Where Did All the Flowers Go?

My flower child wife in 1967, during the innocent days of love and peace.

It is hard to pin down that decade. It wasn't really the 1960s. The first few years of the 'sixties were like a slow fade out of the Rock 'n' Roll revolution of the 1950s. Did it begin in February 1964 when the Beatles were the vanguard of the British Invasion upon the musical shores of the United States? This date certainly marked the beginning of a whole new creative breakout within the arts. I'm inclined to place it a bit earlier at the assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963, and end it on August 9, 1974, when Richard Nixon left the White House in disgrace. Those dates certainly seem to border my own entry and exit of the Psychedelic Philadelphia period.

Although aspects of the movement date back to the Bohemians and the Beats, and small contingents of self-called Hippies exist today, as far as what people call the Hippie years was a very short period. It basically blossomed as a sub-culture with the January 1967 Be-In at San Francisco and the following Summer of Love. Its death began at Altamont in 1970.

The term Hippie was apparently coined in a 1965 newspaper article by journalist Michael Fallon about

the migration of Beatniks into the Haight-Asbury area of San Francisco. The exact meaning of the term is vague and uncertain. If it derived from "Hip" or "being in the know", it was a misnomer. I think Hippies were naive and escapist. The 1960s were hardly the "Decade of Peace and Love ". They were rather chaotic and violent, with police dogs, firehoses, cities rioting as the civil rights movement burned across the nation, and bloody and deadly as the Vietnam War raged overseas. Sticking flowers in the barrels of rifles ignored human nature and eventually someone pulled the trigger. The resulting images of My Lei in November 1969 and Kent State in May 1970 made this all too clear.

I suspected at some point the FBI or some such authority was reading my mail. My envelopes were coming to me opened or partially resealed. Why bother with me, pretty much a nobody. Who knows in those times? My wife and I had attended various protests in the city. We had been on a thing called "Pollution Trail" during the very first Earth day, riding about the area in a bus with fellow demonstrators, stopping at those places we considered the worse offenders against clean air and water, singing at them, shouting at them, getting our pictures taken by the mews media. I was writing for ultra-revolutionary underground publications, as well as letters to the editors of local newspapers, debating ministers and sending angry complaints to CEOs. I had supported and voted by write-in for Dick Gregory in the 1968 Presidential election. I subscribed to left-leaning magazines, such

as "Evergreen Review" and "Avant Garde".

One day I found a subpoena sticking from our mailbox. I was summoned to court on the grounds I had fraudulently registered to vote. This was in August of 1969. I had just begun a new job, circulation manager at North American Publishing Co. (I also wrote book reviews for their education industry magazine "Media & Methods"), and I had to take a day off from work to appear in court. When my wife and I moved to Philly we had registered as Democrats. She did not receive a subpoena, I did. I attributed this to the fact she listed her occupation as "Private Secretary" at U. of P., while I listed mine as "Writer". Arlen Spector was running for Mayor on the Republican Ticket, an office he would lose in a close race. The Republican Party was making an attempt prior to the election to take away the votes of students in the University City area on the belief they were mostly Democratic voters and I was swept up in their net. This event became the basis for my story "Toward Last November".

The people I knew or met and the situations of my life often became stories and that time frame was a productive period for me and 45% of my short fiction was penned between 1963 and 1974. The stories directly concerning my Psychedelic Philadelphia Days were collected in Keep All the Animals Warm (2004).  These were autobiographical  with "Cold", "Singing in the Streets", "Subway Stop", "City Scenes", "Tea and Coffee" and "Toward Last November" being especially so.



So where did the flowers in my bouquet go?

Diane, who wished to be a writer, just kinda drifted away.

Girard was older than the rest of us, married, divorced and father of a daughter who didn't understand the situation. He was a writer and trying to be a free spirit, but never came out into the nights and haunts with the core of our group. His situation with his family became the kernel of my story "Christmas Last" in my collection Daily Rhapsody (1971). It is the danger of being friends with a writer, your life becomes fodder for the mill of the writer's imagination. (Half of the stories in "Daily Rhapsody" were about people I knew at either ARCo ("Beach Boy", "Christmas Last", "Papier-Mache", "Most Admired Man in Rounke's Bar") or Lincoln Bank ("Fat Gal").

I do not know the final destinations of most of the core group, other than some apparently dropped their artistic dreams.

