Classic Art: Leading Ladies Return!

Well, we are shocked. We did a piece on these sexy, gorgeous ladies who were often without scruples and sometimes with questionable morals, and readers wanted more! Well, we got ’em.
“The Lifeguard and the Lady”

The Lifeguard and the Lady From August 27, 1955
“The Lifeguard and the Lady”
From August 27, 1955

This luscious illustration from a 1955 story called “The Lifeguard and the Lady” was by artist Ben Stahl. Oh, my—behind those wholesome Saturday Evening Post covers lurked some juicy stories.

“I’ll Never Love Again”

 “I’ll Never Love Again” From February 27, 1954
“I’ll Never Love Again”
From February 27, 1954

This 1954 illustration was by Post cover artist Coby Whitmore and was accompanied by a real soap-opera caption: “’I’m afraid,’ she whispered, ‘it meant too much one time. I can’t let it happen again—ever, ever.’” (Does anyone else hear organ music?) The title of the tear-jerker story by Michael Foster: “I’ll Never Love Again.”

“A Wife for the Doctor”

“A Wife for the Doctor” From March 3, 1951
“A Wife for the Doctor”
From March 3, 1951

“Since old Doctor West died, there had been no doctor at all in Clayton,” the 1951 story “A Wife for the Doctor” by Baird Hill states. The whole town agreed this was quite a pickle indeed, since “the uppity doctors” from a nearby burg had to be called in and “charged seven-fifty for the trip and acted as if were a favor besides.” The caption on this Roy Price illustration is: “Sandra entered. She and Julie looked at each other and at the doctor.” Oh, dear. One hopes medical attention is not required.

“The Artful Bride”

“The Artful Bride” From August 27, 1949
“The Artful Bride”
From August 27, 1949

“Is she pliant, submissive, eager to please?” went the tagline to the 1949 story, “The Artful Bride” by Jay Wilson. “Then watch out—the lady’s about to get her own way.” This is another illustration by cover artist Coby Whitmore. The caption: “Doris sat down on his lap and closed her eyes—perhaps in order to hide the feline, hungry look.” Okay, so the MANipulative female isn’t politically correct these days… but she sure is fun!

“The Passenger Hated Redheads”

“The Passenger Hated Redheads” From August 13, 1949
“The Passenger Hated Redheads”
From August 13, 1949

“He knew how to handle the stewardess. ‘Go tend to your trays,’ he said.” Ooooh. That’s enough to make a gal say “I quit,” grab a couple of brews, and scuttle down the emergency chute. I really like the guy in the middle trying to hide and NOT get caught in the middle. Artist Joe De Mers did many of our leading lady illustrations. The story was Nord Riley’s “The Passenger Hated Redheads” from 1949. Methinks he’s simply hiding an overwhelming attraction for the lovely lady.

“Bait for a Bachelor”

“Bait for a Bachelor” From March 1, 1958
“Bait for a Bachelor”
From March 1, 1958

In March of 1958, directly across from an article by Eleanor Roosevelt (“My Round-the-World Adventures”) was a story called “Bait for a Bachelor.” “He was fair game,” went the tagline, “and he seemed only too willing to play right into her hands.” The illustration by artist Ken Davies bore the caption, “‘I’ll be by at six,’ he said in a low tone. ‘Grace smiled with satisfaction.’” What ever did Mrs. Roosevelt think?

By the way, prints of our leading ladies are available at curtispublishing.com. Here’s how one co-worker has decorated her office with our ladies:

Alternatives for Treating Sleep Apnea

If you don’t have it, you most likely know one of the millions of people with sleep apnea, the condition that disrupts breathing and most often occurs when something in the throat is “too big, too floppy, or relaxes too much” during sleep, says Dr. Tod Huntley, a surgeon and researcher with St. Vincent Health in Indiana. Mask therapy known as continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) is indeed the gold standard for treating for sleep apnea. But new technology may be a real game-changer in coming years for the nearly 50 percent of patients who can’t—or won’t—wear the mask.

CPAP therapy “works wonderfully” to keep air flowing to the lungs, the expert continues. “But it’s no better than a coin toss as to whether someone will use it as recommended or end up with a very expensive paperweight. That’s why we are doing all this research: to find the best, safest, and least painful solutions.”

The research that Dr. Huntley is referring to currently centers on two new ways to keep the airway open: a pacemaker-like device called the hypoglossal nerve stimulator that moves the tongue slightly forward with each breath during sleep and is about “two years from primetime”, and robotic surgery to precisely shave away extra tissue that gained FDA approval in December 2010. Here’s more about promising therapies.

Implanted Pacing Device

“As a surgeon, I want to treat sleep apnea effectively and also compassionately,” says Dr. Huntley. “Hypoglossal nerve stimulation (HNS) is exciting to me because, unlike the surgeries we do now for sleep apnea, it’s potentially an outpatient procedure, it causes minimal pain, and it offers long-term effectiveness.”

Similar to the way cardiac pacemakers stimulate the heart muscle, HNS triggers tongue muscles to pull away from the back of the throat when the person inhales during sleep.

Here’s how: A pulse generator with two wires is implanted over the right chest. One wire goes over the ribcage to sense respirations. The other travels into the neck and fits around the hypoglossal nerve that controls tongue movement. When the system senses breathing, it stimulates the tongue to pull away.

“An intriguing finding is that hypoglossal nerve stimulation affects not only the tongue, but, in the best-treated patients, also seems to pull the soft palette forward and open up the rest of the throat, treating the problem on two fronts,” says Dr. Huntley.”

So what’s next? Two companies are conducting clinical trials on a nerve stimulator for sleep apnea: Inspire Medical Systems, Inc., and Apnex Medical, Inc., where Dr. Huntley is a medical advisor but not an investor. On August 2, Apnex received the go-ahead for its pivotal study at a dozen sites in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. If all goes as anticipated, their device will hit the market in fall or winter of 2013.

Click here for clinical trial updates, purpose, eligibility, locations, and contacts.

Robotic Surgery

Doctors are also treating sleep apnea by removing tonsils and excess tissue with a type of robotic surgery approved in December 2010 and typically used to remove cancerous growths at the back of the throat.

In robotic procedures, surgeons peer at high-definition images to remotely control instruments much smaller and more dexterous than human hands, notes Dr. Huntley. “It’s the best way we have to remove tissue precisely and less invasively and I believe there’s a definite place for it in the treatment sleep apnea. We’re just trying to figure out its role.

“Again, if we knew the hands-down best approach for treating sleep apnea, we wouldn’t be looking at all these approaches. Do we pull the jaw forward? Do we pull the tongue forward, move it, or hook up a nerve stimulator to it? Is some combination of the above? We just don’t have the full answer yet, but we’re definitely working on it.”

Tailored For Two

Whether as an empty nester, a newlywed, or a harried parent planning a romantic dinner while the kids are away, odds are you’re going to find yourself cooking for two at some point in your life. Most recipes are designed to serve six people, so cooking the right amount can be challenging. “Scaling down recipes is not always as easy as simple division,” says Christopher Kimball, host of PBS’ America’s Test Kitchen. “Many recipes require customization to make them work in smaller quantities.” The chef extraordinaire shares delectable just-for-two recipes from America’s Test Kitchen’s Cooking for Two 2011 cookbook.

Stuffed Acorn Squash with Barley

Christopher Kimball
Christopher Kimball, host of PBS' America's Test Kitchen.
“For this recipe, we used just one squash,” Kimball explains, “which we split, roasted, and then used to bulk up the filling—so there are no leftovers, and all you need is one squash for dinner for two. Plus, barley is a high-fiber, high-protein grain, which increases the satisfaction level and nutrient quotient of this simple supper. This is a hearty, satisfying, and delicious vegetarian dinner that will woo both veggie fans and meat lovers.” Make sure to use pearl barley, not hulled barley, in this recipe—hulled barley takes much longer to cook.

Stuffed Acorn Squash with Barley

Ingredients

Directions

Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 400 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with vegetable oil spray.

Brush cut sides of squash with 1 tablespoon oil, season with salt and pepper, and lay cut-side down on prepared baking sheet. Roast on lower-middle rack until tender (tip of paring knife can be slipped into flesh with no resistance), 45 to 55 minutes. Remove squash from oven and increase oven temperature to 450 degrees.

Meanwhile, bring 2 cups water to boil in small saucepan. Stir in barley and 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook until barley is tender, 20 to 25 minutes. Drain and set aside.

Wipe saucepan dry, add remaining 1 tablespoon oil, and heat over medium heat until shimmering. Stir in fennel and shallot and cook until softened and lightly browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in garlic, coriander, and thyme and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds.

Off heat, stir in cooked barley, 1/2 cup Parmesan, parsley, pine nuts, and butter. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Flip roasted squash over and scoop out flesh, leaving 1/8-inch thickness of flesh in each shell. Gently fold cooked squash into barley mixture, then mound mixture evenly in squash shells. (Stuffed squash can be covered loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 4 hours. Finish and bake as directed, increasing baking time to 25 to 30 minutes.)

Sprinkle squash with remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan. Bake on upper-middle rack until cheese is melted, 5 to 10 minutes. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar to taste and serve.

Calories: 547

Fat: 31 g

Sodium: 375 mg

Carbohydrate: 52 g

Fiber: 14 g

Protein: 15 g

Diabetic Exchanges: 1.5 carbohydrate, 1 non-starchy vegetable, 1 medium-fat cheese, 5.5 fat

Sautéed Pork Cutlets with Mustard-Cider Sauce

“This recipe goes from pan to table in under 15 minutes,” Kimball says, “and has a rich yet brightly flavored sauce that makes it appealing no matter what the temperature outside.”

Sautéed Pork Cutlets with Mustard-Cider Sauce
Sautéed Pork Cutlets with Mustard-Cider Sauce

Sautéed Pork Cutlets with Mustard-Cider Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 200 degrees. Pat cutlets dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle sugar evenly over each cutlet. Heat oil in 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add 1 piece butter, let melt, and quickly add cutlets. Cook cutlets until browned on both sides, 2 to 4 minutes. Transfer cutlets to large plate and keep warm in oven while making sauce.

