Sheep and Goats

Category: Entertainment

A JW Connection With Perry Mason?

Look at how State Prosecutor Hamilton Berger (center) pouts like a little kid when Perry Mason outmaneuvers him, which he always does, because it is his show. Here Hamburger has raised an objection, Perry objected to it, and the judge overruled him. Flustered, isn’t he?

But after the case—he loses every single time—sometimes he will reconnoiter with Perry in the latter’s swank office as though old friends. He will even drop his prosecution mid-trial when Perry’s tightening net prods some poor cornered rat in the gallery to jump his feet—“I did it! I killed him! He had it coming! He cheated at Scrabble all the time!”

“Doesn’t Hamilton tire of getting his clock cleaned every episode?” someone asked William Talman, the actor who played him—he called his record “the longest losing streak in history.” Of course not! he answered. Justice was served—what more could a prosecuting attorney ask for? Overriding ambition with this guy? I think not.

Hamburger disappeared from the show in the 1960s because Talman was arrested for “lewd conduct” and smoking grass at a party. CBS suspended and then fired him, even after a judge threw out the charges! These days a tawdry reputation does nothing to hamper an actor’s career—it may even enhance it—but Perry Mason was from the days of squeaky clean TV. The show endured a series of dud replacements for Prosecuting Attorney before a deluge of letters made CBS hire him back.

Now look at how Hamilton’s right hand man, Lieutenant Tragg, beams with pleasure at the prospect of messing Perry up, here by arresting his client. He disapproves of the crime, I suppose, but it is compensated for by being able to stick it to Perry. He, too, loses every time. He, too, never holds a grudge. He, too, sometimes hashes out the details afterwards in Perry’s swank office.

Ray Collins was the actor that played Tragg. He took on the role in his late 60s, and it would be his final role. With fading health and memory, he filmed his last Perry Mason in early 1964. Everyone knew he would not be returning, but the producer knew he watched the show every night and kept his name in the opening title sequence so as not to make him feel bad. That, too, like Talman getting fired, is not something that I think would happen today. Is this another bookends of a different age scenario—one bookend in seemly times and its mate in one unseemly?

My wife and I have rediscovered Perry during Covid 19 time, maybe even before. We like a good whodunnit, of course—who doesn’t? But the trouble with a whodunnit is that somebody has always dunnit, and these days they do with with blood splashing the screen. Murders in Perry Mason are kinder, gentler, friendly killings—they just drop without undue fuss. Half the time you don’t even see the killing—they’re already dead when Tragg or someone comes across them. It is another seemly-unseemly contrast.

Is it true that Jehovah’s Witnesses HQ gets a nickel each time you watch a Perry Mason episode? Maybe. Erle Stanley Gardner, the show’s creator, married his long time secretary after his first wife died. That secretary is supposedly the inspiration for Della Street, Perry’s super-capable TV secretary, who was always taking on extra missions to save the day. The real-life secretary was a Witness—just when she became one is hard to track down. She survived Erle and at age 88 was still administering his estate, which included a huge archive. When she died at 102, did she leave anything to her charity of choice? I’ve heard she did.

But it is hard to track down. Actually, I used to be able to, but an article that flat-out stated the connection has disappeared—is it behind a paywall? Dunno. It is for someone else to tease out if they are so inclined. I’m pretty sure it is so—I’m not usually wrong on these things except for when I am mistaken. At any rate, you can’t count your time watching the show, so don’t even ask.

Ray Collins died of emphysema at age 75. William Talman was 53 when he died of lung cancer in 1968. It was nothing to see any actor of the day lighting up a cigarette. Talman was the first Hollywood actor to film an antismoking public service announcement, not to be aired until after his death. He was by then pretty sure he would lose his battle with cancer. “Take some advice about smoking and losing from someone who’s been doing both for years… If you don’t smoke, don’t start. If you do smoke, quit!” I am reminded of how the JW organization in 1973, persuaded by the growing evidence that tobacco use was one of those 2 Corinthians 7:1 defilements of flesh, decreed it unacceptable for Witnesses who wished to remain in good standing. Just how many lives did they save in doing that?

Perry Mason the series ran eight years, from 1957 – 1965. I remember it, but I was too young to take much interest. My wife remembers that her mom never missed an episode. Netflix users as late as 2014 still rate Raymond Burr, who played Perry, as their favorite actor.

Roughly speaking, Matlock is the equivalent of Perry Mason. It is a legal drama of 20 years later with an equally engaging star—Andy Griffith. It is just as entertaining and the murders are also, if not friendly, at least not uber-grisly. So why do my wife and I watch Perry reruns and not Matlock? It’s because of the cars—memorable in Perry’s day, but toasters in Matlock’s. In last night’s exciting episode, Perry impales the escaping villain on the tail fin of his Cadillac.

June 18, 2020
Stardate 45836: Insulting Citizens via Billboard

‪“Captain’s Log, Stardate 45836: We have landed on this really strange planet, where public officials use technology to identify persons with ‘perfect faces for radio’ as they approach on the highway, and insult them through digital billboards”.”

