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Scott Hamilton: The Inspiring Journey of an Olympic Champion

Feb16

King of the Ice

February 16, 2021

The 1984 Olympic Men’s Skate medalists, left to right: Brian Orser(2nd), Scott Hamilton(1st), Jozef Sabovčík(3rd)

A Tuesday Newsday classic

This 1984 Olympic Gold medalist was, perhaps, the most unlikely of stars to achieve brilliance. To this day he is, however, one of the most popular U.S. men’s figure skaters ever; an individual who is a testament to the power of determination, hard work, and a positive attitude.

It was on February 16, 1984, when 25 year old Scott Hamilton won Olympic Gold at the games in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia (Now Bosnia and Herzegovina)

His skating story began 14 years earlier when he first took to the ice at age 11. Two years later, he was entering skating competitions. For the athletically inclined Hamilton, choosing an appropriate sport was likely a challenge.

When he was two years old he stopped growing. What followed were tests and speculation over why. From the Infallible Wikipedia:

“After numerous tests and several wrong diagnoses (including a diagnosis of cystic fibrosis that gave him just six months to live), the disease began to correct itself. His family physician sent him to Boston Children’s Hospital to see a Dr. Shwachman. He was told the doctor had no idea what was wrong and to go home and stop the diets in order to live a normal life. Years later, it was determined that a congenital brain tumor was the root cause of his childhood illness.”

The impact was huge. During the years of his greatest amateur skating success he was only 5 feet 2 ½ inches tall and weighed 108 pounds. Obviously, playing football or ice hockey was not an option.

Hamilton parlayed his small stature – what many would see as a liability – into his greatest asset. Not only was he was fast on the ice, but he developed his athleticism such that he made the jumps and his intricate footwork look effortless. Although not allowed in competition, his signature back flip at the end of his exhibition routines always brought fans to their feet. Only the strongest and most daring of skaters can successfully execute the move.

When he retired from amateur skating, he was the 1984 reigning world champion in the Men’s division. From there he went on to have a successful professional career and has, arguably, done more to elevate the sport of ice skating than any other individual ever. Also from the Infallible Wikipedia:

“After turning professional, Hamilton toured with the Ice Capades for two years, and then created ‘Scott Hamilton’s American Tour,’ which later was renamed Stars on Ice. He co-founded, co-produced and performed in Stars on Ice for 15 years before retiring from the tour in 2001 (though he still returns for occasional guest performances).

He has been awarded numerous skating honors, including being the first solo male figure skater to be awarded the Jacques Favart Award (in 1988). In 1990 he was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.”

His road in life has not been easy. He survived testicular cancer in 1997 only to have a second brain tumor be discovered in 2004. After a successful surgery for the benign tumor, yet a third tumor was found in 2016. So far he’s been successful in shrinking the tumor through dietary changes.

Although I’d watched Olympic figure skating before, it was the 1984 Olympics and Scott Hamilton particularly, which became the impetus for a decade of following the sport. And what better place to be for watching the Olympics than in a magical place such as Whistler.

The hubby and I – along with his sister and mother – had joined a Whatcom Community college group for a weekend skiing sojourn. Yes, I was 26 years old when I took my first lessons… at Whistler. At the end of each day, we’d return to the rental house (a precursor to the AirBnB concept) for food and fellowship and to watch the Olympics. And what an Olympics it was. We rooted for hometown favorites Rosalyn Summers, Phil and Steve Mahre, and Oregonian Bill Johnson.

The memory that sticks with me most is of the hubby and my sister-in-law out at a pub in Whistler Village. The TV is on over the bar and we are watching the events. But we can’t hear the play by play because there is no sound. Instead, dance music is blaring through the bar. And the pair of them – hubby and sister – are ‘dancing’ while sitting in their chairs, and making quite the spectacle. I imagine the pub owners had second thoughts about those chairs as they were on wheels which allowed the chair dancing shenanigans. Shenanigans which, I might add, nearly got us kicked out of that bar.

Home a few days later, I cheered as I watched Scott Hamilton win the Gold medal, the first US man to do so in the Olympics in 24 years.

What followed over the next six years was attending the US National championships at the Tacoma dome in 1987, and seeing “Stars On Ice” at least twice at the Seattle Center Arena. It was during Stars on Ice that we finally saw Hamilton skate in person. It was worth it. What an amazing skater and showman, his performances unforgettable.

I leave you with this from a publication titled ‘CancerTutor.com.’

“Hamilton is a firm believer in ‘getting up’ after the fall. He pointed to a chapter in his book, The Great Eight, titled ‘Fall Down, Get Up, Smile Like Kristi Yamaguchi.’

‘In one of her [skating] programs, she took a hard fall on a really difficult jump — and she got up, went right back to her program like nothing happened. I realized in that moment there’s a life lesson: I’m gonna fall down. I’m gonna make mistakes. But it’s what’s next — it’s how you get up. The more times you get up, the stronger you are.’”

Some links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Hamilton_(figure_skater)

https://www.scotthamilton.com/

January 26, 1700

Jan26

The Great Quake

January 26, 2021

Thunderbird and Whale battling

 “There was a great storm and hail and flashes of lightning in the darkened, blackened sky, and a great and crashing ‘thunder-noise’ everywhere. Here were also a shaking, jumping up and trembling of the earth beneath, and a rolling up of the great waters.”

So the oral story of the Hoh people had been told, passed down from generation to generation. The event, it turns out, was not the stuff of fiction but can be pinpointed to the night of January 26, 1700.

It was at that moment, triggered by a sudden unlocking of the Juan de Fuca and North American geologic plates, that a estimated 9.2 earthquake shook the west coast from Northern California to Southern British Columbia.

The earthquake triggered a huge tsumani which inundated the coast, wiping out entire villages of people, submerging land, and killing forests.

And then? And then only the oral stories remained and were passed down. But when new people arrived nothing was known of this event until the 1970’s when geologists started piecing together the geologic history.

From the Infallible Wikipedia:

“The earthquake took place at about 21:00 Pacific Time on January 26, 1700 (NS). Although there are no written records for the region from the time, the timing of the earthquake has been inferred from Japanese records of a tsunami that does not correlate with any other Pacific Rim quake. The Japanese records exist primarily in the modern-day Iwate Prefecture, in communities such as Tsugaruishi, Kuwagasaki and Ōtsuchi.

The most important clue linking the tsunami in Japan and the earthquake in the Pacific Northwest comes from studies of tree rings (dendrochronology), which show that several ‘ghost forests’ of red cedar trees in Oregon and Washington, killed by lowering of coastal forests into the tidal zone by the earthquake, have outermost growth rings that formed in 1699, the last growing season before the tsunami. (snip)

Local Native American and First Nations groups residing in Cascadia used oral tradition to transmit knowledge from one generation to the next, so there is no written documentation like that of the Japanese tsunami. However, numerous oral traditions describing a great earthquake and tsunami-like flooding exist among indigenous coastal peoples from British Columbia to Northern California. These do not specify an exact date, and not all earthquake stories in the region can be definitively isolated as referring to the 1700 quake in particular; however, virtually all of the native peoples in the region have at least one traditional story of an event much stronger and more destructive than any other that their community had ever experienced.”

