As I’ve been doing over the past couple of years … going through the vast collection of photos sitting in my computer and pulling one’s out that I feel might be of interest to someone and sharing in this on-going series I’m calling Marlin’s Good-Time Picture Show, as they mostly are the result of our travels over the past many years.
First off, this update on a name-change for my beloved Thule Air Force Base, which sits 750 miles above the Arctic Circle in northern Greenland … it now has a new name:
To read the Thule story, which I shared in this space five years ago, follow this link.
From planes to trains, here are a couple of photos … the one on the left is of the scene in Promontory, Utah, taken in 1869 during the celebration of the completion of the first railroad line connecting the two coasts of the United States!
The photo on the right was taken in 2017, when this gathering was organized to replicate the scene from nearly 150 years earlier. The actual 150th anniversary of the completion of the first transcontinental railroad line in May of 2019 was celebrated in Salt Lake City by the National Railway Historical Society with a trip up to Promontory for the official ceremonies.
For the celebration, the Union Pacific Railroad restored and returned to service one of the largest steam locomotives ever built, the Big Boy number 4014.
Is it time for lunch? Here’s a photo from “across the pond!”
This Five Guys location is directly across the street from St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, England … just one of four dozen Five Guys locations in Greater London. Would you say that the English love their burgers?
That’s one for each state in the United States … yet, there is one U. S. state which does not have a single Five Guys! Can you guess? You’ll find the answer at the end of this Musings.
Now, turning to Radio and remembering a gentleman inventor who played a key role in what we know as FM radio!
This tower, which I’ve driven by dozens of times over the years, as I lived just a short distance away during “north Jersey years,” still sits along Route 9 in Alpine, New Jersey … was built in the 1930’s by Major Edwin H. Armstrong, who made his first public demonstration of his new “static-free” FM radio system 90 years ago in 1935.
That important anniversary was celebrated at the Major’s historic tower site above the Palisades back in 2005 with a broadcast on Armstrong’s original low-band FM frequency, 42.8 megacycles, from experimental station WA2XMN. And, it was again recently when engineer Steve Hemphill had his custom-built Phasitron transmitter on the air from the Alpine tower, as engineers from the Society of Broadcast Engineers Chapter 15 (and beyond) gathered at the site for an Armstrong celebration. (This tower photo and information provided by my friend Scott Fybush)
Looking back maybe 15 years ago, when we and a couple of friends spent a week in Virginia Beach, Virginia, I was out walking one day and I came across this building … which took me back to when I responded to a classified ad in Broadcasting magazine which led to T. Mitchell Hastings, the founder and President of the Concert Network, who I mistakenly went to work for in 1966, which you’ll read about in the “New England Years” chapter of my radio memoir.
It was there I first heard of Edgar Cayce, as Mitch and his wife Margot had become devoted followers of Mr. Cayce! Here’s a link to that connection.
Edgar Cayce lived from 1877 to 1945 … in 1931, he and his supporters founded the nonprofit entity Association for Research and Enlightenment, which continues to exist today. As you’ll read on their website, the A. R. E. “provides body-mind-spirit resources for individuals to explore meditation, intuition, dream interpretation, prayer, holistic health, ancient mysteries, and philosophical concepts, such as karma, reincarnation, and the meaning of life.”
Shifting gears, we go to the live performance studio in XM Radio’s large studio facility in the Nation’s Capital for a live broadcast on the 1940s/Big Band channel circa 2006!
As their website shares, the “Airmen of Note is a jazz ensemble that forms part of the United States Air Force Band. Created in 1950 to carry on the tradition of the Major Glenn Miller Army Air Forces Orchestra, the Airmen of Note is a touring big band that consists of 18 professional jazz musicians.
As I was hired at XM to design and create the 1940s-centric channel, I chose to go beyond being a jukebox and have the channel virtually live in its history-filled era! Being from eastern Pennsylvania, I was aware of the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum, located adjacent to the Reading Airport – which has ties to the military in the WWII period – and that it has a three-day World War Two weekend each year, the first weekend of June.
In more than one of the earlier years of XM’s operation, this full-page ad appeared in the Museum’s WWII Weekend program book in return for us promoting the three-day annual event … which we did via the sounds of WWII fighter planes; whereas, the sounds usually heard on our 40s Channel were steam locomotives pulling the Savoy Express, which was the nickname I’d given our channel. You see, the railroads were vital to the nation and the entire war effort during that period, and trains were still pulled mainly by steam engines.
Today, Japan is one of our closest friends and allies, and many of us drive Japanese-brand vehicles; however, this was not the case 80 years ago!
On August 15th, 1945, this was the lead headline on every U. S. newspaper and lead story on every radio newscast!
On this date, I was about to celebrate my 10th birthday, yet – even though we lived out in the country, as it would be described, I can vividly remember going up and down the main road, which was about a block across a field from where we lived at the time, cars blowing their horns and in a few cases, someone hanging out the window waving an American flag and/or screaming – if I didn’t already know the reason for their actions, we would quickly turn on the radio and find out! (As I remember, we did not yet have a telephone in our home.)
Let me close out this chapter of the Good-Time Picture Show with a couple of lighthearted pieces that I came across in my travels and reading:
P.S. – About that state without a single Five Guys location? You likely guessed it’d be Alaska, and you are correct!
Great memorabilia. Thank you.