Bagan Stories
ThinkPint2.com home
|
Loughary Lines |
|
|
|||
|
Loughary
Genealogy Gent Genealogy Keenan Genealogy Tierney Genealogy
|
Growing Up On Jefferson Street, set 11 “The Loughary Family In Search Of The Elusive Razor Clam” and “Radio Daze”
Dear Jack, I am enjoying the process of stirring each other's memory with this letter format. Not only does it stir some long forgotten episodes of our lives, it also is becoming such a wonderful way to come to understand each other. Certainly all of these events that occurred in our young years were such dynamic influences of how we came to understand the world. Thanks for pushing me toward this very important and valuable task. The shock of adding a 7 to my decade age list has been greatly lessened. I do wonder just why it took us so long to be ready to attempt this journey. I want to move to the topic of vacations and leisure, areas of activity that I have mostly good memories about. You weren't on the Calm Chase (taking your place was Mrs. Robinson, not a welcome substitute for me.) Here is a story of one adventure. Summer vacations when I was a kid were not long movie-entertaining flights on comfortable jetliners, nor were they two weeks in a high rent condo. There were no agendas of making sure the children were entertained and the idea of dining in over-priced tourist-friendly restaurants was never even brought into consideration, Yet my mind is filled with fond memories of beach vacations, sand castles and fun. My mother's usual vacation garb was a cotton house dress with an overlaid bib-apron to keep the dress free of staining. Beach trips also required an appropriate head covering. Most often she donned a three cornered bandana, tied like a diaper with a bow on the top of her head. The other option was a cloche style turban that became popular during WWII.
Our trips to the ocean were always, in my mind at any rate, precipitated by a flat tire. The coast route from Eugene wound its way on a curvey path across the Coast Range. About and hour into the trip, just as we had begun the ascent to the top. a loud bang would alert us to the arrival of the expected flat tire. The occurrence of WWII in 1941, when I was seven, called for the rationing and cutback of many commodities, rubber being one of them. Inner tubes were the style of the time. Because these rubber inserts in tires were pumped full of air, it didn't take much to pierce the tire's outer skin. A shard of broken glass or a sharp edged stone seemed always to be waiting for the arrival of our little car. Dad, however, came prepared. The car's trunk held the iron jack, a contraption that was able to lift the offending tire off the road when metal handle was attache and pumped. There was also a small metal box that held a good supply of patches to cover the puncture hole, and a container of glue to adhere the patch to the inner tube. And, finally, the trunk held the life saving air pump that was used to pump air back into the guilt tire. While Mom, Jack and I sat along the road side, Dad, with semi-professional eases, performed the operations. Sometimes Jack or I would get to give a couple of pushes to the pump as we watched the tire return to its fat donut shape. Although there were times when we had multiple flats on the sixty mile trip, more often we made it over the mountain with only one blow-out. As soon as the car began the descent down the western side of the mountain, we all tried to become the first one to spy the blue Pacific. That was the signal for Jack and me to pack up the toys that had been keeping us busy and prepare to shift our minds into the Beach mode. Our accommodations were usually in tiny beach cabins that contained a bedroom or two, a kitchen-sitting room with a wood burning range and wooden cupboards that often held the droppings of mice families that may have spent the winter months inside. Those forays away from home were not planned with only the kid's pleasure in mind. I do recall visiting an aquarium of two and a couple of trips to Seaside where a season long carnival lured us with Bumper Cars, a Ferris Wheel and my favorite Merry-go-round. Generally, however, we found ourselves with long beaches to explore, collecting agates and driftwood and shells which would occupy us for days. Two memorable trips I remember were to the Long Beach, Washington peninsula. The major purpose of those trips was to search out and capture the elusive razor clam. Razor clams are oblong member of the clam clan that live a few feet beneath the sand. When minus tides take place, the clamming is said to be good. Any time the news arrived in Eugene that a good clamming tide was expected, Dad would get the urge to gather clam shovels and buckets and head North. Clamming often began in the early hours of the morning. The process began with each of us being handed a shovel or bucket to carry and then a short trek to the beach. We were never very adept at wading into the shallow waves as the expert diggers could do. Rather, we searched for our treasure in the wet sand. We formed a line and foot-stomped our way in ever increasing circles until we came upon a small round hole in the sand that indicated a clam was lurking just below the surface. Standing with one;s back to the sea, furious digging