Having a Good Time, Wish You Were Here

Consider the photograph of this Adirondack region lake a postcard from my recent vacation in upstate New York.  On the back of this virtual postcard are the words I used for the title of this column:  having a good time, wish you were here.

I visited my hometown recently.  I try to go back once a year to visit relatives and friends who stayed there while I moved on.  It’s always good for me to go back.  With my hometown being nearly three-thousand miles away from Merced County, it’s a challenge to make the trip.

This year’s trip was nothing unusual.  I arrived jet lagged from nearly twelve hours of flying and waiting on planes at three airports.  The final leg of the airplane journey had me flying over the campus of Syracuse University where I earned my bachelors’ degree over thirty years ago.  

I crammed in a short visit with a college friend before making my way to relatives.  I attended a ceremony honoring outstanding students at Herkimer County Community College where my higher education journey began.  

I saw a good friend who is coping with dialysis and all its’ complications.  Another friend was unavailable due to a prolonged hospitalization from his dialysis issues.  A third friend wasn’t burdened with health problems so our visit was more upbeat than the others.

I spent a lot of time with my dad and my brother.  I saw the neighbors and even spent a few moments with the son-in-law of a family friend who passed away since the last time I visited.  I joined my dad for his weekly visit to the local senior housing facility where we played cards with some of the residents.  This was my third consecutive year playing cards with the residents there.  My dad does it every week.

My hometown has changed a lot in the three decades since I left to pursue my career.  Three major employers in my hometown and surrounding communities have closed.  Some of the jobs lost have come back through expansion of existing businesses and the attraction of new companies. 

A lot of jobs disappeared forever.  Main Street in my hometown once boasted two grocery stores, a bank,   hardware store, flooring store, Laundromat, two diners, and three taverns. That same area now claims two of the three taverns, and one small grocery store.  Three newer businesses occupy some of those vacant buildings.  But it’s not the same.

I reached an accommodation of my hometown many years ago.  I accept that it may never be the same town I left after I graduated from college and left to pursue my career.  The village has changed, just like many places have changed over the years.  I take it all in stride.  Many of my family members still live there, and they would likely never move.  It’s home.

I do take a lot of pride in the community that helped raise me as a boy.  All the churches that were there back in the 1960s and 1970s are still operating.  The volunteer fire department is going strong and is relied upon by the citizens. 

The Firemen’s Auxiliary recently marked fifty years of existence and claims a handful of charter members still active in the organization.  The community came together this spring to hold a fundraiser for one of my buddies coping with dialysis.  

And there’s the natural beauty of the place. That’s why I took the picture of Brantingham Lake, a small body of water near my hometown.  I keep it within view on my desk.  It’s a reminder of what may have attracted people to settle down in Lewis County, New York in the first place.  I know that scenes like this keep me coming back year after year.

I enjoyed my visit back east this spring.  I’ll be back again next year.        

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

---

Backstage Pass ~ Merced Theatre

Merced Theatre

Two entertaining venues on Main Street in Merced caught my attention on a spring-time Sunday afternoon.  

The first was Playhouse Merced’s production of Urinetown, The Musical.  My wife and I generally take in one or two shows during the Playhouse season.  I’m glad this was one of them.  The show grabbed a lot of attention, as well as a few Tony awards, when it debuted on Broadway a few years ago.  Merced’s receptive audiences enjoyed the show. 

I found myself becoming more and more amazed at how the Playhouse productions continue to get more sophisticated.  Each production seems to raise the bar on what the local theater group can do in staging, set design, and performance.  

The Merced Theatre Foundation

Following the show, we headed down Main Street to the Merced Theatre.  The Merced Theatre Foundation was holding an open house to celebrate the first anniversary of the restored venue.  For the first time, we were able to walk all over the place.

Our backstage pass was a community wide invitation to stop in during the three-hour Sunday afternoon window. 

We were allowed  to view many areas of the theater that the public ordinarily does not get a chance to see.  With Foundation members sprinkled all over the place to answer questions and give us directions, we took the self-guided tour.

We entered through the main entrance underneath the marquee.  The smell of popcorn set just the right mood for touring a movie theater.  

Spanish style balcony

Our first task upon entering was to head up the stairs to the balcony. The Spanish style wall décor reminds you of the days when movie theaters were not cookie cutter stark boxes near shopping centers.  

The balcony was where I took a picture of my wife sitting in one of the chairs along the sides of the structure.  The view up there is impressive.  While you’re not looking straight-on at the stage, the vantage point puts you well above the action.

Next, the two of us headed to the stage where we could see the audience from the perspective of a performer.  The house lights that illuminated the audience seating may not have been the same as a spotlight shining in the eyes of a performer, but it was still a treat to be on stage. 

The wings of the stage are reminiscent of the wings of any high school auditorium stage.  There was even a spiral stairway that could take a stagehand all the way to the ceiling if the production called for that task.  The spiral stairway was not open to the public.

Dressing Rooms

A Theatre volunteer told us how to go downstairs to the green room and the dressing rooms where the performers get ready for a performance.  The green room (the name goes back to theater legend, but this room was actually painted beige) is where a performer who isn’t needed at a particular time during the performance waits until he or she is needed on stage. 

There are two dressing rooms; each with a glittery star on door.  Both dressing rooms had bathrooms and showers.  You can imagine the performers nervously awaiting their call to come upstairs to the wings of the stage. 

There’s a video camera shooting the stage, and the video feed is wired to the green room area.

Our back stage tour of the Merced Theatre, coupled with an entertaining musical at Playhouse Merced, made for a fun Sunday afternoon in our city.  If you haven’t been to either yet, resolve to do that before the year is out. 

If you haven’t been to either in a while, make plans to visit one or both in the near future.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

---

Marking a Tragic Anniversary

View fullsize

photo by steve newvine

Thursday, April 4 almost passed without my noticing it was the forty-fifth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Junior. While the date didn’t have the same impact on me as November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas, the death of Dr. King did awaken an awareness among my classmates and I about what was going on in our nation.

 On April 4, 1968, I was a fifth grader in Mrs. James class at Port Leyden Elementary School in upstate New York.  The shooting happened on a Thursday night.  It was Holy Thursday night.  The next day, Good Friday, classes were held for just the morning hours with dismissal for religious services at midday.

 Mrs. James probably did not have much of a lesson plan for us on that half-day, but it made no difference.  I recall most of that morning was spent watching news coverage from Washington, Memphis, and other cities throughout the northeast as outbreaks of violence were being reported.  My classmates and I watched the coverage. 

April 11th.

Few if any of us had heard of Martin Luther King prior to the shooting.  All of that changed after April 11.

 The topic of race was now being discussed in our classroom.  Violence was now introduced to this group of naïve fifth graders.  Most of us had faded memories of the assassination five years prior of President Kennedy, when were just first graders.  Now, at eleven years of age, a lot of us grew up that day following the horrific event in Memphis.

 I believe everyone in that classroom took in a lot over those few days in April of 1968.  We watched the funeral services, the march along the streets of Atlanta, and still more scenes of violence all over the country.  I won't speak for the others watching those images on television forty-five years ago, but I know the images made an impact on me.

