This has been a difficult week. I lost both a favorite aunt and a favorite Supreme Court Justice. (No, I'm not RBG's nephew; I'm talking about two different people.)
I suppose I should be grateful. Grief made me momentarily forget that we are still in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, that the west coast of our country is on fire while the east coast is flooded, and that our president thinks he knows more than all the epidemiologists and climatologists in the world because he has a big "a-brain" that can retain five random words for more than ten minutes. (Big deal. Loretta and I do that all the time when we go to the grocery store. For more than five items, we might need a list.)
Our country—if not our planet—has become apocalyptic, and for me there is no better escape from an actual apocalypse than a fictional one. Some of my favorite works of apocalyptic fiction are: Stephen King's The Stand, Robert McCammon's Swan Song, Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore's The Walking Dead, and Richard Matheson's I Am Legend.
There have been three film versions of I Am Legend, and this week I watched two of them back-to-back: the 1971 version with Charlton Heston (Omega Man), and the 2007 version with Will Smith. Both were pretty good, but neither was as good as the book. I suppose I would give a slight edge to the 2007 version. It had better special effects, and a forty-year-old Will Smith makes a much better action hero than a fifty-year-old Charlton Heston. Also, it has Bob Marley.
When he isn't fighting off monsters or trying to cure them, Smith's character, Dr. Robert Neville, is listening to Bob Marley. As he tells another survivor:
He had this idea. It was kind of a virologist idea. He believed that you could cure racism and hate—literally cure it—by injecting music and love into people's lives. When he was scheduled to perform at a peace rally, a gunman came to his house and shot him down. Two days later he walked out on that stage and sang. When they asked him why, he said, "The people who were trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness."
That quote stuck with me, and I've been listening to Bob Marley this morning. I like Get Up Stand Up, and I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have appreciated it, too:
Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights
However, I think my favorite is the song that is Neville's mantra in I Am Legend: Three Little Birds. I think my Aunt Sheila would have liked it, too:
Rise up this mornin' Smiled with the risin' sun Three little birds Pitch by my doorstep Singin' sweet songs Of melodies pure and true Sayin' (this is my message to you)
Singin' don't worry 'bout a thing 'Cause every little thing gonna be alright Singin' don't worry 'bout a thing 'Cause every little thing gonna be alright
I retired a couple of weeks ago, and now I have even more time on my hands than I had when I was working from home. A lot of that time has been spent watching the news, and it isn't pretty. COVID-19 numbers are spiking in many states, including ours. The experts continue to urge the standard precautions: hand-washing, social distancing, masks. Most of the people we've seen seem to be complying, but as of this writing there is one notable exception: our president. Recently, one of his Fox Friends urged him to set a good example by wearing a mask, which I thought was pretty funny, considering the fact that he has consistently set the worst example for every sort of human behavior. It's the one thing he's good at—why, he's almost as good as Goofy.
Allow me to explain.
These days, with students having to attend virtual classrooms, instructional videos are nothing special. Even before the pandemic, I'm sure lots of teachers used them. But when I was growing up back in the middle of the last century, it was a real treat to get to watch a movie at school, even if it came with a lesson. Instructional films taught us to be more polite, be more careful, eat healthier—usually with examples of what not to do. The best ones were the Goofy cartoons by Walt Disney, where the narrator told us what we should do while Goofy did the exact opposite, with hilarious results.
Goofy as a demented driver in Motor Mania
During the past three-and-a-half years, Donald Trump has proven himself to be, at best, incompetent, lazy, and a pathological liar. He has demonstrated just about everything a president should not do, and refusing to mask-up during the pandemic is the very least of it. He has insulted our allies, praised dictators and white supremacists, promoted violence, attacked the press, solicited interference in our elections, and blamed everyone else for his own mistakes.
In short, he is President Goofy.
