Subject: [removed] Digest V2004 #168
From: <[removed]@[removed]>
Date: 5/17/2004 8:50 AM

To: <[removed]@[removed];

    ------------------------------

                                The Old-Time Radio Digest!
                                  Volume 2004 : Issue 168
                             A Part of the [removed]!
                                 [removed]
                                     ISSN: 1533-9289

                                     Today's Topics:

      5-17 births/deaths                    [ Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed]; ]
      Re: A&A Candy Bar                     [ Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed] ]
      Tarzan and Charlie Chan               [ Pete <pappleyard_ca@[removed]; ]
      Strangely appropriate                 [ JackBenny@[removed] ]
      Gas masks                             [ Richard Carpenter <newsduck@[removed] ]
      Bela Lagosi                           [ Thomas Biddy <t_biddy@[removed]; ]
      WWII                                  [ "awfulE" <emba@[removed]; ]
      WW2 Blackouts                         [ Lee Munsick <leemunsick@[removed] ]
      Ed's tone arm weight problem          [ danhughes@[removed] ]
      Home Front Memories                   [ Ken Dahl <kdahl@[removed]; ]

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 20:07:36 -0400
    From: Ron Sayles <bogusotr@[removed];
    To: Olde Tyme Radio List <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  5-17 births/deaths

    May 17th births

    05-17-1890 - Philip James - Jersey City, NJ - d. 11-1-1975
    conductor, composer: "Bamberger Little Symphony"; "Wellsprings of Music"
    05-17-1903 - Artie Auerbach - NYC - d. 10-3-1957
    actor: Mr. Kitzel "Jack Benny Program"
    05-17-1906 - Carl McIntire - Ypsilanti, MI - d. 03-19-2002
    evangelist: "Twentieth Century Reformation Hour"
    05-17-1907 - Horace McMahon - South Norwalk, CT - d. 8-17-1971
    actor: "Crime Does Not Pay"
    05-17-1911 - Maureen O'Sullivan - Boyle, Ireland - d. 6-23-1998
    actress: "Dreft Star Playhouse"; "Family Theatre"
    05-17-1920 - Harriet Van Horne - Syracuse, NY - d. 1-15-1998
    newspaper columnist: "Advs. of Ellery Queen"

    May 17th deaths

    01-08-1903 - Roger Bower - NYC - d. 5-17-1979
    announcer, emcee: "Can You Top This?"; "Stop Me If You Heard This One"
    01-15-1922 - Thelma Carpenter - Brooklyn, NY - d. 5-17-1997
    singer: "Eddie Cantor Show"
    03-11-1903 - Lawrence Welk - Strasburg, ND - d. 5-17-1992
    bandleader: "Lawrence Welk Orchestra"
    03-15-1877 - Montague Love - Portsmouth, England - d. 5-17-1943
    actor: "Screen Guild Theatre"; "Suspense"
    12-18-1910 - Abe Burrows - Brooklyn, NY - d. 5-17-1985
    writer: "Abe Burrows Show"; "Danny Kaye Show"; "Duffy's Tavern"
    --
    Ron Sayles
    For a complete list:
    [removed]

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 20:09:37 -0400
    From: Elizabeth McLeod <lizmcl@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  Re: A&A Candy Bar

    On 5/16/04 6:18 PM [removed]@[removed] wrote:

>         Was there ever any goofy ruckus like this, that went on about the A & A
>     candy bar?

    Nope -- in fact, for several years running, the A&A candy bar was the
    official confectionery treat of the Bud Billiken Picnic in Chicago, a
    huge summer event put on for the African-American children of the city by
    the Chicago Defender, with Correll and Gosden themselves picking up the
    tab for the thousands of bars consumed at the event each year.

    And yes, the chocolate-coated-vanilla-wafer thing appears to have been
    intentional. Contrary to what some might think, tongue-in-cheek irony was
    not invented by New York hipsters in 1975.

    Elizabeth

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 20:10:00 -0400
    From: Pete <pappleyard_ca@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Tarzan and Charlie Chan

    I would like to get in touch with anyone that is a
    interested in either Tarzan or Charlie Chan.
    Please contact me at pappleyard_ca@[removed]
    I look forward to hearing from you
    Pete

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 20:10:36 -0400
    From: JackBenny@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Strangely appropriate

    Elizabeth writes:

>     Williamson's"Amos 'n' Andy" brand chocolate-coated vanilla wafer bar was

    sold from

>     1930 to 1937.