 Fourteen years later, Dr. King’s life would again touch me in the chance drive through the neighborhood where he was gunned down in Memphis.  I was on assignment as a television reporter dispatched to do a report on the then fifth anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. 

My photographer and I spent the day at the entrance to the Presley home: Graceland Mansion.  We interviewed fans, shot lots of video, and tried to answer the question “Why are fans still mourning the loss of the rock and roll singer?” 

 When we finished gathering video, the photographer suggested we drive by the neighborhood where Martin Luther King was shot.  The photographer knew the city pretty well, and I was interested in this kind of history.  I wish I was journaling back then, because all I have are faded recollections of seeing the former Lorraine Hotel and thinking how tight all the buildings were in that part of town.

 Fast forward another twenty years, and I find myself at the newly opened Martin Luther King monument in Washington, DC.  This time, I was journaling.  I wrote about how it felt to see this hero of the civil rights movement be memorialized with a large monument in the nation’s capitol.  I wrote about the relative closeness of the King monument to the Lincoln Memorial; the very spot where he gave the famous “I Have a Dream” speech.  

 I was again taken back to that fifth grade classroom at Port Leyden Elementary.  I was thinking seriously for the first time about race, violence, and change.  

 A lot would happen in our nation in the weeks and months following the King assassination in 1968.  Robert Kennedy would be gunned down within two months.  The Democratic National Convention would rock the city of Chicago later that summer with more violence and charges of police brutality on the streets of the Windy City.   The Vietnam War would continue to rage seemingly out of control as more American soldiers paid the ultimate price.

 It was a unique year for me.  So much happened, and it was only the beginning.  From that year forward, I became more aware of my world.  I could almost feel my boyhood innocence giving way to the reality that I was living in a new day and age.

 It was a year that still holds many memories, forty-five years later.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

---

Grateful for my Gateway

photo by steve newvine

This column is the last one to be typed on my trusty old pre-millennium computer. Our Gateway brand system was purchased in the mid-1990s. It’s time for a change. We put it off for a long time.

The old computer is still working, but it is painfully slow. The new model promises to be faster, take up less space, and have far fewer wires than the old one. The new model combines the computer and flat screen into one compact unit. It will have just one cable going from it to the wall outlet. 

The new system replaces the cube-like monitor, spare tire sized tower, and what seems like seven-hundred and fifty-three feet of wires that run from behind the old computer to various add-ons such as a printer, speakers, wireless router, and modem.

If the local salesperson’s assertions are correct, that can-of-worms cable mess behind our computer desk will disappear.

My fingers are crossed.

We had a few Apple computer products before purchasing the Gateway. We were given advice at the time that “Apple is nice, but we live in a PC world.”

I will miss that good old Gateway computer. So many things happened for me on that antique. My family’s first internet hook-up ran through that system back in the AOL (You’ve got mail.) era. I started my book-writing career on that keyboard; seven books were written and edited on that computer. My latest book project started on the Gateway, and will hopefully be finished later this year on the new system.

All of my opinion and editorial (op/ed) columns, beginning with a 2003 tribute to newsman David Brinkley, came out of that computer. My twice- monthly columns here on MercedCountyEvents.com pass through the darkness inside the Gateway microprocessor before seeing the daylight of the on-line world.

Our new computer promises a lot of things. I’m sure I’ll adapt as I have adapted to so many changes in my fifty-plus years. I remember someone in college referring to an electric typewriter as a “sort of computer” back in the 1970s.

I also remember when cell phones looked like a quart carton of milk. I remember when new cars were sold with a full-sized spare tire in the trunk.

A lot has changed in our lives.

I’ll get by with our new computer. But just in case, the old Gateway with the block-style monitor and all those wires, will stay in my closet. Just in case.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

---

A Report Card from the School

As it happens many times in life, we learn so much more from our children who speak about their challenges, their survival skills, and their life lessons.  That was the case in Merced in late February when the educational community presented a status report on schools.

About two-hundred local people from all over Merced County were invited to lunch to receive a report on kindergarten through twelfth (K-12) grade student achievement.  The lunch was sponsored by the Merced County Office of Education (MCOE).  Program materials listed over seventy sponsors to the MCOE Foundation.

As most annual report events go, this one had all the elements that one would expect.  There were the post lunch introductions of the local political and community leaders who were in attendance; although thankfully, the Superintendent grouped many of these so-called officials into sections such as “elected office holders” and “school board members”.  

The assistant superintendent for Instructional Services, Kathy Pon did a presentation on California’s Common Core Standards that are being implemented into classrooms right now.  The Standards are intended to help students be better prepared for college and/or the workforce by building on a pyramid of skills that begin with remembering and go up to the top where creativity comes into play.

The County School Superintendent Steve Gomes narrated over power point slides that touched on the statewide measurement system for a school’s academic performance and how it measures up to schools of similar sizes. 

This system is known as the Academic Performance Rate (API), and according to the data in the printed version of the report, about forty percent of the County’s eighty schools are at or above the recommended target.  

But the most memorable parts of the program came before the reports from the school officials started.  Organizers invited two students to give presentations on how their lives have been positively impacted by their school experiences.  Koata Moua is a student in the Career Technical program better known as ROP (Regional Occupancy Program) .  

Delainie Inman is a student at UC Merced who shared her experience as a high school student initially seeking to go to college away from the Central Valley, but who later changed her mind and chose to remain in the Valley by attending UC Merced.

The decision to use students as presenters was a good one.  The audience response to their stories drove home the point about why so many people remain focused on how our children are doing at school.  We could all relate to their stories of overcoming obstacles, changing their minds when convinced that there may be alternative solutions to traditional thinking, and achieving success at all levels. 

It was refreshing to see their enthusiasm, their brevity, and their poise.  Speaking in front of two-hundred people is no easy task.  When you are a teenager, the challenge is even more imposing.  Both did a great job.  We could all learn a thing or two from their life lessons.

The state of schools in Merced County is promising.  There are always challenges.  Even in a flourishing economy, schools come under the microscope.  Times are tough now, but no one is ready to give up.  There’s too much at stake to stop trying.

Certainly Delainie and Koata are not giving up.  We can all learn lessons from them.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.  He serves on the MCOE P-16 Council, the Business Education Alliance of Merced, and the Merced County Workforce Investment Board.

Working Cars

It caught my eye in the parking lot of a local strip mall.  There, in what I can say with the use of a cliché’, in all its ‘gleaming beauty’ it sat in the morning Merced County sun.

It was a 1972 Mercury Montego.  It reminded me of a scale model kit I put together back when I was a kid.  I asked the owners Peter and Eleanor about it and they told me it’s been in the family for over forty years.  

It’s not uncommon to see vintage automobiles around Merced and throughout California.  Most of the vehicles that are thirty, forty, or more years old, are basically “classic” cars that make their way to the many car shows and swap meets that define life in the Central Valley for auto enthusiasts.

But this one, the 1972 Mercury Montego, is a working car.  The owners drive it regularly, fix it when it’s broken, and it’s been with them since the day Eleanor’s father bought it from McAuley Motors of Merced brand new forty-one years ago.