Jane (pictured right), who I often traveled up to Temple University with, for she lived in North Philly, may have defected to Cuba, but I really don't know. She was studying art and was active in the Black activist community. She was the one who introduced me to an editor in the Underground Press. Her boyfriend was a photographer in those same publications and by 1970 he had defected to Cuba. Jane kept urging me to not take day jobs, to trust my talent and live by it. Sometimes, perhaps more so, I wish I had listened to her.

Jim, who wanted us to start the band "Ethereal" became a Doctor of all things, perhaps the last thing any of us would have expected.

Joe (pictured left with my wife) and I had collaborated on a few pieces, but he was never fully committed to the kind of life the rest of us dreamed about. He was content to sit in Jim's basement or go to the Square with us. His number came up in the draft lottery and he ended up going to Vietnam, where he was wounded and heroic. After he came home he married and named his first child after me, stayed with ARCo and moved to Los Angeles when they moved their headquarters there.

I lost contact with him sometime after 1980.

I do not know what happened to Dot, the poet (pictured left), or to Michael and Maureen, the Actors (pictured right). I have googled the
names, but turned up nothing. If Michael and Maureen ever fulfilled their hopes of the Broadway Stage I do not know.

Part of the breakup lies with me. By 1970 I was getting published regularly and had also begun selling stories to the international pulps, "Magazine of Horror" and "Startling Mystery Stories". In a way I had moved beyond the group. The chatter in Jim's basement and around the Rittenhouse Fountain was always about some future time when we'd all be famous in our

fields. It was talk of projects we planned to do. It was talk and not doing. But I was doing. More and more I was writing and less and less going to these get-togethers to gossip and dream.

And then we moved from the city and after that the decade called the "sixties" had disappeared into the mid-seventies and everything changed and new eras began.

We lived during those Philadelphia days near Clark Park. Clark Park had the distinction that Charles Dickens once spoke there on his American tour. The Park was on the edge between the West Philadelphia communities and the Universities. During that decade it was decided to make the park a symbol of Love and Peace. It was the darling of the media for a while, but in the end it remained Clark Park and nothing more. (I based my story "Community Park" on it.)

Writers can't help but write and all the world becomes ink for their pen.

"Bible Series" on History: My View

The Bible is large. It is divided into 66 book, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. It was composed by many authors, all writing under the influence and guiding present of the Holy Spirit, which is to say God (Father, Son and Holy Ghost). It contains many stories, histories, poems and personalities.

Needless to say it is a complex and layered volume. It is filled with thrilling tales that make for great drama. These contain the gamet of human emotion and struggle as well as battles and adventures of epic proportion. Many of these have had great allure for film makers since the birth of movies. Films based on the Bible go back to at least "Passion Play" (a series of shorts that equaled about an hour in length) in 1903 and Vie et Passion du Christ in 1905. Most have presented a singular episode such as "Adam and Eve" (1912), "Noah's Ark" (1929), "The Ten Commandments" (1956) and "The Nativity Story"(2009). Few commercial filmmakers have dared tackle the Bible as a whole.

In the mid-1960s John Huston announced he was filming "The Bible" in its entirety. In 1966, "The Bible" was released, but with the subtitle, "In the Beginning..." It included several parts of Genesis, such as Noah (played by John Huston himself). The others were Cain and Able, The Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah and the life of Abraham. I remember the hype for this film and most of the attention in the media focused on the Creation sequence, most notably that the actors portraying Adam and Eve would be performing in the nude.

This probably boosted ticket sales. However, as spectacular as many of the scenes were and as perfect as were Adam and Eve's bodies, "The Bible" never got further than "In the Beginning". None of the promised sequels were ever made.

On Sunday evening, March 3, 2013 the History Channel showed the first in it's series, "The Bible". Produced by Rona Downey ("Touched By an Angel") and her husband Mark Burnett ("Survivor") it promises to cover Genesis through Revelation in five two-hour long shows. Television might be the best outlet to present the dramatization of the Bible, but I don't think 10 hours is enough time to do it. My main criticism of this endeavor is the feeling of being rushed.

A brief synopsis of the first episode would probably be helpful.

It began with the Arc being tossed upon raging waters. Inside the boat Noah is reciting the creation story to his family. He tells this from when God said, "Let there be light", touching on the creation of man, Cain killing Abel up to God's decision to drown the whole world because of man's evilness. These scenes flash by as he talks with little explanation. For instance, we see Cain strike down Abel, but receive no explanation of why Cain did this or what happens to Cain afterward. We basically jump from that first murder to pictures of people drowning in the flood.