Add shallot to fat left in skillet and cook over medium heat until softened, about 1 minute. Stir in flour and cook for 30 seconds. Whisk in broth, cider, and sage and bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until slightly thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.

Off heat, whisk in mustard, remaining 1 piece butter, and any accumulated juice from pork. Season sauce with salt and pepper to taste, spoon over pork, and serve.

Calories: 328

Fat: 24 g

Sodium: 171 mg

Carbohydrate: 7 g

Fiber: 0.3 g

Protein: 21 g

Diabetic Exchanges: 0.25 fruit, 3 medium-fat meat, 3 fat

For an additional recipe fit for two, check out our Individual Chicken Pot Pies.

Yesterday’s Garbage

The best grade of garbage in this city comes from the Hillcrest neighborhood, and on Thursdays when I make my run through the alleys of Hillcrest, my wife, Caledonia, rides beside me in the truck, admiring all those fancy backyards. Caledonia seldom climbs down out of the cab. She trusts me to inspect the garbage.

I know her taste. It’s jewelry and reading matter. Now by jewelry I don’t mean diamonds and rubies. You won’t find precious stones in people’s garbage. I’m talking about the bigger, cheaper pieces—the kind a woman can pin on her coat. Last Thursday I came across two. One was a big-eyed owl sitting on a silver moon crescent. One of the owl’s rhinestone eyes was missing, but we have scads of rhinestones in a box at home. We found one about the right size and glued it in the socket, and Caledonia wore it to bingo, where four people said how nice it looked. The other piece I found was a fancy letter of the alphabet, all complicated with curlicues. Caledonia thought it might be a capital C, but at the wrestling matches Saturday night somebody told her it looked more like an E, so now she wears it upside-down and it looks great. It doesn’t look like anything.

As for reading matter, it’s newspapers and letters. Caledonia keeps an up-to-date file of newspapers, both the Star and the Tribune. I’ve never been too crazy about having all those newspapers in the house (we’ve had to close off two rooms upstairs because they got packed so full of paper), and I’m not too crazy about letters, either—especially after what happened to Mrs. Nichols. But Caledonia likes to read, and sometimes in the evening she’ll pull out an old letter and read it to me and ask me to identify whose garbage it came out of. I’m right about half the time.

There’s a certain brick house in Hillcrest where the garbage has always been worth a close look. Our tablecloth comes from that place, along with no end of ornamental whiskey bottles and the .22 revolver I shoot rats with at the dump. It was at that house one Thursday that a letter addressed to Mrs. George Nichols turned up in the trash I was dumping into the truck. I snatched it up and wiped off the grease (most people being in the habit of throwing out their mail with their table leavings) and I handed it up to Caledonia in the cab. She read it while I worked the compactor.

Not all your garbologists have compactors, you know. My compactor is two years old, and now I don’t see how I ever got along without it. I press a button near the tailgate and the compactor moves like a paddle wheel, pushing the garbage forward to the front of the truck. It keeps the trash from all piling up at the back end, and it squeezes it together so I only make about half as many trips to the dump as I used to. It isn’t as slick as the compactors you see in junkyards that can press a car down to the size of a bicycle, but it’s a real work saver. And it’s fun to monkey with. If you work it right, you can get a good-sized cat to fit in your pocket.

When I climbed back into the cab that day, Caledonia said, “This letter is from a hospital out in California.” I coasted downhill to my next stop as she read it to me.

“Dear Mrs. Nichols: Polly Jean’s condition remains stable. Nearly a year has passed since her last serious withdrawal from reality. She remembers absolutely nothing about the Centennial parade nor what she did while it was in progress. Chemical treatment, as I insisted from the start, has proved the most efficacious means in cases like hers. I would not hesitate to release her today; however, my colleagues suggest we wait one more month in order to be absolutely certain. Therefore, if she has suffered no setback by November 1, you may come for her. I assume by this time you have explained everything to Mr. Nichols. I suggest that both of you come out to California to take her home.”

The signature was a scribble with “M.D.” written after it.

We had often seen Mrs. Nichols puttering around the yard. She always wore a sunhat and a little polka-dot scarf that took Caledonia’s eye. But we had never seen anything of Mr. Nichols. Caledonia said he was probably a salesman on the road. Caledonia said it was clear that Polly Jean was their daughter and had been sent to an insane asylum, and now she was cured and about ready to come home. Caledonia said she expected Polly Jean to be a skinny blonde. I said redhead and bet her a quarter. Polly sounds like a redhead to me.

Later, while we were having coffee and rolls at the truck stop, Caledonia asked me, “Why do you suppose George is being kept in the dark?”

“George who?”

“George Nichols. Don’t be stupid.” Caledonia took the letter from her purse and read, “‘I assume by this time you have explained everything to Mr. Nichols.’” Then she gave me a foxy look and said, “Wouldn’t you think a man would know about his own daughter being in a nuthouse?”

“You’d think so,” I said. “We know it, and we’re not even related.”

That evening at supper Caledonia put down her spoon and said, “Polly Jean is the daughter of Mrs. George Nichols, but not the daughter of Mr. George Nichols.”

“How do you know?”

“It has to be. George Nichols is that woman’s new husband, and she hasn’t told him about Polly Jean yet. She hasn’t wanted to tell him her daughter is crazy. You do the dishes, and I’ll find the proof.”

The proof, of course, was in the china closet, where Caledonia files away the mail. While I threw out the sardine tins and paper plates and washed the spoons, Caledonia searched for envelopes with that Hillcrest address, and she came up with a handful of old Christmas cards. Up until three years ago, all the cards were addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Howard Gronseth, and the notes on the back began “Dear Howie and Blanche,” and some began “Dear Howie, Blanche, and Polly Jean.” Then for a year or two they were addressed to Mrs. Gronseth all by herself, and the notes began “Dear Blanche,” or “Dear Blanche and Polly Jean.” And the cards from last Christmas were addressed to Mr. and Mrs. George Nichols, and very few had notes on the back, but those that had notes began, “Dear George and Blanche and Polly Jean.” Sure enough, George was Blanche’s new husband.

That night Caledonia tossed and turned till I thought I wouldn’t get a wink of sleep. Finally, about the time the squirrels started their racket in the walls (that’s three-thirty, or earlier on stormy nights), she said, “There’s a deep-down reason why Blanche is keeping George in the dark. And it’s a dirty shame, what with it being October already, and Polly Jean coming home on the first of November. Family secrets are a bad policy.”

“I need my sleep,” I said.

“Polly Jean must have done something unmentionable before she got sent away.”

I put my head under the pillow and dozed off, but it wasn’t long before Caledonia poked me and said, “When was the city centennial?”

“Two summers ago.”

“The letter says Polly Jean doesn’t remember the centennial parade. Well, I remember the centennial parade, and it was on the Fourth of July. Go up and get me all the papers from the first week in July, two summers ago.”

“I need my sleep, Caledonia.”

“All the Stars and Tribunes for that week.”

For the rest of the night, Caledonia rustled paper. She snipped out articles about the shooting, and I made three more trips upstairs, tracking down news about the investigation. While Howard Gronseth and his wife Blanche and his daughter Polly Jean, who was fourteen, were standing in a crowd watching the parade, somebody stuck a handgun into Howard’s back and shot him with a .22 bullet. It’s an unsolved murder to this day, because the police never came up with a suspect, and they never found the weapon. But, as Caledonia pointed out, the bullet that killed him must have been fired from my rat gun, the .22 revolver I found two years ago in the Nichols (or Gronseth) garbage. Put two and two together, and you get Polly Jean killing her father and nobody knowing it except Polly Jean and her mother, and maybe a couple of shrinks. And now me and Caledonia.

By the time we got it all figured out it was dawn, and I had to get up. Caledonia rolled over and snored.

Some people, if they knew what we knew, would have gone to the police. Take Bud Long, for instance. He’s caretaker at the dump. He’s in charge of covering up the garbage. Bud Long would have called the police first thing. Not that Bud’s a troublemaker. It’s just his way. He’ll call the fire department every time there’s a grass fire, and he’ll call the power company every time he sees a busted insulator on a power pole, and he’ll call the police every time he sees something the least bit out of the way. Caledonia says once you tell things to the police, they start dropping in on you all of the time, and maybe they’ll even drag you into a courtroom. So we decided to keep the whole Polly Jean affair under our hats.

But I couldn’t put it out of my mind. I felt sorry for Mrs. Nichols. The next Thursday, after a hard frost, we saw her pulling up the stems of dead flowers by the back door, and I told Caledonia she ought to get out of the truck and strike up a friendship with her. I said Mrs. Nichols would be glad to know somebody she could talk to about the murder, rather than keeping it all to herself. But Caledonia said Mrs. Nichols wasn’t her type, and furthermore she had lost interest in the case now that she had it solved.

“But Caledonia,” I said, “just think of what the poor lady is going through. She has a lot on her mind, keeping that secret all this time. Maybe if she talked it over with you, then it would be easier for her to tell George. Family secrets are a bad policy. You said it yourself.”

“As far as I’m concerned, what’s done is done, and it’s her problem. I want one good look at Polly Jean when she gets home, and that’s about it. I’ve got two bits on blonde.”

And I’m sure that would have been Caledonia’s last word on the subject—if I hadn’t brought Mrs. Nichols home with me.

It was the last Thursday in October, the week before Polly Jean was supposed to be released from the hospital in California. Caledonia had the flu, and I went to Hillcrest alone. Mrs. Nichols was out by her back door again, this time sweeping the patio. I stopped the truck in the alley, same as always, and she paid no attention. A word to the wise saves nine, they always say, and I decided to tell her what I thought about keeping George in the dark. Sometimes it takes an outside party to point you in the right direction.

So standing by her garbage can, I said, not very loud, “Blanche.”

She looked up with her mouth kind of hanging open, surprised. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman for her time in life. We stared at each other across the back yard for maybe two seconds, and I knew what was going through her mind. She was wondering how her garbologist happened to know her name. Then she went back to sweeping.

