Until the mid-1960s

Until the mid-1960s, the act of smoking was an everyday part of our daily lives.

Whether at work, mowing the lawn, preparing dinner in the kitchen, or driving the kids to school, it seemed like everywhere you looked, you saw an adult puffing away on a cigarette. For decades, the mass media’s effort to craft generations of smokers was aggressive and ever-present. Magazine advertisements quoted doctors who convinced us that smoking was actually beneficial for your health. Entire radio and television programs were sponsored by brands such as Lucky Strike. At the movies, film stars like Cary Grant and Joan Crawford made smoking look sophisticated and fashionable. Cigarettes and their influence were synonymous with the routines of our daily lives. We were, as one company so aptly exclaimed, a society “alive with pleasure!”

All of that changed in 1966, when the first warning labels about smoking’s risks were slapped onto packs of cigarettes; the following year, the first tobacco control media campaigns hit the airwaves. A group called Action on Smoking and Health filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, arguing under the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine that TV and radio stations had to allow just as much airtime for anti-smoking messages as they did for their tobacco advertisers.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

A few years later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that each state earmark money to specifically educate the public on the dangers of smoking (the first statewide anti-tobacco campaign was launched in 1982 in Minnesota). It would prove difficult to take on Big Tobacco, whose pockets seemingly had no bottom, thanks to the influence of political lobbyists at higher levels of government.

Even more difficult is the emergence of characters like Joe Camel, the brainchild of RJ Reynolds Tobacco Co., invented in 1984 for their cigarette brand Camel. Designed to appeal to children, a 1991 study found that Joe Camel was just as familiar to children as the Walt Disney Channel’s logo.

For adults, the Marlboro Man came along in the mid-20th century, following decades of Marlboro cigarettes being marketed to women as slim and flavorful. The image of the rugged cowboy appealed to a man’s masculine nature, and the character became the face of the company for the next several decades.

Pumpkin-carving season

Autumn is upon us, and with it comes pumpkin-carving season. Maybe you’re planning to load the family up into the car and head out to your local pumpkin patch to pick out the perfect decorative squash to adorn your front porch. I remember pumpkin carving with my dad and brother when I was a kid – Dad would roast the pumpkin seeds in the oven, and we’d enjoy the salty treat for days after.

I’m reminded, too, of one of the oldest and most beloved Halloween tales that even the youngest among us recognize to this day – “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” starring that most bone-chilling of villains, the Headless Horseman. The jack-o’-lantern features prominently in this story, which has spooked Halloween revelers for more than two centuries.

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was originally published as a short story in 1820 by Washington Irving. Set in 1790 in a Dutch settlement in New York, it tells the story of Ichabod Crane, a lanky schoolteacher who also is highly superstitious. Ichabod plans to win the heart of a young woman named Katrina Von Tassel, the daughter of a local wealthy farmer, and secure the family’s riches for himself.

The Von Tassel family invites Ichabod to a harvest party, where he competes to win Katrina’s affections alongside Abraham Van Brunt, the town bully (think Gaston from “Beauty and the Beast”).

Headless Horseman

At the party, Abraham regales the crowd with the story of the Headless Horseman, which legend says is the ghost of a soldier decapitated by a cannonball during the Revolutionary War. The horseman is buried, he says, in a churchyard nearby, rising every night to look for his missing head. The horseman is only unable to cross a bridge that stretches across a stream along the way, barred by otherworldly forces.

Ichabod leaves the party on horseback later that evening after being rejected by Katrina; on his way home, he encounters a mysterious cloaked rider, who chases Ichabod and his horse. Ichabod crosses the bridge, while the horseman, unable to cross, hurls his severed head at the terrified schoolteacher and his horse.

The following morning, Ichabod’s horse is found, but Ichabod himself is nowhere to be seen. The story implies that the horseman was actually Abraham, Ichabod’s romantic rival, who flung a jack-o’-lantern at Ichabod as a false head – a smashed pumpkin was found close to the bridge.

September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month

September is National Library Card Sign-Up Month, and if you’re a lifelong reader like me, you know there’s no better feeling than getting settled down and started on a new story to inspire your imagination.

I was that kid who, every week in elementary school, would accompany his class to the school library and browse the stacks for a new book or two in which to lose myself. And when those Scholastic Book Fairs rolled into town? Hoo, boy, I was in hog heaven, taking my allowance to school and coming home with a book or two in hand.

As I got older, I enjoyed venturing out to our local library. I felt like such a “big kid” when I finally got my library card. It felt like a pass to magic and adventure. I loved walking into the library, soaking in the silence (except for the sound of the librarian pushing her cart of books across the floor). The smell of all of those old books was a comforting one, the feeling matched in intensity only by the feeling of excitement when I found a new tale to enjoy – or even an old tale, tried and true, that I had read dozens of times (hello, “Charlotte’s Web”!).

