU7notAj5LuACNcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Halloween%2BOreos%2B2018.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BcHZceaYGLs/Xbu4pK3q4AI/AAAAAAAAHus/ClVQHh8DvFYqXJyGJKMyDLU7notAj5LuACNcBGAsYHQ/s400/Halloween%2BOreos%2B2018.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Little Monsters in 2018</b></span></span></td></tr>
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Before we actually take a look at this year's Halloween Oreos it's probably worth mentioning that there's another very important element that goes along with the eating of the first of the Halloween Oreos. It may seem very random (and I suppose it IS), but it's what really makes the whole experience a true "tradition" for the Monsters and me. You see, before I actually bring out the package of spooky treats (the idea is to unveil them as a surprise, but by this point The Little Monsters usually know what's gong on as the process begins to unfold) I have to put on and start the "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0636757/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Ship of Ghouls</a>" episode of "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075529/?ref_=tt_ov_inf" target="_blank">The Love Boat</a>". That might not seem like a prototypical show to be watching to really usher in the Halloween season (what about "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"?) but it's what we were watching the first time I decided to make a big deal about buying Halloween Oreos and sharing them with The Little Monsters. There are a lot of other things I try to show them each year around this time, but "Ship of Ghouls" is simply a must--especially when it's time to snack on those Halloween Oreos! And, not only does the episode take place during Halloween, it also features none other than the great Vincent Price as a guest star and passenger on the Pacific Princess!<br />
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All of which brings us to the 2019 edition of Halloween Oreos. In years past I've had a tough time actually finding them in stores near us as Halloween approached. Eventually I learned that they actually come out toward the end of summer--about TWO MONTHS before Halloween. Sometimes they simply disappear from the shelves long before All Hallows Eve. It seems that by the end of October the stores are already over Halloween and looking forward to the holidays by stocking up on the seasonal varieties Winter Oreos and Peppermint Bark Oreos.<br />
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I've learned to make my Halloween Oreo purchase earlier in the season than I would normally want to. This year I got them at the end of September and had to hide them from The Little Monsters for nearly a month! Which means that I also had to resist the urge to crack into that package myself for nearly a month! I should probably mention here that The Wife tries hard to keep us a healthy family. As a result we don't really have a steady flow of snacks and sweets (junk food) coming in the house. I'm a pretty big fan of Oreos, but generally speaking, the one package of Halloween edition Oreos is usually the ONLY package of Oreos we purchase during the entire year. It's another factor that goes into making this whole experience a special one, and also adds to that feeling of it being a true tradition and not just another yummy snack treat. And here they are...<br />
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I do have to admit that The Little Monsters might have been a bit bemused--and maybe even somewhat unimpressed--when I put The Love Boat DVD in and started the episode, but once they realized what was going on and I brought out the Oreos they happily settled in for some quality pre-Halloween fun!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Monsters decided to add whipped cream to the Oreos this year</b></span></span></td></tr>
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That's pretty much all that there is to our little tradition. It might seem like a very minor thing, but it really is a big part of how The Little Monsters and I have been kicking off the Halloween season for quite some time now. I don't know how many more years we have where Halloween will be special enough to them to continue the tradition (see The Little Monster's observation at the beginning of this post). But I will try to keep it going for as long as possible...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>2013 Halloween Oreos</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>2015 Halloween Oreos</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>2018 Halloween Oreos</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>2019 Halloween Oreos</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!</b></span></span></span></div>
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Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-66985336420113452082019-10-29T23:36:00.000-04:002019-10-31T22:42:04.893-04:00An Especially Eerie Halloween<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There are only two days until October 31st, and it's been a very strange Halloween season around here. I suppose that Halloween really SHOULD be eerie and strange, but this one is not eerie and strange because of witches, ghost, goblins and things that go bump in the night. All of those things would be welcome additions to the season. No, this Halloween has been odd for different reasons. It's kind of hard to explain. I guess it's odd mainly because of my old scary enemy...Time.<br />
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You see, I loved Halloween as a kid (who didn't?). I also have always enjoyed Halloween as a grown-up--though in sort of different ways. After we had The Little Monsters that old childlike feeling of Halloween as a fun and exciting (and maybe even just a bit scary) night was back. I could enjoy the season all over again through the eyes and experiences of The Little Monsters. From picking out what costumes they would wear, to decorating the house/apartment, to going trick-or-treating and getting all that great candy, it was great to be able to kind of vicariously soak in some of the fun and excitement they were feeling.<br />
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But a funny thing happened on the way to Halloween 2019. The Little Monsters were suddenly not so little anymore. The Little Monster will turn fourteen in a few weeks and the Tiny Creature is ten. They're at the point where they are kind of aging out of the holiday (The Little Monster more so than the Tiny Creature of course). Up until last year the magic still seemed to be there, even if The Little Monster was about to become a teenager. I remember that the planning for this Halloween started pretty much as soon as the trick-or-treating and sorting of the candy was done last year. The first ideas for this year's costumes were laid on November 1st.<br />
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Then Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled around and Halloween was kind of put on the back burner for a while. Once school started in September I reminded the Monsters that Halloween wasn't very far away. When September turned to October I let them know there was only one month left. Then...nothing much happened. The Tiny Creature had some vague costume ideas, but nothing ever really materialized. The Little Monster was too busy with school, activities and friends to really put much thought into Halloween.<br />
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Suddenly there was only one week left until the big day and we realized that nobody really had any solid idea what they were going to be on the 31st. The Tiny Creature wanted to purchase a costume--which has traditionally been somewhat verboten in our household. The Monsters have usually done a good job (with a little parental help) of putting together some interesting costumes with stuff we have around the house and a few purchased additions and accessories. But with time getting short the options were getting short as well.<br />
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Another difference between this year and Halloweens past is that The Little Monsters simply don't have much free time. We used to read all our Halloween books at bedtime and watch a bunch of Halloween or related shows and movies through the course of October. But between all their homework and activities, and the fact that we generally adhere to a no-screens-during-the-week policy, there simply hasn't been time to watch too much fun stuff to get ready for Halloween. We certainly haven't seen some of our old favorites like "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" and "Young Frankenstein" in a long time (it's been years actually, and I'd dare say that they are not really among The Monsters' favorite titles anymore). When there IS some time to watch something they have plenty of other shows that they would prefer to see. And finding the time to watch movies is especially difficult.<br />
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But that's not to say that we haven't watched ANYTHING fun this fall. Over the course of the month I've managed to sneak in a few of the shows that have been old Halloween standbys of ours. Because of their schedules not all of these shows have been seen by both Monsters, but we're doing the best we can. Here's a rundown of most of what we've seen so far: The "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0636757/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4" target="_blank">Ship of Ghouls</a>" episode of "The Love Boat" (with Vincent Price!), the "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0534548/?ref_=ttep_ep6" target="_blank">Trick or Treat</a>" episode of "CHiPs", "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0567234/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">The Hazzardville Horror</a>" episode of "The Dukes of Hazzard", the "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0769851/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank">Fright Night</a>" episode of "The Brady Bunch", the episode of "The Muppet Show" with <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0653136/?ref_=ttep_ep19" target="_blank">Vincent Price</a>, the "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0177842/?ref_=ttep_ep6" target="_blank">Treehouse of Horror VI</a>" episode of "The Simpsons", "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382219/?ref_=nv_sr_2?ref_=nv_sr_2" target="_blank">The Paul Lynde Halloween Special</a>" (featuring KISS!), the cartoon "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0426581/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Spookley the Square Pumpkin</a>" and, of course, "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060550/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown</a>". It hasn't been easy squeezing those shows in, and there's still a lot more I wish we could get to. There simply isn't enough time or opportunity to do so.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>"CHiPs"</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>"The Love Boat"</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Vincent Price in "The Love Boat"</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Vincent Price in "The Muppet Show"</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"</b></span></span></td></tr>
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While we haven't carved any pumpkins or done much decorating, we have managed to keep up a couple of other traditions. The first is more of a fall thing rather than anything specifically Halloween, but I like to take the Monsters to the grocery store to pick out a couple mini pumpkins to put on our dining room table. It's not a very impressive sight, but for whatever reason it's always a bit of a special thing that we try to do each year around this time. Well, it USED to be kind of special anyway. This year I simply never had an opportunity to take both Monsters, so The Tiny Creature and I went and picked out hers and one for The Little Monster, who had other plans that afternoon.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Our mini pumpkin/gourd dinner table centerpiece</b></span></span></td></tr>
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Another activity that became a tradition a few years back (and has even been featured in a few blog posts of their own) is the annual purchase of the seasonal Halloween Oreos (see <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2018/10/halloween-oreos-2018-edition.html" target="_blank">Halloween Oreos, 2018 Edition</a> and <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-overwhelming-onslaught-of-oreos.html" target="_blank">The Overwhelming Onslaught of Oreos</a>). Sweets in general and Oreos in particular are not things we get to bring into our house too often, so getting a package of Oreos kind of counts as a big event. When those Oreos are of the Halloween variety it becomes even more special. For some reason I've generally had a hard time finding Halloween Oreos just before Halloween. It's made for some interesting adventures as I've had to search high and low for them in an effort to not disappoint the Monsters (who am I kidding, I don't want to disappoint MYSELF!). Last year I think I was able to figure out the problem. They actually ship out and start selling the Halloween Oreos in August, a full two months before Halloween. By the time it seems appropriate to actually buy some they tend to be long gone--replaced by the holiday ones in advance of Christmas. This year I noticed the Halloween Oreos in our grocery store early. I waited until later in Spetember to pick up a package, but didn't want to wait too long. Wouldn't you know, this is the year they decided to keep them on the shelves right up until Halloween. Oh well.<br />
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Anyway, the finding and purchasing of Halloween Oreos is the first part of our little tradition. The second part is when I put on the aforementioned "Ship of Ghouls" episode of "The Love Boat" as I unveil the sweet treats to The Little Monsters. Just WHY this has become our tradition I'm not exactly sure, but it has. And I'm happy to report that we were able to get the tradition in (with both Monsters present) for at least one more year!<br />
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As I started writing this post on October 29th The Tiny Creature and The Wife were out shopping for last minute costume components at a thrift store. It now appears that the Monsters' costumes have finally been finalized. The Little Monster is going to be some sort of angel with wings and a white dress, while The Tiny Creature will be a bag of jelly beans. There's definitely still some work to be done, but hopefully they'll be able to get everything put together by the 31st. Time is getting very short. And it looks like the forecast is calling for rain on Halloween. We're crossing our fingers that we'll be able to get in a good one before we get too soaked. Who knows how many more Halloweens are going to be special ones in our household before everyone is too "grown-up" to enjoy them?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Checking out the new costume components</b></span></span></td></tr>
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I mentioned earlier that we haven't done much decorating of our own. That's something I feel kind of bad about. The Little Monsters don't seem to be too bothered by it, but I do remember them enjoying making our apartment look more Halloween-y with fake spider webs and various other spooky decorations. We also have a neat witch door hanging that lights up, but it's in our storage unit and we haven't seen it for six or seven years. I think a nice way to end this post is by reporting that Mother Nature seems to have stepped in to help us out with our decorating and put us in more of a Halloween mood. Recently this giant spider spun a web and took up residence outside The Little Monsters' bedroom window. They were kind of freaked out by it (and it's hard to blame them, it IS a big spider!), but I kind of felt bad about taking the web down and/or killing the spider. It has remained and somehow survived a pretty big storm with a lot of wind and rain a few days ago. Looks like our new "friend" will be with us through Halloween!<br />
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<span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!</b></span></span></span></div>
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Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-16484167386065359522019-09-20T18:41:00.001-04:002019-11-18T22:48:19.646-05:00Monster Dad Turns 50!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Incredibly appropriate button I picked up at a yard sale last week</b></span></span></td></tr>
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So, I was trying to think of some sort of deep, interesting, funny or pithy title for this post ("50 Happens!", "Half a Century of Monster Dad", "Monster Senior Citizen", "Monster Dad Joins AARP"...). But in the end, just stating the fact in a straightforward way seemed to be the best course of action. The title pretty much says it all.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Today's Google Doodle celebrating my birthday--thanks Google!</span></b></span></td></tr>
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So, a year ago today I turned forty-nine. While I tried to comfort myself at the time by saying that I was still "in my forties", in reality it was the beginning of a year-long journey that I knew would culminate with me turning fifty. As the days and months slipped by that ending seemed to be approaching faster and faster. Today is that day. The day I turned fifty. The funny thing is that if it weren't for the human invention of the concept of time, today would be just another day. True, we all age, and I'd still be getting older and would indeed be the exact same fifty-year-old today (just without the number asociated with it)--even without our idea of "Time". But at least without clocks, calendars and the concept of time it would just be a continuous journey without the scary reminders of our aging that are birthdays. Every day would be just another day like the one before it--but just a teeny-tiny bit different. Instead we are reminded once each year that another number has been added to our age. Yesterday I was forty-nine. Today I feel the same as yesterday. But according to the calendar I have now entered a new decade of my life. I'm apparently vastly different than I was yesterday.<br />
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As a kid I enjoyed the fact that my age increased one number each year at my birthday. It meant I was getting closer to that magic world of adulthood and all the fun, money and freedom that it entailed. Then I actually did start getting into those adult years...and I wished that the numbers would stop being added to my age--or at least slow down! As the number continues to increase, and the number of years I have left decreases, it seems that the years keep going by faster and faster. One of those illogical paradoxes of time: when you're young time crawls, as you get older time flies.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Celebrating turning 40 with The Little Monster at our Back Yard Drive-In Party</span></b></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></span></td></tr>
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Ten years ago I turned forty (an event chronicled in <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2011/07/oak-street-drive-in.html" target="_blank">The Oak Street Drive-In</a> back in 2011). That seemed like a big number at the time. I guess it's all in your perspective though. Forty seems so danged YOUNG to me now! You hear people all the time saying that "forty is the new thirty", "fifty is the new forty" and so on. It kind of seems to ring true to some extent. When I was a kid I thought people in high school looked like (and were) adults. People in their twenties were REALLY adults. And people in their thirties were...well...old. Once you got into the forties, fifties and beyond it all kind of melded together into a world of geezers with wrinkles, age spots, arthritis, thinning, grey or NO hair and a host of other symptoms of being old. When I actually got into my twenties people in their thirties didn't seem so "old". Now that I'm fifty, people in their thirties seem like kids.<br />
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And the funny thing is that, for the most part, I don't really FEEL like I'm fifty--or at least what my mind says I should be feeling like at fifty. Sure there have been a lot of changes over the years and I definitely feel a little different than I did as a kid. But I certainly don't FEEL like I'm OLD. And it seems that hitting the magic number fifty, "The Big Five-Oh", is really kind of hitting me hard. Going from the mid- to late-forties was sort of tough, but at least it was STILL the forties! I may have only entered the FIFTIES today...but I'm definitely there and there's no turning back!<br />
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I will say that, while I don't necessarily FEEL like I'm getting old, looking into the mirror has become an increasingly difficult and strange experience over the past twenty years or so. The person looking back at me in the mirror has DEFINITELY changed a lot. That person doesn't look anywhere near as young as I feel sometimes. Who IS that person and why won't he let me see the person I used to see when I looked in the mirror? Am I just in denial? Is this what everyone feels?<br />
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September 20th, 1969. That's the day I was born. I've written quite a bit about the 50th anniversary of the summer of 1969 over the past few months (the moon landing, Woodstock and all the other historic events that took place over that summer). In each post I mentioned that I wasn't actually BORN until after the summer of 1969. I think that was kind of a way to allow me to feel a little younger about myself. But in reality I was born just about a month after that summer ended (and technically I guess that September 20th is actually still considered to be part of the summer, according to the calendar). Even though I was only a newborn baby and only around for the last three months or so of the decade I've always been kind of proud to say that I was "born in the 60s". There's no doubt that I was a child of the 70s and a teenager in the 80s, but it was still true that I was BORN in the 60s. Lately I haven't been feeling quite so proud of that fact. I can say that I'm NOT a Baby Boomer. But the time has long passed since being a member of the generation that followed the Boomers, Generation X, was considered to be cool. There have been a couple more cool generations since then--Generation Y (the Millennials) and Generation Z--who have become the hip crowd. Now us Gen Xers have been relegated to old people status.<br />
