Re: 1939...

["'A. Joseph Ross'" <lawyer@world.std.com>]

On Sun, 11 Oct 1998, Robert Jackson wrote:

> Speaking of "Space Patrol" -- it was the scene where the captain of
> space patrol was required to hold with his bare hands the two ends of a
> huge power cable, joining them together, which he knew would burn his
> hands, which it did - but, it HAD to be done! Otherwise, they would
> never have been able to re-start the rocket motors and remove themselves
> from harm's way...

Ah, I remember that one!  I was 9 or 10 years old at the time, and I was
very much affected by that, particularly Commander Corry's determination
and bravery in holding the cable together, so that the ship could be
gotten off of a collision course with an asteroid.  As I recall, I
re-enacted that scene a number of times at my own spaceship controls (The
Space Patrol rocket cockpit, for which I sent away a tracing of the label
of a Nestle's Everready Cocoa can.  I always wondered what they did with
all those tracings!).
 
> On the North Shore one could watch "ATOM SQUAD" on TV in the afternoons
> after school in the 50s.  It was a wonderous time to be a kid...UFO
> reports in the news, aliens attacking the earth in the theaters, then
> the launch of the Russian's Sputnik around 1957 which the media went
> crazy over...they had us all standing in our backyards at 4:30 in the
> morning waiting for that streak of light to cross the sky.

Not just on the North Shore.  It was on channel 4 at 5:00.  After we moved
to Albany, I couldn't watch Atom Squad any more because WRGB didn't carry
it.  I remember one day when Atom Squad was mentioned in passing on Howdy
Doody, and I realized that other kids watching in Albany wouldn't know
what they were talking about.
 
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 A. Joseph Ross, J.D.                                         617.367.0468
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