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?

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?