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Well, whatever I think about it, I'm indeed fifty as of today. It's something I'll have to deal with and (hopefully) make peace with. The good news is that life still goes on. I'm still here. I still have the same interests. I still have my family. I'm still Monster Dad for our two girls (even if they're not such "Little" Monsters anymore). The bad news is that this is the year I need to schedule a colonoscopy. ...But, let's not think about that just now. For now, let's just keep thinking young. Let's just try to enjoy life--even if it starts getting harder to remember things. Even if it starts getting harder to see things. Even if it starts getting harder to hear things. Even if it starts to seem like it's getting easier and easier to act like a grumpy old man. I just have to keep the right frame of mind. I think Jimmy Durante might have said it best...<br />
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Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-68392615900990938082019-08-27T12:19:00.003-04:002019-08-27T13:31:59.004-04:00It Was The Summer of '69I've kind of been stuck in the past for much of this summer. Not that being stuck in the past is anything out of the ordinary for me, but this summer has been something a little different. I've been giving the summer of 1969 a lot of thought--and I wasn't even born until that summer was over! But there were simply so many things that made the summer of 1969 something kind of special that it's been worth dwelling on.<br />
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The two biggest and best-known things that happened in the summer of 1969 (news- and history-wise) were the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11" target="_blank">Apollo 11</a> moon landing in July and the three-day <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock" target="_blank">Woodstock</a> music festival in August. The first thing I find interesting about that summer is the fact that these two iconic and historical events that happened within one month of each other are kind of linked by the simple fact that they were such polar opposites of each other. One was the technological highlight of the century up to that point, and the culmination of an incredibly challenging mission started by President Kennedy back at the beginning of the decade. The other was an amazing collection of musical acts that came together for a concert that would still be remembered and celebrated fifty years later. It was also kind of like the ultimate introduction to the hippie culture that had been developing for a few years. It was a counter-culture revolution occurring at the same time as a technological and scientific revolution. And the Birkenstocks (or dirty bare feet), headbands, sunglasses and flowing, rainbow-colored clothing of the hippies could hardly seem more different from the astronauts of Apollo 11 and technicians at NASA in their horn-rimmed glasses, short-sleeved white dress shirts and pocket protectors.<br />
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I've already written about the moon landing twice (<a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2019/07/apollo-11-t-plus-fifty-years.html" target="_blank">Apollo 11: T-Plus Fifty Years</a> and <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2019/07/thats-one-small-step-for-man-one-giant.html" target="_blank">That's One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Monster Dad</a>). To be honest, I could (and almost did) write at least another one or two posts about it. I felt two posts were probably enough for the average reader and kind of held back. But there was simply so much going on in that summer fifty years ago that I had to write about it again--and of course, by bringing up that summer I ended up bringing up the moon landing once again!<br />
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One kind of important thing to mention about the summer of 1969 and my connection to it is that I hadn't actually been born yet. So why is this anniversary so important to me? Well, while I wasn't BORN yet, I was indeed finishing up my development inside of my mother's womb and would be born on September 20th, just as the summer was fading into fall. So as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of all the events of the summer of 1969 I'm preparing to "celebrate" my own fiftieth anniversary (birthday) next month. While I'm very much a child of the 1970s and 80s (my early development, childhood, adolescence and the vast majority of the kinds of things I write about here at Monster Dad happened between the mid 70s and the early 80s), I've always been kind of proud to say that "I was born in the 60s!" Sure, there were only about three months left of the decade when I made my debut in the world, but it WAS still the 1960s regardless!<br />
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I think another important thing to note is the fact that 1969 was the last year of a pretty noteworthy and tumultuous decade. Every ten years we say goodbye to one decade and welcome a new one in. Rarely does that changeover amount to much more than having to get used to using a new number to note the year as we write checks (not that anyone still uses checks anymore, but you get my point). I remember celebrating New Year's Eve with friends in 1989. I had just recently gotten out of the Army and the Berlin Wall had just fallen. It seemed like we (myself and the world) were on the verge of major changes as we entered the brave new world of a new decade. Then...it was 1990. January first was just another day and life went on. My guess is that many, many decade changes have had a similar build-up and then let down as we realized that life just goes on. Ten years after my disappointment over the big reveal of the 1990s the world was about to witness the events of Y2K! Yes, 1999 was going to turn into the year 2000! These were two very iconic years in science fiction, and that kind of lent to the excitement of Y2K (at least for me anyway). 1999 was the year that the moon was supposed to be thrown out of orbit by a huge explosion (according to the 1970s show "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072564/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Space:1999</a>"). Of course, Prince had been singing about partying like it was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rblt2EtFfC4" target="_blank">1999</a> since the early 80s. And 2000 was simply a year that always seemed SO far in the future (even in 1999!) that it was kind of hard to comprehend. And, while "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(film)" target="_blank">2001: A Space Odyssey</a>" (both the book and the movie) took place a year later, it was certainly using the future-power of the idea of the year 2000 in its title. But once we realized that nothing really bad happened after the clocks clicked over from 1999 to 2000 it ended up just being another number change between decades. The summer of 1969 really was one of the few times I can think of when a change of decades really meant something. All of the various memorable events of that summer can be seen as the heavens saying goodbye to the 60s and noting the changeover to the 1970s that would happen in just a few months. I could be overthinking this, but it really seems that 1969 changing to 1970 meant at least a little bit more than most decade ends.<br />
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If the moon landing and Woodstock were the only things that the summer of 1969 were remembered for it would be enough to make the 50th anniversary something worth noting. But there were other things that happened that summer to make it even more noteworthy and memorable. If Apollo 11 and Woodstock were the polar opposites of life in the 1960s, much of the news and entertainment of that summer kind of reflected that battle between culture and counter-culture that they represented. Vietnam was a long war that spanned the 1960s and 70s, so it wouldn't really be fair to say the summer of 1969 was remembered for the war more or less than any other time. But the counter-culture of the time (and pretty much the rest of the country as well) was really starting to get frustrated by what was happening in Vietnam by this time. The "homefront" had really changed from WWII (and even Korea). More and more people were becoming disenchanted (not sure if that's the right word to encapsulate the feelings of the time) with what was going on. And unfortunately the soldiers who were sent to fight in Vietnam really kind of took the brunt of that disenchantment. Instead of being thanked for their service and having their emotional scars treated with the same weight as their physical wounds, they were unfairly blamed for the war and not welcomed back home as they should have been. One specific event related to Vietnam that kind of encapsulates the growing anti-war movement of the time that did happen during the summer of 1969 was when Muhammad Ali was convicted of evading the draft, just four days after the euphoria of the moon landing.<br />
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While the war in Vietnam was raging on the other side of the world, wars over civil rights, equal rights and gay rights were raging in the United States. Less than two months before the "Three Days of Peace & Music" message of Woodstock the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village brought a lot of attention to the gay rights movement. Needless to say, not everything newsworthy that happened during that summer was positive or fun stuff. I think the reason we have been celebrating the moon landing and Woodstock so much this summer, while not really mentioning some of the other events, has to do as much with their positive messages as their historical significance. It's a lot more fun to listen to the music of Woodstock and watch footage of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon than it is to ruminate over riots and unrest. That's not to say that the other events were any less important to history, just that they are less fun and possibly more painful to reflect upon.<br />
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Speaking of less-than-fun, yet important newsworthy events, there's one more BIG event I want to mention from the summer of 1969. This one was probably as big of a story at the time as the moon landing and Woodstock. But it's not something we're really "celebrating" during this time of noting the 50th anniversary of that summer. It's something that (like everything else that summer) happened before I was born, but became a part of my life every bit as much as the other, more celebrated events. It actually happened between the moon landing and Woodstock (and for some reason that seems immensely appropriate and important for context). It was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson" target="_blank">Charles Manson</a> murders. Over two nights Manson and his "family" (a very different take on the "hippie culture" from what would be represented at Woodstock) murdered actress Sharon Tate and seven other people. That story surely changed the tone of the summer of '69, and it would be one that would continue well into the 1970s and beyond. I wasn't really old enough to know about the story until Manson and other members of the family were already many years into their prison sentences. But those story lines were always reported on. I remember hearing about Manson's annual parole hearings (which ALWAYS seemed to get a lot of news coverage, even decades after the murders) and watching the film "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074621/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Helter Skelter</a>" (1976) on TV. Since I didn't have actual memories of the original time of the murders my feelings about Manson were colored by pop culture and the seemingly constant reporting on his "kookiness". When he finally passed away in 2017 I was a bit confused and possibly a bit disturbed to find myself feeling just a bit of sadness over the news. I had mourned the passing of celebrities whose works meant a lot to me, like David Bowie and Leonard Nimoy. They were famous people that I certainly didn't have any actual connection with, but they were nonetheless important people in my life. Why I felt a bit of that same feeling when Charles Manson passed probably had a lot to do with pop culture and maybe a little to do with the overwhelming amount of big stories that came out of the summer of 1969. And it really speaks for just how important that summer was and how appropriate it is to note the 50th anniversary of when it all happened.<br />
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And, now, let's finish up with something a little bit more fun than Charles Manson, and a bit less related to the summer of 1969. It's the song "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_%2769" target="_blank">The summer of '69</a>" by Bryan Adams. This song is about that summer and the importance of it for a young Adams. It's less about all the worldwide news events I've mentioned here and more about the personal experiences of a kid growing up that summer. He got his first real guitar, he and his friends formed a band, he went to the drive-in and fell in love. The song came out in the 1980s and didn't even mention moon shots, important music festivals or anything else that happened in the summer of 1969 that we've already discussed. But it was ABOUT that summer, and it was obviously a very special and important time for him. And the song really meant a lot to me as a teenager. It could (and one day may) warrant its own blog post, but for now I'll just say that Bryan Adams' memories of the summer of '69 in that song coincided with and reflected my own experiences around the time the song came out. The connection I felt to the song was so strong that to this day I still love it, and secretly refer to it as "The Summer of '85". It's just one more celebration (even if on a much more personal level) of the summer of 1969, and it just seems like a nice way to wrap up this blog. True, finishing up with footage from the moon landing or an iconic performance by one of the acts at Woodstock (The Who? Jimi Hendrix? Jefferson Airplane? Crosby, Stills & Nash? The Grateful Dead? Creedence Clearwater Revival? The Band? Joan Baez? Janis Joplin?...) might make more sense, but here's "The Summer of '69" for you because, well, it makes sense to me:<br />
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<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-8651117651824979082019-07-20T00:15:00.003-04:002019-07-23T02:19:46.571-04:00That's One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Monster Dad<div style="text-align: center;">
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I've already written about the 50th anniversary of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11" target="_blank">Apollo 11</a> mission in <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2019/07/apollo-11-t-plus-fifty-years.html" target="_blank">Apollo 11: T-Plus Fifty Years</a>. But today is THE day. It's July 20, 2019--the 50th anniversary of the day when man first walked on the moon! It's certainly something that's worth revisiting.<br />
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Not too surprisingly, Google has put up a special Google Doodle to mark the occasion. There appear to have been a couple different Google home page images put up in honor of the anniversary, but today's Doodle--which is actually a four-and-a-half minute animated piece about the first lunar landing--is one of my favorite ones ever. It's a wonderful reflection on the mission that's narrated by none other than Apollo 11 crew member and command module pilot Michael Collins! The video is actually available on YouTube, so I'll share it here for anyone that wants to watch it (I recommend doing so!). Hopefully this video will be around for a long time.<br />
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The funny thing is that I wasn't even born when the lunar module touched down and Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder, stepped on the surface and declared "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." But it's such a monumental moment in our history that I almost feel I WAS there. I was born exactly two months after that first excursion on the moon. I guess you could say that technically I WAS around when it happened--except for the fact that I was INSIDE of my mother at the time and not yet "fully cooked", as it were. It does make me wonder if my fetus-self heard any of the news coverage among all the sounds one would hear inside of a womb? Who knows? I'd like to think so. Even if I couldn't understand those sounds it would be nice to think that, in addition to all of my nutrients, some small portion of the excitement and wonder that my mother must have been feeling at that moment might have traveled down the umbilical cord and became a part of me.<br />
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I was born into a world where man had walked on the surface of the moon. That's kind of an amazing thing to think about. Of course it was also the beginning of a short window of time where quite a few men would walk on the moon. It got to the point where it almost became routine. Eventually that window of time closed, the Apollo missions ceased and the moon once again became a forbidding and faraway place that was hard to imagine being able to visit (despite the fact that we had ALREADY gotten there!).<br />
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I think the reason we WERE able to do it fifty years ago (and potentially COULDN'T do it today) had a lot to do with a particular set of circumstances and the fact that they occurred at just the right time. I think we've all heard how it's said that we all carry around a LOT more computing power in the smart phones we keep in our pockets than the roomfuls of computers that put man into space and on the moon. But there's no doubt that technology was indeed improving on a daily basis, even fifty years ago. Transistors and computers had finally gotten to a point where it was actually realistic to think about going into space. But, why would we want to? Well, that's the other part of the equation. It's called the Cold War. The Cold War was actually started (in some ways) by technology. The atomic bombs that ended World War II also ushered in a new age of technological advances and the Cold War between the U.S. and Russia. The Cold War, and the desire by both parties to outdo their opposition in all things military and technological, led to many more technological breakthroughs. I'm sure it probably sped up many scientific advances that might have taken much longer to develop if they didn't have an angle that could potentially be seen as a benefit to one side of the Cold War over the other. If it weren't for that "unfriendly competition" would we have ever (or at least by July 20, 1969) reached the moon? It's certainly debatable.<br />
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Not too long after the end of the Apollo program and missions to the moon the Space Shuttle program took center stage. Despite ideas that I'm sure were in the backs of some (many?) people's minds, the Space Shuttle was never destined to become a jetliner to the moon or other planets. The moon kind of became a "been there, done that" sort of thing. I'm not trying to take anything away from the importance and impressiveness of what was accomplished. It's just that once <a href="https://www.space.com/11772-president-kennedy-historic-speech-moon-space.html" target="_blank">John F. Kennedy's 1961 vision and mission</a> ("I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth") was accomplished there simply wasn't a real need to go there anymore--or to continue to spend the kind of money it would take to keep going there.<br />
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I certainly have no idea what the future holds as far as human space travel. Will we eventually get back to the moon? Will man someday walk on the surface of Mars? Will commercial space travel really become something truly viable? Will there actually be a market for such a thing? Who knows what will happen in this post-moon exploration, post-Space Shuttle world we find ourselves in? Not being a very scientific person I really can't answer any of those questions. I don't think I could even if I WAS a very scientific person. But what I can say is this; today we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of an extraordinary accomplishment by NASA, by the United States of America and by humanity itself. Half a century has passed since then, but time has not diminished the fact that something that had been seemingly impossible just a few years earlier was made possible. It's definitely a day to celebrate, regardless of what is happening today and what tomorrow may of may not bring.<br />
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<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-32043498370464459352019-07-16T23:46:00.001-04:002019-07-17T13:01:52.965-04:00Apollo 11: T-Plus Fifty Years<br />
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It was fifty years ago today (July 16, 1969) that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11" target="_blank">Apollo 11</a> lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The real big anniversary that everyone's waiting for is July 20th, which is the date that the lunar module, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard, landed on the moon. I have to say that this is an anniversary which has really been eagerly awaited by many people and has been covered heavily by mass media--and it actually makes me very happy. I'm glad to see that it really DOES seem to be a big deal to at least a chunk of the U.S. population and is getting the attention I feel it deserves.<br />
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It's STILL really kind of hard to comprehend just what was accomplished a half-century ago. While I'm no conspiracy theorist, I can actually understand where some of the rationale for people claiming the moon landing was faked. It was just such an incredible example of technology, smarts and willpower (among many other factors). To think that we were actually able to engineer a project that culminated with men walking on the moon! And it was done so often for a few years after that it almost became routine. Then it just stopped. And suddenly the idea of going to the moon seems like a pipe dream of fantasy now despite all the advances in technology AND the fact that it's already been done!<br />
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I think the other amazing thing about the moon landing (and possibly even more fuel for the doubters) is the fact that they were able to pull it off with a mere five months left of 1969. Why? Well because that also means there were only five months left of the 1960s. John F. Kennedy had set a goal in 1961: "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth." They couldn't have cut it much closer! I mean, one can only imagine all the factors, delays and setbacks that go into a project as huge as this. Even with tons of money from the government and a fervent desire to fulfill Kennedy's vision it would have been so simple to say "Well, we're pretty danged close, but...just to be safe we're going to set a new date for early in 1970. How does that sound?" It would still have been a monumental accomplishment, but it WOULDN'T have taken place in the 60s--which would have been a huge disappointment in many ways.<br />