“My father drove it right up until he stopped driving,” Eleanor told me as I asked about the history of the car.  “I got it after he passed away, and it’s been with us ever since.”

Eleanor and her husband Peter are proud of their Mercury.  Peter likes working on cars and has been able to do most of the repairs to keep this one going as it’s racked up over 140,000 miles since it was new.  

It’s not the only vintage car the couple owns.  Eleanor drives a 1970 Buick Skylark.  

“Peter put in a Corvette engine and Corvette wheels,” she says with a smile.  She likes the more powerful engine but she’s not crazy about the sports car tires.  She puts up with it because Peter did the work.  

Their third vintage car is a 1979 Lincoln Continental.  “That’s the ‘going out on the town’ car,” Peter says.  

Any classic car person will tell you that ownership comes with a lot of concessions.  Parts are harder and harder to come by, filling the gas tank is horrendous (it costs $120 to fill up the tank of the Lincoln), and in the case of larger vehicles such as the Mercury and Lincoln, garage space is at a premium.

“Our garage is pretty much just the car,” Eleanor says.  “I barely squeeze by to get into the house.”

 But there are so many plusses.  Peter recalled a couple of occasions when the car was involved in fender bender accidents caused by other cars running into or backing into the Mercury and the Lincoln.  The other cars, much newer than these vintage vehicles, received extensive damage, but the autos from the 1970’s sustained only minor bruises.  “The bumpers could take a lot, Peter said.   “I did a minor repair of a piece of vinyl in the bumper after one of the accidents, while the other driver was looking at a lot more damage.”

While Peter handles most of the repair work, the car occasionally needs the attention of a more specialized mechanic.  When that happens, he takes it right back to McAuley Motors where he’s a regular and special customer. According to Peter, “There’s a guy down there who really knows the car well.  He takes good care of it for us.”

At about fourteen miles to the gallon, the 1972 Mercury Montego will never make it on a “most fuel efficient” list.  When I divide the 140,000 miles driven into the forty-one years the car has been of service, it works out to an annual average of about 3,100 miles.  At this stage in the life the vehicle, not much is expected from it.  Peter and Eleanor drive it around town to run errands and go to appointments.  It’s in great shape and the couple intends to keep it that way.

“We’ve had offers to buy it,” Peter says.  “But we just tell them, ‘thanks but no thanks’, it’s not for sale.”

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

Along California’s Beaten Paths with Huell Howser

View fullsize

When I first arrived in California from upstate New York nine years ago, I had many first impressions.  These impressions included the rough condition of Highway 99 in the Valley, the abundance of vegetables and fruits available at local restaurants, and the frenzy of the real estate market in those pre-recession days.

Other impressions of California came through my television screen from the California’s Gold program hosted by Huell Howser who passed away earlier this month.

During our first years living in the Central Valley and not knowing much about what to see and do in the state, my wife and I watched Huell take us on the road to practically every corner of California.  His visits would consume the entire half-hour of the program, unlike the minute-and-a-half features I was accustomed to seeing from local television news.

He wasn’t much for the so-called rules of producing video stories.  His segments were essentially shot in a rambling style with the host inviting the videographer to follow him as he walked through museums, nature settings, and iconic California sites.  He’d even have the camera roll while inside the vehicle he drove as they would tour all over the state.  There wasn’t a lot of editing to the shows.  Most of the segments were shot “freestyle” with the host telling his videographer to “pan over there” or to “zoom in on this”.  

A friend of mine who is in the television news business says Huell probably broke over ten-thousand rules of television story construction.  That may be an exaggeration, and it misses the point.  California’s Gold was off-the-cuff television.  It was heartfelt, and thanks to the homespun narration, it was entertaining.

Over the years, I saw Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Chico, and other places first on California’s Gold, then later on my own.  Huell Howser made the introduction; I did the rest.Good friends saw to it that I take in Yosemite, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Hollywood when I first arrived in California in 2004.  But it was Huell Howser and his California’s Gold program that made me anxious to tour the Missions along the coast, and curious to explore the geographical center of the state at North Fork in Madera County.  His program fed my desire to find the places off the beaten path.  I shared some of those places in my book 9 From 99, Experiences in California’s Central Valley, in 2010.

Since my first impressions California some nine years ago, some changes have taken place.  Highway 99, while still not the greatest travel thoroughfare in the state, has gone under some improvements that include more six-lane stretches of roadway.  The real estate market is making some recovery after those very lean years when the recession hit the region the hardest.  But many things have stayed the same.  And thanks to Huell Howser, many Californians were able to see and learn more about the history of the place we call home.  

We can thank Huell Howser, for taking many of us off the beaten path all these years.  

Steve Newvine is a former television journalist and author of 9 From 99, Experiences in California’s Central Valley.  He lives in Merced.

---

Business Cards

I managed to save at least one business card from every job I had where a business card was required.  Looking back on them now, I see these cards as symbols of my professional life.

The very first business card I had didn’t have my name on it.  I was a summer relief account representative for a radio station.  Management did not want to invest in a box of calling cards for someone who would be with them only a few months. 

I remember typing in my name of some of the cards so that my clients could ask for me if they called back.  If you ever sold radio time, you would know that no one ever called me.

I have cards from my years as a television journalist.  In fifteen years as a reporter and producer, I amassed cards from television stations affiliated with the three major networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC. 

I got out of the business before FOX became a television network.  I have cards with a different look from the same station as frequently these stations would change their logo to give their image a new look.  

I have cards with logos I either designed or approved the design of from a couple of organizations where I was the person in charge.  I wasn’t much of a designer, but I did insist on one basic principle for the layout of a business card:  the phone number had to be in a typeset large enough for the naked eye to see. 

Even today, many business cards try to cram too much information into the small space.  The most important thing on the card, the phone number, is often so small that I feel as though I need a microscope to read the number.

I also have a card from the time when I was looking for a job.  It had my name, address, email address, and phone number (all in large type).  Someone told me I should put some highlights of what I could offer an employer on the back of the card. 

I didn’t want to spend any more money on printing, so I left it just the way it was.  Fortunately, I wasn’t out of work too long.

All of my business cards read horizontally, as opposed to some cards you see where you must turn the card a quarter turn.  Someone said this was a good idea because it would stand apart from all the other cards someone had.

As a person who accepts business cards from associates, I can tell you that I’d rather have them the standard way.

When I think of unique business cards I received over the years, two examples come to mind.  One was from the Eastman Kodak Company.  Their employee business cards back in the 1990’s were photographs, printed on Kodak paper (“for a good look” as their commercials at the time would say).  

allen bailey

The other unique card came from Allen-Bailey Tag and Label, Incorporated in Caledonia, New York.  This manufacturer of tags and labels for industrial, medical, and professional applications uses a calling card that is a business card size version of a price tag complete with reinforced hole at the top.  

They still use that design, and according to company Partner and Director of Marketing Richard Phelps, Junior, the tag style goes back to before 1975 when he joined the company.  “It was a man by the name of J. N. White who I believe first proposed it to Allen-Bailey,” Richard says.   "JN was our resident artist at the time and he went on to found his own company, J.N. White Designs.”