This forensic information, combined with the Japanese records, have made it possible to pinpoint the date and time of the great event.

Ground Zero seems to be located at the mouth of the Copalis River, just north of Gray’s Harbor in Washington State. The ghost forest appears at low tide. It’s been determined that the ground dropped over 6 feet and that the trees all died as a result of a singular event. Through carbon dating and evaluation scientists now know that the event occurred in either late 1699 or early 1700.

But it wasn’t just a onetime thing. Scientists have also found evidence that over 40 megathrust quakes have shaken the PNW in the past 10,000 years. That, it turns out, means an average of 430 years between the quakes. The three most recent events occurred in 810, 1310, and 1700. It’s now been 321 years since the 1700 event. Scientists predict that there is a 37 percent chance of an 8.2 or greater quake in the next 50 years.

Ghost forest on the Copalis River near Gray’s Harbor

For those of us who have lived our entire lives in the PNW, we know exactly where we were and what we were doing on two specific dates in the last 50 years: April 29, 1965 and February 28, 2001.

Those were the dates of the most significant ‘recent’ earthquakes in the region. I was seven years old for the first one and, prior to that April morning, had never heard the term earthquake or understood what it was.

I was standing at the counter in our family bathroom (we had one bathroom for six people!) and my mother was fixing my hair for school. We lived in Yakima, 150 miles from the quake’s epicenter. When the house started to shake my mother, so very calmly, said to me, “It’s an earthquake,” and instructed me to hang on to the counter. Soon that event was forgotten but everyone of my age or older knows where they were at that exact moment, especially people who lived in the Puget Sound area.

Fast forward to February 28, 2001. It’s just before 11 a.m. The kids are at school and I have spent the morning volunteering with my fifth grade son’s class. Around 10:30 – when two other parents arrive – I take off as I have errands to run in advance of the Boy Scouts Blue and Gold banquet scheduled for March 2nd.

When I arrive back at our house on the hill above East Lake Sammamish parkway, my in-laws are there as they have been staying with us for a few days. I tell them that I’m going to have something to eat then go do my errands. I walk to the fridge and open the door. There’s a significant jolt. I shut the fridge door and look up and say “Did you…” to my father-in-law who is standing a few feet away. But I never finish the sentence. By then the entire house is shaking. So I do what my plan has always been in the event of an earthquake. I hurry to our built in desk, move the chair out of the way, and crawl under.

When I turn to look out I see two things: first is my mother-in-law who is sitting on the couch and looks as if she’s bouncing in a boat on choppy water; the second thing I see are my father-in-laws legs getting bigger and bigger until the legs and him attempt to crawl under the desk with me. Trust me, it was not a big desk and that plan did not work. Instead, he ended up crouched next to me until the worst of the shaking stopped after about a minute.

I emerge and look out the back windows; trees are still vibrating and shaking despite the quake being over. Of all the memories of that day, I can still see those trees vibrating. Then I walk around the house to see what’s been damaged. Room after room nothing seems to have fallen… that is until I get to the living room. The painting which hung over the fireplace has slid off the wall and come straight down onto the mantle. There it rests, still intact and literally resting behind a decorative glass piece which, by rights, should have been a casualty of the event.

Later that evening I have the assembled family stage a photo to commemorate that day and soon that quake is also forgotten.

Nothing in the china cabinet was damaged in the 2001 Nisqually quake

It’s on days such as today, however, that I am reminded that the ‘big’ one could strike today, tomorrow, next week, next year, or longer. It really is just a matter of time.

Many links for all my fellow science nerds:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1700_Cascadia_earthquake

https://www.amnh.org/explore/videos/earth-and-climate/tsunami-science-reducing-the-risk/ghosts-of-tsunamis-past

Article Describing the Native American Stories About the Earthquake of 1700

https://slate.com/technology/2015/09/earthquakes-and-tsunamis-in-the-pacific-northwest-native-american-myths-and-geoscience.html

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pacific-northwest-prepares-for-massive-earthquake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Puget_Sound_earthquake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Nisqually_earthquake

Here’s the list of Great Quakes from the Infallible Wikipedia:

1May 22, 1960Valdivia, Chile1960 Valdivia earthquake9.4–9.6
2March 27, 1964Prince William Sound, Alaska, United States1964 Alaska earthquake9.2
3December 26, 2004Indian Ocean, Sumatra, Indonesia2004 Indian Ocean earthquake9.1–9.3
4March 11, 2011Pacific Ocean, Tōhoku region, Japan2011 Tōhoku earthquake9.1[3]
5July 8, 1730Valparaiso, Chile (then part of the Spanish Empire)1730 Valparaiso earthquake9.1–9.3 (est.)[4]
6November 4, 1952Kamchatka, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union1952 Kamchatka earthquakes9.0[5]
7August 13, 1868Arica, Chile (then Peru)1868 Arica earthquake8.5–9.0 (est.)
8January 26, 1700Pacific Ocean, US and Canada (then claimed by the Spanish Empire and the British Empire)1700 Cascadia earthquake8.7–9.2 (est.)
9April 2, 1762Chittagong, Bangladesh (then Kingdom of Mrauk U)1762 Arakan earthquake8.8 (est.)
10November 25, 1833Sumatra, Indonesia (then part of the Dutch East Indies)1833 Sumatra earthquake8.8 (est.)

Y2K: The Doomsday That Never Came

Dec29

2020 said ‘Hold My Beer’

December 29th

A Tuesday Newsday Classic

By the spring and summer of 1999, the world had turned their full attention to the impending turn of the calendar to the year 2000. Or, as it was familiarly known, Y2K.

Signs and stickers like this one warned us for months of impending doom.

It was truly a global phenomenon and there was no shortage of doomsday predictions as to what would occur when at midnight, on December 31, 1999, the digits all changed.

As it turned out, it was a nothing burger. The year 2020, however, was a whole lot closer to what people expected the year 2000 to be.

Y2K was originally an abbreviation assigned to a problem dubbed the Millennium Bug. The challenge they envisioned was that computers everywhere would not be up to the task of functioning properly when the year 2000 started. From the Infallible Wikipedia:

“The acronym Y2K has been attributed to Massachusetts programmer David Eddy in an e-mail sent on 12 June 1995. He later said, ‘People were calling it CDC (Century Date Change), FADL (Faulty Date Logic). There were other contenders. Y2K just came off my fingertips.’

The problem started because on both mainframe computers and later personal computers, storage was expensive, from as low as $10 per kilobyte, to in many cases as much as or even more than US$100 per kilobyte. It was therefore very important for programmers to reduce usage. Since programs could simply prefix ‘19’ to the year of a date, most programs internally used, or stored on disc or tape, data files where the date format was six digits, in the form DDMMYY, DD as two digits for the day, MM as two digits for the month, and YY as two digits for the year. As space on disc and tape was also expensive, this also saved money by reducing the size of stored data files and data bases. (snip)

Special committees were set up by governments to monitor remedial work and contingency planning, particularly by crucial infrastructures such as telecommunications, utilities and the like, to ensure that the most critical services had fixed their own problems and were prepared for problems with others. While some commentators and experts argued that the coverage of the problem largely amounted to scaremongering, it was only the safe passing of the main ‘event horizon’ itself, 1 January 2000, that fully quelled public fears.”