    I have to admit that I really like the irony in that item selection,
    considering the actor's racial backgrounds.  No, it's not politically
    correct, but
    it's strangely appropriate.

    There's a line in "Pulp Fiction" when Uma Thurman is ordering a $5 Milkshake
    and the waiter asks "Martin and Lewis or Amos 'n Andy?"  My husband, with whom
    I just celebrated our 10th anniversary and who knew very little about Jack
    Benny before our first meeting, later elaborated on the line, asking "Jack
    Benny
    or Rochester Van Jones?".

    --LL

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 20:10:49 -0400
    From: Richard Carpenter <newsduck@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Gas masks

      All the Digest chatter about Eastern War Time and
    blackouts has rekindled a postwar memory. Shortly
    after World War II,  the kids in my neighborhood,
    myself included, would play games with genuine
    military gas masks. They must have been discarded by
    the military  or sold cheaply. I doubt that youngsters
    would be allowed to play with such devices today.

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 20:34:22 -0400
    From: Thomas Biddy <t_biddy@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Bela Lagosi
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: from multipart/alternative
    X-Converted-To-Plain-Text: Alternative section used was text/plain

    Did Bela appear in any OTR programs? I've heard some of Boris Karloff but
    never one with Bela?

    Have a GREAT day,
    Thomas

    <><  <><  <>< <><  <><  <><  <><  <><

      *** This message was altered by the server, and may not appear ***
      ***                  as the sender intended.                   ***

    ------------------------------

    Date: Sun, 16 May 2004 20:48:59 -0400
    From: "awfulE" <emba@[removed];
    To: <[removed]@[removed];
    Subject:  WWII

    It sounds like we all remember as much about the home front during WWII.
    I was eleven, it was Sunday morning 7 Dec  in Oakland CA.  My mother and
    step-father were washing  his new 1941 Chevy Super Deluxe.
    The radio was playing old time radio when a news broadcast broke in with the
    news of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  comment: Where's Pearl Harbor?
    In the next few days we had our first black out.  I guess it took awhile to
    find the light switch. I remember we drove to the Albany Hills to watch the
    lights go out. Well some of them. From our perch, we could see the lights go
    out in San Francisco too.  From Oakland we used to call it Frisco, but I
    guess that's out too?
    It seems it was a couple of weeks until we had an organized dim-out
    throughout the Bay area.  "Dim-out = decorative lighting and all non
    assentials out? "
    I remember a Japanese (we didn't call them that then, but today it's prison
    if you quote any words from history or something like that?) Submarine
    shelled Santa Barbara.  If any of you saw the movie "1941," that was pretty
    close to the organization, I think.  I don't know if the bomb was released
    from the B-17 as shown in the movie.  Oh well, who reads history anymore
    except OTR fans.  I've always wondered what happened to the Pike in Long
    Beach.  I'm sure they combined some of the action to save film.
    Oh, don't forget the ration books, the red and blue tokens. The A, B, C, T
    and what were the other gas ration stickers. Bring all the grease from the
    Kitchen to the Butcher Shop.  "Butcher Shop, that's a name long forgotten."
    First thing that pops to mind is all the old timers speaking of the BIG war.
    But WWII is probably the only time in the history since the revolutionary
    war that America has pulled together for a common goal (?)  "Could you
    imagine Gas Rationing to day or every one working in car factories building
    tanks and airplanes."  Ah those were the days, it's hard to believe we could
    build aeroplanes with out parts mad in China and they could and land and
    take off with out using paved run ways.
    I'm getting old, my memories are just fantasies?
    I think we were all pretty prowd of what we did.  It was great being
    patriotic. THEN, we all were.
    Best of all, "I never missed an Ep of Jack Armstrong the all American Boy,
    or Captain Midnight or One Mans Family.
    Keep yer powder dry me harties.

    awful E

    ------------------------------

    Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 00:40:48 -0400
    From: Lee Munsick <leemunsick@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  WW2 Blackouts

    During the early part of America's share of WWII, my family lived in West
    Hartford, Connecticut.  Hartford was and is the state capital, and for other
    reasons was considered a prime potential target.  There were many vital
    aviation-related operations in the area, as there are now.   A number of
    insurance companies were headquartered there, as today.  It's a given that if
    a wartime power can destroy its enemy's insurance records, that's a huge blow
    to the enemy economy, future business operations, etc.