Richard says in his nearly forty years with the company, the card design still gets lots of comments.  “I've yet to hand out one of my business cards at a show or face-to-face with customers when it does not generate a response for its uniqueness.”  

This year, Allen-Bailey added the QR Code on the back of the card.  The code is linked to the company's website.  The company is looking to link the code to the person's individual contact profile within Outlook.

I look at the business cards I had over the years, and I think about each and every job I held.  With all the changes in technology and business practices in the digital age, it’s nice to know that one tradition, the exchange of business cards, continues to thrive.

Nothing beats the old fashioned business card.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.  He’s grateful to the team at Allen-Bailey Label & Tag for providing him with a picture of their current business card.

Meeting Bush 41

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking in the past several days about former President George H. W. Bush.  Some may know him better by the label “41” or “Bush 41” denoting that he was our nation’s forty-first President.

He’s the only President I met in person.  While I have been at individual events where former President’s Ford, Reagan, and Clinton were speakers, I actually had the privilege of talking to the man who served from 1989 to 1993.  In fact, I encountered “41” on three occasions.

The first time, he was candidate George Bush running for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1980.  I was a television reporter in Binghamton, New York.  By the time his campaign reached upstate New York, many believed Ronald Reagan was about to lock up the nomination. 

But George Bush wasn’t giving an inch.  He told a group of supporters, and the curious, that he would campaign in every state in order to win the nomination.  I was very young, just out of college, when I asked him the question that would immediately tell him how much I knew about national politics.

“Whose the frontrunner?” I asked in a private interview shortly after his speech.

“Reagan,” he answered without acknowledging that I nervously asked a very lame question.  Everyone knew Reagan was the frontrunner.  The question shouldn’t have been asked in the first place.  He treated my question with respect.  I was impressed.

 Eight years later, I would be covering the Republican National Convention at the New Orleans Superdome as a special projects producer for a television station in Rochester, New York.  My job was to coordinate our crewand review news copy for content so that daily reports could be fed via satellite to our station.  I still have my press credential from that convention.

 Vice President Bush came into town with no doubt who would carry the party right to the White House.  Three things stand out for me about that convention in 1988.  First, was the thunderous applause given President Reagan when he entered the convention floor earlier in the week.  Second, was the line from the acceptance speech nominee Bush gave on the closing night of the convention: “Read my lips, no new taxes.”  Again, the applause was deafening. 

Third, was how sleep deprived I was upon my return home.  For about a week, I could take a nap on the spot anywhere and at anytime.

My wife and I met former President Bush about four years after he lost his bid for a second term to Bill Clinton.  Mr. Bush gave a speech at the State University of New York College at Geneseo.  As the head of the local chamber of commerce, I was invited by the College to meet the former President at a reception immediately following the speech. 

We waited in line until it was our turn to pose for a picture and shake hands with the former President.  My camera ran out of film so our picture never came out. 

But I did shake Mr. Bush’s hand, and told him of our first encounter some seventeer years earlier.  I was not at all surprised that he did not remember that encounter. 

My wife managed to ask him if he had any advice for raising daughters.  She recalls he smiled, and said something about how he was no expert in that department.

 Meeting a President, regardless of party loyalty, is a special thing.  I felt privileged to have had that opportunity. 

And it was an honor to meet a man so genuine as George H. W. Bush.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.  

Favorite Holiday Movies

Why should anyone care to read about what are my favorite holiday movies?  My list can be a conversation starter when the office Christmas party gets boring.  Or better yet, three of my all time favorites are playing in December at the Merced Theatre.

So, in no particular order, here is my top ten list:

1. White Christmas.  This Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera Ellen film about a group of successful entertainers who try to save a retired Army General from financial ruin has been around since 1954.  It was on television when I was a child and I don’t believe there’s been a season since when it wasn’t on someplace during the holiday season.  The movie inspired a musical that played at the Sonora Playhouse two years ago.  The film was screened in “beautiful Technicolor” at the Merced Theatre in early December.  My wife and a friend enjoyed it for the first time in a real movie house.

2. Christmas in Connecticut.  Probably my all-time favorite that combines the screwball comedy era with the holiday film genre.  Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan star with wonderful co-starring performances from Sidney Greenstreet, S Z Sakall, and Reginald Gardinier.

3. Home Alone, II.  It’s rare when the sequel is better than the original.  Home Alone was a pretty good movie, but the second movie (with the subtitle Lost in New York) tugged at my holiday heartstrings deeper than the first one.

4. Holiday Inn.  With Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire.  This is the movie where the song White Christmas was first introduced.  Aside from the blackface version of Irving Berlin’s Abraham, the songs deliver and Astaire’s dancing with the firecrackers is worth the price of admission.

5. The Santa Clause.  Tim Allen’s performance of a man who must become the big fat man in the bright red suit worked on many levels, including the struggle divorced parents have managing visits for their children around the holidays.  

6. It’s a Wonderful Life.  It never disappoints to see Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey character sink about a low as one can sink, only to be saved by Clarence the angel who shows what life would have been like had George not been born.  This one also made it to the Merced Theatre in early December.  I hope it comes back to the Theatre next year and plays closer to the Christmas holiday.

7. The Bishop’s Wife.  I’ll watch just about anything with Cary Grant, but his interpretation of Dudley the angel just captures my soul every year.  There are outstanding performances from David Niven who plays the stressed out bishop, and Loretta Young who plays the understanding yet suffering wife.  There are also wonderful supporting performances from Elsa Manchester and James Gleason.

8. Family Man.  While not in the same league as It’s a Wonderful Life, this story about a man who wakes up living the life he would have lived had he not chosen career over love is very good.  Nicholas Cage is the beleaguered man, Don Cheadle is the angel, and Tea Leoni is the wife.  You see a shot of the Twin Towers in New York City in this pre 9-11 movie.  This movie is a winner.

9. A Christmas Story.  This retelling of a Jean Sheppard short story based in the 1940’s broke new ground when Turner Broadcasting System (TBS) began airing it over and over during a 24-hour period beginning Christmas Eve.  Whether it’s the tongue-on-the-utility-pole scene, the little brother getting bundled up by Mom to go outdoors, or the old man’s struggle with the furnace, I laugh all through the movie every time I see it.  It will play at Merced Theatre on Christmas Eve day, but it’s bundled with the direct-to-video sequel and the admission price is doubled from the $5 per person for the other movies being shown this season.

10. A Christmas Memory.  Though not a theatrical release, this 1966 television film with Geraldine Page is loyal to the Truman Capote short story about a young boy raised by aunts in depression era Alabama.  Aside from the compelling performances, this is simply a movie that you don’t see at the stores.  In the few times I’ve seen it in the past forty-seven years, I’ve never been disappointed.  Even though the movie is hard to find, you can look up the Capote short story on line.  It’s a beautiful reading experience.

Enjoy any of these movies with family and friends.

Happy Holidays to you.  

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

My Uncle Ken and Drop In Visits

We had a not-so-unusual social tradition growing up the sixties and seventies in upstate New York:  the drop in visit.