Libraries take on even greater importance

Today, libraries take on even greater importance when we view them as bastions for free thought and places where the battle against censorship rages every day. In recent years, they’ve been caught in the crosshairs of social and political upheaval. Read any news article or watch any news program these days, and you’re sure to come across at least one story about a book being pulled from shelves for one reason or another.

And yet, in spite of our changing social and political landscapes, libraries exist with the same missions as they always have.

“Across party lines and across the political spectrum,” writes Emily Drabinski, president of the American Library Association, in the ALA’s 2024 ‘State of America’s Libraries,’ “the vast majority of people love their libraries for the ordinary and extraordinary work we do each day: connecting people to reading and resources, building businesses and communities, expanding literacy across the lifespan, and making great Saturday afternoons.”

For generations, circuses have given the American public the chance to forget their troubles and be entertained by physical comedy, fantastic feats of derring do, and pure magic. And for more than a century, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus has been synonymous with all three.

During a span of 50 years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the circus had only existed as the Ringling Bros. World’s Greatest Shows. But in 1919, the Ringling Bros. circus merged with that of Barnum & Bailey’s Greatest Show on Earth. Created by the legendary showman Phineas Taylor Barnum and James Bailey, the merger occurred more than a decade after Barnum’s death. Much of today’s modern audiences were introduced to Barnum in the 2017 musical “The Greatest Showman, the title character famously portrayed by Hugh Jackman.

Earlier in his career, Barnum achieved notoriety as the creator of an immeasurable number of hoaxes to get people in his seats and their money in his pockets. Among his ludicrous claims – that one of his shows included an interview with George Washington’s 161-year-old former nurse. In reality, the 80-year-old woman was a blind and nearly completely paralyzed slave woman named Joyce Heth. When Heth died, Barnum charged onlookers a 50-cent admission to view her live autopsy.

Also part of Barnum’s circus was his “freak show,” a menagerie of human curiosities that included albinos, giants, exotic women, and little people, the most famous of whom, a young man with dwarfism named Charles Sherwood Stratton, was billed as “General Tom Thumb,” whom Barnum coached on performing in front of live audiences. Barnum took Stratton on a tour of Europe, where he met Britain’s Queen Victoria, and a tour of the U.S., where Stratton and his wife, a young lady named Lavinia who also had dwarfism, met President Abraham Lincoln at the White House.

From its beginning, Barnum and Bailey’s circus mesmerized audiences with a team of variety performers, acrobats, clowns, tigers, lions, and, at its center, “Jumbo,” who Barnum marketed as the world’s largest elephant. The circus traveled the world, surviving the Great Depression and by this time known for setting up its very own big tent at every tour site. The fun under the big top was affordable, too, a place of escapism to a Depression- and war-weary public.

After World War II ended and the 1940s gave way to the ‘50s, the circus came up against its greatest challenge so far – the advent of television. To keep the show’s expenses down as their audience numbers dwindled, circus executives abandoned the big-top tent that had become one of the show’s primary features, now moving their performances to indoor venues instead.

In 2024, July celebrates its 40th anniversary as National Ice Cream Month, so grab a spoon and enjoy a heaping scoop while I share a bit about its history.

July as National Ice Cream Month

President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month in 1984, while naming the third Sunday in July as National Ice Cream Day (so, this July 21, help yourself to that extra scoop of butter pecan). It makes sense that Reagan, himself a lover of sweets like the classic jellybean, would bestow this honor upon the month.

Locally, one of my favorite events associated with ice cream is the annual Vaile Mansion Strawberry Festival in Independence, MO, which occurs every June. Besides scrumptious strawberry ice cream being served to attendees, the festival also includes craft and antique booths, a classic car show, and baked strawberry treats. Still, it’s the strawberry ice cream that always seems to be a hit every year.

Using ice cream as the unifying element of a welcoming party or community gathering (as in an ice cream social) only makes sense, since it’s so universally beloved. The ice cream social can trace its roots back to 1744, before the birth of America itself. Thomas Jefferson was the first president to host an ice cream social in 1802 at the White House.

Like so many other items we take for granted in today’s world, ice cream was once a treat reserved only for the rich and influential. However, like those same items, it became easier to produce and thus more affordable and more available with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. It’s been a treat synonymous with summertime ever since – and we Americans delight in it, with the average American consuming about 20 pounds of it – that’s 4 gallons – each year.

The most popular ice cream flavor in the country

Proving that when it comes to sweets, Americans are largely traditionalists, a September 2023 article published on delish.com lists good ol’ vanilla as the most popular ice cream flavor in the country (President Jefferson is often credited as the first American to produce an ice cream recipe, actually). Chocolate takes the number two spot, with cookies ‘n’ cream at number three, and my favorite – strawberry – at number four.

Ice cream, of course, populates a special place in our memories of cherished summer days with loved ones. When I was little and my grandparents came to visit, my grandfather always took my brother and I to a small Dairy Queen store a few minutes away from home, where we’d lick vanilla cones while he would enjoy a banana split.