ESTABLISHED
BY
TOM THOMAS
(AS GEOCITIES.COM/TBTHO) OCT. 25, 2000
MAY
26, 2012 
CASUAL SATURDAY
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Among a handful of slides from Marion CATV, where I worked from 1970 to 1974, I found this dim picture of Judy Rock. It was taken in our program department office, probably by Sandy Park, Judy’s co-host on “Marion Today” and “TV-3 Bingo” Monday through Friday mornings.
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I’ve attempted to correct the colors. The most recognizable pinup in the background is Robert Redford, from the 1972 movie The Candidate. Obviously, Judy was not planning to go on the air that day. |
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When she was in the studio, she dressed more like this. |
MAY
22, 2012
SUGGESTED FORM LETTER
Dear Pennsylvania Turnpike Motorist:
Thank you for participating in our E-ZPass program. The transponder mounted on your vehicle’s windshield allows it to pass through our toll gates without stopping, and your account is billed for a discounted amount compared to what you would have paid in cash.
When you became an E-ZPass customer, you agreed to obey all traffic rules and regulations. Recently, however, our information indicates that broke your promise by disobeying the speed limit. Here are the details.
On Wednesday, May 16, your transponder was recorded entering the Turnpike at Irwin exit 67 at 1:03:15 pm. Then it was recorded exiting at Breezewood exit 161 at 2:22:13 pm.
A vehicle traveling at the posted maximum speeds would require more than 92 minutes to drive between those two points, broken down as follows:
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Miles |
Speed Limit |
Minimum Time |
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00.8 |
35 mph (ramps) |
01:22 |
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29.2 |
55 mph |
31:51 |
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64.1 |
65 mph |
59:10 |
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94.1 total |
61.1 mph avg |
92:23 total |
Therefore, you could not legally exit at Breezewood until 2:35:38 pm. However, you did exit at 2:22:13 pm, or 13 minutes 25 seconds too early. You averaged 71.5 miles per hour over the distance and exceeded the speed limit by more than 17%.
Your toll was $7.63. If you lose your E-ZPass privileges, the same trip will cost you $9.05.
This is your first warning. Your next violation will bring another warning. A third violation will result in the cancellation of your E-ZPass account; your transponder will no longer be recognized, and you will be required to pay cash at the toll booths.
Please forward this information to anyone else who may be operating your vehicle on the Pennsylvania Turnpike system. Thank you.
MAY
16, 2012
25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DIAMOND
It was 25 years ago today that I started a trend.
Baseball graphics back then often included a line such as RUNNERS ON 1ST AND 2ND. I felt that was too wordy, so on KDKA-TV’s Pittsburgh Pirates telecast on May 16, 1987, I introduced a compact diamond symbol, with squares in the corners representing the bases. Changing the colors of the squares indicated which bases were occupied. Realizing that the viewers might not understand this, for a while I labeled the diamond ON BASE.
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I've told the story of this invention before. It's in this month’s “100 Moons” article. |
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In 1994, Fox introduced an even more important innovation: a “Fox Box” that remained constantly on the screen, giving the score and other data. At first it was used only for NFL football, but two years later, Fox began broadcasting Major League Baseball games.
Before that 1996 season started, executive producer Ed Goren told the Associated Press that “it’s almost certain Fox will have some type of situational graphic for baseball, similar to the omnipresent Fox Box score clock in football. It will show the score, the inning, how many outs, balls and strikes, and probably whether there are men on base.” The most efficient way to accomplish the latter turned out to be a smaller version of my diamond symbol. However, on each telecast for the first year or two, Fox announcers had to verbally explain the significance of the lighted bases.
Flash forward to the 21st century. With the advent of HD telecasts, the score bug has become smaller and more compact, which renders it hard to read if you’re any distance from the screen (as in a sports-themed bar or restaurant).
Also, there’s no longer room for explanations. The modern baseball viewer is expected to know that 6TH means “sixth inning”, the yellow caret to the left of it means “top of the,” my diamond locates the runners, the three little dots represent the number of outs, and “0-2” means zero balls and two strikes. (I once considered the three little dots, but I thought they would be too cryptic unless they were labeled.)
In basketball, the viewer is expected to know that the tiny numbers to the left of the team names represent ranks or seeds, the little bars underneath represent time outs remaining, and that the two numbers on the right represent the time remaining in the period and on the shot clock, respectively.
What hath I wrought? Symbols abound, and their explanatory text has disappeared. We’ve practically reverted to the way things were done thousands of years ago, when a merchant would record three bags of grain by simply making three marks on a clay tablet.
MAY
11, 2012
TV VIEWERS ARE GETTING OLDER
The following data, from Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, describe the average ages of prime-time viewers of the major broadcast TV networks: NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox.
In 1995, the eight-year-old Fox network had the youngest audience, averaging 29 years of age. ABC was second at 35. In general, these are the viewers that advertisers most want to reach, because they do a lot of spending and their buying habits have not yet solidified.
