Who knows?
Well, here I am again, at the beginning of another year and another hopeful post describing what I plan to write for this blog. What's that laughter I hear? You know the old joke, if you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.
Last year's blog post, sans illustrations, is below. As usual, I didn't do so well in completing my proposed entries. No posts about Alabama's psychedelic connections [Humphry Osmond, Timothy Leary, Charles W. Slack]; Henry Walthall, the silent film star born in Shelby County; or the various state natives who appeared on the classic Perry Mason TV series. I did manage to do a post on Harry Townes, the very prolific television actor born in Huntsville who appeared on that show several times.
I also wrote about people with Alabama connections on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There are so many I'll have to do a second post on that topic, hopefully this year. Another subject I've wanted to explore is my collection of family ticket stubs from concerts, movies and other events that date back to the 1970s. That topic will have to be divided into several posts.
I have specific plans for a few other posts this year. These include "Roy McCardell and Birmingham", "Some Old Alabama Car Tags", "Old Ads for Alabama Bookstores" and "Anthony M. Rud's 1923 "Weird Tales" Story 'Ooze'", which is set in the state.
We'll see how all this turns out...
Now, let's do the numbers:
2022-89
2021-90
2020-108
2019-110
2018-74
2017-80
2016-99
2015-91
2014-95
A total of 836 blog posts...I'm going to rest now...
Roy McCardell [1870-after 1940]
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What's Coming to the Blog in 2022?
You can find this post with illustrations here.
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...