After I emptied her trash into the truck, I took a few steps across the grass. “Blanche!” I said, louder than before—louder than I needed to, for she gave a little jump and dropped her broom. She came down off the steps and walked toward me very slow. She had her head cocked to one side, like a pup, and she seemed to be smiling, but when she got close I saw she wasn’t. She had the wrinkles in her forehead all twisted up—that look people get when they’re surprised and scared at the same time. She said she didn’t believe we had met.

“How is George?” I said.

“George is fine,” she said. “Do you know George?”

“I never see him around here.”

"Yesterday's Garbage" Illustration by Owen Freeman
Illustration by Owen Freeman

Mrs. Nichols started walking backward, then she turned and trotted over to her back step. I was afraid she’d go inside before I got it off my chest, so I hollered at her as she was picking up her broom and opening the door. What I said was, “Tell George what Polly Jean did, or you’ll be sorry.”

They were words with a strong effect. She turned wild. She came off her back step at a run, shouting, “Who told you what Polly Jean did? Nobody knows but me! Polly Jean is ready to come home!” And she rammed her broomstick into me and broke one or two of my ribs. She reared back to jab me again, shouting, “Polly Jean is coming home!” but I got her by the wrists and sat her down on the grass. Then I let her have it in the forehead with my fist.

Then she died. I knew she was dead by the way she laid there, limp as a chloroformed cat. I don’t know if I could have been arrested for that or not. She hit first.

Bud Long would have called the police to explain what happened. Not me. I stood there for a little while, turning my head very slow, an inch at a time, looking to see how things stood. The back yard was pretty well hidden by high bushes. The only neighbors who could have seen us lived next door on the east side, and they weren’t home. They hadn’t set out garbage for two weeks. I decided to put Mrs. Nichols in the truck and take the afternoon off.

When I got home, Caledonia said it was the wrong thing to do. She said I should have left her in her own back yard. I said I could take her back, and she said that would be worse yet. Caledonia said the police can tell if a body has been moved. She said no end of trouble comes from moving bodies.

“What’s done is done,” I said. “Here she is. What shall we do with her?”

We were standing at the tailgate of the truck looking in at Mrs. Nichols. She was lying on top of all the stuff she had thrown out. Her forehead was black. Caledonia didn’t look so hot herself, crawling out of a sickbed and standing in the driveway, barefoot. She stood there thinking for a long time. I said, “Look here. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. I don’t want to worry about this problem overnight.”

Caledonia said, “Scrunch her up so she fits in a leaf bag.”

So that’s what I did. It only took three squeezes by the compactor. The hard part was crawling in there between squeezes and turning her lengthwise. It was hard to do because my ribs were hurting. Then wouldn’t you know, we couldn’t find a leaf bag. Here it was October and I had been hauling plastic bags full of leaves every day, and now I didn’t have a bag when I needed one. Leaf bags were one thing I never thought to save. I had to run over to the hardware store and buy a package of five. Seventy-nine cents, plus tax.

Slipping Mrs. Nichols into the first bag was tricky.

Besides my ribs hurting, she had a couple of splintered bones that kept tearing the plastic. But with Caledonia’s help, we got her bundled up good. We tied one bag shut and then slipped her into the next, until she was inside all five bags.

“What if the bags burst when I dump her?” I said.

“We’ll be in trouble.”

“You can’t take her to the dump with only that little bit of garbage, “ said Caledonia. “Look at all the blood. You need a full load. If you dump out a full load, she won’t be so noticeable.”

I looked at my watch. “I can’t get a full load before five. It would take me that long to get to Hillcrest and back.”

“For this, anybody’s garbage will do,” she said. “Get going.”

I tore through a neighborhood on the way to the dump. It wasn’t my territory. Most of the cans were only half full, so I had to make twice as many stops to fill the truck. Wherever it looked like nobody was watching, I left the cans helter-skelter in the alleys. And every time I lifted one, the pain in my right side took my breath away. It felt like Mrs. Nichols was still jabbing me with that broomstick.

I got to the dump before the gates closed all right, but I had to wait my turn to unload. There’s always a line-up of trucks if you get there around closing time. Some garbologists will keep their loads at home overnight and go to the dump first thing in the morning when it’s not crowded, but I’ve never been one to do that. I don’t believe in carrying around yesterday’s garbage.

When it came my turn, I backed up to the edge of the pit and raised the box and dumped. Then I got out of the cab and looked down into the pit. Blanche was the biggest item in my load, so she was easy to spot. There was a sharp leg bone sticking out through all five layers of plastic, but otherwise the package held together. Bud Long was down there chugging along on his front-end loader. It’s the new yellow machine Caterpillar makes, and you can see by the way Bud drives it that he enjoys his work. He covered my load with two scoops of dirt, then he drove over it a few times to tamp it down. He looked up and waved at me and I waved back, in spite of the catch in my side.

It feels like my ribs never healed right. Now, more than a year later, I still favor my right side and I can’t lift my right arm as high as my left. Caledonia says it’s a reminder not to get personal with my customers.

At first there was quite a flare-up in the newspapers about how Mrs. Nichols disappeared without a trace, but now things have settled back to normal. George Nichols has a new wife. That makes a complete turnover in that house since Howard and Blanche used to live there. Sometimes on Thursdays we see the new Mrs. Nichols out on the patio reading a book. From the alley, I’d say she’s a real peach.

As far as we know, Polly Jean never came home. The new Mrs. Nichols was sunning herself last Thursday, and I had all I could do to keep from speaking to her. I wanted to ask her what she knew about Polly Jean. I wanted to know if Polly Jean was going to spend the rest of her life in California. I wanted to know what color Polly Jean’s hair was.

But the catch in my side told me to keep my mouth shut. And so did Caledonia.

Learning By Degrees

Susan Andersen thought she had it all: a happy marriage to a successful businessman, two wonderful children, a nice home in one of Charlotte’s finer communities, and a thriving career. Then Susan’s life took a dramatic turn. After 22 years, her marriage fell apart, and she found herself in the chaotic world of divorced parents juggling visitation schedules and haggling over holidays.

Luckily for Susan, she could fall back on her career as a sales director for Mary Kay Cosmetics. She was great at her job, earning nine of those iconic pink Cadillacs over the course of many years with the company. But instead of just throwing herself into her work or hiding under the covers, Susan listened to her heart. She decided it was time to shake things up by focusing on other peoples’ problems.

So, Susan took a sizeable portion of her own savings (an amount she declines to reveal, conceding only that it was in the low six figures) and founded the Andersen Nontraditional Scholarship for Women’s Education and Retraining (ANSWER Scholarship) to help struggling mothers go back to school and earn their college degrees.

Susan’s endowment fulfilled a promise she had made to herself nearly three decades earlier after receiving scholarship assistance for her own college education. At the time, she vowed to find a way to pay it forward. Divorce brought that dream back into focus. “I was now a single mom, and as I looked around at other single moms, I realized many were not as fortunate and were struggling. Without an education, a mom with children is destined for poverty.”

Since 2005, the ANSWER Scholarship has awarded up to $4,000 per academic year to 17 women through Foundation for the Carolinas, a community foundation that manages Susan’s endowment fund and selects her scholarship recipients. At last count, nine women have graduated. And of those nine grads, five have opted to continue on for advanced degrees on their own.

Women who receive scholarships from Susan’s endowment must meet certain criteria: The degree must be their first, and they must go to school full time at an accredited institution in North or South Carolina. “It sounds really daunting, but we made it a full-time requirement so that women would finish in four years, not spread it out over time and maybe never finish,” says Susan. “This way, the women have an end in sight, and their children can see Mom start and finish something.”

Scholarship recipients also must be at least 25 years old, and—most importantly—they must have at least one school-age child living at home with them. Susan firmly believes that children who watch their mother work hard for a college degree will one day follow in their mom’s very large footsteps to pursue their own college dreams. “When you educate the mother, you help change the destiny of her children,” Susan says.

Marital status is not a deciding factor, although the majority of recipients have been single moms.

Katrina Mitchell and her family
Becoming a teacher was an early dream for Katrina Mitchell—one she abandoned for years but is now pursuing at Belmont Abbey College.

With full course loads, homework from demanding professors, and regular exams, college can be stressful for any student. Add in part-time or full-time jobs and the realities of parenthood—helping children with schoolwork, arranging childcare, shopping for groceries, cleaning house, cooking meals, and more—and the diploma may seem like an impossible dream. Katrina Mitchell, 35, knows all about the frustration and fatigue that moms in college suffer. With help from Susan’s ANSWER Scholarship, Katrina is close to receiving her bachelor’s degree in education from Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina.

Becoming a teacher was an early dream for Katrina, one she abandoned for a more lucrative but less satisfying career. “I make decent money working for a broker-dealer,” she says. “But I’m not happy. I just go through the motions every day.”

This vague sense of malaise crystallized a few years back when her grandmother passed away. The loss led to some soul-searching, which, in turn, led to thoughts of teaching. “My grandmother wanted to do so many things in her life and never got the opportunity. Her sudden death made me reevaluate my life,” says Katrina.

But going back to school hasn’t been easy for this mother of a boy, 3, and a girl, 11. To make it happen, Katrina used up all of her time off from work. She often arrives at her job early and works through her lunch hour so she can be on time for class, which meets four nights a week. With support from her family—as well as a college professor selected by Susan to be Katrina’s mentor—Katrina hung in there. She left her corporate job in August to begin student teaching, and she’s glad she toughed it out. “When I was young, I didn’t have the drive and motivation to succeed, and I didn’t take school seriously. My mother never talked to me about school,” says Katrina, whose mother was only 14 when she was born. “Now, my daughter is my biggest supporter and so proud of me! She told me, ‘I’m going to work hard and go to school so you can be proud of me the way that I’m proud of you.’”

Tonya Nicole Faulkner
Tonya Nichole Faulkner became the first person in her family to earn a college degree.

