Like a lot of men, I haven’t taken very good care of myself. My weight had never been a problem as a child, but for most of my adult life I have been heavier than I should be. I’ve avoided the doctor for years, so it was no surprise when I was told during a checkup a couple of years ago that I have high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes. Yikes!
I’ve been dutifully taking my prescribed medications, but ignoring the “elephant in the room-” my weight. I have lost weight in the past with varying degrees of success. I tried the Nintendo Wii Fit, which worked until I became bored with it. I’ve gone thru two exercise bikes, both given to me by friends. They worked well at shedding the poundage until they broke. My employer recently changed my health plan to Blue Care Network, who after a health assessment demanded that I make some lifestyle changes. I am ready to commit, so here is my plan for a leaner, healthier Golick. Blue Care is giving me a free Fitbit Zip, which will track my steps, calculate my distance traveled and the calories that I’ve burned. Per their instructions I need to walk at least 5000 steps a day until my BMI goes down to 30. Piece of cake. That I can’t eat anymore. I am now the proud owner of a shiny, new exercise bike. I pedal between 30 and 40 minutes a day and actually enjoy this activity as long as I can zone out with some tunes on my Ipod. I’ve only had the machine for a week and I’m already losing measurable weight. I’m dusting off the Wii Fit and giving it another try. I’m eating smaller portions, cutting out all sweets and weaning myself off of soda pop. That’s my plan. When people ask me how much weight I’d like to lose, my funny stock answer is that I’m trying to get down to my original weight of eight pounds, nine ounces. In reality I have no set amount. I’d like to have a waist small enough that I don’t have to constantly be pulling my pants up. And I’d like to be able to see my junk when I look down. With less weight to carry around, my blood pressure should go down as well as my cholesterol numbers and my high blood sugar levels. I will report my progress in three months. Wish me luck!
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After being summoned for jury duty about ten times over the years and not getting any further than jury selection, I finally got the chance to fulfill my civic obligation and completed six days of Jury Duty in United States District Court. I have compiled some observations that will let you know what to expect if you are summoned. Be aware that my experience was with Federal Court, which I understand treats jurors much better than State Court.
When I first entered the court building, I was required to show a current ID and remove my belt. Spare change, my wallet, watch and any other metal objects were placed in a tray along with my jacket and sent through the metal detector. I walked through another metal detector and was given my belongings on the other side. I then had to walk about thirty feet while holding up my pants to an area where I reassembled myself. I understand that this search is a necessity, but the possibility of losing my pants in the lobby of the Theodore Levin United States Courthouse weighed heavily on my mind. After arriving in the court room, the two lawyers asked many odd questions, like what kind of bumper sticker is on you car. I wondered what type of bumper sticker might get me kicked off of jury duty, but came up with nothing. The lawyers ultimately pared twenty four prospective jurors down to eight. I asked the case manager why there were only eight jurors, and not twelve like in the classic Henry Fonda film “12 Angry Men” She politely replied that she had never seen the film, but there were eight jurors on this case. How do you work for the court system and not see “12 Angry Men?” The film should be de rigueur for all court employees. Nevertheless, six angry men and two angry women ended up in the jury box. I channel my inner Henry Fonda and prepared to hear the case. The testimonies were long, boring and repetitious. Did I mention that the testimonies were repetitious? And boring? And long? We were given legal pads and encouraged to take notes. I chose not to, but after hearing a few hours of testimony the woman seated in front of me decided to draw pictures of unicorns, fairies and rainbows. The man to my right opted for stick figures with devil horns burning in the flames of Hell. The jury room was stocked with all kinds of gastric goodies, and they were all free! Every day there is a different treat to eat. On Tuesday there were bagels and schmear, Wednesday was donut day and Thursday there was a fruit and veggie plate. Coffee, soda and bottled water were also available. On deliberation day they sprang for lunch. I had a corned beef and Swiss on a Kaiser roll and a chocolate chip cookie. Yummy! As good as the food was, the reading material left a lot to be desired. The magazines are at least five years old. I read articles in US Weekly about Chris Jenner sticking by her husband’s side, Robin Williams hoping that his new TV show is a hit and Who Wore It Best, Whitney Houston or Paris Hilton? On the sixth day we were given lunch menus upon our arrival to the jury room, where we placed our orders. We then entered the court room and heard closing arguments by both lawyers. The judge then gave us our instructions and we were off to the jury room to make our decision. It only took us twenty minutes to reach a verdict. The time was 11:25 AM. We held off turning in our verdict until after our free lunch arrived at noon. After our delicious lunch we returned to the courtroom to deliver our verdict. The plaintiff was suing for a million and a half dollars, but was awarded nothing. The jurors received a big forty bucks a day for their services, a certificate with a faux gold seal on it and a warning that although we performed our civic duty in federal court, we could be called at any time to serve in civil court. So like Henry Fonda at the conclusion of “12 Angry Men” I left the courthouse, descended the massive granite staircase and disappeared into the rainy afternoon with a smile on my face, feeling proud that I finally got the chance to perform my civic duty. I first met Herman Summers in 1979, when I started working at Northern High School, located at Woodward Avenue and Clairmont Street in what is known as Detroit’s North End. Herman was the unofficial “Goodwill Ambassador” of the neighborhood. He lived in a halfway house in the area, but spent most of his time on the streets .At any time Herman could be found sweeping the lot at the local gas station, helping customers at the King Cole Food Market or kicking back on the steps of Little Rock Church.
