Day 121 - Counting Down to the 50th

Good Morning, Class of '64

Grandparents Visit -  Eugenio Eduardo Zampighi

April 14, 1964
(Tuesday)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_1964#April_14.2C_1964_.28Tuesday.29

A Delta rocket's third stage motor ignites
prematurely in an assembly room
at Cape Canaveral, killing three people.


Died: Rachel Carson, 56, US marine biologist
and conservationist, of a heart attack
brought on by cancer and radiation treatment.

Admiring the Baby - Eugenio Eduardo Zampighi

Families are messy. 
Immortal families are eternally messy. 
Sometimes the best we can do 
is to remind each other that we're 
related for better or for worse...
and try to keep the maiming 
and killing to a minimum.
Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters 

That's what people do who love you. 
They put their arms around you and
 love you when you're not so lovable.
Deb Caletti 

“I may not always be with you
But when we're far apart
Remember you will be with me
Right inside my heart”
  Marc Wambolt, Poems from the Heart  

A Happy Family - Eugenio Eduardo Zampighi

At what age were you when the first television set appeared in your living room? Maybe you don't remember ever being without a TV in your home. If you never had a television somewhere in your house you might have been a most fortunate person, indeed, though you probably didn't think that at time.

What filled the void before television programs became such a big part of our lives isn't certain. But the memory of that first television being in the house, and the entertaining strangeness of it is clear. At the turn of a knob there was a picture that moved and talked, right in front of your eyes, and in your own home.

Back then, did you have to learn that once you turned the TV off it wouldn't turn back on to the same program you were watching before you turned it off? A decision had to be made. Would you stay inside by yourself to see how that cowboy got out of his predicament or turn it off and run outside to the yard where all the other kids had gathered to play? You'd already learned that the cowboy on the big white horse wouldn't be there when you came back inside and turned the knob back on again. What a big disappointment that was! Perhaps we've found that void we were looking for, too.

It was there to stay, though, that television set, in the space reserved for it in the living room. Was it on Sunday evenings that Walt Disney filled that little screen with Disneyland? The whole family watched as Tinkerbell whirled around and waved her sparkling wand at the beginning of the show. Too bad it wasn't in color in those early years.

Mr. Disney always looked into the camera and spoke to us at the beginning of each program to introduce and explain what was coming next. Maybe you didn't always enjoy what came next, especially if you were hoping for a cartoon of some sort, but without any doubt in this world you loved it when Walt Disney gave us Davy Crockett. 

The whole country loved Davy Crockett - born on a mountain top in Tennessee and killed him a bar when he was only three.

Did you have one of those coonskin caps? How'd it fit? Did that long tail swish back and forth across the back of your neck and feel soft and fuzzy or did it get itchy?

Did you hate Mike Fink and root for Davy during their confrontations? That Mike Fink was a bully, wasn't he?

Did Mom go out and buy you The Ballad of Davy Crockett record so you could play it all day long? Did you wear it out?

Some of you might have been allowed to stay up late on Saturday nights to watch The Hit Parade just so you could hear somebody sing The Ballad of Davy Crockett. That's how popular Davy Crockett and his song was. And, that's how television influenced our lives in those years of our youth.

The King of the Wild Frontier entertained us for only a few episodes, though, before Disney introduced something new to catch our interest and entertain us. We learned that television doesn't stand still. It moves on. It changes our culture and moves on.

The Ballad of Davy Crockett
Introduced on the television
miniseries Davy Crockett,
first telecast on December 15, 1954,
on ABC's Disneyland.
Fess Parker played the role of
Davy Crockett and continued
in four other episodes
made by Walt Disney Studios.
Buddy Ebsen co-starred as
George "Georgie" Russel,
and Jeff York played legendary
boatman Mike Fink.
Over ten million copies++`
of the song were sold.
Fess Parker - 1955
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Davy_Crockett

The Wellingtons - 1955

Disneyland - Davy Crockett:
Indian Fighter - Part 1 of 4

I don't know half of you half as 

well as I should like; 

and I like less than half of

 you half as well as you deserve.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

 

Bath Time - Eugenio Eduardo Zampighi

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.

 Walt Whitman

Center of Attention - Eugenio Eduardo Zampighi

 “Fred, you next," the plump woman said.

"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. 

"Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother?

 Can't you tell I'm George?"

"Sorry, George, dear."

"Only joking, I am Fred," 

said the boy and off he went.”

 J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

 

A Happy Tune - Eugenio Eduardo Zampighi

My Papa's Waltz

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;

My mother's countenance

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt.

 

Eastman Johnson - Christmas Time The Blodgett Family