    A short distance from our house was a country club.  Around the perimeter of
    the golf course were anti-aircraft (nicknamed ack-ack) gun emplacements.  My
    father was the Air Raid Warden for our block.  I have no idea why he did, but
    at least one time I walked with him down the street during a blackout.  I was
    probably no more than 6 years old.  He had on his helmet (what the Brits
    called "tin hats"), and CD (Civil Defense) armband, and carried his official
    whistle.

    There was an old codger on our street whom I think was hard of hearing, and
    apparently thought the whole war thing was a giant nuisance, to which he
    refused to pay attention.  Dad constantly complained that this guy refused to
    "black up" his house, leaving windows where light could come through.  This
    meant a threat from the air, from bombardiers who could home in on lights
    below.  Dad blew his whistle and yelled and banged on the guy's door until
    the old coot finally closed his curtains.  Homes and offices were equipped
    with blackening window shades and curtains, which blotted out the glass
    window panes, criss-crossed with adhesive-tape X's, put there to prevent
    shattered glass from flying into offices and homes in case of bomb blasts and
    explosions.  The blackouts started along the north Atlantic coastline, when
    it was realized that German U-boats could see the dark outlines of American
    Naval and Merchant Marine ships alone or in protective convoys, silhouetted
    against the lights of the cities behind them, making them easy targets for
    torpedo attacks.

    As to how to drive during a blackout, the top half of auto headlights were
    painted black, and taillights were partially blacked out, too.  All kinds of
    things were rationed:  food, sugar, butter, coffee, etc.  Gasoline was
    rationed too.  Contrary to some folks' idea, the commonly-seen "A" sticker on
    auto windshields was NOT the one which got the driver the most [removed] got
    the least.  The one for defense workers, physicians and emergency personnel
    was the "C".  Those people sort of in between got a "B" decal.  This was not
    so much because there was a lack of gasoline, it was revealed later, but a
    shortage of rubber, and therefore tires.  Rubber to a large extent came from
    southeastern Asia, controlled by the Japanese.

    There were all kinds of suggestions as to how to get the most out of
    automobile tires.  There was even talk at one point of having new cars
    available to buyers not delivered equipped with tires, but the auto industry
    got so busy building tanks and boat and auto engines and aircraft, that
    passenger cars eventually went by the board.  Many of the prewar auto brands
    never made it back after the end of hostilities.   Carpooling was a going
    thing, especially with so many Hartford area workers involved in the huge war
    effort, building aviation parts and aircraft.  People saved up chores and
    shopping to do everything in one trip, instead of several.  For several years
    it was like it was later when it came back in the 1970s and gas prices shot
    up, and folk sat in their cars in lines to get gasoline.   With gasoline now
    running over $[removed] a gallon, we may see it again!   After the war, when autos
    finally began to be produced again, buyers had to get on a list at fewer
    dealers, and they grabbed the first and whatever model auto came along, often
    at prices above suggested retail cost.

    Aluminum was in short supply, desperately needed for the many thousands of
    aircraft in the war effort.  A call went out for America's housewives to turn
    in aluminum items such as pots and pans.  They were in somewhat short supply
    anyway, as aluminum cookware was a relatively new thing, and was much more
    expensive than steel pots.

    We didn't have any aluminum items to turn in, as the old steel and iron pots
    and skillets were considered just fine by my mom, and most frugal mothers.
    The center of Hartford is a typical New England town square, a green park of
    grass, trees, benches, and walkways.  A collection pen was set up in the
    park, a dedicated area closed in with wooden snow fencing, into which the
    public was asked to toss in aluminum items.  My mother (and probably many
    others) went to a local hardware store, which mysteriously did have aluminum
    cookware on hand, and she bought a new pot or two, which she took down to the
    "holding pen" and tossed them onto the pile of aluminum accumulating there,
    which was gathered up, and trucked off for the war effort.