Look, I understand why a lot of people voted for him. They didn't trust politicians. They wanted an outsider, someone who knew nothing about government. The trouble is, President Goofy is every bit as incompetent today as he was when he was inaugurated. He hasn't learned a thing in the three-and-a-half years he's been in office, and he hasn't shown any interest in doing so.
It's time for this experiment in kakistocracy to end. President Goofy has been a useful illustration of how not to be a president, but now it's time to elect someone who knows how to be a president. If you feel you can't vote for Joe Biden in the upcoming election, that's okay. I will understand. But please, whatever you do, do not vote for Donald Trump.
You'd do better to cast a write-in vote for Donald Duck.
Last week I read an article about the pandemic giving people vivid dreams. Well, this morning I had a doozie.
I guess because today would normally be our weekly meeting day, I dreamed I was in a meeting with some of my co-workers. However, because of the pandemic, the meeting was being held at a co-worker's house, and for some reason it happened to be the same house where my family lived when I was in middle school (or, as we called it then, "junior high").
Before I go any further with the story, I need to tell you a little bit about the house and especially about my bedroom. It was a big two-story house, about a hundred years old, with four bedrooms, a front and back stairway, and a small enclosed foyer between the front door and the living room. My bedroom was at the back of the house. It was by no means the biggest bedroom, but it was definitely the coolest, because it had access to a small second-floor porch and to the attic. And mind you, this wasn't one of those cramped attics where you have to get to it by climbing a ladder, you can't stand up without hitting your head on a rafter, and you have to be careful where you walk or you'll fall through the ceiling. This was a big, old-fashioned attic, fully-floored and accessed by an actual stairway behind a door next to my bed.
In my dream, my co-worker had turned my bedroom and the adjoining attic into a spacious, tastefully-decorated office suite. It bore little resemblance to the room I once occupied, but being there reminded me of something that happened to me over fifty years ago. I told my co-workers the following story, which is absolutely true.
One night when I was about thirteen, I was awakened by the sound of something flying around my bedroom, something much bigger than the usual fly or mosquito. I had seen bats flying around our neighborhood, so I immediately knew what had happened: somehow, either from the attic or the porch, one had gotten into my room.
My dream audience hung on every word as I described my dilemma: I couldn't stay in the room, but I was terrified to get out of bed. They laughed when I told them how I slowly slid out of my bed and onto the floor, then crawled to the door, reached up and opened it, then quickly exited, quietly shutting the door behind me. I told them how I spent the rest of the night dozing in my father's recliner, how I sneaked back into my room the next day and left the porch door ajar, hoping the bat would be gone by the time I went to bed.
However, the bat must have exited the room when I did, because the following evening it showed up in our living room.
My memory is a little vague about what followed; as I said, this was over fifty years ago. I seem to remember standing on the landing of the front stairs, wielding a broom. I seem to remember the bat flying straight at me. I seem to remember looking directly into its face—and it wasn't one of those cute bat faces; it was horrifying, with lots of teeth. I seem to remember someone screaming, and I'm pretty sure it was me.
I remember that somehow we were able to herd the bat into the foyer and close the inside door on it. Then all I had to do was go out the back door and around to the front of the house, open the front door, and let it fly away.
Because my dream audience enjoyed the story so much, I woke up thinking I had to write it down. I also thought it would be nice to tie it to National Poetry Month, this being the last day—and didn't Emily Dickinson write a poem about bats?
Of course she did.
THE BAT is dun with wrinkled wings
Like fallow article,
And not a song pervades his lips,
Or none perceptible.
His small umbrella, quaintly halved,
Describing in the air
An arc alike inscrutable,—
Elate philosopher!
Deputed from what firmament
Of what astute abode,
Empowered with what malevolence
Auspiciously withheld.
To his adroit Creator
Ascribe no less the praise;
Beneficent, believe me,
His eccentricities.
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality."―Shirley Jackson
How's everyone holding up?
I have to admit the "absolute reality" of our situation sank in this week, and I went a little stir-crazy. I don't think I'm the only one, judging by the number of neighbors I see wandering restlessly up and down our street.