Like Katrina, Tonya Nichole Faulkner, 40, grew up in a home where college wasn’t even on the radar. Tonya wanted to break the cycle of poverty for herself and her two children. The ANSWER Scholarship fund provided the escape route. In 2008, Tonya became the first in her family to earn a college degree when she graduated magna cum laude from Queens University of Charlotte with a BA in Human and Community Services. This spring, she is set to receive an MA in Nonprofit Management from High Point University in North Carolina. Her daughter is a freshman at Queens University, thanks largely to Tonya’s positive influence. “I want my children to believe they can persevere through any obstacles to achieve their dreams,” says Tonya.

Two of Tonya’s brothers also returned to school, inspired by their sister’s drive and motivation. “They figured if a single mom could go to school full time while working two part-time jobs, then they could do it, too,” says Tonya.

Tonya hopes someday to become a philanthropist like Susan. She’s already started her own nonprofit organization, Repairing the Breach Foundation, which aims to provide assistance for people in need by closing the gaps between human service organizations and those they serve.

For her part, Susan is extraordinarily proud of the women her organization has been able to help. But she modestly brushes off praise for her efforts, reminding people that she started the ANSWER Scholarship at least in part to fill a void in her own life. “Divorce was a very sad time for me, which is why I decided to do something positive,” she says. “Helping others helped heal my pain.”

Watching the Jackie Watchers

[Editor’s Note: March 1, 2017]: It was fifty years ago that

The recent release of the “Jackie tapes” has brought Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis back into America’s conversational circles. It has also inspired pundits, journalists, and assorted critics to analyze the former First Lady based on comments she made in interviews 47 years ago.

To her admirers and her critics, this attention is justified; to them, Jackie has always represented more than herself. She was an ideal, a symbol, or a caricature, but never just another American woman. As far back as 1960, the media put her under the kind of scrutiny from which First Ladies are usually spared (or were, until Hillary Clinton). Even after her husband’s death and her departure from the White House the press continued to report and critique her movements, her clothing, her hairstyle, her work—anything to feed the abiding interest of her supporters and critics.

In 1967, journalist Alan Levy spent a week trying to understand this intense interest and “what it is like for a lively 37-year-old mother to live the life of a tourist attraction.” As he reported in his Post article “Jackie Kennedy: A View From the Crowd,” she was not hard to find. Levy saw her several times without too much effort. He was there when she appeared at an art exhibition:

Jackie Kennedy’s Manhattan

There were more than a thousand people … and fully half of them were watching for the one we had come to watch. You could tell by the way they talked in rushed little phrases so that their eyes wouldn’t be diverted from the doorway. Repeated assurances of “She’s expected at nine” gave way to “She was expected at nine” and then, toward 10, to “Well, she didn’t swear she was coming.”

At 10:05 … our bartender declared, “There she is!” So did dozens of others, and the words seemed to hit Jacqueline Kennedy like the wail of an air-raid siren. She didn’t flinch: she froze. For … 30 seconds, she was absolutely rigid.

As [she] advanced into our room, her audience became her entourage. Some preceded her with a harrumphing fanfare of “Make way for Mrs. Kennedy!”

There were small flurries of applause. She acknowledged these with a smile. She could clearly have done without this $35-a-ticket ovation.

A waiter said, “She looks tired. She must have many appointments in a day.”

“She won’t stay long,” said another waiter. “She never stays long.” Both waiters spoke of her with more compassion than I’d heard all evening.

Levy was there at Kennedy airport, along with a crowd of reporters, waiting for Jackie and her children to arrive for a flight. When they appeared outside the terminal—

“By staying behind Jacqueline Kennedy, I was photographed with her numerous times … and now a long-forgotten boyhood dream of mine came true: In Monday morning’s photographic captions I was identified as a Secret Service man.” Alan Levy, seen here on Jackie’s left.

[John Jr.] waited for his mother, who wore a white coat, black scarf and the same frozen smile I had seen at the Madison Avenue art gallery. Little John, wearing shorts and little-boy bruises, reached for her hand, but one of the photographers barked, “Out of the way, kid!” and he obeyed.

So did his mother when a woman photographer called, “Look this way, Jackie!”

The little boy wandered away from the action [and played] with the treadle that operated the automatic door. Here John F. Kennedy Jr. achieved one moment of triumph. A photographer poised for an arty shot through the doorway, suddenly was hit in the face by the door when little John stepped off the treadle. The man exclaimed, “Jesus Christ, kiddo!”

After two minutes of picture-taking, Mrs. Kennedy switched off her smile and entered the terminal where she assembled the children for the march to the gate.

Little John, however, tarried at a poster advertising a movie. This momentary delay enabled the working press to scurry ahead and board the escalator first.

In case she wanted guidance, however, a loudspeaker on the mezzanine was blaring: “Mrs. K., Mrs. K., arriving Gate Three.” For the airline had more than a dozen employees scattered about the terminal to “protect” Mrs. Kennedy from the press that, in effect, the airline had invited. Thus was my quest coming full circle: I was watching an event become An Event.

But if he was dismayed by the throngs of reporters at the airport, he was reassured by the response of passing New Yorkers when she appeared on the sidewalk outside her apartment.

She was standing … and chatting with her brother-in-law, Robert F. Kennedy. He was freckled, sparkling and bushier-haired than any man of 41 has a right to be. Alongside Robert and Jacqueline Kennedy sat the blue convertible, motor purring, with the Secret Service man at the wheel.

Levy crossed the street to Central Park where he could study the reaction of other passersby.

The passing parade continued, but the Kennedys did have a silent grandstand of some 25 or 30 benchwarmers. Nothing was said, other than an occasional “That’s her.” A young father hoisted his baby girl onto his shoulders to watch she-knew-not-what. Seeing this, a couple of mothers struggled to afford their children equal opportunity.

More interesting to me were the reactions across the street. In my five minutes of Kennedy-watching, 11 people walked right past Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy. Three didn’t even notice. Two men and two women broke step but didn’t halt. A swarthy maintenance man in uniform came to a dead stop and doffed his cap with a proletarian flourish. Without a pause in his conversation, Senator Kennedy acknowledged him with a nod.

My favorite was a blowzy woman in a nurse’s uniform. She stopped in her tracks. Her face drooped. Her frame sagged. She seemed as limp and lifeless as a badly hung dress. Then her eyes perceived that Jacqueline Kennedy was smiling, and her ears perceived that Jacqueline Kennedy was cheerful. Slowly, like a sunrise, the woman came back to life. Her mouth unpuckered into a crescent smile. Her face beamed. As she straightened up, her hair seemed to catch the sun. She strode onward, restored and refreshed by what she had witnessed.

No one had mobbed her, or tried to grab her attention. No one sought an autograph or photo.

That much-abused folk ogre, The Typical New York Man-in-the-Street, had acquitted himself handsomely.

This was 1967, however. In June of 1968, Bobby Kennedy was shot, and Jackie had to reassess the risks to which her children were exposed. She became more reclusive, and soon married a billionaire who could give the security she wanted.

Which prompted another wave of Kennedy commentary.

Jacqueline and the young senator from Massachusetts.

Classic Covers: Stevan Dohanos

“Tex’s Motorcycle”

Tex’s Motorcycle by Dohanos From 4/7/51
“Tex’s Motorcycle”
by Stevan Dohanos
From April 7, 1951

“When Stevan Dohanos said that he searched far and wide for a special type of motorcycle to paint,” wrote Post editors in 1951, “we got set for some fearfully technical details.” The artist’s specifications? “I just had to have a blue-and-silver one.” The object of pre-adolescent lust he found was owned by “Tex” Keeler of Georgetown, Connecticut (hence the name of the painting). Not surprisingly, motorcycle buffs love to buy reprints of this handsome cover.

“Wanted Posters”

Wanted Posters by Dohanos from 2/21/53
“Wanted Posters”
by Stevan Dohanos
From February 21, 1953

Three young cowboys, six-shooters at the ready, are looking at the wanted posters in the local post office. Never mind the amusement of the postal employee observing the scene—the bad guys don’t stand a chance. Dohanos didn’t have to go far to find the young male models. They were his sons.

Dohanos, who painted 123 Post covers, was born in Lorain, Ohio, the son of Hungarian immigrants.

“Playing House”

Playing House by Dohanos from 1/31/53
“Playing House”
by Stevan Dohanos
From January 31, 1953

If you were a child of the female variety in the 1950s, one of your favorite playtime activities was probably playing house. This was what girls did before girls’ soccer and computers. The refrigerator carton is dressed up to make a perfectly lovely domicile, and every considerate hostess made sure the dollies got their share of tea and goodies. Do little girls still play house? I suppose there’s now an app for that.

“Doing Dishes at the Beach”

Doing Dishes at the Beach by Dohanos From 7/19/52
“Doing Dishes at the Beach”
by Stevan Dohanos
From July 19, 1952

This is called “Doing Dishes at the Beach,” but I prefer to call it “Whose Vacation?” Clearly Dad is relaxing, and the kids are enjoying themselves. Heck, even Rover is having fun. Looks like Mom got short shrift. I have to love Dohanos for seeing male/female inequities even in 1952.

“Lighthouse Keeper”

Lighthouse Keeper by Dohanos From 9/22/45
“Lighthouse Keeper”
by Stevan Dohanos
From September 22, 1945

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this Dohanos cover tells a gentle story. The lighthouse keeper is trimming the weeds while the push lawnmower and the clothesline help define the times. The striking lighthouse on this 1945 cover was the West Quoddy Light, Lubec, Maine.

“Stop and Pay Toll”

Stop and Pay Toll by Dohanos From 4/7/56
“Stop and Pay Toll”
by Stevan Dohanos
From April 7, 1956

Life’s little stories include life’s little irritations. Admit it, your blood pressure is rising a bit just looking at the woman holding up the line at the tollbooth. There’s change in here, somewhere. Well, we hope. Heaven help the people behind her if she left her change purse at home. But if they have a problem with that, they can take it up with the extra-large dog.

