No, this isn’t about high school. Three posts from the collected news chum about looking back:
- Military Surplus. A nice article in the LA Times about a military surplus store in Santa Fe Springs. For the owner’s 96th birthday, he’s conducting free tours of his special collection—the stuff that isn’t for sale. Near the entrance is an actual B-17 bomber cockpit that visitors are encouraged to crawl into. Oxman bought it in 1963 for $100 from an archeological team that discovered it buried for decades in the sands of the Sahara Desert. Along one wall is a sprawling collection of inert World War II bombs and artillery shells. Along another are World War II newspaper front pages and a display case containing a 1940s landmine, a pair of “minefield walking shoes” that were supposed to protect foot soldiers and a 75-year-old funnel-like “fighter pilot relief tube.” Nearby is an original case stamped “Librascope Balance Computor” that B-17 pilots used to calculate weight distribution in their aircraft. There’s also a 2,800-pound Vietnam War-era Bullpup air-to-ground guided missile, which flew at Mach-1.8. Sounds like a fascinating place.
- Let Me Tell You a Story…. CNN has a nice look back at TV Theme songs, something you see less and less. Although I like a number of the ones on their list, they are missing some of my favorites, such as the Smothers Brothers Theme done by Mason Williams, the driving scores to Lost in Space and Space:1999 (the shows may be bad, but the theme was great), or the theme to The Nanny, such by Ann Hampton Callaway and Liz Callaway. Who could forget the themes to shows like Dallas, Wonder Woman, Fall Guy, or Greatest American Hero. These set the tone so well; current themes don’t even compare. In fact, I can’t think of a single show I watch that has a memorable thing (the closest was the early seasons of Weeds with “Little Boxes”).
- Recent Nostalga. Nostalgic for the Les Paul Google doodle of yesterday. Don’t worry. They’ve kept it for one more day. Further, Google has maintained some of their other classics, such as the Pacman game.