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It's probably worth mentioning here that I wasn't actually born until after the moon landing. Technically I WAS around, as my mom was pregnant with me when it happened. But I didn't make my first appearance in the world (kind of like Armstrong jumping off the ladder onto the surface of the moon--well, maybe not) until two months later. Because of that fact I don't have first-hand memories or a real personal connection to the lunar landing that folks a few years older than me would have. But it's still certainly something that I can appreciate for what it was and is. It's an important moment in science and history that is still worth celebrating fifty years later and making a big deal out of.<br />
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And how is the world celebrating this anniversary? Well, in many ways it seems like it is THE event of 2019. I can't even begin to list all of the ways and places that it is being commemorated (how about the image of Apollo 11 projected onto the Washington Monument in Washington, DC?).<br />
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This humble blog post will be lost in a sea of more impressive and important retrospectives, accounts, stories and reflections of what happened in July of 1969. But, while this will probably seem extremely random (and possibly like a joke after all I've already written about how important I feel the anniversary is), I do want to highlight three of my favorite examples I've seen of fun and interesting ways to note the anniversary. They're all commercial product tie-ins and could probably be considered more like attempts to cash in on the excitement surrounding the anniversary than any sort of serious commemorations. But for whatever reason I really liked each of these when I randomly saw them in stores:<br />
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<span style="color: yellow;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">MOON PIES</span></b></span></div>
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This was probably the first commercial tie-in to the moon landing anniversary that I saw in person. A few months ago I was walking through our local grocery store and I saw a display of Moon Pies. But something about it caught my eye. It was a large display that wasn't in an area where you'd normally find snack cakes like Moon Pies and Hostess or Drake's products. It was in the middle of the floor at the end of an aisle and the large display mentioned the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing. Do Moon Pies have anything to do with NASA or the moon landing? Not that I'm aware. But the simple fact that they have the word "Moon" in their name makes them a perfect product to put the 50th anniversary designation on! Plus there's the nostalgic factor that Moon Pies are an old-timey snack food that was actually around in 1969 (and even much earlier than that)!<br />
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I just checked the website for Moon Pies and saw that they are in fact making a bigger deal out of the tie-in than simply putting 50th anniversary displays in grocery stores. Apparently they have actually teamed with NASA to put a lot of interesting information about the Apollo 11 mission on the site.<br />
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And now I see in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_pie" target="_blank">Wikipedia page for Moon Pies</a> that they apparently ARE connected to the mission in some small way. I guess you really DO learn something new every day!<br />
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Another thing I spotted in the grocery store was a "Limited Edition" variety of Oreo cookies called "Marshmallow Moon" for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. I've written before about both Halloween Oreos and the fact that there seems to be a mind-boggling number of new and different types and varieties of Oreos these days (going well beyond the early attempts to make something new out of Oreos with variants like Vanilla Oreos and "Double Stuf" Oreos). I still see new (and sometimes odd) varieties of Oreos popping up all the time and have been meaning to write a follow up to <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-overwhelming-onslaught-of-oreos.html" target="_blank">The Overwhelming Onslaught of Oreos</a> for a few years. So I wasn't too surprised to see yet another new Limited Edition Oreo appear about a month ago. But I WAS surprised to see that it was yet another tie-in to the lunar landing anniversary. I still haven't actually bought or tried any of these "Marshmallow Moon" Oreos myself, but I do approve of this new variety! And, heck, the package even glows in the dark!<br />
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<span style="color: yellow;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">BUDWEISER DISCOVERY RESERVE</span></b></span></div>
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This one seems to be even more remotely related to the actual moon landing than the first two. But despite not REALLY seeming to have any real connection to the anniversary beyond trying to cash in on it (and apparently using an "archival recipe" from the same time period), this "Limited Edition" version of Bud comes in those little throwback stubby bottles that I remember grown ups drinking from when I was a kid. And as I've mentioned many times before, if you want me to be interested in a product all you have to do is put it in some retro packaging. 1975 Narragansett Beer cans? I'll buy 'em! Throwback Pepsi and Mountain Dew cans? I'll but 'em! Old-school Doritos packaging? I'll buy it!<br />
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So, despite this one seeming to be a reach as far as having a legitimate connection to the moon landing, other than simply being "brewed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing", thanks to the little bottles I'm in!<br />
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I'd like to finish up with one more thought on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission and another possible reason why it still reverberates with the world. One of the more serious and impressive commemorations has been the coverage that CBS has been giving the anniversary. In addition to stories on CBS News, 60 Minutes and their websites, this morning they actually livestreamed the original TV footage of the launch of Apollo 11, just as it was seen in 1969 (including the commercials!).<br />
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Unfortunately I didn't realize this was happening until about fifteen minutes before the 9:32 launch time. I tuned in in time to see Walter Cronkite interviewing Arthur C. Clarke and to watch the launch. It was a pretty cool thing to see, but since my computer is so ancient (not 50 years old, but ancient by modern technology standards) I can't watch more than a minute or two of a livestream without it getting all bogged down and choppy and my laptop overheating. So I had to put it on my iPhone. Suddenly I remembered how they always say that the little smart phones we carry with us every day to post to social media, play video games and navigate our cars actually has more computing power than all the equipment NASA had in 1969 when they sent the first man to the moon. Well, here's the lasting image I hope you take away from this post. It's me watching the 1969 launch of Apollo 11 ("livestreamed" by CBS at the exact moment of the original liftoff) on, yes, my smart phone. How far we've come (for better or worse) in fifty years. What will the next fifty bring?<br />
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<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-78574232155786912362019-07-04T23:08:00.002-04:002019-07-04T23:47:41.939-04:00Happy Fourth of July! (aka Sparklers on the Fourth Part 4)<br />
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Today is July 4th. It's also called the Fourth of July. It's a holiday that has always held a special place in my heart--not only for its historical significance, but also because of all the great memories I have from Fourth of July celebrations of the past (especially from when I was a kid). This post is mainly meant to put out some past pieces I've written that have been related to the holiday, but there are also a few thoughts that I'd like to add too.<br />
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I've only written directly about this holiday three times before, and the posts have always had "Sparklers on the Fourth" as part of their titles. Hence the "aka" title of this one. The first two were way back in 2011 when I wrote about a memory I had from a Fourth of July celebration from my youth. That one was simply called "<a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2011/07/sparklers-on-fourth.html" target="_blank">Sparklers on the Fourth of July!</a>". After researching and writing that one I realized that my childhood memories were actually faulty and not quite historically accurate. It was a good lesson to learn and I was able to kind of make a new connection between my distant memories and reality. As a result I wrote "<a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2011/07/sparklers-on-fourth-upon-further-review.html" target="_blank">Sparklers on the Fourth: Upon Further Review</a>" to kind of admit my mistake and set the record straight. The holiday didn't really make another appearance here until last year when I wrote what I suppose was the third installment of the "series", "<a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2018/07/sparklers-on-fourth-of-july-next.html" target="_blank">Sparklers on the Fourth of July: The Next Generation</a>". That one was written as a part of my attempt to get back into actively writing after a long stretch of inactivity. It was also a way to kind of get back to the roots of what I intended Monster Dad to be when it started--something akin to a "Mommy Blog" where I would write about the experience of being a stay-at-home dad trying to instill some of my love of old monster movies and such in the kids. While there have indeed been numerous such posts, I do tend to write more about MY own childhood memories and stuff like that. In that blog I was finally able to share news about The Little Monsters enjoying sparklers on the Fourth of July--just as I did as a kid way back when.<br />
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While the main point of this post was to put out the above list of previous July 4th blogs, I would also like to write a little more about the holiday and about today itself. I mentioned having many fond memories of past Fourth of July celebrations. But to be honest I don't really have a LOT of individual memories of those childhood celebrations. Instead it seems a bit more accurate to say that I have a kind of general feeling of what it was like to commemorate the 4th when I was a kid--and that general feeling is very good. I Recently wrote a similar account of my feelings about and memories of <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2019/05/memorial-day-memories.html" target="_blank">Memorial Day</a>. Memorial Day was always special to me as a kid too. But, while it was a great time to have a three-day weekend as the weather was getting summer-like and we were nearing the end of the school year, there still WAS school that had to be attended for another few weeks. The Fourth of July occurs pretty close to the beginning of summer vacation (from school). So it really kind of felt like a huge celebration to welcome the true arrival of summer and all the wonderful and exciting possibilities that came with it. It was so close to the end of the school year that there was still a relatively long time before going back to school in September. Plenty of summer fun to be had! I think that has something to do with that "general overall feeling" about July 4th for me rather than a list of concrete memories.<br />
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I believe that The Little Monsters are big fans of July 4th, but am not really sure if it carries the same sentimental weight for them that it does for me. Perhaps that's something that develops later in life when childhood and all the magic associated with it starts to fade into the past. We (or at least I) tend to look back on those seemingly less complicated and simpler times and pine for "the good old days".<br />
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But every year the Fourth of July still rolls around, and we are given another chance to enjoy the holiday and create new memories. I think I'll finish this post with the most up to date information I can offer--what we're doing THIS Fourth of July. On Tuesday, the 2nd of July, we went into Boston to check out the Boston Harbor fireworks show (which we didn't realize also includes a boat parade on the harbor!). The photo at the top of this post is from that show. I believe this has been going on for many years, but it was our first time attending it. The Boston Pops orchestra puts on a VERY well-known concert on the Boston Esplanade every July 4th that concludes with a huge fireworks show over the Charles River. We've NEVER attended this show (as the crowds are gigantic and pretty daunting). But a couple years ago The Wife and I did attend the slightly less heavily attended rehearsal concert that they put on the night before the big show. It includes all of the concert elements of the show on the 4th, minus the fireworks. We went again last night. And today we are at The In-Laws' to celebrate the Fourth with family. We went to a very old-fashioned parade at a small town nearby, had hamburgers and BBQ chicken for lunch and dinner, and now are finishing up the holiday by watching the actual Boston Pops show live on TV, having a fire in the back yard, eating s'mores and letting the Little Monsters run around with, yes, Sparklers on the Fourth of July! Here's a few pics from the day...<br />
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<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-72771941883987835682019-07-01T00:03:00.001-04:002019-07-01T00:13:31.156-04:00Where's Monster Dad? (aka: 2019 State of the Blog Address)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Okay, so this kind of feels more like a social media post or update than a real blog post, but I just felt like I needed to put this out there--even if it's not the standard kind of fare I would prefer to be writing and posting.<br />
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Anyway, I seem to keep intending to write more often and more consistently. And then the posts just seem to grind to a halt. About a year ago I really thought I was committing myself to write more. And the second half of 2018 was indeed the most "successful" era of Monster Dad in about five or six years. 2019 started off the right way. I was still putting out a couple posts per month (not the four or so I'd LIKE to be putting out there, but still kinda-sorta okay). And the ideas and intention are still there. I think about writing nearly every day. Old ideas keep bubbling up from the past and new ones still pop into my head on a regular basis. I just don't seem to be able to find the time to sit down and make them real.<br />
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A big part of the reason for this is the same old story about how I'm "suffering" from the success of my YouTube channel (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/gschultz9" target="_blank">gschultz9</a>) where I mostly review military rations. It's a VERY different format than what is featured on this blog, but the simple fact that there are a lot more viewers and subscribers on that channel, there is a lot more opportunity to interact with the subscribers and, well, that channel actually generates a little bit of income by making a modest amount of money via the ads that run on the videos causes that "creative outlet" to demand more of my time and energy.<br />
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I get caught up with all that's involved with keeping the YouTube channel current and relevant. Next thing I know I look at Monster Dad and realize that a WHOLE MONTH has passed since my last post! Despite the amount of time, energy and work that goes into filming, editing, posting and tracking the performance of a new video on the YouTube channel, I actually seem to find it easier to do all of that than it is to simply sit down at the keyboard and pound out a new blog post. Last year I mentioned that I was going to try to put out more content here by (even if only occasionally) posting quick and short posts that would look more like social media posts than full blog posts. There's nothing saying I CAN'T do that (a lot of others do, and it's certainly the flavor of the day in this short-attention-span-theater world we're living in). But when it got right down to it, I simply couldn't seem to get myself to throw quick and short posts up here (stuff like a photo I saw online with just a caption or something to that effect). I'm certainly not a professional writer, but whether it shows or not I've always put a lot of thought into my posts here. I always want to tell a story while hopefully being coherent and making some sense. That leads to some lengthy posts that I could certainly get away with making a LOT shorter and possibly still getting the point across, but it's just not my style. And in the end this IS my blog, right?<br />
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In addition to the envious "problem" of having to deal with a somewhat successful YouTube channel I'm also still having to deal with some other "life stuff" that also ends up taking precedence over blog writing. I don't want to bore the reader with all the details of all of this "life stuff", but a lot of it has to do with my continuing search for a new job after my extended time spent raising our Little Monsters for the past number of years. It's actually something that I think might be worth writing about itself--even if some aspects of it are kind of on the depressing side.<br />
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Obviously I'm writing this because this continuing difficulty I'm finding in getting more posts out there is bothering me. But I do want to ensure anyone who might happen to be a faithful reader (a pretty endangered species here as I've lost most of my Google cache over the past five or six years due to my lack of regular writing) that I'm STILL here and I STILL have a lot of ideas for posts that (I feel) are good and worth writing. And, yes, I'm STILL planning on writing more often...eventually. If you've stuck around this long, please continue to be patient with me. I truly do see myself as a regular blog writer (even if being a blog writer isn't as much of a "thing" as it used to be when I started doing this). I'm realizing that even just writing this little update feels like a positive thing. It still feels good to write and post something. I want to have that feeling with more worthy posts on a more regular basis. We shall see what the second half of 2019 brings to the Monster Dad world...<br />
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<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-40573440695555786612019-05-28T00:09:00.000-04:002019-05-28T00:31:43.617-04:00Memorial Day Memories<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I do know what the actual meaning of Memorial Day is supposed to be. As a veteran of the military myself I definitely take that meaning (remembering all those that made the ultimate sacrifice for our country) seriously. At the same time I realize that changing Memorial Day from May 30th to the last Monday in May back in 1971 changed the perception and observation of the holiday. It went from being a day of somber remembrance to being the basis of a three-day weekend. The timing of that three-day weekend right at the end of May caused Memorial Day weekend to become looked at as the unofficial start of summer.<br />
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I mentioned my awareness of the true meaning of Memorial Day because now I'm going to share some of my memories of Memorial Day weekends from my youth--and those memories have little to do with the true meaning of the holiday and a lot more to do with enjoying a three-day weekend. I kind of feel bad about some of these memories and the fact that I wasn't really honoring the memory of fallen soldiers as much as I should have been. But at the same time I WAS a kid. And I WAS growing up in a time when it was still a relatively new thing to experience Memorial Day as a three-day weekend rather than a single day of remembrance.<br />
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It's worth mentioning that I wasn't a huge fan of school back in those days. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I "hated" it, but at the same time I never really WANTED to go to school. Like so many other kids throughout the years, I knew that I was supposed to go to school and didn't really have any choice or say in the matter. So I went. As a pre-schooler I'm sure each of the seven days of the week seemed pretty similar. But once I started attending school it didn't take me long to realize the importance of the weekend! The best way to put this is to mention that my absolute favorite moment of the week was usually when the bell rang at the end of the school day on Friday. Why? Well, it was because that moment marked the longest possible time before I had to go back to school! It's certainly true that Friday night and pretty much all of Saturday offered a lot of opportunities to take advantage of while NOT being in school, but that moment school got out on Friday was the most full of potential. Many (most?) weekends never actually lived up to that potential, but it always felt possible as I was heading out of the school on Friday afternoon.<br />
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So, as was the case with most people, I really liked weekends. A few more factors went into Memorial Day weekend to make it that much more special to me. First off, and most obviously, it was a THREE-DAY WEEKEND! I was guilty of not really enjoying most Sundays because I saw them as "church day" and as the day before Monday (the most hated day of the week). Now I look back and can't believe that I would sacrifice a complete day of my precious weekend by faulting it for being the day before Monday. But that wasn't the case on a three-day weekend. Sunday became kind of like a second Saturday on those weekends. And then Monday lost its sting as the worst day of the week because there was no school. All of that set up one more interesting bonus of the three-day weekend--the fact that there were only FOUR more school days until the next Friday instead of the usual five. That's a lot of good reasons to really appreciate getting a three-day weekend.<br />
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But there's still more! That whole "unofficial start of summer" thing meant a lot to me too. The weather was generally getting REALLY nice by the end of May. New England has pretty long, and sometimes pretty tough winters. It can take a while for spring to really take hold. But by Memorial Day you can definitely tell that you're getting quite close to summer and all that it has to offer a student who can't wait for it to start. At school the windows would frequently be open on very warm days. You could see, feel, smell and hear summer right outside the classroom. It became harder and harder to remain studious and pay attention as the weather got nicer and nicer. By the time Memorial Day rolled around you knew that the end was near. It would be the last scheduled day off from school and you knew that there were only a couple (or at most a few) more weeks before it would officially be the end of the school year and the beginning of summer vacation.<br />