I've had trouble sleeping at night and concentrating on my work during the day. I've been spending far too much time on the Internet, tracking local COVID-19 stats and reading grim tales of death ships, body bags, and mobile morgues.
April being National Poetry Month, I naturally tried to distract myself with poetry. But I kept coming up with poems about death and pestilence, like this one:
Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss;
This world uncertain is;
Fond are life's lustful joys;
Death proves them all but toys;
None from his darts can fly;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Thomas Nashe, have mercy on us! His "A Litany in Time of Plague" goes on like that for five more stanzas, but I'll spare you the rest. Right now, we're all better off reading Wordsworth:
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:—
A Poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the shew to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
Poetry can be very be soothing, when it's not about the plague. So can nature, as Wordsworth and his fellow romantics knew. Looking out my window, in addition to our restless neighbors, I can see flowers, trees, birds, lizards, butterflies—even the occasional rabbit. And when I see such things my heart, like Wordsworth's, "with pleasure fills, And dances with the Daffodils." (Or, to be more accurate, "dances with the California poppies." Our daffodils have come and gone.)
Look, I realize how lucky Loretta and I are. Not everyone can look out their windows right now and see the things we can see. (I'm so grateful we no longer live in a townhouse, where the view from our front window was the dumpster enclosure behind a supermarket.)
The point is, in this terrible time of absolute crap reality, I hope everyone can find something to fill their heart with pleasure and make it dance.
"People can start laughing for all sorts of reasons. But sometimes they
laugh because, against all expectations, they’re still alive and have a
mouth left to laugh with."—Terry Pratchett
How's everyone holding up?
We've been self-isolating for a week-and-a-half, and we're doing pretty well, all things considered. I'm grateful that I'm able to work from home—something I've always wanted to do. But in the end it's still work, isn't it? I'm still grateful for the weekend.
I'm also grateful for Loretta. I don't know what I'd do without her. The other day she went out to buy a few things at the grocery store during the hour they reserve for us seniors. I called out to her to be careful, which used to mean, "Watch out for crazy drivers," but now means, "Stay away from other people, and don't forget your disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer."
Loretta has tried to keep us both active, mentally and physically, by proposing games, jigsaw puzzles, walks, and other activities. She even has us trying to learn the steps to the Laurel and Hardy dance routine from Way Out West. It's her way of coping. In return, I've tried to keep her laughing. Laughter is my way of coping.
I try to find the humor in any situation, which is probably why I'm one of the few people left on the planet who still reads the funnies.
"What are 'the funnies?'" I hear some of you ask.
You know—the comics? In the newspaper?
"What's a newspaper?" I hear some of you ask.
Ask your grandparents.
It's remarkable how little the comics have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Most of them have completely ignored it. I realize cartoonists create their strips in advance, but surely enough time has passed for the Bumsteads, the Flagstons, and the Forths to be self-isolating, and for Pig to spray Lysol into Rat's beer when he orders a Corona in Pearls Before Swine.
It makes me a little uneasy to see these characters continue to go about their business as if nothing has changed—just as it now makes me uneasy to see people not practicing social-distancing on television shows, no matter how long ago they were made. (Why are Andy and Barney always shaking hands, anyway? They've known each other for years.)
I think the award for first mention of the coronavirus in a comic strip should go to Scott Stantis, for his Prickly City strip from Friday, March 20th:
It wasn't very funny, but then Prickly City rarely is—as Stantis himself pointed out in Tuesday's strip:
One of my favorite comic strips is Darrin Bell's Candorville. Bell began to address the pandemic on Monday, with his characteristically wry humor. Here are his strips from Monday and Tuesday:
Family Circus has never attempted to be remotely topical, so I didn't expect it to mention the pandemic. However, because Monday's strip was just begging to be recaptioned, I couldn't resist remedying that situation:
Since then, I've made it my daily project to fix Family Circus to make it more relevant. Here's the rest of the week:
Hey, I know it's silly to be spending so much time on something so trivial, when things are so serious. But I'm hoping it gives the people who see it a well-needed laugh. If Jeff Keane sees it, I certainly hope he laughs, and doesn't sue me for copyright infringement. (Remember, Jeff—parody is fair use!)