May 10, 2020
Electric Aunt

Electric Aunt was a game played on the Game of Life board. A friend and I invented it back in adolescence days. Inspired by the square ‘Eccentric Aunt dies and leaves you 50 cats. Pay $10,000 to get rid of them.’ The electric aunt was an old TV tube—all TVs had many tubes, before the days of transistors, let alone semiconductors. The aunt took its own turn, after that of the regular players. It could move independently and zap anyone in a radius equal to its height. Today, due to sensitivity toward cats and maybe even aunts, that square was long ago renamed and you must pay $10,000 for some other reason.

‘Care to play a game of Electric Aunt?’ I asked my brother, after the cheating snot whomped me once again at Scrabble?

April 9, 2020
There is a God in Heaven—and the Game He Plays is Scrabble

Not looking good. The lousy cheater just Scrabbled to make ‘loaners.’ 151 to 92. How much you want to bet that when I turn the blank over it is another letter?

I painted a crosspiece on an ‘i’ and put the resulting ‘x’ to make ‘ex’ going both ways—the ‘x’ counted 6 times for being on a triple letter. Got to do something to keep up wtih my brother’s cheating. Even after his unfairly taking the triple word with ‘oh’ I am slightly ahead.

With few letters letter, my lousy brother probably has probably cheated to draw the ‘q’ and the ‘z.’ The trick will be to make him eat them. He will scream ‘We don’t play that way!’ but that is to be expected.

The rotter! Do you think he will open up access to the lower right of the board? No way will he if it gives me the chance make one point more! What a skunk! I guess I am forced to play the same way, but in this type of battle, being magnanimous to contrast his smallness, I usually give in. Not this time!

He did unload his ‘q,’ the louse, but he didn’t get much for it. He is putting down words of 10 and under (so am I) so as not to open the board. All letters are out. I must make him eat the ‘z.’ Should I make ‘kale’ & give him shot at the triple? NO!

Whoa! He broke first! Put down ‘plug.’ But how can I go out with this mess of a hand? Four vowels and an ‘f’? Where’s the justice?! I can’t even reach the triple word. Is he setting himself up? I lead by a point!

YES!!! I whomped my cheating brother by 15 points even WITHOUT counting the ‘z’ he had to eat! ‘Tom, calm down, it’s just a game!’ he says, as though I am not calm. When HE wins he calls out the Navy Marching Band AND the Hill Cumorah Tabernacle Choir to celebrate.

Come, now, Tom. It is a cute post and all, but ‘God Wrote the Universe, and the Game that he Plays is Scrabble? Really?

Well—the scripture does say that in the beginning was the Word. Moreover, the verse that must be there but I have not yet found it reads: “Have you beheld the great Scrabble game in heaven, o Job, and considered how nobody can put one over on Me?”

January 27, 2020
Man Gave Names to all the Animals

The beavers are hard at work out where I walk the dog. I wonder if they will cause back up flooding at the apartments where I don’t live. That outcome doesn’t concern them in the slightest. They will drive in upright poles and then fetch branches and sticks for the horizontal. Ponds form, and they use the waterways to float food and debris so as to build homes entered from below.

They are all of them skilled engineers, all of them graduates of Dam U. When the kids were small and we would camp at Allegheny State Park, visiting beaver dams was one of the attractions. You had to go early in the morning and be very quiet—alarm them and they will dive out of sight after slapping the water with their tails to alert their buddies.

“Now Jehovah God had been forming from the ground every wild animal of the field and every flying creature of the heavens, and he began bringing them to the man to see what he would call each one; and whatever the man would call each living creature, that became its name.” – Genesis 2:19

Bob Dylan has explained just how this worked:

He saw an animal that liked to growl, Big furry paws and he liked to howl, Great big furry back and furry hair. "Ah, think I'll call it a bear."

He saw an animal up on a hill, Chewing up so much grass until she was filled. He saw milk comin' out but he didn't know how. "Ah, think I'll call it a cow."

He saw an animal that liked to snort, Horns on his head and they weren't too short. It looked like there wasn't nothin' that he couldn't pull. "Ah, think I'll call it a bull."

He saw an animal leavin' a muddy trail, Real dirty face and a curly tail. He wasn't too small and he wasn't too big. "Ah, think I'll call it a pig."

Next animal that he did meet. Had wool on his back and hooves on his feet, Eating grass on a mountainside so steep. "Ah, think I'll call it a sheep."

So it was pretty much like that. The Watchtower—no doubt others have said it as well—has written that Adam would have taken his time, observed unique characteristics, before naming names.

Let me see if I can do one:

He saw an animal that was great and gray, Swimming about freely every day. Catching its food without a fuss, “Ah,—a hippopotamus.”

And God said to Himself, ’Oh, come on!’ but he went with it.

And just to bring this full circle:

He saw an animal building dams, flooding just like a jailbird on the lam, carving up waterways with a cleaver. ”Ah—looks like a beaver.”

January 16, 2020
A Review of a Review of Richard Jewell

“Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell tries to raise up the little guy. But It takes unnecessary shots in the process,” said the Time review. Readers weren’t having any of it.

“For some reason the same media that helped try to destroy this guy is pretty lukewarm on the movie about it,” tweeted Dan.