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We now have the parameters of what made Memorial Day so special for me: it was a weekend, it was a three-day weekend, it was generally a summer-like three-day weekend. But the true reason for me to be writing about my Memorial Day memories, and why they remain so special to me all these years later comes in some of the specific details that filled in the framework of the three-day weekend. Let's go over some of these details (some large and some on the small side) that really made Memorial day so special and memorable.<br />
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First off was something that happened at school on Friday. Before that awesome feeling triggered by the ringing of the bell on Friday afternoon we would have the annual Memorial Day assembly. While I might not have gotten quite as much of the true meaning of the holiday as maybe I should have, there were two parts of the weekend (one at the beginning and one at the end) that did remind me of the true meaning. The first was that assembly. It was actually special for two reasons: it helped give me at least SOME appreciation for the real meaning of the holiday, AND it meant that I didn't have to go to the final class or two at the end of the last day of the week before the three-day weekend. In a way this seemed to extend the weekend just a little bit longer! Sure, I was still in the school building until the normal time of release. But during that time I was sitting in the auditorium being meaningfully entertained instead of sitting in a classroom wishing the clock would move faster and the final bell would ring.<br />
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Once I finally was free from school I do have to admit to not really having too many memories of the Fridays and Saturdays of most of the Memorial Days of my youth. I'm sure I enjoyed them just as much as any other Fridays and Saturdays (maybe even a bit more than usual because of the knowledge that the weekend wouldn't end after Sunday). But the most special memories of that weekend come from Sunday and Monday. I've written before about the strange phenomenon of having my family do something possibly only once or twice, but feeling like it was a long-standing "tradition" that we'd ALWAYS do (like New Year's Eve parties and vacations on Cape Cod that it seemed like we would do every year, but they may only have happened a couple of times in reality). Well, one of those things that to me felt like a long-standing tradition was a Memorial Day weekend cookout at the home of my sister and brother-in-law. There probably isn't a more stereotypical way to NOT honor the memory of the fallen on Memorial Day weekend than a nice cookout with family and friends. But at the same time it certainly is a great way to welcome summer.<br />
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The cookout was always great, but there was another thing that beckoned on those Sundays before Memorial Day. I was never a big sports fan as a kid (which I'm sure would come to a pretty big surprise to people that have only known me as an adult). I was not very interested in cars either. But that didn't stop me from really enjoying another traditional part of Memorial Day weekend--The Indianapolis 500! My sister's house was close enough to ours that once I was old enough I could walk or ride my bike between the two. I recall leaving the cookout a little early to get home in time to watch the Indy 500 (or at least a chunk of it). As I mentioned, I wasn't really into sports or cars. So why was the Indy 500 so important to me? Well, it's time for another confession. Just as I didn't really celebrate the true meaning of Memorial Day as a kid, I also didn't really watch the Indy 500 for the race itself. As wrong as it might sound, I was more interested in seeing the crashes. The reason I can admit that is the fact that I know that I wasn't the only one who watched for that reason. I mean, unless you're a REAL racing fan, watching cars zoom around a track for a few hours (and 500 miles) can get a bit boring. The start of the race, the end of the race and a couple moments of drama in the middle as leaders pass each other and jockey for position are really the most interesting parts. But the sometimes spectacular crashes made it REALLY interesting! Of course I didn't hope for any of the drivers to get maimed or killed or anything like that. I knew there were drivers inside the vehicles, but I suppose I kind of tried to think of it as just machines careening into each other.<br />
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Anyway, watching the Indy 500 introduces another element of my youth that I probably should mention here. It would be easy enough for me to deny this, but let's be honest...TV was kind of an important part of my life as a kid. The fact that Memorial Day weekend generally coincided with really nice weather did mean that I was likely to be spending a lot of my free time outside--riding my bike, going to the Town Park, hanging out in the woods behind my house... But there's no doubt that I'd also find the time to watch TV at some point during the weekend. The most obvious time to be watching would be Sunday night. At the time when I'd normally be getting ready to go to bed so I could get up for school Monday morning I would be likely to be checking out one of the big networks' (ABC, NBC, CBS) Sunday Night Movie. Since it was Memorial Day weekend, that movie would probably be worth watching. It was a nice option to switch to if the latter part of the Indy 500 was getting kind of boring. While I can't say I have too many specific memories of watching a Sunday Night Movie on a Memorial Day weekend, there is definitely one. It's tough to know what year it was, but I do recall watching the Chevy Chase/Goldie Hawn film "Foul Play" (1978) in the early 1980s. The memory of the cookout in the afternoon and then watching the Indy 500 and "Foul Play" is kind of etched into my memory.<br />
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The final special thing about my childhood Memorial Day weekend memories was on Memorial Day itself. And, like the assembly at school that started off the weekend three days before, this was one of the few examples of me actually observing the real reason for Memorial Day. Of course, simply not having to be at school on a Monday was pretty exciting in itself. But since it was finally Memorial Day that meant I could walk down to our town Common to watch the Memorial Day parade! Man, that sounds so 1950s small town, doesn't it? But it was reality. That was something I really looked forward to. And it's kind of nice to think that the long weekend would end with something that actually had to do with the real reason we were having a three-day weekend in the first place. At the end of the parade, which featured the high school band and a number of veterans (including a few World War I veterans in my earliest memories), there would be a ceremony on the Common that included some speeches, some patriotic music and a firing squad shooting off a salute with their rifles followed by the playing of Taps. It was a great way to finish up the weekend the right way, in the true spirit of Memorial Day. I remember at least one year when I was able to grab one of the empty blank shells after the salute as a souvenir.<br />
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That's pretty much what I wanted to share as far as my childhood memories of Memorial Day, but there is still one more thing that I always enjoyed about that weekend. You could kind of call this the "soundtrack" of the holiday. Back in the early 1980s (possibly earlier as well, but I mostly remember it from the 80s) radio stations would mark the weekend by playing what they dubbed "The Memorial Day 500" (a la the Indianapolis 500). Starting on Friday they would play what they decided were the top 500 Rock and or Pop songs of all time. The list was very subjective of course, and would vary greatly depending on which channel you chose to listen to. I remember hearing it on channels like 92 Pro-FM out of Providence and 103.3 WHTT out of Boston. There was a part of me that kind of wanted to hear the whole 500 song countdown (and I believe some of the channels that played it would send you a list if you sent thm a SASE). Obviously I never heard the entire countdown (it ran 24 hours a day during the long weekend) and I don't even know if they were actually able to play ALL 500 of the songs. Either way, during our family cookout and throughout the rest of my adventures during those Memorial Day weekends I always enjoyed hearing the countdown whenever I could and tried to keep track of it as best I could. While I consider the Memorial Day 500 to be a part of the past, a little research online seems to show that there are STILL channels around the country that have continued the traditional countdown of the 500 greatest songs of all time every year!<br />
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Memorial Day is indeed an important holiday. It carries a much heavier message than many others that we celebrate. But it also does act as a great way to welcome the beginning of summer (even if that's not SUPPOSED to be the reason for it). It really did mean a lot to me as a kid for a lot of reasons. Heck, just look at how long this post ended up being. Seems like I could have said what I wanted to say in a few paragraphs, but there were just too many details that went together to make up the whole experience. I could have probably written at least a few more paragraphs, but for the sake of (relative) brevity let's end it here. I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend and that you were able to take a moment to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that you have the right to enjoy the weekend however you want!Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-55546050908346233192019-05-04T16:25:00.001-04:002019-05-04T16:42:07.965-04:00Star Wars Day 2019: R.I.P. Peter Mayhew<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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May 4th has become known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Day" target="_blank">Star Wars Day</a> in recent years. The date seems to be a bit arbitrary, especially considering that Star Wars premiered on May 25, 1977. But there is a very entertaining reason for it to be on May 4. Basically it allows one to say "May the fourth be with you" (as in a play on "May the Force be with you").<br />
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I've written about the day once before, in 2017, and as embarrassing as it might be to admit it, at the time I actually thought that it WAS the date of the anniversary. After writing the post <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2017/05/may-4th-be-with-you-2017.html" target="_blank">May the 4th be With You</a> I realized my mistake and now I'm fully onboard with the celebration.<br />
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There are all kinds of nods and references to Star Wars Day both online and offline. Many stores, companies and websites celebrate it in all sorts of clever ways--from promotions and big sales to tie-ins and parodies. I generally get quite a few Star Wars Day-related items in my email inbox around this time of year. In 2017 I took advantage of 80s Tees' (80stees.com) "May The One-Fourth Be With You" sale--where nearly all of their Star Wars shirts and other items were 75% off (one-fourth of regular price)! That sale was simply too good miss, and I DID make a few purchases that day.<br />
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This year, my favorite example of a non-Star Wars site hopping on the Star Wars Day bandwagon would probably have to be <a href="https://www.kellycodetectors.com/" target="_blank">Kellyco Metal Detectors</a> (I used to be kind of into metal detectors, and despite the fact that I had to sell mine a number of years ago when we moved I still get emails from Kellyco). One of the manufacturers of metal detectors they sell is Nokta/Makro, and that company has a line of detectors called FORS. So, yes, Kellyco is having a "May the FORS be with You" sale! Might be tough to beat that one this year!<br />
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I've decided to write about Star Wars Day again this year for a couple of reasons (not that you really NEED a reason to celebrate Star Wars any day of the year, of course!). The first reason is a rather somber one. This Star Wars Day is kind of overshadowed by the recent death of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0562679/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Peter Mayhew</a>, the actor who portrayed Chewbacca in all of the Star Wars movies between the original ("A Hew Hope") in 1977 right through "The Force Awakens" in 2015. And that also includes most of the peripheral Star Wars-related productions and appearances from that period--including the infamous "The Star Wars Holiday Special" in 1978. He only recently retired and handed the reins of Chewie over to Joonas Suotamo for the past few Disney-produced Star Wars films. <br />
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There's no denying that, despite the fact that we never really saw Peter Mayhew himself, he was indeed a very important and integral part of the Star Wars legend, and will be greatly missed. Here are some quotes from StarWars.com about Peter:<br />
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My second major reason for writing about Star Wars Day once again is a happier one, and actually doesn't really even have anything to do with Star Wars itself. May 4th falls on a Saturday this year. It's the first Saturday in May, and the the first Saturday of May also just happens to be the date of Free Comic Book Day!<br />
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The two days are pretty much unrelated, but either one of them on their own is a good reason for a grown-up Monster Kid like myself to celebrate. Having them both occur on the same day makes it just that much more special. I took the Little Monsters to our local comic book store for the occasion, and one of the free comics I was able to pick up seemed very apropos of the day (Free Comic Book Day, Star Wars AND Chewie all in one image!):<br />
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<span style="color: yellow;"><b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">May The Fourth (and The Force) Be With You!</span></span></b></span></div>
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Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-14440718504916093742019-04-25T15:33:00.003-04:002019-04-25T17:45:27.887-04:00The Mahoning Drive-In Opens for the 2019 Season!<div style="text-align: center;">
***Note: some photos in this post are shared without permission from the Mahoning's website and Facebook page (but hopefully they won't mind!)***</div>
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The <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/" target="_blank">Mahoning Drive-In Theater</a> in Lehighton, PA opens for the 2019 season on Friday, April 26. There are many reasons that this fact is a good thing, an amazing thing and even kind of an historical thing. Please allow me to explain.<br />
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The Mahoning was built in 1948. That would seem to indicate that LAST year was a year to celebrate (being the 70th anniversary and all). And, in fact, I DID write a post about the theater last year for that precise reason (<a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-mahoning-drive-in-theater-lehighton.html" target="_blank">The Mahoning Drive-In Theater</a>), but then was subsequently schooled about the fact that, while the drive-in was BUILT in 1948, it actually OPENED for its first season in 1949. So NOW we can finally celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Mahoning as an operating drive-in! It's also worth mentioning that it has been in CONTINUOUS operation for that entire time (and still uses the same 35mm projectors that were installed when it opened)! Of course, the fact that it opened in 1949 means that 2019 marks it's 71st season in operation, but we'll stick with focusing on the 70th anniversary for this post...<br />
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In a time when drive-ins have become an endangered species this survival story is very impressive. In the 1950s there were over 4,000 drive-in theaters in the United States. Today there are only about 300 left. Keeping the remaining theaters alive is really a labor of love. A number of years back Hollywood announced that all theaters (including drive-ins) would have to convert from 35mm projectors to digital projectors if they wanted to continue getting the latest films--which would no longer be produced on film and only be available in a digital format. The decline of drive-ins really sped up with this ultimatum. Many drive-ins are seasonal and are only open for six months a year at most. Very few were in a position to suddenly shovel out the $50,000-$70,000 or so that it would take to convert them to digital projection (which includes not only new, expensive projectors, but also costly upgrades to the projection booth). For many theaters this was the final nail in the coffin and the excuse for the owners to finally throw in the towel.<br />
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The Mahoning was in the exact same position as hundreds of other drive-ins. There was no realistic way for them to raise the funds necessary to stay in business. That could have easily been the end of the story. The drive-in could have closed and the land could have been sold off to make another strip mall or housing development--both of which would undoubtedly be much more profitable options for the land. But the people behind the Mahoning made a bold and daring decision. They passed on buying the digital projectors and instead switched to an all-retro format featuring older 35mm prints of movies rather than the latest Hollywood blockbusters. Instead of projecting digital images onto the screen the Mahoning would continue to project 35mm film images from the same projectors that have been in the projection booth since it was built in 1948! This was a very exciting prospect for old movie fans (by "old movie fans" I'm referring to fans of old movies, but I suppose it also applies to old people, like myself, who happen to be fans of movies too). But it's also something that might be just a bit tough to sell to the average drive-in customer who is used to seeing the latest releases up on the screen rather than old movies that they could throw on the DVD player and watch at home.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pACRCfWbcf8/XMIKF1x3x9I/AAAAAAAAGS0/tbbGdnIvEd05W7OcmZ9q-GAdfvRkV3jIACLcBGAs/s1600/36370348_1702481246535374_9003378597863358464_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="960" height="255" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pACRCfWbcf8/XMIKF1x3x9I/AAAAAAAAGS0/tbbGdnIvEd05W7OcmZ9q-GAdfvRkV3jIACLcBGAs/s400/36370348_1702481246535374_9003378597863358464_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I'm not going to say that this process was easy, or that it was an overnight success. While they didn't have to hand over all that money for the digital projectors, they did lose the opportunity to get all the new movies that would allow for a steady, predictable cash flow. They also lost the relatively automatic pipeline that those movies would come through. The old 35mm movies might seem like a cheaper option, but they still need to be tracked down, found, rented and acquired before a show could go on. This is NOT an easy process by any means. But the Mahoning was all in. Starting with the 2015 season they began screening retro shows. It wasn't just random films from the old days though. They put a lot of work and thought into producing themed shows that made the experience something special. They started a new tradition that year by opening the season with a double feature of "The Wizard of Oz" (1939) and "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971). This Friday those same beloved classics will open up the 2019 season as well.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cW8rhTE1XBw/XMH6kRzSQJI/AAAAAAAAGRg/wWBLY3kL_tAndBwrMIXhw-tA3newBmHwACLcBGAs/s1600/Mahoning%2B2019%2BSeason%2BPremiere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cW8rhTE1XBw/XMH6kRzSQJI/AAAAAAAAGRg/wWBLY3kL_tAndBwrMIXhw-tA3newBmHwACLcBGAs/s400/Mahoning%2B2019%2BSeason%2BPremiere.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Business wasn't "great" for the first couple of seasons and the operators actually didn't even pay themselves. All of the money generated was put right back into the drive-in and the movies. But they began to develop a following of fans who spread the word. Now people come from all over the country to attend the great themed shows and see films they may love but have never had the opportunity to see on a giant screen. And that screen IS huge. It's actually the largest one in Pennsylvania and one of the largest remaining in the whole country!<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GRZgJqE221Q/XMH_NzhOIgI/AAAAAAAAGSI/44oPIIg9qNw5ZVaZNIVko9fcpAru8GUPACLcBGAs/s1600/20180706_150517.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GRZgJqE221Q/XMH_NzhOIgI/AAAAAAAAGSI/44oPIIg9qNw5ZVaZNIVko9fcpAru8GUPACLcBGAs/s400/20180706_150517.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Some of the themes from over the past few years have included the <b>Vampyrty</b> (vampire movies), <b>Zombiefest</b> (zombies, duh!), <b>Bite Night</b> ("Jaws" and "Jurassic Park"), <b>Drive-In VHS Fest</b> (which features, yes, old VHS tapes projected onto the screen rather than 35mm films!) and retrospectives of the works of some great directors and actors like John Carpenter, Martin Scorsese and Bill Murray. There are also double-, triple- and sometimes quadruple-features of films from series like "Ghostbusters", "Indiana Jones" and "Harry Potter".<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mniOdWE15QQ/XMH_rmnYE7I/AAAAAAAAGSQ/Kj7O3DlA8qUakOzsNEKj_feOkxW6WJy5ACLcBGAs/s1600/31072896_1622547051195461_4770974827743805440_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="742" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mniOdWE15QQ/XMH_rmnYE7I/AAAAAAAAGSQ/Kj7O3DlA8qUakOzsNEKj_feOkxW6WJy5ACLcBGAs/s400/31072896_1622547051195461_4770974827743805440_n.jpg" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>A flyer from the 2018 season</b></span></span></td></tr>
