What's Coming to the Blog in 2024?

Who knows?

For several years now I've been writing these "What's Coming" posts. You can read the 2023 post with links to earlier ones here. I include a wish list of topics I hope to cover, and look at past lists to see which ones I managed to write and which I didn't. There's more wishing than achievement in these lists, but here we are for 2024. I don't think I've written a single post from the 2023 list, so let's move on. 

I should note I'm pushing very close to 900 articles on this blog--only two or three more to go. I  started this thing in March 2014, so its tenth anniversary is also coming up. These thoughts are making me tired....

One piece I really hope to do this year is a look at the career of R.G. Armstrong. Alabama has produced at least three very prolific film & TV actors. One was Henry Walthall, a Shelby County native who appeared in dozens of silent and sound films--including the notorious The Birth of a Nation--before his death in 1936. I plan a post on him soon, too. Another was Huntsville native Harry Townes, who made numerous appearances mostly on television between the late 1940s and late 1980s. I've written about him here. R.G. Armstrong had many performances on film and television, ranging from series such as Gunsmoke, Laramie, Rawhide, Daniel Boone and The Andy Griffith Show to movies such as El Dorado, Children of the Corn and Reds. 

Armstrong appeared with fellow Alabama native Louis Fletcher in an episode of Maverick in 1959. Follow the link for my post about it. 

Armstrong made three appearances in Perry Mason episodes. This one is "The Case of the Stand-In Sister" in 1962. 

I'd also like to write a piece on Livingston Press, an independent publisher based at the University of West Alabama. Over recent decades the press has published dozens of books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, many of them by Alabama authors. The guiding force behind the operation is Joe Taylor, an author himself and retired professor from the university.

Then there's a 1987 pamphlet in my collection about the Five Points South area in Birmingham. Fifty businesses and historical sites are listed, and I'm curious as to which ones are still around. 

I really should do an item on Louisa Shepard, the first female to receive an MD in Alabama. Since this took place before the Civil War, she was unable to establish a practice, so she married and moved to Texas. Nevertheless, she is also the first female MD in the southern U.S. and one of the earliest in the country.

Just for fun, I'd like to do another entry in the "Empty Project: Alabama" series I recently started. So much emptiness....And I'm sure there will be more blog posts on fascinating photos, postcards and family memorabilia that I come across. 

What's Coming to the Blog in 2022?

For several years now I've been writing these "What's Coming" posts. You can read the 2021 post here and earlier ones here. I include a wish list of topics I hope to cover, and look at past lists to see which ones I managed to write and which I didn't. There's more wishing than achievement in these lists, but here we are for 2022. 

One of the topics mentioned last year that I'd like to finally do involves the natives or people with state connections who have stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I've actually started this one; naturally, the list turned out to be pretty long. I'll probably have to split it into a couple of posts. And naturally I could follow that piece with ones on people from the state who have won Oscars, Emmys and Tony awards. Dream on.

I hope to complete four other posts in 2022 that I've been pondering for some time. Two of the most important figures in the history of LSD, Humphry Osmond and Timothy Leary, have Alabama connections--one early in his life and the other near the end of it. Henry Walthall was a major silent film star in the U.S., and his career extended into the talkie era until his death in 1936. He was a Shelby County native. Huntsville native Harry Townes became a very busy actor in Hollywood for several decades, especially on television. In 1974 he became an ordained Episcopal minister and returned to the Rocket City after retirement from acting in 1988. Speaking of Townes, I'd also like to do a post on the various state natives who appeared on the classic Perry Mason tv show. Townes acted in several episodes, as did R.G. Armstrong. Louise Fletcher and Cathy O'Donnell also turned up on the show. One day I'll also have to write a piece on all the Alabama connections on the Gunsmoke series. 

I did manage to complete two posts from last year's list. Back in the summer of 2016 I did five posts on "Beulah Vee's Cedar Chest." My dad's older sister died in 1939 just a few months after high school graduation; naturally I never met her. My grandmother Rosa Mae Wright kept a large cedar chest filled with her daughter's memorabilia. Most of those contents were donated to the Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery; they form a sort of time capsule of one person's life in Gadsden, Alabama, in the 1920's and 1930's. I wrote a piece to describe that donation process and bring the story to a close.

