Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Golden Plunger Awards (18 page)

Statements like that, plus Bacall’s insistence on only taking on scripts she approved of, gave her the reputation of being “difficult.” But she felt—after being immediately accepted by the public—that she didn’t have to prove anything to anyone . . . except herself. That became a lot harder after Bogart died from throat cancer in 1957. (At the funeral, Bacall placed a whistle in Bogie’s coffin.) Devastated by the loss of her husband, Bacall, now a 33-year-old single mother with two children, took on fewer film roles, not finding them as much fun as before. A brief romance with Frank Sinatra didn’t work out, and Bacall was tired of being a “movie star.”

It always came back to acting, the only constant in her professional life. But Bacall wanted more out of it than she was getting. “I never even thought I’d be in movies,” she recently admitted. “I only wanted to be on stage. I wanted to see my name in lights. I wanted to take that curtain call.”

So Bacall moved back to New York and focused her talents on Broadway, where she became one of the theater world’s biggest attractions. She fell in love with actor Jason Robards and married him in 1960, only to file for divorce in 1969 due to his excessive drinking. Bacall has remained happily
un
married ever since. “If you want a good marriage, you must pay attention to that. If you want to be independent, go ahead. You can’t have it all.”

Again, she focused on acting, earning Tony Awards for the musical
Applause
in 1970 (based on the 1950 film
All About Eve
, which starred Bette Davis), and for
Woman of the Year
in 1981. In that time, Bacall still acted in the occasional movie, including John Wayne’s last film,
The Shootist
, in 1976. Even though the two were political opposites, they became close friends.

Her days as a sex symbol long behind her, Bacall was able to rest her sultry speaking voice. Had she kept at it, she could have caused
severe damage. The medical field even named a vocal “misuse” disorder after the affliction called “Bogart-Bacall syndrome” (BBS). Technically, it’s a form of muscle tension dysphonia. Actors as well as singers can suffer from BBS after years of speaking or singing in a lower register than their natural voice. Thankfully, Bacall caught it in time, never suffering the full effect of the disorder named for her. Now, she only turns on the huskiness if the role requires it.

Over the last 25 years, Bacall has taken on mostly smaller, arty roles. And even now, her voice is still one of her greatest attributes: Bacall’s done voice-over work for animated films such as
Howl’s Moving Castle
(2004), where she played an evil witch, and
Firedog
(2005), where she played a cat. On the small screen, she has appeared on
Chicago Hope
and
The Sopranos
. Her recent big-screen credits include
Dogville
(2003) and
Birth
(2004), two independent films she starred in with Nicole Kidman.

So what does the outspoken movie star from Hollywood’s Golden Age have to say about outspoken movie stars of today? “We live in an age of mediocrity,” she says. “Stars today are not the same stature as Bogie, James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, and Jimmy Stewart.” She calls most of today’s major films “artless” and takes exception with overrated movie stars, especially Kidman’s ex-husband. “When you talk about a great actor, you’re not talking about Tom Cruise. His whole behavior is so shocking. It’s inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially.”

But when Bacall looks back at her own life, she realizes she has little to complain about. “Although I beef about a lot of things, I think I’ve been extremely lucky.” And though she’s never won an Oscar, Bacall did win a Golden Globe Award for her role in 1996’s
The Mirror Has Two Faces
. She also received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1997, and two years later was named one of the “25 Most Significant Female Movie Stars in History” by the American Film Institute. But at 83 years old, and with nearly 40 films to her credit, Bacall just wants to keep on acting. “I am still working, I’ve never stopped and, while my health holds out, I won’t stop.”

A Host of Wonderful, Missing Things

Times keep changing, and simple little things we take for granted go the way of the Studebaker and bell bottoms—but that doesn’t mean we have to forget them. Here’s Uncle John’s salute to a few of our favorite (nearly) forgotten things:

Crystal radios:
When Uncle John was a kid, every mechanically inclined child, and many who were not, got a crystal radio kit. It was a very simple radio that you had to assemble yourself. And through the seeming magic of a tiny quartz crystal—it didn’t plug in and had no batteries—it received radio signals that you could listen to through earphones. He still doesn’t know how they worked . . . maybe they
were
magic.

Network sign-offs:
In a slower and saner world, there were no all-night TV stations, so networks would go off the air around midnight with their own unique “sign-off”: often just a quick “thank you” message from the staff along with a playing of the “Star Spangled Banner,” but sometimes they aired a several-minutes-long, specially made, “arty” public service announcement with a witty and informative message. They’re almost completely nonexistent today, and have been since cable TV took off in the 1980s.

Blank checks:
Tell the kids about this one and they won’t believe you: In the old days stores had “counter checks” from the local bank at their checkout counters. They were blank checks that had the bank’s name and address printed on them, along with a place for a date, the payee, dollar amount, and your signature. If you had an account at that bank, you could use them to pay for your items.
Not surprisingly, less-than-honest people—who didn’t have accounts—figured out that they could fill in any name they wanted and get free stuff. Counter checks were history by the 1970s. (We’re surprised they lasted that long.)

Wild Kingdom
with Marlin Perkins:
Every Sunday, we’d gather round the TV and watch Marlin—and his buddy Jim—whiz across a marsh on their fan-driven boat, and we’d learn about exotic animals like lions, tigers, and elephants. Who knew those animals lived in marshes? (Maybe we just remember it wrong.)

Watches that tick:
Uncle John can’t remember the last time he saw someone wearing a watch with mechanical parts that you could hold up to your ear to listen to that tiny, magical “tick tick tick . . . ” It brings back memories of grandma and grandpa just thinking about it.

