irememberjfk_l6fq3c – Page 18 – I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

The Einstein of the Boomer Generation: Stephen Hawking

Young Stephen Hawking (holding the handkerchief) with the Oxford Boating Club

Once in a great while, a scientific mind comes along that changes everything. These brilliant individuals include Euclid, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein, and a Boomer whose name fits right alongside the greatest of all: Professor Stephen Hawking.

Hawking was born in Oxford on January 8, 1942, to Dr. Frank Hawking, a research biologist, and his wife Isobel. Though German bombs were falling all around them, his parents had moved from North London while Stephen was in his mother’s womb in order to escape the brunt of the attacks. Kudos to them, it would have been a tragedy for the human race to lose that mind in childhood.

Eventually, they moved to St. Albans, where young Stephen attended St. Albans High School for Girls. That’s right, the school welcomed male students up to the age of ten. When he outgrew that institution, he switched to St. Albans public school, which proudly traced its history back to the year 1100. He was a diligent but unexceptional student who enjoyed science.

Under the encouragement of a favorite teacher, he boned up hard on mathematics, but steered his scholastics towards physics when he realized he had a better shot at getting into Oxford, his father’s alma mater, under that discipline. He got in, but again was unexceptional as a student. He didn’t like reading that much, or writing things down.

You can get away with that when you have one of the most brilliant brains in human history.

He received his BA degree in 1962, but stayed at Oxford to study astronomy. However, Oxford’s limited astronomical equipment was holding him back, so he switched to Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

It was shortly after his arrival at that school that he began manifesting symptoms of ALS, the disease that would eventually confine him to a wheelchair, but not without a mighty fight.

Most ALS patients last perhaps two or three years after diagnosis. It’s 2011, and Mr. Hawking is still around, as brilliant as ever. Hats off to you, sir.

Hawking didn’t let the diagnosis faze him. He went to work on obtaining a Ph.D.

In 1965, he married his first wife, Jane. They would have three children before divorcing in 1991. At presstime, they have had a reconciliation of sorts, still good friends.

By 1974, Hawking, who could no longer walk, was made a Fellow of the British Royal Society. He was also made a commander in the Order of the British Empire. Despite these honors, he had barely begun to distinguish himself scientifically. The world hadn’t seen nothing yet.

Hawking appears on TV’s The Big Bang Theory, which wouldn’t have a title without his help

Though Hawking’s name is firmly attached to research about black holes, the concept of the super-strong gravitational anomalies has been around since the 18th century. However, in 1974, Hawking did produce a startling new theory about them: They evaporate.

Even though the super-dense objects don’t emit light, they DO emit thermal radiation, which means that they can lose mass. Eventually, they will vanish. Amazing, weird, wonderful stuff.

As Hawking continued to defy the two-year life expectancy he was initially given, he continued to rewrite science. The field of quantum physics owes much of its current state to Hawking’s stubbornly examining theories, finding problems with them, and rewriting them to make more sense.

In 1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia. He had to get a tracheotomy in order to breathe, and hasn’t spoken naturally since. He uses a keyboard with which his typed phrases are given an artificial human voice, one with which we have gotten familiar as he is quoted and featured in TV shows and other presentations about the origin of the universe.

However, that amazing mind continues to change scientific thought even as his body continues to deteriorate. He is considered courageous by most, reckless by some, and completely crazy by a few. But then again, so were most of the scientists mentioned early in the article.

In 2007, he enjoyed freedom from the constraints of gravity as he took a two-hour flight in a specially equipped 727 over the Atlantic, in order to repeatedly experience zero-G. It wasn’t just a trip for fun. Professor Hawking has every intention to go into space.

If I were you, I wouldn’t bet against him.

The Day John Lennon Died

John and Yoko outside the Dakota in 1980

We younger Boomers remember the assassinations of the 60’s, but we were really too young to be touched by them. I remember my parent’s agonized reactions to JFK, Bobby, and MLK, but my reaction was more of amazement than sorrow.

The 70’s were blissfully free from the types of high-profile assassinations that plagued the 60’s, but it wasn’t without trying. President Ford survived two attempts, but nobody died.

That all came crashing to a halt the evening of December 8, 1980.

A lot of the nation was watching Monday Night Football when Howard Cosell broke into the broadcast to announce that John Lennon had been killed. I was watching MASH, so I learned through a news bulletin.

