From Those Were the Days:

1933 - WLW in Cincinnati, OH premiered Ma Perkins. Just four months later, Ma moved to WMAQ Radio in Chicago and was heard over the entire NBC radio network. Virginia Payne was 23 years old when she started in the title role. Ma Perkins operated a lumberyard in Rushville Center. Her children were Evey, Fay and John (who was killed in the war). One of the other characters in the show was Shuffle Shober. Virginia Payne played Ma Perkins for 27 years -- and 7,065 episodes.

1942 - Garry Moore hosted a new radio program on NBC. The Show Without a Name was an effort to crack the morning show dominance of Arthur Godfrey (on CBS) and Don McNeil’s Breakfast Club (ABC). A prize of $500 was offered to name the show and someone came up with the title, Everything Goes.

1945 - CBS radio began the series, Columbia Presents Corwin. Orson Welles did a special reading about the fall of Japan, titled, Fourteen August.
10:26:23 AM    comment []  trackback []  

My life is a sitcom

Last night, I took along a CD of The Adventures of the Falcon with me to listen to, plotting, of course, to jot down some random observances this morning as part of my effort to put at least something on the blog on a day-to-day basis. Alas, outside forces plotted and conspired against me, as one of our hotel competitors calls me around 11:30pm to ask me if I have any rooms available. (Which I did.) It seems that they need thirty—count ‘em, thirty—rooms for some wedding party group.

Now, my first question was—who the heck waits until the last minute to get hotel reservations for a wedding? But, because business has been slow of late and I would no doubt receive an “Atta boy!” for my quick thinking I went ahead and checked these people in, which ate up most of free time—it was a big group, and of course, once they’re checked in it’s necessary to pepper me with questions along the lines of “Where’s the ice/snack/soda machine?” and “Can we get a rollaway?”

Now, it’s not until much later (after I check everybody in) that the night auditor at this hotel that sent the people over calls me and informs me (“Bless his heart…buh-less his little heart!”) that the reason they’re over here is because they were tossed out of his hotel. Apparently they got into a scuffle with the security guard, roughing her up and earning the enmity of the assistant manager. (Great…you send these people over to trash my hotel…God love you, me boyo.)

Well, at least there’s one reassuring consolation to come from all this—since our hotel is located on an Army base, there’ll be none of those shenanigans taking place here, I’ll tell you whut. Uncle Sam don’t play that. So I apologize for not having anything to review—perhaps this evening will be a different story.
10:23:41 AM    comment []  trackback []