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After the traditional opening weekend some of the shows already lined up for this year include: <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/5/3/90s-action-party" target="_blank"><b>90's Action Party</b></a> (with "The Last Action Hero" and "Demolition Man"), <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/5/10/killer-klown-double-down" target="_blank"><b>Killer Klown Double Down</b></a> ("Killer Klowns from Outer Space" and "IT"), <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/5/17/turtle-power" target="_blank"><b>Turtle Power!</b></a> (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/5/24/zombie-fest-v" target="_blank"><b>Zombie Fest V</b></a> (NINE classic zombie films over three nights!), <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/6/2/lost-in-the-labyrinth-fantasy-double" target="_blank"><b>Lost in the Labyrinth</b></a> ("Labyrinth" and "Pan's Labyrinth"), <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/6/7/vampyrty-2019" target="_blank"><b>Vampyrty</b></a> ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Fright Night" and "Fright Night II"), <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/6/14/bite-night" target="_blank"><b>Bite Night</b></a>, <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/6/28/godzilla-palooza" target="_blank"><b>Godzilla-Palooza!</b></a> (featuring SIX classic Godzilla movies), <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/7/4/harry-potter-and-the-8-movie-marathon" target="_blank"><b>Harry Potter and the 8 Movie Marathon</b></a>, <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/7/19/christmas-in-july" target="_blank"><b>Christmas in July</b></a> ("Home Alone" and "Home Alone 2") and <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/calendar-of-events/2019/8/9/universal-monster-mash-2019" target="_blank"><b>Universal Monster Mash</b></a> (four classic Universal monster movies). And that's only the list through early August! Check out <a href="https://www.mahoningdit.com/" target="_blank">the theater's website</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mahoningdriveintheater" target="_blank">Facebook page</a> for a LOT more information on the shows and the Mahoning than I could ever hope to share here.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ps6GHkFoTbs/XMIMiqZcfkI/AAAAAAAAGTM/QulkpDFubKgN_YXFzStLWEhLWLeQiNwyACLcBGAs/s1600/Mahoning%2BDrive-In%2B2019%2BSeason%2Bflyer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="742" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ps6GHkFoTbs/XMIMiqZcfkI/AAAAAAAAGTM/QulkpDFubKgN_YXFzStLWEhLWLeQiNwyACLcBGAs/s400/Mahoning%2BDrive-In%2B2019%2BSeason%2Bflyer.jpg" width="308" /></a></div>
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This is really just the tip of the iceberg. The theme weekends also include special custom posters featuring great artwork specific to that show, special menu items, special displays of memorabilia and props from many of the films being shown, vendors, special guests, director Q&As, contests, promotions and giveaways. It all makes for a great experience for the film fan!<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mSTMRgoK568/XMILBO-AafI/AAAAAAAAGTA/lJxtCnneY0w7NFxoZ1dLevMSwMX71SWIwCLcBGAs/s1600/32253701_1723687707713783_6252266480713334784_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mSTMRgoK568/XMILBO-AafI/AAAAAAAAGTA/lJxtCnneY0w7NFxoZ1dLevMSwMX71SWIwCLcBGAs/s400/32253701_1723687707713783_6252266480713334784_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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As if all this weren't enough (a drive-in celebrating its 70th anniversary AND a great story of a successful rebranding and rebirth as an all-retro theater) there's one more thing to celebrate as the Mahoning opens up for another season. A few years ago a team of filmmakers was looking to create a documentary on drive-ins. Once they found the Mahoning they decided to focus on it and its story for the film. The final product is the documentary "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7116000/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">At The Drive-In</a>", and after some wait and a number of premieres around the country it has finally been released and is available for purchase on DVD and in digital format (rental or purchase)! You can get it at <a href="https://www.amazon.com/At-Drive-Jeff-Mattox/dp/B07KZ4H87P/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=at+the+drive+in&qid=1556218847&s=gateway&sr=8-3" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/At-Drive-Alexander-Monelli/dp/B07N1XH488/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=at+the+drive+in&qid=1556218997&s=gateway&sr=8-2" target="_blank">Amazon Prime</a> and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/at-the-drive-in/id1458021688?fbclid=IwAR35cx8Urm5BRNxySb2bASuVotrkJFPlWJRTSQHIbjZEwxCvZQPMUa-olcw" target="_blank">iTunes</a>.<a href="https://www.amazon.com/At-Drive-Jeff-Mattox/dp/B07KZ4H87P/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=at+the+drive+in&qid=1556215806&s=gateway&sr=8-3" target="_blank"><br /></a><br />
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<span style="color: yellow;"><b>Here's the trailer for the film:</b></span></div>
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fvtiq9sNr6k" width="560"></iframe></div>
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I can't finish this story without sharing yet another hardship that the Mahoning has had to face in its journey recently. I mentioned earlier that all of the money from the first few seasons went directly back into the drive-in rather than paying the people who run it. That's a difficult way to run a business, but it's just what they had to do in order to keep the Mahoning alive. If that weren't hard enough, the past couple seasons have given them even MORE opportunities to spend money they really don't have. In the winter of 2018 a storm heavily damaged the theater's marquee sign. It had to be repaired and restored in time for last season. And then this past winter brought another expensive repair challenge to the Mahoning. A wind storm heavily damaged another of the property's few structural features. And this time it was THE most important one--the screen! A <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/save-the-mahoning-screen?fbclid=IwAR3q1Z_VePdHSWG_1xmSRqC1rdblkfN5X74Moe_isLdTO6lCNcTJHN8QD3s" target="_blank">GoFundMe page</a> has been set up to help pay for the repairs.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LXG8GTnkUwk/XMH9yVIf7RI/AAAAAAAAGR0/Mt2KhAMjjPUq6hTiP1Pe6OcJjAOVAKOIQCLcBGAs/s1600/Mahoning%2BDrive-In%2BScreen%2BDamage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LXG8GTnkUwk/XMH9yVIf7RI/AAAAAAAAGR0/Mt2KhAMjjPUq6hTiP1Pe6OcJjAOVAKOIQCLcBGAs/s400/Mahoning%2BDrive-In%2BScreen%2BDamage.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I've only been able to attend a few of the Mahoning's shows, but consider myself very lucky to have been able to go whenever possible. I live in Massachusetts, so it's a bit of a long ride to go all the way to Pennsylvania to go to a drive-in. Luckily I have a friend who lives even further away (New Hampshire) who goes nearly every weekend and has become part of the Mahoning's extended family. He has brought me along when time and circumstance has allowed me to attend. I've seen three shows over the course of the first four seasons of the Mahoning's new format: an Indiana Jones double feature in 2015, an awesome show called <b>Bigfoot Weekend</b> that featured SIX old Bigfoot films mostly from the 1970s in 2017 (which I wrote about in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/At-Drive-Alexander-Monelli/dp/B07N1XH488/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=at+the+drive+in&qid=1556218997&s=gateway&sr=8-2" target="_blank">this post</a> and <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-patterson-film-plus-forty-nine-years.html" target="_blank">this post</a>) and <b>VHS Fest II</b> in 2018. I would LOVE to get to a couple more shows this year (Godzilla-Palooza is VERY high on the wish list), but time will tell. The good news is that the Mahoning has continuously increased its audience and reach. As far as I know it's THE all-retro drive-in theater at this point. Other places put on occasional shows and special events, but mostly still feature the latest Hollywood releases (not that there's anything wrong with that!).<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TfUYTi3RBh8/XMIQ-0G_CfI/AAAAAAAAGTY/PctpT3JuiUgj6wlcO4j-jRr3mzbFJAtOwCLcBGAs/s1600/Mahoning%2BDrive-In%2B2019%2BOpening%2BWeekend.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="672" data-original-width="960" height="280" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TfUYTi3RBh8/XMIQ-0G_CfI/AAAAAAAAGTY/PctpT3JuiUgj6wlcO4j-jRr3mzbFJAtOwCLcBGAs/s400/Mahoning%2BDrive-In%2B2019%2BOpening%2BWeekend.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">SEE YOU AT THE DRIVE-IN!</span></b></span></div>
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Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-67486651338493674292019-03-18T22:52:00.000-04:002019-03-18T23:47:12.374-04:00The Greatest American Hero: March 18, 1981<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FKsGEoGQ1iE/XJBFH1eoJvI/AAAAAAAAGOw/zibL0DRh6VQjsZUeXrcmHg7Dhr3IztSkgCLcBGAs/s1600/The%2BGreatest%2BAmerican%2BHero%2B01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="187" data-original-width="250" height="299" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FKsGEoGQ1iE/XJBFH1eoJvI/AAAAAAAAGOw/zibL0DRh6VQjsZUeXrcmHg7Dhr3IztSkgCLcBGAs/s400/The%2BGreatest%2BAmerican%2BHero%2B01.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Thirty-eight years ago tonight the television show "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0592601/?ref_=ttep_ep1" target="_blank">The Greatest American Hero</a>" premiered on ABC. Interestingly enough, just one night earlier I had purchased my first cassette tape recorder (an event covered in <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2019/03/important-dates-in-history-march-17.html" target="_blank">this recent blog post</a>). That might not sound like anything all that amazing, but you have to remember that in 1981 I was an eleven year old boy, and there were no such things as the Internet and smart phones. Heck, my household wouldn't even get our first VCR (video cassette recorder for you young folks) for another four years and it would be about the same amount of time before cable TV finally came to my little hometown. So March 17th and 18th of 1981 were a real one-two punch of entertainment value for me.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M6bn5RJYjdo/XJBW0IVfEoI/AAAAAAAAGPY/JqDHJKGTwxcYUn5NPmxyboHJbBz1SKxyQCLcBGAs/s1600/The%2BGreatest%2BAmerican%2BHero%2BTV%2BGuide%2BPremiere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="512" height="293" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M6bn5RJYjdo/XJBW0IVfEoI/AAAAAAAAGPY/JqDHJKGTwxcYUn5NPmxyboHJbBz1SKxyQCLcBGAs/s400/The%2BGreatest%2BAmerican%2BHero%2BTV%2BGuide%2BPremiere.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>From TV Guide</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The cover of the TV Week section of the Worcester Telegram from Sunday, March 15, 1981 featuring William Katt and Connie Sellecca</b></span></span></td></tr>
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I can't say that I really knew much (if anything) about the show before it aired. It's not like I had read all about it online and was eagerly awaiting the premiere. But at the same time, with a name like "The Greatest American Hero" I was bound to tune in--and I did. It certainly didn't disappoint. And while the show is now readily available on DVD and streaming sources, I'm very happy that I have a couple little snippits from the pilot episode on an ancient cassette tape which I recorded that very night with my brand-new tape recorder!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nhW5bu_uVck/XJBJj3bdmdI/AAAAAAAAGO8/4vyAdoVqrO8750g2ExWyVst4ziW9kISUwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC09937.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-nhW5bu_uVck/XJBJj3bdmdI/AAAAAAAAGO8/4vyAdoVqrO8750g2ExWyVst4ziW9kISUwCLcBGAs/s400/DSC09937.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The same model of GE tape recorder that I had just purchased</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7-3p9Tx3l3M/XJBJqFR9NII/AAAAAAAAGPA/II6M3VCAmsMpJpKZOWdnQdBUSaA8tIiFACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC09945crop.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1030" data-original-width="1600" height="257" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7-3p9Tx3l3M/XJBJqFR9NII/AAAAAAAAGPA/II6M3VCAmsMpJpKZOWdnQdBUSaA8tIiFACLcBGAs/s400/DSC09945crop.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The actual first-ever tape that I used on March 18, 1981!</b></span></span></td></tr>
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"The Greatest American Hero" quickly became one of my favorite shows of that time (along with stuff like "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078607/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">The Dukes of Hazzard</a>", "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077031/?ref_=nv_sr_2" target="_blank">The Incredible Hulk</a>", "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081859/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">The Fall Guy</a>" (which would premiere later in 1981) and the Tom Baker era of "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056751/?ref_=nv_sr_2" target="_blank">Doctor Who</a>" (which PBS was airing at the time). It couldn't really have come out at a better time for me. If I had been much younger or older than eleven I don't know if it would have really hit the sweet spot for me. But it did, and I thoroughly enjoyed the adventures of Ralph Hinkley (William Katt), FBI agent Bill Maxwell (Robert Culp) and "Councilor" Pam Davidson (Connie Sellecca).<br />
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And what wasn't there to love about the show? Along with the silly but engaging concept of a curly-haired, regular-guy high school teacher being chosen by aliens to wear a suit that granted him superpowers (which he could never completely master because he lost the instruction manual) who was compelled to work alongside a brash FBI agent, the show is also memorable for its theme song. "Believe it or Not" (written by Mike Post and sung by Joey Scarbury) was not only a great 1980s TV show theme, it ended up becoming a major hit on the radio (reaching number 2 in the Billboard Hot 100) and still remains a very familiar and recognizable all-time song from the 80s.<br />
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Unfortunately the show only lasted for three seasons. And to be honest I think I actually stopped watching before it even ended. It's not really clear why I seem to have lost interest, or what show(s) might have become a replacement for me, but I can't say that even remember when it went off the air. Nevertheless, along with seemingly countless other shows from my youth, "The Greatest American Hero" remains an all-time favorite in my heart. I was able to introduce The Little Monsters to the show on DVD a number of years back and was thrilled to see that they really liked it (again, what's not to like?). We watched quite a few episodes together and I had a very proud moment when we were at Disney World a few years ago and one morning when we were just waking up in our resort room the girls started singing. But despite being in the land of Disney, with all of its catchy tunes that have been drilled into kids brains for generations (including the songs from "Frozen"--which was still a huge hit at the time), The Monsters were singing "Believe it or Not"! Appropriately enough they had also sung the song earlier, on the plane as we were flying to Florida (walking on air indeed!).<br />
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There's been talk about a remake or reboot of "The Greatest American Hero" for a number of years, but as of now (March 2019) nothing has really come together. Apparently in 2017-18 there were plans for an Indian-American woman to don the super suit in a new version of the show, but ABC declined to pick it up. We will have to see if anything materializes on that front. I'm not really sure how I'd feel about a new and different take on the show, but it would certainly be interesting to see! You can read a whole lot more about "The Greatest American Hero" at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Greatest_American_Hero" target="_blank">its Wikipedia page</a>.<br />
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On a final note, and to show just how much the show meant/means to me, back in 2010 I attended the annual <a href="http://rockandshock.com/" target="_blank">Rock and Shock</a> show in Worcester, Massachusetts. One of the guests that year was none other than William Katt! I don't know where the autograph that I got from him that day is (lost in deep storage somewhere), but I was also able to get a photograph with the man himself. It was a highlight of the day, and remains a very cool memory for me.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Believe it or not, that's me with William Katt!</b></span></span></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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After The Little Monsters had developed an interest in "The Greatest American Hero" I remembered this photo and decided to impress them with it. "Check out who your papa met a few years ago!" Well, I do think that they were somewhat impressed, but at the same time they also seemed to have a little bit of trouble with the concept that the show had originally aired around thirty years earlier. The Little Monster's reaction was something to the effect of "He looks kind of...old." Well, after thirty-eight years, don't we all?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>From William Katt's Facebook Page</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>HAPPY 38th BIRTHDAY TO</b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO!</b></span></span><br />
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Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-86128940230002063062019-03-17T17:15:00.001-04:002019-03-18T23:53:50.365-04:00Important Dates in History: March 17, 1981 (The Tape Recorder Incident)Where were you on March 17, 1981? Considering we're talking about a date that was thirty-eight years ago it's likely that many people who might see this were not even born yet. But Monster Dad WAS around way back then (though still just an eleven year old Monster Kid at the time). Tuesday, March 17, 1981 seems to have been a pretty quiet news day, historically speaking. Of course it was Saint Patrick's Day. That's something. But the holiday had nothing to do with why that seemingly random date was/is so important to me personally.<br />
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March 17, 1981 was the day that I got my first tape cassette recorder! Does that NOT sound very important? Does that NOT sound very interesting? Does it seem that I'm making some sort of joke rather than relating a story about an actual "Important Date in History"? Well, it WAS an extremely important and influential thing for my eleven year old self. Please allow me to explain why.<br />
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In 1981 there was no such thing as the Internet (at least not what we think of today as the Internet). There was no such thing as streaming video. There weren't even DVDs and Blu-ray discs (two relatively recent technologies that are already looking like endangered species). Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) were around, but they were still a relatively new (and extremely expensive) consumer product. We didn't get our first VCR until four years later in 1985. But something that WAS available--and relatively affordable--was the humble cassette recorder.<br />
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One of my older sisters (I was the youngest of nine kids in my family) had a tape recorder and I remember thinking that it was so cool that you could record your own voice, songs off the radio or anything else that you wanted to, as long as it made an audible sound. My sister would allow my nephews and I use her tape recorder to make little newscasts and other such things. The only topic I remember "reporting" on was the 1980 Summer Olympics and the fact that the U.S. was going to boycott them. While I don't recall many details of what we recorded on her machine, I do recall that the experience made me REALLY want to have my very own tape recorder! It was like a way to capture something that would normally simply happen and then recede into the depths of the past, never to be heard from again. Recording "stuff" on a cassette tape had an almost magical element to it. To me it seemed kind of like the idea of explorers finding a primitive tribe in the jungle and having the natives think that there were tiny people in the explorers' radios, or that their cameras would steal the souls of the tribe members if their pictures were taken. Am I building this up too much? Maybe so, but hopefully you can get an idea of why it seemed so important to me to acquire a cassette recorder of my very own--especially in this age of ubiquitous smart phones that can do seemingly anything and have more computing power than the entire space program that put man on the moon (or so I've heard).<br />
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There were a few times when my parents took me on special trips to purchase pretty important and special things. My first bicycle was one of those times. In addition to going to the store where the item could be purchased we would usually have dinner out and/or see a movie to really make it an event. The purchase of my first tape recorder was one of those events. I'm not sure why it was done on a Tuesday night (a school night!), but in doing some research on microfilm some years back I was able to find the ad from the Sunday newspaper that featured the tape recorder I wanted to purchase (a General Electric Model 3-5091)--and it was on sale too! I suppose that if I saw that ad on Sunday and made my pleas to my parents they might have agreed to make our little shopping trip on Tuesday (even if only to quiet my incessant and annoying pleading).<br />
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I remember going to the store to look for and buy the tape recorder, but there does seem to be some discrepancy between my memory and the physical evidence. The newspaper ad I found was for a sale at Caldor's, but I recall going to a Kmart. It doesn't really matter all that much, except for the fact that the two stores were a similar distance from our town--but in opposite directions. Either way, I did indeed spend my saved up allowance money on the treasured piece of technology, as well as a pack of three cassettes (the recorder would be pretty useless without some tapes, right?). I don't recall what restaurant (if any) we went to that night, but I do remember going to the movies to see "The Incredible Shrinking Woman". And that memory seems to be correct because the film was released on January 30, so it was very likely to have still been in theaters on March 17.<br />
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We returned home at what I'm guessing must have been a relatively decent hour (as mentioned earlier, it WAS a school night). That would more or less seem to end the story of this "Important Date in History", except for the fact that I just HAD to try out my new toy when I got home! It would be unreasonable to think that I'd simply be able to go to sleep while the tape recorder sat around waiting for me sleep peacefully through the night, go to school the next morning and come home after school to open it up. No, I took it out of the box and put the batteries and a cassette into it and... This is probably the most interesting part of the story because it's the first thing to really go wrong in this adventure. I knew exactly how to use the machine. It is a pretty simple, self-explanatory thing to operate, and I imagine that it was quite similar to the one my sister had. But the one thing I wasn't prepared for was the leader tape--which is about five seconds worth of non-recordable tape at the beginning and end of each cassette.<br />