Now I knew how my parents felt in the 60’s.

I reached up and turned off the television and put John’s Plastic Ono Band on the stereo. John had just released one of his most commercially and critically successful albums, Double Fantasy, and had just appeared on Rolling Stone’s cover (naked, of course). It looked like the 80’s would prove to be an artistically productive decade for my favorite Beatle.

And just like that, he was dead.

I had time to create pen-and-ink drawings back then, and over the next few days created a collage of images of Lennon. It was pretty good, but I have no clue what ever became of it.

John had long been a thorn in the side of conservative politicians, being an outspoken critic of ANY war, but particularly the one in Vietnam. Richard Nixon, whose paranoia led to his infamous enemy lists, was a foe of Lennon’s protests. The US had used a drug conviction to deny him citizenship, most likely in retaliation. But they finally relented in 1976, and John became a model citizen.

Little was heard of Lennon for a while. He took out a full page ad holiday greetings ad in the New York Times about 1978 or so which seemed to hint to fans of a Beatles reunion. But remember, these were the same fans who were convinced that Paul was dead.

In 1980, Lennon and his wife released their joyful celebration of family life, the previously mentioned Double Fantasy. Now we knew what they had been up to during those quiet years, raising kids!

John’s death deeply touched many Boomers, including Paul Simon, who penned these poignant words in his song “The Late Great Johnny Ace”:

On a cold December evening
I was walking through the Christmas tide
When a stranger came up and asked me
If I’d heard John Lennon died
And the two of us went to this bar
And we stayed to close the place
And every song we played
Was for The Late Great Johnny Ace

The Civil Rights Movement

Black American civil rights leader Martin Luther King

Generations go through societal changes, but some see earthshaking adjustments. Imagine being born in 1880, and seeing the airplane invented when you were 23, then seeing man on the moon when you were 89. Well, we baby Boomers were eyewitnesses to a similar quantum leap: the Civil Rights Movement, and all that it accomplished.

When the Civil War ended in 1865, slavery was outlawed. However, even though blacks were no longer property for sale, white society, particularly in the south, quickly passed laws which enforced a virtual slavery just a bit less oppressive than the real thing.

Jim Crow laws claimed that blacks and whites could comfortably live separate but equal lives. In reality, the white side of town was invariably much wealthier than its black counterpart, and “colored” schools, water fountains, bus seats, et al were simply inferior versions of the white varieties.

This was the status quo of life from 1865 until 1955. That year, the United States Supreme Court made a landmark decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. A unanimous decision was handed down that the traditional separate but equal situation was unconstitutional.

That meant that segregation had been declared illegal. But things weren’t so easy in real life. The Civil Rights Movement was necessitated by white society’s reluctance to accept blacks as their equals. It was no longer necessary for a black man to “know his place.” But an unfortunately large number of whites, particularly in southern states, saw no reason to stop business as usual.

For example, southern governors such as Orval Faubus and George Wallace refused to desegregate their states’ schools. It took the federal government’s stepping in to allow black students into traditional white schools. And their lives were not sunny under such circumstances, as school faculty sympathetic to segregation would apply pressure via outright discrimination, or by looking the other way as prejudiced students would harass them.

So blacks had to fight for their rights in many cases. The approach for doing so varied from peaceful marches led by Martin Luther King to outspoken activists like Malcolm X calling for death to the white pigs.

Marches took place all over the United States from 1955 through the 60’s. The idea of racial equality was accepted without question by many. It took some getting used to by many more. And an unfortunate vocal number were opposed to the very idea. Many brave men, women, and children gave up their lives protesting unequal treatment.

Racism is not something that comes naturally. Children of different colors playing together is an obvious proof of that. But when it’s taught from an early age, it’s difficult to overcome. Add to that peer pressure from fellow whites, and you can see why the south in general, and localized areas elsewhere, took so long to diversify.

But as the 60’s drew to a close, most communities had come around. Whites-only restrooms and drinking fountains were a rarity. However, many schools were still effectively, if not legally, segregated.

Unfortunately, beginning in 1971, forced busing was used to accomplish that final goal in some areas. Black and white children were bused far away from local schools to diversify others. That was an extremely unpopular situation for all concerned.