Newspaper and magazine articles on the topic bombarded readers; books were written; the nightly news was full of stories which promoted fear in the public mind. Doomsday preppers encouraged people to keep months of supplies in their pantry since at 12:01 on January 1, 2000, the world, as we knew it, was going to end.

TP shortage and electrical grid shutdowns were but two of the predicted problems.

The Infallible Wikipedia continues:

“Y2K was also exploited by some fundamentalist and charismatic Christian leaders throughout the Western world, particularly in North America and Australia. Their promotion of the perceived risks of Y2K was combined with end times thinking and apocalyptic prophecies in an attempt to influence followers. The New York Times reported in late 1999, ‘The Rev. Jerry Falwell suggested that Y2K would be the confirmation of Christian prophecy — God’s instrument to shake this nation, to humble this nation. (snip) Along with many survivalists, Mr. Falwell advised stocking up on food and guns’. Adherents in these movements were encouraged to engage in food hoarding, take lessons in self-sufficiency, and the more extreme elements planned for a total collapse of modern society.”

A whole lot of hype!

Of course we all know what happened: nothing. The resources which were poured into fixing the bug were enormous and the switch was mostly seamless. A whole lot of people no doubt had enough food and TP to survive for a year. My own parents eventually donated a case of green beans purchased ‘just in case’ to the food bank.

I personally never bought in to all the hype, instead believing that human ingenuity would find a way. In fact, my sister and I hatched a plan to spend New Year’s Eve 1999 in Leavenworth, Washington. We booked several rooms nearly a year in advance and arrived to a winter wonderland a day before the big event. Despite their trepidation, even our parents joined the party. Our two sets of kids – ages 10, 9, 7, and 6 – had a blast. We went sledding, indoor swimming, shopping, eating and explored the town. We all eagerly anticipated staying up to welcome in the new Millennium. About 10 minutes before midnight we bundled up in our coats and hats and walked to the corner of a nearby intersection, noise makers in our mittened hands. It was snowing lightly and all the Christmas lights cast an enchanted glow of red, blue, green, and gold over the entire scene.

As the moment ticked closer my six year old daughter became distraught.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“Is the world going to end?” she said, her lower lip quivering.

“No, of course not,” I tried to reassure her.

Even so she snuggled close to me as the final countdown began… ten, nine, eight…

When it reached Zero we all shouted Happy New Year and blew our horns.

The countdown to Y2K in Leavenworth. I’d never noticed before my Dad checking his watch…
I snapped this shot less than a minute before midnight.

And then it happened. Off to the right a red glowing orb appeared in the dark sky and was headed our direction. My daughter started to cry, certain that some bad thing was going to happen. Turns out it was a hot air balloon of some sort and when she was brave enough to look began to understand that it was just part of the celebration.

The next week the kids were back in school and her first grade teacher assigned the class the typical ‘draw a picture and write a sentence describing your winter break’ project.

Me and my daughter in front of one of Leavenworth’s many wonderful murals before the poor child’s anxiety took over.

My daughter drew a picture of stick people drinking out of gigantic wine glasses and wrote that we drank ‘champan’. I got asked about it. I explained that we really had sparkling cider. I think the teacher thought we had a problem. I looked for that paper but it appears it was kept by the teacher so as to keep an eye on me.

Soon the anxiety over Y2K was forgotten. Then one day about a year and half ago I made a random comment to my daughter about Y2K . She got a funny look on her face and there was dead silence before she said, “Wait. Does Y2K stand for the Year 2000?” I might have burst out laughing.

It’s all true. She didn’t know until she was 26 years old what Y2K stood for. But to make the story even funnier is that when she asked her fiancé (now husband who is the same age) if he KNEW what Y2K stood for, he didn’t either.

I’m thankful that Y2K turned out to be a joyous occasion and that the world was able to celebrate such a momentous once in a thousand years event in grand fashion. I am positive that ringing in 2021 will be more somber and that people everywhere will be eager to say ‘get lost’ to 2020.

The banner we hung in our hotel room December 31, 1999

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem

Agatha Christie: The Queen of Mystery Novels

Sep15

What really happened the summer of 1980?

September 15th

Any list of the greatest novelists of the last one hundred years would be incomplete without this person on it. She wrote 66 novels and 14 collections of short stories and also the world’s longest running play, Mousetrap.

Agatha Christie amid a stack of the
many books she has written

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on September 15, 1890. We know her as Agatha Christie. The Guinness World Records names her as the fiction author whose books have sold more than any other in history at over 2 billion copies. It’s the sort of success that aspiring novelists can only dream of.

Like most writers, it was a number of years after she began penning her stories before she was published. From the Infallible Wikipedia:

“At eighteen, Christie wrote her first short story, ‘The House of Beauty’, while recovering in bed from an illness. It consisted of about 6,000 words on ‘madness and dreams’, a subject of fascination for her. Her biographer, Janet Morgan, has commented that, despite ‘infelicities of style’, the story was ‘compelling’. (The story became an early version of her story ‘The House of Dreams’.) Other stories followed, most of them illustrating her interest in spiritualism and the paranormal. These included ‘The Call of Wings’ and ‘The Little Lonely God’. Magazines rejected all her early submissions, made under pseudonyms (including Mac Miller, Nathaniel Miller, and Sydney West); some submissions were later revised and published under her real name, often with new titles.

Every aspiring author needs a creepy doll… or two!

(snip)

Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White and The Moonstone, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in 1916. It featured Hercue Poirot a former Belgian police officer with ‘magnificent moustaches’ and a head ‘exactly the shape of an egg’, who had taken refuge in Britain after Germany invaded Belgium.”

Until I found this in my image search today,
I did not realize that I wasn’t the only one who adhere’s to this philosophy!

While her writing was a success, her personal life was not without strife. When her father died in 1902 – Christie was 11 years old – the family’s financial situation changed. As Christie later said that it marked the end of her childhood.

Despite this, she did manage to participate in British social life and had a number of short lived relationships prior to meeting Archie Christie when she was 22 years old. The two were married on Christmas Eve 1914.

The birth of her only child, a daughter, occurred in 1919. With the death of her mother in 1926 she fell into a deep depression. Two years later she and Archie divorced when he admitted to an extramarital affair.

She did eventually remarry in 1930 to archaeologist Max Mallowan – a marriage which lasted until her death in 1976.

The backdrop to her personal life, however, was always writing. She often incorporated her own experiences and places she’d visited into her novels.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this was her work in hospital dispensaries during both World Wars. While there she became familiar with a variety of poisons which found their way into her works. Christie had a real gift in finding creative ways to kill off her characters.