    We had non-copper, gray pennies for the 1943 minting.  We saved all kinds of
    things:  balls of string, which we got as most parcels were tied with cord
    (they needed the string for parachutes and other things).  The tinfoil in
    which cigarettes were enclosed, and the cellophane outer wrappings themselves
    (we also found the cigarette package red opening strips worked well for
    fishing bait).  Everyone saved Paper.  Cardboard.  Rubber.  A great deal of
    food came in "tin cans" which actually weren't tin, they were steel.  I had
    the job of removing both the tops and bottoms of cans, putting the can on the
    floor, and squashing them with my foot.  I put the two ends back inside each
    can, and carefully nested them in a box, to take to the recycling place.
    Cans no longer came with brightly colored wrapping labels.  They had plain
    black ink printed names, generally with no photographs or [removed]
    colored ink from prewar days was saved for other uses.  "Lucky Strike green
    has gone to war" was not just an advertising slogan.  Nor did it mean that
    only the Lucky Strikes sent to service personnel overseas were green, as some
    people apparently think.  Prior to the war, that brand came in thin metal
    cans, sort of a dark green color.  The metal powder used in producing that
    color ink (I think it was chromium, perhaps copper) was necessary for all the
    GI green equipment, I guess, so Lucky Strike cigs came with new white
    packages with just red and black circles to brighten them up.  The GI green
    cigarette packages were gone forever.  Chrome, by the way, was conspicuous by
    its absence during the war.  All new trucks and vehicles had plain steel
    bumpers painted black, and none of the fancy trademarks gleaming with their
    chromium plating.

    Toward the end of the war, our family moved to New Jersey, and planted
    Victory Gardens.  We had taken with us boxes filled with those "generic"
    labeled tin cans.  There was no question about frozen foods maybe
    [removed] were no frozen foods yet.  Somehow the boxes of canned goods
    got wet in the process.  When we unpacked the cartons, we discovered boxes
    full of plain cans, with all the labels fallen off.  Until they were gone, it
    was always a surprise opening a can, not knowing whether it contained peas,
    onions or carrots, or various kinds of fruit for dessert.

    There were many other ways in which Americans went to war at home, and became
    part of the war effort.  Everyone saved lots of things, and turned them in.
    People bought war bonds through banks, and at motion picture theaters after
    special film shorts ran, urging them to do so.  Hollywood stars did short
    skits and then turned to the cameras and asked theatergoers to buy war stamps
    and bonds from the ushers who worked their way through the auditorium, or
    sold bonds in the lobbies.

    Virtually everyone knew people who were in the service.  A lot of homes had
    little flags in their front windows with one or more stars on them,
    indicating family members in the military.  Many of them had gold stars on
    those banners.  These were in memory and honor of American servicemen who had
    given their all in the war, and would not be coming home.  Those who did come
    back are now very old, and going to their final "taps" at the rate of 1100 a
    day.  It has taken until just this month for a World War II Memorial to be
    built in Washington.  It will be dedicated the end of this month, on the
    Memorial Day weekend.  It's about time.

    So if you hear wartime radio programs which seem to you to be blatant
    propaganda, and tire of references to the war, understand that for that
    effort, everyone pitched in and knew that we all had to do our part to defeat
    the vicious, ruthless, anti-humane Axis powers.  It was a close call, closer
    than many think.  The Germans were working at breakneck speed to develop an
    atomic bomb, and preparing to pour jet planes into the conflagration.  The
    warlords of Japan were fully prepared to keep their war going, while both
    they and the Germans used genocide (now we call it "ethnic cleansing") and
    slave labor in their unholy efforts.  Millions of innocent people died, many
    of them horribly.

    Prior to Pearl Harbor, America was widely split on whether we should ever get
    into "Europe's war", the second time in only a score of years.   But from the
    evening of that infamous December 7th, there were virtually no anti-war
    Americans.  There were just Americans, all of us in some way doing our best
    to support the cause of civilization and human decency the world over.  It
    really was America's Greatest Generation".  God bless 'em.

