Main Line Banter: Recalling icons of yesteryear and a few shortcuts around town
In the last couple of Banter columns, we looked back at the past year and made a few fearless forecasts for 2024.
That done, how about looking “way back” with me to some icons of yesteryear… then, stay tuned for a few local shortcuts?
It seems that it was only yesterday that you’ve worn out a lot of Levi’s if you can remember washtub wringers and a neighborhood jungle of clotheslines that would make Tarzan envious.
You’ve put a highway full of pedals to the metal if you put down the window of your Hudson Hornet to let a carhop place a tray with your 15-cent burger and a five-cent Coke at the drive-in … just after you’ve filled your tank with 20-cents-a-gallon gas.
You’ve also laid a lot of rubber to the road if you recall reading queues of Burma Shave signs while tooling through the countryside, and you certainly have whiled away many hours (take a deep breath here) with your Tinkertoys, erector sets, gum-wrapper chains and packs of Topps baseball cards while playing with friends on the braided area rug while keeping an eye on the seven-inch TV test pattern waiting for “Captain Kangaroo” to appear.
You’ve marched more than a few miles if you remember having a fluoroscope of your feet at the shoe store to determine if the new Buster Brown’s or Thom Mc An’s fit properly.
And, while thinking podiatric thoughts, you spilled a lot of popcorn while stomping your feet on the movie house floor when the film broke at the Saturday morning kid show.
You’ve chilled out often if you remember placing a triangular cardboard sign in the window that you need a 50-pound or 100-pound block of ice to put into the family icebox, and you’ve stoked a bin of memories if you recall having a few tons of anthracite delivered by the neighborhood coal man.
You’ve snapped a lot of shutters if you remember having your picture taken by a traveling photographer while sitting in the back of a cart harnessed to a real pony, and you’ve licked sheets of three-cent postage stamps and pasted them on requests for your Captain Midnight or The Shadow glow-in-the-dark ring you heard about while listening to your Stewart-Warner radio in the living room.
What’s more, you’ve twisted a volume of radio dials if you waited on Sunday evening to hear Walter Winchell greet “Mr. and Mrs. North and South America, and all the ships at sea.”
You’ve seen a lot of calendar pages fly by while you’ve waited for the local newsstand to rack up the latest editions of your favorite Marvel and Archie comic books, and lastly, you watched a lot of turntables spin if you just couldn’t wait for the deejay to play that “last dance” 45rpm of “Good Night, Sweetheart” so that you could walk home with the girl (or boy) of your dreams.
Ah, yes, those were the good, old days!
Although yesterday, as Sir Paul McCartney immortalized in song more than 60 years ago, seems so far away, a dizzying kaleidoscope of events has made the world a far different place than that of our childhood.
Ironically, many still believe that truth still reflects in French novelist Alphonse Karr’s circa 1800s proverb: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Shortcuts around town
A unique “Theatre Festival” to put on your calendar will be held Feb. 2-3 at Berwyn’s Footlighters Theatre.
Over the course of 24 hours, six short plays will be conceived, written, rehearsed, and performed for a live audience.
The public is invited to attend a 7 p.m. performance on Saturday, the 3rd at Footlighters Main Avenue stage.
The community theatre also is looking forward to presenting its annual “Broadway in Berwyn” song and dance fundraisers the weekend of March 8-10. This year’s performances will be at 7:30 p.m. that Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. that Sunday, themed as “Toast to the Tonys,” featuring hit tunes from Tony nominees from 1945 to today.
Should be great fun! Learn more by visiting footlighterstheater.com.
In other unique local theatre news, “Everybody,” a reimagined medieval morality play titled “Everyman” will be presented Feb. 22-25 at Ursinus College Blackbox Studio Theater, featuring a different lead actor at each performance.
Directed by Ursinus Professor of Theater Domenick Scudera, the play is said to be a hilarious take on the modern world. Please visit ursinus.edu/tickets for more information.
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Congratulations and best wishes to Rev. Paul J. O’Donnell on his upcoming installation as the pastor of the Church of St. Monica, Berwyn.
Father Paul’s installation mass will be held on Sunday, February 4 at 11:30 a.m. with the Most Reverend John J. McIntyre, auxiliary bishop of the Philadelphia Diocese presiding.
A reception will follow in the parish center.
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Marilyn Baker, of Malvern, shared a trove of 24 miscellaneous trivia to ponder with family and friends to start off 2024. Here half of them may find interesting. If so, we’ll send you the others. If not,
1) Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13th.
2) The Interstate highway network (initiated by President Eisenhower) requires that one mile in every five must be straight (to be useful as airstrips in time of war or other emergency).
3) The average lifespan of a Major League baseball is seven pitches.
4) The sale of vodka provides 10 percent of the Russian government’s income.
5) Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.
6) Pearls melt in vinegar.
7) The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
8) They’re called Hershey’s Kisses because the machine that makes them looks like it’s kissing the conveyor belt.
9) The airplane that crashed and killed Buddy Holly was named “American Pie,” ergo the inspiration for the Don McLean song.
10) 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12.345.678.987,654,321.
11) Tommy Lee Jones and former Vice President Al Gore were roommates at Harvard.
12) It’s possible to lead a cow up the stairs, but never down.
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Finally, nobody asked, but if life is like a bowl of cherries, which could be the reason so many of us feel “in the pits.” (Can anyone say “Eagles?”)
The Last Word: Good day, good luck, and good news tomorrow.
Comments invited to mainlinebanter@verizon.net
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