While I cannot recall exactly when I became aware of Christie’s books, I imagine it was probably as a young teenager. Undoubtedly I read a number of her novels but it was the 1974 movie Murder On the Orient Express which truly brought her works to the attention of countless Americans. I have enjoyed all the movies based on her books.

I also believe I saw Mousetrap in London in 1980. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if I imagined the whole thing. But it does seem as if I did attend the play. It was in mid-July and early August of 1980 when my parents had taken my sister and me on a three week trip to Norway, England, and Scotland.

Although we spent the first day in London, the next morning we flew to Bergen, Norway, and began a multi-day bus tour of that country, ending up in Oslo. From there, we flew back to England touring by car as my dad rented a vehicle; we drove up through the countryside to Scotland. After Edinburgh, we returned to London. On August 2nd, I wrote a postcard to my fiancé as follows:

The book I purchased in a London bookshop and read while on the trip; the postcard is the front of the one I sent on my last day in England. This copy of Jane Eyre was likely printed between 1927 and 1936 by Greycaine Ltd., Watford, Herts, Great Britain.

True to what I wrote, it was the final missive I sent from England. Did I or did I not attend Mousetrap? What was the cause of my malady? Was it truly food poisoning as I believed or had someone doctored my food? Was the ‘poison’ the source of my fuzzy memory? Agatha Christie would, no doubt, approve of such a storyline.

Alas, dear reader, forty years after the fact, it is a mystery which might never be solved. Sounds like the makings of a novel.

The link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agatha_Christie

September 12, 2022 – Update from the original post in 2020: The mystery has been solved! Buried in a previously undiscovered box, I found the program from when we attended in 1980. Although it was the 25th year plus three, I still purchased it… for one pound! Sometimes it pays to be an obsessive collector of stuff you find historically interesting.

The back cover of the program showing St. Martin’s theatre where we saw the Mousetrap in late July 1980
A list of the cast from the evening we were there. I set the paper over the inside facing page for reference

Animal House: Toga Parties and College Shenanigans

Jul28

July 28th

“Oh Boy! Is This Great!”

Of all the years to be a college co-ed, 1978 was the best.

Culturally, it was the height of the ‘me’ generation’s influence. Commonplace restrictions from previous decades had all but been abandoned, leaving the youth to do the one thing they wanted: have fun.

animal-house-movie-poster-1020258451

On July 28, 1978, a movie hit the theaters which encapsulated precisely this attitude, capturing the imagination of a generation. That movie: Animal House.

The idea for the movie came about via National Lampoon, a wildly popular magazine with college students. In fact, the official title of the movie is “National Lampoon’s Animal House.” The plot – to sum it up in a couple sentences is this: “Loser college guys join fraternity where anything goes. Fraternity gets kicked off campus and members, in an effort to save the fraternity, wreak havoc on campus and during the homecoming parade.”

With a budget of only 3 million allocated to its production, the executives at Universal Studios almost didn’t allow it to be made. But the writers were committed to the project, effectively wearing down the studio who basically told them ‘okay, but don’t expect much.’

According to the Infallible Wikipedia:

“National Lampoon’s Animal House is a 1978 American sex comedy film directed by John Landis and written by Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney and Chris Miller. It stars John Belushi, Peter Riegert, Tim Matheson, John Vernon, Verna Bloom, Thomas Hulce, Stephen Furst, and Donald Sutherland. The film is about a trouble-making fraternity whose members challenge the authority of the dean of the fictional Faber College.

The film was produced by Matty Simmons of National Lampoon and Ivan Reitman for Universal Pictures. It was inspired by stories written by Miller and published in National Lampoon. The stories were based on (Harold) Ramis’s experience in the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at Washington University in St. Louis, Miller’s Alpha Delta Phi experiences at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and producer Reitman’s at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.”

In many ways, the low budget contributed to the film’s success. No one had heard of any of the actors, John Belushi and Donald Sutherland excepted. Rather than turn the film into a showcase for the popular cast of Saturday Night Live as was suggested, it turned out that the ensemble of newcomers brought an element of collegiality to it that made the film unique.

ah-party
John ‘Bluto’ Blutarksi leads the way during a Delta House Toga party

One big hurdle was finding a college willing to allow the movie to be filmed on their campus. One after another turned it down since, after reading the script, determined the publicity would be detrimental to their institution. It was an act of bravery that one administrator finally agreed to it. Also from the Infallible Wikipedia:

“The president of the University of Oregon in Eugene, William Beaty Boyd, had been a senior administrator at the University of California in Berkeley in 1966 when his campus was considered for a location of the film The Graduate. After he consulted with other senior administrative colleagues who advised him to turn it down due to the lack of artistic merit, the college campus scenes set at Berkeley were shot at USC in Los Angeles. The film went on to become a classic, and Boyd was determined not to make the same mistake twice when the producers inquired about filming at Oregon. After consulting with student government leaders and officers of the Pan Hellenic Council, the Director of University Relations advised the president that the script, although raunchy and often tasteless, was a very funny spoof of college life. Boyd even allowed the filmmakers to use his office as Dean Wormer’s.”

Now, I will say, if you’ve never seen the movie you should. As my now adult children know, there are some cultural references one absolutely needs to have. Animal House is such a film. The film is littered with quotable and iconic concepts many of which repeat to this day.

Ever hear of a toga party? You have Animal House to thank.

Double secret probation? Animal House. 

“Was It Over When The Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell No!” Animal House.

“Fat, Drunk, And Stupid Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son.” Animal House.

Food Fight? Animal House.

That summer, it went on to become the third highest grossing film of 1978 and – in the course of its run – took in a whopping 141.6 million. Not bad for a film which cost under $3 million to make and which the studio execs thought would flop.

A few sorority sisters ready for a Halloween party 1978.

When all was said and done, once again from the Infallible Wikipedia:

“In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant’ and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Animal House is first on Bravo’s 100 Funniest Movies. In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film No. 36 on 100 Years… 100 Laughs, a list of the 100 best American comedies. In 2006, Miller wrote a more comprehensive memoir of his experiences in Dartmouth’s AD house in a book entitled, The Real Animal House: The Awesomely Depraved Saga of the Fraternity That Inspired the Movie, in which Miller recounts hijinks that were considered too risqué for the movie. In 2008, Empire magazine selected Animal House as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. The film was also selected by The New York Times as one of The 1000 Best Movies Ever Made.”

Back to 1978 and the phenomenon which had college students donning sheets and partying to the chants of “Toga! Toga! Toga!”

When I returned to the University of Puget Sound that September, everyone was talking about Animal House. Soon the Toga parties began and there were a handful of fraternity guy’s intent on channeling their inner Bluto.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your perspective, my sorority was located next door to the house which fashioned itself after the Delta’s of Animal House fame. There were shenanigans and crazy antics all that fall. Parties flowed out of their house and into the common areas, empty aluminum cans smashed against heads exactly like the John Belushi character did in the film, Christmas lights tossed into our basement level patio where they would ‘pop.’ And who knows what, exactly, was going on the night that a group of them appeared on the lawn outside our windows with that blow up doll.