Often, my parents would decide that we should “drop in” on different relatives or friends.  Conversely, these many relatives and friends would “drop in” on us all the time.  Rarely do I recall a phone call in advance of a visit.  It was just the way we did things back in those days.

My uncle died this month.  Kenneth J. Snyder died at a nursing home in upstate New York near where he lived for the past forty years.  I didn’t see much of him in most of those years.

I was busy with my life: living away from the region where I grew up, raising a family, and earning a living.

I remember Kenny in a number of ways. The way he dressed made an impression on me when I was a kid.  He lived about an hour away from my family.  It seemed as though every time I saw him, he’d be wearing a sport coat and tie. 

I never knew whether he had achieved some level of success in the 1960s, but when he came around to visit my Mom, he sure looked successful.  Having been raised in a blue-collar family, Kenny was the first family member I knew who wore a tie and sport coat on a regular basis.

He also mastered the art of the drop in visit.  He would usually come by on a Sunday, and usually before or after he visited his Mom and Dad (my grandparents).  Sometimes, he’d have his wife and children with him.  Most times, I recall, he’d drop in solo. 

I remember at least one occasion when he stopped in to show us a camera he had acquired.  There are two pictures of my sister Becky in the family photo albums that were samples from one of Kenny’s cameras.

I also knew my Dad liked Kenny.  He liked having him “drop in” to visit.  There was a period of time when Kenny stopped coming by and I knew that bothered my Dad.  It probably bothered my Dad more because he knew it saddened my Mom to lose contact with her brother.

A lot of things in life sort themselves out as the years pass, and that time when Kenny stopped coming around ended in a few years. In later years whenever my parents visited my young family and me a few hours away from my hometown, they’d leave a little early so they could “drop in” on Kenny on their way back from our home.

When my Grandpa on my Mother’s side of the family passed away in 1969, Kenny lost his Dad and a part of himself.  I recall overhearing him ask my Grandmother if he could have something, anything, that belonged to his Dad.  I believe my Grandmother gave him my Grandfather’s ring.

I liked Kenny and he liked me.  When he heard I was engaged, he told my Mom that he’d drop everything he was doing to attend my wedding.  Sure enough, he brought his oldest son JJ with him to the ceremony in 1980.  I never forgot that.

A stroke sidelined Kenny in the late 1990s.  I saw him at my Mother’s funeral, his youngest daughter’s wedding, and at a family reunion my sister organized in the early 2000s.  I moved to California after that and assumed I might never see him again.

But as my father greeted me at the airport in November 2008 for a visit that coincided with Dad’s seventy-fifth birthday, he made a suggestion.

“How about we drop in at Kenny’s place?”

We did “drop in” on that November morning four years ago. We visited Kenny for about an hour.  That was the last time I saw my uncle.  Someone once observed that we never really know that the last time you visit someone will be the last time you’d ever see that person.  That was the case for me on that day in 2008.

Kenny-school photo

B & W photo caption: A clipping from the Boonville (NY) Herald. My uncle Kenny is on the far right in this picture of the Photography Club at Constableville (NY) School. Courtesy: Ramona Salmon.

I sent him a note and a clipping of an old photograph from my hometown newspaper this summer.  The picture was of the photography club at the school he attended.

I looked up Kenny’s obituary after I heard the news of his passing.  The obituary said he was a self-employed TV repairman for many years, that he enjoyed country music, dabbled in photography, and liked spending time with his grandchildren.

The article didn’t mention how he impressed his nephew at a very young age by the way he dressed in coat and tie.  The article also didn’t mention how he enjoyed drop in visits.

But those are the things I’ll remember about my uncle Kenny.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.  He’s published Grown Up, Going Home, a continuation of his reflections on growing up in a small town.  The book is available at Lulu.com/SteveNewvine

Missing the National News Magazines

Newsweek announced recently it would be on-line only at the end of the year. The printed version will cease publication after nearly 80 years.  Over the years, I subscribed to Newsweek, Time, and US News and World Report . I rarely got more than one subscription at a time. I looked forward to these magazines when they arrived in the mail. They usually appeared early in the week (the news magazines now come in the mail toward the end of the week).

As a working journalist, I saw the magazines as a necessary tool of the trade or even an investment in the maintenance of my career.

I read the stories revolving around what was going on in Washington, DC. The writers were given more space to delve into an issue. Often, the editors would offer a sidebar piece to the main story.  I gained new perspective from the columnists who would appear regularly. After reading an issue, I felt a little bit better about my understanding the big topics happening in the nation.

But as with all things in life, change happens.

The start of CNN in 1980 followed by the explosion of cable news outlets in the succeeding decades evolved to the point where news and information became available instantly. In the recent decade, analysis appears hourly on the cable news shows.

 The audience for a weekly news magazine has dropped as readers now seem able to get all the insight they need with the push of a television remote switch. The Internet has also forever changed the printed news delivery model.

 The model isn't dead, but publishers have been challenged to compete in the cyberspace age.

For many readers, waiting for the magazine in the mail no longer seems like a viable option in today’s shortened news cycle.  There was a sort of comfort I experienced reading the news magazines. Maybe it was the notion of thoughtful analysis. Cable television is great with the gut reaction, but the magazines provided a more measured weighing in of news and commentary.

 And maybe, just maybe, it was the idea of curling away for an extended period of time away from the television and away from the distractions that fill the day to relax, read, and understand a little more about the stories making news.

Over the years, I have noticed the magazines were becoming thinner. What once took me over an hour to read with promises to myself to return later in the week to less time-sensitive articles, now takes me fewer than forty minutes with no return visit to pick up anything I may have skipped on the first read through.

 With the airwaves now filled with “round table” news shows, the news magazines seem marginalized. Time will be the only major one left publishing a paper version every week. US News and World Report led the move to on-line only a few years ago. I still subscribe to Time; out of loyalty to the brand and a very attractive subscription rate. I’ll stay with Time at least through the end of the current subscription.

Maybe by then we’ll see the pendulum begin to swing back in the other direction. It does’t look likely, but who would have thought on-line magazines and newspapers would become the trend it has become.

 I long for the days when the magazines were special. Some were so special, they were kept from the weekly recycling bin. I saved a few issues over the years including Time’s issues on the deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison, a handful of issues with Ronald Reagan commemorating some of his presidential milestones, and the 9-11 coverage among others.

I often would save the Person of the Year or some other special issue of Time and its counterparts. They have become icons from special moments in our nation’s most recent history. I’ll miss that part of the weekly printed news magazine more than anything else.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

Grow Merced by Shopping Merced

This is the latest bumper sticker to soon reach the streets of Merced.  Two large words with a simple message following by six words that drive home the point.   This little bumper sticker could speak volumes about what we can all do to help the local economy.The sticker was given to me by one of our elected officials last week.  It reads: Grow Merced in large letters.  Beneath the large letters are the words: Think Local, Buy Local, Support Local.  The person who gave me the sticker explained that the simple message is designed to get people thinking about spending their money locally.  

