Plan B Forum

Ben was determined that this year he would stay awake.

It is Christmas Eve. Ben is 7 years old and beginning to wonder if Santa Claus is real. Every year, his parents insist that Santa consumes the cookies and milk set out on the living room coffee table. Sometimes they playfully accuse each other of late-night snacking.

Tonight, Ben will stay awake until after his parents have gone to sleep. He will creep down and watch the milk and cookies. He will find out once and for all who drinks and eats.

Under his bed, the monster is awake. It has never believed in Santa Claus. It looks forward to the annual treat of cookies and milk. It has seen the parents put them on the table while the boy slept on the roof. It lives in fear of the boy on the roof. It does not know why. One day, the boy will make the mistake of leaving the roof. The monster wishes for this gift every year.

It creeps down the stairs and learns that there is a Santa Claus after all.

Did you write that?

I love it desperately.


Here is a gift for you, that which your title invoked - and a bit less scary:

Yes, I did and thank you for the scene - one of my favorites. Margareta and I visited the actual- real - genuwine Christmas Story house last December.

Did anyone else here actually grow up listening to the radio for entertainment? (I mean aside from music.) I used to listen to Jean Shepherd every night and Bob & Ray every afternoon on WOR. Shepherd was a great raconteur and Bob & Ray were just all-around hilarious. I feel like I really missed out on the "golden age of radio," which was probably 30 years before my time.

I think I'm about the same age as you and I also listed to Jean Shephaard every week night, and Bob and Ray a lot. I still have (I think) an autographed copy of Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories... (which I went to A&S in Brooklyn to get him to sign). He was a great storyteller; I also read his other books, and loved his Playboy contributions. I only recall his 45 minute show, but, as I recall, he had an overnight show pre 1960--I would have loved to have heard that.

Radio is interesting; my parents listened to WOR in New York pretty much all day; they had talk shows (I recall liking Barry Farber as well) and easy listening music--even broadcast the Billboard easy listening top 40 each week on Saturday (and sometimes had opera broadcasts as well which helped keep my interest in that musical genre as I only went to a few live events before I could go on my own).

Oh yes I went to sleep with a radio in bed with me. I too loved Bob&Ray in the afternoon with their sign-off "write if you get work and hang by your thumbs." That is why their magnificent performance on a filler for early SNL 'If YOU THINK I'M SEXY' was so special for me. I fell asleep regularly with 'The World of Tomorrow", Herbert Armstrong and its horror stories from the bible's 'Revelation' Does it count as music that I found Ken Nordine Word Jazz from Chicago and actually received the newsletter printed on genuine butcher paper? But it wasn't just me. Radio was a family center with Fibber Magee & Molly, Jack Benny, Your FBI in Peace & War. . . The local college radio still runs the old 'Stories Designed to Keep you in Suspense"once a week, sometimes even complete with commercials. Anybody remember soap opera with Our Gal Sunday? Can a little girl from a mining town out West find true happiness with a wealthy, titled Englishman?



snailgate.

Even in the UK, radio in the 50s and early 60s





Of course, the essential radio show for a ventriloquist and dummy:




And the two best:

One other guy I recall listening to was Bary Gray in the 60s and early 70ws; I had to do it on the sly since my father said he was a "communist" (actually that's why I would listen to him). I honestly didn't hear much communist propaganda coming from him (indeed on some issues he was even right of center) but he got good guests and had a good interviewing style (kind of like David Suskind). I later found out that the communist label came from Walter Winchell and got Joe McCarthy involved a bit as well, but it seems like complete BS to me. It was talk radio before the loudmouthed idiots took over.