commenced. If one was lucky, and fast enough, one shovel of sand would pop the clam out of hiding. Too often, a cracking sound would announce that the digger had missed and pieces of clam would be gather from the sand. Clam digging was always accompanied with colorful language from Dad as he worked his way down the beach attempting to be faster than the sea-bound clam.My job was to search for holes and, using a driftwood stick, draw a circle around them for the next available clam digger to find. I also followed the digger from hoe to hole, rinsing the outer sand from the quarry's shell and dropping it into the waiting bucket. As the tide began to come in and cover any visible holes, we made the return trip to the cabin to begin phase two of the project. First those clams had to be cleaned and shelled. The necks were chopped and ground to be made into fritters or chowder. The tender parts were often pounded flat, dipped into beaten eggs and cracker crumbs and crispy fried for wonderful meals of delicious fresh clams. The scents and tastes of those visits still fill my memory with fond thoughts. I think about all the toil that my parents experienced during those vacations. Remembering that the cooking was all done on a hot wood stove, not a jolly place to be on a summer day, and even, at times, using a system where the water had to be hand pumped and heated. It is hard for me to understand the patience of both of my parents. The years of The Great Depression must have impressed upon them the value of finding joy every day and making the best of adverse conditions. The exposure to the uniqueness of the Oregon coast has stayed with me for seventy years. The wind, the sand, the pure expanse of it all have served to refresh my spirit even during the darkest days of my life. Love, your clammy kid sister, Marilyn <><><><><><><><><><>
Dear Marilyn, I did enjoy your Over the Mountain and Into the Clam Beds story. I recall participating in a clammy adventure or two on the beach near Florence, but I think I managed to miss the trip you describe. I had little success or interest in clamming and was glad to have an excuse, summer job probably, to avoid the activity. My contribution to this Growing Up posting focuses on indoor leisure at 1832 Jefferson street. I have good memories of these make believe adventures and hope they bring back visions of cold and wet winter evenings spent in our warm living room with our family listening to the Electric Radio.
Radio Daze This is a piece about another kind of leisure activity that was an important part of our family life, namely, listening to the Electric Radio. The first radio I can recall was a table model, probably a Monkey Ward special and occupied a special placement beside Dad’s chair in the living room. Later on, they purchased a floor model with larger speakers and we were in radio heaven, except we had only one radio in the house. Imagine the deprivation! There are many ways to classify radio programs of the 1930's and 1940's, such as comedy, mystery, family, adventure and soaps. A more personal classification is according to time and day when they were broadcast. Ma Perkins was the story of “ America ’s mother of the air,” a benevolent, self-sufficient widow who owned and managed a lumber yard in the fictitious town of Rushville Center. The show premiered in August 1933 ran for 7065 editions. As played by Virginia Payne, Ma Perkins was kind and sometimes trusting to a fault. She offered homespun philosophy to any and all who needed it, including her children Evey and Fay, Evey’s husband Willy and Ma’s business partner, the down-to-earth Shuffle Shober. Payne played in every production. http://www.radiohof.org/adventuredrama/virginiapayne.html Vic and Sade , “who lived half way up the next block,” the announcer reminded us each day, is described on Rick’s OTR Vic and Sade web page as: This classic work of American humor was first broadcast on June 29, 1932, and by December, 1943 had a listening audience estimated to number over 7 million by Time magazine. No one knows for certain exactly how many scripts were written, but they had to number in excess of three thousand, and every single script was written by one man; Paul Rhymer. Mr. Rhymer used sophisticated humor to chronicle life for the working middle-class white family in the 30's and 40's in a style that can legitimately be compared with Mark Twain. Long before Bob Newhart, Shelly Berman, et al, Paul Rhymer demonstrated the art of humor through one-sided telephone conversations with characters we never hear, yet feel as we know.Another reviewer says this about the show: Vic and Sade were a married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Victor Gook, who lived a quiet life in a mid-western town. Sounds like Fibber McGee and Molly? No. Vic and Sade were much quieter. For the entire run of this wonderful show, Art Van Harvey played Vic, and Bernadine Flynn was Sade. One man was creator and writer, Paul Rhymer. He was likened to Norman Rockewell in the way he created a magically simple, perfect and heartwarming image of a typical American day-to-day life. The oddest normal things seem to happen all the time. And the names of everybody are like W.C. Fields not to mention what everybody says. The