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That seems like such a natural thing now, though quite possibly a completely foreign concept to all the millennials and other young folks out there who might never have seen or used a cassette tape. But these were the very first cassette tapes I had ever owned myself, so it was a pretty new concept to me. Anyway, to test it out I very excitedly pressed the Record and Play buttons to start recording and said something into the microphone (maybe "Testing, testing, one, two, three"?). Then I pressed Stop, Rewind and Play to hear my first-ever recording on my brand new tape recorder. But all that played was a bunch of silence. I must have done something wrong! So I tried it again and got the same result. Okay, let's check the volume control. Yup, that's turned up about halfway, should be fine. Let's make sure I'm pressing the right buttons. Yup, according to the owners manual that should be fine too. I made a third attempt and...nothing. The machine was getting power, the tape was moving, but I was still hearing NOTHING! And the hour was getting late. It was starting to look like maybe I got a defective tape recorder. Would I have to make my parents bring me all the way back to the store to get a replacement or refund? Would I need to send it away by mail to be repaired and then have to wait 6 to 8 weeks to be able to make my first recording? Why couldn't anything be easy?<br />
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I went to bed frustrated and confused. Somehow I managed to get some sleep, and at some point the next day I was able to figure out what I was doing wrong (basically not waiting about five seconds for the leader tape to pass through the recording head before talking) and I was FINALLY able to start recording to my heart's content. So that's pretty much the story of Tuesday, March 17, 1981--the day I bought (but wasn't able to use) my very first tape recorder. The actual recording part had to wait until after school on March 18th, and the recording part is REALLY what makes getting the device on the 17th such a defining moment for me. My tape recorder pretty much became the most important thing in my life for quite some time. There was the "new toy" novelty of the first few days and weeks. But that novelty never seemed to wear off. I didn't really have a plan for exactly HOW I wanted to use my tape recorder, or exactly WHAT I wanted to record. So I basically started to record EVERYTHING that I could! I would talk into the microphone (basically using it like a journal to either talk about something that had happened, or to recap what had just been recorded on the tape). I would record songs off the radio. I would take it outside and record the sound of me playing outside (an audio version of "Reality TV" in a way). My nephew (who got a tape recorder of his own soon after) and I would record shows--including our favorite one which we called "The Burp Show" (can you guess what that was about?). I would attempt to make various "sound effects" through experimentation. And I would tape audio from the TV. That may seem like kind of a pointless exercise since you couldn't SEE what was going on, but it ended up being probably the most important part of my recording activities for the next few years. I spent many, many hours sitting in front of the TV with my tape recorder propped up against the little speaker and my fingers on the Record, Play and Stop buttons. March 17th of 1981 was like any other day for the most part, with the exception of having one of those special nights with my parents and the purchase of a new tape recorder. But that purchase had such an effect on me for the next several years that I do feel the date is a very important one in history (even if it's only MY own personal history).<br />
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My tape recorder remained one of my favorite (maybe my MOST favorite) possessions for a long time. It was in almost constant use for about four years (the recording of TV audio came to an abrupt stop once we got our first VCR in 1985). Four years may not seem like all that long of a period of time, but to a ten-year-old four years is an eternity! I really used the heck out of that little tape recorder and eventually had to buy another one once it showed serious signs of decline. I attempted to replace it with a cheap, made-in-China knockoff unit I bought at a flea market and was so disappointed in its performance that my old GE was taken out of retirement and pressed back into service once again. But eventually it really did start to fail. To the best of my knowledge it was still working when I finally pressed Stop on it for the very last time.<br />
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But the old machine was never actually thrown away, and I was able to find it at my parents' house about nine or ten years ago. It was in remarkably bad condition--the battery cover was missing, the tape compartment cover was broken and it was dingy and covered with dust. But I had hope that it might still work. I had also managed to find the vast majority of my old tapes that had been recorded over those four or so years and wanted to listen to them on the same machine that had been used to record them. Unfortunately time and neglect really hadn't been kind to my old friend, and while it still seemed to get power with a fresh set of batteries, it simply was no longer capable of playing any tapes (much less recording on them). Because it had meant so much to me for so long I still wasn't able to throw it out. Showing it here would probably be the best way to end this post (even if I couldn't say that I was able to repair it), but after moving and selling our house in recent years the tape recorder is now somewhere among stacks of stuff in a storage unit that I don't access very often. But there IS still one more chapter to this story, and it will have to wait a little longer to be told...<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>TO BE CONTINUED</b></span></span></div>
Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-12367242236819700352019-03-04T17:11:00.002-05:002019-03-04T19:54:44.542-05:00Luke Perry, Dead at 52<br />
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Okay, so I suppose it's time for a little confession. This is one of those things that I could have never mentioned here and nobody would have been any the wiser. But lately I've been writing some things that are ever so slightly on the more personal side. I've talked about a couple embarrassing moments that I had never shared before (<a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2018/11/reliving-embarrassing-moment-from-my.html" target="_blank">Reliving an Embarrassing Moment from My Youth</a>, <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2018/12/that-new-years-eve-when-i-washed-my-own.html" target="_blank">That New Year's Eve When I Washed My Own Mouth Out With Soap</a>). In that new spirit of openness and sharing I suppose it's time to risk any credibility I may have had within certain circles by admitting that, yes, I watched "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098749/?ref_=ttep_ep_tt" target="_blank">Beverly Hills 90210</a>". Actually, if we're being completely honest here, I didn't just watch it. For a time I might even go so far as to say that I <b>loved</b> the show. There, it's out. Now we can get on with other things. For instance, why am I writing this sudden "confession"? Well, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000580/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Luke Perry</a>, one of the stars of "Hills" (as my friends and I called the show) died today at the age of 52 after suffering what was described as a "massive stroke" last week.<br />
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When "Beverly Hills 90210" premiered in October of 1990 I was a little bit older than what I'd expect the target demographic probably was. I graduated from high school three years earlier and was a "young adult". I don't think I was even aware of the show until a few weeks or months later when it really exploded as a mega-hit among the teeny-bopper crowd. At the time my little group of friends used to hang out pretty much every day after work or school or whatever we had to do during the day. We sometimes got out and did stuff (going to a movie, restaurant, music store...), but a lot of the time we'd just all hang out together and have a good time. I remember the topic of "Beverly Hills 90210" coming up and we would routinely put the show down and make fun of it. None of us watched it, and I don't think any of us had any interest in it (despite what I said in my confession above). But then something strange happened over the next year or so. We actually started watching the show a few times. At first we thought we'd simply tune in to make fun of it and see what all the fuss was about. But then, without realizing it, we started to find ourselves getting into the characters, storylines and all the drama. Suddenly we needed to see what was going to happen next (I suppose this is how people get sucked in to soap operas, and this very much WAS a soap opera for a younger crowd). Before we knew it, we were hooked. Even when we started seeing each other less because of different commitments and general life changes over time we would make a point of getting together every Wednesday for "Hills Night". We may not have had anything in common with the characters of the show, but we did kind of feel like they were "friends" of ours anyway, and it seemed like we were all growing together and sharing our life experiences together. Granted the life experiences of good-looking, fictional young adults growing up in Beverly Hills were quite a bit different and more exciting than the life experiences my real friends and I were going through (which I suppose is part of the reason we wanted to be "friends" with the Beverly Hills kids in the first place), but we were still drawn to them week after week. Through all the cast changes and twists and turns we remained loyal to our pals from 90210 and then felt a sense of loss when the show finally ended.<br />
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Now that I've explained my own personal relationship with "Beverly Hills 90210" it's time to get back to the untimely passing of Luke Perry. It's the kind of celebrity death that I wouldn't have expect to hear--and also wouldn't have expected to hit me very hard. I suppose it's kind of a two-fold thing though. First off, it was very much unexpected and seemingly came out of nowhere. While I wasn't exactly keeping tabs on him, Mr. Perry was apparently doing pretty well for himself recently. I didn't realize that he was currently starring on the show "Riverdale". So the news of his massive stroke was pretty shocking. You never know who the "Fickle Finger of Fate" will choose to point at, but Luke Perry is someone I wouldn't have had in my Death Pool, if I had one. Wondering if and how he was going to recover from his stroke was already on my mind when I heard this morning that he had passed away.<br />
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The second part of the shock was the fact that he was only 52. I remember the ridicule that "Beverly Hills 90210" endured when it first came on because of the advanced age of some of its "teenaged" stars, who were in fact very much adults at the time. As I mentioned, I was also a bit older than the main target audience of the show. And as it turns out Luke Perry, who was in his early 20s when the show started, was only about three years older than me. Which means that this is not only another completely random, gone-too-soon celebrity death, but the celebrity that died in this case suffered a "massive stroke" and was only three years older than me! THAT really makes this story hit home, regardless of what roles Luke was known for in his acting career and what I may or may not have thought of him.<br />
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All of this brings us to another really strange thing about the timing of Luke's death. The news of his stroke broke at almost the exact time as the announcement of a new show starring most of the original cast of "Beverly Hills 90210". The show had already been rebooted a number of years ago. That version of the show had a new cast of youthful actors (kind of like "Beverly Hills: The Next Generation"), with a couple members of the original cast reprising their old roles in a few episodes. But this new show is going to feature the original cast. And instead of being a straight-up reboot or continuation it sounds like it's going to be kind of a mockumentary-type show where the actors actually play "exaggerated versions" of themselves looking to pull off some sort of reboot of the show.<br />
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Most of the cast has apparently signed on to the project. The only notable exceptions being Luke Perry and Shannen Doherty. Luke was busy with "Riverdale" and Shannen is, well, Shannen. Apparently the door was left open for them to join in on the fun if they wanted to and if their schedules allowed. Obviously all that has changed now, and Luke will not be a part of the show. I feel kind of bad about the fact that there's really no way for his death to not have some sort of effect on the new show. Even though he wasn't slated to be a part of it, it seems like his death casts a shadow over the whole project. And now I'm wondering if they might even find a way to write it into the show. What would be a better reason for the "exaggerated versions" of the original cast to want to get together to do a reboot than the passing of one of their own? Time will tell...<br />
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Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-33183358815799266712019-02-28T12:54:00.000-05:002019-02-28T13:43:54.854-05:00I'm Just a Big Ol' Curmudgeon (or Crumudgeon)<br />
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So what's got me in such a negative mood anyway? Well, nothing really, but I was thinking about some things and it occurred to me that I might just be a bit on the curmudgeonly side. Strangely enough, it's the word "Curmudgeon" itself that's got me thinking this way.<br />
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I was writing a (friendly) response to a friend on Facebook where I referred to myself as being a curmudgeon. But I didn't spell the word that way. Instead I spelled it the way I THOUGHT it was spelled: "Crumudgeon". Instantly the little red lines appeared under the word to let me know I had made a mistake. Looking at the word I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. So I did what I usually do in those situations--I Googled it. Needless to say the word came up as "Curmudgeon" and I was left wondering what had just happened to me. I suppose the good thing that came out of this experience is that it has just proven once again that you really can "learn something new every day". But the bad thing was the realization that I'm getting close to being fifty years old(!) and I didn't know how to spell the word curmudgeon. Sure, it's not a very common word and it is kind of long and ungainly, but I had gone for nearly fifty years thinking it was spelled differently.<br />
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The odd thing was that this realization kind of got me feeling even more curmudgeon-like. It might have been simply a case of familiarity, but after nearly half a century with the incorrect spelling in my head I really felt that "Crumudgeon" was a better word than the correct "Curmudgeon". Doesn't it sound more negative? The "Crum" part makes one think of feeling crummy, or the word crumb, which leads (at least for me) to the insulting term "Crumb-Bum" (or "Crum-Bum"), which is quite negative sounding itself.</div>
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It's true that the actual root of the word, "Cur" has probably even more of a negative connotation according to another Google search: "an aggressive dog or one that is in poor condition, especially a mongrel". And how about its sub-definition: "a contemptible man"? I will admit that "Cur" probably DOES make more sense, but "Crum" SOUNDS worse, doesn't it? And who uses the word "Cur" these days anyway? Maybe it's time to re-think the word curmudgeon (or at least its spelling) for the current world we're living in. Who's with me?<br />
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Does all this gnashing of the teeth over the spelling of curmudgeon necessarily make me a curmudgeon (or even a crumudgeon) myself? Maybe not on its own. But another issue came up while I was unexpectedly "researching" this post. My Google search for the word curmudgeon brought up the definition of the word: "a bad tempered person, especially an old one." That's a pretty short and concise definition right there, and it kind of hit me at my core. Not only have I been feeling a bit bad-tempered (actually only a little bit, but still...), but as I mentioned above, I'm nearly fifty. That means that I am OLD. And that means that I now fit into the second part of the curmudgeon definition! I think that would make anyone feel a bit curmudgeonly, wouldn't you?<br />
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I hope to get out of this mood very soon and that I don't permanently become one of those old curmudgeons like Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show. I've always thought of myself as being more like Kermit or Fozzy. But, perhaps, in reality the fact is that time and age are forcing the true curmudgeon in me to come out. We shall see. But in the meantime I now have even MORE reason to feel like a curmudgeon at this particular moment. As I was writing THIS VERY POST I had to leave it as a draft to tend to something else. Upon returning to the site I saw TWO entries for the post (even though I have no idea how the second one managed to find its way there). Upon realizing that one contained my draft and one was just an empty post I deleted the empty one. Or at least I THOUGHT I did. I forgot that once you open a post to edit it (which I did to check which one had content and which one didn't), it jumps to the top of your post list. So, yes, I (naturally) ended up deleting the half-composed post rather than the empty one by mistake, and had to start all over again! Let's hope the rest of the day goes better...<br />
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<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-20383319819713450312019-02-27T13:12:00.000-05:002019-02-28T09:34:16.281-05:00Chef Boyardee Beefaroni "Throwback Recipe" vs. Current Recipe<br />
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My diet has certainly changed over the years. As a kid I always enjoyed getting a chance to eat (among other unhealthy choices) canned pasta products like Campbell's SpaghettiOs (whether the regular version or the ones with meatballs or sliced hot dogs) and the different varieties from Chef Boyardee (stuff like Spaghetti with Meatballs, Beef Ravioli, Lasagna and Beefaroni--which was probably my favorite). Even back then I didn't eat this stuff on a regular basis, and it was always a fun treat to get to have some.<br />
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Times have changed and now I find it even more rare that I get a chance to try out this kind of stuff. Thanks to aging and trying to eat a somewhat more healthy diet I generally find that when I decide to splurge (dietetically speaking) on this kind of thing, or stuff like fast food from McDonald's and Burger King, I almost always regret it afterward when I feel all sluggish and greasy because of all the processed and less-than-healthy ingredients. I do still find myself wanting to try out this stuff every once in a while as a bit of a nostalgic taste trip back in time, but am almost always disappointed by the experience.<br />
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In the case of Chef Boyardee in particular (and the other stuff in general) I've always figured that the memory of these foods simply doesn't live up to the reality of what's in them and what they taste like. Well as it turns out, there may actually be a difference between the Chef Boyardee foods I ate in my youth and the ones I've eaten as an adult.<br />
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Chef Boyardee recently introduced "Throwback Recipes" for it's cans of Beef Ravioli, Lasagna and Beefaroni. Probably at least partly owing to being old, I'm kind of a sucker for most anything in "retro" or "throwback" packaging. I've bought cans of Mountain Dew and bags of Doritos simply because of the fact that they were presented in old-school packaging that harkened back to the snacks I ate as a kid. I've also bought some beers in retro cans and bottles--including the little stubby bottles that Budweiser and Coors have used in recent years, and the "Limited Edition" 1975-style cans that Narragansett has been putting out for the past few years. That can was made famous when it was crushed by Captain Quint in "Jaws". While I wasn't drinking beer as a kid, the throwback cans and bottles still hit my nostalgia nerve and I always enjoy getting that kind of stuff when I can find it.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: yellow;"><b>Quint enjoying his can of Narragansett in "Jaws"...</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: yellow;"><b>...and then crushing it!</b></span></span></td></tr>
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The funny thing is that, in most cases, the throwback and retro packaging is just that--packaging. Most of the products themselves remain the same, and are simply dressed up with packaging that appeals to earlier generations that enjoyed them in the past. The main exception to this rule that I've seen is the Coke and Fanta products (from Mexico), and the Pepsi Throwbacks that replace their usual high fructose corn syrup with real sugar. This does seem to make a difference in taste that is usually pretty enjoyable.<br />
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I'd probably pick up and try out the Chef Boyardee Throwbacks even if the throwback nature only extended to the labels. But they actually have gone a major step further with what they're calling "Throwback Recipes" that are supposedly the same as what was used in an earlier time. I haven't been able to figure out precisely WHEN the recipes are supposed to be from. I appreciate the fact that they're using old recipes, but can't be sure whether these are the recipes I was eating as a child or not. The good news is that this potentially confirms the idea that there's something different (worse?) about the modern Chef Boyardee products and that's what always seems to make them such a disappointment when I try them out now.<br />
