What better way to think about the "mothering" you received as a youngster that listen to good old "Ma Perkins" brought to you by Oxodol (That's laundry soap to you young'uns and the reason for naming the dramas Soap Opera.) There are four "Click Here's" in our above audio file. Each will take you to a different Soap Opera.
Ma Perkins radio “soap opera,” broadcast August 1933 – November 1960 on NBC, CBS, and the Blue Network.
In her day, Ma Perkins was touted as “America’s mother of the air,” and her program made its mark as one of radio’s best-known soap operas with a broadcast history that spanned almost the entire lifetime of radio drama itself. At its peak it was the top-rated daytime drama, carried on two networks simultaneously, and heard throughout the U.S. (the "Hawaiian territory"), Canada, and even Europe (over radio Luxembourg).
The show was a production of daytime drama-writing giants, Frank and Ann Hummert, who’d penned such tortuous, contrived, and melodramatic “gems” as Backstage Wife, Stella Dallas, and The Romance of Helen Trent .
Typical of Hummert productions, Ma Perkins had her share of tears, crises, and drama, but with a plotline much slower paced than the average soap opera. In a typical year, no more than three or four major complications were covered -interspersed by long “quiet spells,” filled with (brutally) protracted discussions on the meaning of life amid the ever-changing tapestry of family, friends, and the small town around them.
The show centered on the elderly matriarch, “Ma Perkins,” owner of a lumberyard in the town of “Rushville Center” (population 4000). Other major characters included Ma’s three adult children, “Evey,” “John,” and “Fay Perkins,” their various spouses and children, as well as Ma’s best friend and partner in the lumber business, “Shuffle Shober.”
Early in the drama’s run “Ma” was portrayed as quite combative and spiteful, but her character soon developed (and softened) into the kindhearted sage and conscience of the entire community. There were various dramas that unfolded over the years, some more far-fetched than others. Two of the more memorable plot stretches involve “Ma” exposing a black market baby-napping ring, and “Ma” harboring Soviet political dissidents inside her home.
“Ma Perkins” was portrayed by Virginia Payne, a talented actress who was just 23 during program’s 1933 premiere. Unlike the rustic character she played on radio, Payne was well-educated with a master’s degree and, at ,000 a year, enjoyed the highest salary in daytime drama. Because of her youth, her identity was a closely guarded secret for years. Later she made appearances in costume (as seen in the promotional photo above). In 27 years on the air, Payne never missed a single performance.
True to Soap Opera’s roots, Ma Perkins was sponsored by Proctor and Gamble’s “Oxydol Detergent” for the bulk of its broadcast life (with a short period in 1957 when the show was lent to the Lever soap company to promote a product called “Spry”). The program finally ceased operations in 1960, years after most radio dramas had either converted or yielded to the medium of television.
On February 10th 1977, Virginia Payne passed away at the age of 68. She had stated that in over 7000 portrayals as Ma Perkins, “I’ve never played her short.”
JESUS WAS SEEN BY PEOPLE AFTER HIS DEATH, BURIAL, AND RESURRECTION
"Hey, cast your nets on the other side!"
There were several appearances of Jesus to his disciples and others following his death, burial and Resurrection. Those who believe the Resurrection never occurred use these appearances to prove their theory that His body was stolen or that the event never occured in the first place. The entire event was a well-planned ruse. No other world religion or faith system may claim the truth that their leader is still alive today – after physical death. All the others are still in the grave.
The Gallilean incident of His appearance had to be incredible! Can you imagine being there on that morning?
Later Jesus appeared again to the disciples beside the Lake of Galilee. This is how it happened. A group of men were there – Simon Peter, Thomas, “The Twin,” Nathanael from Cana of Galilee, my brother James and I and two other disciples.
Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing!” “We’ll come too,” we all said. We did, but caught nothing all night. At dawn we saw a man standing on the beach, but we couldn’t see who he was.
“Any fish, boys?” he called out. “No,” we replied. Then he said, “Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat, and you’ll get plenty of them!” So we did, and couldn’t draw in the net because of the weight of the fish – there were so many.
Then I said to Peter, “It’s the Lord!” At that, Simon Peter put on his tunic (for he was stripped to the waist) and jumped into the water [and swam ashore]. The rest of us stayed with the boat and pulled the loaded net to the beach, about 300 feet away. When we got there, we saw that a fire was kindled and fish were frying over it, and there was bread.
“Bring some of the fish you’ve just caught,” Jesus said. So Simon Peter went out and dragged the net ashore. By his count there were 153 large fish; and yet the net hadn’t torn. “Now come and have some breakfast!” Jesus said; and none of us dared ask him if he really was the Lord, for we were quite sure of it. Then Jesus went around serving us the bread and the fish.
