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gurdonarkThe onset of school reminds me of so many anticipations that guide one's calendar when one is a kid:
a. the beginning of school--the smell of that curious floor cleaning stuff that looked like purple sand and fluff,and was swept up by janitors with huge floor brooms; the feel of a new wooden desk in a new classroom; the sense of challenge as the teacher announced new things we had to learn, like cursive or long division (oh no, not division). Some new student or other, always so full of promise for a while, then just another old student.
b. the beginning of the new cartoon season. flipping among the channels, figuring our whch new shows were worth watching. I'll never forget the year that the parents' commission on violent in childrens' programming "got to" the networks, and all the adventure shows were replaced with stuff like the Smurfs. I'm a near pacifist on my good days, but those Smurfs brought out many more violent tendencies in me than Jonny Quest ever did. Just thinking about cartoons reminds me of Schoolhouse Rock, and, frankly, music doesn't get much better than "Conjunction Junction" and "Zero, My Hero".
c. The beginning of the new prime time season. Sitcoms were sillier yet somehow more fun when I was a kid--Bewitched, "My Mother, the Car", a world of failed parody superheroes failing to capitalize on the success of the kitschy "Batman" TV show. Our bedtime was 8:30 or so much of my childhood, so I guess that was 90 minutes of TV, flipping back and forth to see what was good. In those days, Friday and Sunday nights were big nights. In the afternoons, besides cartoon shows with a local Bozo the Clown, we watched Twilight Zone reruns and sometimes the Fugitive.
d. The first evening with a real cool tang in the air, usually in mid September, sometimes just after Labor Day, sometimes not until October. High school football, a sort of civic religion, copies of Dave Campbell's magazine, Arkansas Football, which recapped the chances for each high school team in the state, team by team by team. My unfortunate efforts at junior high football, doing interminable short jogs called "wind sprints" at the end of each practice, trying to tackle some life-sized dummy shaped bit of cloth covered metal on a rope, drinking a gator-ade like substance laced with more salt than a home-made ice cream grinder.
A huge thunderstorm each Labor Day, as a hurricane hit the coast, but all we got was the tip of the storms. The smell of wild garlic being mowed at the school fields in deep late August.
I don't regulate my calendar much by the school year anymore.
The new TV season is of passing interest, and I watch, one a one-off basis, a few cartoons, but do not systematically follow their ebb and flow. But I do love that first tang of cool weather in the air, when I always pause to think that this cool tang of changing seasons, of all things, is what makes life worth living.
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no subject
Date: 2002-08-20 05:45 am (UTC)*sigh*
Yes, yes.
Conjunction Junction...
Date: 2002-08-20 06:34 am (UTC)Hookin' up words and phrases and clauses...
I think I could sing that whole thing. I also remember one about a blobby looking guy who sang about how latchkey kids could make their own snacks.
I guess we all feel the same way about that first cool snap after the dog days of summer. I look forward to it even now.
Re: Conjunction Junction...
Date: 2002-08-20 07:46 am (UTC)I think you should learn this on the guitar!
Did I mention how impressed I am that you are taking guitar lessons? I want to take recorder lessons, so I can be chic and melodic, but I don't know who gives them.
Re: Conjunction Junction...
Date: 2002-08-20 08:16 am (UTC)My excellent wife said last night that she actually enjoyed hearing me practice guitar. What a nice complement since she's quite musical and always has been. I think I'll stick with it for a good long while. I want to learn the play "Tequila" and get my friend to do the sax part. :-) From campfire songs to Tequila - is that eclectic or what?
Re: Conjunction Junction...
Date: 2002-08-20 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
He was in the "hanker for a hunk of cheese" shorts. And I believe he also taught children how to make their own icicle pops using juice and ice cube trays.
He hankered for a hunk of cheese, so made a wagon-wheel--which was two Ritz-style crackers with a round slice of cheese in the middle.
His name is Timer...
Date: 2002-08-20 11:19 am (UTC)But here's an article about him:
“Hi! Time for Timer!”
He stopped your stomach’s rumbling, he hankered for a hunka cheese, he taught you how to make sunshine on a stick… His name was Timer, and he may have been the most popular yellow blob on television.
DePatie-Freleng created several public service spots for ABC’s Health and Nutrition Series (remember “Exercise Your Choppers,” “Don’t Drown Your Food” and “Yuck Mouth”?), but none captured the hearts and stomachs of young viewers more than Time for Timer. Wearing a bow tie, top hat and occasionally a wristwatch, the rounded yellow fellow with the long carrot nose offered healthy snack tips to the kids at home by means of instantly catchy songs.
“I hanker for a hunka,
A slab or slice or chunka
A snack that is a winner,
And yet won’t spoil my dinner,
I hanker for a hunka cheese… Yahoo!”
Perhaps the most memorable of Timer’s bits was the Old West themed “Hanker For a Hunk of Cheese.” To get kids to sample the delights of the milk group, Timer taught them how to make a “wagon wheel” from cheese bits.
“A hard-boiled egg, a chicken leg,
Or cheese or luncheon meat,
Or a peanut butter sandwich
Any time of day's a treat!”
Timer also had a few good tips for the kid on the go. The cartoon character knew that not every child had a cupboard stocked with cold cereal or instant oatmeal, and that not everyone had a mom, dad or grandma to make a four-course breakfast every morning. But to Timer, that was still no excuse for missing the most important meal of the day. One of the character’s spots gave several suggestions for a “quickie breakfast”—everything from fruit juice to leftovers, all designed to give kids the energy they needed for a hard day’s play.
“All these motors in your body
Need a lot of fuel to go on,
Like carbohydrates, fats and proteins,
Vitamins and so on…”
Another of Timer’s spots was less directly practical (no “how-to” here), but it still delivered valuable information. Every kid knows the benefits of an all-sugar diet (better taste, plenty of quick energy), but Timer made sure they knew the hazards as well. By teaching the simple, age-old lesson, “You really are what you eat,” the T-man helped his wee fans understand the importance of a balanced meal.
“Now, some weekend when it's raining,
And your mother is complaining,
Cause you’re hanging ‘round just twiddling your thumbs…”
Going back to the kitchen for another snack tip, Timer introduced the Saturday morning world to a tasty frozen treat called “Sunshine on a Stick.” The recipe was simple: take some fruit juice (orange, lemon, pomegranate…), pour it into an empty ice cube tray, cover it with plastic wrap, poke toothpicks into each cube (“caaaaarefully…”), freeze a few hours and presto! It was a treat anyone could make, it was good for you, and best of all, you could sing along as you made it (because every kid in America knew the words).
Timer had actually been around a few years before his 1977 Saturday morning debut, guiding kids through the mysteries of the human body in a pair of live-action/animated ABC Afterschool Specials. But it was this series of Health and Nutrition ads that made him one of the most beloved icons of late 70’s kids TV.
The Time for Timer spots played for several years, lifting the yellow-bellied star (not an insult in his case) into the pantheon of educational cartoon greats. Not everyone remembers his name, but no kid who grew up in the 70’s can forget his face, or his good-for-you message.
A pic is available at:
Time for Timer