Neil Adams passed away a few weeks ago. If you grew up during the late 60s & early 70s, chances are his artwork on Batman was what you saw, with the sharp, pointed ears & long, flowing cape.
In the last chapter, that I posted, the Bonner Hall gang, went to a Wolves basketball game to see Clint & Slick play & watch Grace perform a “flaming baton” routine.
Her routine was successful, but she wasn’t watching where she was going & bumped into a small rack holding cold fruit drinks for the players. I described the flimsy foil tops.
I wasn’t sure if those were still made or not. Low & behold, I found them at Price Cutter in Lebanon, Missouri.
I just discovered this video, which goes perfectly with the subject of my novel. Here is the original “media influencer”, Dick Clark, promoting the “new” TV show Batman on American Bandstand. Even Dick’s Top 10 & some dancing at the end of the clip.
It may get redundant, as you read the first chapters of the novel, but one thing 1966 was remembered for, was the horrible winter.
Bitter cold temperatures in the teens, harsh winds, snow that closed the Springfield schools (unfortunately, I’m from Lebanon which really didn’t have snow days until I started attending school in the 70s), heavy fog & days of rain, according to the daily weather reports in the Springfield Daily News & Springfield News & Press.
At least, Missouri wasn’t hit with a crippling blizzard like the East Coast. They spent most of February digging out from under mountains of snow.
I have a chapter where Mykel & Clint “celebrate” Spring by setting off an emergency flair, which gets them in trouble with campus security. The emergency flairs play an important part at the end of the story.
Color on television was a big deal in the mid 60s. Television news was the last programs to switch to color. The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite went to color in February of 1966. The Huntley & Brinkley Report on NBC & the ABC World News would not go to color broadcast until later in the decade.
I’ve been busy with work & other matters, so my posting has been sparse. However, my skills with WordPress is improving, because I use it at work. One thing I learned is I can post PDF’s. I have saved articles & photos from the Springfield Daily News at the Springfield Greene County Library Center to a USB drive. I will be sharing some of those with your on this site.
Let’s start with a Valentine’s Day advertisement from Katz Drug/Discount Store. Mykle bought Sherry a box of chocolates & a Valentine card here. Click the image for a better view.
Adam West, who played Batman on the 1966 TV show, Batman, was born on this day, September 19, in 1928.
In my novel, the girls in room 420 (Sherry, Kathy, Grace & Debbie) have this poster on their dorm room wall. This was sold when he was a teenager heartthrob on The Man from UNCLE. Today he plays Ducky on NCIS.
WIP: DYNAMIC DUO OF THE OZARKS 