Now it’s 17 years later, and Fox and ABC still have the youngest viewers. But their audience is maturing at the same rate! Their audience is 18 years older. The Fox average age is now 47, and ABC is at 53.
CBS has always had the oldest audience. When I was 48 years old back in 1995, I was a typical CBS viewer. Today the average age is 56. That’s an increase of only 8 years, which can be explained by noting that the viewers at the high end of the age range are dying off. In 1995 my father faithfully watched “60 Minutes.” Today he’s no longer with us.
So if the people in today’s younger generation aren’t glued to Fox and ABC like their predecessors, what are they watching? They’re tuning in to The CW (average age 38) or Spanish-language networks Univision (36) and Telemundo (38). Or they’re choosing cable channels or viewing TV shows online. Or they’re not watching television at all.
MAY
7, 2012
FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS
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Although there’s no religious test for public office in the United States, candidates are required to believe in something. Americans never vote for an atheist. But there’s nothing new under the sun. Even before there was Christianity, ancient politicians were pious — no matter how preposterous the principles they were pretending to profess. “All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher,” wrote Lucretius in On the Nature of Things. Seneca agreed: “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” |
And in his Politics, Aristotle explained, “A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they [fear to] move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.”
MAY
2, 2012
A DAY AT THE RACES
Exactly seventy years ago today, my father was in Louisville, Kentucky, for the big horse race at Churchill Downs. What was it like? Elmer Fudd describes the experience.
My father’s day was not at all “wousy.” He bought two winning tickets on the Derby, and by the end of the day he was richer by $300 in today’s dollars!
I’ve added the story to the beginning of my earlier article about the Kentucky Derby.
APRIL
26, 2012
SPRING FEVER
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Ah, I remember the spring of 1970. It was a great time for a 23-year-old male grad student like me to be on the campus of Syracuse University. Miniskirts were in style! A very attractive blonde, a tall senior, sometimes dined at the same cafeteria as I. One day she came in wearing the latest fashion, a long-sleeved minidress, something like the one Abigail Clancy is wearing in the recent paparazzo photo on the left. She and her friend got their trays of food and approached the table next to me. As she leaned forward to set down her tray, the puffy cuffs of her sleeves brushed the edge of the table. But her bare thighs also brushed the edge of the table. “Look at that,” she remarked to her friend, marveling at how skimpy the dresses had become in the Age of Aquarius. “My skirt is shorter than my sleeves!” Then she sat down and crossed her long legs, which I spent the rest of my lunchtime discretely admiring. Her skirt was shorter than her sleeves? Really? I kept these words and pondered them in my heart. Does this really happen? Can dresses be designed that way? |
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Forty-two years later, I decided to do a little research on the Internet. I found plenty of examples of daringly high hemlines, but they almost never approached the level of the model’s wrists. |
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It would seem that if a girl wants the sleeve-lower-than-the-hem look, she has two options.
She can combine an indecently short skirt with super-long sleeves that extend beyond the wrist, covering her hand except for the fingers. |
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Or she can lower her shoulders, like my Syracuse coed bending over the lunch table.
Moral: Don’t stand up straight! |
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APRIL
20, 2012
JAY HANNA DEAN
I watched a 60-year-old movie this week: The Pride of St. Louis. In this biopic, Dan Dailey portrayed Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean, from the start of his pro career to the beginnings of his later career as a radio play-by-play announcer. (I was impressed by how well Dailey imitated Dean’s voice.) Richard Crenna played his brother Paul Dean, also a St. Louis Cardinals pitcher. Surprisingly, future NBC News anchor Chet Huntley had a bit part as a broadcast partner.
My father was the same age as Ol’ Diz and remembered his boasting, in his mangled Arkansas syntax, about what “me ’n Paul” would accomplish. The brothers combined for 49 wins in 1934, plus four more in the World Series.
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For myself, I remember Ol’ Diz calling games on TV. It was 50 years ago that I taped a bit of his work. The transcript is this month’s “100 Moons” article. |
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APRIL
18, 2012
FOLLOWING A LEGEND
For a few weeks in the summer of 1970, I was a disk jockey at WAER, the Syracuse University student radio station.
D
ick
Clark, the longtime American Bandstand host known as “the
world’s oldest teenager,” died today at the age of 82.
What was Dick doing long ago, when he actually was a
teenager? He too was a disk jockey at WAER!
Dick’s uncle Bradley Barnard owned WRUN in Utica, New York, which signed on as an FM-only station in 1946. The next year Bradley hired his brother-in-law Richard Clark as promotions manager, and Richard hired his 17-year-old son Dick as a summer replacement in the mailroom. Dick also read the hourly weather forecasts. But it was time for college. He had applied unsuccessfully at Yale, so in the fall of 1947 he enrolled at his father’s alma mater, Syracuse University.
At Syracuse only a few months earlier, in April, WJIV-FM ("Jive") had begun operations with 2½ watts of power. That was enough to cover the campus, and Syracuse became the first college in the nation to have its own low-power FM broadcast station. When the FCC amended its rules to allow special experimental licenses for up to 10 watts, "Jive" received one of these licenses, changing its call letters in July of 1947 to WAER (Always Excellent Radio).
