1978 is really weird.
A big part of The Heath Post Era for me has been revisiting the years of my childhood. Versions of these posts started in May 2011. I think this was the first one, about 1975 and '74, from May 2011. By August 2011, I was starting to get pretty serious about thinking about 1974. Then a couple of months after that, I knew this whole deal was not just going to be a summer lark and figured out I was going to follow 1975 all through 2012. And then in 2013 I reset the whole clock to my birth year, 1968, and that's pretty much how things have been going ever since. There was a short period when I decided to try to flip my fake year where I'd live the old football and Christmas seasons in the first half of the real year, but that didn't take. And there was one fake year that I did twice in a row because I was disappointed in my experience the first time through--1976, I think. But, by and large, since 2011, I've been pretty consistently and increasingly systematically exploring the first years of my life again in the background of my current year.
And let me tell you that, man, I have loved it! I don't post about it nearly as much as I used to because at different points my hobby has veered on becoming a little too consuming. I'm one of those big-appetites people who have to put governors around a lot of my passions because I have a real tendency toward all sorts of giant benders that are no good for anyone. So in the same way that I watch sports mostly on mute and mostly stop myself at one pop, I also have limited my HPing about the fake year I also live in. But I'm still in the fake year almost every day. And when I do miss a day because of real-year life, I almost always go back and check out the fake day I missed.
Anyway, what I want to say is 1978 is really weird. I know of what I speak, and what I'm saying is 1978 is really weird.
You don't have to read all of that. The upshot is that the A's--in the season they were supposed to now be playing in Denver, in a season a lot of people expected them to finish last in the American League West (behind even the Mariners)--are in first place, and the manager ups and quits. Weird.
I do think you'll want to at least take the time to check out these two paragraphs, though ...
See what I'm saying? Really weird.
The best part of The Carpenters ... Space Encounters, a special which aired on Channel 3 on May 17, 1978, is when John Davidson beams down from the alien spaceship he is piloting with Suzanne Somers and confronts the Carpenters (and Charlie Callas) in a music studio. The aliens and humans connect, as do the aliens and humans in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, by playing music to one another. Except John Davidson and Richard Carpenter play "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" back and forth to each other.
ReplyDeleteIt's funnier than it sounds.
NHL Update: The Montreal Canadiens on May 25 finish off a four-games-to-two win over the Boston Bruins for their third-straight and 21st-overall Stanley Cup. "We Are the Champions" pours forth from the Boston Garden as the visitors celebrate, and it makes me wonder what was the first arena to rock the Queen single released in October 1977. Boston Garden on Thursday evening, May 25, 1978, was at least close.
ReplyDeleteNBA Update: The Washington Bullets on May 25 evened the NBA Finals at a game apiece with a home-court win over the Seattle Supersonics. The game does not appear to be available on YouTube, but I see from the boxscore that Elvin Hayes got 22 shots for Washington. This was the focus after the fall-from-way-ahead Game 1 loss in Seattle--Hayes complained that not enough of the Washington offense went through him, and, indeed, Rick Barry had harped on this point throughout the fourth quarter of the Channel 12 broadcast. Brent Musburger noted in the final minute that Hayes's last field-goal attempt had come with more than eight minutes to play in the quarter. Anyway, things appear to have gotten straightened out with the Bullets, who claim their first-ever NBA Finals victory after nine straight losses (sweeps by the Bucks in 1971 and Barry's Warriors in 1975 and then the Supersonics' Game 1 win Sunday).
ReplyDeleteBy the way, last 1978 night's game aired at 8 p.m. on Channel 12. There's so much noting about tape-delay NBA broadcasts of playoff games in the pre-Magic/Bird era that one might think nothing was shown live. Sunday-afternoon Game 1 and Thursday-evening Game 2 in 1978 were. I think one of the things that loosely contributes to this storytelling is that CBS at some point either this season or last started showing a 10:30 p.m. Central Friday game (even during the regular season), but it has appeared to me that most of those were also live, West Coast games (often somebody at Lakers).
Delete1978 was a weird time. I think all the adults knew how weird it was. We didn't know, because this was the only world we had known.
ReplyDeleteThe Indianapolis 500 is thrilling, and I'm not going to feel guilty for focusing on this instead of Game 3 of the NBA Finals from my YouTube playlist for May 28, 1978. Per Brent Musburger, even the father of Bullets small forward Kevin Grevey elected to go to Indianapolis instead of attending his son's game in Landover, Maryland, on this Sunday before Memorial Day.
ReplyDeleteMy dad's favorite was A.J. Foyt. Mine was Mario Andretti (and, starting this year, in his rookie appearance at Indianapolis, Rick Mears).
ReplyDeleteBy 1978, my dad had started supplementing his pottery income with doing some contract work in commercial-construction estimating. Most of the work he did was for a company in Centralia, Illinois, and Dad would frequently travel there for a week or so of especially hot-and-heavy work around a bid. The company would put him up at a hotel there--I think it was a Days Inn--and Dad would bring home to me the extra little soap bars that the maids would leave in his room. They were tiny rectangles, wrapped in slicky white paper with the hotel logo on one side and blank on the other. On that blank side, I'd write the name of an Indianapolis 500 driver and his automobile number. Plus, the weight made the little soaps perfect for pushing on the indoor/outdoor-ish carpet in one room of our house. And if a soap car got into too many collisions or had a particularly violent wreck, the little soap inside would start to break apart and release a little puff of soap dust from a gap in a folded-paper corner with each subsequent brush with another car or the wall. Amazingly cool.