If it didn't make you laugh, I hope you find something to laugh at. It's times like these we really need to keep our sense of humor, and remember that we're all in this together.
When I started this blog, I chose the title "Don't Panic!" as an homage to one of my favorite writers, Douglas Adams, and as a promise to keep things light even when writing about serious subjects.
Subjects like the current global pandemic.
It is a serious subject, indeed. Every day we receive emails from businesses reassuring us that they are doing all they can to keep their customers and employees safe. Schools are closed, theaters are closed, amusement parks are closed.
Yes, even Disneyland is closed.
Loretta planned to go to Costco for a few things this week. Then we turned on the news and saw the mobs of people lined up to buy toilet paper. "It looks like the end of the world in there," said one shopper.
"Forget it," said Loretta.
On television, the people who tell us that above all we should not touch our faces are rubbing their eyes and putting their fingers in their mouths, and our president, who claims he knows more than anyone about every subject and has a "natural ability" when it comes to virus outbreaks, is, as usual, saying whatever stupid thing comes into his fat orange head.
Loretta and I were supposed to embark on a long-anticipated Caribbean cruise this Wednesday. That's obviously not happening, but we will attempt to make lemonade from the lemons life has handed us. To be more accurate, we will make limeade from the limes in our backyard, add some rum, and pretend we're in Jamaica.
In other words, we will do our best to keep our heads and make the best of the situation, and I advise you to do the same. If you're interested, here are some specific suggestions:
Don't join the hordes of hoarders at Costco. Stay home if you can; if you can't, at least try to stay away from crowds.
Try not to touch your face. (It isn't easy. I touch my face all the time without thinking about it. When I do think about it, I suddenly get an itch. Maybe I should try one of those dog cones.)
Don't listen to bloviating blowhards who have "hunches." Listen to the experts. They're called "epidemiologists," and they work at places like the World Health Organization and the CDC.
Wash your hands. Wash them after you use the toilet. Wash
them before eating. Wash them before touching your face. Wash them
after touching your face—or after touching anything. Basically, when you're not doing something else, you should be washing your hands.
According to Shakespeare, I'm rapidly approaching my seventh and final age, that of "second childishness and mere oblivion." No doubt this is the reason I find myself craving many of the comforts of my first childishness, one of said comforts being Captain Kangaroo. Like nearly all Baby Boomers (and a few Gen Xers), I grew up with the Captain. He was as much a part of my formative years as my parents, grandparents, and aunts.
He wasn't just the host of a children's television show; he was family.
Seven years ago a number of items from the show—costumes, props, etc.—were put up for auction. Because she knew what the show meant to me, Loretta suggested we bid on one of the less expensive items. I was thrilled when our opening bid on a stack of 8x10 publicity stills was accepted. Several of my favorites, including an autographed photo of the Captain himself, Bob Keeshan, are proudly displayed in the corner of my den now known as "The Captain's Corner."
The early days, when Mr. Green Jeans' jeans weren't green,
and the Captain was much younger than we thought he was.
Bob Keeshan in later years, when he could act his age.
Bob Keeshan played Captain Kangaroo on CBS from 1955-1984. As one writer put it, "Different generations remember different Captains." The Captain I remember was the one of the early years, when the show was in black and white, Keeshan required age makeup to look the part, and his residence was not "Captain's Place," but "The Treasure House." Although episodes were recorded on kinescope for later transmission to the west coast, hardly any video survives from the Treasure House era. I know the Paley Center for Media
has the very first episode, because I watched it on a visit to the Beverly Hills facility back when it was the Museum of Television & Radio. Another one-and-a-half episodes from 1961 can be found on the Internet Archive website.