This portion begins with the arc in the middle of the water and quickly ends there. There is no sending out of birds, no olive branch, no landing on dry land. We are literally left adrift at sea. Perhaps the most effective part of this sequence is giving us a picture of just how enormous the arc was.

We go quickly from the Flood to Abraham. We have parts of Abraham's life, including the destruction of Sodom, up to the moment when he is stopped by God in mid-knife of sacrificing his son. At this point we are transported to Egypt and Moses. The stories of Jacob and Joseph are simply ignored. We see young Moses (pictured right) being egged into a sword fight with Pharaoh's son (a passage I missed somehow in Exodus). Pharaoh breaks this up and then tells his daughter she better tell Moses he really isn't her son. Moses goes out, wanders about, kills an Egyptian overseer and flees while Joshua hides the body (another passage I missed, I guess - the part about Joshua hiding the body that is).

And suddenly it is 40 years later and there is a burning bush speaking to a much older Moses (pictured left with Aaron).  Now Moses is much quicker to agree to the idea he must save his people than he is in my Bible. In my Bible he argues with God that he isn't up to the task, especially since he can't speak well. In my Bible, God tells him his brother Aaron will do the speaking for him, but in this film Moses accepts the challenge pretty quickly and he doesn't meet his brother until he returns to Egypt, and Aaron doesn't speak for him at all. Moses also walks about with this odd smile on his face most of the time.

We get a flip-book sequence of plagues -- frogs hopping about, locust swarming, burning hailstones, etc, and after each a picture of Pharaoh yelling, "No!" The Passover is passed over rather quickly and then Moses is parting the Red Sea. Once across the Red Sea, with Pharaoh's dead army floating upon the water, we are told that Moses led his people to Mt. Sinai and there received these stone tables from God. Moses shows the tablets to Joshua, declares they now have The Law and tells Joshua to lead the Hebrews to the Promise Land. There is no coming off the mountain to an orgy and golden calf, no wandering about the desert for forty years, not even a representation of Moses' death, let alone any explanation of why Moses couldn't lead his people into Canaan himself.

We simply leap to Joshua and his followers standing and looking at a walled city. "We must take Jericho," Joshua says and then sends two spies to the city.

We go inside the walled city and this man stops a woman on the street. He calls her Rahab and his "little whore". It comes across as a bully of a man harassing a young woman. Other than his calling her a whore nothing establishes that she just may be one. She goes on her way and the man laughs.

Right after this we see the two spies scale the wall, drop to the other side to immediately be confronted by about a dozen Jerichoians, who they rather easily dispatch, although a couple flee crying, "The enemy is within the walls." The two spies run about and meet Rehab, who directs them to an escape route. One spy pulls this rope from about his waist and tells her to hang it on her window and she will be safe with their army attacks.

And at this point we are told continued next week.

I am out of breath telling it here, which to me is the biggest problem with the series. It is rushing to get everything in on schedule, but not fleshing out the sequences with what they really mean. I wish they had decided to continue beyond five weeks and ten hours and develop the characters and plot more fully.

However, the initial presentation had the highest ratings of the night, even in the coveted 18-34 age group. It not only out rated everything on the networks, but was the highest rated show on cable this year so far. We will see if these ratings hold up through the next episodes. My hope is they do and it makes people curious enough to read the Bible for the full story or drives them to approach people of faith for more explanation.

There is some license taken, but perhaps not of such import to quibble. For instance, we all ready mentioned that Moses was much quicker to accept God's request than was so in Scripture. Another example was when Abraham was stopped from sacrificing Isaac. Scripture tells us God supplied a sacrifice, a ram that had its horns caught in a bush. In this film it was a lamb with its hind leg caught. I also don't know if the Angels sent to Sodom wore shining armor and were expert in martial arts style sword fighting.


I would mention that Rona Downing is playing the Virgin Mary. I don't know why there wasn't a younger actress hired to play this part at the birth of Christ. Rona Downing is 52 years old. She might pass for Mary at the Crucifixion when she would have been a woman in her mid-to-late forties (pictured right), but she does not look as convincing as the teenage girl who God chose to be the mother of Jesus (pictured left).

We saw they used a younger actor to portray the young Moses, so why not a younger actress to portray the girl Mary?

Nonetheless, I look forward to Part Two and I hope I have not been too picky in my comments about Part One. We need more shows that would portray the Bible stories in a truthful way. Still, we also need explanations of why these things were included in Scripture. Can we easily see how these pointed to the future Christ in this film?