John 21:1-14 The Living Bible, Tyndale Press, Wheaton, IL
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Isn't it interesting that Peter "put on" clothing before he dove into the water? I wouldn't have wanted that encumbrance as I swam or waded to shore. And wasn't it a neat experience for the disciples to realize the reward for obedience -- even when they didn't even know who the person was that told them to try the other side of the boat. Certainly they had tried ALL sides during the night. But a true fisherman will try anything, I guess, before giving up. That "one last cast" ususally comes in multiple units before rowing to shore or putting away the equipment.
Don't you know that had to be the best breakfast the disciples ever had in terms of taste, joy, exultation, excitement, anticipation, mental activity, physical restoration, and the full run of feelings?
We should be celebrating the victory Jesus secured for us on the Cross and the Resurrection every day of our lives. Jesus paid the price of sin by giving his own sinless life in our place. And he won the battle over spiritual death through resurrection power.
Remember, that very same power that raised Jesus from the dead is alive in anyone who asks for a personal relationship with God through his Son, Jesus Christ, through faith and repentance.
John wrote this after telling about the encounter between Jesus and Thomas:
Jesus provided far more God-revealing signs that are written down in this book. These are written down so you will believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and in the act of believing, have real and eternal life in the way he personally revealed it.
That should get a "Maranatha" out of every one of us -- "Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus!"
If you were a teen in the 1940's and early 50's, I bet your Mom did these things and you'd agree with the other statements too.
My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same
cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to
get food poisoning.
My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat
it raw sometimes too, but I can't remember getting E-coli.
Almost all of us would rather have gone swimming in the lake
instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring).
The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell,
and a pager was the school PA system.
We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair
of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training
athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I
can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell
us how much safer we are now.
Flunking gym was not an option... even for struggling kids! I guess
PE must be much harder than gym.
Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson by running in
the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot.
How much better off would we be today if we only knew we could have
sued the school system.
Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national
anthem and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative
attention.
We must have had horribly damaged psyches.
I can't understand it. Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an
abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have known what either was anyway) but
they did give us a couple of baby aspirin and cough syrup if we started
getting the sniffles.
What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses?
Ours wore a hat and everything.
I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was
allowed to be proud of myself.
I just can't recall how bored we were without computers,
PlayStation, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital cable stations.
I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through
the denial of what dangers could have befallen us as we trekked off each
day about a mile down the road to some guy's vacant 20, built forts out
of branches and pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got
to be the Lone Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us
play on that lot? He should have been locked up for not putting up a
fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an
infrared intruder alarm.
Oh yeah... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I
got that bee sting? I could have been killed!
We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant
construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent
bottle of Mercurochrome and then we got our spanking.
Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of
a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the
contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was
such a threat.
We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did,
we got our spanking (physical abuse) here too .. and then we got
another spanking when we got home.
Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids
choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka
trucks (Remember why Tonka trucks were made tough...it wasn't so
they could take the rough Berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car
with leaded gas.
Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play and I am
sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we
went on two-week vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the
danger they put us in when we all slept in campgrounds in the family
tent.
Summers were spent behind the push lawn mower and I didn't even
know that mowers came with motors until I was 13 and we got one without
an automatic blade stop or an auto-drive.
How sick were my parents? Of course my parents weren't the only
psychos. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing
his tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off. Little did his
Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead she picked him up
and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.
To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they
were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that?
We needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We
were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even
notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we survive?
You can see the working community fountain behind the beautiful decor.
Decoration is even with greenery
Another one to click and scroll
What beauty and art. Click this one to enlarge and scroll.
At the Fränkische Schweiz, lots of “Osterbrunnen” fountains decorated blown eggs, painted in oils
Monica took her parents to a attractive region called “Fränkische Schweiz” near Nurenberg
Thousands of "blown" colored eggs decorate German towns. Click and scroll.
We have a dear friend in Nurenburg, Germany whom Mary met on a trip to Ireland several years ago. We had the opportunity to visit Monika Preuss on a Danube trip in October 2006, and met her daughter Kerstin, son Roland and parents in their Nurenberg home.
Dad Preuss went to be with the Lord last year but I had an opportunity to spend som time with this precious and very special person. He did not speak English and I didnt speak German, but he and I had a wonderful conversation about his war experiences.
We understood each other in spirit and in basic understanding. He was a skilled German butcher who lived near the Czechoslovakia border during WW2. Conscripted by the Germans, he was forced to commit his sausage making skills to 10,000 German troups whio were stationed in seven camps near the Czechoslovakia border where his family lived. His stories of hardship were incredible. And his wife was as precious as they come. Amazing how love can be communicated without language. You couldn't find a nicer family.
