Guide to Binge-watching a favorite old tv series

Perry Mason

"Oh, Boy!"  During the last storm, I was going to be "hunkered down" ladyfashion with thoughtful reading , artwork, speed-knitting and beauty in my home office studio.  So I went searching for a binge-watch to add to the mix of options, and found , free with my Amazon Prime membership, the first five tv seasons about famous Earl Stanley Garner hero and his team!

Factoids:  

• 271 shows List of episodes...fortunately only 5 of the  9 seasons were available to me at once.
• they did over 30 shows per season. Today's tinkerbell actors would faint and quit
• Advice: mute the intro and closing themsong after the first one or two charm you....that relentlessness of Justice in the basso...yikes!    Totally walk into walls later if you go ahead and listen to it 150+ times.
• Every major motion picture star can found in supporting or leading roles - it's fun when you find yourself wondering..."That looks like a young Robert Redford!" and it IS  !     Ditto Fay Wray ( Ann in the original "king kong") You can have fun, scrolling down the list, catching the famous names-   The list of episodes and star names are really well formatted here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Perry_Mason_episodes#Season_1_(1957–58)
• The fun with the time things are a draw for me: people smoked!  eeeeyyyyeeeyyyyeeewww!  Even goodguys smoked.      And no cellphones/mobile communications.  Cars, and landscapes were dated but the fashions held up well, since we love classic styling and keep going back for the stuff.
• The points of law were a huge education for most of the audience. I wonder how much of it was true ?
• THE VALUES - shows like this a a fine refresher in good values - even too good in places.  hmmmmmm food for thought and fun to distract from "cabin fever" when snowed in at least
• have fun!

Labor Day 1953

Note: featuring the happy stories about Mother for the next few days - this is her week - she passed in her sleep before Monday morning12/11/17, at just shy of 92....she is free to be our angel always. I love you, Mother!

Life was very very good for the Smith Clan of Fairfield after WWII - all the sons who served, home and decorated for their heroism for Army Engineers in the Battle of the Bulge, Army Communications, Marines, Army Infantry,  Army MPs, and our Dad Pioneer Army Air Corps "Smitty the Flight Mechanic" .  All home and married to their sweethearts who served on the home front and all grateful and joyfully working at grand new jobs and raising families. 

Photoshop needed here - but it's Father's fun with new camera day and all three of us with Mother at one time. Rare to get us all to stand still together that long.

Exuberant Gram and Gramps so proud and nearing their 50th wedding anniversary, and fit for it, joined the annual Labor Day Picnic - a patriotic work song celebration - and this  year it was at Auntie Em's big homestead, to save Gram the work for a change at their "Little White House".

Mother was tall and lovely and expecting her third child very soon and fidgeted that morning, wondering if it was wise to join seven Irish sons and a daughter and their respective families at the blowout event of the year.   She had experienced a false labor, a trip to hospital to deliver, but home again, and NOT deflated enough -  so it could be any time now.  But the All-American Smith Family day found her doing her part with the women, setting up the table and presenting the feast, as the men talked over their game of horseshoes and the children helped with chores and played running and swinging games at the fine large place under the trees and in the field with the sheep and one good donkey.

NOT without caprice, Mother thought it might help things along to overdo the watermelon-eating and did.  Sure enough !     The second trip the hospital soon followed, and blushing, back to face the crowd at the picnic in an hour,  from a second false labor.  Father and the others making jokes about my Mother's desire to "go have this baby" on Labor Day made for a LOT of extra fun that day, for everyone but our Mother and the baby! 

But she was NOT wrong to feel like getting things going - when our sister Lori was born on September 18th, she was not fat, but a very long baby weighing in at 9 pounds 3 ounces!  No wonder she felt it MIGHT be time!  Third millennium medicine would have been able to image it out and let Mother deliver earlier, but back then, no.    And...Since Lori soon developed normally in size, it WAS surely just a long pregnancy resulting in high birth weight.  This one remains a family favorite LORISTORY , all these years later!   Hope you enjoyed it! 

And always a quick prayer and a wish that all who ARE in labor on this American Labor Day, enjoy a celebration of life of it all - today and always! 

Blue " Hallelujah"

 Peter Hollen and Jackie Evancho sing a pretty a capella version of Leonard Cohen's iconic "Hallelujah" -  this year at YouTube for the holidays ......find it if you can.   I think I wrote this "Variation on the Theme" for a memorial to the author's passing this November 7th

A ' Different'  Hallelujah

What , sweet angels, do you do

It's Christmas and they don't like you, 

And to be truthful, you're not keen on them ?