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So, what IS different about the "Throwback Recipes"? Well, you're still getting a helping of canned pasta products, so obviously it's still going to taste like something from a can--as opposed to the kind of pasta that you would expect from home-cooking or something you might get in a fine Italian restaurant. But there ARE some interesting differences. First off, the cans promise "More Meat, More Cheese, More Goodness" than the regular Chef Boyardee products--although I'm not really sure if the "Goodness" refers to the quality and/or relative healthiness of the ingredients, or just the overall taste.<br />
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The first real difference is a welcome one--the standard high fructose corn syrup has been replaced by what's simply being billed as "sugar" (not unlike the sodas I mentioned earlier). I think the reason they say "More Meat" on the label isn't because they have added more meat to the dishes so much as the fact that they're ONLY using meat in the throwbacks. The new recipes include Textured Vegetable Protein. The regular Chef Boyardee meals certainly aren't vegetarian, but I suppose they add TVP as kind of a "filler" and a way to make them seem the same as earlier versions while removing some of the negative aspects of real beef (fats, cholesterol...). There's nothing "healthy" about Chef Boyardee products of course, but I suppose that they're at least trying in some small way. Which brings us to another change in the Throwbacks (and a reason why they are probably doomed to only being around for a limited time). For some years now there has been a big movement to remove trans fats from American foods. It's been a tough haul, but overall it's definitely a good trend. Personally I think we've had to suffer some amount of loss of flavor with this trend, but I certainly support the health benefits. Well, as expected, the current recipes do not have any trans fats (or at least little enough that they can put 0 grams in the Nutritional Facts). But the Throwbacks have actually added some of the trans fats back in. The label indicates that there is 0.5 grams of trans fats per serving. This is one of the food industry's sneaky little tricks though because there are actually "About 2" servings in a can of Chef Boyardee. So while 0.5 grams might not sound all that bad, it's actually 1 gram for the whole can (and who eats only half-a-can of Chef Boyardee in a sitting anyway?). Another refreshing thing to see on the Throwback Recipe label is that it includes "real" sounding items like olive oil, dried garlic, dried onion, beef broth and spice at the end of the ingredient list, where the regular recipe simply lists "flavorings". Possibly the strangest difference was with the cheese that was used (and this will could have the biggest effect on the overall taste). The Throwback Recipe uses Romano cheese (and it appears to be a pretty "real" version of processed Romano too). I don't know when Chef Boyardee made this decision, but the current recipe has replaced the Romano with an "Enzyme Modified Cheese" that features cheddar cheese! This would certainly change the flavor profile and would seem to make the whole dish seem a little bit less "Italian" in nature.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: yellow;">Current recipe label</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>"Throwback Recipe" label</b></span></span></td></tr>
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The bottom line is that there ARE indeed some major differences between these two ingredient lists (recipes). Because of that there are also differences in the Nutritional Facts. Some of these differences look better for the Throwback, while others seem to portray the current recipe as being more "healthy". Of course this is all relative. Either way, we're still talking about Chef Boyardee canned Beefaroni after all! The more "natural" ingredients of the Throwback cause it to have more sodium (180 extra grams!), more calories (only 10 extra though), more fat and more cholesterol. On the other hand, the Throwback does have a bit less sugar in it. Another difference not seen in the ingredient or nutritional lists is the fact that the Throwback Recipe is more expensive than the current one. That seems to make sense, as this is a specially-produced variation that features different (and possibly more expensive) ingredients and a whole new, retro label. My local grocery store currently sells regular cans of Chef Boyardee products for $1.09, while the Throwbacks sell for $1.79.<br />
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Okay, so there ARE some differences between the two, but the big questions remain. How does the Throwback Recipe taste? And is it better than what is currently being passed off as Chef Boyardee foods? Well the only way to answer that is to try some out! And that's what I did. While there are three varieties of Throwbacks (Beef Ravioli, Beefaroni and Lasagna) I decided to pick one to do a taste test with. And Beefaroni has always been my favorite of the three, so it was an easy choice. I bought cans of each version, heated them up and tried them both out. It was an interesting enough experiment that I thought it was worth making a video about and posting on my YouTube channel. Please check out the video here to see the results!<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: red;"><b>Results:</b></span></span></div>
At first glance there was some difference in the looks of the two recipes when poured into pans to heat. The current recipe looks a little more orange and the Throwback has more of a red appearance. The sauce in the Throwback looks a little thicker and seems to have more meat. But it also appears a bit runnier (kind of looks like it has some water (or other fluid) separation.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Current Recipe</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Throwback Recipe</b></span></span></td></tr>
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After heating them up the smell was pretty similar. The current recipe had a bit more of a sweetness in the aroma, but also seemed a bit less robust overall. But the biggest difference (not too surprisingly) came with the taste test. I tried the current recipe first. It tasted very familiar, and once again left me with the feeling that it simply wasn't as good as I remembered it being when I was a kid. I had always chalked this up to changing tastes and the fact that it's tough for anything to live up to the fond (and sometimes faulty) nostalgic memories of childhood. But now I had a chance to potentially figure the answer out once and for all. The Throwback Recipe thickened up even more upon heating. The water separation seemed to be just that--the natural separation of more "natural" ingredients in the recipe. It all came back together once heated up on the stove. The rich color and thicker sauce really added to the visual, and upon closer inspection you could actually see little pieces of "stuff" in the sauce (my best guess was that it was bits of the Romano cheese and/or the dried onion and garlic). That appearance wasn't found in the paler, thinner sauce of the current recipe. That sauce was very runny and didn't even stay on the pasta when you picked it up with your fork. It just left a light coating of orange on the pasta tubes. The Throwback sauce and meat stuck on the pasta much better. At first I didn't think there was too much of a difference in overall taste. But the more I ate the more I could taste the difference--and it was significant. The more "natural" ingredients of the Throwback actually came through in the taste (and even the texture and feel of the food as you eat it). I think the biggest taste difference most likely comes from the cheese--and the Throwback's use of Romano instead of the cheddar in the current recipe.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: yellow;"><b>Closeup of the more hearty Throwback</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: yellow;">An even closer look at the Throwback</span></b></span></td></tr>
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In the end the Throwback Recipe was the clear winner. I'm now thinking that all these years of disappointment in my adult Chef Boyardee experiences WAS actually due to the fact that the recipe had been changed over the years. I still don't know for sure if the Throwback Recipe was the one in use when I was a kid myself, but it certainly seems to be a lot closer to what I was eating back then. We're still talking about a processed, canned pasta product, but I do feel that the Throwback Recipe is vastly superior (even if maybe a bit less healthy--if that's possible). While I don't buy this stuff often (and the Little Monsters really haven't had the chance to try out much if any of these canned pastas in their young lives--which is probably for the best), if I DO find myself buying more Chef Boyardee in the future I'll be glad to pay the extra price for the Throwback Recipes. And for a cheapskate like myself to say that, it's really saying something!<br />
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<span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span class="st">BUON APPETITO!</span></b></span></span></div>
<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-24275417211421890062019-01-31T12:35:00.000-05:002019-02-28T09:36:53.608-05:00Dick Miller 1928-2019<br />
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I generally don't write about famous people who have recently died. In fact the only time I've done it in the past was when I found myself surprisingly affected by <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2015/02/rip-leonard-nimoy.html" target="_blank">Leonard Nimoy's passing in 2014</a>. No matter how rich and famous they are, one thing we will always have in common with celebrities is that they are human--and therefore mortal. Just like us they grow old and will eventually die. The older I get the more I hear the news of famous people I've admired over the years passing away. Sometimes this news is more surprising and hits harder than other times. This morning I heard the news that Dick Miller died on January 30 at the age of 90. Dick Miller certainly wasn't as big of a name as Leonard Nimoy or David Bowie (two of the celebrity deaths of the past few years that have impacted me the most), but the news hit me hard nonetheless. Despite the fact that there is plenty of media coverage of most celebrity deaths I still feel it's worth writing about Dick Miller. As a result of the kind of career he had there isn't as much out there about his passing as there would be with a bigger name star. You kind of have to look for it. The only reason I even heard the news myself is because I saw a post that a friend wrote on Facebook about the death of someone else. In the comments somebody mentioned the fact that Dick Miller had also passed away. I was surprised to hear the news and went straight to Google to find out more. As an indication of how heavily the news of his death was (or more accurately WASN'T) reported, I didn't see any mention of it on Yahoo!'s home page when I signed out of my email a little earlier in the morning. Here's the top 10 list of "Trending Now" items from that page. Note that among the usual collection of celebrity names the number 10 item is the search term "Cleaning Bathroom Tile". At that moment more people were searching about how to clean bathroom tile than were interested in Dick Miller's passing. Welcome to the world of being a character actor.<br />
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Dick Miller probably wasn't what most people would consider to be a household name in the world of entertainment. To me that's all the more reason for me to be writing about his passing. He had a very long and very successful career as a character actor and, even if you don't recognize his name (or even his face), you have probably seen his work in a number of movies and TV shows. I don't know when I first saw Mr. Miller, but it was most likely when I was a kid watching monster movies on the WLVI Channel 56 (Boston) show <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_Double_Feature" target="_blank">Creature Double Feature</a> on Saturday afternoons in the 1970s and 80s. While he was never a big name or a big star I definitely would recognize him when he'd pop up on the screen by the time I was a teenager. I probably didn't know exactly WHO he was yet, but I did know him. At some point (even though this was in the days before the Internet and IMDb) I did learn who he was and I became a fan for life.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The first time I saw Dick Miller may very well have been on TV in Roger Corman's "It Conquered the World" (1956)</b></span></span></td></tr>
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Character actors are pretty much by definition NOT going to be big stars. You can't really be a versatile character actor if you're particularly well-known for your work. Because of this many of the best character actors generally don't become well-known, but they can become very popular among people who love movies and appreciate the work they do in so many different roles. This is especially true when a character actor does the majority of his/her work in a specific genre (comedy, film noir., sports movies...). Fans of that genre will embrace someone who appears in many of their favorite movies and TV shows. Dick Miller appeared in many different kinds of films, but was mainly associated with the horror/sci-fi genre. And that's probably why I have/had such an appreciation for his work. The roles he played were small, but they always seemed to be very memorable. And he appeared in a lot of my favorites over the years.<br />
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Mr. Miller also had the good fortune to be associated with a number of great directors who would use him frequently in their films. At the beginning of his career he was lucky enough to be a part of Roger Corman's stable of actors that he would use in all of his quickly-made, low-budget "B" movies in the mid- to late-1950s. For someone so well known for NOT being a star it's interesting to note that early in his career Dick Miller WAS the star of Corman's cult classic "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052655/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_167" target="_blank">A Bucket of Blood</a>" (1959). His work in that film, and his association with Roger Corman had a lot to do with him becoming a regular in the films of fellow Corman "graduate" Joe Dante (who made a point of casting him in all of his movies). He also appeared in films by James Cameron, Martin Scorsese and many others. I think it's a testament to Dick Miller's greatness that a lot of people (famous and otherwise) have taken to Twitter to note his passing. Here's just a few:<br />
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There's enough love out there for Dick Miller that I don't feel I really need to add any more. He appeared in so many roles over the years that it's not worth chronicling his entire career (a look at his <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0588241/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">IMDb page</a> will fill in all those details). So I think I'll finish this piece by just listing just a few of my favorite Dick Miller roles--the ones that really mean the most to me personally. Like any good character actor, in most of these roles Dick Miller only appeared in one (or maybe two) scenes. But some combination of his presence and the fact that these films are among my favorites causes me to associate him with them nearly as much as the stars and directors do.<br />
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<b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087363/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_73" target="_blank">Gremlins</a></b> (1984). While I'm listing this as one of my favorites, it's probably my "least favorite" of those favorites. But nevertheless the part of Murray Futterman in Joe Dante's "Gremlins" (and 1990's <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099700/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_49" target="_blank">Gremlins 2: The New Batch</a>) remains one of his most well-known roles.</div>
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<b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088680/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_67" target="_blank">After Hours</a></b> (1985). "After Hours" is one of Martin Scorsese's lesser-known films, but ever since I first saw it on cable in late 1985 or early 1986 it has remained one of my favorites of his works (probably second only to "Taxi Driver" truth be told). It's very funny, quirky and rather dark, and Dick Miller fits perfectly into the late-night world of the film. While his role is simply listed as "Waiter" I've always thought of him as the owner of the diner rather than simply a waiter. Small quibble sure, but a good example of how "unimportant" a character actor can seem that they don't even need to have an actual name assigned to them, and the role can be called simply "Waiter".</div>
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<b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086491/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_80" target="_blank">Twilight Zone: The Movie</a></b> (1983). I'll admit that this was an even smaller role than usual for Dick Miller, but "Twilight Zone: The Movie" was a very important film from my early teen years, so his small role as Walter Paisley in the "It's a Good Life" segment ranks right up there. Walter Paisley was the name of the character Miller played when he starred in "A Bucket of Blood" and was a recurring name that he's been given in many roles for the rest of his career. It's an acknowledgement of what he meant to so many filmmakers that they'd give a subtle nod to him that most people wouldn't even notice in the days before IMDb (myself included). In this case this Walter Paisley is a textbook Dick Miller role. This character could have very easily been the same one who was found in the diner in "After Hours" above, or in any of the other roles I'm listing here.</div>
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<b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_71" target="_blank">The Terminator</a></b> (1984). Simply having a small role in such a great movie and being associated with it has to be a good thing. But Dick Miller really steals his scene with Arnold Schwarzenegger in James Cameron's classic film when he can't offer the Terminator a "phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range". He responds with "Hey, just what you see, Pal." Again, it's another oddly named character. He actually has no name, but is simply listed as "Pawn Shop Clerk". While again I see him more as the owner of the store rather than simply a clerk (like the issue with the "Waiter" role in "After Hours"), the biggest problem I have with it is that it's clearly a gun store rather than a pawn shop. Maybe it was a pawn shop in the original screenplay or something like that? Whatever, it's another small quibble with a great role--and a great death scene too when Arnold loads up the shotgun and quips "Wrong." after Dick Miller tells him "You can't do that."</div>
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<b><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096734/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_54" target="_blank">The 'Burbs</a></b> (1989). These films have been listed more or less in order of my favorites (least to most). And "The 'Burbs" does indeed rank pretty high among my all-time favorite films. There are too many "favorite" moments to mention (though I have <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2010/11/burbs.html" target="_blank">written about the film before</a> back in 2010, if you'd care to read more about it). But the scene where Dick Miller and Robert Picardo show up is quite hilarious. They are simply billed as being "Garbagemen", though Dick is referred to as Vic by Picardo a couple times in the scene. Most of the film centers around a small group of core characters, so Miller and Picardo are very much outsiders. Dick Miller's best line comes when the tensions rise and Bruce Dern tells him "Who's picks up this mess? Why, you're going to pick up the mess because YOU are a garbageman." He responds with "I pick up garbage in cans, not from the street!" It's a great scene in a great (IMO) film!</div>
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Of course my list here is just the tip of the iceberg of a long and fruitful career. I could go on writing about his small roles in movies and on television for hours. But the point is that he was a great character actor who did a lot of great work and will be missed. Here's a trailer for the documentary about Dick Miller from 2014, "<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2529132/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">That Guy Dick Miller</a>" (which I still haven't seen myself):<br />
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And here's one more tweet that I think is the best way to finish up this little tribute to Dick Miller. While he only had a small role in Scorsese's "After Hours", co-star Rosanna Arquette remembered him with this touching tweet referencing a specific scene:</div>
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<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-63001085435478722872019-01-22T22:14:00.002-05:002019-01-22T22:25:06.898-05:00The Generation That Time ForgotOkay, so when I made my mid-year resolution (as it were) last year to write more on Monster Dad I had a brilliant idea. I knew that even if I could get back into the swing of writing again it was unlikely that I'd be able to generate enough content to satisfy the four-to-five-posts-per-month target that I kinda-sorta set for myself. The problem? I generally only write detailed, long-winded posts that tell a complete story and which tend to take a long time to think out, research and (especially) write. I've noticed that many other blogs tend to be more in line with the current short-attention-span world we're currently living in. Everything today has to be immediate, quick, to-the-point and bite-sized. Blurbs and Tweets are where it's at. My brilliant idea was to expand my horizon (and blog post output) by joining in on the modern world. I've seen other bloggers post a photo with a caption (or sometimes just a photo, without so much as a caption to go along with it) or similar short posts that are insanely quick to generate and post, and at the same time very digestible for an audience looking for quick and instant gratification before moving on to the next thing. I decided that I would start to share things like this on Monster Dad. Any time I saw something that struck my fancy and seemed to fit into the admittedly wide subject area of Monster Dad I would simply create a short post and share it here. This has always been the kind of thing I've done on Facebook (there IS a Share button right below every post on Facebook!), but it always seemed like the opposite of what I wanted to do here--namely to generate new and original content that was actually mine. But content is content, right? I figured that I could still write my usual one, two or three long posts per month and at the same time boost my numbers by adding a bunch of quick and easy posts. It seemed like a good way to be more relevant and even potentially improve my standing in search engine results and such. But a funny thing happened on my way to becoming a "blurb poster"--I simply couldn't bring myself to do it. For whatever reason I just kept generating my own content, even if it was at a snail's pace. I'm happy to say that I'm still committed to writing around eight months after making that commitment, but also kind of disappointed by my total output. So today I'm finally going to publish my first "blurb post"! Ironically enough, since I've also decided to explain in detail why I'm posting something very short and easy-to-digest, this will still end up being a standard, long-winded Monster Dad post by the time it's done. How quaint!<br />