Around 10 pm one night I heard a commotion outside of my room and the unmistakable thump, thump, thump of a large group of people making their way in unison down the hallway. What the heck?

When your nickname is “Barbie D” who else do you try to be for Halloween but your namesake Mattel doll. Of course in doing so you might attract the attention of an admirer.

A moment later: the sound of running feet. The door bursts open and one of my two roomies, Sheila, rushes in, slams the door behind her and presses her back to the closed door.

I can still picture her, a wild look in her eye, her naturally curly hair even more crazy looking than usual, dressed in her full length flannel nightgown, hands pressed hard against the door, panting.

“There’s naked Phi Delts in our hall,” she gasped.

Now, to be clear, my other roommate Cathy and I DID NOT reopen that door to confirm her report. In fact, we wanted nothing to do with the conga line of nude men mooning the members of our sorority.

A minute or two later, the noise lessened as the group reached the end of the hall and exited the building. Their bare hineys were last seen disappearing back into what I would consider UPS’ nominee for ‘Delta’ house: Phi Delta Theta.

In retrospect, my two years there were a rather surreal experience, greatly amplified by the culture of the time embodied in no small part by the movie Animal House.

In the iconic words of Kent ‘Flounder’ Dorfman “Oh boy! Is this Great!”

Indeed it was.

The links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_House

180726143707-animal-house-780x439Who’s who in the Facebook Photo (left to right):

Bruce McGill – “D-Day”; Tim Matheson – “Otter”; Peter Riegart “Boon”; John Belushi – “Bluto”; Tom Hulce – “Pinto”; Stephen Furst – “Flounder”; James Widdoes – “Hoover”

 

One Giant Leap for Mankind

Jul21

Men walk on the moon

July 21, 2020

“One small step for man… one giant leap for mankind.”

Man on the Moon 1969These words were spoken at 2:56 a.m. (UTC) on July 21, 1969 when astronaut Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the moon.

For those of a technical bent one could argue that those famous steps took place on July 20th; at least that was true for those of us living on the west coast of the United States. Everyone was glued to their television sets all that Sunday afternoon and evening, the drama playing out in a single day.

The race to the moon began over a decade earlier in November 1957 with the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) by then President Dwight Eisenhower. Its formation was in response to the USSR’s launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This was followed in early 1961 with the first earth orbit by a human. (see my blog about the Century 21 Exposition and the day a Russian cosmonaut visited!)

The U.S. – now behind in the space race – was urged by President John F. Kennedy to throw their resources and national enthusiasm behind the program. On May 25, 1961 he implored Congress thus:

“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. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations—explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the Moon—if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.”

— Kennedy’s speech to Congress

Despite setbacks in the Apollo program, resources were poured into the ambitious plans. With each Apollo mission, the systems were refined as the best and the brightest minds of the day labored to solve the myriad of problems encountered. From the Infallible Wikipedia:

“In July 1962 NASA head James Webb announced that lunar orbit rendezvous would be used and that the Apollo spacecraft would have three major parts: a command module (CM) with a cabin for the three astronauts, and the only part that returned to Earth; a service module (SM), which supported the command module with propulsion, electrical power, oxygen, and water; and a lunar module (LM) that had two stages—a descent stage for landing on the Moon, and an ascent stage to place the astronauts back into lunar orbit.] This design meant the spacecraft could be launched by a single Saturn V rocket that was then under development.

(snip)

Project Apollo was abruptly halted by the Apollo 1 fire on January 27, 1967, in which astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee died, and the subsequent investigation. In October 1968, Apollo 7 evaluated the command module in Earth orbit, and in December Apollo 8 tested it in lunar orbit. In March 1969, Apollo 9 put the lunar module through its paces in Earth orbit, and in May Apollo 10 conducted a “dress rehearsal” in lunar orbit. By July 1969, all was in readiness for Apollo 11 to take the final step onto the Moon.

Ap11InitialThe Soviet Union competed with the US in the Space Race, but its early lead was lost through repeated failures in development of the N1 launcher, which was comparable to the Saturn V. The Soviets tried to beat the US to return lunar material to the Earth by means of un-crewed probes. On July 13, three days before Apollo 11’s launch, the Soviet Union launched Luna 15, which reached lunar orbit before Apollo 11. During descent, a malfunction caused Luna 15 to crash in Mare Crisium about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin took off from the Moon’s surface to begin their voyage home. The Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories radio telescope in England recorded transmissions from Luna 15 during its descent, and these were released in July 2009 for the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11.”

It was truly an amazing feat as has been chronicled in book, documentary, and a feature length movie.

At the time Armstrong, particularly, became a national hero; the very face of American greatness. No doubt that mission motivated a whole generation of science minded kids to dream of one day traveling into space beyond the moon.

It was truly an inspirational moment and ranks up there with other events that you absolutely remember where you were and what you were doing.

In those days most families had a single television. So you watched whatever your parents watched. With three basic channels (ABC, CBS, NBC) the choices were limited. On July 20, 1969, ALL three channels were broadcasting just one thing: man landing on the moon.

I was 11 years old that July day and it was a pretty typical Yakima summer day with temperatures in the low 90’s. Like any self respecting kid, I’d watched the initial landing but then wandered off to do other things.

Sometime after dinner, the family gathered around the TV once again to watch the first steps on the moon by Armstrong. A couple of things stick out. Despite having a color television, the moon landing was all in black and white. The American Flag they planted was stiff since there was not any sort of breeze to flap the cloth. And everything was done very, very slowly.

My older brother and I decided to play cards as a way to pass the time. The game was called Casino and it consisted of trying to collect more cards than the other person AND obtain certain specialty cards which were worth points. I remember the two of spades was a desired card, and I doubt I could play the game today. At the time I was pretty good at the game AND very competitive. My brother and I were sitting on the floor of the family room a few feet from the TV, playing our game, and looking up every once in a while to see if anything was happening (it wasn’t).

Finally, just before 8 p.m., Armstrong slowly bounced his way down the steps of the Lunar module, his echo-y micro phoned voice coming through the TV as he intoned, “that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

It was years later when I learned that he had not said what he planned, since the sentence was supposed to be “that’s one small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind.” Personally, I think it was much cooler the way it came out.

Soon after his grand arrival – not being particularly interested in watching the astronauts collect rocks – I drifted away to do other more interesting 11 year old things. I do think we all went outside and stared up at the quarter moon that night, in awe of what had been accomplished.

casino cardsI really can’t recall who won the Casino game, so I’ll just claim I did and squabble with my brother when he reads this. And, BTW, Mr. P., the Shaw and Sons little league guy was out. That’s what Dad always said. Higher and Higher. Cherry Cola. Sibling rivalry and inside jokes are the best.

Winchester Mystery House

Jun30

38 Years of continual construction

June 30, 2020

winchester_mystery_house

The sprawling footprint of the Winchester Mystery House, San Jose, California

By the time the last hammer was silenced in 1922, this house comprised a 24,000 sq. ft.  “foot print” which had been added one room at a time over the course of 38 years. It was a short nine months later, on June 30, 1923, when the house opened for its first tours. The Winchester Mystery house – as it known – is a fascinating place to visit. And the story behind its genesis is the stuff of novels.