ReplyDeleteI was already 9 by the time of the 1978 Indianapolis 500, and it feels like I recreated the next three or five Indianapolis 500s with the little soaps. That would put me solidly old enough that some of the boys my age were starting to go on drop-off dates with girls at Kingsway Skateland or Kentucky Oaks Mall, and that seems about right.
Salt Walther goes absolutely scorched freaking earth on his chief mechanic. I'll be interested to see if ABC gives Tommy Smith the chance to give his side of the story.
ReplyDeleteStandings about midway through Channel 3’s telecast:
ReplyDelete1. Danny Ongais, No. 25
2. Tom Sneva, No. 1
3. Al Unser, No. 2
4. Gordon Johncock, No. 20
5. Bobby Unser, No. 48
I'm pretty sure that back then, they would show the Indy 500 on tape delay at night. I think that you could only get the live broadcast on the radio.
DeleteThe combination of Jim McKay's and Jackie Stewart's voices ... wow.
ReplyDeleteEzekiel "Danny" Ongais was born May 21, 1942, in Kahului, Hawaii. Per Wikipedia, he is the only Hawaiian-born driver to have ever competed in the Indianapolis 500. In ABC's pre-taped "Up Close and Personal" segment, Ongais says he likes to swim and build model airplanes in his spare time.
ReplyDeleteThe soundtrack for the A.J. Foyt "Up Close and Personal" segment, by the way, is Chuck Mangione's big hit, "Feels So Good," which feels to me like about the least A.J. Foyt song in the history of the world.
ReplyDeleteThat Chuck Mangione record was among my nine-or-whatever-for-a-penny selections the first time I joined one of those RCA or Columbia House record clubs. I'm disappointed I didn't keep it, because I've become a big "Maui-Waui" fan over the years.
Danny Ongais is having radio problems, and now Albert "Al" Unser has moved into the lead. Al Unser, who, like Ongais, apparently was not given a middle name, was born May 29, 1939, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was the youngest of four Unser brothers, three of whom raced the Indianapolis 500. Says super Wikipedia: "His mother Mary 'Mom' Unser became a popular a fixture at the track. Each year she treated the participants to a chili cookout in the garage area. She died on December 18, 1975."
ReplyDeleteNow with about 20 minutes to go in this YouTube video:
ReplyDelete1. Al Unser, No. 2
2. Danny Ongais, No. 25
3. Tom Sneva, No. 1
4. Wally Dallenbach, No. 6
5. Johnny Rutherford, No. 4
A.J. Foyt is down three laps to the leaders. I don't know where Mario Andretti is. Whenever I would mention that Mario Andretti was my favorite, Dad would quickly dismiss him, saying that Andretti probably had the fastest car in the field but would blow out his engine sooner or later. Maybe that happened today.
ReplyDeleteSmoke is pouring out of No. 25 car (not soap dust), so Danny Ongais is out.
ReplyDeleteSo our new second-place racer is Thomas Edsol Sneva, born June 1, 1948, in Spokane, Washington. Super Wikipedia: “Sneva was an ace in mathematics, and graduated from Eastern Washington State College in nearby Cheney with an education degree. He became a math teacher in a school district outside of Spokane city limits, and drove the school bus."
ReplyDeleteABC's "Up Close and Personal" on Al and Bobby Unser features the brothers' homes and lives in the snowy Rocky Mountains community of Chama, New Mexico. I'd never heard of it. It's featured in the third Indiana Jones.
ReplyDeleteOnly Al Unser and Tom Sneva are on the lead lap, and Unser has a 14-second lead on Sneva.
ReplyDeleteJackie Stewart notes that he had almost a two-lap lead with eight laps to go when his car went out of commission in his first Indianapolis 500. "That was a very expensive experience. Actually, I would say it would be expensive for an American--for a Scotsman, it was disastrous."
ReplyDeleteHe is referring to the 1966 Indianapolis 500.
DeleteAl Unser wins. That's three Indianapolis 500 victories for him. He's one of four drivers to win the race at least three times, and only one of those guys has won it four times. That guy is A.J. Foyt.
ReplyDeleteJanet Guthrie will finish eighth or ninth, depending on how the officials decide on some driver's penalty. She reveals to ABC that she literally drove with one hand after recently breaking a wrist.
ReplyDeleteRest in peace, Tommy Smith, who apparently did not get his say on national TV. "Tom left racing in the 1970’s and moved to Detroit, Michigan, supervising a foundry operation. Tom married Arlene Tingelstad on March 17, 1984 in Aiken, South Carolina. He restored antique autos, later moving to Rowland Heights, CA. In his 'semi-retirement' he purchased, and restored a beautiful Piper Comanche. He owned and operated a pest control business, which he sold prior to moving to Sagle, Idaho in 2002. He enjoyed fishing, golfing, reading and his daschunds."
ReplyDeleteCBS, incidentally, kept the Game 3 NBA Finals viewers updated on proceedings in Indianapolis. Late in the first half, with Seattle leading, 44-38, at Washington and the Supersonics inbounding the ball, CBS superimposed on the screen the top five racers after 140 laps (Unser over Ongais).
ReplyDeleteI don't remember hearing about this: "Died: Paul Lambert, 43, American college basketball coach for Southern Illinois University, was killed in a fire at the Airport Holiday Inn motel in Columbus, Georgia, two months after being hired to be the head coach of Auburn University's men's basketball team, and six months before the start of the 1978-1979 college basketball season."
ReplyDeleteAs a result, Auburn hired Sonny Smith, who had been coaching at E. Tennessee St.
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