Snort Notes- August 2009
A TRIBUTE TO LATE NEWSMAN WALTER CRONKITE MENTIONED THAT HE WAS A FRIEND AND FAN OF GRATEFUL DEAD DRUMMER MICKEY HART, AND EVEN APPEARED ONSTAGE AT HIS CONCERTS FROM TIME TO TIME.
Okay, I can imagine what everyone is thinking. Liberal journalist, Grateful Dead fan...hmm that explains his pronouncement that Vietnam was a lost cause. However, this may not necessarily be so.
The many genres and sub-genres of American music culture appeal to a varied and diverse audience from all walks and stages of life. Country music is not always listened to by stereotypical rural audiences. Another example, urban and hip-hop music could also find admirers beyond the limits of American cities.
Still, this news does invite strange images to creep into our national psyche. For example, our cherished images of Walter Cronkite may include one of him sitting behind his desk gathering the pages of these stories together while puffing away on his pipe filled with 100% American grown tobacco. Or walking casually down a Saigon street in a flak jacket while torpedoing American foreign policy with a pithy summation of a news story. So now we can possibly include this new image: Walter Cronkite in a tie-die shirt and bandanna, playing hacky sack outside a stadium where the Dead are playing, puffing on his pipe filled with 100% Columbian grown...um...whatever.*
Admit it! This image sprang into your head as soon as you read this tribute. Okay, let’s just contemplate this picture for a moment, and then banish it from our minds forever. It would be helpful to imagine an equally implausible scene in our minds. An image like, say, one of Rush Limbaugh doling out bowls of soup at a homeless shelter. There’s a scene that’ll never happen!
*Okay, I’ll admit it. Even I don’t have the balls to imply that one of our most esteemed journalists smoked marijuana.
UPDATE ON CATAWISSA INDUSTRY.
Several months ago, in the heat of the Obama for President campaign, I made a few commentaries on Catawissa, a town in northeastern Pennsylvania where I spent many years in my youth. In those notes, I discussed the town’s gradual economic decline to the point where there is no industry left. I was wrong; there is one industry left: the Catawissa Bottling Company.
Earlier this year, Anne Marie and I stopped in an ice cream parlor in Coopersburg. While there, I looked in a soda case and saw a product that took me back to those carefree days in Catawissa. It wasn’t that the bottles themselves were as distinctive as say, Coca-Cola. Rather it was the color of the soft drink itself that reminded me of Big Ben’s Birch Beer. The color was blue!
I think the offbeat colors are its main selling point at many county fairs and firefighter’s carnivals in rural Pennsylvania. I believe blue is the most popular color. If memory serves me correctly, it is also be available in red and clear. It has been many years since I’ve had a cup of Big Ben’s Blue Birch Beer, but I do recall that it was delicious. (This is an unpaid endorsement.)
My belated apologies to the Gregorowicz family for forgetting about their business.
(Thank you for reading. Please remember: friends don’t let friends smoke controlled substances, play hacky sack, and denigrate American foreign policy on national television at the same time.)
Okay, I can imagine what everyone is thinking. Liberal journalist, Grateful Dead fan...hmm that explains his pronouncement that Vietnam was a lost cause. However, this may not necessarily be so.
The many genres and sub-genres of American music culture appeal to a varied and diverse audience from all walks and stages of life. Country music is not always listened to by stereotypical rural audiences. Another example, urban and hip-hop music could also find admirers beyond the limits of American cities.
Still, this news does invite strange images to creep into our national psyche. For example, our cherished images of Walter Cronkite may include one of him sitting behind his desk gathering the pages of these stories together while puffing away on his pipe filled with 100% American grown tobacco. Or walking casually down a Saigon street in a flak jacket while torpedoing American foreign policy with a pithy summation of a news story. So now we can possibly include this new image: Walter Cronkite in a tie-die shirt and bandanna, playing hacky sack outside a stadium where the Dead are playing, puffing on his pipe filled with 100% Columbian grown...um...whatever.*
Admit it! This image sprang into your head as soon as you read this tribute. Okay, let’s just contemplate this picture for a moment, and then banish it from our minds forever. It would be helpful to imagine an equally implausible scene in our minds. An image like, say, one of Rush Limbaugh doling out bowls of soup at a homeless shelter. There’s a scene that’ll never happen!
*Okay, I’ll admit it. Even I don’t have the balls to imply that one of our most esteemed journalists smoked marijuana.
UPDATE ON CATAWISSA INDUSTRY.
Several months ago, in the heat of the Obama for President campaign, I made a few commentaries on Catawissa, a town in northeastern Pennsylvania where I spent many years in my youth. In those notes, I discussed the town’s gradual economic decline to the point where there is no industry left. I was wrong; there is one industry left: the Catawissa Bottling Company.
Earlier this year, Anne Marie and I stopped in an ice cream parlor in Coopersburg. While there, I looked in a soda case and saw a product that took me back to those carefree days in Catawissa. It wasn’t that the bottles themselves were as distinctive as say, Coca-Cola. Rather it was the color of the soft drink itself that reminded me of Big Ben’s Birch Beer. The color was blue!
I think the offbeat colors are its main selling point at many county fairs and firefighter’s carnivals in rural Pennsylvania. I believe blue is the most popular color. If memory serves me correctly, it is also be available in red and clear. It has been many years since I’ve had a cup of Big Ben’s Blue Birch Beer, but I do recall that it was delicious. (This is an unpaid endorsement.)
My belated apologies to the Gregorowicz family for forgetting about their business.
(Thank you for reading. Please remember: friends don’t let friends smoke controlled substances, play hacky sack, and denigrate American foreign policy on national television at the same time.)
posted by todd gunther | 7:49 PM
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