“Stephanie Zacharek is one of those writers that's more interested in [dissing] someone who doesn't fawn over the press than getting her facts straight,” added Penny.

William darkly warned: “Beware of journalists angry over this movie. Let's hope they do not become violent because of it.”

Richard Jewell was a security guard at the 1996 summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. He spotted an abandoned backpack. It looked suspicious. He reported it and authorities had enough time to start evacuating the area before it exploded. One died and over 100 were injured yet it could have been far worse. His actions saved dozens, if not hundreds, of lives. For a time he was a hero. But then the FBI began to suspect him. When it did, the Atlanta newspaper poured gas on rumors—and his life accordingly went up in flames. For months he faced media frenzy wherever he went. Stephanie describes him as “portly and friendly” a man who is a bit odd, still “a zealously upstanding citizen with dreams of someday working in law enforcement….[with] no reason not to give him the benefit of the doubt.” He died at 44. Can anyone think his undeserved pariah-ship did not hasten his death?

Dmin let out a tentative feeler: “I have often wondered if Richard Jewel was someway under suspicion as a result of "fat shaming"? If he had been more movie star perfect would his actions have brought the same scrutiny and speculation?”

One can also read “job shaming” to the list—Jewell is a wannabe cop, not a real one, “shamed” in the same way that mall policemen are “shamed.” One might even add “class shaming”—Jewell was single and lived with his mother. Was it a rush to judgment from someone who was none of these things—a jab from one perceived to had “made it” in life toward one who had not? Probably the ones who commented were people like me—people who saw events unfold in real time and were aghast at the zeal with which the big little man was crucified.

The movie is a “well-acted picture about a clear act of injustice against an innocent man. So why does it leave such a sour aftertaste?” asks the reviewer. I will venture that it does not to anyone other than a journalist. It does to reviewer Stephanie because it is one of her own who is skewered, the late reporter Kathy Scruggs. She’s not painted fairly, is the complaint, as though the purpose of the movie—of any movie—is to celebrate fourth estate journalism. The more I read the review, the more fed up I become. The profession that points the finger at everyone else has the thinnest skin of all when even one of the three fingers points back.

She writes: “Eastwood shows the utmost compassion for Richard Jewell, the wrongfully accused little guy. But his generosity stops there, and he shows particular vitriol and distaste for Scruggs. She is played as “a brazen smarty, a seasoned pro who zips from here to there, wherever the sirens take her. Her blouse may be unbuttoned a little too low, her skirt is perhaps a bit too short, but it’s all part of the game, and of her personal style. You can certainly make the case that Scruggs ran with the Richard Jewell story too soon, or used poor judgment in revealing his name. But all Eastwood can see is the vixen journo who’ll do anything for a story.”

I think that’s all most people can see in the wake of a speculative hit piece that destroys a person—while their sympathy wears thin with regard to the one who does it. “Scruggs—who died in 2001—was a real person” [as though Jewell was not]. Furthermore, “she’s no longer here to defend herself” [as Jewell was, but it didn’t do him a bit of good in the face of a journalistic assault].

It’s clear where Ms. Zacharek’s sympathy lies. Was the woman reporter truly a “brazen smarty?” Family and friends say no—she wouldn’t go so far as the implied trading of sex for a story—though they all agree on attributes such as “ball-busting,” “profane,” “loud,” “brash,” “liked to party,” “smoked like a chimney,” fond of “Johnie Walker Red,” noteworthy for her “short skirts.” No crime in those things, but one might almost think a director could be cut some slack for confusing a person who so closely resembles a brazen smarty with an actual one that he couldn’t tell the difference.

Incredibly, a Scruggs colleague mourns that stress over the article is what killed her—oblivious to the collateral damage that takes out Jewell. “It destroyed her," she says quietly. Then she recalls a pivotal time that Scrugg’s editor “told her she needed to apologize. Instead, she quit." That’s what will infuriate anyone who is not a journalist. ‘Just apologize,’ the editor says. She can’t do it. A real genuine “loud” and “brash” swan dive of a public apology was all that was needed—it always worked for Ralph Kramden. Jewell would have forgiven it all—and if not he, then everyone else—for we all make mistakes and everybody knows it. She couldn’t do it.

Look, everyone sticks up for their own. It is to be expected. It is not wrong of Stephanie to do that. It is even commendable, so long as it does not overshadow everything else. Let Eastwood apologize to her if he is inclined—no harm in that, I don’t think. Warner Brothers outright refuses to. The movie states up front that certain historical events have been dramatized, they point out, as they always are in movies—what is it with people who cannot apologize? Would not life be so much more agreeable if they could? To be sure, sometimes the one seeking apology seeks considerably more than apology; sometimes what is sought is acquiescence to every aspect of a point of view, but apologies can be worded to not go that far if that is what is desired. Maybe no one apologizes anymore for fear lawyers will pounce upon one as a sure admission of guilt.

From the beginning of cinema, directors have realized that a movie needs a villain—otherwise the audience falls asleep. It can’t be all earnest people doing their level best and yet it all goes to hell anyway—what would that say about the world we are supposed to feel good about? What about Sully, another Eastwood movie, that painted the FAA as the villain? Did that one bother the Time reviewer? In fact, the FAA accepted from the beginning that Sully was a hero and did not hassle him at all, but Eastwood needed a villain and—come on! who makes a better villain than the government?