Every dollar spent in Merced stays in our community.  The merchant uses that money to pay his or her supplier and employees.  A part of the money is used to make improvements to the store where the money was spent. 

Some of the money goes to taxes that allow our local governments to provide services such as road repair and streetlights.  And if there’s anything left from the money we spend locally, that merchant might realize a fair profit.

All of this makes sense, but as we well know, some people can’t resist the urge to spend their discretionary dollars outside our borders.  We hear the stories, or I should say the excuses all the time: there’s a better selection in Modesto, there’s a better price in Fresno, or we can just go on line and save the hassle. 

These explanations may all be true, but they miss the point.  Our local economy is taking it on the chin right now.  Merced County continues to languish among the counties with the highest unemployment rates in California.  We still see way too many abandoned homes in our neighborhoods. 

The ratio of stores going out of business compared to new stores opening up for business in the community is still going in the wrong direction.

Every dollar we take outside the community helps those outside communities.  They, no doubt, have their own share of economic challenges right now.  But these are times that require us to think a little harder about the choices we make at the cash register.

To be clear, this is not about attracting dollars from outside Merced County.  That’s important too, but we have organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Convention and Visitors Bureau who continue to mobilize their members to work on getting more outside dollars coming into the community.  Every community does that, and it will continue that way.

This effort is about local people doing business with local people.

I’m told the Grow Merced bumper sticker is a product of the group of area business leaders who call their loosely woven group Merced Ahead.  They were the ones who brought in a national expert on community development to Merced’s Senior Center a couple of years ago.  This expert related a story about the city of Tupelo, Mississippi and how it broke away from the circular shackles of a poor economy several years ago. 

It took a lot of communication, coordination, and common sense to break the cycle.  But it worked.  

The local group continues to find ways for the citizenry to pick itself up, dust itself off, and try once again to stimulate the economy and help all of us adopt a better attitude about our community.  

What can we do to help Merced County?  We can shop at local businesses.  We can dine out at a local restaurant.  We’ll save money on gas, and we might see our neighbor working behind the counter.  More important, we might be helping that neighbor hang on to those all too rare jobs that we’re trying to create.

 Steve Newvine lives in Merced

Golf Partners

I like this picture of a golf foursome I played with several years ago at a fund raising event.

The man on the left passed away a few years ago, I’m second from the left, the third man was a local business owner, and the fourth is a good friend I still remain in touch with via email and an occasional phone call.

While I don’t mind playing a round of golf alone, I’ve always taken something from the people I’ve played the game with over the years.

These partners include my work colleague Lee who was almost as bad as I was when we both took up the game nearly thirty years ago. About once a month, we’d head over to a course on the late Saturday afternoon when most of the real golfers had finished for the day.

We’d hack around for nine holes and cheer each other’s good shots. There weren’t many good shots back in those days, but our affection for the game started then, and for me it has never left.

I knew a rather well to do elderly man who was a member at a prestigious golf club in the northeast. He knew I was developing my game, and one Saturday night he called to invite me to join his foursome on the following Monday morning.

I quickly accepted, made arrangements to not be at work, and headed out to that golf club bright and early that Monday morning. Two things struck me from that morning on the golf course.

The first was the caddy suggesting we all play the scramble format after seeing how poorly our first hole shots were. A scramble format means the best of all four golfers' shots would be used each time. The format was designed to speed up play.

 The second thing that stood out that day was my host only playing the putting green on the first hole. His putter was the only club he used that day. He spent the remaining seventeen holes sitting in the cart and providing moral support to the rest of the foursome. He was enjoying the company.

 A cousin organized a family tournament about twenty years ago. We had t-shirts printed with the family name.

The morning of golf was followed by a family picnic and an awards ceremony. It was a lot of fun, but apparently too much work for my cousin. We never did it again. I still have the t-shirt.

 I remember coming to Merced six years ago and not knowing many people, let alone not knowing any golfers. Someone who worked at County Bank told me about an informal group that played at Rancho Del Rey in Atwater every Wednesday night. I joined that gaggle of golfers back then.

We were all oblivious to the undercurrents of what was going on in the banking industry. County Bank would go into bankruptcy in another year. The Wednesday night group was dormant for about a year, and then started up again with modest success for a while.

 My most memorable golf buddy story formed the basis for an essay I wrote called Grief Ministry with a Nine Iron published in my book Microphones, Moon Rocks, and Memories.

The essay was about a friend who had recently endured the unspeakable loss of a daughter who died while away at college. In the weeks following the funeral, I knew I wanted to reach out to him. I just couldn’t find the words, or the courage, to reach out.

Then I thought about golf. Knowing he played the game, I called him one morning and invited him to join me for a round. After initially turning me down, he thought about it and agreed to nine holes at an executive course (shorter distance course).

That afternoon, the two of us tore down the barriers of what someone should or should not say when a person loses a loved one. Mixed in with our golf shots, were moments of understanding and empathy. I’ll never forget that day.

With all my golf partners over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the old adage that golf (or any sport for that matter) is so much more than the game itself. The three to four hours on a golf course can open up a variety of conversation topics, provide endless opportunities to vent about work or other things, and develop a sense of shared experiences.

As much as I’ve enjoyed the game over the past thirty years, it’s the people I’ve played with who have truly enriched my life.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

Crime Victim

 I became a crime victim this week. While in the Bay Area for a business meeting, my car was broken into while in the parking lot of a well-established business in a low crime community. The burglar broke a window in the back seat of my car, and got away with a small overnight bag and a laptop computer. 

If something like this has happened to you before, you know the routine.  An apologetic business manager came out to the parking lot, police were called, a crime report was made, and I began calling my insurance company. While everyone in this chain of people I spoke to was professional and showed empathy, I felt the most compassion from the police officer.  Dealing with victims is part of his daily business. He ended his half-hour investigation by handing me his business card and another card titled “rights of crime victims”.  I had never thought of myself as a crime victim before.  Other than having a bicycle stolen during a concert in college, I’ve gotten through these past few decades relatively free from crime.  As I watched two employees at the business apply tape and plastic to where my back seat window once was, I couldn’t help but think about the person or persons responsible. 

 My perpetrators were probably cruising the business parking lot looking for what might be an easy break-in. They must have been fast as there were no witnesses and the whole thing took place in broad daylight in front of the entrance to the business.  They didn’t bother with a couple of sport coats and ties hanging in the back seat. They ignored what I would have considered to be valuable items in the front seat.  My stereo was intact, compact discs were untouched, and a digital camera remained with the car.  The only thing I valued among the items taken was my writing journal.  It is worthless to the criminals, but irreplaceable as far as I’m concerned.  

Over the past few days, I’ve grown more thankful that I was nowhere near the scene of the crime.  A victim yes, but far removed from the images of victims who are physically and emotionally harmed by the senseless acts of others.   I’ve always practiced anti crime measures while traveling.  But this time, those safety practices didn’t matter.  I’m just glad I wasn’t around when it happened.   And I’m glad police cruiser showed up within minutes of our call for help.  

