Friday, January 31, 2025

More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About Scotch Tape and Then Some

 

                                    Scotch Tape in 1950s packaging.  It became a household and office staple.

Indulge me.  Close your eyes and try to remember a time when you really did need string to tie up those brown paper packages.  When yards of satin ribbon and six thumbs were needed to keep the colored tissue paper prettily surrounding a gift box.  When the ripped pages of your favorite book were doomed to be forever sundered.  When that torn $5 bill could not be mended and spent.  When there was nothing to hold your eye lid and nose in peculiar positions to frighten your baby siblings.

Yes, those were dark, dark times before the invention that rescued us all.  In keeping with this blog’s occasional mission of reminding us of the inventions that really and truly changed our lives, I give you Scotch Tape!

Actually, tape of any kind in the modern sense hasn’t been around very long.  The first marriage of some kind of gum, glue, or adhesive to some sort of material or fabric is credited to English physician Horace Day in 1845.  He devised strips of fabric coated with a rubber gum for use in surgical bandages.  The idea was slow to catch on because no one had yet thought to put the stuff on reels.  It had to be kept laid out flat.

A small advance occurred in 1921 when a Johnson & Johnson cotton buyer put a cotton pad on short strips of adhesive cloth like Dr. Day’s and backed them with crisp crinoline. The adhesive face protected by easy-to-peel-off waxed paper—and the Band-Aid was born

But still no tape on a roll.  That was the creation of a young engineer, Richard Gurley Drew in 1925.  

Engineer Richard Gurly Drew was the break-through innovator in adhesive tapes for Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co., now 3M.

Drew had first worked for Johnson & Johnson, so was familiar with adhesive.  But he had shifted his allegiance to the Minneapolis Mining & Manufacturing Co.  They were predominately operators of sand and gravel pits.  But in addition to the usual customers for building material, the company had created a profitable niche for itself marketing their inexpensive raw materials as industrial abrasives including various kinds of grinding and polishing wheels, and new products like sandpaper that affixed their grit to disposable backings.  Within this limited field they were innovative and employed bright young men like Drew who helped develop a new product that could be used wet or dry and was intended for preparing auto bodies for painting.

One day Drew was sent to a local body shop along with a salesman, a common double duty of engineers in those days . He observed that painters in the shop had a hard time keeping down sheets of paper intended to prevent the spray paint from running where it wasn’t wanted.  An idea was born.

Drew's revolutionary masking tape at work in an auto body shop to prepare for painting.

Back in the lab, drawing on his experience with adhesives, Drew devised a paper tape on a roll—masking tape, ever after the painter’s friend.  Of course, it took a little perfection.  He took samples to one shop, which found the adhesive insufficient to keep a seal. The exasperated owner told Drew to “Take this tape back to those Scotch bosses of yours and tell them to put more adhesive on it!”  Drew not only improved the product, but he also sold this employer on the idea of using Scotch as a brand name for the tape, indicating that it was a thrifty choice.

Drew was soon given the go-ahead to explore other possibilities.  High on his list was developing a tape for use in sealing industrial packaging.  After considerable experimentation, he developed a pressure adhesive tape on transparent cellophane.  After sending samples to a Chicago industrial baker to seal the ends of their wax paper bread wrapping, the enthusiastic customer wired back, “You’ve got a product.  Get it into production!”

And they did.  Scotch Brand Cellulose Tape was introduced for sale on January 30, 1930.

The original Scotch Tape introduced in 1930 was designed for sealing commercial and industrial packaging.

The development of an automated heat sealing process on packaging lines soon rendered the original use largely obsolete.  But another 3M engineer, John A. Borden, invented something in 1932 that made the product indispensable to thrifty homes and offices who needed to mend rather than replace torn and tattered items—a dispenser with a built-in cutter blade.

World War II era magazine ads reminded women what convenience they were missing and helped build explosive post-war demand. 

After the concept of adhesive backed tape on rolls was established. 3M and other companies came up with continued innovationscloth backed electrical tape in the early ‘30s and a rubber (now vinyl) version in 1954 and fix-everything Duct Tape in 1942.  The introduction of Scotch Brand Magic Transparent Tape in 1961 largely, but not entirely, replaced the original product. The new tape did not yellow or crack with age like cellophane, had a matte finish that did not reflect light so that it could  be used for affixing things to pages for offset press reproduction, and could even be written on with a ball point pen.

The desk dispenser joined the stapler and a cup of pencils and ball point pens as an essential in offices of the '60s and beyond.  It persists today even on allegedly paperless computer desks.

Scotch Tape took 3M to a whole new level as a company.  It eventually introduced many other new forms of tape for specialized applications and expanded into businesses from office supplies (Post-It Notes) to audio and video tape, to fabric treatments (Scotchgard) and many other products.

And as we can see, our lives were changed as well.  I say damn fine work, Richard Gurley Drew!  



Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Andrew Jackson’s Defiant Brush With Assassination

 

Mad Brit Richard Lawrence's pistol misfired when he took point blank aim at Andrew Jackson on the steps of the Capitol. 

Note—A tale of Donald Trump’s favorite President, after himself, of course.

You have to feel a little sorry for Richard Lawrence.  He was in the right place at the right time, skulking around the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building on January 30, 1835.  A funeral service for a member of Congress was breaking up.  All of the dignitaries of the government including the Chief Executive himself were in attendance and would have to pass within feet of him.  He carried in each side pocket of his coat one cocked and loaded single shot derringer flintlock pistol.  He had a plan.  What could possibly go wrong?

