It takes a special kind of person to 

handle a Cape Cod winter and it's 

not me. I'm okay with the cold and
the wind, even some snow. But I hate
the all day long parchment paper sky
and the way it looks like it's always
4 p.m. be it morning or noontime.

Then there's the real 4 p.m., the 

hungry hour, the I'VE GOT TO HAVE 

A SNACK NOW time of day when 

no amount of lumens from your 

CFLs or LEDs can shine away the

gloomies.

Leftover Christmas decorations,

January white sales, Valentine's

Day, they're all just lipstick on the 

big gray pig called Cape Cod winter 

which is why when you read this 

I'll be wearing my Lilly Pulitzer crops 

and walking in my flip-flops leaving 

footprints in the sand far away from 

where it's always 4 p.m.

 

  

 

 

 

I feel fortunate to have grown up with a large, comfortable radio that was the center of my family's entertainment and a source of critical news in the turbulent, war-torn world of the 1930s and '40s. 

Our family radio was located in the dining room. It was a large Westinghouse console in a mahogany veneer cabinet, about 48" tall and 20" inches wide. The face, in the top third of the cabinet, was about 10" square, covered with clear "plastic." It had a large number of AM and FM frequencies and many international stations, identified by city and country names. A slender red dial, operated by one of four knobs just below the face, pointed to the source of the signal. The bottom portion of the cabinet concealed the single large speaker behind heavy mesh cloth decorated with attractive wood cutouts. Dad had installed an antenna wire from the house to a short mast on top of the garage roof for maximum reception.

 

 

My time in front of the radio was usually spent sitting on the dining room rug up close to the speakers, playing a game or with toys. The more fascinating the show, the closer I wanted to be to that speaker. If I was home from school unwell, I might lie on the floor with a pillow. When I was very young I imagined all kinds of magic inside that big box. Why else was it so large?

 

Mother and Dad were of Canadian/British origin and were anxious to stay in touch with happenings in Great Britain, especially during the WWII years. It was a family tradition to listen to King George deliver his Christmas Day address, often filled with static and sounding very far away.

 

We were usually occupied with outdoor activities in daytime good weather unless it was to catch urgent war news, weather or those grand no-school announcements in the early morning. The radio was quiet until Mother sat for an hour after lunch to hear her favorite programs. 

 

These included "The News at Noon," "Helen Trent," "Our Gal Sunday" and "The Guiding Light." Due to an illness, Mother lost most of her hearing at about age 30. So she would bring her rocker from the living room and sit close to the radio with sewing or needlework in her lap while listening. In the late afternoon a couple of adult shows that I do remember hearing were: "Stella Dallas," "Just Plain Bill" and "Ma Perkins." Later in the 40s the local radio station aired a children's story hour about 4:00 in the afternoon. It featured "Ruthie B," who read from popular children's books, sounding like someone's maiden aunt with a flare for drama, but was sometimes fun. More of the girls in my gang listened to her than boys. 

Walter Winchell

After supper, Dad would adjourn to the living room with his newspaper, on the way switching on the radio to tune in "Lowell Thomas and the News of the World." Lowell sounded father-like and knowledgeable; he was a news broadcaster, traveler, adventurer and highly respected. I recall Gabriel Heater's name, but not much else; and Walter Winchell, who had a breathless, staccato delivery and made 'important' predictions. These were the popular newscasters of the day and were famous all over the world, especially during WWII. If my sister hurried with drying the dishes, she could catch "The Hit Parade" or a popular singer called Jack Smith. Then about the time Mother had finished in the kitchen, the family programs began for the evening.

 

 

The Lone Ranger & Tonto

 They often included: "The Lone Ranger" and his trusted Indian friend Tonto; "Fibber McGee & Molly," with McGee's packed closet emptying itself with great clatter when the door was opened during every show; "The Great Gildersleeve," a small town mayor with a wonderful throaty, silly laugh and a friend named "Digger O'Dell"; "Edgar Bergen & Charlie McCarthy"; the wonderful "Amos & Andy"; "Baby Snooks," featuring the infantile voice created by the great Fanny Brice, "The Jack Benny Show"; "Lux Radio Theater," offering hour-long plays with well-known actors; Lamont Cranston, aka "The Shadow," giving us the famous "The Shadow knows," fading away with a heavy masculine laugh; "Mystery Theater," which opened and closed with a spooky, creaking door. 