  I’m fine, and in few days my car will be back to the way it was before that sunny afternoon when someone took advantage of an opportunity.  I’ll continue to take precautions when traveling and hopefully, my negative experience will fade into my collective memory of the ups and downs in life.  I forgive the bad guys, but I’ll never forget.  I’ll get over it.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

Why it Seems Every Road in Merced is Under Construction

Why it Seems Every Road in Merced is Under Construction

There are days when I think Merced is the road construction capitol of California. I wonder if our mascot should be the orange "dunce cap" safety cone and whether our community slogan should be "Reduce Speed Ahead. "When singer/songwriter John Michael Talbot visited Merced in the spring of 2011, he had this observation about the number of road repair projects going on in the city: “I’m glad Merced has decided to fix the streets, but did they have to do them all at the same time. ”That comment brought laughs to his audience at St. Patricks’ Church, and at that time it seemed as though a lot of road construction was taking place.

Last year, we had the G Street underpass and the 18th Street downtown project underway along with a few others.If John Michael Talbot was to come back for another visit today, he’d probably have the same view. Why does it seem as though every road and bridge in Merced is being repaired, repaved, rerouted, or blocked off? The East Yosemite Avenue project near G Street just wrapped up, but we have projects on G Street near Bear Creek, overpass work on Highway 99 at both ends of the city, and the Parsons Avenue corridor near Ada Gibbons School in the city to name a few.

Federal stimulus dollars that spurred several construction projects last year have stopped flowing into the City. The projects going on in this construction season were likely in the repair pipeline for a number of years. Most of the work is paid for through state and federal dollars set aside for highway repair.I suspect that this year is like any other year in our City’s history. We expect a few roads will get needed overhauls on a programmed annual basis. Some motorists’ discomfort through the peak of the season is the relatively small price we pay for improving the community.

I extend my sympathies to the stores, restaurants, and professional offices that are inconvenienced due to the road work. It’s difficult enough to run a business in this economy. Anything that gets in the way of making it harder for the customer to get to the threshold of a local store is something most merchants worry about. When I see highway work underway, I think about the men and women working on the project.  My dad did highway work for a few years when I was growing up. It was a hot and hard occupation in the northeastern United States.

In the Central Valley, road construction in ninety degree plus summer days is really tough work.If you've ever been on the major state and federal highways during the summer months when overnight road work is underway, you'll see another group of people working the graveyard shift so that traffic can move smoothly during the day. So slow down, think about how much our community will be improved once the work is done, and be thankful a lot of people are bringing home respectable paychecks (and spending the money locally) as a result of these investments in our infrastructure.

We'll live with the little inconvenience construction creates in our lives.If I had a construction hard hat, I'd tip it in respect to all the folks who are putting our roads back together with sweat as well as asphalt.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced

The Week Merced County Made the Cover of Life Magazine

The Week Merced County Made the Cover of Life Magazine

For those of you under the age of twenty-five, there once was a time when Life magazine was a big deal.  Now limited to such things as occasional special books commemorating significant historical events, the magazine name has no real impact on society. 

January 28, 1957

But back in its heyday, it was a special achievement for a person, place, or event to be featured in the magazine.  It was truly outstanding when that story made the cover of the publication.

That’s the story behind the January 28, 1957 issue that featured a United States Air Force jet on the cover.  The story inside was about Operation Power Flite, the first-ever around-the-world flight of a jet without landing to refuel.  

Operation Power Flite, and I note the Air Force used a spelling of the word that the rest of us spell as “flight”, began at Castle Air Force Base in Atwater. 

The contingent of three aircraft took off from Castle on a cold January morning.  One plane developed mechanical troubles and had to land.   A second plant left the group, as planned, over Great Britain. 

The third made it around the world.  Thanks to aerial refueling, the jet could keep going for the forty-five hours it took to circle the planet.

CAM Entrance

Although the jets started from Castle, the mission didn’t end there.  Foggy conditions in Merced County led to the decision to land at March Air Force Base in Riverside, California. 

Operation Power Flite

Behind the controls for the landing at March was Major General Archie Old.  March Air Force Base became a reserve military base in 1996.  The military golf course at that base is now a public golf course named for him.

Operation Power Flite was an important chapter in our nation’s military aviation history.  In 1957, in the middle of the Cold War, it was important for the United States to send the message that it could scramble a group of aircraft from any place in the world within minutes, and keep those planes flying for as long it would take.   It was the kind of deterrent many thought would keep the Soviets at bay.  

The mission was considered by military experts to be a significant development in aviation.

 Castle Air Museum

The role Castle Air Force Base played in the nation’s defense has been well documented by the Castle Air Museum.  The Museum created a small display area within its’ permanent collection area to commemorate Operation Power Flite. 

The staff and volunteers at the Museum are very helpful in assisting visitors as they learn more about the aircraft and the people who helped keep our nation safe during the years Castle Air Force Base was in operation.

CAM 3-planes

It’s easy to go to the Castle Air Museum and be overwhelmed by the outstanding collection of military aircraft.  But if you happen to go there in the near future, spend some time in the exhibit building and find the Operation Power Flite display. 

Ask a volunteer for more information about the mission.  Remember how important that flight from over fifty-five years ago was to our nation.  

The story of this history making flight during the Cold War put a Castle on the cover of Life magazine.  The Castle Air Museum as well as the Merced County Historical Society has a copy of that magazine. 

The story took up over a dozen pages in that week’s issue.  The pages are so large that it’s impossible to copy a single page on a regular eight-by-eleven or eight-by-fourteen inch copy machine. 

Magazines were much bigger back in the 1950’s; not only in the size of the pages, but also in the influence wielded in our society.  

Magazines back then were a big deal.  And Life magazine, especially the cover story on Life magazine, was a really big deal.

Steve Newvine  lives in Merced

A Yearbook Photograph

It’s just a typical old-fashioned high school yearbook photograph:  students lined up in the gymnasium, tallest in the back row, one photo to represent that group of people in one year of their four-year high school journey to graduation. For at least one of those students in that grainy black and white photograph, the picture represents an entire high school career.

My Dad is in the picture of the sophomore class at Port Leyden Central School.  He’s the first boy in the top row.  I gave Dad the reproduced image on Father’s Day.  When visited him in early July, I found he had put the photograph in a frame and placed it at a prominent spot in his home

Now there’s nothing spectacular about a son surprising his father with a lost photo, or with the father placing the gift in a place of honor in his home.  But as in most situations in life, there’s more to the story than what meets the eye.

Dad dropped out of high school within weeks of when that yearbook photograph was taken.  He was needed on the family farm and like a lot of boys in upstate New York in the late 1940’s, he was simply more valuable to the family by helping out at home than by staying in the classroom.  Everyone made sacrifices in those years and the Newvine family was no exception.

That high school photograph was the last one of Dad in school.  He wouldn’t have a class picture for a junior year, no senior portrait, no team shot from athletics, and no group image from clubs or activities.  His high school years ended less than half-way through the four-year cycle.

Dad went on to marry my mom a few years later.  A few years after that, they raised three children, and saw each one pick up their high school diplomas.  While Dad never got one, he’s as much a part of those three diplomas as his children who earned them.  My Dad values education and it’s easy to see why.