But some districts continued the practice for as long as twenty years. By the early 1990’s, busing was pretty eliminated by redrawing school districts, redesigning and/or rebuilding schools that were built with segregation in mind, and introducing “magnet” schools that offered special curricula to entice students from anywhere to voluntarily attend.

Are we racially equal today? Probably not. But we have certainly come a long way since 1968, since I saw my first and only whites-only bathroom somewhere in Mississippi. But unfortunately, black kids who grow up in inner-city poverty simply don’t have the same opportunities as white middle-class children. However, to contend that racism is as bad or worse than it was in our childhoods is simply extremist hyperbole.

Some problems may be beyond mere human efforts.

The Circus Comes to Town

Miami, Oklahoma was definitive Small Town America. Population about 14,000, the only traffic lights were on main Street, everybody in town knew who you were.

Yet we were treated to circuses that would pass through town every year, as far as I can recall. They were HUGE, at least in a child’s memory, because they had three rings, just like Barnum and Bailey!

Circuses have always been aimed at one demographic in particular: kids. That’s why the posters are so big, bright, and colorful. Once you capture the kids’ attention, you can rely on them to beg, cajole, and eventually prevail in the mission of persuading their parents to take them to the show.

In the 60’s there were many traveling circus companies. Unfortunately, I can’t recall any of their names, but I know that two or three would visit Miami.

The circus life wasn’t easy, and people must have engaged in it out of love of the art rather than financial gain. Yet enough people stuck with it that every year, a kid would be dazzled by the sight of seltzer-bottle-bearing clowns, sword swallowers, fire eaters, and fearless trapeze artists.

The grand daddy circus, put to death by animal rights groups

The bad economy of the 1970’s was hard on the circus trade. Some circuses merged, others passed by the wayside. But though their ranks may have thinned, traveling circuses never disappeared.

In fact, my own children grew up with memories of circuses. A big top circus came through town one chilly November 1995. My kids were able to enjoy an elephant ride in the drizzle beforehand, and then we shivered inside the tent as scantily-clad acrobats seriously earned their paychecks that cold evening.

One of the most successful traveling circuses still around is Circus Pages. That’s pronounced “pa hase”. The Florida-based troupe, originally out of Cuba, has a very entertaining act that is small enough to be held in modest-sized buildings. I took my kids to two of their performances over the years, and they were great. The appeal for members of the audience to help them pack up for 20 bucks an hour just added to their charm.

Nowadays, political correctness has affected the circus trade, and there is lots of pressure from animal rights groups to boycott any shows that are not animal-free. Even the Wikipedia entry seemed biased about any shows that still use animals.

While abuse has certainly taken place in the past by fleabag shows, I think banning animals in circuses is overly reactionary. It’s simply bad business for circuses to mistreat their animals, and successful above-board traveling shows like Circus Pages have a well-earned reputation of treating their animals like valued employees rather than property.

So here’s to the circuses we enjoyed as kids, and if Circus Pages comes to your town, take your grandkids. They’ll never forget it.

The Chicago Seven

Today’s I Remember JFK memory is one you’re no doubt familiar with if you grew up in the 60’s, even if, like me, you didn’t have a clue who they were or what they did. That’s because you heard their moniker, the Chicago Seven, every night on the news.

Indeed, I grew up with the name of the group on trial as familiar with me as terms like Vietnam, Gemini, Martin Luther King, and other subjects of newscasts. But the Chicago Seven were baffling to a kid, because it just wasn’t clear why they were in trouble.

They were charged with, among other things, conspiracy. That was rather frightening, because conspiring was supposed to be an okay thing to do. After all, didn’t the song Walking in a Winter Wonderland say “Later on, we’ll conspire, as we dream by the fire?” Evidently, if we did, we would be subject to arrest.

It was all very confusing to a kid. I was confused enough, because I would overhear my mom say things to my older brother like if he dropped out of school, he would be sent to Vietnam and would be shot. Now THAT was an incentive to keep the grade average up!

The Chicago Seven were on trial because of riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention. They were charged with inciting the riots, and other offenses related to stirring the pot which caused violent demonstrations. The eight, later pared down to seven, were extreme radicals. They were Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, and Lee Weiner. Black Panther Bobby Seale was removed from the trial by a whopping four-year sentence for contempt of court.

I feel sorry for the judge, Julius Hoffman. He was from a generation that was trained to be polite. He presided over a trial of radicals who weren’t afraid to display extreme behavior to get their points across. And display it they did.