Another Eastwood movie (A Perfect World) even took a shot at my people, and you didn’t hear me complain about it (much), did you? “We have a higher calling,” the Jehovah’s Witness mom says as she disallows her kids to go trick or treating. No Witness in 1000 years is going to say, “We have a higher calling” to her kids—they simply don’t talk that way—so I knew that it was not personal with Clint. He just needed a villain. You didn’t catch JWs trying to torpedo A Perfect World on that account, did you, the way the press is waging war against this movie for touching one of its own?

John Hafley I can picture snorting out coffee through his nose. “Are you kidding me, Time? unnecessary shots?” he tweets of the review. “It is a fantastic historic review of how power and the press can destroy the innocent for sex and money. The strong will do what they can, the weak will suffer what they must.” He doesn’t even extend the benefit of the doubt to the reporter, so caught up is he with the plight of the victim.

December 18, 2019
Turn Me On, Dead Man—The “Paul is Dead” Hoax

“That reminds me of people who claimed they used to play Beatle's records backwards ( I don't even know how you could do that …) , and claimed you could hear voices saying "Serve Satan" or some such nonsense.”

You do it by putting the turntable in neutral and spinning it backwards with your finger. When you do, you hear repeatedly and very distinctly, “Turn me on, dead man.” (Revolution #9) When you play “Strawberry Fields Forever” forward, you hear at the very end, “I buried Paul.”

The rumor was that Paul, of the wildly popular only-game-in-town Beatles, had died some years ago and that the other three had covered it up, hiring a look-alike to take his place. This look-alike was referred to as “Billy Shears” from the Sgt Pepper’s album, who worried “what would you do if I sang out of tune?” but took solace that he would “get by with a little help from my friends.”

The Beatles cross the street “Abbey Road” in single file on the cover of the album of that name. John leads, dressed in white—he is the preacher. Ringo is next, in black—he is the undertaker. Paul is third—barefoot as a corpse would be, out of step, with cigarette in hand, though he supposedly quit them years ago—he is the dead man. George is fourth, dressed in workman’s clothes—he is the ditchdigger. The license plate of the VW just over the curb is “28 IF,” the age Paul would be IF he was still alive. The first song of that album, “Come together,” incorporates a sound that could best be characterized as a shovel piling on dirt, as in a burial. References abound to the group going on without Paul: “He says, ‘one and one and one is three,’ Hold on to his armchair, you can feel his disease.”

The Sgt Pepper’s album cover features the old Beatles looking down upon the new Beatles, recostumed and renamed Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The scene is of a burial—“Beatles” is spelled out in floral arrangement, and a host of other famous, though dead, people—Albert Einstein, Mae West, Edgar Allen Poe, about thirty in all—join the old Beatles in looking on.

This is just for starters. Supposedly, the three surviving Beatles had planned this for years, hiding clues in their records.

Why do I know this in such detail? I was a college student at the time. When this story broke, campus life came to a standstill. Kids were glued to campus radio, which cancelled all other programming to run with this 24/7. There was radio tie-in with major schools, which were also at standstills as regards academics activity. Students would call in with the latest theorizing. There were many in our school who cut classes so as not to miss a word. My roommate urged me (unsuccessfully) to install a reverse gear in my record player so as to play all Beatles songs backwards in search of additional clues. Had it been feasible, I probably would have done it.

Outlandish rumors were bandied about and accepted as gospel. The feed station—from UCLA, perhaps—featured neverending call-ins and interviews featuring the latest “research.” On the back cover of the Sgt Pepper’s album, one of the four—Paul’s replacement, I think—is conducting the band. Superimposed on the cover are the lyrics to the songs within. By this means, “Paul’s” finger points to the words from “She’s Leaving Home,” “Wednesday morning at five o’clock.” If you called a certain number at that time—the number also listed in the album somewhere, I think—you found yourself connected to hell. I think that if you pressed the matter, you risked losing your soul. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that they are “young adults” in college. They are big children, reveling in the [then] newfound freedoms of drugs and sex, free of parental supervision, ideally on their way to becoming adults.

This Beatles’ plot was the dominating concern of students then and it lasted for days on end.

The weekend came. Maybe it was even some holiday. I went home, about 250 miles away. NOBODY KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS! On campus, NOBODY KNEW ANYTHING ELSE! I couldn’t believe how oblivious the out-of-touch farts were to the greatest story of our time! Finally, after a day or two, there was a brief snippet at the end of the “World News Report” and it was in the form of a scolding. Walter Chronkite or someone ran a line of two, briefly acknowledged that the Beatles—those precocious kids—were having a laugh on the whole world, but what a sick laugh it was.

I wrote this up long ago. It does me good to recall it:

Wikipedia (11/18/19) calls it a conspiracy theory. What! Are they nuts? A conspiracy theory is when you put a gullible spin on innocuous facts. In this case, it it the obvious spin on elaborate staged facts. Do you think that Paul showed up for the album cover photo and said: “Well, what a coincidence! I came dressed as a dead man, John is a preacher, Ringo an undertaker and George a gravedigger! Well, well, well!” ?

