LAWZEE!

And welcome to the last-ever MARCH MAZEPPA MADNESS!

As you will read in this article from the April 28, 2001 Tulsa World, Gailard Sartain is a visual artist as well as a comedic one.

See you on Monday for another look at the world of Mazeppa Pompazoidi, fellow Mazeppites!

Signing Off in Animal Passion

As the sun sets slowly in the West, shuttering this year's installment of MY SIXITES VALENTINE, we revisit the concept of furry critters acting on stereotypical human romantic behavior.

These Kindergarten Valentines close out this year.  See you on Thursday, March 2nd, for the commencement of the final MARCH MAZEPPA MADNESS!

  

Phoning It In

The film Bye Bye Birdie wasn't released until a month or two after Valentine's, 1963.

So these telephone-oriented Valentines weren't inspired by the girl gab "Telephone Hour" number, seen in the movie's first minutes.

I betcha that kids nowadays don't understand the "line busy" references, above and below!

See ya on Monday with a final selection of MY SIXTIES VALENTINE for this year.

  

Two Girls Down the Street

These Valentinary documents from 1962 in no way constitute an other-than-platonic friendship.

The McCoys lived up the hill.  Jennifer was in my grade but way outclassed me in other aspects.

The Brighams were next-door neighbors.  Donna was blond.  The Brighams moved away before I was out of grade school.  That's all I recall!

See you Thursday, fellow hearts-on-sleeves types!

  

Grown-Up Valentines

That is, valentines from grown-ups to me!

The above was from our long-suffering first-grade teacher Mrs West.  How did she know I loved dinosaurs?!?!  In the 1960s, it was a safe bet that any kid loved dinosaurs!  (No comment on the resemblance of this cave boy to characters from The Flintstones, which began in 1960.)

This one is from my paternal grandparents, who were on the less-boisterous end of the spectrum.  The boy almost looks like a refugee from the Campbell Soup Kids family -- or perhaps Buster Brown's long-lost cousin.

See you Monday!

  

An Anonymous Love

It's from Valentine's, 1962. That was Mrs Pickell's class.

If you got an unsigned Valentine nowadays, would it be classified as passive-aggressive?  Or maybe just a boy who was forced by circumstance to send "love" greetings to another boy?

See you Thursday.

  

Animal Love

Yup, Valentine makers of the Sixties made sure that we kiddies thought that furry folk were just as amorous and monogamous as we were supposed to be!

Now get out of here before you shed all over the rug!  See you Monday.

  

Kindergarten's Guarded Love

That is, for Valentine's 1962, we five-or-six-year-olds were directed to give a Valentine to each classmate. Whether we loved 'em, or loathed them, or even knew anything about 'em.

For example, the above Valentine.  I don't remember if this particular Danny was in my Kindergarten class, or even a neighbor from down the street.  But by golly, Valentine giving was the thing society said to do, so we did it.

Likewise, Patty & Mike were siblings two doors down who were older (Patty) and younger (Mike) than I.  We knew each other too well from scraped knees and my teasing them, to want to get too affectionate.  Maybe nostalgia will remove my sharp edges in their memories ...

See you Thursday!

  

Welcome Back to MY SIXTIES VALENTINE!

... And although that moniker aptly describes any valentine I sent or received nowadays, I'm referring to the golden-aged-innocence of the 1960s.  If you were five or ten years old, the era was magical.  If you were a teenager, it was a potential hell of war, oppression, and paranoia.  I'm thankful to have emerged from the Sixties optimistic!

One of our grade-school community-building practices was Valentine's Day.  Your parents bought a big ol' bundle and you dealt 'em out like cards into each person's sack or envelope.  Your teacher had previously sent home a list with the names of all your classmembers.

Oftentimes Mom helped write the cards, which is how sometimes we would up with mushy, smoochy-type Valentines from a member of our own sex.

Every Monday and Thursday in February, here on the Super Blog we'll share some from my Kindergarten and First Grade in Bartlesville, OK.  The teachers were Mrs Grace Pickell (kindergarten class in their home) and Mrs West (1st Grade at Will Rogers Elementary).

Above is the pouch for First Grade.

And a couple of the treasures from that envelope.

Insert your favorite "aww, shucks!" here, and come back on Monday!

  

Unknown in 1982

This article is from the December 1982 issue of Video Review.

After reading this article, you will agree with me that its title is somewhat disingenuous.  Most of the titles are episodes of TV shows, not "movies."  I've only seen a couple of these, mainly the Night Gallery segments and Duel.

See you on Thursday with the commencement of this year's MY SIXTIES VALENTINE, more flashes from the grade-school past!

  

More Lives Nowadays

In 1989, Tulsa's Philbrook Museum had a display titled "Superman: Many Lives, Many Worlds." Some of the materials I snatched are these two pages:

I think the art for this coloring page is by artist José Luis García-López.

The idea for the above image was to draw your own comic-book page.

Here's a 2009 post with other items from that exhibit.  See you Monday!

 

A Battle in Cleveland!

Here's some coverage about how Cleveland, OH saluted its prminence as the birthplace of Superman.

It's from the August 1, 1988 issue of Amazing Heroes.  See you Thursday!

  

OKC Memories: Shadows on the Starwinds

 

This here's a brief mention of an OKC "lifestyle" store which I encountered as a student at Oklahoma City University in the mid-1970s.  It was on N Classen Blvd, called "House of Shadows."  While I appreciated its selection of blacklight posters, candles, and such, I didn't much like the sorta negative vibe implied by its name.

Sometime around 1980 it rebranded as "Starwind," and widened its selection to cover a lot of New -Agey topics like UFOs and Bigfoot.  I bought a few books and cassettes of music I'd heard on Music from the Hearts of Space on KCSC.

The above receipt from 1992 was for Michael Sterns's majestic cassette Encounter.

Here's from when I bought Jerome Clark's Unexplained! and a couple of other things.

Do you have any memories of Starwind?  I believe it closed in the mid-1990s.

See you Monday!

  

More Headline Blindness!

I been cruising through Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp books. This he-man terrorist-hater is rough and tough, like John Wayne Toilet Paper.

Alas, I came across some primo goofos in the 2007 novel Act of Treason.

Above is the very first freakin’ page! The second word should, of course, be “motorcade.”

Above is page 65, in which someone is “olding” court instead of holding court. Maybe only geriatric types were invited?

Above is page 79, which misspells “retsina” as “restina.”

In my opinion, the mistake’s location is part of its getting past the proofreaders. Sometimes the bigger the font, the easier it is to miss a misspelling. See here for earlier examples of Headline Blindness. Talk to you on Thursday!

  

Back to School, and Here's My Schedule!

I came across this blank postcard while running thrift stores.

I'm guessing this hails from the 1970s, but the level of naivete suggests the paternal 1950s to me.

This document reminds me of early postcard-type applications for in-store credit cards.  They similarly advised you to write down pertinent personal info in writing on a tiny scrap of paper and send it in the mail, where countless eyes would peruse everything needed to appropriate your legal self.  A post about this is here.

  

This Just In: Aliens Are Waste-Layers!

According to money-maker-from-the-paranormal Brad Steiger, ancient India's texts like the Bhagavad Gita contain fairly literal description of daring young aliens in their flying machines!

This breathless report was harvested from the August 21, 1990 National Enquirer.

  

Watch Out for 'Em

This article is from the June 15, 1986 issue of Amazing Heroes.

Note that this otherwise in-depth article calls the series "The Watchmen."  Do you think that someone at DC thought the title should've begun with a definite article, and not be one word?

See you on Monday, fellow Actioneers!  I leave it entirely in your hands.