Like me at Oberlin two decades later, Dick was only a freshman but could boast of his previous on-air experience back home. He joined the staff of WAER.
By 1950 some thirty additional colleges had been granted low-power radio station licenses. In September 1950 WAER raised its power to 1,000 watts — the first college station to broadcast at such a high wattage. ...Dick Clark remembered the format as being “a little bit of everything.” Classical shows were programmed alongside interview shows at the chapel with foreign-speaking students; the students produced and wrote their own dramas; and bands were brought in to perform. It was, in the words of Clark, “like old-time radio of yesteryear.” (From Syracuse University: The Tolley Years, 1942-1969, by Galpin, Greene, Wilson, Baron, and Barck.)
Dick stayed with WAER until graduating with a Business Administration degree in 1951. And the rest is history.
APRIL
16, 2012
WHICH OTHER DRIVERS ANNOY YOU?
For its annual auto issue this month, Consumer Reports asked 895 Americans to score 20 common driver gripes. On a 1-to-10 scale, 1 means a behavior “does not annoy you at all” and 10 means it “annoys you tremendously.”
I noticed that these complaints tend to fall into two categories. Some behaviors irk Type A drivers, who resent anyone who gets in their way and delays them for any reason. For example, suppose a Type A is racing down a empty lane of the freeway. Ahead of him, a car changes lanes, merging into the lane that the Type A thought was exclusively his. Forced to slow down, the Type A screams, “He cut me off!”
Complaints from Type A:
8.3 Drivers who cut you off
7.3 Slow drivers dawdling in the passing lane
7.3 Jaywalkers stepping in front of your car
7.0 Slowing down to “rubberneck” at accidents
6.6 Drivers who are indecisive about where to turn
6.5 Slow drivers on a two-lane road who won’t pull over
6.1 Not going when the light turns green
5.8 Bicyclists who don’t let you by
Others behaviors irk Type B drivers, who follow the rules and resent a lack of courtesy — especially from a Type A who recklessly endangers their safety.
Complaints from Type B:
8.9 Texting on a cell phone while driving
8.7 Able-bodied drivers parking in handicapped spaces
8.4 Tailgaters
8.2 Speeding and swerving in and out of traffic
7.7 Taking up two parking spaces
7.6 Talking on a cell phone while driving
7.6 Not letting you merge into a lane
7.6 Not dimming high beams when approaching
7.5 Not using turn signals
7.1 Excessive horn honking
6.8 Not turning on lights when it’s raining or at dusk
5.7 Cranking up the radio volume
I’m Type B myself. If the impatient Type A drivers always know exactly where they’re going and think they own the road, perhaps they should be given their own private speedways where they’ll never have to yield or slow down for anybody else.
APRIL
10, 2012
STORIES OF THE MISSING SEASON
On this night 197 years ago, Mount Tambora in Indonesia, a volcano that had been rumbling and booming for five days, exploded in the largest observed eruption in recorded history. The earth spewed out an estimated 38 cubic miles of pyroclastic trachyandesite. A column of ash reached 140,000 feet (an altitude of more than 26 miles). From there, winds carried it around the world.
More than a year later, in 1816, a group of English writers gathered in Switzerland for their summer holiday. At his villa beside Lake Geneva, Lord Byron and his physician John Polidori welcomed Percy Bysshe Shelly and his future wife Mary. But Mount Tambora’s ash was still blocking the sun that June, and the cold and rainy weather prevented the group from enjoying the outdoors. It was “the year without a summer.” So they stayed inside and told each other ghost stories.
Then they started writing their own. Lord Byron retold some Balkan legends in “Fragment of a Novel,” which Polidori later expanded into The Vampyre. For her part, Mary Shelley began writing her novel Frankenstein. Thus “the year without a summer” engendered two famous horror tales.
On the other extreme, 2011-12 has been “the year without a winter.” At least that's true in my part of the world; other parts, like Alaska and Ukraine, have endured especially severe winters, so it's not a global warm spell. But here in Pennsylvania, flu cases were down 97 percent from the year before. We usually do have winter; only two years ago, more than four feet of snow fell in February. But not this time.
Once again, the upper atmosphere is the cause. The North Atlantic Oscillation and La Niña combined to make the last few months unseasonably mild. There were only seven days on which my lawn in Southwestern Pennsylvania was completely covered by snow (January 20-23, February 11-12, and March 5). I never had occasion to don my winter boots.
What tales of horror will emerge from this latest anomaly?
APRIL
6, 2012
THE FIRST SÉANCE
Late on the afternoon of the first Easter, many of the remaining disciples gathered in a locked room in Jerusalem. They emerged with an astonishing report.
But my namesake missed that meeting, and he didn’t believe the ghost story that came out of it. In my latest article, Doubting Thomas tells his side of the tale.
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