There is such a thing as “an educated fool” who really ought to be out digging ditches somewhere or unplugging toilets. That same Wikipedia entry references a few:

“Author Peter D writes that, while the theory behind "Paul is dead" defied logic, its popularity was understandable in a climate where citizens were faced with conspiracy theories.”

Ian D says that the Beatles were partly responsible for the phenomenon due to their incorporation of "random lyrics and effects", particularly in the White Album track "Glass Onion"

What does he mean, “partly responsible?” They were fully responsible, and unless you knew that they were pranksters, it was emanantly logical to draw the obvious conclusion that they had “carefully concealed” in their Word.

During the 1970s, the phenomenon became a topic of academic study in America in the fields of sociology, psychology, and communication. [Of course] among sociological studies.

Barbara S recognised it as, in Schaffner's description, a contemporary reading of the "archetypal myth wherein the beautiful youth dies and is resurrected as a god". [and to think I wasted my career caring for the developmentally disabled].

Oh—here’s a beaut: American social critic Camille P locates the "Paul is dead" phenomenon to the Ancient Greek tradition symbolised by Adonis and Antinous, as represented in the cult of rock music's "pretty, long-haired boys who mesmerize both sexes", and she adds: "It's no coincidence that it was Paul McCartney, the 'cutest' and most girlish of the Beatles, who inspired a false rumor that swept the world in 1969 that he was dead."

Ding dong…….Excuse me, I’m expecting Paul to return. Hello?

It’s him!!! Squeeeeaal!! Wheeeeeeee!!!! Paul!! I’ve been keeping on the watch! I knew you would return!!

The one quote that is believable in all this aftermath polishing is from Paul himself [The Beatles Anthology]: “Well, we'd better play it for all it's worth. It's publicity, isn't it?"

Oh, and this one:

In November 1969, Capitol Records sales managers reported a significant increase in sales of Beatles catalogue albums, attributed to the rumour. Rocco Catena, Capitol's vice-president of national merchandising, estimated that "this is going to be the biggest month in history in terms of Beatles sales"

Do you think?

”This is the antitypical myth of the meandering Greek god Cashco beholding, not the reality on the wall, but the artificially superimposed image that is all his educated and drug-altered brain can take in.” — The Sheepandgoats Guide to Heroes and Has-Beens.

November 24, 2019
Searching for the Twilight Zone—in Binghamton NY

Pictured above is the bus terminal of Binghampton, NY. It is no longer just for Greyhound—all county buses now launch from the site. Built in 1938, it is of the Art Deco design known as Streamline Moderne—I love this design!—intended to convey aerodynamics and speed. Only a half dozen of such terminals still exist—there were once ten times that number.

This particular station was the inspiration for Rod Serling’s “The Mirror,” an episode of the anthology series The Twilight Zone. That episode terrified me. All Twilight Zones did, but I didn’t see too many as a boy because it was past my bedtime. Every so often, however—due to circumstances I no longer recall—I succeeded in outmaneuvering my parents and scared myself silly with the off-limits show.

The Mirror is a story of a woman waiting for the bus who becomes unnerved when her exact double appears from another world, intent on replacing her. She is assured by others that such things are imaginary and do not happen, but then she looks up from outside the bus and—gasp!—there is that double seated on board, gazing down upon her.

Rod Serling narrated every opening and closing of The Twilight Zone. For “Mirror Image,” he began with:

“Millicent Barnes, age twenty-five, young woman waiting for a bus on a rainy November night. Not a very imaginative type is Miss Barnes: not given to undue anxiety, or fears, or for that matter even the most temporal flights of fantasy. Like most young career women, she has a generic classification as a, quote, girl with a head on her shoulders, end of quote. All of which is mentioned now because, in just a moment, the head on Miss Barnes' shoulders will be put to a test. Circumstances will assault her sense of reality and a chain of nightmares will put her sanity on a block. Millicent Barnes, who, in one minute, will wonder if she's going mad.”

A young man in the episode, concerned for Millicent’s visibly deteriorating mental health, settles back in his seat at the terminal after the officers he has summoned have taken the woman away for help. He notices his bag is missing. He spots the thief absconding with it. Overtaking him, he discovers that—gasp!—it is his double!

Serling closes:

“Obscure and metaphysical explanation to cover a phenomenon. Reasons dredged out of the shadows to explain away that which cannot be explained. Call it 'parallel planes' or just 'insanity'. Whatever it is, you'll find it in the Twilight Zone.”

Rod Serling was a favorite son of Binghamton, born and raised there. You can run around and view, as we did on a recent visit, the homes in which he grew up—well, two of the three, anyway. It is a small city. Getting from anywhere to anywhere else is a snap. The Rod Serling Archive produces a map that lists other sites. There is the site of Serling’s Market Sanitary—it is a parking lot today. There is Serling’s Market—now a vacant lot, as is the former site of the Arlington Hotel, the inspiration for an episode of Night Gallery, a show he later hosted. The temple where his family once worshiped is now the Binghamton Housing Authority. His six Emmys and Peabody Award are housed at Ithaca College, about 45 minutes away. His own nondescript gravesite is at Interlaken Cemetery, another 45 minutes to the northwest.