Unfortunately, by the 1960s photographs were taking the place of art on the covers of the Post. Dohanos shifted his considerable talent to a position as chairman of the National Stamp Advisory Committee. He is quoted as saying, “Artists are always interested in seeing their work reproduced. Imagine seeing your work reproduced 4½ billion times.”

“Toddler Empties Purses”

Toddler Empties Purses by Dohanos From 11/22/52
“Toddler Empties Purses”
by Stevan Dohanos
From November 22, 1952

My favorite Dohanos cover has always been this toddler from 1952. Through the bedroom door, we can see the grown-ups having a pleasant get-together, but what they cannot see due to the stack of coats and fedoras on the bed is the toddler having his own rockin’ party. Unfortunately, he is having all this fun with the ladies’ purses, opening and scattering the contents: compacts, keys, cigarettes, sunglasses, money, and so on (click for close-up).

Questions on covers from The Saturday Evening Post? Email me at [email protected] or simply leave a comment below.

Starting Over

James Kellogg Van Brunt, the pensive musician posing for the November 2, 1929, cover of the Post, was a gentleman about town and a good friend of Norman Rockwell’s. Van Brunt was more than just a model, though; he played a significant role in the creation of this painting, which traces its origin to an ocean voyage four months earlier.

After vacationing in Europe, Rockwell and his wife, Irene, were sailing home to New York along with their close friends, Fred and Edna Peck. While on board, Fred revealed some shocking news to Rockwell: He informed him that Irene wanted a new life with someone else—Fred’s own brother-in-law. Awkward!
A few days after arriving home, Rockwell retreated to the sanctuary of his studio and his work. However, once inside, he found it difficult to do anything but stand and stare, let alone be creative. After a week of producing very little, he sought counsel from his old friend Van Brunt. A veteran of two wars and 45 years Rockwell’s senior, Van Brunt was no stranger to grief; six years earlier, he had lost his wife of 52 years. As it turned out, Van Brunt’s advice was sound. He ordered Rockwell back to the studio: “Get to your easel and paint; it will all work out in the end!”

Rockwell not only took his “medicine,” he made Van Brunt his model. He knew that his friend was musically inclined, active in the community chorus and Boy Scouts, and had served as a drummer boy during the Civil War. Thus was born our Post cover illustration featuring the older musician pondering new beginnings. Notice the poignant sheet music titles clearly on display around him.

Rockwell incorporated another hidden message in the illustration—he was good at that. Look closely at the hatband and see if you can decipher the meaning of the three stylized letters so appropriate to the artist’s predicament.

[Give up? The letters are “WOU”—With Out You.]

Less than six months after the painting was published, Rockwell married a schoolteacher named Mary Barstow with whom he had three sons—Jarvis, Thomas, and Peter.

Old-Fashioned Gingersnap Custard

In her new cookbook Flavor First, Cheryl Foberg—award-winning chef and nutritionist for the hit TV show The Biggest Loser—presents 75 recipes that are big on flavor but low in calories. One such dish, which is perfect for fall, is her old-fashioned gingersnap custard. This creamy treat will satisfy your dessert craving without adding to your waistline!

(Reprinted from Flavor First by Cheryl Forberg. Copyright (c) 2011 by Cheryl Forberg. By permission of Rodale, Inc.)

Old-Fashioned Gingersnap Custard

Makes 4 (1/2-cup) servings

Ingredients:

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F with an oven rack in the center position. Coat four 6-ounce custard cups with cooking spray and set them in a baking pan or dish large enough to hold them without crowding.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs slightly with a fork or small whisk. Add the agave nectar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt and whisk to combine. Mix in the hot milk until blended. There will be about 2 cups. Pour 1/2 cup of the custard mixture into each of the custard cups.

Bring 3 cups water to a light simmer on top of the stove (you can use a teakettle for this). Place the baking pan on the pulled-out oven rack and carefully pour the hot water into the pan until it comes up to the level of the custard inside the cups.

Bake the custard for 30 to 35 minutes, or until set around the edges but still loose in the center. Carefully remove the pan from the oven. Remove the cups from the water bath with tongs and place on a rack. If serving the custards hot, allow them to cool for 10 minutes. If serving cold, allow them to cool, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours. Sprinkle nutmeg on the custard just before serving, if desired.

Nutrition per serving:

Calories: 140

Protein: 7 g

Total fat: 3 g (1 g saturated fat)

Sodium: 160 mg

Cholesterol: 110 mg

Total carbohydrates: 42 g (20 g sugars)

Fiber: 0 g

The Woman Who Never Lost Hope: Dolores Hope (1909—2011)

Dolores Hope passed away yesterday. Born Dolores DeFina in 1909, she was a singer in the 1930s. In 1934, she met and married Bob Hope.

In the numerous articles and interviews that Bob Hope did for The Saturday Evening Post, he often mentioned Dolores and spoke with pride about their long, happy marriage. In “A Century of Hope” (Mar/Apr 1998) he told how he met his future wife:

One night while I was in Roberta, my pal, George Murphy, who was doing a fine job of specially capering in the show, invited me to the Lambs Club. We downed a couple of beers, and he said. “I want you to hear a girl sing. Her name is Dolores Reade. She sings at the Vogue Club.”

We went over to the Vogue, on 57th Street … and I heard this girl sing. She had a low, husky voice, and she sang somewhat in the style of Marion Harris—soft and sweet, not a shouter. She sang “It’s Only a Paper Moon” and “Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?” That did it, and I asked if I could take her out.

Once we were alone, she asked. “You’re in Roberta?” “Yes,” I said. “Why don’t you catch me in the matinee tomorrow?”

She did, but when she didn’t come backstage to see me afterward, I couldn’t understand it. A couple of days later I saw her, and I asked, “What happened?”

“I didn’t come back to say hello because I didn’t know you had such a big part in the show,” she said. “I thought you were in the chorus, and I was embarrassed at my stupidity.”

From then on, I was at the Vogue every night, waiting to take Dolores home. I must have given the doorman at her apartment thousands of dollars in tips to let me park in front of the joint and sit there with her. It was our inspiration point, our Flirtation Walk, and moonlight canoe trip all rolled into one—right there in front of the apartment on Ninth Avenue.

It wasn’t long before Dolores’ mother took her to Florida to play a nightclub date in Miami. While she was gone, I lived on long distance from morning till night. I was in love. Dolores said she was, too. She must have meant it, because she broke her Florida contract and came back to New York. We went back to sitting in front of her apartment and making plans to get married. We picked Erie, Pennsylvania, for our wedding. I can’t remember why. I was in a thick, pink fog anyway.

Once we were married. I put Dolores into my vaudeville act. Roberta had closed, so we went around the big-time circuits together. Our act went something like this: I did my regular act; then I introduced her. She came out, dressed in a lovely gown, looking very beautiful, and sang a song. I came back out, and when she started her second number, I didn’t leave the stage. I just stayed there, standing close to her and looking at her. Then I looked at the audience with an expression which asked, “Ain’t she beautiful? Ain’t she something? How about it? Just how about it?”

I stroked her arm, pretending it looked good enough to eat, which wasn’t hard to do. Then I nibbled it gently. This brought a roar from the audience. Then I hugged her; she stopped singing, broke up, and I said. “Don’t let me bother you. Just keep right on.” If she hadn’t been so beautiful and if it hadn’t been so apparent to the onlookers that we were really in love, the act would have fallen flat. As it was, it played well.

In an interview on his 95th birthday, the Post asked Bob, “So many show business marriages end in divorce. To what do you attribute your long, successful marriage to your wife, Dolores?”

Hope: We’ve been married for 63 years, but I’ve only been home three weeks.

Hope often joked about his long absences from home. Beneath the humor, though, was devotion and gratitude for her patience and her work in managing their home and family during his many trips.

It’s been suggested that I am inclined to travel a bit—that I wander from my happy home. This is not true. Just the other evening I said to my wife, “Dolores”— I knew it was Dolores, she introduced herself to me— “I’ve done an awful lot of traveling, but you’ve been very understanding about it—although you did rent out my room.”

Dolores has a wise and loving touch with our children. I’m lost in admiration of the job she has done with them, and with the job she’s done keeping me in line. A lot of children whose fathers are in show business grow up too precocious, too wise, too fresh, too unfunny. That’s not true of our four. Dolores sees to that. She also sees to it that they’re having a devout rearing. One day [a neighbor] overheard our littlest one, Kelly, ask our next youngest, Nora, “Is everybody in the world Catholic?”

“Yes,” Nora said, “everybody but daddy. He’s a comedian.” I was both surprised and pleased when I heard that. I have no trouble convincing them that I’m their daddy, but sometimes I have trouble convincing them that I’m a comedian.

It may surprise those who read this to hear that I’m a strong family man … I’m no angel. For that matter, I’ve known very few angels. My mother and Dolores are two. But I’m still married to the same girl I married twenty years ago, and that’s four or five under par for the Hollywood course. [Bob Hope as told to Pete Martin, “This Is On Me,” 1954]

Missing Jim Henson

If he’d survived his sudden illness in 1990, Jim Henson might be turning 75 years old next Saturday, September 24th. He would probably still be at work.

We can only guess where his imagination would have taken him—and us—in the 21 years we missed. There’s no doubt he would have broken new ground, for Henson was a relentless innovator who was always taking puppetry into new territory.

The iron fist in a lavender glove: Miss Piggy

His long career began far back in 1955, when he created Sam and Friends for a Washington D.C. television station. The programs were just five minutes long and appeared semi-regularly in the no-man’s-land between afternoon and evening programming. Yet the show won an Emmy for best local entertainment program in 1958.

When it ended in 1961, Henson struggled to find work. Through the 1960s and mid ’70s, he could only get brief appearances on other programs like The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live. Only in 1976 did a British producer finally give Henson the green light to launch a full-scale television show. The Muppet Show was produced and aired in Great Britain before finally arriving on prime-time US television. The network continued to identify it as a children’s program, though the program won a wide following of adult viewers.