Lawrence was a 35 year old Englishman who had been hearing voices in his head for a very long time.  Some believe he may have been the victim of lead in the paint he used in his work. Back home those voices had told him that he was the son and the heir of Richard III and that somehow the American President had kept him from the Throne.  He believed what those voices told him with such certainty that he decided to cross the ocean and come to the United States to have his revenge.  Along the way he decided he was also King of the U.S. and that Andrew Jackson was a usurper.

Suddenly the doors of the Capitol flew open and the mourners, led by the President himself emerged.  Lawrence hid himself behind a pillar.  As Jackson neared, he drew his pistol and stepped in front of the President firing at his chest at point blank range.

Jackson's larger than life image began with his Revolutionary War capture by the British as a boy and the saber slash across his cheek for defying an officer's demand that he clean his boots. 

We interrupt the narrative at this point to review a little bit about the victim of the assault.  Andrew Jackson was no stranger to violence. During the American Revolution acting as a courier for irregular troops in North Carolina at the age of 13 or 14, Jackson was captured by the Red Coats.  When he defiantly refused the order of a British officer to shine his boots, his cheek was slashed open by a saber

As a young man he took leave of his widowed mother keeping in mind a single piece of advice which he would follow to the letter the rest of his life, “Never sue for libel in a Court of Law.”  By that she meant that in affairs of honor the manly thing was confronting the offender personally and if possible, kill him. 

In the raw new Territory of Tennessee Jackson read and began practicing law.  He also developed a reputation of being quick to anger and as a common tavern brawler.  As he rose in the society of Nashville, he assumed the manners and character of a gentleman.  Which meant he abandoned wrestling in the mud, eye gouging, and trying to bite your enemys ear off.  Instead, he subscribed to the Code Duello.  Over the years he was in several affairs of honor and was both shot and did the shooting

Jackson shot and killed Charles Dickenson in an 1806 duel after his opponent wasted his shot.  Dickenson had accused Jackson's wife Rachel of bigamy. 

In one case he challenged a man who publicly asserted—truthfully—that his beloved wife Rachel was at least an inadvertent bigamist for marrying him before a divorce to her first husband was final.  On the field of honor his enemy purposefully wasted his shot.  In most cases the other party would do the same and both could leave the field with honor.  But Jackson took slow and steady aim at the defenseless man and shot him dead through the heart

In 1813 a feud between Jackson, by then General of the Tennessee Militia and a former friend and subordinate officer Col. Thomas Hart Benton and his brother Jesse erupted into a wild street fight.  As Jackson closed to kill Thomas with a brace of pistols, Jesse snuck up behind him and shot him at point blank range in the side.  A ruckus between partisans of both sides ensued.  The Benton brothers fled town and Tennessee, although Tomas would later reconcile with the old General and become a political ally as a Senator from Missouri.  Jackson nearly bled to death and lost partial use of his left arm.  Jesse’s ball remained lodged in his body and caused him almost constant pain for the rest of his life.

Jackson suffered a near fatal wound in a wild street brawl with Thomas Hart Benton and his brother Jesse.  Thomas latter reconciled with the General, became a staunch political supporter, and was a powerful Senator from Missouri. 

Then, of course, there was Jackson’s well documented heroics and adventures as an officer against Native American tribes in the Red Stick War against the Creeks, at the legendary defense of New Orleans against the British, and finally marching through Florida in defiance of orders putting the nation at risk of a new war with Spain.

Back at the Capitol steps, when Lawrence fired a loud pop was heard and a cloud of black powder smoke briefly engulfed the two men.  But for some reason it was just a misfire and the ball never left the barrel.

As the smoke cleared the enraged 67 year old President lurched for Lawrence and began beating him with his heavy gold-headed cane.  Lawrence stumbled.  He had trouble getting his second pistol out of his pocket while fending off blows.  When he did get it out, the second gun also misfired.  Jackson continued raining blows on the now prostrate man until witnesses physically dragged him away.

Jackson was unscathed, although he didn’t realize he had not actually been shot until he got back to the Executive Mansion and discovered nothing more than powder burns on his clothing.

Lawrence was taken to jail unconscious.  When he recovered he was examined by a doctor who declared that he was suffering from “morbid delusions.”

Later that spring Lawrence was put on trial.  The prosecutor was Francis Scott Key, better known as the writer of the Star Spangled Banner.  Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity, one of the first such verdicts in American history.  He lived his life out in various mental institutions until his death in 1861.

Jackson suspected that his bitter enemies for blocking the renewal of the Second Bank of the United States Charter were behind the assassination attempt. 

Jackson didn’t believe it for a second.  He was sure that Lawrence was a hireling of his political enemies in the emerging Whig Party or perhaps of the bankers irate over his blocking the renewal of the Charter of the Second Bank of the United StatesVice President Martin Van Buren agreed.  Ever after he carried a brace of pistols to the Capitol to fulfill his Constitutional duties as President of the Senate.

Many historians have examined the matter and none have found any connection between Lawrence and Jackson’s many enemies.  That did not prevent the spread of the first of the conspiracy theories which seem to arise naturally from all assassinations and attempts.

The Smithsonian Institution tested both of Lawrence's flintlock derringer pistols similar to this one, and both fired perfectly. Lawrence’s pistols ended up in the Smithsonian Institution.  Around the centennial of the attack, researchers there tested both guns to try to find out why they had misfired.  Both fired perfectly on the first attempt to shoot them.  The scientists placed the odds of both functional pistols misfiring at 1 in 250,000.  Jackson was a lucky man.

