Was there ever a super-hero named Pratt, you ask? Why yes, as a matter of fact, there was.
Al Pratt was the original Atom. Introduced by DC Comics in 1940, during the Golden Age of comic books, Pratt was very short, about 5 feet tall, and he had the strength of a, uh, normal man. But he was tough. Real tough! And he learned how to be a — a — really good boxer. *Sigh.* OK, so he wasn’t Superman. But neither was Batman. So there!
Here’s a very nice portrait of my late mother, Joanne Waffle Pratt. I believe this was taken after she had her first baby, my sister the doctor. I don’t know when studio photography done in this style fell out of fashion, but stylish and fashionable it was!
My late mother’s maiden name was, no fooling, Waffle. She graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York the semester before Grace Kelly started there.
With the presence of Eastern Equine Encephalitis and West Nile Virus here in Massachusetts, we’re hoping to get some tenants in our new bat house next spring. It has a Batman emblem on it, so I couldn’t resist. The bats will eat the mosquitoes, and that’s good, but what about rabid bats?
The movie It’s a Wonderful Life was based on a short story called The Greatest Gift, which starts with these sentences:
The little town straggling up the hill was bright with colored Christmas lights. But George Pratt did not see them.
This is the George Pratt I know. My dad. Mom is gone.
The very last sketch on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, before they shut down production to work on Holy Grail, made fun of … Pratts.
Note: This video may offend others besides Pratts.