Other episodes of the Twilight Zone were fashioned in his home town. The carousel and bandstand of Recreation Park serves as the setting for “Walking Distance.” This is the episode—not particularly scary, though it probably terrified me at the time—in which a man named Martin has his car break down—they often did back then—necessitating repairs in his hometown that he happens to be driving through. While waiting, he wanders into the park that he remembers so well, and finds that time there has stood still. Why—he spots himself as an eleven-year-old riding the carousel! He calls out to his younger self. His call distracts the boy, who tumbles off the horse and breaks his leg. Instantly, the adult Martin feels the pain. And so forth—on goes the storyline.

Closing narration:

“Martin Sloan, age thirty-six, vice-president in charge of media. Successful in most things but not in the one effort that all men try at some time in their lives—trying to go home again. And also like all men, perhaps there'll be an occasion, maybe a summer night sometime, when he'll look up from what he's doing and listen to the distant music of a calliope, and hear the voices and the laughter of the people and the places of his past. And perhaps across his mind there'll flit a little errant wish, that a man might not have to become old, never outgrow the parks and the merry-go-rounds of his youth. And he'll smile then too, because he'll know it isjust an errant wish, some wisp of memory not too important really, some laughing ghosts that cross a man's mind, that are a part of the Twilight Zone.”

We stopped at Recreation Park. The bandstand is still there at an intersection of sidewalks. It is dated, a bit ragged, and is perhaps no longer used for its intended purpose, but the nearby carousel was only closed up because fall had arrived—during summer it sees regular use. Sturdy trees tower over both structures, indeed over all of the park except for what looks like a more recent addition of athletic fields. The leaves were turning—yellow and oranges predominated—and only some had fallen. The small city itself is surrounded by hills—bursting with color during our visit. The day was sunny. The autumn air was crisp.

Then there was Fowler’s (now Boscov’s), a department store on the corner of Court and Water streets. In the old days, the Boscov’s salesman told me, a piano player entertained shoppers. This site was the inspiration for “The After Hours,” an episode featuring a woman named Marsha, who chances into the store and passes all the mannequins. For a transaction, someone asks her for ID, and hers only goes back a month! More strange things transpire. She tries to run away, but freezes into plastic as she does so. The show ends with her a mannequin on display—her turn to be a human has expired—and another store mannequin, one that she passed earlier, is now taking his turn walking about shopping as a human!

“Imagine standing forever still, unable to act, to speak, to touch a reassuring hand. If you were released from such a fate, even for a while, wouldn't you hope to forget that in reality, you're only on a short leave of absence…from the Twilight Zone?”

Boscov’s proved an interesting find in itself, if only because downtown department stores are a dying rarity in most cities. This one is growing—not dying at all—and it is one of a chain of 48. It began as a single dry goods store in Reading PA purchased by Solomon Boscov, a Russian immigrant who arrived in 1914 speaking only Yiddish. 26 Boscov stores are scattered throughout Pennsylvania—it’s first (1962) out-of-state store is this one here in Binghamton, just a few miles over the state line—with four floors, escalators at center, elevators on the side, adjacent to a four-story parking garage, so that you can exit on any level and walk straight to your car. Mirrors make the interior seem larger than it actually is.

Is Boscov’s the department store equivalent of Wegman’s, the family-owned supermarket chain from my home town, Rochester, which opened its 101st store in Brooklyn this week? I left my wife in the store while I walked around the downtown area to snap a few pictures for this post. When I returned, she was exactly where I would have imagined she would be—in the bargain nook on the 4th floor—the Auditorium, probably a preserved holdover from Fowler’s. “This place is like a mall in itself—it has everything!” she exclaimed. I left her there to stroll the floor, where the salesman mentioned previously tried to interest me in furniture. “I might buy a couch if you could deliver it to Rochester,” I responded.

We fell into conversation about my visit to Binghamton. He knew about the Twilight Zone episode at his store, but he hadn’t seen my Archive map of Rod Serling destinations. He didn’t endorse our previous visit to the Cracker Barrel for lunch because each year the chains take about 2% from the business of the struggling Mom and Pop diners that he favors—he had been one of the Pops himself and now he is selling furniture at Boscov’s. So I told him about Dave back in Rochester from my season or three of carrying newspapers.

Newspaper carriers arrive at a ridiculously early hour to pick up and bag their papers for morning delivery. They do this in one of several large warehouses, and I got used to preparing my stock across the table from old Dave, who was preparing his. I lamented the morning that Wegman’s Chase Pitkin home repair store chain went down. Wegman’s had declared that they wished to focus on their core grocery business. The real reason, I said, was that they were steamrollered by the out-of-town corporate Home Depot’s and Lowe’s, and wasn’t that too bad. But Dave didn’t have a bit of sympathy for them. What goes around, comes around, he said. He had once been the Pop of a Mom and Pop hardware store, and Chase Pitkin had sent him packing—now here he was, in his 70s, delivering the morning paper. Karma might be a bitch for Chase-Pitkin, but it but it didn’t bother him even the slightest.