One particularly stormy day, Hoffman and Rubin walked in dressed in judicial robes. Hoffman blew kisses at the jury. They were charged with contempt, of course.

In reality, it all seems kind of funny now, but I recommend you read James Michener’s Kent State: What Happened and Why to understand the real fear that was felt by members of law enforcement and judges. It was a real eye-opener to me.

Anyhow, the media delighted in reporting the antics of the Seven, and Hoffman’s attempts to maintain order in his court. Hoffman was called a “fascist dog,” a “pig,” and a “racist” by Seale, hence his long contempt sentence.

In the end, they were acquitted of practically all of the charges, and the few they were convicted of were later overturned. Hoffman was reviled by the radical culture as a hopeless member of the Establishment.

Protests continue today, but more often in the milder form of slams at Oscar presentations. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t miss the days when riots would often accompany public conventions.

The Amazin’ Mets of 1969

Mets fans are still seething that my beloved St. Louis Cardinals, tripping and stumbling down the stretch, managed to get their act together in time to knock a very strong team out of the 2006 World Series. But happier memories exist for fans of the Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York, as they are formerly known.

New York fans were shafted by the greedy owners of the Dodgers and Giants in 1957. It was shocking that in one year, New York went from having two NL teams to having none.

In 1962, the Mets began playing. Rather than going for young talent, their GM went for older, more well known players (many of them former players for the three NY teams) who were past their prime. His ineptitude seemed to filter down to the players and coaches. Casey Stengel led them to an inaugural 40-120 record.

While fans embraced their lovable losers, by 1968 it was starting to get old. Once they traded a player to be named later to Cleveland for catcher Harry Chiti. The player to be named later ended up being Chiti, sent back to Cleveland. Funny, weird, inept stuff.

But new GM Johnny Murphy started getting some actual talent together. New manager and former player Gil Hodges was hired in ’68, and recently acquired Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Tommy Agee, Bud Harrelson, Jerry Grote, and Cleon Jones began performing above and beyond their expectations. The ’68 Mets had their best finish ever, but it was still 16 games below .500.

1969 saw them starting slowly, then surging. By the end of the season they had an incredible 100 wins! However, they still weren’t in that magical World Series. Baseball had introduced divisional playoffs that year, and they had to beat Hank Aaron and the Braves first.

No prob, they swept them in three.

What followed was one of the most amazing, lopsided defeats of a highly favored Baltimore team that put the entire nation into ecstasy. EVERYBODY loved the Amazin’ Mets, and they showed up on everything from game shows to Sullivan afterward.

The Mets had more success, but not such that captured the whole nation. In fact, the high-fiving, coke snorting 1986 team was reviled by most outside of NY. But that 1969 team was the original America’s Team.

The American Football League

There’s an old adage in the business world: Don’t get mad, get even!

It was that sort of positive thinking from Texas oil millionaire Lamar Hunt that caused the formation of the most successful upstart professional sports league since MLB’s American league sprang on the scene in 1901. Editorial aside: now, if they would only get rid of the asinine designated hitter!

Hunt wanted a football franchise in his hometown of Dallas. He led a consortium that attempted to purchase the struggling Chicago Cardinals in 1958, with the idea of relocating them to Big D, but failed in his endeavor. Next, he tried to convince league commissioner Bert Bell that it was time for the NFL to get a couple of expansion teams, one, of course, being located in a certain north Texas city. Bell pooh-poohed the idea. Hunt’s dealings with the NFL were done.

On his plane back home from his ill-fated meeting, Hunt conceived the idea of a new football league. When the plane landed, he got on the phone to a few other movers and shakers and sketched out a plan for what would be the American Football League.

On August 14, 1959, the first league meeting was held. The first franchises were granted to Dallas, New York, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis-Saint Paul. That makes the AFL two weeks older than yours truly.

The NFL, wary of its upstart rival, immediately began wooing the owners of the new teams with promises of expansion franchises if they would just give up this silly new league idea. They managed to lure M-SP’s owner, but the rest stood firm. In an up-yours gesture aimed directly at Hunt, one of the new 1960 expansion teams was the Dallas Cowboys.

Two more franchises were granted to Detroit and Buffalo, and Oakland managed to grab up the vacancy left by the departure of the Minnesota team. Fortunately, the Senores soon decided to change their name to the Raiders.