One reason for its appeal to grown-ups was the obvious skill in capturing the imagination. Henson’s talent was so great that it’s difficult to think of Kermit or Miss Piggy as nothing more than inert piles of cloth when they aren’t being operated. But Henson himself never forgot how much work went into animating his characters. He told a Post interviewer in 1976:

“I treat them with gentility, but I never forget that they are made of a fabric with polyfoam and a little wood. The soft materials are for easy handling. I don’t want to break them because they’re difficult to make, but I’m not at all sentimental about them. I’m fond of them as characters but not necessarily as puppets. My emotional attachment is to the people they’ve become.”

Henson pauses in thought. “They definitely aren’t alive,” he says, “but they do have a life of their own, much like characters in a book. They are fictional characters.” [“Muppets On His Hands,” November, 1976]

Yet fictional characters have the ability to do things we can’t. Puppets, in particular, entertain audiences by teasing human vanity, mocking pretensions, and deflating pompous celebrities—all without getting into a fight. After all, who could win an argument with a hand in a sock?

“With puppets you can deal with subjects in a way that isn’t possible with people. I think of puppetry as expressing oneself through charades.”

Early in his career, Henson chose hand puppets over marionettes and ventriloquist dummies.

“I never did have any interest in being a ventriloquist. I didn’t want to split myself in two, the way a ventriloquist must do—half himself, half the dummy on his knee.”

Yet Henson was proud to be considered a successor to the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.

“Edgar,” says Henson, “considered our work as taking up where he left off. Edgar once said something to me that I’ll never forget. He said, ‘Kermit the Frog is Charlie McCarthy’s first cousin.'”

Jim Henson pauses in remembrance. Then he says, wistfully: “Were nicer, warmer words ever spoken?”

The Muppets continue to find work; their new movie with the plain but honest title The Muppets will open during the Christmas season this year. But the artist who brought these creatures to life and made them so entertaining has left a melancholy gap in the creative community. His absence brings to mind a comment made by Lily Tomlin about working with the Muppets.

When asked by Time magazine what it was like attempting a role opposite an inanimate object, Tomlin thought for a while and summed up her feelings. “When you break the scene, ” she quipped, “you don’t both go out for coffee. It’s sort of sad.”

Way back in his early days, Henson created Kermit the Frog. His body was made from a turquoise coat his mother had discarded and his eyes were two halves of a ping-pong ball. Over the years, his shape became more distinct and more expressive, but his personality was set back in Sam and Friends days. According to Henson:

The Henson Specialty: Kermit the Frog, as prepared by the Swedish Chef

Kermit the Frog is not really a frog… He’s called Kermit the Frog but he’s really just Kermit. He became something of a frog when he did a TV special back in 1967. I changed his body and made him a bit rounder, more froglike. As a parallel, Mickey Mouse looks nothing like a mouse but he fits into that category. I mean, if nobody ever said Mickey Mouse was a mouse, we wouldn’t know what he was, would we?

Kermit the Frog has this function—he’s an Everyman trying to get through life whole. He has a sense of sanity and there he is, surrounded by crazies. Kermit is the character through whose eyes the audience is viewing the show. He is the solid thing in the middle—flip, snarky, which is to say a bit smart-alecky in his own way, but he’s a nice guy. He operates from a point of consideration. There is a lot of warmth in Kermit.”

The words could easily have described Henson himself. Which is why, so long as Kermit remains true to his original character, Jim Henson will live on.

Meet the Cartoonist: Pat Hardin

“Many people have the mistaken notion that cartooning is about drawing,” says Post Cartoonist Pat Hardin. “The real meat of it is writing.”
“Escaped Prisoner”

From Sep/Oct 2006

Back when jailbirds wore stripes, this escapee found a good spot to blend in. I had to click on the image for a closer view. Nowadays the jumpsuits are orange—maybe they pose as traffic cones? Pat Hardin lives and works in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. Hardin is a graduate of the University of Michigan-Flint with degrees in Philosophy and Psychology.

“What kind of bulbs did you put in here?”

From Mar/Apr 2011

Well, light bulbs, of course! I found this cute gardening ‘toon in a recent issue of the Post. Pat left the investigative field in 1983 to pursue a career in graphic design and illustration. Shortly thereafter, he began cartooning and discovered his passion. Pat’s cartoons appear in various books and periodicals in the U.S. and abroad, but he happily reminds us that “my very first national exposure was in The Saturday Evening Post in 1987.”

“Didn’t you know I was a family practice physician?”

"Didn’t you know I was a family practice physician?"
From Jan/Feb 1998

Whoa, a new slant on the term “family practice”! I find myself wondering how a cartoonists works—does he draw with a computer device or what? “Once I have a gag worthy of carrying through to a completed cartoon, I work out the characters in pencil and then ink them on a light box. I usually use a rapidograph technical pen for this.” This is the kind of stuff I love learning from these guys.

“Has the medication had any other side effects?”

"Has the medication had any other side effects?"
From Nov/Dec 2006

Other than the urge to brain my doctor with my purse, no. Obviously, it’s coming up with the gag that’s a challenge. “Too many people have the mistaken notion that cartooning is about drawing,” Pat says. “The real meat of it is writing. Great art and a lousy gag inevitably earns rejection.” He’s right—what’s the point if it isn’t funny? But above drawing ability, Pat believes “it’s important to study humor and writing. There are a number of books on humor writing that I have found invaluable in writing gags.”

“Remember: medical insurance is like a hospital gown—you’re never covered as much as you think you are.”

"Remember: medical insurance is like a hospital gown—you’re never covered as much as you think you are."
From Sep/Oct 2003

Now here’s a doctor who knows what he’s talking about. This appeared eight years ago in the Post. “I also found it helpful to study the history of cartooning itself,” Pat writes. “Besides being fascinating (Did you know that Martin Luther commissioned and wrote the very first cartoons?) one learns the rules of the modern cartoon and how they came to be. Knowing this allows one to know when it’s appropriate to break them.”

“I need time to consider your fabulous offer—give me your number, and I’ll call you back tomorrow night at dinner.”

 "I need time to consider your fabulous offer—give me your number, and I’ll call you back tomorrow night at dinner."
From Jul/Aug 2009

Cartoonists love giving it back to telemarketers in spades. That’s because they know we want to do just that. “After many years of maintaining a separate studio I converted the upstairs of my home and now work there,” says Pat. “This has worked out very well for me, even if I sometimes have to look for reasons to leave the house.”

“That was the most spins I ever saw anyone do.”

"That was the most spins I ever saw anyone do."
From Nov/Dec 2002

Well, that’s what you get for showing off! I think this is my favorite Pat Hardin cartoon. Pat has a son, Trevor, a recent Columbia graduate, and a grandson, Noah.

Keep up-to-date with the best cartoons in the business in the pages of The Saturday Evening Post.

Classic Art: Great Illustrators from Past Issues

Although The Saturday Evening Post is famous for its covers, some of the most striking art has been hidden inside the magazine.

“Squaw Fever,” art by Paul Rabut

Squaw Fever by Paul Rabut From April 26, 1947
“Squaw Fever”
by Paul Rabut
From April 26, 1947

This dramatic painting by Paul Rabut appeared in the 1947 story “Squaw Fever” by Bill Gulick. The caption reads: “All you got to do is put wings on your wagons an’ fly ’em into the valley. Ain’t that right, captain?” Illustrations like this make us wonder where the original paintings ended up.

“Love and Alexander Botts,” art by Hy Rubin

Love and Alexander Botts by from March 14, 1953
“Love and Alexander Botts”
by William Hazlett Upson
From March 14, 1953

“Only desperate measures, he saw, could keep this girl from marrying the wrong man. It was a challenge the greatest of salesmen couldn’t resist.”

I don’t remember the Alexander Botts stories in the Post, but I’ve heard from many readers who do. The hardworking salesman for the Earthworm Tractor Company was created by William Hazlett Upson, and readers couldn’t wait for his next adventure. This 1953 Hy Rubin illustration is captioned: “‘For every problem there is always a solution,’ (Botts) said. ‘I will start now looking for it.’”

It would be a bit irritating to have a boss that darned cheerful while one is nursing a broken heart, but that’s Botts for you.

“The Cold-War Blonde,” art by Robert G. Harris

The Cold War Blonde by Robert G. Harris bore from September 26, 1959
“The Cold-War Blonde”
by Robert G. Harris bore
From September 26, 1959

It’s never good when there’s a Cold War raging, you’re rifling through a desk, and you get caught by the Russians–as this unfortunate young lady from the 1959 story “The Cold-War Blonde” by George Fielding Eliot did.

“She risked her honor for her country, and her methods were most unusual…” Whatever that means. The luscious artwork by Robert G. Harris bore the caption: “On the other side of the desk, ready to vault over it, crouched Zaspurov.” Can’t get anything by a danged Commie.

“Escapade,” art by Gilbert Bundy

Escapade from April 30, 1949
“Escapade”
by Gilbert Bundy
From April 30, 1949

“Gary walked onto the terrace just as she got near the bottom. He could see she was pretty in the face too.”

Too? Apparently she was pretty from, er, other angles. How did people get themselves into these situations? Something about … she threw a boot at the house detective and it went over the terrace … or something. She is rather brazen, as we’ll see below.

“Escapade,” art by Gilbert Bundy

Escapade 2 from April 30, 1949
“Escapade”
by Gilbert Bundy
From April 30, 1949

“He was trapped in his fiancee’s apartment with a strange girl wearing his fiancee’s gown. Could you talk your way out of that?”

Well, I’d love to hear him try. It seems the young lady made herself at home. “I hope you’ll forgive me. I know I had a nerve, but I just couldn’t resist this,” reads the caption of her trying on the gown. Uh, yeah, nervy would be one word for you, toots.

Beware of young ladies who climb over your terrace. This was from a 1949 story called “Escapade” by George Marion Jr.

“Stolen Goods,” art by Perry Peterson

Stolen Goods by Perry Peterson from June 11, 1949
“Stolen Goods”
by Perry Peterson
From June 11, 1949

“She stared into the ladies’ dressing room and tried not to faint. It was terrifying to find a man in there—especially when he was dead.”