87 Court Street is the former home of Resnick’s Woman’s Apparel, which inspired the Twilight Zone episode “Where is Everybody?”

“There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space, and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of man's fears, and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area that we call, The Twilight Zone.”

In this episode, a man in an Air Force uniform—he cannot recall why—enters a town, finds it completely deserted. As he wanders, he grows increasingly paranoid that he is being watched. His fears grow upon spotting the paperback on the spinning book rack—who set it spinning?— “The Last Man on Earth, Feb, 1959”—his time! Panic mounting, wildly running through the street, he hits a pedestrian call button and screams for help. The pedestrian call button turns out to be a panic button. Military personnel stop the experiment. He has actually been in an isolation booth, and they have been running tests to see if he can endure the long periods of isolation he will encounter on his upcoming space launch to the moon.

“The barrier of loneliness: The palpable, desperate need of the human animal to be with his fellow man. Up there, up there in the vastness of space, in the void that is sky, up there is an enemy known as isolation. It sits there in the stars waiting, waiting with the patience of eons, forever waiting… in The Twilight Zone.”

There is no Resnick’s Woman’s Apparel anymore. It disappeared long ago, as though it, too, had been part of the experiment. The street-front building now houses university students.

Housing students is a growth industry for Binghamton today. The students like to move off campus and into town—same as I did when I was in school. Binghamton University is growing, even though the Bundy Museum docent told me that only 10% of those who apply are admitted. Its prestige shot up recently when one of its professors was awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry—highly unusual for a college in the state SUNY school system—it is a prize that generally goes to the most prestigious universities. Professor M Stanley Whittingham had, years prior, conducted research that led to the development of the lithium-ion battery. “I think it’s no question this will make more people know of the university and make people look up, ‘Where is Binghamton,’” he said at a press conference.

“Professor M Stanley Whittingham, a brainy type, a man whose claim to recognition came and departed long ago. Some would call him a has-been, his deeds overlooked by time. A pedant who now teaches ordinary students at an ordinary college in an ordinary small town in upstate New York, the professor long ago resigned himself to a slow downward slide into obscurity. Impossible for such a forgotten man to receive the Nobel Prize, you say? Ordinarily yes. Unless that college happens to be located in the town that forever remains the birthplace of…the Twilight Zone.”

[Paragraphs in italics are the words of Mr. Serling, except for the last, which is mine.]

****** The bookstore

October 28, 2019
Well, I Guess I Taught the Big Cheater a Lesson This Time, Didn’t I?

HA! Right off the bat I opened up an 8 point lead! My brother is such a lousy Scrabble player!

Okay, okay, so it’s 80-8. I’m just getting started. (What a cheater!) Words like ‘stealing’ occur easily to my brother. I should have known! Now what am I to do with this mess of a tray? Hmm. ‘Witch?’

Not looking too good. Down ‘only’ 64 points—after 2 turns.

Lay down 3 vowels—draw 3 more. What a rotten game! I’ll trade in some letters. “You’ll never win that way!” my brother taunts, who probably stacked the bag. The X is good, but it must count at least 4 times.

Empty the tray to make ‘broadens.’ 62 points. But that only puts me within 6 of the big cheater—and he has yet to take his turn. He will take one triple—I will take the other. What nasty tricks does he have up his sleeve?

His turn. He is leading 179 – 173. Anyone following out there? May need help here. He was leading by almost 100, though.

Good. Will score 4X with the K to make ‘kale’ and ‘ad.’ 27 points. Puts me 5 ahead. But he still has his turn to take.

Tie score—221 each. My turn. Can I do anything with ‘porn’? The word, I mean, not the stuff. No, wait, I’ll do ‘prion’ ‘op’ and ‘or’ for a 28 point lead. I could win this game yet, after being down almost 100. J is out though, and Z—and I don’t have them. Better watch the skunk.

Um—I could use a few vowels here. All letters are out and I only have a 15 point lead. Wait! ‘Adz’ will probably do it for me. Good thing. I would have been in big trouble otherwise. When my brother tried to count remaining letters in the tray against me, I would have had to say, “We don’t play that way! But now all is well.

Down almost 100 points, I came back to kick his rear end, 361 to 311. “He can’t even let his brother win once in a while,” he grumbled as he walked away. And when a spare letter dropped from his sleeve, I didn’t even say anything!

Wrap up:

Drawing upon my mastery of the language I opened up an 8 point lead with my very first move, putting down ‘leg.’ But with all the deviousness of the Dark Lord, my brother laid down ‘stealing’ to Scrabble AND take the triple word, unfairly vaulting ahead 80 to 8! Trust my brother to come up with a word like ‘stealing’—I mean, it is his specialty. I should have known!

It only got worse! Lay down three vowels, and draw four—that kind of a game. I traded some letters in. “You’ll never win that way,” he smirked.

The smirk faded when I Scrabbled myself to make ‘broadens’ for 62 points, pulling to within 7. Still, I pulled ahead, but (gasp!)—with all letters out, a tray full of consonants and two ‘Y’s, and only a 15 point lead—look, I had tons of vowels before, I could use one about now. Wait! Building off an ‘A’ to make ‘adz’ puts the ‘Z’ on a triple letter score—probably enough to carry the day. It did. After being down nearly 100, I beat the skunk 361 to 311. He looked grim as he left the board.

