Sunday, November 04, 2012
A Senior MAD?
Can it be true? Is Alfred E. Neuman a senior
citizen?
Yep. MAD Magazine is 60 years old. It seems
impossible to fathom, but the magazine that has always been associated with
childish humor and satire is, indeed, sixty. It’s the magazine that reduces
cultural taste to microscopic proportions and yet can also make the likes of
Condi Rice laugh.
Why not?
Fess up, Americans, if you’ve ever read MAD then you
have laughed at something in its pages. I always liked the “Scenes We’d Like To
See” cartoon, which I swear was the inspiration for the scene where Indiana
Jones faces a huge villain with a massive sword and calmly takes out a pistol
and shoots him. What, me worry?
Here’s to you, MAD.
Thursday, November 01, 2012
Weather or Not, Here It Comes.
Our recent escape on Cape Cod from Storm Sandy took
me back to my earliest recollection of a hurricane. It was late August 1954 when Hurricane Carol
came through and knocked down the TV transmitter tower for WBZ. It was a big adventure for me and my
siblings to go out for a walk after the storm.
We escaped Sandy without any trouble and only lost
power for three hours. Our safety was
ensured last spring when I bought a power generator, so I didn’t have to use
it, of course.
I’m also reminded how much weather forecasting and
reporting has changed over the years.
Today, Boston TV stations have a beautiful young woman reporting the morning weather news, with modern broadcast technology. I recall Don Kent sliding chalkboards in and
out of the wall to show us a couple of views, which he probably drew by
hand.
Sandy was a terrible storm in New York, New Jersey
and the Mid-Atlantic, so we were lucky here.
I have family in Maryland, so my wife and I were very concerned about
Sandy’s wrath.
What do you remember about your first big storm?