If three-way mirrors aren’t enough to put you off clothes shopping, this should do it. This is from a 1949 serial called “Stolen Goods” by Clarence Budington Kelland. The artwork was by Perry Peterson.

More inside illustrations to come!

The New Retirement

For years, Ed Fischer, 69, worked as a bank executive while his wife, Jeanie, 66, worked at a large pharmaceutical company. They raised kids and then they retired.

But not the old retired; the new retired.

Ed and Jeanie no longer toil at their professional jobs, but they’re working almost as hard on their passion—farming 85 acres in suburban Indianapolis. They mostly sell cut flowers at their roadside stand. Jeanie is famous throughout the region for her fresh-from-the-garden bouquets in canning jars with ribbon accents. “If our health holds out, we will do this as long as we can,” Ed says with a laugh. “You’ll know when Jeannie and I are truly retired. It’s when we sell the farm—or when we’ve truly bought the farm.”

Sally Haver, 71, lives in New York City and can’t imagine giving up her job as a senior vice president at career services firm The Ayers Group. She finds her work engaging and demanding (in a good way), and, just as important, she feels valued. “I can’t think of anything more interesting to do than what I’m currently doing,” she says. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I retired. Among my peers, a lot of people might not be working a 60-hour week, but they’re definitely working because it’s a lot more interesting than not.”

These folks are among the legions of Americans 65 and older who are eschewing the rocking chair and the golf course for a chance to continue working. Some, like Sally, remain on their lifelong career paths while others, like Ed and Jeannie, are diverging to entrepreneurial ventures, consulting, or part-time work.

But working they are.

The portion of Americans aged 65 and older in the work force has increased markedly in recent years. In 2010, an average of 17.4 percent of them were in the labor force, up from 10.8 percent in 1985, according to an analysis by AARP using U.S. government figures. And during the recession of recent years, the number of older folks in the work force swelled by 1 million workers. Specific reasons for remaining on the job are as diverse as older workers themselves. The recession has certainly shrunk many retirement nesteggs, requiring folks to work longer—or making them nervous enough that they think they should. But it’s not only about being too short on cash to retire.

“A lot of people are shifting to something that is a real passion as opposed to working to get money,” said Lita Epstein, author of Working After Retirement for Dummies. “People find it hard to sit around and play mahjong or golf all day.” Additional reasons to stay on the job include:

Ed and Jeanie Fischer
Ed and Jeanie Fischer and their thriving flower farm and roadside stand.

The nature of work. The decline in manufacturing and the rise of service industries means most work in America today is physically easier than it was a generation ago. Working in an office cubicle with a computer, a desk, and a phone is a far cry from laboring in a garment factory or steel mill.

Telecommuting. In a development that would have seemed futuristic even 15 years ago, many older folks are staying in touch with the office via Internet connection and a phone, allowing them to continue full or part time in a field where they are highly skilled—without the drudgery of commuting to an office.

The need to stay engaged. For many professionals, retiring is an abrupt break in much more than just a paycheck. The day-to-day of office life is a defining part of who they are and how they fit into society at large. In fact, walking away from an energizing, fulfilling occupation may be so demoralizing that it can lead to a decline in health. The recent book The Longevity Project documents a 90-year study of 1,528 Americans and found that those who lived active, involved lives and continued to work lived the longest. “Everybody has the ideas—don’t stress, don’t worry, don’t work so hard, retire and go play golf,” writes Howard Friedman, a psychology professor at University of California-Riverside and co-author of the book. “We did not find these patterns to exist in people who thrived.”

Demographers and retirement experts see the phenomenon of working well beyond traditional retirement age as a permanent shift. “I think we’re in a new normal,” says Dallas L. Salisbury, president and CEO of the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). “There is a wake-up taking place.”

That shift is dramatic. In 1991, half of workers planned to retire by age 65. Today, it’s just 23 percent, according to the EBRI 2011 Retirement Confidence Survey—at 21 years, the longest-running annual retirement survey. Its results jibe with those from the Pew Research Center, which further found that 16 percent of Americans ages 50 to 64 say that they never expect to stop working. Case in point: Writer Joan Rattner Heilman of Mamaroneck, New York, is well into what might be called her retirement years but has decided to keep angling for writing assignments. “I seem to need some structure in my life,” Joan says. “I’m not good at hanging out all day.”

That’s not to say Joan is a workaholic. She plays tennis, volunteers, and tends to her garden during warm-weather months. But her “Puritan work ethic” tells her she needs to accomplish something before she can play. So Heilman continues to write. “I have the kind of job that has no age limit,” she says. “You can write until your brain goes.”

Joan also concedes that the money does matter to her. Being paid for her labor signifies her continuing usefulness to society. “I like to have something I’m paid for. It reinforces my identity as being a writer,” she says.

None of this is to discount the very real importance of needing money to pay for healthcare—not to mention food and shelter. In the simplest of terms, it costs more today to grow old than it ever did in the past, if only because we can expect to live so much longer. The average life expectancy in 1930 was about 60 years. Today it is 78 years. “There’s a growing recognition that ‘I may live a long time,’” says Salisbury. “People are starting to realize, ‘I shouldn’t be planning for average life expectancy; I should plan on living to 100.’”

As for that planning thing, for many it hasn’t been going so well. Certainly boomers, the first of whom began turning 65 this year, have been notorious for building up debt and failing to save. But not all of their retirement problems are of their own making. The percentage of Americans with defined pensions has fallen substantially in recent decades. And many 401(k) plans and IRAs have taken a beating in the recent recession.

Compounding things, many Americans got spooked at the peak of the recent recession and pulled their money out at the bottom of the market—the exact wrong time, Epstein says. Even those with solid savings who’d prudently placed their money in fixed-income products years earlier are looking at returns that are a mere trickle compared to even 10 years ago. A further problem is that homes today—for many, the bedrock of savings—are worth significantly less.

What it all adds up to is worry. Concern about the ability to afford a comfortable retirement is at a record high, according to the EBRI study. A full 27 percent of workers today say they are not at all confident about having enough money to retire. That’s up dramatically from just a year ago, when 22 percent lacked that confidence. “I need to be sure there’s enough money in the coffers to take care of anything that needs to be taken care of,” says Sally Haver. She’s speaking not just of her own future needs but also those of her disabled son.

Retirement was once part and parcel of the American Dream. Along with some notion of prosperity–of living better than our parents did–the Dream came with an implied life plan. You work hard while you’re young, maybe buy a house and raise a family, and then rest easy after the rings on the old tree trunk number 62 or 65. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. In fact, for many, the notion of continuing to work past retirement age has clearly gone from a negative to a positive. “If working is not odious—if you don’t wake up every day and feel like you’re on the torture rack—you should just keep doing it,” says Sally.

Medical Breakthrough: The Viral Link to Mental Illness

Flu, AIDS, meningitis, Ebola, polio, herpes, measles, rabies—the list of diseases caused by viruses is a litany of woe ranging from the merely annoying to the deadly. Every year almost two million people are killed by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and around half that many people succumb to viral hepatitis infections. The economic toll of viral illnesses is nearly as staggering as the human one; flu costs the United States an estimated $25 billion a year, and HIV costs $36 billion. To make matters worse, new viruses continue to appear (see “Virus Hunter” below), often after hiding in animal populations for centuries before moving into humans—as did HIV, avian flu, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). But while public health officials and physicians focus on the threat of emerging viruses, little-noticed research is implicating these primitive microbes in diseases long thought to have nothing to do with them: mental illnesses.

The notion that “insanity is infectious,” as virologist Ian Lipkin of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health bluntly puts it, goes back to antiquity. As late as the 1800s, the mentally ill were locked away because, among other reasons, they were thought to be contagious. The notion wasn’t completely misguided. Until the discovery of penicillin ushered in the age of antibiotics, a major cause of mental illness was syphilis. But biomedicine is subject to fads and fashion no less than skirts are, and over the last 40 years disease detectives seeking the cause of mental conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, and obsessive-compulsive disorder have turned from microbes to genes as the cause. And now, a parade of discoveries suggests that viruses may be the culprit rather than your family tree. The new research indicates that viral infection can affect the developing brain and contribute to mental illnesses even before birth.

At first the evidence for a viral link to mental illness was spotty and inconsistent. Early studies piggy-backed on observations that when mothers suffered an infection during pregnancy, the children who were in utero at the time had an elevated risk of developing schizophrenia. But rigorous studies of whether that link was real produced contradictory results: Some found that maternal infection with influenza increased the risk of a child developing schizophrenia 20 years later, but others did not. Only in the last few years have scientists sorted it out. Instead of assuming that every child who had been in utero at the time of a flu outbreak had been infected, researchers began examining mothers’ blood for the telltale antibodies that indicate a past infection. With that advance, the link became clear: As researcher Alan Brown of Columbia University calculated in a 2010 paper, more than 30 percent of the risk of developing schizophrenia comes from prenatal exposure to the flu virus.

The flu virus is not the only culprit. In 2000, Brown and colleagues produced the first watertight evidence that young adults who had been exposed to the rubella virus (aka “German measles”) while they were fetuses less than three months old had a five-times-greater risk of developing psychosis—including schizophrenia—than their peers who had not been exposed to the virus.

Contrary to expectations, however, it is not rubella or other viruses, per se, that harm the developing brain. That became clear as scientists documented a veritable menagerie of maternal infections able to cause psychiatric and neurodevelopmental illnesses—not only flu and rubella but also toxoplasmosis and genitourinary infections. To their shock, scientists began to find that, although mothers had antibodies to flu in their blood (showing that the mother had been infected), the kids—in utero at the time—often did not: They were not infected with the virus.

Dr. Ian Lipkin
“It is the reaction of the mother’s immune system to the infection, not the infection itself, that affects the developing brain,” says Columbia University’s Dr. Ian Lipkin.