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The <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/" target="_blank">Huffington Post</a> recently put up the story <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/generation-x-forgotten-again_us_5c4539d5e4b027c3bbc2fc87?utm_source=parents_fb&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=hp_fb_pages&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000037&fbclid=IwAR0wRaOvmzi8MGTX3HSVOECCY0cEIurZ0z9A74eJ4jwEW7CAAQiLTBX068E&fbclid=IwAR0-4S5CPwXQx5B_46h_SlhkrIPyAEJXTsqjCgM97aIGMPFN_TSxW493KAQ" target="_blank">Generation Xers Have The Most Gen X Response to Being Left Off The List</a>. Interestingly enough this piece is actually based on a Twitter post by <a href="https://twitter.com/BillEvenson" target="_blank">Bill Evenson</a>, and most of the body of the story is made up of Tweets and memes responding to that post. Sounds like this is another example of generating content by sharing something someone else did and making it your own. [Confession: I am NOT currently on Twitter. I signed up for it about a decade ago and then realized that it simply wasn't for me. I know that at some point I'm going to have to join in on the fun, but now it's complicated because of having a closed account and all.]<br />
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Anyway, the story is about a graphic by CBS meant to define all of the generations from "The Silent Generation" to "Post-Millennials" by birth year. The graphic was supposed to illustrate a story about crises being experienced by the various generations. But that little graphic ended up being a story unto itself thanks to being noticed and pointed out by Mr. Evenson. As can be seen above, CBS simply skipped from Baby Boomers to Millennials with no mention of the people born between 1965 and 1980--a generation known as "Generation X". As a member of that generation (born in 1969) I was curious about why CBS decided to leave us out. It certainly seems like an oversight. I mean, there were definitely people born between 1965 and 1980. I don't think anyone would refute that fact. And it doesn't seem like there's any real reason to dis, dismiss or deny the existence of Gen Xers. Or am I missing something?<br />
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I remember when they first started to refer to my generation as Generation X. It was the first new "generation designation" since the Baby Boomers. It seemed like a pretty cool designation too. I mean, it had "X" in it! It was a time of grunge rock, Nintendo and the early days of the Internet as a regular thing that regular people used. It was a pretty cool feeling knowing that I was a member of this newly-named generation. But now we're the old folks. We're the ones seeing the Millennials taking over the world and complaining about them. Perhaps it was a Millennial who created the graphic that started all of this. Perhaps he/she did it on purpose to belittle Generation X via omission. Or perhaps he/she was just being a "lazy Millennial" and was more concerned with where they were going to hang with their friends after work--or wondering why they even HAVE to work in the first place--to check their graphic before submitting it. Who knows?<br />
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Whatever the case, we now have this story to ponder, muse about, question, make fun of, laugh at, post Tweets and memes about and share ad nauseam on social media. I wasn't actually planning on writing about this story myself (it's already written about in HuffPost after all). My intention was simply to share the story and link here, let everyone who sees this have access to the original story and count one more post as being "written". But when you get right down to it, I'm still Monster Dad and I still have my own style of writing. Is it a style likely to get me legions of loyal readers clamoring for more and more posts? Probably not. But it IS me, and I AM a Gen Xer.<br />
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<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-7102174663241405652018-12-31T23:35:00.000-05:002019-01-01T10:16:05.081-05:00That New Year's Eve When I Washed My Own Mouth Out With Soap<br />
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I grew up in a different time. Which I suppose is my way of admitting that I'm kind of old. We won't get into all the things I didn't have back then or all the problems I have with "kids these days", but it really was kind of different growing up in the 1970s and 80s. I almost feel like some aspects of my childhood were closer in spirit to the 1950s than today. Having said all that, I will also say that I never had my mouth washed out with soap as a form of punishment for the kinds of shenanigans that kids get into. That seems like a good preface for this little story (especially considering the title and the photo above).<br />
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I have written about celebrating New Year's Eve as a kid here before. In <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2010/08/happy-new-year-1976.html" target="_blank">Happy New Year 1976!</a> I was able to do some detective work to confirm a vague memory of a New Year's Eve party from my childhood. In this post we will explore another ancient New Year's Eve memory from around that time. But this one doesn't need to be confirmed through research--I don't think there would be a way to even attempt to do so. In the recent post <a href="http://monsterdad69.blogspot.com/2018/11/reliving-embarrassing-moment-from-my.html" target="_blank">Reliving an Embarrassing Moment from My Youth</a> I wrote about something that happened to me as a kid that I found so humiliating that I had always kept it to myself. In reality what had happened was kind of a small thing (I wore two different sneakers to school one day back when I was in middle school) and I don't think anyone other than myself even noticed. I realized that my mind had categorized this as a traumatic event when it really wasn't. It was kind of a minor event that was built up to be something big by my psyche--and the blog post itself. It felt like I was baring my soul and putting something "out there" (airing my dirty laundry as it were) by writing about it all these years later. It almost seemed like a cathartic thing to share (maybe even therapeutic in a strange sort of way?). But I'm sure that readers were left feeling kind of like "that's it?"<br />
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Before we get any further it's worth mentioning here that this is another example of an embarrassing moment from my youth. And it's once again a quite minor thing that was more of an embarrassment in my mind than it was in reality. In fact I had never shared this story with ANYONE from the time it happened until probably 10 or 15 years ago or so when I shared it with my best friend and his wife. It was probably during a New Year's celebration of our own and I felt enough time had passed that it was more of an amusing kid story than anything else. Well, my friend's wife has gone on to say that THIS is her favorite story of mine from when I was a kid! So it's probably a good one to share here, now that I seem to be opening up and writing about all the embarrassing moments of my youth.<br />
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I was part of a big family. I have eight siblings (seven sisters and one brother). When I was a kid my family had pretty substantial New Year's Eve parties. They kind of petered out before I hit my teenage years, but I do have some fond--if hazy--memories of them from when I was little. One of the most important parts of these parties was the food. My father would go out of his way to put all kinds of interesting and exotic shacks out on our kitchen table. Frequently there would be things you (especially as a kid) had never seen or even heard of before. It was fun, but there was also something kind of mysterious and even intimidating about it. What is this strange stuff? Should I dare to eat it? Will I be made fun of if I DON'T try it? Not everything was exotic and foreign of course. I dimly remember there being standard cocktail party fare like olives, pickles and cheese & crackers on the table next to things like Vienna sausages (with burning Sterno fuel to heat them up) and chocolate covered ants or grasshoppers. Here's a couple photos from one of our New Year's Eve parties (December 31, 1977) that my sister found and put up on Facebook a while back. This is probably a couple years after the events of this blog, but certainly close enough to be a great illustration for the story:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: yellow;">New Year's Eve celebration 1977-78</span></span></b></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: yellow;">Me partaking in some New Year's Eve snacks</span></b></span></td></tr>
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In "Happy New Year 1976!" I was six years old. While I don't exactly remember when this memory came from I know I was quite young and it seems fair to estimate that if it wasn't December 31, 1975 it was probably within a year or two of that New Year's Eve. Among all the food choices on the table was something that doesn't seem especially odd or exotic. It was a container of cottage cheese. Of all the things spread out on the table that's the ONE item I recall in this memory. I remember seeing this clumpy, white substance that was called "cottage cheese". I knew cheese (especially varieties like American and cheddar) but had never seen something like this lumpy, almost liquid substance that was referred to as being "cheese". It certainly didn't look good, but it seemed like I should at least give it a try. The only problem was that...I couldn't get myself to actually go through with it. It seemed too off-putting for some reason (It looked gross? It seemed like something too "grownup" for me to be eating? It looked more like cheese that someone had already eaten and thrown-up?). Whatever the reason I simply couldn't bring myself to take a little sample of the cottage cheese and try it out for myself.<br />
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But it kept bugging me for some reason. I can't imagine that anyone who was there that night could have though back then that forty-plus years later that little container of cottage cheese would be pretty much the ONLY thing I would remember from that night. But it's true. Well, actually it's almost true. There was one other thing that stuck with me, and that's because it was (or seemed) like it was related in some way and would become forever linked to the cottage cheese in my memory.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: yellow;">Here's our kitchen table around 1972</span></b></span></td></tr>
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As has already been mentioned, I was pretty young (and thus physically small) at the time. I vaguely remember being one of the smallest people at the party and able to navigate through and around all the bigger people semi-unnoticed. While that strange cottage cheese dilemma (should I eat it or should I not?) played out in my mind I kept seeing it sitting there on the table. But I also spied something else too. This something else wasn't ON the table, but was instead UNDER the table. On the floor under the table nearly against the wall was something white. My size made it pretty easy for me to see it hiding out in the dark. I decided that it was a bit of cottage cheese that had managed to find its way onto the floor. And then I made the decision that this new "floor cottage cheese" was my solution to the problem. I would sneak under the table and try out some of the cottage cheese in private where nobody else could see me. Why I felt that this was necessary when there was a whole container of the stuff sitting on the table available to anyone (including myself) that wanted to try some I can't really say. The fact that I couldn't bring myself to eat the stuff on the table seems to have morphed into the belief that I wasn't SUPPOSED to eat it. It somehow became something that I needed to SNEAK a taste of. It's almost like cottage cheese was an adults-only kind of a thing (like the beer, wine and champagne that the grownups were drinking).<br />
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Whatever the reason I suddenly felt a need to sneak under the table and try some of that forbidden cheese! Finding the right moment I ducked under the table--not a terribly difficult thing for a little kid to do. Once I was sure no one was looking I made my way toward the back wall and my prize. There it was--the mysterious and tempting cottage cheese. I reached out and picked it up. My mind didn't seem to notice that the consistency of this particular bit of cottage cheese was quite different from what I had seen on the table. It was solid--more in line with what I had traditionally thought of when I thought of cheese. But it was indeed white. Probably the only thing on the table that was that white was the cottage cheese, so this MUST have been cottage cheese too, right? I brought the object closer to my mouth and I took a bite. Well, it turns out that this thing WASN'T cottage cheese, and I knew it instantly (even having never tasted cottage cheese). No, this out of place object was actually a piece of soap. Why a piece of soap was sitting on the floor under our dining table in the kitchen I have no idea, but there it was. And while I have never had my mouth washed out with soap for doing something "wrong", I suddenly found myself in the odd position of washing my OWN mouth out with soap. There certainly wasn't a "reason" for me to be doing so beyond mistaking one white object for another, but in a way it almost seems like I was unconsciously punishing myself for coveting that forbidden cottage cheese. However one might choose to define my actions I had indeed unwittingly taken a bite of soap. And it wasn't a pleasant experience. Not at all. But it did become one moment of a long-past New Year's Eve celebration that I still recall to this very day more than forty years later. I can't say that anything else from that night was stored in my long-term memory, but that strange cottage cheese/soap incident is forever etched in my mind.<br />
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And as a postscript it might be worth mentioning that cottage cheese is STILL something that I don't like. Actually, I don't think that I've ever even tried the stuff to this very day. I don't expect that it will taste like soap or anything, but I DO still find its appearance and consistency to be off-putting. It just looks lumpy and gross! It might seem that the appropriate way to end this post would be by saying that in honor of finally sharing this memory I also finally went ahead and tried out some cottage cheese. That could be a good way to illustrate some form of closure or something, right? But...well...no. Just, no.<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">HAPPY NEW YEAR! </span></span></span></div>
Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4234186212443451984.post-43401491120722842022018-12-23T00:44:00.001-05:002020-12-08T21:48:49.515-05:00The Elf Pants: A New Holiday Tradition!<br />
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Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have started this post off with the photo above. It may have been more effective to instill a bit of a sense of intrigue and build up some mystery about what this "New Tradition" I speak of is all about. But you can't really title a blog "Elf Pants" without showing some elf pants, can you? Anyway, let's get to the point.<br />
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This little story about the genesis of a new holiday tradition for our family started back in August while we were at The In-Laws' house. And I should probably mention here that this "Family Tradition" is really probably only considered to be a tradition by me at this point. I'm going to try my best to make it ring true for the rest of the family...but it could prove to be a bit of an uphill battle.<br />
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The Tiny Creature is big into tiny things. Pretty much anything that is in miniature form will appeal to her. She has a collection of tiny erasers of all different kinds of foods and animals. She also still plays with her American Girl dolls. At nine years old she might not necessarily be considered "too old" to do so, but she did seem to be losing interest in all things American Girl a year or two ago (American Girl Burnout?). But then she rebounded and found a renewed interest in the stuff. I think the reason for that is the simple fact that American Girl dolls have so many accessories. And said accessories are all tiny versions of real, normal, everyday kinds of things. That's right in her sweet spot.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Some of The Creature's tiny eraser collection</b></span></span></td></tr>
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The Creature is also very much into crafts and crafting. She goes to a weekly after-school art program where she makes all kinds of works of art. One of her favorite ways to express her creative side is through duct tape. Her grandmother has a large variety of craft supplies (including many different colors of duct tape) at her house. Whenever we're visit The In-Laws the Creature will almost always enlist Grammie into some sort of craft-making exercise. They have engineered a number of interesting duct tape creations. The most impressive of all was the duct tape dress they made a couple years back. Yes, they made a full-sized dress that the Tiny Creature could actually wear...out of duct tape!<br />
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Now that you know of these two interests (tiny things and crafting) that the Creature holds dear it might not come as a huge surprise that she enjoys combining the two interests by making tiny things when she's crafting. She really loved making boxes of miniature doughnuts out of Cheerios and putting them into matchboxes decorated as doughnut boxes. And you can make all sorts of tiny food models with that Sculpey clay stuff! But what does all of this have to do with what may or may not be a new family holiday tradition?<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Tiny foods made from Sculpey and glued to a sea shell</b></span></span></td></tr>
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Well, as I mentioned earlier, we were visiting The In-Laws back in August. The Tiny Creature spotted a miniature wicker basket that was part of a centerpiece display on the dinner table. It was just a little (1 1/2 or 2 inches across?) empty basket, but she really focused in on it and just HAD to do something with it. She grabbed some trusty duct tape and asked me what colors could be found in a watermelon. Next thing I knew she was putting different colors of tape together and cutting up a storm on a counter top in the kitchen. I looked down and saw what can be seen in the photo below. With no hesitation my mind tried to figure out what it was, and it came to the conclusion that The Creature was fashioning an elf out of duct tape and she had gotten only as far as the (red) pants and (green) shoes. It didn't occur to me that it seemed an odd thing to be making in August, and I also didn't seem to realize that she was actually done with whatever project she was working on. I just told her she did a good job and that I liked her "elf pants" (or something to that effect).<br />
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Then she showed me her actual finished project. It was a tiny slice of watermelon (with red fruit and a green rind) that was sitting in the tiny basket that had spurred on this sudden creative outburst in the first place. Suddenly and instantly I realized how ridiculous my "elf pants" conclusion was and I found it to be absolutely hilarious! I couldn't stop laughing, and the Monsters were also quite amused when I was able to get enough air in to be able to explain it to them (or at least laughed along with me to humor me). What I saw as elf pants was of course the remnants of the tape the Creature had used to cut her watermelon out of. But to me it was more than a remnant waiting to be tossed into the trash. To me it was a pair of hilarious elf pants and I now simply couldn't let them get thrown out. I quietly slipped them into my pocket with plans to bring them out once again in a few months.<br />
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This brings us to December and our new Christmas tree. We all went to pick it out at a local farm and brought it home on top of our car. Once it was set up I put the lights on it and we all decorated it with our collection of ornaments we've put together over the years. Nearly all of the ornaments have special meaning to us--from some of the earliest examples of ornaments The Wife and I got when we were first dating to multiple "Baby's First Christmas" ornaments for both of the Little Monsters.<br />
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Once it seemed like we were pretty much done trimming the tree I announced that there was one special ornament that still had to go up. Everyone wondered what I was talking about as I pulled something out of a box that it had been hidden in for over three months. Yes, it was the infamous Elf Pants! It was greeted with mixed reactions, from amused to confused, but I proceeded to find a choice place on the tree to prop up the "ornament" on the tree (as it didn't have a hook or any other way to properly hang it). And it has just occurred to me now that this "ornament" was actually considered to be the leftover material from an unrelated project--something that should have been thrown away and forgotten about. But now the "Elf Pants" are hanging on our Christmas tree and I have no idea what became of the miniature slice of watermelon that was the actual intended purpose of this combination of red and green duct tape!<br />
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We haven't really acquired many new ornaments over the past two or three years, but the Elf Pants "ornament" is now something that should become a regular part of the annual trimming of the tree in our house--at least as far as I'm concerned! Hopefully it will be accepted by the rest of the family as a new annual tradition. I guess we'll see next year...<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b>HAPPY</b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span face=""verdana" , sans-serif"><b><span style="color: lime;">HOLIDAYS!</span> </b></span></span></span></div>
<br />Glenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16729869327075752532noreply@blogger.com0