Sarah Winchester was the heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Her husband, William, had died in 1881 of tuberculosis. Sarah, then age 42, had lost her only child 15 years earlier just six weeks after the baby’s birth; she came to believe that the tragedies which had befallen her were due to the immorality associated with the guns manufactured by Winchester Arms.  Like so many of that age, she consulted a psychic who told her to leave Connecticut and go west. Her mission, she came to believe, was to spend the rest of her life spending her considerable fortune to build a house to atone for husband’s company.

Sarah Winchester

Sarah Winchester

She purchased an 8 room house located on a sprawling farm in the Santa Clara valley of California in 1884; she immediately hired workers to transform the structure into a Victorian mansion. No architect was ever engaged and no blueprint ever produced. It was Sarah who designed and added the rooms. From the Infallible Wikipedia:

“There are roughly 161 rooms, including 40 bedrooms, 2 ballrooms (one completed and one unfinished) as well as 47 fireplaces, over 10,000 panes of glass, 17 chimneys (with evidence of two others), two basement levels and three elevators. Winchester’s property was about 162 acres (66 ha) at one time, but the estate has since been reduced to 4.5 acres (1.8 ha) – the minimum necessary to contain the house and nearby outbuildings. It has gold and silver chandeliers, hand-inlaid parquet floors and trim, and a vast array of colors and materials. Due to Mrs. Winchester’s debilitating arthritis, special ‘easy riser’ stairways were installed as a replacement for her original steep construction. This allowed her to move about her home freely as she was only able to raise each foot a few inches. There was only one working toilet for Winchester; it has been said that ‘all other restrooms were decoys to confuse spirits’ and that this is also ‘the reason why she slept in a different room each night’. The home’s conveniences were rare at the time of its construction. These included steam and forced-air heating, modern indoor toilets and plumbing, push-button gas lights, and Mrs. Winchester’s personal (and only) hot shower from indoor plumbing. There are also three elevators, including an Otis electric and one of which was powered by a rare horizontal hydraulic elevator piston. Most elevator pistons are vertical to save space, but Winchester preferred the improved functionality of the horizontal configuration.”

Winchester-Banner-1

Front entry to the estate

Upon Sarah Winchester’s death September 5, 1922, the property and all her belongings were inherited by her niece and personal secretary who took what they wanted and sold the remaining furniture in an estate sale. The house was considered mostly worthless due to damage sustained during the 1906 San Francisco quake and considered unsellable due to the size and nature of the house.

A local investor, however, purchased it for $139K then leased it to a couple who gave the first tours. That couple, John and Mayme Brown, eventually purchased the house ten years later and it is still owned and operated by their heirs.

2709270244_eee185a1feIf you are in the bay area and have a few hours, a visit to the Winchester Mystery House is worth the time and money. Our family visit occurred in 1995. For my daughter – who was two that year – the intricacies of the house were lost. My five year old son, however, was enthralled. Around every corner was another oddity – a set of three stair risers leading to a door. Which, when opened, revealed a wall. There were rooms where, when you looked up, you saw windows into more rooms. Stairs which once led to upper floors… those levels long since removed but the stairs remained. Up and down the many staircases the tour went… room, after room, after room.stairs to nowhere

My son talked about the mystery house for months, intent, I think, on building his own such house. Thankfully, his obsession waned, as we could not afford unending building projects.

Today, my  now 30 year old son is more minimalist, recognizing that one does not need a lot of space to comfortably live. At the time of our visit to Sarah’s mansion, we lived in a nearly 4,000 square foot house. The problem with a large house is that soon you are filling that house with stuff. Always more stuff. In the past two years the hubby and I have made a concerted effort to reduce our stuff.

One of the blessings of the extended stay at home orders of the COVID-19 pandemic is that there has been time to focus on reduction. Each week, it seems, another box is sorted and purged, the proverbial grain separated from the chaff.

I’m pretty much down to my last big purge: photographs. A couple days ago I ventured in to what I call the “Harry Potter closet” as it is a space under the lower level stairs reminiscent of where the boy wizard lived before discovering his magic powers. Since we moved in it has been the repository for all the bins of family history, the slides of my grandparents as well as our own, 8 and 16 mm movie projectors and reels, VHS and digital camera tapes, and boxes and boxes of photos.

Harry Potter closet

The ‘Harry Potter’ closet after the reorganization. Picture on the left is the entry way.  The picture on this right is what’s stored under the stairs behind the wall from the first photo.

Last Saturday much of the contents of the closet were extricated and then organized and stacked back in the closet for the next purge. Sunday, the first bin of photos dating from the 1990’s to the early 2000’s hit the dining room table.

Ironically, in my first sort, I found photos from our 1995 trip to San Jose but not a single picture from the visit to Sarah Winchester’s house. I wonder what happened to those photos? It’s truly a mystery.

A couple of links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House

https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/

  • Update June 30, 2022 – The Harry Potter closet got an upgrade! Shelves have been built thanks to the hubby and son. Reorganization has taken place but the ongoing photo project is slow going. A few photos of construction and reorg. 
The Harry Potter closet getting shelves
The Harry Potter closet with all the photos, slides, and historical documents
More of the collection…

Game & Watch: Nintendo’s First Handheld Revolution

Apr28

April 28th

Long before Angry Birds and Candy Crush

A Tuesday Newsday Classic

Decades before anyone had ever uttered the phrases Angry Bird, Temple Run, Word’s with Friends, or Candy Crush, the first wave in digital gaming had arrived in the States from Japan.

nintendo_game_and_watch___ball
The first Game and Watch released: Ball

On April 28, 1980, a then unknown manufacturer by the name of Nintendo, launched the first of its 4 ½ by 2 ½ handheld electronic game series in the US. And thus the Game and Watch was born, a precursor to the iPhone and Android games of today.

For less than $20 a consumer was able to buy a device which featured – usually – two different games played by pushing tiny buttons to move items around on the screen. From the Infallible Wikipedia:

“The Game & Watch brand is a series of handheld electronic games produced by Nintendo from 1980 to 1991. Created by game designer Gunpei Yokoi, each Game & Watch features a single game to be played on an LCD screen in addition to a clock, an alarm, or both. It was the earliest Nintendo video game product to gain major success.

The units are based on a 4-bit CPU from the Sharp SM5xx family, that include a small ROM and RAM area and an LCD screen driver circuit, although prior to the emulation in MAME there was a misconception in that every unit used a custom ASIC instead of a proper microcontroller.

The series sold a combined of 43.4 million units worldwide.”

Yokoi is said to have conceived the idea while on a bullet train when he observed a fellow traveler playing with his calculator. He reasoned that a small device which would also serve as a clock and alarm and allow the person to play a game could fill the desire for entertainment when unable to do other things.

In all, there were 59 different titles sold. It wasn’t until Nintendo established offices in the United States when the Game and Watch distribution became more widespread in this country.