 

 

Kate Smith

 

 

There were a few Saturday morning regulars for kids. I tried not to miss shows like "Tom Mix" (I had a Tom Mix signal ring for years), "Roy Rogers & Dale Evans," "Batman," "Superman," "The Range Rider" and others that are lost from my memory. We had a neighbor who hosted the "Grange Program" on Saturday mornings on the local station. It was usually about gardening and rural social functions, sometimes student projects. 

 

Saturday mornings were important to our family. It was a time for any urgent shopping or, more often, work on the house or in the yard or garden. So, I was strongly encouraged to go outside and get some fresh air. When the radio was on at this time my elder sister might be tuned in, if she was home alone or watching me while the folks were away.  In the later case there were often disagreements about programming.

 

Voices were the key to a program's success. The male lead often had a deep, masterful voice, and the female often cultured and sexy or whifty and sexy, and when called for, appropriately adjusted to tickle the funny bone. Some actors were very talented and played their voices like an instrument. The best lasted for many years and were famous in films and vaudeville before radio. A few were even good enough to transition successfully into the early days of television. 

 

I can recall some of those voices today as clearly as I heard them in the 1940s. They were a part of our American life. The actors were talented, serious, silly, sophisticated, and sensuous manipulators of our imagination. They entertained us, gave us news of the war and what was happening beyond our small, but rapidly expanding world, and they made us laugh at a time when we needed it most. I wonder if television will be remembered with such affection. 

 

 

• My microwave clock maintains the correct time during a power loss with either a backup battery and/or a WiFi communication link, but it cannot display the time until power returns. 
• My electronic digital clock radio starts displaying time from midnight when the power returns. 
• The oven clock stores the time when power was interrupted and then continues from that time when power returns. 

Since the power was on when I went to sleep, I knew the events happened within the last 24 hours. Assuming that there was a single continuous interruption, when did the power go off and when did it return? 

The answer is below.

              __________________________________________________________

 

Since it is now 8:00 am according to the microwave clock and my clock radio is showing 3:00 am, I know that the power returned at 5:00 am. Since my oven clock is one hour behind my microwave clock, I know power went off at 4:00 am and was off for one hour.

 

It's always good to have a wrist watch or cell phone by the bed. They operate independently of the power grid -- with a battery or a wind-up spring -- and can give you the correct time whether your power is on or off. But they won't tell you how long the power was off.

Tom & Carol Fredian Mike & Karen Smith	Ed & Judy Bergh Joe & Sandy LeBlanc	Janice & Woody Young, Jr. Sara Lee & Larry Cron
Pam & Bob Swift	Kathy & Denis Casaubon	Barbara & Paul Butters
Lydia & Dale Biersteker	Glen Dombrow & Steve DelGizzo	Jim & Suzi Rego

Our House

Try the Back Door

No Golf Today

Swimming Pool Closed

Bob Mendes began his career as an advertising copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach in New York before becoming senior vice president of marketing for a west coast department store chain. He left that position to start Pacific Sports, a sports and general marketing agency. There he developed "The Reading Team," a children's literacy program sponsored by the National Football League and the American Library Association, which used NFL players as literacy role models. Bob is the author of "A Twentieth Century Odyssey, the Bob Mathias Story." After retiring, he served as executive director of the Glendora, CA Chamber of Commerce. When grandson Adam was born, Bob and Bette moved to Cape Cod, where they recently celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary. Neither retires well. He's had a number of part-time jobs, has written two more books, and volunteers. Bette serves on committees at Southport and at the Falmouth Jewish Congregation. Their son Steve is a pediatrician and lives in Marion with his wife Sarah and their children, and a second son, Jeff, practices law in Indianapolis.

Roy Smith grew up in East and West Bridgewater, MA. He served as a corpsman in the US Coast Guard on the weather cutter USCGC Castle Rock and the icebreaker USCGC Eastwind, on voyages from the Arctic to the Antarctic. In his thirty-year career at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution he was initially a sea-going chemistry tech and later an administrator in the Geology and Geophysics Department. After retiring from WHOI, he was general manager of McLane Research Laboratories in Falmouth. Roy met his wife Cynthia at WHOI, where she worked summers while on teaching break. They moved to Southport two years ago and consider the choice one of their best. Since retirement both have volunteered at the Falmouth Service Center. Roy has charitable woodworking projects underway at all times and Cynthia is involved with various charities on the Upper Cape. They have two sons, Jason, an engineer at WHOI, and Aaron, a sculptor, and two beautiful granddaughters.