House calls:
Someone in your family is sick. You’re worried but an emergency room visit would be overreacting and too expensive, so you make a call and a doctor comes to your house. This was common until the late 1960s, when insurance companies stopped making it financially viable for physicians. The practice has been making a small comeback recently, due to a change in Medicare law—but not enough for us!

Hand-written letters:
The ease and speed of e-mail is truly a wonder, and we’re glad we have it. But the fact that it has nearly killed the ancient art of writing, by hand, a lengthy letter to a friend or family member—well, it’s just a shame.

Rolling down the window
by hand
:
Looking back, you have to wonder what genius automotive designer thought, “You know what we oughta do? We oughta make electronic controls for rolling windows up and down . . . because doing it by hand is just so gosh-darned hard!” Thanks to that person you have a much better chance of not being able to roll the windows up or down
at all
—because the car’s electronics have gone haywire.

“Choking” the engine:
In the old days, driving a car was an interactive experience. In addition to rolling down the windows by hand, you had to pull out a knob on the dashboard before you could start the engine. This controlled a flap that limited the amount of air entering the carburetor (“choking” it), making for a
“richer,” more fuel-laden, combustible mix—which cold engines need. As the car warmed up you pushed the knob in until it was fully open again. Chokes have been automatic on virtually all engines with carburetors since the 1970s, and today’s more common fuel-injected models have automatic equivalents.

Daisy BB guns:
Uncle John remembers getting his first “official Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time”—just like Ralphie in
A Christmas Story.
Ah, but those were more innocent times, and though Daisy Outdoor Products still exists and you can still get a BB gun today—they’re not nearly as popular as they used to be. (Because, of course, those things could put somebody’s eye out, for goodness’ sake!)

Hank Aaron as Home Run King:
Henry Aaron was a 6-foot tall, 180-pound baseball player—for just about his entire 22-year career. Barry Bonds was a 6-foot tall, 185-pound player . . . when he entered the league in 1986, and for about 10 more years. But between 1996 and 2001, the year he set the record for most HRs in a season with 73, he ballooned from 190 up to 228 (listed) pounds. (And that was just his head!) He only broke Aaron’s career record of 755 in 2007, we know, but we miss the simple and untarnished legacy of Hammerin’ Hank already.

Straight razors:
We really don’t know why we miss them—but we do. They’re just cool.

The Concorde SST:
Like you, we had dreams of someday becoming insanely wealthy and renting a Concorde supersonic transport jet for a wild party with a few hundred of our best friends, during which we would fly back and forth from Paris to Las Vegas six times in one day for no good reason whatsoever. Alas, supersonic transport isn’t economically viable, and the last Concorde flight landed in 2003. One more dream down the toilet.

Drive-in theaters:
Huge movie screens . . . outside . . . with parking lots in front of them . . . that you drove your car into . . . and made out with your sweetie while Elvis and Annette Funicello did the twist. Does life get any better than that? You can still find a few of these across the United States, but most of them are just nostalgia . . . along with Annette and the twist.

Daylight Saving Time

Daylight Saving Time (note: it’s “Saving,” not “Savings”) has been with America in one form or another for roughly a century. It was first used in 1918 and 1919, during World War I, to help conserve energy for the war effort (and it ended six months after the war, because it was so unpopular). The government rolled it out again during World War II, but that time around, time never fell back—the country stayed an hour ahead until the war ended.

After 1945, Daylight Saving Time became a free-for-all. Some states observed it, some didn’t. It was confusing all around, until Congress decided to make things official with the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which decreed that from the first Sunday in April until the last Sunday in October the clocks would move forward one hour—unless a state didn’t want to participate, which was fine. Parts of Indiana, and Arizona, and Hawaii decided not to change their clocks, but the rest of the country adopted the rule.

Americans aren’t alone in recognizing Daylight Saving Time. From Canada to the European Union to Central America to Africa to the Middle East, countries and entire regions all over the world put their citizens through it. Even scientific stations in Antarctica get in on the Daylight Saving Time action. (There are too many participating countries to list here, but if you’re interested, check them all out at
worldtimezone.com/daylight.htm
.)

Most people think that Daylight Saving Time began to help farmers. Not true. In fact, after World War I, farmers were the biggest opponents of Daylight Saving Time. (They called for the country to return to “God’s time.”) People have been complaining about it ever since, and in 2005, Congress responded, revising the bill so that Daylight Saving Time would be extended to begin in mid-March and end in mid-November, giving everyone just a little more light before and after the long winter.

Those who truly hate Daylight Saving Time continue to place blame. So if you really want to take out your frustration on someone, blame Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin was living in Paris as an ambassador in 1784 when he pitched a time-saving idea in a letter he wrote to a friend, who was the editor of
Journal de Paris
. In the letter, Franklin explained how much less oil would be needed to fuel lamps if the time were changed so people actually awoke with the sun. (Franklin was kidding. He had no intention of living that way himself. He liked to play chess well into the night and sleep until noon.) Even though his letter was written in jest, Franklin’s friend published it under the title “An Economical Project.”

Frugal people were intrigued by the suggestion for saving candles, and the idea remained part of governmental discussions for more than 100 years. Then in 1905, British builder William Willett put forth a similar idea—he thought that people were wasting their time sleeping away the early morning hours of summer when they could be out enjoying themselves. Willett tried to get a clock-changing idea recognized by the British parliament, but it wasn’t popular. When changing the time showed promise as a way to help economies during the expensive time of World War I, however, countries around the world got on board—first the Germans, then the British, and then the Americans.