Another topic I wanted to cover was Truman Capote and Marilyn Monroe. I had already done a pretty bogus post connecting MM and Alabama, but the one I wrote this past year was a bit stronger. You can read it here. 

In 2022 I'm sure I'll do new entries in ongoing series, such as films with Alabama connections, the usual crop of posts on "let's connect [fill in the blank] to Alabama!" and the usual stuff I haven't even thought of yet.

In closing, here are the number of posts I've written each year:

2021-90
2020-108
2019-110

2018-74

2017-80

2016-99

2015-91

2014-95

A total of 747 posts so far....sheesh....makes me tired just thinking about that...

Osmond coined the word "psychedelic"

Leary entered the University of Alabama in 1941 and stayed two years before being expelled. 

The ceremony for Bankhead's star was February 8, 1960

 

Walthall in 1918

Townes in the "OBIT" episode of The Outer Limits first broadcast on November 4, 1963 

Raymond Burr as Perry Mason and R.G. Armstrong as his client in the episode "The Case of the Petulant Partner" first broadcast on April 25, 1959

Louise Fletcher and Raymond Burr in "The Case of the Larcenous Lady" first broadcast on December 17, 1960

Cathy O'Donnell being cross-examined in "The Case of the Fickle Fortune" first broadcast on January 21, 1961

Mason's secretary Della Street [Barbara Hale] pretends a come-on to Townes in "The Case of the Lazy Lover" first broadcast May 31, 1958

What's Coming to the Blog in 2020?

What's coming to the blog in 2020 you ask? Beats me, I answer....

For several years now I've posted this sort of item on January 1 listing subjects I hope to cover in the coming year. You can read the 2019 post below; it contains links to 2018 and earlier years.

In 2019 I wrote 110 posts, the most of any year since I began the blog in 2014. That number, though, is inflated by the "Alabama History & Culture News" posts I started adding to the blog in July. This post makes a total of 550 on the blog. 

How many posts from the 2019 list did I manage to write?? Well, other than the ongoing ones--some family history stuff, films with state connections, etc--the only one was "A Legacy and Justice Visit to Montgomery". Seems I'm falling further and further behind... 

The "what's coming" posts are really wishin' and hopin' lists. I have a long list of topics I'd like to write about and naturally, no matter how many I write, it keeps growing. New topics just keep forcing themselves into my consciousness. 

So here are some wishes and hopes for 2020.



-The USS Birmingham & Early Flight

-Tallulah Does Birmingham

-Posts on visits to Scottsboro, Arab, Clanton, Calera, etc

-Alabama Actors R.G. Armstrong & Harry Townes [This one was on the 2019 list also; maybe I'll get it done this year! Of course, that goes for all the unwritten posts on these lists...]

 

-The Strange Writing Career of Clement Wood

-Movies with Alabama connections: The Fountainhead, The Dragon Painter, Stars in My Crown, Bright Road, Rebel in Town

-I've wanted to do "Did Mobile's Florence Maybrick Murder Her English Husband in 1889?" for a long time, and I really must get to it this year. Such a juicy story!

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What's Coming to the Blog in 2019?

Once again I want to start the new blog year at AlabamaYesterdays with a review of past efforts and a list of posts I hope--hope being the operative word--to do in 2019. I note that from the 2018 list, only the posts on Carnegie libraries and P.T. Barnum were actually completed. So all the others remain in the ongoing wish list. That 2018 post includes the lists from previous years as well. There are still a lot of topics waiting patiently for their turn. 

First, let's do the numbers:

2018-74

2017-80

2016-99

2015-91

2014-95

A total of 439 posts so far....sheesh....makes me tired just thinking about that...

2019 possible posts:

-Alabama's "Weird Tales" Connections

-Shelby County's Silent Movie Star: Henry Walthall

-Some Old Alabama Postcards (2) [I've acquired a number of new goodies for this post]

-Harriet Martineau Visits Alabama in 1835

-There's a Ticket Stub for That [a journey through 30 or so years of movies, concerts, etc.]. I've actually begun some organizational work behind the scenes on this one, which was also on last year's list. 

-Alabama Actors R.G. Armstrong & Harry Townes [You probably know their faces, since both men had very active film and television careers]

-A Legacy & Justice Visit to Montgomery

-New entries in ongoing series, such as films with Alabama connections

-Family history stuff, such as "A Memory Tour of Huntsville" & "Some Alabamians in New Orleans (2)" [That latter one may become a regular feature as long as our son Amos is living there!]

