Lompac is the flower raising center for Southern California, and, as of 2002 there were still nine miles.... yes, nine miles of open fields of flowers from the Town of Lompac all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

In 1942, Bodger Seed "raised" the first Floral Flag in honor of our fighting men and women and in memory of Pearl Harbor and those who gave their lives then and after. The first Floral Flag was painted.... er, planted on December 14, 1944, a week after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was in bloom during the early summer of 1942. It not only was a memorial to that fateful day but honored all the days after as men and women put their lives on the live and fought an honorable war against tyranny.

As a patriotic gesture after the tragedy of September 11, 2001, Bodger Seeds has again planted a Floral Flag in Lompoc, California. It was 50 years since they planted such a flag.

There have been four Floral Flags planted by Bodger Seeds in Lompoc during the last century:1942, 1943, 1945, 1952. All of the flags were comprised of Red, White and Blue Larkspur flowers. Some of the flags were set off in a background white Larkspur. The 1943 flag was planted as a 'wavy' flag that turned out as a failure.

The first flag, shown on the right was the first one in 1942 and was 455 feet long and 260 feet high, equaling 2.75 acres. It was planted in a 9 acre field of White Larkspur. The Stars were 10' x 10' and the Stripes were 22 feet wide. It was estimated to contain 200,000 Larkspur plants.

Then in 1952, as shown on the right in the second photo, the Floral Flag was planted with Stripes of varying widths so that the flag would retain proper perspective from the top of Lookout Point, approximately 1/4 mile to the south. This Flag was 7 acres square: 550 feet long and 540 feet wide. The Stripes were 33 feet wide on the south end of the flag and became progressively wider to a maximum of 53 feet wide on the north end of the flag.

By 2002 Bodger See knew exactly how to do it and the Floral Flag commerating the tragic "9/11" experience was 740 feet wide and 390 feet high and maintained the proper Flag dimensions. This Flag is 6.65 acres and is the first Floral Flag to be planted with 5 pointed Stars comprised of White Larkspur. Each Star is 24 feet in diameter; Each Stripe is 30 feet wide. This Flag is estimated to contain more than 400,000 Larkspur plants with 4-5 flower stems each for a total of more than 2 million flowers.

Don't know what they are doing this year but you Southern Californians might want to drive by V Street south of Ocean Avenue in Lompoc, California see what's going on and send us a photo.

I've linked Bodger Seed's website below. It has many pages you would enjoy if you would just tell yourself that you really have enough time to visit and do everything else you seem to think you must do.

The Mercury Theater on the Air radio programs aired July to December 1938, and later from June 1946 to September 1946 on CBS. (Also aired as Campell Playhouse December 1938 to March 1940 on CBS.)

On the evening of October 30th 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater Company would make radio history by broadcasting what would become the most effective and terrifying hoax ever perpetrated on the American public! This great (yet "unintentional") hoax, would spread the name of the young radio and theater talent across world, leading to his entry into cinema and his immensely successful film Citizen Kane.

The Mercury Theater Company had its beginnings just a year earlier in June of 1938, when two innovative and experimental theater producers, John Houseman and Orson Welles, decided to form their own theater company after running into quite sensational troubles with authorities in the staging of their new play The Cradle Will Rock. Earlier Houseman, a former grain-merchant, and is friend Welles, the brash brilliant "boy wonder" of the stage, had gained success together creating avant-garde theater productions under sponsorship of the WPA. The WPA pulled funding for this play, which was seen as too pro-labor, and after Welles petitioned Washington threatening to open the play on his own, armed guards were sent to block all access to the theater. On the night of the opening, the show would go on, in a much smaller theater some 20 blocks away. The audience was told of the changes as they gathered in front of the guarded playhouse. The crowd reassembled, cramming in the new venue, where the scenes had to be played out in the aisles among the audience!

From the very start Orson Welles seemed destined for a bright (and controversial) career in theater. He was born in 1912 in Kenosha Wisconsin and at an early age took to Shakespeare, reading most of his works by the age of 10! At 12 he staged his school's production of Julius Caesar playing three roles himself. At 16 he left home and traveled across Ireland, by donkey-drawn cart! Upon reaching Dublin he ended up bluffing his way into a leading role at the Gate Theater in the play Jew Suss for which he received high critical praise. By 17 he was back in America and had a chance meeting with Thornton Wilder, who introduced him to other influential personalities such as Alexander Woollcott, Cathereine Cornell, and later John Housemann.