Skip them,  and go find your friends

and play till New Year's parties end

Find the new year full of Hallelujahs

Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !

When big hurts hurt, they do deplete - 

It isn't pretty, isn't sweet

You cry, "Please, Santa, ANY Hallelujah ! "

You pray to find a new insight

 it won't run clear, it won't go right

 Till you can't even spell out  'Hallelooojah' !

Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !

I found my son today online

With Bride, too far away, but  fine

But why assail me with   UN-hallelujah !

And now they'll have to charm this dear,  

to find the former welcome here

And still I know I'll know that Hallelujah !

Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !

His sister's newly-wedded smiles

Just dreams - we are apart by miles

Some one-day moment here -  for Holy Yule - yah !

Again a merry company

For Christmas, once again, and we will

Sing ensemble, truly,  Hallelujah!

Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !    Hallelujah !   Hallelujah ! 

The strawb'ry top still  spins,  my loves !

The spirit's there and more above

A power of its own, sing Hallelujah !

I love the wisdom of my years

The invitation's loud and clear, so

  I'll close now  and just get back to my Yule - yah !

Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !   Hallelujah !

May YOUR  "Hallelujah" and "Gloria" and "cheers", glow with family spirit this year and always!

elle

Photo Stories for my Soldier 1968

A friend shared her firstborn son's four-month  baby photo story at Facebook this morning and improved Monday measurably!  Thanksomuch, Jessica !   Mother and child are a gift to life itself!  It reminded me of our own son's baby days!   May this post help do my part for veterans and all loving parents.

The story:   My new husband and Corps of Engineers Lieutenant liked my Red Cross work  as he prepared for deployment with work as Assistant Brigade Adjutant at Fort Knox, Kentucky.  Partners in it all,  and now parenthood too!  Our new marriage was getting really good!   So he obtained an extension on his departure date so he could be there for the birth and the early christening, and then off to war, when our son was 22 days old.   But we had run along with our cameras as sweethearts and newlywed, and promised to let photos continue to help us stay close.  

I'd plan the photo shoot and get busy - back and forth as photographer and with a drafted helper, then, into the photo myself for my mommy role.  Then the editing:  I’d assemble the stories with captions and send them on to his Daddy in Viet Nam. 

With his degree in Chemistry and hatred for Chemical warfare,  he was proud to be with His USACE Special Ops group, "Black Diamonds",  bridge-building and getting rid of Agent Orange.   To be sure to get that job, my late husband took on Construction work as a summer job and was required to enlist before his draft notice arrived. They would be sent at birthdays, and his was in July, so not much graduate partying in June, but running to Army Recruiting to get in on time.    

I don't know what sort of mass hypnosis we use to make it bearable, but war is "like, dangerous" and they were not showing enough John Wayne movies!   His job was not especially combat of any sort, but they all took their turn at duties with guns.   I was twenty-one and in love;  I pretended it was just “post partum”   stuff when I swooned from horror at the dangers he faced...he and friends and neighbors' sons and soon, my Brother.   The wonderful new Playtex baby nurser with super safe  disposable bags was fun.   But an innovation called "body bags" was not.  I never stopped getting sick at the idea of bagging people. They needed a much more respectful term for it, and insistence use of that term. Both soldiers and newscasters were awful in their deliberate disrespect when they used the term. 

Unable to cry, desperate to do something to help, all I could do, was find the good perfumed stationery and send the photo stories and pray a lot, and " not make waves" .   There was no SKYPE and no digital imaging, but now the photo stories for my lieutenant got serious in their mission.   Keeping up morale when those who were supposed to do and say supportive things were NOT.    And what if my pathetic efforts got lost in the famously-horrible mail?  The popcorn and cookies I sent NEVER got there.  Once his letters did not get to me for weeks and once mine did not reach him and the letters back were full of his concern as were mine to him, by the time they arrived, it was frustration to read them, since the issue had passed.

Young and low-budget or not,  there was money for at least two copies of the photo essays.   Head and heart in the production to keep it light and helpful for all the best fun.   The christening and the bath time stories remain my favorite -  wiggly before, splashing during, full of delight.  And after?  One he'd love with  happy, sleepy, clean and dry baby and happily wet and messy Mommy.   His Father's letters in reply were full of love and praise  for the joy the stories brought in the middle of a war.   The highchair mealtimes, the fun in the stroller and  other photo stories - easy!     How good to know that they helped!  

And, thanks to the extension on the deployment, Daddy was home in time for his son's first haircut and baby's first Christmas  - Father and Son together "all ten fingers - all ten toes" - my favorite baby picture story of all!