Frank's 77th birthday

On November 10th, Frank turned 77. I had a few simple gifts for him to open in the morning. There were two front zip hoodies and two books. One book was Delivering For America: How The United States Postal Service Built a Nation about the 250 history of the postal service. The other book was Making Mary Poppins: The Sherman Brothers, Walt Disney, and the Creation of a Classic Film about the behind-the-scenes making of the Disney movie Mary Poppins.

During the day, Frank was serenaded by Robin, Isaiah, Jeremy, and Autumn via text message. Here is the Happy Birthday Quartet.

The iconic year of this particular birthday reminded me of a 60+ year old TV show 77 Sunset Strip. Per Wikipedia

77 Sunset Strip is an American private detective crime drama television series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith, Richard Long (from 1960 to 1961) and Edd Byrnes (billed as Edward Byrnes). Each episode was one hour long when aired with commercials. The series aired on ABC from October 10, 1958, to February 7, 1964.

I was only five to nine years old when it was on TV and I probably only heard the sound drifting upstairs when I was in bed. Perhaps I caught glimpses of it when I was older, but I particularly remember one of the characters, hair-combing Kookie. Even now, I cannot get the catchy opening song — complete with finger snapping — out of my head! Listen to 77 Sunset Strip here.

More dominant than an old TV show this birthday for Frank was the current TV show of Wheel of Fortune.  Frank and I had tickets to see a live performance of the show on the road at our local Bankhead Theatre. The stage was set up with a wheel, a bonus wheel, and the large puzzle board, of course. There was an equivalent of Ryan Seacrest (Pat Sajak) played by Mark L. Walberg and a Vanna White equivalent played by a woman selected at random from the audience. The woman was especially amusing because she was so short, she had to jump up to touch the letters on the highest row of the puzzle board.

There was an announcer and a strolling camera man. The announcer mingled with the audience to warm them up before the show began. That was where Frank had his claim to fame. Frank was picked to be interviewed. When asked where he was from, Frank replied proudly, "Washington, DC! And I don't mean Virginia or Maryland to that little state up in the northwest." When asked about his interests he  boasted about his over 1000 railroad cars in the garage and showed off his QUILTER'S HUSBAND shirt he was wearing. The camera view of the exchange was projected up on a large screen and I took a photo. Unfortunately I was holding my cell phone over my face but it really is me.

The set up and process of the show was well thought out. Five people were selected at random from the audience and brought up on stage to compete. A bonus puzzle with only some of the letters showing was posted and whoever figured it out first got one point. Whoever of the five accumulated three points first, went on to a final round in the second half of the show. The three winners from three groups of five comprised this final round where they actually spun the wheel and called letters. The pre-screening of the fifteen players from the first half assured the final round was a decent competition without any turkey players.

The second half mimicked the TV show more closely with calling letters, missing turns, or going bankrupt with spins of the wheel. There were money awards, on the order of $50's or $100's. Frank got a souvenir pen. We had a really good time and, after the show, posed for a photo op in the lobby in front of a publicity poster.

After the show, we celebrated with a pan of brownies. I had baked them earlier in the day and we had been snacking on them rather than waiting for a formal candle ceremony to dig in. We did keep up the traditional "make a wish and blow out the candles" eventually, though not with a particularly pristine receptacle for the candles. I wonder if the quality of the wish is compromised...? Even if so, the brownies were delicious anyway.

Ponder: My Friends

 My Friends ©2025 by Fredrik Backman is a story about the lives of four teenage friends who spent a summer of laughter together, despite the depressing home situation of each. Three are immortalized in a painting depicting three figures sitting on the edge of a pier, a painting which sells for an exorbitant sum of money. The painting was created by the fourth in their group. I was looking forward to enjoying this book since I read A Man Called Ove, also by Fredrick Bachman which I rated 5 stars in my 10/31/17 post reviewing it. Furthermore, 37800 readers on Amazon rated My Friends 4.6 stars and 253,400 readers on Goodreads rate it 4.4 stars. Despite these accolades, I was very disappointed in My Friends. I rate My Friends only 2 stars. To minimize the effort I put into the review for a book I rated so poorly, I present these AI summaries of the characters within. 

Louisa is the 17-year-old artist protagonist the novel, who is on the run from her foster home after her best friend, Fish, dies. She is creative, rebellious, and carries a postcard of a famous painting called "The One of the Sea," which becomes a central symbol of the book as she meets the reclusive artist behind it. The story intertwines her present-day journey with the past lives of the four teenagers who were the subjects of the painting.

The four teenagers associated with the painting:

• Joar is the group's "muscle and heart," a boy shaped by violence who is fiercely loyal to his friends
• Ted is one of four childhood friends who bond over art. He becomes a teacher, but his life takes a turn after an incident at school. He then becomes a friend and father figure to Louisa, a young artist, and is involved in the book's main storyline about art, friendship, and loss.
• Ali is a character who leaves the friend group because her father is in debt. She later becomes a skilled surfer; her story contributes to the themes of trauma and healing explored in the novel.
• The artist is the creator of the iconic painting "The One of the Sea". He is referred to "the artist" throughout and only near the end is his name revealed.

Scenes of laughter amidst teenage loyalty and bonding abound and are enjoyable. But the heart breaking situation of each of these characters seems to have an overriding air of dystopia for me. Violence, drug abuse, alcoholism, emotional abuse, bullying, and poverty to me were too pervasive to be neutralized by a summer's worth of escapist frivolity and mischief.

The book has two main timelines: present day Luisa, recently aging out of a foster home and the summer about twenty years ago shared by teenagers Joar, Ted, Ali and the artist. The two timelines intertwine as an adult Ted is telling Louis the story of that summer. The poignant theme of friendship and loyalty is to be commended, but I struggled with all the misfortunes above which these attributes were to rise. To me the glow of good triumphing over evil was buried under the darkness of the dystopian lives when those friends were not in each other's company. There were several twists in the book where the reader was led to believe something dire had occurred. The later revelation of the true situation made me feel the author was being cruel to the readers in misleading them.

I really forced myself to read the final third of this book. That says something for the author's skill in having me bond with the characters. I wanted to know how lives turned out, even though it was painful for me to doggedly persist in reading this novel to the very end. The psychological downers for me in My Friends seem in keeping with my erratic relationship with this author. I'd forgotten I had also read Anxious People by Fredrick Bachman and sadly rated it only 1 star in my 7/7/21 post reviewing it. Feeling angst when I read is not a desirable emotion for me. Feeling suspense is acceptable but not within a pervasive atmosphere of hopeless acceptance. Cope without hope is not read-worthy. 

 

★★☆☆☆ Ok, not great; some redeeming features; I finished it