The first of Houseman and Welles' productions as the "Mercury Theater" company was Julius Caesar which received glowing reviews. Other plays soon to follow were Shoemakers Holiday and Heartbreak House. By this time young Welles, always eager for new projects, had also entered radio as a regular on "The March of Time" and starred in the lead role for the "The Shadow." In June of 1938 CBS approached Welles, offering him a 60-minute timeslot for a "Mercury Theater" of the air. Welles convinced a reluctant Housemann participate, and just two weeks later the first episode aired, a radio adaptation of Treasure Island.

"The Mercury Theater on the Air" episodes usually were radio enactments of such classics such as: Jane Eyre, Sherlock Holmes, Oliver Twist, Julius Caesar, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Dracula. The immense task of writing and adapting the scripts fell to John Housemann (who also had his broadway "Mercury Theater" obligations) and Howard Koch. These drafts were then later edited by Welles himself. As broadcast time approached, Welles possessed a magical touch and enthusiasm for his work that infected all those around him. These programs were quite unique and innovative for their day, despite the constraints of time and budget, and the talent and skill of all those involved is clearly evident even for today's listeners. An interesting example of the unorthodox and creative methods the players employed, comes during the Count of Monte Cristo broadcast; here the live dungeon scenes were played out in the studio bathroom with two microphones placed against the toilet bowl to give a convincing sense of a subterranean reverberation. The toilet was also flushed at times to simulate the crashing waves against the Chateau d'If.

For the Halloween broadcast Welles wanted to create a scary show for the public and decided on the H.G. Wells fantasy War of the Worlds, but instead of the tales setting in Victorian England, he wanted the portrayal in "modern-day" America. Many in the Mercury Theater group viewed the project with apprehension, fearing that the story would be far too dull and unbelievable. Koch took the assignment with 6-days to write the script. He selected a site for the Martian landing at Grover's Mills, New Jersey after glancing at a roadmap while driving home from a family visit. Koch ran into troubles adapting the script and soon became despondent, he called Houseman and together they came up with a storyline -portrayed as a series of news broadcasts and emergency announcements that preempt a fictitious radio program. During a rehearsal two days before broadcast it became evident much more work was needed. The two worked feverishly through the night rewriting, editing, and adjusting until there was simply no time left. The script passed the CBS sensor with them only having to adjust the names of a few real locations, thus the Hotel Biltmore became "the Meridian Room of the Hotel Park Plaza in New York."

Welles received the script during the final morning rehearsal, making a few last minute adjustments to the introductory portions of the script. At eight o'clock that evening Welles mounted the broadcast podium, assuming the role of director and star, and the magic began. Fifteen minutes into the program calls began coming to the studio with news of panic beginning in New Jersey, traffic jams and people running wild through the streets with wet towels to their faces, victims of shock being rushed to the hospital, one woman in Pittsburgh who was stopped by her husband from poisoning herself. A chance power outage during the show's broadcast in parts of the Midwest led to mass hysteria. In Boston families gathered on rooftops and imagined they could see a glow in the sky, far to the south, of New York City burning. During the 40 minute break, Dan Seymore rushed to the microphone to announce "You are listening to a CBS presentation of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the Air in an original dramatization of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells." At program's end Welles closed with assurances that the broadcast had "no further significance than the holiday offering it was intended to be -the Mercury Theater's own radio version of dressing up and saying boo." But for Welles, Houseman, and the rest of the cast the scares were just beginning. Moments later the studio was swarmed by police who began confiscating scripts and rounding up all the actors, detaining them for a time then throwing them to the press. All the actors and crew involved were truly amazed at the level of panic and hysteria they had caused.

For three days the fate of the Mercury Theater on the Air was uncertain, CBS officials couldn't decide whether Welles, Houseman, and the others were "heroes or scoundrels." The immense publicity of the incident made Welles an overnight sensation throughout the world. Campbell Soups soon offered sponsorship for the radio program raising the show to "first-class" status. In December the program changed names, becoming the "Campbell Playhouse." With a huge budget at their disposal, the programs featured many famous guest actors, and soon developed a highly polished (less spontaneous) sound and feel compared to the early Mercury Theater days.

The great fame and stardom of Welles led to a rift with John Houseman. The senior Houseman began to feel like a subordinate employee of the young Welles rather than a partner. Houseman moved on to other work in the theater, gaining the bulk of his fame late in life for an Oscar winning performance in the film The Paper Chase at age of 71. Welles' career is said to have peaked just a few years after War of the Worlds, with his immensely successful film Citizen Kane, though actually he would go on to produce 15 films as an actor/director and act in almost 80 others!