Even luckier that he did not live in the 21st Century when his assailant might have a Glock with an extended clip.  No gold headed cane would protect him from that.
 

Happy Chinese Lunar New Year—It is the Year of the Snake


Today is the festival that celebrates the beginning of a new year on the traditional Lunar Chinese calendar—the Year of the Snake.  It is the sixth in the twelve-year periodic cycle of animals that appear in the Chinese zodiac.  In Chinese symbology, snakes are regarded as intelligent, with a tendency to lack scruples.  A Snake Year is sometimes referred to as a Little Dragon Year to assuage possible feelings of inadequacy among people born under its sign.

In China the festival is commonly referred to as the Spring Festival since the spring season in their lunisolar calendar traditionally starts with Lichun, the first of the twenty-four solar terms which the festival celebrates around the time of the New Year.  It marks the end of Winter and the beginning of the Spring.  Observances traditionally take place from New Years Eve, the evening preceding the first day of the year to the Lantern Festival, held on the 15th day of the year. The first day begins on the new moon that appears between 21 January and 20 February on the Western Gregorian Calendar

Chinese Snake dancers.

New Year is one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture and has strongly influenced Lunar New Year celebrations of its 56 ethnic groups.  It is also celebrated worldwide in regions and countries that are home to significant overseas Chinese or Sinophone populations, especially in Southeast Asia. These include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. It is also prominent beyond Asia, especially in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as various European countries.

Hanging red paper lanterns is also traditional.

The Lunar New Year is associated with several myths and customs. The festival was traditionally a time to honor deities and ancestors. Within China, regional customs and traditions vary widely and the evening preceding the New Year’s Day is regarded as an occasion for Chinese families to gather for an annual reunion dinner.  Families thoroughly clean their homes, in order to sweep away any ill fortune and to make way for incoming good luck. Another custom is the decoration of windows and doors with red paper cutouts and couplets. Popular themes among these include good fortune or happiness, wealth, and longevity. Other activities include lighting firecrackers and giving money in red envelopes

A Chinese-American family celebrates with gifts of money in red envelopes.

Chinese New Year is observed as a public holiday in some countries and territories where there is a sizable Chinese population.  Since the New Year falls on different dates on the Gregorian calendar every year and on different days of the week, some of these governments opt to shift working days to accommodate a longer public holiday. In some countries a statutory holiday is added on the following workday if the New Year falls on a weekend as is the case in 2024.  Depending on the country, the holiday may be termed differently and other animals replace the Snake.  

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Tree of Life Congregation Hosts Family Friendly Magic Show for the Community


Magician extraordinaire Kevin Sarnwick will perform a fun-filled, free-admission mid-winter magic show for families with young children at 10 am Saturday February 1, at the Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road in McHenry.  All families are welcome

The event is free to the public, but each family attending the show is encouraged to bring either a nonperishable food or personal care item in support of the FISH of McHenry Food Pantry. FISH, which stands for Friends in Service Here, has been helping provide emergency food and supplies for disadvantaged residents of McHenry since 1973. In addition to being a great family outing, this performance supports an important cause.

Magician Kevin Sarnwick performing his floating ball illusion, just one of many amazing feats performed to the delight of all ages.  Photo courtesy of Tree of Life Congregation.

Kevin Sarnwick is a Crystal Lake magician known for his entertaining and mind-boggling children’s shows using sleight of hand, psychology, and misdirection. The children who attend his shows are thoroughly amazed by his magic tricks and leave his shows with big smiles on their faces.

“I think this is a really unique opportunity for children and their families to do something good for the community and have fun at the same time,” said Chaplain Dave Becker, minister of Tree of Life.  “We are so pleased to host this event and so proud of the volunteers who have put it together.”

Ben Ross assists magician Kevin Sarnwick while Ben’s mother looks during an interactive and engaging children’s performance. Photo courtesy of Tree of Life Congregation.

Advance reservations are required and can be made using here, calling 815 322-2464 or scanning this QR code:

Monday, January 27, 2025

International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Struggle to Keep Lessons From Fading


The grim reality is that 80 years after the world got confirmation of the breadth of the Holocaust anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States and in Europe.  As the last survivors of the death camps and the Allied soldiers who liberated them dwindle the collective memory has dimmedPolls constantly show that younger people are at best foggy on the reality—many can’t place World War II within 50 years on a timeline, are unsure who the combatants were and who was responsible for barely understood atrocitiesHolocaust denial is on the rise spread mainly by those who try to mask their own intentions to “complete the job.”  Right wing nationalism is making a comeback in Europe making substantial gains in several national parliaments and coming to power in Poland and other Eastern European Countries.  

Nazi paraphernalia and symbols were on display during the violent occupation of the U.S. Capitol four years by organized insurrectionists.  No one in the mob seemed a bit perturbed by this guy and his sweatshirt.

In the U.S. White nationalism broke out of the pariah fringe of society and is making a bid for respectability with  barely concealed wink and nod support from MAGA idol Donald Trump.  In 2018 deadly mass shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and at a kosher grocery in New Jersey as well as a mass stabbing attack on a suburban New York home Hanukkah celebration were only some the most widely noted eventsVandalism and attacks on synagogues, cemeteries, schools, and other Jewish institutions are on a sharp rise.  Anti-Semitic flyers and propaganda are posted at colleges, universities, and high schools as well as in suburban communities.