Herman was a gentle soul, but a peculiar man. The first three years I knew him, Herman wore eyeglasses with very thick, almost cartoony, lenses. One day I saw him without his glasses. “Where are your glasses?’ I asked Herman. “ Are you able to see without them?” Herman replied, “Oh, I found those glasses on the sidewalk. I just thought they looked good on me.” Herman must have lived a hard life. When he saw me outside of the school he always gave me a handshake with the roughest pair of hands that I had ever seen. He was polite to a fault and always called me Mr. Golick. Every Sunday you could find Herman worshipping at Little Rock Baptist Church. Whenever I saw Herman I would shoot the breeze with him and slip him a dollar or two. During the holidays I’d give him a five or a ten, which he always appreciated. Life in the inner city and alcoholism can go hand in hand, but I’d never seen Herman drunk, or smelled liquor on his breath. His drink of choice was soda pop. On one particularly warm day, Herman asked me for two dollars to buy a pop and a bag of chips. Most street people will tell you anything just to get a couple of bucks from you, but Herman was a man of his word. A few minutes after giving Herman his money I saw him coming out of the King Cole with a Faygo Red Pop in one hand, a bag of chips in the other and a big grin on his face. Herman was a military veteran. He told me that once a year he had to go to the V.A. hospital and sit in a cold room all day until a doctor examined him so he could get his benefits. As the years passed by I noticed a change in Herman. One day he appeared to be perfectly normal, and the next day he would be wandering the streets in a zombie-like state, not recognizing anyone or anything. These episodes grew more frequent as the years wore on. A couple of years ago the halfway house that Herman had been living in was condemned, so he left the neighborhood. I recently found out that Herman had passed away. His body was discovered behind a vacant building. Herman had no family, other than the people in his neighborhood who befriended him. I initially wanted to know the circumstances behind his death, but I quickly decided that I‘d rather not know. Life is tough in the North End, and I didn’t want to discover that he met a violent death. At any rate, he didn’t deserve to die in an alley behind an abandoned building. Herman was a proud man who served his country, tried his best to be a productive member of society and despite battling some inner demons, be a positive impact in his community .I was proud to call him my friend. .Rest in peace, Herman Summers. My mother was a pretty decent cook. She did a great job feeding a family of six on a limited budget. Mom learned how to make Polish dishes for my father like kapusta, stuffed cabbage, pierogies and homemade kielbasa. In the fall she canned tomatoes and pickles and made homemade jelly and apple butter. She made a terrific spaghetti sauce that simmered on the stove all day, perfuming the air with an incredible garlic and oregano smell. As wonderful as all of these dishes sound, mom made two meals that I absolutely hated- fried liver and kidney stew.