II Corinthians 5:17-18 The Message Bible, Nav Press, Colorado Springs, CO

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Followers of Jesus Christ become brand new people on the inside (spiritually) when they meet and accept Jesus as their Savior. How does that happen? The Holy Spirit gives that new life -- the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

The believer is not the same person any more and it's not because of reform, rehab, or re-education. We are new creations because we are living in a vital union with Christ as it says in Colossians 2:6. We haven't turned over a new leaf... we have begun a new life under a new master and each of us have been with him for various lengths of time. So how's it goin'?

Each year at this time, my memory bank opens up a special pigeon-hole and out flows the joys of celebrating the birthday anniversary of our country as noisy and as dependable as Fibber McGee's closet.

I remember so clearly standing on our pier at Beaver Lake in 1948, lighting and throwing cherry bombs into the water. Some of you will remember cherry bombs, no longer legal anywhere in the U.S., had a waterproof plastic wick that allowed it to sink a couple of feet before igniting like a depth charge with a deep Baaaarooop! -- and a giant bubble full of smoke would break the lake's surface.

The sound of firecrackers could be heard all day long around the lake and we did our part making noise with four brothers and two sisters trying all kinds of creative things as we awaited nightfall and the beauty of chemical color that the mortars and skyrockets would provide.

During the war we had difficulty getting punk to light the firecrackers so we used a six-inch piece of frayed cotton clothesline and kept it glowing by blowing on it. Another year, I was probably 12 or 13, we thought we’d be cool and justify the presence of a cigarette in our fingers, explaining that we were using it to light firecrackers. When we were told that you have to drag on the cigarette to keep it lit, our parents torpedoed our cool plan of blatant mischievousness.

Speaking of torpedoes – do you remember them? They were white and about the size of a malted-milk ball or a mothball. My brothers cherished the four and five inch “cannon crackers” (Yes, there used to be firecrackers that large.) But my favorite sound maker was the “torpedo.” When you threw one against a hard surface – like a brick wall or a cement sidewalk – it would explode with gusto. Torpedoes were awesomely loud until they began to downsize them for safety reasons. We used to waste them by trying to throw them to the pavement from the window of a moving car. We finally figured out that the horizontal speed of the car negated the vertical speed of our throw so it just plopped on the pavement. With the speed my brother was driving his 1938 souped up and channeled Mercury convertible, I wouldn’t have heard the explosion anyway -- even if the physics of the project were correct.

The ban on public use of fireworks in Wisconsin in the 1950's was a sad day for my brothers and me. Why should the "pros" be allowed to have all the fun? By not banning fireworks, South Carolina produced the well-known "South of the Border" fireworks mega supermarket on I-95 that still sells millions of dollars of colorful explosive displays. And what about the huge operations on I-24 east of Chattanooga and the superstores in South Carolina on I-85? It’s just a short trip for clandestine Atlantans to acquire their celebration hardware and software in a short drive. And that doesn't even take in the state of Texas, Florida and others who are allowed to sell and use these wonderful noisemakers. I just learned that fireworks are now legal in Georgia as long as. whatever it is, does not fly higher than 20 feet -- so small firecrackers, pinwheels, and fountains can now be legally used in 2005 for the first time. Residents can now do what I've seen them do for the past 45 years in Atlanta.

In Georgia, many will continue to celebrate illegally with bottle rockets, small mortars, repeating aerial reports, and legally with Black Cat Salutes, fountains, flares, and pinwheels at Fourth of July, New Years Eve, and often Christmas week.

"My three sons" used to be the entertainment center of Gainesbourgh West, right off the north loop of I-285. It seemed like the neighbors were always ready and waiting for the Plunkett boy’s semi-annual, creative interpretations of light, sound and smell. The response from the neighbors in applause and cheering was often as loud as the presentation.

If you’re a boomer or older, chances are you look back on your “Fourth of Julys” with special fondness because of family picnics and the anticipation of what usually happened during the day’s celebration. Oh, for sure, kids and families still enjoy the celebration today as they establish their own memories, but it's from a whole different perspective.

The “Fourth” was always the highlight of summer for me. I'm sure many of us thought about the freedom we enjoy and were grateful for this unique country many times during the year -- especially with the lasting events of WW2 clearly etched in our minds and hearts and the immense loss of men and women in the military. But I’m also sure in actuality, since the majority of us had not been touched by a personal loss, that we were more grateful for the one chance a year we had to specifically celebrate the founding of our country – a unique nation founded on faith in God and biblical principles.