The insurrectionist attack on the Capitol included individuals with swastika tattoos, a Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt in addition to members of anti-Semitic neo-fascist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.  All of the insurrectionists including wannabe Hitlers were pardoned on day two of Trumps second termWhite nationalist, racist, and anti-Semitic groups were largely purged by along with certain hate speech on Facebook, and other platforms but found  homes elsewhere and on the so-called Dark Web and reappeared on Elon Musks X.  Now Mark Zuckerberg has joined Musk and other billionaires cozying up to Trump and demonstrated his fealty by ending fact checking on Meta’s platforms including Facebook and Instagram which will open the floodgates to new waves of anti-Semitic and racist venom.

Confounding attempts to counter these dangerous trends is the Israeli governments campaign to tar every critic of its brutal and unrelenting attacks on Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other cities as anti-Semites.  The Trump was happy to echo those charges and to support efforts to virtually outlaw calls for economic and cultural boycotts of the Jewish state.  Even former Harry Potter actress Emma Watson was smeared as anti-Sematic for daring to criticize Israeli oppression of Palestinians. She was not the last.  

Israel’s ferocious attacks on Gaza in its war to eradicate Hamas has created more wide-spread destruction over a large heavily populated area than anywhere in history including the bombed out cities of World War II.  Upwards of 90% of the population has been displaced and many are essentially homeless or living in rubble under threat of more attacks.  With Gaza laid waste, a cease fire agreement was finally reached with U.S. support in the last days of the Biden administration.  A measured swap of Hamas hostages for Israeli Palestinian prisoners seems to be holding up, international aid is beginning to flow, and internal refugees are returning to their devastated if not destroyed homes.  Rather than let things settle down and fragile peace break out, Trump gratuitously suggested  that Gaza should be cleaned out of its current residents.  “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said to reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday. and suggested that Egypt and Jordan be compelled to take them in or suffer the consequences—an end to military and civil aid to those countries and drastic economy destroying “tariffs, levies, and taxes.”  

Protestors from Jewish Voice for Peace honored the memory of the Holocaust with protests of Israeli asymmetrical war in Gaza. 

Many Holocaust survivors and their families have recognized Gazans suffering as Jews did and protested  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus refusal to even temper the daily assaults.  Instead, he has defied international criticism and vowed to press the war until Hamas is somehow eradicated.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  It will be observedcelebrated is certainly the wrong word here—in ways big and small, significant and trivial in many places across the world.  The commemoration comes on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps in Poland by the advancing Red Army on January 27, 1945.  American, British, Canadian, and other Allied Forces liberated other camps, but Auschwitz was the pinnacle of efficiency for the Nazi industrialization of mass murder.

Some of the healthier inmates of Auschwitz after liberation by the Red Army.

On the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation the United Nations General Assembly held a special commemorative session.  The following November the General Assembly created the memorial day, which was first observed in 2006.

In November of 1944 as the Red Army advanced from the East and the Allies pressed on the Western Front, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler ordered the beginning to the eradication of evidence of the death camps in Poland.   Gassing operations were suspended and crematoria at Auschwitz were ordered destroyed or, in one case, converted into a bomb shelter.  As things got worse, Himmler ordered the evacuation of the camps in early January directing that “not a single prisoner from the concentration camps falls alive into the hands of the enemy."

On January 17, 58,000 Auschwitz detainees were set on a death march west towards Wodzisław Śląski. Approximately 20,000 Auschwitz prisoners made it to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, where they were liberated by the British in April 1945.

But that left over 8,000 of the weakest and sickest abandoned with scant supplies.  The Red Army 322nd Rifle Division arrived 10 days later to find 7,500 barely alive and 600 corpses lying wherever they finally collapsed.  They also found much evidence of the greater crimes Himmler had hoped to hide—370,000 mens suits, 837,000 womens garments, and 7.7 tons of human hair. Coming in the midst of the Yalta Conference and other war news, the liberation received scant media attention at the time.  And the Soviets, who were at best ambivalent at the highest levels about what to do with the liberated Jews, did little to publicly celebrate their role in the liberation, at least at first.

It was only after survivors reached the West and eventually Israel as refugees, that Auschwitz emerged as a special, horrific symbol of the whole Holocaust.

Emaciated survivors at Buchenwald, a major extermination camp liberated by American troops.

The publication of the Diary of Ann Frank, Ellie Wiesels Night, and other memoirs by survivors, camp liberators, and on-the-scene journalists made deep public impressions in the West as did films like Judgement at Nuremberg and Stephen Spielbergs Shindlers List.  Evidence of the Holocaust has been carefully preserved at Israel’s Yad Vashem, the  world central archive of Holocaust-related information and at Holocaust museums in many major cities.  Public acknowledgement of the Holocaust probably peaked internationally around the turn of the 21st Century and has been eroding since then.

Holocaust Remembrance was muddied in 2020 at the World Holocaust Forum when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the occasion to justify violent oppression of Palestinians and his apartheid regime, to attack all critics of his policy as anti-Semites, and to rouse support for an attack on Iran.

The 75th anniversary was marked by a special meeting at the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.  Over 50 international leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Britains Prince Charles, and American Vice-President Mike Pence were on hand for the event.  They heard Netanyahu denounce critics of Israel as Anti-Semites and to beat the band for an international attack on Iran.   Leaders except Pence generally distanced themselves from Netanyahu’s remarks and spoke in platitudes of varying degrees of sincerity about preventing any future genocide.