talk is golden. http://www.otrcat.com/vicsade.html Adventure series usually ran Monday through Friday around 5:00 p.m. and generally conflicted with dinner time at our house. One program would begin at 5:00 p.m. which worked for my sister and me, and the next at 5:15 p.m. which didn’t because at about 5:22 just when things were becoming exciting, Mom would announce “Time to eat”, and there was no arguing with that, although we would linger as long as we thought we could get away with it. Captain Midnight and Radio Orphan Annie were two favorites. The Captain was a handsome pilot who was continually pulling some one’s bacon out of the fire. Annie was probably one of the most creative adventure shows with interesting characters such as Daddy Warbucks, and has served as the concept and characters for many musical productions Annie and Captain Midnight both used the Secret Decoder badge as a means of maintaining listener loyalty. By mailing in a part of a label from a sponsoring product (Ovaltine) you could receive a decoder badge. Then 2 or 3 times a week a secret message about a forthcoming program would be given in code during a program. Only with the Secret Decoder badge could you decode the messages. See http://www.otr.com/ciphers.html for a description. I recall our jar of Ovaltine sat on the shelf for years, nearly full. Horrible tasting stuff. Some adventure and mystery shows used a 30 minute weekly broadcast format on Sunday afternoon or after 7:00 p.m. on a week night. Favorites were The Green Hornet, The Shadow and I Love a Mystery, although I must admit I didn’t enjoy I Love a Mystery as much as I was supposed to. I also liked the Manhattan Merry-go-round, a pop music sort Sunday afternoon show. Probably my first attraction to music. Comedies used the 30 minute weekly format. Amos and Andy and Lum and Abner were regulars at our house. I always thought Lum and Abner featuring misfortunes of a couple of country bumpkins was seriously underrated. Fibber McGee and Molly was predictable but cute. Edgar Bergan with Charlie McCarthy were fun, especially on radio. Bergan being the ventriloquist and McCarthy and his country cousin Mortimer Snerd being the wooden dummies, all seem equally real on the radio without the images that were part of the TV series. Dad and Mom especially enjoyed Red Skelton, but I thought he was a bit corny.Finally, we can’t leave Radio Daze with out a word about One Man’s Family. This was a family story about retired San Francisco stock broker Henry Barbour, his wife Fanny and their adult children Paul, Hazel, Clifford, Claudia and Jack and their many offspring. Created and written by Carlton E. Morse one of the all time great radio producers, the show was a really a classic in its own time. Morse was inspired for the show by John Galsworthy’s The Forsyth Saga. Many listeners believed the Barbours were real and wrote the show offering advice and sympathy when tragedy struck, even named children after the characters in the show. When I was in college an “in thing” was to poke fun at the show. But you can judge for yourself by going to the link http://www.geocities.com/californiajamesh/OMF/ that includes an audio clip introducing several of the characters. 3256 chapters of OMF were produced during its 27 year run. And finally, for media buffs, here are the 1940 top ten radio shows. 1. Breakfast Club (Broadcast from Chicago from 1933-l968). Corn for breakfast and marching around the breakfast table with host Don McNiel. 2. One Man’s Family. See link above. 3. Kraft Music Hall. Hosted by Bing Crosby from 1935-46 included the stars of the period. 4. The Jack BennyComedy Show. Sponsored by Jello, featuring Rochester and the Benny gang. 5. Chase and Sandborn Radio Hour. Comedy staring Edgar Bergan and Charlie McCarthy and featuring Don Amache and Dorothy Lamour. 6. Metropolitan Opera. The Met from New York City. 7. Information Please. A quiz show, more or less. 8. Ford Evening Hour. Music, Comedy and Drama. 9. Kay Kyser and his College of Musical Knowledge. Dance band leader Kyser with humor. 10. Lux Radio Theater. Staring world class actors of the time in 60 minute dramas. It occurs to me that all of the shows on the list attracted listeners of all ages and truly defined the term “family entertainment.”As the announcer would say at the start of every Lone Ranger and Tonto adventure, “And now we return to the days of yesteryear”... sometimes known as www.Google.com ...where you can find information and links on most any radio show you can name.
“By By and Buy Bonds!” Smilin’ Jack
|
||
|
© 2014 Theresa Ripley All rights reserved |
|||
The most frequent shows were the adventure series and soap operas. Soaps were day time shows (frequently sponsored by soap manufacturers) and were aimed primarily at housewives. Thus, kids rarely were able to listen to the soaps. An exception was when you were ill and stayed home from school. During my third year in school, particularly, I was absent for blocks of time and so it was just “me and my radio” all day. The soaps were simply written, slow moving and usually redundant, so it only required a couple days listening to “get with the program.” Two of my favorites were Ma Perkins and Vic and Sade. The Radio Hall of Fame site describes Ma as follows.