The first AFL season took place in 1960. A few quality college players were signed up by team owners with large pocketbooks, and a five-year TV deal with perennial third-place network ABC, who was willing to gamble on the new league, made things pretty solid financially for the near future.

The first couple of years saw a lot of transition. An exhibition game took place in 1961 between the Buffalo Bills and the Hamilton Tiger Cats of the CFL. The Cats, one of the best in their league, beat the Bills, one of the worst in the AFL, but the Bills put up a respectable fight. That was the only meeting of its kind between the CFL and any American league.

Program from the final AFL championship game

In 1963, Hunt relocated the Dallas Texans to Kansas City and renamed them the Chiefs. There was simply no competing with the better-backed Cowboys in Dallas.

But the league continued to attract top talent away from the NFL via the draft, and that was what kept the public’s interest piqued. Additionally, the AFL had gained a reputation as a wide-open offensive affair, with lots of balls flying through the air. The NFL was known for lots and lots of boring running plays. Plus, the AFL had some innovative differences in rules from its senior rival: the two-point conversion, the scoreboard clock exactly matching the official clock (it wasn’t unusual in NFL games for the two clocks to vary by a few seconds), and putting player names on the backs of their jerseys. The league also reached out to black college athletes, who were still largely snubbed by the other guys.

The public grew more and more to love the irreverent league, and the NFL finally reluctantly reached out to them for a proposed merger. The talks began in 1966, but the deal wasn’t completed until 1970, shortly after Super Bowl 4 (I really hate those pretentious Roman numerals!). That particular game must have been deeply satisfying to Hunt, when his Kansas City Chiefs defeated the traitorous Minnesota Vikings.

Nowadays, there are still a few of the original AFL owners left, but they are getting up there. Hunt died in 2006. Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson is still around (update: passed in 2019), so is Oakland’s Al Davis (update: passed in 2011). The legacy of the AFL is seen in player’s names on the backs of ALL jerseys, the two-point conversion, and the dominance of the New England Patriots (watch out, Brady’s back!), as well as many other dynasties. So here’s a tip of the cap to the late Lamar Hunt, who decided to get even, and dreamed up the whole league on an airplane flight.

Suzanne Pleshette

As I pen this, word has just been released that Suzanne Pleshette has just succumbed to lung cancer.

Ms. Pleshette was just a few days short of her 71st birthday. And she will always be a treasured memory of Boomers who enjoyed her in TV and movies (and Broadway, for a few of us).

Suzanne came by life on the stage naturally. Her mother was a dancer and her father managed the Paramount Theater in New York. She was enrolled at the city’s famous High School of Performing Arts and spent time in and out of college after graduating while looking for acting gigs.

She was soon on stage while attending the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre, and ended up getting some minor Broadway roles.

Jerry Lewis got wind of her acting prowess on the stage and arranged her film debut in his 1968 film The Geisha Boy.

Suzanne loved the stage, though, and returned to Broadway to several costarring roles. But her talent couldn’t be contained, and she soon had TV appearances in shows like Have Gun Will Travel, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Dr. Kildare.

But her stage career was blossoming as well, and she eventually replaced Anne Bancroft in the long running The Miracle Worker.

But finally, TV and the movies won out. While she never hit a huge starring role on film, she had memorable roles, including the schoolteacher in The Birds. I remember a hilarious late 1970’s flick called Hot Stuff where she played alongside Dom De Luise. My favorite scene was when she told the construction worker where he could go to the bathroom seeing that his porta-potty had just been destroyed.

Her frequent TV appearances finally led to a costarring role on the Bob Newhart Show in 1972. The show, which held the powerhouse position of following the Mary Tyler Moore Show, was a Saturday night smash. Pleshette played Bob’s wife Emily, the perfect sarcastic counterpart to Bob Hartley’s character.

Good writing and chemistry blessed the show, and it ran for five years, continuing in syndication to this day. And that’s why the closing episode of Newhart, Bob’s next successful comedy, simply was such a hoot.