The Hall of Names keeps the memories of individual Holocaust victims alive at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. 

Today there will be solemn remembrance gatherings at the sites of most of the World War II death camps and in cities around the world.

Together we can truly pledge “Never Again!”  and mean it for both Jews and for the modern targets of repression, oppression, apartheid-like ghettoization, and actual genocidal attacks including the Palestinians.

 

Sunday, January 26, 2025

A Murfin Cheyenne Memoir —1956 Winter When it Was Serious


Cheyenne in the Blizzard of 1949.  It was a worse storm than the one in '56, but ours seemed epic enough.

Note—Here in our pocket of the Greater Chicago Area Northwest Boonies we are just getting out of an extended bitter cold snap but so far our Winter has been bereft of snow.  But from Texas to Florida the Deep South is still trying to dig out of epic blizzards.  These weren’t the end-of-the-newscast light hearted “snowflakes fall at Disney World” kind of thing, they were the real deal matching the fierce winter storms we have had over the years in these parts.  A foot of snow fell on New Orleans and along the Florida/Georgia line.  Children down there will have vivid memories and the tale of the Blizzard of ’25 will be told and retold for decades.  In that spirit, here are my own memories of a big snow in Cheyenne, Wyoming almost 60 years ago.

 It was one of those storms that dive down from Canada along the Front Range of the Rockies and run smack into moist air up from the Gulf, howling winds driving horizontal snow, obliterating the world in stinging whiteness before drifting east over the limitless flatness of Nebraska. It was a memorable blizzard, but we were safe and warm, even cozy in the old house on Bent Avenue just blocks away from the Capitol building.

The radio, my mother’s constant companion, said the city would be snowed in for two or three days. Of course, schools were closed. The state government sent its workers home, downtown was deserted, the grocery stores locked, the weight of the snow tearing their canvas awnings from their walls.  The pass over Sherman Hill to the west was buried and blowing snow on Highway 30 across Nebraska would close in behind the plows for days. The mainline of the Union Pacific, of course, stayed open behind the giant plows harnessed to the most powerful steam locomotives ever built, but little good it did for local deliveries because the switching and humping yards were smothered and the switches frozen.

My mother was most concerned about our food supplies. As a child of rural poverty and the scarred veteran of the Depression, she feared hunger with a consuming dread. She always kept the pantry shelves groaning with canned goods as a hedge against any catastrophe. There were netted bushel bags of potatoes and plenty of sacks of flour and sugar, cans of coffee, huge boxes of powdered milk. We might run out of meat—most of the winter’s side of beef was cut up and wrapped in white paper, our name written neatly in grease pencil, in the city’s central locker. The milkman might fail to make his rounds and mom might not be able to drive out to the little farmstead on Crow Creek for her weekly eggs. Less farsighted neighbors, panicked by the storm, might strip the little neighborhood grocery stores before the snows closed the streets. But we would not starve.

Mom was most concerned with bread. There would be no soft white Rainbo Bread or the dry, scratchy whole wheat that my Dad liked toasted with his breakfast. So out came the big milk white mixing bowl and Mom’s sturdiest wooden spoon and the glass loaf pans greased with butter and floured. She was going to bake us enough bread for the duration. Soon the whole house was filled with the rich and unforgettable  smell of bread baking, an aroma so compelling that  ever after  at the merest  skiff  of snow would  bring  my brother  and I rushing  to our mother asking, “Is it time for the bread yet?”

 

Our old house at 2805 Bent Avenue seems little changed but somehow smaller than I remember.

The loaves were not perfect. Mom did not bake often enough to for that.  Perhaps there was too much yeast, but they had risen too quickly with too much air. A large bubble separated the top crust from the rest of the loaves, large enough for a child to stick his hand through. But it did not matter. Dad sliced the first loaf with our sharpest knife as soon as it was cool enough not to simply tear. Still, it was warm enough to give off visible rays of heat and to melt the thick pats of butter we smeared on each slice. We ate the whole loaf in one sitting like animals, as if it was the last food in the world. The rest of the loaves were carefully wrapped in wax paper and would be strictly rationed for the duration of the emergency.

Two days after the incessant wind stopped driving the snow into heaps and piles, the city streets were open. Dad in his red and black checkered hunting coat and seldom seen ear-flap cap and the other men on the block shoveled out the garages and cleared the alley to the street with heavy short handled coal shuttle shovels. The city slowly came awake.   School reopened.

Mom prepared my brother Tim and I for school as she would on any winter morning. She built us in careful layers. First there were our usual shorts then cotton long handle underwear. Then came the long sleeved, broad striped polo shirts tucked into the first of two layers of corduroy pants. Mom washed the pants every night in the wringer washing machine then mounted them on metal stretchers to dry over the big heating grate in the floor of the dining room. The pants were still warm from the blast of coal fired air when we pulled them on. Then she attached our elastic suspenders.  The suspenders were sources of great embarrassment to my brother and me.  The other kids had given them up for leather belts after kindergarten. My mother claimed that belts would not work for us, as she told all of her friends, because “These boys don’t have enough butt to keep their pants up.”  We put on a thick pair of socks over a thin one.  These were our indoor clothes.