Monika sent some incredible Easter photos, as you have already seem. Germany seems to really know how to decorate for holidays, mainly known for Christmas, but I had no idea Easter was such a major cultrual event. Trust you enjoyed these photos of such beautiful art.
Are you one of those old special people who had the joy of hearing the call of the Ragman as he came up your street or alley asking for clothing and castaway household items? I'm so glad that I lived when and where I did as a young boy.
Seems like he would come down Cedar Street from Jacobus Park because he had been driving his horse west on Wells street alongside the streetcar tracks. He had to have worked this route at least once a month as long as it wasn't winter or raining.
What a great "cry" he had. I could hear him three blocks away but I never could understand everything he was saying. Looking back, I can classify "our Ragman" as a ragtime Gregorian Chanter. The major theme of his call was RAGGGGGGGGS!!!! ......take all your old RAGGGGGGGS!!!! holding that long note like an Italian Basso Profundo. Then after he identified who he was and what he wanted, he would go into a litany that informed our mothers (Yes, they were at home and fathers were at work) what other items he would be glad to take off their hands - "Newspapers, magazines, wire, wood, old furniture, bottles, any junk in your house."
Our Ragman had an old, four-wheeled wagon with deep sides making it possible to store a huge amount of "recycled products." It was a weathered green color and had no name, phone number or web address so the customer was always at his mercy as to when he would be "coming through." A huge brown horse pulled his wagon. I never saw the Ragman stop to eat but he always had a feedbag probably full of oats, hanging on the front of the wagon and a container of water for his horse -- and I guess for himself.
I was actually afraid of the Ragman because of parental warnings. He might capture us and put us in Hansel and Gretel's oven. In spite of that fear, I couldn't keep from getting close enough to him to clearly see his knarled, deeply wrinkled, weathered face and smell his horse. As I think back, it never occurred to me that the contents of the wagon probably has a distinct odor as well -- mothballed cloth, old paper, mildewed contents from neighbor's basements, old wood and miscellaneous discards.
The Ragman seemed so old to me. But when a mother "Youuu Hooo"ed from an open window or door, the wagon would stop immediately. Ragman would get down from his high perch as quickly as his body would allow. He always took a small but heavy piece of metal up to his horse and tied some part of the harness to it so his engine would not walk away while he was in the house getting someone’s discards to recycle. I remember a couple of times he would put the feedbag on the horse as long as he was stopped.
The Ragman was one of several species that made up the genus "Peddler." A "Peddler" was a street vendor who usually bought (or received free) and sold used items. But this term extended to those who marketed their fresh fruits, knife sharpening skills, or suitcase of brushes, paring knives and dish cloths for the kitchen -- to name a few. We had them all. My favorite was the man who went door to door with a large sharpening stone wheel in a wooden framed bench. He carried the apparatus on his back. But more about that some other time.
My OLD friend from Milwaukee, gifted writer Harvey Nowland, is so old he too experienced this wonderful time in our culture. Harve's memory is so excellent that he was able to place this special "remembrance" in a beautiful poem he titled, "Silver Ball." See if this doesn't bring back a memory or give you a glimpse and flavor of what you missed. He sure did bless my heart. You might even catch a waft or two of some of the smells.
SILVER BALL
Down the alley the ragman came
Each Saturday it was the same
“Papers and rags I’ll take ‘em all
Wind your foil in a silver ball”
There’s nothing broke he wouldn’t take
To think he could repair and make
A toaster heats the bread again
And sell it back without disdain
His wagon rolled on iron-rimmed wheels
Coming along with piercing squeals
A horse with ribs that showed the part
He played in ragman’s junk-filled art
He’d call the horse’s name, “There Shem”
And Shem’d wait at the gate and then
Here he’d come with some new treasure
Housewife’s junk was ragman’s pleasure
I wondered at the end of day
Where ragman lived and Shem did stay
But never wandered down the street
To find the magic of that treat
Throughout the week some would extol
Selling their milk, bread, ice and coal
Tried their best with price to haggle
None were like our raggle-taggle
Did his work with no rigmarole
Never would he have to cajole
Everyone won no one he’d cheat
All received a handshake receipt
When Saturday came round again
He’d call with voice of no restrain
“Papers and rags I’ll take ‘em all
Wind your foil in a silver ball”
Written by HARVEY NOWLAND
(Our regular demented contribution
and, of course copyrighted 2000)
Read other stuff at: www.stone-trace.com
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Norman Plunkett
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.