Last year, Mary and I listened to David McCullough’s John Adams audio book as we drove across the country. It’s was a wonderful, enlightening experience. Not only were we reminded about what was involved in the formation and establishment of America, but more specifically the role John and Abigail Adams and other leaders played in that real-life drama. The importance of God for each of them is so evident in history and in their writings. It was this faith in their Creator God and his son, Jesus Christ that impacted all of life for those who formed our nation. Everything they did revolved around a deep faith and commitment to their Creator God. You might say that God was not prominent in their lives, but preeminent – meaning nor just "First." but "First" in every area of their life. We are probably going to do the same thing with McCullough's new book on George Washington. I highly recommend it.

I’ve been an “old guy” for sometime now so I won't be messing around with explosives. But I did just get back from Florida and have some fountains, sparklers, pin wheels and some half-inch Lady Fingers you can light and hold with your fingers while it goes off – which was a sign of great personal male virility when I was a pre-teen.. (Make sure that you’re holding the Lady Finger with your thumb and forefinger AND only at the extreme bottom tip of the Lady Finger!)

Dad's favorites were fireworks at night. As soon as it was dark and there was an audience of family and friends, he would ignite two Roman Candles in each hand moving them in a circular motion. For years I thought Dad’s conductor movements were the reason the colored, flaming balls escaped the three-foot tube spreading an impressive arc of color out over the water.

Dad seemed to always have trouble with pinwheels. They would be nailed to the Cottonwood trees next to the beach at Beaver Lake, but for some reason the pinwheel would get hung up before burning out and stop after a rapid blazing start. If not that, I remember when not all three of the powder tubes would fire up so the pinwheel would just sit there with one colorful jet taking it nowhere.

Dad’s "piece of resistance" was the six-inch mortars he paid $5.00 apiece for! And $5 in the late 1940’s was a whole lotta money. These mini-bombs required a two or three-foot launching tube that had half of it sunk into beach sand. He would light the 16-inch fuse, and all of us would excitedly watch the fuse burn up to the rim of the tube and then disappear. Suddenly, with sparks flying, the mortar would roar out of the tube with a loud FA-THWAP!

Out and up, the flying bomb would travel over the lake resulting in an explosion and shower of color that would generate "ahhhhhhhhs!" and applause from the small lakeside audience. Dad usually had ten to fifteen mortars (sky rockets) and they were carefully and reverently ignited one at a time. It was much too long a pause between explosions for a ten-year old boy, but Dad wanted us to appreciate the excitement and beauty of each gunpowder sky painting. Like Jean Shepherd's Dad, my father was in his glory. During the 1940’s, Dad conducted a mean fireworks show every Fourth whether it was our church picnic out at Utica Lake in Dousman or a family gathering at Beaver Lake.

Now the grandsons have assumed the “heavy responsibility” of maintaining the continuity of “meaningful” family traditions in this constantly changing world.

Jon is traveling to Wisconsin to be part of a Fourth of July pyrotechnic show. Grandpa Plunkett would be so proud of the show they put on up in Waupaca. If you’re interested in seeing a video of their show in 2003, we have provided a Flash presentation for fireworks aficionados. Click the link below.

Chris is back in his beloved Uinta Wilderness and Flaming Gorge Resevoir where he's working once again as a hydrologist. "Dad, I have to do a quality check on the Green River and do it in a canoe. Tough job, eh?" I'm sure he will celebrate the Fourth of July creatively and not endanger the forest.

Norm Jr., who's now 46, and I will hold the fort on East Nancy Creek in Atlanta and maybe hold a couple of Lady Fingers and light a pinwheel.

The links I've provided below are really sensational, especially the Nova and Zambelli sites. On the Zambelli site you can design your own fireworks show with sound on their DESKTOP page. "Those were the days, my friend!” We never ever thought they'd end! But they certainly did and will for you too.

And you young parents, "These ARE the days, my friend!" And you know they'll end -- so enjoy! Sure hope this Fourth of July was one that added to the memory bank of all those you love.

The origins of ice cream can be traced back to at least the 4th century B.C. Other early references include the Roman emperor Nero (A.D. 37-68) who ordered ice to be brought from the mountains and combined with fruit toppings, and King Tang (A.D. 618-97) of Shang, China who had a method of creating ice and milk concoctions. Ice cream was likely brought from China back to Europe. Over time, recipes for ices, sherbets, and milk ices evolved and served in the fashionable Italian and French royal courts.

After the dessert was imported to the United States, it was served by several famous Americans including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Dolly Madison (1812). In 1700, Governor Bladen of Maryland was recorded as having served it to his guests. In 1774, a London caterer named Philip Lenzi announced in a New York newspaper that he would be offering for sale various confections, including ice cream. The first ice cream parlor in America opened in New York City in 1776.

American Colonists first used term "ice cream," which came from the phrase "iced cream" similar to "iced tea" and later abbreviated to "ice cream", the name we know today.