Next came a thick plaid flannel shirt and we struggled to drag the second pair of corduroys over the first. Mom carefully tied our black Oxfords, then came the battle to get our galoshes on, our pant legs tucked into the tops of the rubber boots, and each of the four metal buckles securely closed. Next were our thick wool coats with quilted linings and big buttons the size of half-dollars. My coat was brown, my brother’s blue. We each had caps. Mine was brown leather with lamb’s wool earflaps, a strap that snapped tightly under the chin and a visor. Tim had a gray cloth cap with a low, flat crown and knitted earflaps that folded down from the outside of the cap. He had a small, shiny badge with a skier on the front of the cap. Our mittens were rubberized cloth with flannel linings and a wide elastic band around the wrist. They were stiff and extended far beyond our fingertips rendering our hands totally useless for anything at all.

 

Mid-'50's snow clothes.

Thus encased, we were sent on our way to school with strict instructions to stay on the shoveled sidewalks and to take extra care when crossing streets. It was two blocks down Bent and one block over to Churchill Elementary School. We obediently kept to the canyons of the sidewalks for at least half a block.

Other kids emerged from their houses, similarly swaddled. We became a group and then a party. Emboldened, we cast off from the beaten track. We breasted the chest high snow, plunged into drifts over our heads, slogged and struggled through virgin whiteness. We pretended we were pioneers trapped on the plains, our wagons marooned, our horses foundered as we desperately sought shelter. As the weaker children dropped back, we imagined that their frozen bodies would be found come spring contorted in agony.

 

Churchill Elementary school, the old playground equipment long ago replaced.

Then, suddenly, the yellow brick mass of Churchill School loomed ahead of us. We were saved. The schoolyard was surrounded by old cottonwoods and knurled locusts onto which a few black bean-like pods still clung. Snow was over the seats of the swings, covered the merry­go-round, and sat on the low end of the teeter-totters. The high slide towered over the yard, its steep slope disappearing into the whiteness. The sweep of gravel where we played tag or war was knee deep and the snow would remain until it was trampled down by the squealing, laughing hoards and finally melted in the spring.

Walkers like us from the old part of Cheyenne straggled into the schoolyard. A big blue bus from the Air Force base pulled up with its load. But only about half of the yellow school busses made it. The in-town kids made it but those from rural areas were still snowed in and might be for days. Finally the Principal came out to the top of the front stairs and rang her brass hand bell.  We surged past her through the double doors.

Churchill had two main floors. Third, fourth, and fifth grade classes we on the first floor.  Up the broad wooden staircase, smooth semi-circles worn in the planks, were the first and second grades. Kindergarten,  with  its tile  floors,  low  acoustic  ceiling  and  florescent  lights,  occupied  a new classroom constructed next to the coal bin in the basement.   My brother and I trudged up to separate first grade classes across the hall from one another.

Once upstairs, we were herded into the cloakroom hidden behind the blackboard at the head of the classroom. The room was narrow and dim, illuminated by a single bulb dangling from a cord from the ceiling. A narrow shelf ran along each of the long walls and underneath a row of wire hooks. At the end of the cloakroom the end of a steam radiator, which pierced the wall from the classroom, hissed and pumped out waves of tropical heat. After the first moments the stench of wet wool permeated the room.
On regular days, thirty students dealt with their coats and boots in that space. Fewer had made it that day, but our teacher still had to struggle with the layers of wet clothes and boots of more than twenty of us. Most of us could get out of our coats, but some needed long scarves unwound and zippers resisted the best efforts of young hands. Mittens and gloves had to be carefully retrieved from the floor and stuffed into the correct coat pockets. Caps had to be placed on the right hook with the right coat.

The worst was the boots. Black four-buckle overshoes, the snow packed into the buckles so that prying them open split fingernails and ripped flesh. Then each boot must be pulled off in an earnest wrestling match. Inevitably the shoe carne off with the boot and needed to be extracted by force. Meanwhile we stood in our stocking feet in pools of melting snow nearly overcome by the stifling heat of the room. After pulling off our second, soaking corduroys and peeling out of our flannel shirts, we tried to jam our wet feet back into our leather shoes. We tried to remember just how the fox chased the rabbit-over, under, around the loops-but generally failed to tie our shoes. So our teacher, kneeling in puddles tied them for us.

The routine for girls was only marginally simpler. Only a few mothers dared to defy convention and send their daughters to school with pants underneath their skirts. Most girls had only knee high wool stockings for leg protection and many would not wear hats that would crush their hair. Those who wore Mary Janes had less trouble getting their shoes out of their boots and back on their feet, but the ones with saddle shoes shared the same struggle as the boys.

As the teacher completed the ritual with each child, she sent us to our desks in the classroom. We knew what we were to do until she finished and at last joined us. We opened the tops of our desks, each desk top attached to the back of the chair ahead, and took out our red Big Chief tablets and our extra thick eraser-less pencils.  We were to copy, in our neatest block letters, the lengthy passages the teacher had put on the blackboard. If we finished, we were to start again and the steadiness of our hand was expected to improve with each repetition. Reliable class snitches, favored girls all, would instantly report any breach of decorum in the teacher’s absence.

 

None of us had any idea what were were saying when we recited the Pledge of Allegiance by rote and sang My Country 'tis of Thee.

Once we were all reunited in the classroom, the regular morning routine commenced. First we stood, placed our hands over our hearts and recited the Pledge of Allegiance and sang My Country ‘tis of Thee. Not a single student in the class understood the words to either, knowing only that it was required because of the Flag and because most of our fathers had been in The War.