There may not be much video, but there is music, and music can be a powerful memory stimulant. I've been putting together a playlist of the songs I remember from Captain Kangaroo; some of my finds are listed below. In most cases, I've provided links to where the songs can be purchased (or downloaded for free), and in some cases YouTube videos (not of the show, only of the music).
Disclaimer: the music from the Treasure House era is not necessarily the same music played on the show in later years, so don't be surprised if you don't remember these songs, even if you too grew up watching Captain Kangaroo.
The Theme Song and Other Light Classics
English composer Edward White composed the "light" classical piece "Puffin' Billy" to commemorate a famous steam locomotive. The piece was well-known in the UK before Bob Keeshan chose it as the theme for his new children's television show in 1955. The music played as the Captain started the show by jingling a set of large skeleton keys on an oversized key ring. He would unlock the door of the Treasure House, then hang the keys on a hook on the front of his desk, at which point the music would stop playing. (By the way, at the same auction where Loretta bought my photos the Treasure House keys sold for $28,000!)
The composer most often heard on Captain Kangaroo was Leroy Anderson. There are plenty of recordings of his music; I have this one by Erich Kunzel and the Rochester Pops. If you grew up watching Captain Kangaroo, most of the songs should sound familiar, including this one:
Some other light classics played on the show can be found on the Hyperion album, American Light Music Classics, including "The Whistler and His Dog," by Arthur Pryor, and "Teddy Bears' Picnic," by John Walter Bratton.
Novelty and Seasonal Songs
The Internet Archive site has free downloads of several 1950s novelty songs I remember hearing on the show, including "Cincinatti Dancing Pig" by Teresa Brewer and "Mister Tap Toe" by Doris Day, and seasonal favorites "Dance Mr. Snowman Dance" by the Crew Cuts and "Suzy Snowflake" by Rosemary Clooney.
Teresa Brewer's "Ebenezer Scrooge" was another Christmas favorite. While most of the songs listed here were performed by puppets, for this one the Captain, Mr. Green Jeans, and Bunny Rabbit acted out the story. The Internet Archive has the song, but it's buried within a larger file. I was able to cut it out using the free sound-editing program Audacity, but it's easier to extract an mp3 from the YouTube video using this free online converter.
Children's Music
"Capt. Burl Ives' Ark" is out of print, but someone has kindly posted a free download of the complete album, which includes the Treasure House classics "The Squirrel" and "The Bear on the Ball." It's one big mp3 file, but the sound quality is excellent and the tracks can be separated using Audacity. Several songs from the album are also posted on YouTube; here's "The Squirrel" (aka "Angus MacFergus MacTavish Dundee"):
Here are a few other children's songs that are available for a modest fee from Amazon.com:
"Inchworm" is from the 1952 film Hans Christian Andersen. The song is by Frank Loesser (Guys and Dolls, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying), and is sung by the great Danny Kaye.
"Incident on Rogers Creek" was one of my favorite Treasure House songs as a child. I was surprised to find it on a Christmas album, as it has nothing at all to do with Christmas. It's also posted on YouTube:
The Captain Sings!
I could only find songs from the Captain's out-of-print album "A Treasure House of Best-Loved Songs" on Youtube. I used GenYouTube to convert a couple of my favorites to mp3 files. "Erie Canal" is sung by Hugh "Lumpy" Brannum, who, before he became famous as Mr. Green Jeans, had a singing career.
The Captain himself sings "Green Grass Grew All Around." (Well, he talks it; unlike Brannum, Keeshan wasn't much of a singer.) It's a "cumulative song," which makes it a bit repetitious (some might say irritatingly so). But kids love repetition, don't they?
Jazz
Most of my knowledge of jazz comes from my mother, but it was the Captain who introduced me to Dave Brubeck's insanely syncopated "Unsquare Dance." Brubeck called the 7/4-time piece "a challenge to the foot-tappers, finger-snappers and hand-clappers." He could also have said that, like all of the music the Captain played for us, it's a whole lot of fun.