Here it is, quoted from Wikipedia:

…a light is turned on, and viewers see Newhart in bed, saying “Honey, you won’t believe the dream I just had.” Another light comes on, revealing not Dick Loudon’s wife Joanna, but Bob Hartley’s wife Emily (Suzanne Pleshette). The bedroom is a recreation from The Bob Newhart Show, and – in a parody of a 1980s television vogue – the entire Newhart series is revealed to have been a dream in the mind of Newhart’s 1970s character. Bob tells Emily that in the dream, he lived in a weird Vermont town surrounded by strange people: a snobbish maid and her alliterative husband, a dense handyman, and three eccentric woodsmen, two of whom were mute.When he reveals that he was married to a beautiful blonde in the dream, an annoyed Emily tells Bob to go back to sleep and flicks off the light on her side of the bedroom. Reviving a technique from The Bob Newhart Show, in which one of the Hartleys incredulously flicks back on a bedside light and restarts the conversation, Emily turns her light back on and inquires, “What do you mean, ‘beautiful blonde?!’ Bob tells her to go back to sleep, commenting, “You should wear more sweaters,” something Joanna was noted for. The scene ends to the strains of the old Bob Newhart Show theme song (although this was removed for syndicated reruns).

Hilarious stuff. Even better, Suzanne ended up marrying Newhart’s favorite costar Tom Poston in 2000, and they stayed happily married until his untimely death in 2007.

Suzanne Pleshette will be missed my many, but especially us Baby Boomers who grew up with her on TV or in the movies.

1974: The Year of the Streaker

1974 dawned with no hint of its significance. In January, it was just another year. By December, people running around naked in public had become commonplace enough to become, well, boring.

Streaking had been going on at college campuses before that. Princeton was streaked as early as 1970. Notre Dame had a “streaker’s Olympics” in 1972. But the fad hit the big time in the spring of 1974, when students at colleges in southern California and Florida were shedding all of their clothes (except for sneakers, of course) and running across their campuses.

Soon, naked people were seen on newscasts, sporting events, parades, and in at least one state legislative session. The “Streaker of the House” interrupted a meeting of the Hawaiian body of lawmakers.

As the year wore on, streakers went for style, rather than mere running. There were bicycling streakers, roller skating streakers, horseback-riding streakers, pogo sticking streakers, the list goes on and on. Even streaking skydivers dropped out of the sky, although wearing a parachute could arguably cross the line of what defines nudity.

Ray Stevens saw the opportunity to cash in on the fad, and did so big time with his song “The Streak.” The goofy classic hit #1 that year of 1974.

The University of Georgia was the home of the largest simultaneous streak in history. On March 7 of that year, when it’s still quite chilly in Athens, 1,543 students went for a naked run.

Streaking became the hot new activity for the nation’s youth. My school superintendent felt worried enough that an announcement was made warning any potential streakers of the very dire consequences they would experience if they should choose to shed their clothing and take off across the Pea Ridge High School campus.

David Niven handles an Oscar streaker very well

My all-time favorite streaking moment was when the Oscar streaker did his thing that year. I’ve always been a David Niven fan, but he became my all-time favorite British actor the night the streaker ran in front of him flashing the peace sign on the April 2, 1974 presentations of the 46th Academy Awards. The affable, ever clever Mr. Niven didn’t hesitate for a second before stating “Isn’t it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?”

By the time the weather turned cold in 1974, streaking as a craze had ended. But occasional streakers continue to show up, mainly at big sporting events. European soccer seems to be a popular arena for naked runners these days, if the proliferation of YouTube videos is any indication. And of course streaking, like practically everything else that was done for the joy of it, has been officially sanctioned by Big Business. Nike has a commercial showing a soccer streaker wearing a certain brand of shoes. Care to guess which?

So here’s to a fad that kept us distracted from things like Watergate woes one year in the 70’s. BTW, if any of you readers ever actually streaked, I’d love to hear about it.

Steve Allen

Growing up Boomers, there were familiar faces on TV that kept showing up time after time that were as comfortable as a well-worn pair of slippers. They would move from series to series, and we sort of took it for granted that we would always have them.

Sadly, that’s not the case. One performer who left us in 2000 is dearly missed by me, and after the memory bump that this site provides, I suspect by you as well.

Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen was born in 1921 in NYC to a pair of vaudeville performers. Yes, show business was in his blood. His father died when Steve was a toddler, and his mother largely left it up to her family to raise him in the gritty south side of Chicago.