It is also funny to me that Rona Downing and Mark Burnett have written a novelization of the series. Hopefully in this the meanings are explained, but at the same time I wonder why do we need a novelization when we already have the Bible and have it abundantly in many fine translations?

First Set of Answers to :"Jolly Old BritCom Fun.

I have loved British Comedy series for a long time, going back to first seeing "Is There a Doctor in the House", Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "Good Neighbors".

Ah, "Good Neighbors" as it was know here and

The Good Life (1975-1978) in Britain, remains one of my favorites. I could identify with Tom Good (Richard Briers) and his wife as they attempted to live a self-sufficient life in the middle of the suburbs. Tom's neighbor and best friend, Jeremy "Jerry" Leadbetter was played by Paul Eddington. Jerry's prissy wife, Margo Sturgess Leadbetter was played by the then Queen of British Sitcoms, Penelope Keith, who starred in "To the Manor Born" as well as others. I had a crush (don't tell my wife, actually my wife knows this) on the Barbara Good character, played by the lovely Felicity Kendal (pictured right). Can you blame me? I'm only human.

Anyway, on to the matter at hand. I introduced my family to "Are You being Served?" (1972-1985) many years ago now and then we got hooked on "Keeping Up Appearances" (1990-1995)  in the last decade or so. We continue to watch the episodes of these two shows over and over again. Both were pretty successful on American TV, especially "Are You Being Served", which even spawned an America Clone in 1979 on CBS called "Beane's of Boston. The clone only lasted that one season. The British original was followed with a sequel in 1992 that featured most of the surviving original cast called "Grace & Favour" ("Are You being Served Again?" in America). The cast of "Grace & Favour" is the picture at the top of this post. (Oh, the photo on the left is Felicity Kendal again. I told you I had a crush on here.)

So the other day I thought it would be fun to put up the faces of most of the cast members of these two shows before they were in those shows and let people guess who was who. (Boy, was that ever a long sentence!)

Today I am giving the identities of 11 of those 33 actors I showed. These are the last 11 in that post. I will identify 11 more tomorrow and then the top 11 the day after that, assuming I keep my schedule. Here are the bottom (just in how they appeared, not necessarily in importance) 11:

Vivienne Johnson (born 1959) who played Old Mr. Grace's nurse in many episodes of "Are You being Served?". I don't know if the nurse ever had a name. I think in Miss Sexy Voice she might have, which is where the still of her speaking in the microphone came from.





Nicholas Smith who played the middle manager of the department, Mr. Cuthbert Rumbolt. His character was often referred to as "Old Jug Ears", for obvious reasons, a characteristic that made finding a photo not so easily identifiable difficult. I also couldn't seem to find a picture of Nicholas Smith as a young man. The one I used was more recent as he appeared for charity somewhere. Nicholas was also in "Grace & favour" and is still alive. He was born in 1934, so is somewhere around 79 years old this year.

The great Mollie Sugden who portrayed the snippy Mrs. Betty Slocombe in "Are You Being Served?" She was often the butt of  Mr. Lucas' quips as well as much slapstick. You never knew what color her hair would be from episode to episode. Mrs. Slocombes full name was Mary Elizabeth Jennifer Rachel Abergavenny Slocumbe nee Yiddell. Mollie Sugden was born in 1922 and died in 2009 at age 86, just short of her 87 birthday.


Larry (Lawrence) Martyn, played the maintenance man, Mr. Mash during the first three seasons of "Are You being Served?" he left the series because he was committed to another show, "Spring and Autumn". He appeared in a number of TV Shows, including "Dad's Army" and "On the Buses". He had small parts in two of the "Carry On" films as well.  Born in 1934, he died in 1994 at age 60. He left behind a wife and two daughters. I was unable to find the cause of death.

James Heyter was born in India and died in Spain at age 75 (1907-1983).  His best known film roles were as Friar Tuck in the “Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men” and as “Samuel Pickwick in “The Pickwick Papers”, both in 1952.  His film career stretched from 1938 through 1972.  He starred in what is considered the first British Sitcom, “Pinwright’s Progress” (1946) he played one of the several Senior Salesmen in Men’s Ware after the death of Arthur Brough, who played Mr. Grainer. Heyter’s character was Percival Tebbs. He only appeared in six episodes before leaving to honor his contract to Mr. Kipling snack food ads. The snack food company felt "Are You Being Served?" was not a suitable image for their products.