I learned in Mr. Fesik’s fifth grade science class that the liver creates bile that is used to detoxify the body and the kidneys help remove waste products. Out of all of the tasty parts of the cow that we could be eating, why, oh why, are we chewing on the two organs that filter the cow’s pee? It just didn't make sense to me. Not to mention the unpleasant odor that permeated the air and stayed for days whenever a piece of liver met a searing hot skillet. I hated the smell. I hated the texture. I hated the taste. I HATED LIVER! The kidney stew wasn’t much better. Kidneys are tough and have a faint taste of urine. Mom cooked them in grayish-brown gravy with carrots, onions and diced potatoes. And if the kidneys weren’t bad enough, she would toss in pieces of salt pork. For the uninitiated, salt pork is chunks of pure pig fat cured in salt. The gravy covered the chunks of salt pork and the chunks of potatoes, making them indistinguishable from each other. You never knew whether you were getting a chunk of potato on your fork or a chunk of pig fat. I grew up in the era of “Don’t you know that there are kids starving in Africa,” so not eating everything on my plate was not an option. I couldn’t stomach the liver anymore, so I came up with a clever plan utilizing my then budding magic skills. I’d cut up the liver into bite sized chunks, palm each piece, and deftly stick it into my left front pants pocket when nobody was looking, not an easy feat with five siblings and two parents at the table. Now you see it, now you don’t. When dinner was over I would excuse myself, go to the bathroom and flush the evidence. My little magic show went on for months, until that fateful day when my mother caught me in the act. “Edward, what’s that in your hand?’ she said. “Nothing,” I replied. “Why do you have liver in your pants?” Busted! I told her how much I hated liver, and prepared for the worst. “You know, Edward,” she said,” If you hate liver that much, and will go thru that much effort to avoid eating it; you don’t have to eat it any more.” And it was over. Just like that. No punishment. No yelling. Over the years my relationship with my mother hit a lot of highs and lows, mostly lows. Sadly, in the end we never made amends. But despite all of the bad things that were said by both of us, I really did love my mother and am thankful that we had a few little moments like the liver incident. And now you know why I call this blog “Way Cheaper Than Therapy.” My favorite actor of all time is Jimmy Stewart, so in the fall of 1991 I decided to do something special for my movie idol. I asked my good friend and comic artist extraordinaire Bill Bryan if he would create a poster montage of some of Stewart’s most memorable roles for him. We discussed the images that would be included on the poster, Bill did what he does best, and off the piece went to Mr. Stewart’s residence.
A few months had passed, and I had forgotten about the poster. On Christmas day there was a knock at my door. It was the mailman with a special delivery letter addressed to me. I had never received a special delivery letter before. I thought that only happened in the movies. I signed for the letter and wondered why I was receiving such a letter on Christmas day. Nervously opening the envelope, I pulled out a card with “James Stewart” elegantly printed on top. The card read, “Dear Ed Golick & Bill Bryan- I’m sorry I have been so long in writing to you. I want you to know that your drawings of me in the different pictures I’ve been in is just great. We have it in our library and everyone is overjoyed by it. With all my heart, I thank you. God Bless you, Jimmy Stewart” A few years after Mr. Stewart had passed I received an email from the curator of the Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana, Pennsylvania. He had found the poster in the museum archives with my name on it, and wanted to know its origin. The poster became part of an exhibit of gifts given to Mr. Stewart from his fans Here I am on my 4th birthday, holding what my grandmother thought was the perfect gift for me, a plastic baby Jesus doll. We were a Catholic family, but I wasn’t particularly religious. I was never an altar boy and I only went to church when my father made me. Perhaps because I was born 3 days before Christmas, or maybe she got a deal on it, I don’t know.
The doll came in a box that opened up into a tacky cardboard facsimile of the Bible. The baby Jesus sat in a square hole in the middle. Nobody was allowed to touch it except for me, just once, for the photograph. My father thought that it was an inappropriate gift for a 4 year-old boy. He suggested donating it to a church. My mother wanted to pack it away and save it for me until I got married. My father ultimately won out, and Baby Jesus and his cardboard bible found a new home at St. Hedwig Church. “The Most Wonderful Story Christmas Play set” was made by the Ideal Toy Company. It flopped big time because Christians weren’t too enthusiastic about a baby Jesus doll being dragged on the floor before its fingers got chewed off by the family dog. Merry Christmas to all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyhDdv-g6Fw Call me a Scrooge, but in my opinion most Christmas music is unlistenable. A barrage of bad holiday tunes starts permeating the airwaves the day after Halloween, and they don’t stop until the end of December. Good or bad, Christmas music sells, which is why we have terrible songs like “Little Saint Nick” by the Beach Boys and Justin Bieber singing “The Little Drummer Boy.” And the less said about supposed holiday classics like “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” and “Jingle Bell Rock” the better.