Steve sought a career in radio, and early in the 1940’s, he landed his first gig at station KOY in Phoenix. When WWII started, he enlisted and trained as an infantryman. He never was shipped overseas, though, and returned to radio when the war was over. he became an announcer for LA’s KAFC, then in 1946 began hosting a five-nights-per-week comedy show.

This led into a one-hour late night series that became a smash hit. Audiences were SRO, and one night, guest Doris Day failed to show. Allen tried something risky, moving into the audience with a microphone to do some ad-libbing. He was a natural at it, and it became a regular part of his performances.

The successful local show went national in 1950, and Allen began a 50-year-run of being a very recognizable and well-loved celebrity.

That same year, CBS gave Allen a daily half-hour TV variety show. It really didn’t catch on, and it was canceled in 1952.

Shortly afterwards, he was called upon to guest host Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts. He performed a live commercial bizarrely, preparing Lipton tea and Campbell’s soup and pouring both into Godfrey’s ukulele. The audience roared, and Allen had found his niche as a slightly atilt highly intellectual entertainer.

He was a regular face on What’s My Line (it was him who coined the phrase “Is it bigger than a breadbox?”), and in 1954, he was offered a job hosting a new NBC series: The Tonight Show.

He made the show a hit, and continued to host it three nights a week when he was offered a Sunday night primetime variety vehicle that was to compete with Sullivan.

A lot of folks were unaware that Allen had this gig, and just how powerful it was. Always overshadowed by the venerable Irishman’s offering, Allen nonetheless showed America a great time, and some amazing acts. For example, he had Elvis on before Sullivan did!

The show did as well as could be expected against CBS’s juggernaut. It help launch the careers of Johnny Carson, Tom Poston, Bill Dana, Don Knotts, and a number of other frequent appearers. He also had an unconventional author on once by the name of Jack Kerouac. Another of his most memorable moments was explaining the lyrics to the song “Be-Bop-a-Lu-La.”

After the Sunday evening show’s cancellation, Allen began hosting a late-night syndicated rehash of The Tonight Show. The show lasted from 1962-64, and featured an appearance by Frank Zappa, who played a tune on a bicycle. He also had Bob Dylan on in 1964. The Generation Gapwas quite in evidence as Allen struggled to get Dylan to communicate in an interview. He made it clear that he was a bit bewildered that the poet had reached America’s youth, but he respected and admired the fact that he did.

Allen went on to host a number of brilliant, short-lived series. In 1967, he had a summer show, The Steve Allen Comedy Hour, which launched the careers of Rob Reiner, John Byner, Richard Dreyfuss, and Ruth Buzzi, who would be on NBC’s Laugh-In later that year.

In the late 60’s, he returned to a syndicated late-night show that featured him doing some Lettermanesque stunts, including becoming a human hood ornament, jumping into huge containers of sticky foods, and once being copiously covered with dog food, and then allowing hungry canines to chow down from himself on camera.

In 1977, he began a series for PBS called Meeting of Minds, in which he put famous historical characters together for discussions of all sorts of matters. It was weird, fascinating stuff, which frequently caused me to tune to the local educational channel.

Allen had that rarest of gifts, a long-lasting Hollywood marriage, to actress Jayne Meadows. She would appear on each episode of the show. One memorable performance was as Catherine the Great, and how she bemoaned the fact that she had such lousy luck in bed. I guess her name might have been a bit too intimidating for her suitors?

Meeting of Minds ran for four seasons, but only a total of eighteen episodes were filmed. If you can find them on DVD, give them a look. They are truly timeless.

This could go on forever, so I must cut things a bit short. Allen was also a prolific songwriter, his most famous tune was “This Could be the Start of Something Big.” He was a gifted musician whose piano playing was legendary. He also wrote over 50 books. One of his specialties was debunking false truths.

On October 30, 2000, he was involved in a minor fender-bender in southern California. He went on to his son’s home, helped his grandchildren carve pumpkins, recorded a radio tribute to his friend, satirist Paul Krassner, and lay down for a nap.

He never woke up. The accident caused bleeding in his chest, and blood filled his pericardium and choked off his heart.

I miss Steverino. He never pretended to understand younger generations, but he respected them, and felt that they should laugh at themselves, just like everyone else ought to. He strongly molded modern-day talk-variety shows with his pioneering use of man-on-the-street interviews, his live bantering and ad-libbing with audience members, and his physical comedy.

Steve Allen’s 1921 birth truly was the start of something big.