Next, sitting at her desk the teacher read the attendance roll without looking up. We were to answer loudly and clearly “Here” as soon as our name was spoken. Too tardy a response or too soft a one resulted in being marked absent and absent you were whether or not your body was in your seat.
Due to the length of time required to get out of our wet clothes, show and tell was limited to just two eager students. One brought something suitably educational and uplifting, but the second boy brought the frozen (now thawing) body of some unidentifiable small animal.  He was promptly sent to the principal.

 

We studied from a giant Dick and Jane reader on an easel in front of the class.

The morning progressed through our usual classes. Reading was done from a giant Dick and Jane book on an easel at the front of the classroom. It had a black leatherette cover. The teacher turned the pages of the day’s story and we read in unison. Then we started over again and students were picked to read aloud by themselves. We did not have our own books. We would not have readers to hold in our hands until second grade. We practiced our simple three and four letter spelling words for the test on Friday by copying them ten times each onto our Big Chief tablets. We copied the same words ten times every day until the test, when we were expected to reproduce the list perfectly to earn a star on our paper.

As an act of mercy for our teacher, there was no outdoor morning recess. Instead we were allowed ten minutes to color silently at our desks. One sheet of art paper was provided each student. We each had our eight color box of Crayolas—larger boxes and other brands were both strictly forbidden. We were free to draw what we wished, but if we colored the sky purple or the grass orange, we would be gently corrected.

At noon the teacher needed to get all of the walkers back into our outside gear. We had an hour to walk home, eat lunch and return.  Bussed students ate sack lunches at their desks and bought little glass bottles of milk for a nickel.   After eating they would be loaded into their coats and boots and sent out to the playground until our return.

Tim and I, our clothes still wet from the morning trip, made our way home. By then the sky had cleared. It was a brilliant blue and the sun off of the snow caused our eyes to narrow to slits and water.

                                                    Real Hershey's Cocoa instead of instant Ovaltine was a winter treat.

At home our mother greeted us and laid out our clothes on the heating grate to dry. She served us hot tomato soup and melted cheese sandwiches browned in the oven and neatly sliced into triangles. As a special treat, in honor of vanquishing the storm, she made real Hershey’s Cocoa, not just warm Ovaltine.  We ate at the kitchen table with the radio on listening to reports of cattle in distress and attempts to feed isolated  herds with  hay dropped by National Guard C-47’s and speculations on the price of beef at the yards in Denver, Omaha, Sioux City, and Chicago.

Before we had time to run upstairs to our room for a single toy, it was time to climb back into our gear and repeat the whole process from the morning.

And so it went that winter in Cheyenne.


 

 

Saturday, January 25, 2025

JFK Brought Pizzazz to Live TV Press Conferences His Latest Successors Not So Much

President John F. Kennedy calling on a reporter in his first live TV press conference.  He won the room and the home audience, at that time of day in the early '60s mostly stay-at-home wives and mothers.

On January 25, 1961 John F. Kennedy held his first live national broadcast press conference setting a lofty precedent for those who came after.  The latest have failed the test.

In his first occupancy of the Oval Office Donald Trump ditched formal press conferences when he found himself challenged and often being bested in sparring matches with reporters from the “Fake Newsmedia.  He held joint press appearances with visiting foreign dignitaries where he would often take the bait of off-topic questions and babble embarrassingly off-script.  Later he appeared for a while at daily press briefings on the Coronavirus sharing the podium with his medical experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, hack political appointees, and Vice President Mike Pence who was put in charge of the Covid-19 Task Force.  That pretty much ended when he suggested ingesting bleach as a treatment.  He went “over the heads” of the media to use Twitter to stir up his followers,  In the end most of his exchanges with the press were sometimes shouting answers to questions yelled at him as he boarded Marine One.

Trump in one of his daily Coronavius press conference.  His attempt to portray himself as active and in charge ran off the rails when he advised people to drink bleach as a cure.

Joe Bidens incoming administration immediately reinstated routine daily briefings by his Press Secretary Jen Psaki, which his predecessor had abandoned entirely for months at a time before a Fox News-like blonde was brought on to calmly lie.  In the beginning Biden went before the microphones and cameras daily as he announced his Cabinet appointments and policy initiatives often reversing Trump fiats and fiascos, usually taking at least some questions.  He promised to conduct a transparent administration and the White House Press Pool was assured that he would also conduct full-blown press conferences.  

That was not to be.  Over his term he had an average of only 9.25 formal news conferences a year, down significantly from his three predecessors who each had more than 20.  Biden’s media advisors found that press conferences were no longer big events with live broadcasts by the TV networks.  At best a 30 second clip or two might make it the evening news or float around the internet.  It was easier to manage sound bite nuggets in more limited press interactions.  In the long form Biden had more time to ramble and reminisce, more opportunities for gaffes which seemed to blow up from minor ripples to endless late night TV bits.   As his term wore on and he seemed to be steadily declining long events were just too tiring leaving the door open to more kerfuffles.

Late in his Presidency Biden struggled in a press briefing referring Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump and seemed exhausted and in distress.

After his disastrous debate with Trump, he stepped up events and announcements meant to showcase him as confident, able, and in charge.  They did not and Biden seemed to fade out as a Saturday Night Live sketch.