Here are three timeless holiday classics that I consider to be the cream of the crop of Christmas tunes. And by an amazing coincidence, all three were on the music charts on Christmas of 1963. THE CHIPMUNK SONG (CHRISTMAS DON’T BE LATE) Alvin and the Chipmunks The very best of the novelty Christmas songs and a guilty pleasure to be sure. I remember being seven years old and helping my mother trim the tree while a 45 RPM record of this song played on our Hi-Fi. These are the original chipmunks as created by Ross Bagdasarian, not the rabid rip-off version that his son has been foisting upon the American public since the 1980s. Accept no substitutes. CHRISTMAS (BABY PLEASE COME HOME) Darlene Love Legendary producer Phil Spector gave his “Wall of Sound” treatment to a handful of Christmas standards and a newly written song on the album “A Christmas Gift for You.”. A relative flop at the time of release, the album’s reputation has grown over the years to cult status, with major help from late night talk show host David Letterman. For 28 years Darlene Love sang “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) on Dave’s show, beginning in 1986 with Paul Shaffer’s four piece house band, and ending in 2014 as a music event with a huge horn and string section and backup singers to recreate the “Wall of Sound”. Letterman calls it “the greatest Christmas song ever written.” I wholeheartedly agree. DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR? Bing Crosby Written in 1962 by the husband and wife team of Noel Regney and Gloria Shayne Baker, the song was written as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis. At the time the Soviet Union was constructing bases for ballistic nuclear missiles in Cuba that were aimed at the U.S. A nuclear attack was a real possibility. The lyric “A star, a star, dancing in the night with a tail as big as a kite” evokes the Star of Betlehem as well as a nuclear missile. The song has been recorded by many singers over the years, but Bing Crosby’s version is the very best. By 1963 Crosby was at the peak of his vocal powers, his voice now a mellow baritone. Bing really belts it out with a great choir and orchestra behind him. Ironically, Crosby recorded the vocals for this song on November 22, 1963, the day that President Kennedy was assassinated. You can really feel the passion in his voice. In my opinion, this is the most powerful Christmas song ever written. I’ve always been a collector. It all started innocently enough at the age of six with baseball cards. A few years later it was G.I. Joe action figures. When I became a teenager it expanded to whatever I found in the alleys of my neighborhood that I thought was cool and could drag home on my bicycle.
By adulthood I was addicted to collecting and there was no turning back. Every weekend was spent hitting the area garage sales and flea markets for collectibles .Over the years I’ve acquired pinball and gum machines, neon signs, the ticket dispensing machine from the Palms Theater in downtown Detroit, troll dolls, a Pac Man machine, a complete bound collection of The National Lampoon, vintage popcorn boxes, old battery operated toys, movie memorabilia, tube type radios, etc. etc. etc. I could go on for three or four more paragraphs, but I won’t. Let’s just say that my house is a museum of 20th century pop culture, or home to a pile of useless junk, depending on who you ask. In 1998 I discovered eBay. Now the whole world was my yard sale. Thanks to eBay I was able to flesh out my collection of vintage potato chip tins and Drive-In theater speakers as well as start some new collections like animation art and celebrity life masks. I spent a couple of hours every day searching the listings, looking for treasures that I just had to own. A case of vintage Chilly Dilly Pickle snack bar wrappers from the Drive In? How could I not? A prop knife and sheath used by an extra in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame?’ Can’t live without it. My interest in Detroit radio and television memorabilia made me curious about a listing that I found a few years ago on eBay. I ultimately passed on the item, but regret doing so to this day. A seller was offering a set of poker chips used by the cast and crew of the Lone Ranger radio program. I am a Lone Ranger aficionado and own hundreds of episodes of The Lone Ranger on CD, plus a few curiosities like a set of horseshoes worn by the Lone Ranger’s horse for personal appearances. The poker chips would make a great addition to my Lone Ranger collection. The seller was the son of Fred Foy, an announcer at WXYZ radio in Detroit. Fred’s distinctive voice was heard on radio dramas like “The Green Hornet” and “Challenge of the Yukon”, but he was best known for being the announcer and narrator on” The Lone Ranger”. Over the strains of the William Tell Overture, Foy’s stentorian delivery of the Ranger opening thrilled decades of radio audiences. Most radio historians agree that Fred’s Lone Ranger introduction is the most recognized opening in American radio. