I’m originally from the Midwest. My big sister returned there to attend university, and she’s lived there ever since. When her best friend passed away, I was surprised to learn that the woman’s sister lived a thousand miles away, just half a mile from me. After my cancer diagnosis last year, I was further surprised to hear that the nearby sister had exactly the same cancer I did.
We met three times for long talks. First, after my diagnosis; second in the middle of my treatment; finally, when I was recovering. Her cancer was more advanced than mine, and she had been undergoing treatments for eleven years. In between visits we texted words of encouragement.
Her last message was on January 3. She passed away yesterday.
Perhaps my cancer will return and the same fate awaits me. There’s no point in worrying about that now. I’m mourning the death of my new friend.
A while ago, I commented that the personal philosophy expressed by Charles Schulz in an interview reminded me of Fred Rogers. That got me thinking I should watch the Tom Hanks movie, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. I’ll do that soon.
As a kid, despite being older than the target demographic, I watched Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood on New York TV. It had a quiet, reassuring tone, puppets, and a nice woman.
The reassuring tone relieved some of the stressful atmosphere occasionally experienced at home. I was a fan of puppet shows even before learning that Bob Clampett’s Beany & Cecil, a beloved cartoon series, began as a puppet show. The nice woman on MisteRogers was Betty Aberlin or, as she was called, Lady Aberlin.
Betty Aberlin on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, 1968
Poking around the Net for more background on Aberlin, I was surprised to see these images. Whoa, sexy Betty!
Betty in a swimsuit that looks more like a baby-doll nightie? It couldn’t be from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, could it? Actually, yes. Episode 1425, from 1975. Betty was teamed with hunky Bert Lloyd as her brother.
Betty Aberlin and Bert Lloyd
Lady Elaine, a puppet as an evil witch, expresses an interest in the “nice-looking young man,” who is forced to exercise in a cage for her entertainment. It reminded me very much of something else from 1975.
It’s interesting that Fred Rogers, who was careful in developing his program material, would present physically attractive adults in this way. It’s as if he were gently and innocently suggesting the desires that inevitably come with growing up.
Here’s the episode, with Betty falling in love with a swan and rescuing “Rocky Horror” from the evil witch’s clutches. Spoiler alert: It was all a dream!
Tech note: The video plays automatically. Firefox has a feature to prevent that on a per-site basis. This is how it looks.
Melania looked like she had just come from Jimmy Carter’s funeral. Goodnight, America.
And there’s this. How do the Evangelicals feel about it? If he doesn’t issue all of those “J6” pardons he promised, then we’ll know he’s signaling to his followers that he doesn’t need them anymore.
Update: Well, he did it. It wasn’t an insurrection to prevent the transfer of power. No, it wasn’t a riot, it was a love-in.
Did you see Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer? MGM’s dramatization of the Manhattan Project, with Hume Cronyn as J. Robert, was released only 18 months after the end of WWII. It opens with a whopper of a fib.
The museum’s impressive collection is about the wars that America has fought, and the weapons of those wars. The question that must be asked about every war is, “what are we fighting for?” There is no doubt whatsoever that America was forced by Japan to join the fight in WWII.
The decision to end the war by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan will always be controversial. It wasn’t for my late father, a Navy sailor who was in the first wave of American forces to occupy Japan.
I once visited a museum that presented an overview of WWII that was smaller in physical scale, yet much more comprehensive in scope. The defunct International Museum of World War II, in Natick, MA, had an extensive collection that was bought up by a rich guy who reneged on his promise to make it available for public viewing.
Movies made during the war are especially interesting, because everything was still happening. Without a rearview mirror, nothing could be seen in hindsight.
The Human Comedy was made during wartime, with a bittersweet tone about the American home front. It stars Mickey Rooney, whose fame faded quickly after the war. Having not seen it in decades, I’ll make a point of catching it on TCM, the next time it’s on the schedule.
Another wartime home front movie, with a less sentimental tone, is Since You Went Away with Shirley Temple. She grew up to have the looks of a pinup girl, but the public couldn’t shake their image of her as a child star.*
Since You Went Away is a long, and at times downbeat, movie. Guy Madison‘s brief appearance earned him a starring role in 1946’s Till the End of Time, the same year as the better-known post-war movie The Best Years of Our Lives.
* As a young woman, Petula Clark had a similar problem in England. In the Fifties, the public had no trouble seeing former child stars Elizabeth Taylor and Natalie Wood as sex symbols.