October 16, 2019
WBBF in Rochester Bans “They’re Coming to Take Me Away—Ha Haaa!”

The stressor that triggered a mental breakdown in “They’re coming to take me away, ha haa” was a runaway dog, not a girlfriend! The artist included the line, “They'll find you yet and when they do, they'll put you in the ASPCA, you mangy mutt" to defuse the charge that he was making fun of mentally ill persons. “And it worked!” said Jerry Samuels, the songwriter.

It didn’t work for Rochester’s WBBF, the station for kids throughout my childhood. I well remember the 1966 novelty song. It instantly soared to the top of the station’s playlist—and then it disappeared. A most unusual public service announcement (as though from God, from the perspective of a child) then stated that the song had been pulled because it made fun of the mentally ill.

Apparently, WBBF’s action was as unusual as their PSA. Wikipedia (accessed 10/15/2019) makes no mention of the song’s being unwelcome anywhere. And yet it clearly did make fun of the mentally ill—WBBF was right. “And I’ll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats, and they’re coming to take me awaayyy ha haaa! — to the ‘funny farm,’ where life is beautiful all the time”—you don’t think that’s making fun of the mentally ill? What difference does it make whether the trigger is a runaway girlfriend or a runaway dog?

In fact, I remember that line about the “mangy mutt” and I took it for just bitter words directed at the girlfriend—I’m not sure that I knew what the ASPCA was back then. Had the lyrics been, “Lollypop Farm,” it would have been a different story for anyone in Monroe County, even if meaningless for those anywhere else.

This makes me reflect on the AM radio of my youth, WBBF. Only that station, and the more avant-grade and unpredictable WSAY played the songs popular with my g-g-generation. All the rest played Perry Como. There was no FM radio at the time.

Was WBBF unusually responsible back then—a pillar among young-people stations? I am inclined to assign it that grade retroactively. I certainly know that it could be hilarious. Jack Palvino was the morning host, and he intertwined jokes that still hold up, decades later. I still remember them, and smile whenever I do.

“Friends, do you have bills to pay?” one seeming commercial began. “Well, please give it back. Bill’s head is getting cold.”

Jack ran a lot of spots like that. It must have been some subscription service for jokes—unless he just made them up, which is possible. Even the more raucous ones like the teary, “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it!” and a sympathetic Jack would say, “You poor man! You can tell me—what is it you can’t stand?” to which the answer would be, “YOUR FACE!” still prompts a grin, juvenile though it is.

And don’t get me going about Chickenman, a spoof on Superman! Chickenman offered his services to the city as crimefighter, and they would have just as soon that he dropped dead. A horrible klutz with a secret identity like Superman—he woke the police commissioner’s secretary, Miss Helpinger, out of a sound sleep, disguising his voice (which she instantly saw through) to report that he had been kidnapped. Somehow he managed to set his wings on fire with his utility laser light and as the approaching fire truck sirens could be heard in the background, the exasperated secretary advised him to flap his wings, for this would serve to put out the fire—or perhaps it would serve to spread it, which may have been her real aim.

As young teens, Jack Palvino inspired us to try our hand doing the same. My best chum, a few houses down, was a hobbyist with electronics. He built a radio station. We named it WNOR. It’s antenna stretched from his bedroom window to a weeping-willow tree 100 yards away. WNOR station had a radius of about a mile—we walked around the block to check—and we would spend much time after school spinning our limited number of records during on-air sessions. The “Evil One” in our mind, at the time, was the FCC, which supposedly raided and shut down stations such as ours—this reputedly was the fate of one such pirate station (I loved the term—pirates!) several miles to the south of us.

We copied Jack Palvino’s techniques, inventing the series of short snippets, “Golf tips—-(cue a golf swing by the mike)—with Jack Bogey”—Jack Nicklaus was all the rage back then. A listener would ask Jack if he preferred his woods, and Jack would say that he did not because he lost too many balls there. We were kids, you must remember.

The creative phase even carried through when I later attended Potsdam State and volunteered for the student radio station—I forget what the call letters there were. Another chum and I took the morning slot—just like Jack had done in my childhood. A few minutes after the sports report, read off the AP wire, we wrote alternating “special” sports reports, with mine running down his team (Syracuse) and his running down mine.

Jack Palvino made his life career in radio, though he was only behind the microphone during my youth. From time to time, his name would pop up in local news, as would that of Nick Nickson, another WBBF mainstay. I wonder where they are today—and even if they are yet alive. I will look it up after finishing this post.

And—coming back to the topic of mental illness—if you had a mental breakdown in Rochester, they would take you to the R-wing of Strong Hospital. Throughout my adult life this has been so. It still is. It has never occurred to me to ask, “Where does the R come from?” Nevertheless, I discovered the answer to the question I had never asked during a recent visit to the Jello Museum in nearly Leroy, NY. Heir to the Jello fortune, Helen Rivas gave $2.1 million to the hospital for the purpose of a facility to treat those suffering mental illness, and the R stands for Rivas.

October 15, 2019