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to have spoken with a few people who worked on Ranger, and the station’s late night poker games were legendary. I just had to own these poker chips. I exchanged multiple emails with the seller, and everything added up, until I asked him one last question. Would his dad be willing to write a note stating that these were the poker chips used at WXYZ during the run of The Lone Ranger? He replied, “I can’t do that. Dad would have a fit if he found out that I was selling them. What I will do is give you his phone number. He loves talking to his fans, but please don’t mention the poker chips.” That was the deal breaker for me. In the collector’s world documentation is everything, and without a letter of authenticity, the poker chips were, well, just poker chips. I passed on the deal. Somebody else bid on the chips and got them for their opening bid of $9.95. A few weeks later it occurred to me that whether I had a letter from Fred Foy or not, the poker chips were still the real deal. And for $9.95 I could have talked to a radio legend, and had him recite the Lone Ranger opening. Oh, well. You win some and you lose some. The house is now filled to the rafters with neat stuff obtained from eBay and elsewhere, but I can always find room for that one cool item that I absolutely must have and can’t live without. This is the story of the rise and fall of the Crystal Theater, a small neighborhood movie house in the old Polish enclave of Michigan Avenue and Junction, on the southwest side of Detroit. It’s where my father grew up and where I lived for the first ten years of my life. The Crystal was located on the corner of Michigan Avenue and 31st street. This was actually the second Crystal Theater on Michigan Avenue. The first Crystal, located across the street and a block over, was demolished as part of a massive road widening project in the late 1930s. It had been in operation since the days of silent movies, so the neighborhood was excited to welcome this new, Streamline Moderne style theatre to the area. The front façade of the Crystal was covered with porcelain-enameled panels of Chinese red, yellow and black. The marquee was embellished with yards of colorful neon and hundreds of tungsten filament Mazda lamps that chased magically along the front and undercarriage of the theater’s entrance. The Crystal certainly wasn’t as grand as the downtown movie palaces like the Fox or the United Artists, but it was the most modern Art Deco building in the neighborhood. The auditorium seated 568 and offered tempered warm air in the winter and air-conditioned comfort for the summer months. The relatively new sound equipment and movie projectors were salvaged from the razed theater across the street. Nearly every Detroit neighborhood had at least three or four movie theaters within walking distance. In addition to the Crystal we had the Senate, the Imperial and the Kramer, which was at one time the second largest movie theater in Detroit. The Crystal opened for business on December 28, 1938 with a double feature; Army Girl, starring Madge Evans and Preston Foster along with Arsene Lupin Returns, with Melvin Douglas and Virginia Bruce. The theater opened every day at noon and closed at 3 AM in the morning, to accommodate second shift auto factory workers not ready to call it a night Saturday matinees at the Crystal were very popular with the neighborhood kids. For one thin dime you could see an hour of cartoons, a newsreel, the latest serial chapter, maybe a Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy short and two feature films. Saturday night at the Crystal meant free dish night. Dinnerware manufacturers struck a deal with theater owners. to sell them their product at wholesale prices to be given to theater patrons for the price of a movie ticket. It kept the pottery factories open and boosted theater attendance. Young women and housewives (who were the target market) attended the movies weekly for months just to collect an entire set of matching china. On occasion the Crystal offered two dishes for the price of one admission. It didn’t really matter what film was playing, the dinnerware was the star. During World War II an evening at the movies was the most popular form of entertainment. In 1946 theater attendance was at an all time high with 57% of Americans going to the movies weekly. Patrons of the Crystal were kept up to date with events at home and on the war front with twice-weekly newsreels and travelogues With the end of World War II, America experienced phenomenal economic growth, due in part to the auto industry and a housing boom. Americans had more money to spend on luxury items, gasoline was no longer being rationed and the mass migration to the suburbs had begun. By 1950 television had become the dominant entertainment medium in the United States. Factor in the Hollywood Anti Trust Case of 1948, which forced movie studios to sell their theater chains, and the old neighborhood movie houses didn’t stand a chance. The Crystal’s movie screen went dark forever on Saturday night, April 23, 1955. On Sunday morning the lobby doors were padlocked tight and the marquee read “CLOSED FOR BUSINESS.” The last picture show for the Crystal was a double feature, The Black Dakotas starring Gary Merrill and Loophole, a film noir drama starring Barry Sullivan. I was born eight months after the theater closed, so I never got to experience a double feature at the Crystal. But I listened attentively to my father tell stories about attending the Saturday matinees, the Halloween showings of Dracula and Frankenstein and how the manager would eject kids for throwing popcorn at the