Our family were early adopters of Game and Watch for one very good reason: The hubby went to work for Nintendo soon after they established their headquarters in Tukwila, Washington. (Yes, it’s true. Their first Washington address was there and NOT Redmond.)

I don’t know why, exactly, we bought all those Game and Watch games, except that Nintendo had an inventory and there was likely an employee discount. Regardless, soon we had friends and family asking for the games and we obliged.

The first one released was called Ball and featured a character later dubbed “Mr. Game & Watch” who juggled balls. He is according to the Infallible Wikipedia: “a generic amalgam of black, open-mouthed, big-nosed cartoonish stick figure silhouettes.” That first game – and three others released in quick succession – sold fewer than 250,000 games worldwide. Two other early games – Vermin and Fire – each sold about a million.

Which is where we enter the story. At the Nintendo warehouse in Tukwila there must have been stacks and stacks of unsold games. It is likely the first one we ever had was Fire and it was one of my favorites. We referred to the game as ‘Burning Babies.’ Yes, politically incorrect but in those days no one had ever uttered that phrase.

My description of the game Fire: On screen you see a cartoonish ambulance on the right side of the screen and a burning multi-story building on the left. Two Mr. Game and Watch characters carry what looks to be a safety net. Their job is to catch the ‘people’ who are literally leaping from the burning building. It starts out benign enough with one tiny person jumping and you must move the firefighters left and right with their net to stop the jumper from hitting the ground. You must then bounce the burning baby across three sections from the building to the ambulance. As the game progresses, a second jumper leaps soon after the first and you must now figure out which one to catch first. It’s like a bad juggling game where soon there are as many as four jumpers on the screen at once! Drop one and you get a tiny little angel icon indicating a lost life. Truly, you have not known stress until you’re frantically trying to save the tiny burning babies. Oh, and as your score increases, so does the speed with which they jump. Yes, that’s me playing the game in the short video below. Yes, it still is stressful when the babies splat on the ground!

Soon, the hubby was bringing home more Game and Watches. The titles included Parachute, Octopus, Fire Attack, Manhole, and Turtle Bridge. Each one seemed to include violent ends to the poor little electronic people or critters if you didn’t do your job. (Which is the common element for the four listed on the FB page!) These were followed by Nintendo’s own characters of Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong, Jr., and Mario’s Cement Factory, as well as licensed character games featuring such cultural icons as Popeye, Mickey Mouse, and Snoopy.

We gave my mother Snoopy Tennis for Christmas in the early 1980’s. It was the perfect game for her as she was a lifelong tennis player and got a real kick out of the tiny Charlie Brown wielding his tiny tennis racket to serve balls to Snoopy who had to jump up and down tree branches to hit it. If he missed, a happily sleeping Woodstock awoke and squawked about it. In the alarm feature, Lucy and piano player Schroeder make an appearance. The best part is that with Snoopy Tennis no tiny imaginary people died.

Snoopy Tennis
Snoopy Tennis was released on April 28, 1982, two years to the day after the first Game and Watch made its appearance.

My mother absolutely owned that game. I think her high score was in the ten thousands and, boy, did those tennis balls come fast and furious. She worked those controls like a boss. Everyone who watched her play was awed. At some point her thumbs got too overworked and she had to give up the game. It bubbled up out of a box when we were going through my parents’ house last summer so we now have two of that game. Hers is the one shown here.

I think about how far electronic games have come since then. I prefer games where when I lose, nothing dies. Which is why I love Candy Crush. Having completed over 5000 levels, I’m in rarefied territory and know of only one friend at a higher level. Like my Mom, I kinda own the game. But I think if my Mom had ever played Candy Crush, she would have given me a run for my money.

The links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_%26_Watch_games

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_%26_Watch_series

The 100-Year Legacy of the National Christmas Tree

Dec24

 A 102 Year Tradition

December 24th

2019NCTL_Ceremony.jpg

The 2019 National Christmas Tree

At 3 p.m. on Monday, December 24th, 1923, an American tradition began which continues to this day. That event was the lighting of the first National Christmas tree.

Now, 102 years later, the event occurs earlier in the month – this year on December 4th – as it has since 1954 during a month long event known as the Pageant of Peace. But back to the beginning.

The concept of a National Christmas tree was the idea of Frederick Morris Feiker, an engineer with General Electric. He, along with Vermont US Senator Frank L. Greene, convinced President Calvin Coolidge to light the tree.

Alumni of Middlebury College in Vermont paid for the transport of a 48 foot tall balsam fir to be transported to Washington, D.C. with GE providing 2,500 green, red, and white electric lights.

From the Infallible Wikipedia:

calvin-coolidge-was-the-first-president-to-instate-a-public-christmas-celebration-at-the-white-house-with-the-first-national-chris.jpg

President Calvin Coolidge and dignitaries at the first National Tree Lighting ceremony in 1923

“At 3 p.m. on December 24, 1923, a 100-voice choir from the First Congregational Church assembled on the South Portico of the White House and began a two-hour concert of Christmas carols. At 5 p.m. (dusk) on Christmas Eve, President Coolidge touched a button at the foot of the tree which lit the lights and electric candles adorning the tree, but he did not speak. A searchlight from the nearby Washington Monument was trained on the tree to help illuminate it as well. The Coolidge family invited citizens of the city to sing Christmas carols on the Ellipse after dark. Between 5,000 and 6,000 people thronged the park, joined by 3,000 more people by 9 p.m. The crowds were joined by the Epiphany Church and First Congregational Church choirs, which sang carols, and the Marine Band played Christmas-themed music. The singing ended shortly before midnight. After the white residents of the city had dispersed, African American residents of the city were permitted on the park grounds to see the National Christmas Tree. An outdoor Christian worship service was held, and a mass choir composed of signing groups from area community centers sang more Christmas carols. An illuminated Christian cross was flashed on the Washington Monument, and men dressed as shepherds walked from the National Christmas Tree to the monument.”

300px-US_National_Christmas_Tree_1923The following year Coolidge objected to cutting down a tree for the event so a 35 foot tall live Norway Spruce was located and planted in a new location near the Treasury Building. This tree survived until 1929 when it was determined that the plant had been damaged and needed to be replaced. This began a series of live trees being planted, dying, and being replaced until, in 1934, the last tree was cut down in that location.

In December 1934, the tree and the ceremony were moved to Layfayette park, north of the White House. There it remained for only a few short years before returning to its original site on the Ellipse where it remains to this day. Over the years there have been many, many trees which have served in the role. Additionally, the ceremonies and events associated with it have become quite extensive. If you’d like to read more about its history, here’s the Wikipedia link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Christmas_Tree_(United_States) and also the link to the official website https://thenationaltree.org/lighting-ceremony/2019-national-christmas-tree-lighting-ceremony/.

Although I’ve never seen the National Tree, I do love driving around during the Christmas season and viewing all the wonderful outdoor decorations. There is nothing quite so beautiful as a blue spruce or fir tree at night covered with lights AND an inch or two of snow on its branches.