 Another of the featured players in "Are You being Served?" was Frank Thornton, who portrayed the snobbish and vain Captain Stephen Peacock, floorwalker extraordinaire. He continued this role in "Grace & Favour". After this he starred in "Last of the Summer Wine", a show that featured many of the veteran British sitcom stars in their elder years. Thornton had a long and distinguished career as an actor. Born in 1921, he apparently retired from acting in 2010. He has been married to Beryl Jane Margaret Evans since June 1945, over 67 years.

 I wondered if due to the ears people might mistake this actor as Nicholas Smith. Actually it is another "Are You being Served?" original cast members, Arthur Brough, the grumpy Mr. Ernest Grainger, who resented the Ladies Department sharing the floor. Arthur Brough (birth name Frederick Arthur Baker) was born in 1905. As a young man he wished to be a teacher, but couldn't get a job, so joined a Solicitor's  (Lawyer's) office. This was too boring for him so he went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and later joined a Shakespearean Troop. Eventually, he formed his own acting group, The Arthur Brough Players. He was in the Royal Navy during World War II and was involved with the evacuation at Dunkerk (1940). At the end of the fifth season of "Are You Being Served?" his wife of 50 years, Elizabeth died (1978). Arthur died two months later at the age of 73.

 Alfie Bass (real name Abraham Basalinsky) was born in London to Jewish parents that had fled persecution in their homeland of Russia. After dropping out of school at 14 he worked as a ttailor’s apprentice, messenger boy and shop-window display fitter. Two of those early jobs probably gave him some background for his role as Harry Goldberg, the new Senior of the Men’s Department at Grace Brothers on “Are You Being Served?” Alfie first entered acting in the 1930s at the Unity Theatre in London. I remember him well from one of my favorite films, “The Lavender Hill Gang, with Alex Guinness. He was born in 1916 and died in 1987 of a heart attack at age 71. (I hate when these people die around my own age.)

"Ah, the delightful Mrs. Bucket," was his declaration. For some reason The Major, played by Peter Cellier couldn't keep his hands off of Hyacinth Bucket in "Keeping Up Appearances, but then he also liked the Governor's wife, who "was built to last."

Cellier’s best known role was probably the character Sir Frank Gordon in the BritComs “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minister” He had a long career on stage, films and in TV.  He had a continuing role throughout the “Keeping Up Appearances” series as the very pompous Major, much admired by Mrs. Bucket, despite his constant attempts to seduce her. He was born into a family of actors in 1928. He still continues to appear in TV productions.

Josephine Tewson was born in 1939. Like Arthur Brough, she also attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. She became a comedy performer appearing on various radio and TV shows. I first recall seeing her in some TV ads several years ago. Josephine was a cousin of the “Are You Being Served?” actor John Inman and she starred with him in a brief sitcom called, “Odd man Out”. She is best known for playing the long-suffering neighbor, Elizabeth Warden, of Hyacinth Bucket on “Keeping Up Appearances”, where she is forced into very uncomfortable, and usually disastrous and hilarious, coffee breaks with Hyacinth. She also is known for her role of Miss Davenport in another very nice BritCom called “Last of the Summer Wine”, a show you will remember stared Frank Thornton. I always found Josephine attractive, which may seem strange to some. I think it was the eyes and smile and the warmth of the character she played. She is still actively acting at age 73.

Judy Cornwell was born in 1940 and moved to Australia after growing up in Britain. She returned to Britain as a professional dancer and comedienne in her teens. She has had a long career on Tv and in films. She appeared as Mrs. Claus in “Santa Claus, the Movie” and has had her own TV comedy series, “Moody and Pegg”. She also spend several seasons with the Royal Shakespearean Company. Her most famous role was playing Daisy, the puppy-like wife of Onslow on “Keeping Up Appearances.”

Beside her acting career, she is a writer. She has published several novels, Cow and Cow Parsley, Fishcakes at the Ritz, The Seventh Sunrise, Fear and Favour and her autobiography, Adventures of a Jelly Baby. I’ve tried to spot if one of her books is among those she is often shown reading in bed on “Keeping Up Apperances”.

Just Some Jolly Old BritCom Fun

Two of the most popular of the BritComs to play on American television were Are You being Served? and Keeping Up Appearances.  Below are most of the casts of these two shows, but from a different period of their lives. Can you identify the actor and the roll they played in these Britcoms?

The man in the picture on the right, not the woman.