-The usual crop of posts on "let's connect [fill in the blank] to Alabama!"

-The usual crop of stuff I haven't even thought of yet

I guess I better get to work..

What's Coming to the Blog in 2017?

On January 1, 2016, I posted an item under a similar title purporting to described what was coming to the blog in the coming year. I had done the same thing in 2015; both of those posts are copied below. 

So here I am wondering what's coming in 2017. Looking back at the predictions for 2015 and 2016, I realized I actually have posted some of the stuff I listed. 

I did explore the Alabama connections in Rock Hudson's 1953 film The Lawless Breed. I have started a series and completed several entries on actresses from Alabama who achieved fame in Hollywood before 1960. I did take a look at Augustus Thomas' 1891 play "Alabama" and some old Alabama postcards.

I will leave topics listed in 2015 and 2016 but not yet covered to discovery by discerning readers. They all remain on the "to do" list.

I also hope to get around to at least some of these topics in 2017:

-Dad and the USS Errol
-A Visit to Montgomery
-The Lady from Lipscomb Who's Buries in Austria
-More Early Alabama Songs
-Harriet Martineau Visits Alabama in 1835
-Alabama's Weird Tales Connections
-Anne Goldthwaite, Alabama Artist



Sometime fairly early in 2017 I will also be putting up the 300th post on this blog. Scary. I started the blog in March 2014 and have posted some 285 items so far. Scary. 

As I noted in closing the 2016 speculations, the various series such as "Alabama Book Covers", "Old Alabama Stuff", "Birmingham Photos of the Day" and so on will continue. And other topics will surely pop up that I don't even see coming at me yet. Isn't this fun?

And as granddad still used to say, "See you in the funny papers."

You do know what funny papers are, don't you?

See the post "Pondering Alabama Maps (7): October 2, 1866"

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What's Coming to the Blog in 2016??

On January 1, 2015, I posted a document with a similar title. Here I am again one year later doing more or less the same thing.

First, let's take a look at last year's list, which you can also find below. I've actually posted blogs on a couple of the topics I intended to do. In February I covered the film The Lawless Breed and its connections to Alabama. Two more postings in that series followed during the year and more are in the pipeline.

I also started the series on film actresses from Alabama before 1960 and have posted on Lois Wilson and Gail Patrick. Dorothy Sebastian is next and others will follow.

And that's it. All the other topics I listed a year ago have yet to appear on this blog. What can I say? I'm easily distracted. Don't worry; they are all still in that mythical pipeline and some may even pop up in 2016. I also have many other topics "coming soon":


-What was America's first female detective doing in Montgomery before the Civil War?

-Some old Alabama postcards and the messages they send to us

-Some Alabama medical ads in 1911

-Augustus Thomas' 1891 play "Alabama"


Of course, the various series such as "Alabama Book Covers", "Old Alabama Stuff", "Birmingham Photos of the Day" and so on will continue. And other topics will surely pop up that I don't even see coming at me yet. Isn't this fun?

And as granddad still used to say, "See you in the funny papers." You do know what funny papers are, don't you?

What's Coming to the Blog in 2015??

People will be born, people will die. People will fall in love, get married, fall out of love, get divorced--wait, wrong list!

What's in store for THIS BLOG in 2015? Maybe I can get more specific with that one.

I began this blog in March 2014 and by the end of the year I'd put up 95 postings. Crazy. Topics ranged from old books to silent movies to old photos to abandoned drive-ins to a giant frog in Mobile. Oh, and Alabama Pizza Pasta in London. All of it related in some way to Alabama history. Mostly.

This year the onslaught of random quirkiness will continue:

-What's the Alabama connection in Rock Hudson's 1953 film The Lawless Breed?

-Who were some well-known movie actresses from Alabama--besides Tallulah Bankhead--long before Kate Jackson, Louise Fletcher, Courtney Cox and Kim Dickens?

-What three famous film directors have Birmingham connections?

-Who were all those photographers criss-crossing Alabama for the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s?

-Who were three female writers from Alabama whose first names began with Z?

-Who was Ambrose Bierce and why did he come to Alabama in the 1860's?

-What kind of career has train robber Railroad Bill had in blues and folk music?

-Will the madness ever end?

As my grandfather used to say, "See you in the funny papers."