screen. I lived just around the corner from the Crystal on 31st street, and would often pass it while walking with my mother to the Kramer Meat Market, Piaskowski’s Drugs or any of the other specialized businesses that thrived on Michigan Avenue. If it started to rain during one of our walks we would stay dry under the Crystal’s marquee until the raindrops stopped, while I peered curiously into the lobby windows. Like many others before us, we left the old neighborhood in 1966 for suburbia. The Crystal sat, empty and decaying, for nearly two decades. In the late 1970s the beautiful Streamline Moderne marquee was ripped from its front facade, the entrance bricked over and its now rusted porcelain tiles painted a dull yellow. The interior was gutted and the Crystal began its second life as the Cheers Party Store. Like every other party store in the city they sold beer and wine, cashed welfare checks and sold money orders. A sad ending to a once grand building. The building was ultimately destroyed by a suspicious fire. It is now an empty lot. The once vibrant neighborhood is now pockmarked with more empty lots, abandoned buildings, free clinics and liquor stores. The Kramer was leveled decades ago and the Imperial is now home to a dog food store. Only the Senate is still thriving as the home of the Detroit Theater Organ Society. The story of the Crystal Theater isn’t unique. Dozens of Detroit neighborhood movie houses have suffered the same fate. And the situation isn’t any different in other major cities. The small independent theaters that have survived are now facing a new challenge with the shift from film to digital projection. At a cost of $100,000 for a digital conversion, one in every five screens in the United States could go dark because they can’t afford to convert. The neighborhood theater was the anchor of the community. Although the Crystal was in business for only seventeen years, it provided entertainment, information and fond memories for a generation of Detroiters who lived in the old Polish neighborhood of Michigan and Junction in the 1940s and 50s. On November 22, 1963 I was exactly one month shy of my seventh birthday and a second grader at Logan Elementary School in Detroit. Our class was watching an educational program on Channel 56, Detroit's public television station. We were half paying attention to the TV instructor when another man appeared on the screen, saying that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, Texas. There was an uncomfortable silence in the classroom for about thirty seconds, followed by sobbing from some of my classmates, then my teacher. An announcement was made on the P.A. system that school was dismissed for the day, and we should all go directly home. We were a Catholic family who lived next door to St. Hedwig, a huge old church on Detroit’s southwest side. And like all good Catholic families, on our living room wall hung two portraits, Pope Paul VI and John Fitzgerald Kennedy, our first Catholic President. When I entered the front door, my mother told me that the president had died. The TV was on, and she was watching the news coverage. When she left the living room to prepare dinner, I took over the TV set, as I always did. I discovered that every channel had preempted their regular programming for coverage of the president’s death. At age 6 I sort of understood what was going on, but I was desperately looking for normalcy in the midst of chaos. I stared at the portrait of President Kennedy hanging on the living room wall and silently wondered why someone would murder our nation’s president. The President’s death came on a Friday, so over the weekend I watched a steady parade of somber looking men and women file past my house, looking for solace at St. Hedwig Church. When I wasn’t staring out of the window I was watching the news reports. On Sunday afternoon I saw Lee Harvey Oswald murdered by Jack Ruby on live TV while I sat next to my father on the living room couch. Pretty intense stuff for a six year old. School resumed on Monday morning, but I don’t recall any reading, writing or arithmetic being taught that day. At noon the playground talk was about anything but President Kennedy. I finally found a little bit of comfort on Monday afternoon when Hercules, a local children’s show on CKLW-TV, returned to the airwaves. Rather than showing the usual cartoons, Don Kolke, the man who played Hercules, spoke to his young viewers in simple language that we could understand about President Kennedy and his many accomplishments. He also explained that the President had two children who were our ages and that they would now have to grow up without a father. Hercules offered comfort to me and thousands of other young Detroiters in a way that no network television newsman ever could. For four days TV news was broadcast live, glitches and all, as it happened. There had never been a murder broadcast on television, and now the whole world was seeing images of the president being assassinated—and then live coverage of his killer being killed himself. Vietnam would later bring the same kind of images into our living rooms, but in 1963 it was still a novel and horrifying experience. For four days, the “boob tube” was the lifeline of America. Television news, and the world, would never be the same again. |
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