At 4:15 AM on February 4, 1930 in LaGrande, Oregon, Eunice Elizabeth Ramsdell Landers gave birth to a boy child who was blessed with the proper number of appendages and good hair. The driver of a truck delivering fresh produce to the hospital claims to have seen a shooting star pass overhead at that precise moment and it coincided with the greatest financial depression our nation had ever experienced. That baby boy, William Charles Landers, was destined to have absolutely nothing to do with the recovery from that cataclysmic event, but he didn't start it. It was the stock market crash a few months earlier that did the damage.
After 91 years, one is tempted to ask, "Well, what happened since that seminal event?" Paraphrasing Johnny Carson assessing the quality of his programs over the years, there were peaks and there were valleys. On this anniversary of my arrival I will share a couple of random memories that made me laugh out loud.
It was in the middle '70s after the collapse of the Portland Storm football team (let's forget that one) and I'm driving to make a sales call on Dufer High School in the high central plains of Oregon. My radio is playing country western music and the disc jockey ques up Bobby Bare's newest recording: Drop Kick Me Jesus Through The Goal Posts Of Life. Yes, I laughed out loud. Bobby never made it big with that one (or any other one) but on that dull drive to a dull school he went to the top of my charts..
In those radio days of the 1940s, Fred Allen along with Jack Benny (This is a stick-up. Your money or your life. Benny:....long pause, I'm thinking, I'm thinking) were huge stars. I read a Fred Allen biography and in it he discusses the importance of choosing the right agent to represent your interests. "Don't select an affable, good natured, grandfather type", he writes, "choose a vicious bulldog. Take my agent: if you crammed his heart into the navel of a mosquito, it would rattle around like a bee bee in a freight car."
Twenty-four hours in a day; 365 days in a year; 91 years in a life (so far). Laughter ensued.