Methods and Technology

The use of ice mixed with salt to lower and control the temperature of the mix of ingredients proved a major breakthrough in the creation of ice cream, as we know it. The invention of the wooden bucket freezer with rotary paddles facilitated its manufacture.

Augustus Jackson, a confectioner from Philadelphia, invented a recipe and method of making ice cream in 1832. 

A New England woman, Nancy Johnson invented a hand-cranked freezer in 1846 that established the basic method of making ice cream still used today. Johnson did not patent her own invention, however, William G. Young patented the "Johnson Patent Ice-Cream Freezer" in 1848.

In 1851, Jacob Fussell in Baltimore established the first large-scale commercial ice cream plant. 

Alfred L. Cralle patented an ice cream mold and disher (a scoop used to serve) on Feb. 2, 1897.

The treat became both distributable and profitable with the introduction of mechanical refrigeration. The ice cream shop or soda fountain has since become an icon of American culture.

About 1926, the first commercially successful continuous process freezer was perfected and invented by Clarence Vogt. 

The Sundae

Historians argue over the originator of the sundae, what follows are two historical probabilities. In the Midwestern United States, laws were passed prohibiting the selling of soda water on a Sunday. The town of Evanston, Illinois was one of the first towns to pass such a law around 1890. As an alternative on Sundays, local soda fountains started selling ice cream sodas minus the soda, which left ice cream and syrup.

Another sundae originator was soda fountain owner, Ed Berners of Two Rivers, Wisconsin. The dates attributed to this possible history range from 1881 to around 1890.

Customer, George Hallauer requested that Berners serve him ice cream topped with soda syrup. Berner decided to add the dish to his regular menu and charged a nickel, the same price as a serving without syrup. George Giffy, a competing soda fountain owner from nearby Manitowoc, Wisconsin decided he had to serve the same syrupy concoction as Berners. However, he felt the nickel price was too small a profit margin and decided to only serve the dish on Sundays to keep both himself and his customers happy. The dish was soon called the "Sunday." Once Giffy realized that he was making good money from his Sundays, he changed the name to Sundae and served it daily.

The Cone

The walk-away edible cone made its American debut at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. The ice cream cone was served up by several vendors, one being Lebanese immigrant, Abe Doumar. Some historians credit Abe Doumar with building the very first machine for making ice cream cones - waffle type cones that were born from the ingenuity of adapting a waffle iron into a cone oven. However, Doumar did not make his first cone oven until after the World's Fair.

There are, however, more claims to the cone's history. One being that Italo Marchiony submitted a patent in 1903 for a mold to make edible cups with handles. Moreover, paper and metal cones were used by Europeans for some time to hold ice cream and edible cones were being served in England prior to 1904. On July 23, 1904, Charles E. Menches of St. Louis, Missouri conceived the idea of filling a pastry cone with two scoops of ice cream, thereby possible inventing the ice cream cone. Most historians believe that there were over fifty ice cream cone stands at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and it is possible that several people invented the ice cream cone at the same time. However, the cone definitely become popular in America by way of the St. Louis World's Fair.

Eskimo Pie Originally Eskimo Pie was called the "I-Scream-Bar" The idea for the Eskimo Pie ® bar was created by Chris Nelson an ice cream shop owner in Onawa, Iowa. He thought up the idea in the spring of 1920, after he saw a young customer called Douglas Ressenden having difficulty choosing between ordering an ice cream sandwich and a chocolate bar. Nelson created the solution, a chocolate covered ice cream bar. The first Eskimo Pie chocolate covered ice cream bar on a stick was created in 1934.

Between 1988 and 1991, Eskimo Pie introduced aspartame - sweetened, chocolate - covered frozen dairy dessert bar, now called Eskimo Pie No Sugar Added Reduced Fat Ice Cream Bar.

Other Brands

Reuben Mattus invented Haagen-Dazs in 1960, he choose the name because it sounded Danish. 

The DoveBar was invented by Leo Stefanos.

In 1920, Harry Burt invented the Good Humor Ice Cream Bar. The bar was patented in 1923. Burt sold his Good Humor bars from a fleet of white trucks equipped with bells and uniformed drivers.

VISIT THE FIRST LINK BELOW FOR "INVENTION" PAGE.

WE GUARANTEE YOU CAN SET ALL YOUR CLOCKS BY IT'S ACCURACY -- EVEN YOUR ATOMIC CLOCKS AND CELL PHONES! It will give you information from the time zone your computer is set on.

Norman and ChrisPlunkett

God is good -- ALWAYS!

And especially as He floods you with all the grace you need no matter what the situation. As you trust Him, God's grace is always just enough and always on time.