    Lee Munsick

    ------------------------------

    Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 00:41:08 -0400
    From: danhughes@[removed]
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Ed's tone arm weight problem

    Ed, I'm not quite sure what you're doing, but if you want a turntable
    tone arm to supply exactly 5 grams of weight to a stylus, here's how to
    do it without a set of scales:

    1.  Set the tone arm weight to exactly 0 by adjusting whatever control
    sets the weight.

    2.  Put a nickel on the tone arm directly above the stylus (needle).

    That's all there is to it.  A nickel actually weighs [removed] grams, so
    you're shy by less that a thousandth of a gram.

    ---Dan

    ------------------------------

    Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 02:10:56 -0400
    From: Ken Dahl <kdahl@[removed];
    To: [removed]@[removed]
    Subject:  Home Front Memories

    In recent days there have been postings about blackouts and Eastern War Time
    during WWII.  As a young boy during the war, I do remember Air Raid Wardens.
    A very close friend of our family was an Air Raid Warden and he would prowl
    the neighborhood at night looking for light showing from behind your blackout
    blinds.  He almost always knocked on our door, not because we were in
    violation, but it was his excuse to come inside for a cup of coffee with
    cream.  He was Swedish.  As for Eastern War Time, I have no memory of it.

    I may be straying "off course" as a posting to OTR, but I have some memories
    of the war that may be of interest to a generation that was not around at
    that time:

    Weather Reports:  Neither the newspapers or radio stations could advise you
    of the weather forecast for the current day.  There was fear that it would
    aid the Japanese if they attempted an air attack.

    POW'S:  As our bus stopped outside Fort Lawton in Seattle, about 30 or 40
    German prisoners stopped working in a Victory Garden and stared into the bus
    looking at all of us.  I remember it got very quiet inside the bus.  So this
    was the face of the enemy.  Fort Lawton had about 500 prisoners but
    nationwide there were about 350,000 prisoners being held.  On a warm summer
    night I can recall hearing taps being played at the fort.

    Rationing:  I still have have my ration book.  My mom spent alot of time to
    figure out what to purchase based on the amount of "points" (stamps) we had
    as a family.  My dad was a halibut fisherman by trade so we always were a
    little better off than other families when it came to an additional food
    source.  He was always giving fish to neighbors and friends.

    Scrap and Paper Drives:  We kids were always busy collecting paper and scrap
    to be used in the war.  We really felt like we were helping our country.

    War Wounded:  There were a few times when traffic was stopped as to allow
    Army ambulances and buses to proceed to Fort Lawton where the wounded would
    receive care.  It was always a somber sight.  These fellows had just arrived
    from the war in the Pacific.

    Japanese Internment:  In downtown Seattle there is the very famous Pike Place
    Market.  Prior to the war, many of the stalls were operated by Japanese
    Americans.  In 1942 the round up of these people started and they were
    delivered to internment camps.  That meant they were no longer at the market.
    I did not really understand why they were gone and to this day I still do not
    understand.  I missed them.

    Balloon Bombs:  When the news broke in May 1945 that 6 people had been killed
    by a Japanese balloon bomb in Bly, Oregon we kids looked at the war in a new
    way.  Each day thereafter any kind of object that we saw high in the sky was
    no longer a bird or a plane but a balloon bomb.  The government had kept
    secret that these bombs had been landing in North America since October 1944.
    The Japanese had launched about 8,000 of these bombs and our government can
    account for about 350 "hits" in North America.  Many of these bombs started
    forest fires.  Some bombs landed as far south as Texas and as far east as
    Michigan.  Many believe that some are still  undiscovered in the forest lands
    of North America.

    Bob Hope:  Finally, I remember seeing Bob Hope at Husky Stadium in August
    1943.  It was a big war bond rally and during the evening the Army put on a
    fire power demonstration.  Talk about shock and awe.  At the end of the
    evening Bob and his sidekick Jerry Cologna came out to the field riding in
    the turret of a tank.  Bob started doing his "thing" and then became more
    serious when talking about the need to purchase war bonds.  It was a great
    evening.

    Those are some memories I have as a kid during that critical time in history.
    During recent years the phrase "the greatest generation" has been used to
    describe those who served in our military at that time.  I could not agree
    more.

    Regards,
    Ken Dahl

    --------------------------------
    End of [removed] Digest V2004 Issue #168
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