So that picture, while it represents some unfulfilled aspirations, also represents something else.  To me, it’s about a man who made sacrifices for his family beginning at a very early age.  It’s about a man who overcame those challenges to make a better life for the next generation.

And it has established a foundation for my generation to build upon.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced and visits his dad Ed every year in upstate New York. 

Challenger Learning Center of the San Joaquin Valley hosts Shuttle Astronaut

Challenger Learning Center of the San Joaquin Valley hosts Shuttle Astronaut

For the second consecutive year, the Challenger Learning Center at the former Castle Air Force Base put on an open house fundraiser.  The event was held June 23rd at the Castle Science and Technology Center in Atwater.  The highlight of the evening was the presentation by Astronaut Rex Walheim.

Rex Walheim flew in three space shuttle missions, including the last one in the shuttle program:  STS 135 (Space Transportation Systems 135, shuttle missions were identified in numerical order) last summer. 

He narrated a forty-five minute slide presentation about that last mission that kept an audience of about one hundred drawn to the presentation screen for the entire time he was center stage.

His speech began with a piece of information that I did not know.  Upon showing a photograph of the four-person crew prior to launch, he noted that this mission had fewer astronauts than previous missions. 

This was due to dealing with the reality that if for any reason the shuttle could not make it back from space and the astronauts were stranded at the International Space Station, it would take less time for the entire crew to one-by-one hitch a ride back to earth with the Russians.  

His slides showed some of the training he and his colleagues had to go through to prepare for the mission.  The most fascinating part of the training was the underwater space walk simulations done in a forty-foot deep swimming pool at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

His descriptions of the actual launch were thrilling, and at the same time poignant as he included a slide of his wife and two sons watching the launch from the Kennedy Space Center viewing site.  Space flight is a dangerous job, and families give up a lot when a loved one participates in a mission.

Rex found his Russian counterparts to be friendly and experienced, noting that some who participated in the program during the 1970s are still involved in missions as cosmonauts. 

Politically, he pointed out to the audience that the Russian space agency has raised the cost to America of flying aboard their spaceships in the days since the Space Shuttle has stopped flying.  

It was a great evening at the Challenger Center, but I felt especially thankful that I had a brief opportunity to talk about space with an Astronaut.   Seeing two empty seats next to Rex at one of the dining tables, my wife and I took those seats and struck up a conversation with him about a half-hour prior to this presentation. 

My wife asked him about the Obama administration’s decision to farm out astronaut space travel to private companies and the Russians. 

Rex is still in the program and towed the company line on his response.  

I shared with Rex my early experiences with the space program as a television reporter in Huntsville, Alabama in 1981. 

I covered the first three space shuttle launches for WAAY-TV, an ABC affiliate.  Huntsville’s Marshall Space Flight Center played a key role in developing the engines and boosters that propelled the Shuttle fleet. 

I told him how I met the first and second flight crews when they returned to Earth and went to the NASA Center to thank the people who worked on the program.

I have a photograph of me reporting on the visit with the first shuttle crew of John Young and Robert Crippen in the background getting off the plane that they flew into Huntsville on that special day in 1981.  

 Rex told me that after his final shuttle flight returned to Earth last year, NASA brought in the first two shuttle astronauts, Young and Crippen, for a photograph with the last shuttle team.  Rex was as impressed by the pair as I was thirty years earlier. 

My wife pointed out to me later in the evening that I was probably among a select few who has interviewed people from the first and last shuttle missions.

I’ll take that little bit of distinction with a smile and a sense of pride.  

Steve Newvine lives in Merced.

Bob Stewart and the Gift of Game Shows

I’m a big fan of television game shows, so if you are not as passionate about the subject, you should probably surf somewhere else.  But I’d stick around.  You might like this.

Two icons in the world of television game shows passed away in the past few weeks.  By now, I’m sure you have heard about the death of Richard Dawson who hosted the original Family Feud in the 1970s and 1980s. 

You likely did not hear about the passing of another legend in the business who, while not famous as a celebrity host or game player, was instrumental in coming up with the ideas that made for some outstanding quiz shows in television’s golden age.

Bob Stewart died at the age of ninety-one last month.  In the 1950s, he was an advertising agency worker who was fascinated with the relatively new medium of television and the particular genre of quiz programs.  He worked his way to the offices of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman, who were producing panel games such as What’s My Line and I’ve Got a Secret. 

Bob convinced the pair to give his idea a shot: put three contestants in front of a four-person panel, all three claim to be a person who achieved something unique, two are lying, and one is telling the truth. 

That premise made the show To Tell the Truth another long-lasting hit from the Goodson/Todman game factory.  And it made Bob Stewart a valuable commodity to the production company. 

His next effort came about after watching shoppers in front of a New York City department store guessing the price of some item in the window.  He turned that natural compulsion to guess the price of something into the original The Price is Right in the late 1950s.  

That show ran into the 1960s before leaving the airwaves and returning a few years later in the form of the show many viewers know and love today.  

Bob also was the mastermind behind the game where a contestant tries to guess a word using only one-word clues provided by his partner (Password), the game where a contestant tries to guess items in a specific category from his partner (The $25,000 Pyramid), and about a dozen others over his thirty-plus years in the game show business.

I am connected to Bob in a couple of ways.  As a young man working in local television, I wrote him a letter in the 1980s asking for advice on breaking into the game show business. 

He wrote back in an encouraging note that ended with an offer to look him up if I ever landed in Hollywood.  Several years, and a couple of careers later, I met him as he was honored by the Game Show Congress with the Bill Cullen Award for career achievement. 

The late Bill Cullen was the long time game show host and close friend of Bob.

Prior to the award ceremony, I approached Bob and asked if I could talk for a few minutes.  He graciously agreed and I told him about the letter he responded to some twenty-plus years prior. 

“What advice did I give you,” he asked me.

I answered, “To look you up if I ever got serious about it.”

I explained as a new father of two children, a three thousand mile move for a possibility of a job in the game show business wasn’t in the cards.  He then asked, “What do you do now?”

“I work for a utility company,” I answered.

“Well, you probably help more people doing that than you might have helped producing game shows.”

I thanked him for his time and his kind words. 

His acceptance speech at the Game Show Congress was a clinic in giving the audience what it wants.  He explained to the receptive crowd why his shows were successful (“once you start talking back to the TV, you know you’ve got a good show”), how seemingly small details came about in his shows such as the announcer whispering the Password as it was being shown to the home audience (“My mother always said that you could get someone’s attention by whispering.”), and why he left the Goodson/Todman group to form his own game show production company in the early 1960s (“I spent the night as a guest at Mark Goodson’s lush apartment in New York City and was convinced the real money in the business was in owning the company.”)

In addition to the honors from the Game Show Congress, Bob earned Emmy awards including a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to the field of game shows.  But his proudest honor should be the fact that many of the shows he conceptualized back in the early days of television are still with us. 

Whenever you hear the catch phrases Come on down! , or Will the real John Smith please stand up?, think about Bob Stewart and the creative mind that first brought those shows to television.

Steve Newvine lives in Merced