In the early days of his return Trump’s compulsive need to be on camera and the star of his own show was gratified by almost hourly egregious executive orders, announcing a parade of incompetent and ethically challenged appointments, making bellicose international threats, and taking time to poke his enemies.  He gauges his success by the level of outrage it raises in those who he hates.  Since he hates hostile questions he will limit the opportunity to ask them.  He may bring back a trick from his first maladministration—trying to revoke White House press credentials of supposed enemies and giving them to friendly alternative mediabloggers, pod casters, right wing radio, etc.  He will continue to antagonize the mainstream media and speak over their heads directly not to Americans but to his own base.

An angry Trump in his first term scolding an irritating reporter in one of his increasingly rare press conferences.  In this photo note the reporter using a cell phone to record--or perhaps even live--stream the session.
 

Both and Trump are old enough to remember President John F. Kennedy’s adroit use of the televised press conference to speak to the American people.  On January 25, 1961 JFK had the first live TV press conference at the State Department auditorium where there was ample space for the more than 200 reporters then covering the White House.  Kennedy’s good-looks, wit, and charm and a bantering style with his questioners made the broadcasts some of the original must-see-TV and helped cement the image of Camelot

Kennedy’s press conferences were so masterful and well-remembered that many people think he invented them.  Not so.  Presidents have been meeting with White House press corps since at least the Woodrow Wilson administration.  Before that chief executives occasionally sat for interviews but mostly communicated in speeches with the press not allowed to ask questions. 

From Wilson to Harry Trumans early presidency, press conferences, as they came to be called, were conducted around the President’s desk in the Oval Office.  Other than still photographs no recordings were made. The sessions were held under the rule “for background only” meaning that the President could not be quoted directly without his permission.  In fact, by tacit agreement if the President inadvertently stuck his foot in his mouth, reporters often help him craft a more tactful response.  According to an article on the White House Historical Society web site:

President Truman, for example, was able to back away from a comment about Senator McCarthy that he made in a March 30, 1950, press conference. Truman said: “I think the greatest asset that the Kremlin has is Senator McCarthy.” When one of the reporters commented that the president's observation would “hit page one tomorrow,” Truman realized he had better soften the statement. He “worked” with reporters and allowed the following as a direct quotation: “The greatest asset that the Kremlin has is the partisan attempt in the Senate to sabotage the bipartisan foreign policy of the United States.”

Reporters jammed arout President Roosevelt's Desk during an off-the-record press conference.  Note the martini shaker on the President's desk--he often held these at the cocktail hour, good for the morning papers, not so good for afternoon dailies.

During this period it may come as a surprise that not-so-silent Calvin Coolidge conducted by far the most of these sessions—521 or an average of 93 a year.  But he seldom approved direct quotes.  Franklin D. Roosevelt cultivated warm relationships with the rapidly growing press corps of the Depression and World War II often calling reporters “Boys” in an affectionate congenial way not as an insulting put-down. And of course they were, with rare exceptions, all male.

During the Truman administration the press sessions outgrew the Oval Office and the President moved them to the Indian Treaty Room in the East Wing of the Old Executive Office Building now known as Eisenhower Executive Office Building.  The ornate and formal room with marble floors and vaulted ceiling had previously been used as a library for the War and Navy Departments. Initially the same off-the-record rules applied in the new venue.

Under Dwight Eisenhower the press conferences officially went “on the record.”  The old informality and familiarity was replaced with more structure.  The President had to prepare himself much more carefully for each encounter to avoid embarrassing misstatements or errors resulting in a dramatic reduction in how often they were conducted.  

Eisenhower held the first press conference to be filmed on January 19, 1955.  He announced the event as an “experiment.”  It was filmed and segments were aired that evening on the short 15 minute network TV news programs and more extensive clips were sometimes shown on the Sunday morning news programsNewsreels, which were still a staple at movie theaters also showed clips. 

On January 19, 1955, photographers had their equipment set up at the back of the room as reporters take their places for President Dwight Eisenhower’s news conference. It was the first conference at which full picture coverage was permitted.

After his success during his debates with Richard Nixon during the 1960 Presidential campaign Kennedy felt both confident and comfortable on TV.  He moved his first press conference from the over-crowded and noisy Treaty Room to the State Department auditorium and opted for a live broadcast.  He read a prepared statement on a famine in the Congo, the release of two American aviators from Soviet custody, and impending negotiations for an atomic test ban treaty. Then he opened the floor for questions from reporters, answering on a variety of topics including relations with Cuba, voting rights, and food aid to impoverished Americans.

His successors all tinkered with the format and location.  

The program broadcast during the day—and later sometimes in the early evening—was such a success that Kennedy repeated it about every two weeks, a more frequent schedule than any of his successors. Presidents Nixon and Ronald Reagan cut back the number of press conferences to approximately one every two months. They were moved to the more “Presidential” location of the East Room of the White House.  And they were often held in the evening to attract a larger audience.  But that annoyed viewers and outraged network executives who lost lucrative prime time advertising revenue.  During the administration of Bill Clinton the networks rebelled and refused to broadcast the evening press conferences unless they were assured spectacular news would be made.  Chief executives turned more and more to prime time addresses from the Oval Office in times of crisis and found multiple other ways to communicate with the press.  The number of formal press conferences declined administration by administration.

Barack Obama often chose the more intimate White House Press room for his pressers.  He nearly matched Kennedy's mastery of format. 

The last President to seem fully at ease in the press conference format was Barack Obama, who closely studied Kennedy’s.

The press also changed.  In addition to traditional print and broadcast media, alternative web-based outlets, including those with heavy political bias on both the left and right became more important and demanded to be added to the official press pool

As for Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout we daily await our invite to the pool party.