My first memory of such a tree was when I was probably 7 or 8. My bedroom in Yakima faced towards our backyard. Our neighbor, Ray Broten, spent a lot of time keeping his yard beautiful. No matter the season, his was always manicured and trimmed to perfection. That particular December, the spruce tree located in the southwest corner of his backyard cut through the darkness with blue, green, red, and white lights, illuminating my bedroom each night. After I went to bed there was many a time I stole back over to the window and just stood and looked out at his beautiful tree. My favorite nights were when a soft snow was falling, muting the darkness with a blanket of white.

When I got too cold, I’d crawl back in to bed, and as I warmed up and drifted off to sleep, the shine of those lights would bathe the room with a soft glow.

This tradition continued for a number of years until the time I moved away from Yakima. Although those years are long ago, the memory is etched with clarity as Mr. Broten unknowingly created one of my fondest recollections.

May your Christmas also be one of wonderful reminiscences and the creation of new memories. Merry Christmas one and all.

Five Famous Babies

May28

May 28, 2019Dionne quintuplets with mother

Born on May 28, 1934, this set of five identical girls was believed to be the first quintuplets to have all survived such a birth. The chances of an identical five are 1 in 55 million. The news raced around the globe, catapulting the Dionne sisters to international fame.

Already the parents of five children, Oliva (father) and Elzire (mother), were a poor family from Ontario, Canada.  From the Infallible Wikipedia:

“Elzire suspected she was carrying twins, but no one was aware that quintuplets were even possible. The quintuplets were born two months premature. In 1938, the doctors had a theory that was later proven correct when genetic tests showed that the girls were identical, meaning they were created from a single egg cell. Elzire reported having had cramps in her third month and passing a strange object which may have been a sixth fetus.

Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe is credited with ensuring the successful live birth of the quintuplets. Originally, he diagnosed Elzire with a ‘fetal abnormality’. He delivered the babies with the help of two midwives, Aunt Donalda and Madame Benoit Lebel, who were summoned by Oliva Dionne in the middle of the night.

Émilie and Marie shared an embryonic sac, Annette and Yvonne shared an embryonic sac, and it is believed that Cécile shared an embryonic sac with the miscarried sixth baby. All but Émilie were later discovered to be right-handed and all but Marie had a counter-clockwise whorl in their hair.

The quintuplets’ total weight at birth was 13 pounds, 6 ounces. Their individual weights and measurements were not recorded. The quintuplets were immediately wrapped in cotton sheets and old napkins, and laid in the corner of the bed. Elzire went into shock, but she recovered in two hours.

The babies were kept in a wicker basket borrowed from the neighbours, covered with heated blankets. They were brought into the kitchen and set by the open door of the stove to keep warm. One by one, they were taken out of the basket and massaged with olive oil. Every two hours for the first twenty-four, they were fed water sweetened with corn syrup. By the second day they were moved to a slightly larger laundry basket and kept warm with hot-water bottles. They were watched constantly and often had to be roused. They were then fed with ‘seven-twenty’ formula: cow’s milk, boiled water, two spoonfuls of corn syrup, and one or two drops of rum for a stimulant.”

Dionne Quintuplets (6)Even without television or the internet, their birth created media frenzy.  The Province of Ontario – after four months – placed the quints into a guardianship and removed the girls from their parents.  The parents were declared unfit to raise the five girls (but not their other children!).

Dr. Dafoe with quintuplets

Dr. Dafoe with the girls.

 

A nursery facility was constructed across the street from the Dionne’s farmhouse and staff was hired to care for the girls. Not unlike animals on display in a zoo, the girls were taken out side to a play area three times a day. The paying public could observe them through one way screens. Also from the Infallible Wikipedia:

“Approximately 6,000 people per day visited the observation gallery that surrounded the outdoor playground to view the Dionne sisters. Ample parking was provided and almost 3,000,000 people walked through the gallery between 1936 and 1943. Oliva Dionne ran a souvenir shop and a concession store opposite the nursery and the area acquired the name ‘Quintland’. tourists with viewing clockThe souvenirs, picturing the five sisters, included autographs and framed photographs, spoons, cups, plates, plaques, candy bars, books, postcards, and dolls. Oliva also sold stones from the Dionne farm that were supposed to have a magical power of fertility. Midwives Madame LeGros and Madame LeBelle also opened their own souvenir and dining stand. The quintuplets brought in more than $50 million in total tourist revenue to Ontario. Quintland became Ontario’s biggest tourist attraction of the era, surpassing the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.”Tourists rushing in to view the quintuplets

 

 

This arrangement lasted until Dr. Dafoe’s death in 1943 when the girls were nine. Their parents successfully sued the Ontario government for the return of their children.

Unfortunately, the quintuplets continued to be exploited, but this time by their father who used the funds the girls had earned through public appearances and merchandise sales.  He built a large house which featured uncommon luxuries but kept secret from his daughters’ the source of the wealth.  All the girls left home at age 18.

The famous five have been the subject of books, documentaries and movies. Today, in our more enlightened times, we can clearly see the harm which they suffered. In 1998, the three surviving sisters were awarded $2.8 million dollars in compensatory damages from the Ontario government for exploitation.

There have been other high profile ‘multiples’ births since 1934. The McCaughey septuplets, born in 1997, were the first set of seven to all survive birth. The most to be born to one mother and all survive are octuplets with two known such births. The most recent set, the Suleman octuplets, arrived in 2009. Unlike the Dionne sisters, these births were the result of fertility drugs and/or in vitro-fertilization.

From a fairly young age, I thought that I’d like to have twins someday. While that never happened, one of my best friends in high school (and to this day!) was a triplet. What a surprise it must have been for her parents’ with the following scenario: a son was born, then a daughter… then twins (a boy and a girl), followed by… triplets (boy, boy, girl).

I had a conversation with her mother one day after the birth of my son. I told her I was in awe of what she had done and how hard she must have worked to care for that brood of seven. I told her I found taking care of just one baby to be a difficult endeavor. She just smiled and said that it was a lot of effort, but worth it.

Then in the early 2000’s another friend of mine announced she was expecting triplets! I sprang into action and – when she ended up bed-ridden two months prior to her due date – I started sending her daily emails with naming strategies for her three babies. A few examples:

wilma pebbles bettyThe Flintstones: Wilma, Betty, Pebbles

British Royalty: Elizabeth, Mary, Victoria

The Jetsons: Jane, Judy, Rosie

Gilligan’s Island: Ginger, Maryann, Lovey

Bewitched: Samantha, Tabitha, Eldora

The Supreme’s: Diana, Florence, Mary

spice girls    Spice Girls: Sporty, Posh, Ginger

You get the idea. I continued to pepper her with outlandish names until the girls arrived in early June of 2002. Despite the exhaustive list, none of my suggested name combinations were chosen.

So even though I never ended up with ‘multiples’ I did get to join in the fun and awe of such an event and was more than happy with having two ‘singles.’

The links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionne_quintuplets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCaughey_septuplets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suleman_octuplets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_birth

 

Facebook answers! The Jackson 5, The Spice Girls, The Dionne Quintuplets, The Beach Boys