So what was happening? It’s not that the fetus becomes infected. Instead, the infection triggers the mother’s innate immune system, the army of molecules that prime other cells to kill the invaders. “It is the reaction of the mother’s immune system to the infection, not the infection itself, that affects the developing brain,” says Lipkin. Specifically, a flood of antibodies and other immune-system chemicals with names like chemokines and cytokines surges through the placenta and into the fetus. “The result may be compromised fetal brain development,” explains Dr. Robert Freedman, a psychiatrist at the University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Center.

Researchers put the final piece into the puzzle when they exposed pregnant mice to a molecular mimic of viral RNA (viral genes are often made of RNA instead of the closely related DNA). That exposure put the brakes on special stem cells that give rise to new nerve cells (neurons)—not just in the embryo but on into adulthood. Most egregiously, it blocked the growth of a specialized kind of neuron destined for the neocortex, the most advanced region of the brain.

How bad was the damage? The offspring of the virus-exposed mice could not even walk normally, reported epidemiologist Mady Hornig of Columbia and colleagues last year. And, after the mice grew to adulthood, they had other neurological abnormalities as well.

Because the mother’s immune system’s response to infection causes the harm to the fetus, almost any virus is a potential threat to the developing fetus. “The damage to neurons and neural stem cells might not be evident right away,” says Hornig, “but manifests later as cognitive and behavioral problems.”

How bad will those problems become? “The specific result depends on the timing,” says Lipkin. He explains that if neural stem cells are killed by the flood of immune-system molecules (the chemokines and cytokines) before they mature, they will not take their rightful place in the brain’s neural networks. Circuits that are forming at the time of the infection will be most vulnerable, while those already hooked up are spared. In schizophrenia, for instance, there are abnormally low numbers of neurons and incomplete clustering in a particular area of the brain, hinting that something went wrong when these regions were being constructed. The effect of the viral infection may be delayed even into adulthood if a circuit damaged by the cytokine flood is not recruited until that time.

The apparent link between prenatal viral infection and later brain disorders led Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital to establish in 1998 the nation’s first pediatric research center to investigate links between severe mental illness and prenatal or early childhood viral infections. Last year, Robert Yolken, who heads the Stanley Division of Developmental Neurovirology at Johns Hopkins Medical School, and colleagues reported that in their study of all children born in Denmark since 1981, mothers who had been infected with herpes simplex 2 had a 56 percent greater risk of having a child who later developed schizophrenia.

Dr. Robert Yolken
Dr. Robert Yolken of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center believes that better understanding the role infections play in developing schizophrenia may lead to more effective treatments in the future.

Although current thinking holds that the mother’s immune response, not the virus itself, is the culprit behind viral causes of mental illness and neurodevelopmental disorders, there may be exceptions. Yolken, for instance, suspects that herpes and influenza viruses (as well as the Toxoplasma gondii parasite carried by cats and other warm-blooded animals) might invade the brain and lie dormant for years before triggering schizophrenia or bipolar illness.

The evidence that viruses can cause psychiatric illnesses and neurodevelopmental disorders does not mean they are the only causes. For example, bacteria can also trigger an immune response, which may explain why strep infection can damage the developing brain, leading to the constellation of tics, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other symptoms called Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections (PANDAS). Additionally, many mental illnesses are more likely to arise in people with a family history of them, indicating that they are at least partly heritable. But the failure of geneticists to find genes that have a strong effect on the likelihood of developing schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, or autism suggests that genes do not cause these complex disorders the way a single gene directly causes, say, sickle-cell disease. More likely, says Lipkin, genes make people more or less susceptible to other causes of these diseases—including viruses.

Although the research is still new, scientists believe that it is not too early for obstetricians to take the emerging findings into account. The most obvious step is to monitor pregnant women closely for infections—even those that seem mild—because what may be a minor inconvenience to the mother could be devastating to the unborn child. Women should be educated to be aware of when they might have contracted a viral infection and to tell their obstetrician, who may need to treat them more aggressively than is current practice. In animal studies, after pregnant females were exposed to virus genes, the damage to their unborn pups was prevented when the mothers were given nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen. That provides a rationale for using these drugs when a pregnant woman contracts an infection, says Hornig. Currently, obstetricians prescribe acetaminophen (Tylenol) for pain relief in pregnant women, but that compound does not have the anti-inflammatory effects needed to turn off the cytokine flood.

The old expression “take two aspirin—or ibuprofen—and call me in the morning” never had so much meaning.

Nathan Wolfe
Nathan Wolfe’s research on viruses has earned him the nickname “the Indiana Jones of virus hunters.”


The next deadly scourge—and where it’s most likely to originate.

It is no coincidence that the most widespread and dangerous viruses began infecting humans some 11,000 years ago, says virologist Nathan Wolfe, CEO of Global Virus Forecasting (GVF) Initiative. When animals and people live in close proximity, as they began to do with the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry, viruses from the former can jump the species barrier—as did HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Marburg, and more kinds of flu than you can count.

Wolfe, who founded GVF in 2008 and has been nicknamed the “Indiana Jones of virus hunters,” warns that our fellow mammals aren’t done with this problematic sharing. Some 60 percent of emerging viruses—that is, those new to medical science—come from animals. And as the world becomes smaller and more connected, allowing a traveler to get from the deepest jungles of Africa to London or New York or Tokyo in less than a day, the chance of a virus jumping from a monkey to a bush meat hunter to a western tourist and the entire developed world has soared. In his upcoming book The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age (to be published in October), Wolfe argues that this has made us sitting ducks for another global epidemic.

The greatest threats come from two sources: completely new viruses (such as HIV/AIDS) and viruses that mutate. Primates are the most likely reservoirs of the former because the closer the evolutionary relationship, the more likely a virus is to cross over. (For example, there are no cases of viruses jumping to humans from fish or insects, says Wolfe.) But viruses from mammals other than primates can also spread through the human population like wildfire. The H1N1 virus from pigs was so highly transmissible that it went from infecting zero percent of the human population to 10 percent in only a year, notes Wolfe, killing some 20,000 to 30,000 people. The only reason its toll has not been greater is that transmissibility and lethality are inversely related; that’s why Ebola, though deadly, is not highly transmissible.

An even greater threat is mutation of existing human viruses. If one that is deadly but not very transmissible or very transmissible but not deadly acquires genes for that second trait, the results could be catastrophic. That is most likely to happen when viruses from widely separated regions come into contact—as is more and more likely in what Wolfe calls “this viral mixing vessel” caused by global travel.

“Viruses aren’t static,” he says. “They change over time; they exchange genes with other viruses, which can make them more likely to develop deadly recombinants. The greatest threat is probably something we don’t even know is out there.”

Recalling an Earlier ‘Twin Towers’

Rather than give any more attention to the people who attacked New York 10 years ago, I wanted to recognize a man who helped give the city its reputation for sky-scraping towers.

Louis J. Horowitz, a developer in the first decades of the 20th century, embodied the spirit of towering achievement. Arriving in New York in 1892, he came to the States with little more than burning ambition. Beginning as an errand boy earning $3 a week, he would later go on to build New York’s Equitable Building and Waldorf Astoria hotel, and, in 1910, the Woolworth Building. For 20 years, this masterwork would remain the world’s tallest building at 792 feet and a then-astounding 57 stories.  Here is Horowitz’s story, as told in the pages of the Post in 1936:

For a while in that period, I could afford only two meals a day. For breakfast I would get coffee and two doughnuts—these cost only a nickel, but they filled me up. At night I would go to a restaurant where, for fifteen cents, I could get a dish of meat and potatoes and help myself to the bread that was placed on the table. I was always hungry, and I was becoming thinner with each day. I had been delicate for some years, so the wonder is that I lived. As winter came on, time after time, with teeth chattering, I would arise from beneath thin coverings to find that the water in the pitcher on the washstand had turned to ice.

Joseph Pennel’s 1908 drawing of the Waldorf-Astoria.(Library of Congress)

By hard work and diligently saving for seven years, Horowitz scraped together $2,000. This, along with a loan for $7,000 enabled him to finance the construction of his first apartment, which he later sold for a profit of $5,000

His success and reputation for ethical work eventually helped him win contracts to build New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel and the Equitable Building (pictured above), which, in an event that would weirdly presage the later attack on the World Trade Center, was  struck by an errant missile in 1942. But his greatest achievement was the construction, in 1910, of the Woolworth Building, which remained the world’s tallest building for 20 years. At 792 feet, its 57 stories stretched so high above Manhattan that its upper floors were lost in clouds.

Its construction posed challenges that Horowitz never faced before.

I remember that the steel members were of such heavy weight that we had to survey the routes over which they were to be hauled to the site. We wanted no cave-ins! Below the surface of New York streets, there is a deep and complex mechanical jungle. Raw power in the form of electricity, steam, and gas, is channeled just under all the city’s [traffic]… likewise, down there is a root-like system of wires, pipes and larger tubes that provide means for the transport of everything from the human voice to the human body. We had to give thought to gigantic water mains, subterranean railroads, vaulted sewers… Some of that sub-surface structure lies almost as deep in the rock under New York as the Woolworth Building rises above it.
What we were going to do was to build into the air a structure of equal complexity. Our water supply was to be a vast fountain; our vertical sewer system as large as that of a small town; our railroads—the elevators—were vertical, too.
Scaffolds and hoisting engines of the kind we needed did not exist; we had to create them. Equipment had to be devised to lift loads which never before had been lifted, and to lift them to unprecedented heights. [We had to hoist] all material halfway and then relay it to a second hoisting machine to lift it higher.

Surprisingly, Horowitz was uncomfortable with the idea of skyscrapers, which he considered monuments to personal egos.

The Woolworth Building in 1912.(Library of Congress)

Throughout my career as a builder, I argued… the immorality of uncommonly big buildings. It should be obvious that an extraordinarily large building poaches sunlight and air from smaller neighbors. [Other cities] do not permit the construction of buildings so large that they would hog a disproportionate share of the water supply, sewers, sunlight, air, and transport.
Socially, the gigantic buildings are, to my way of thinking, quite wrong… it would be utterly impossible to cover [even 30%] of Manhattan with tall buildings. The streets could not take care of the traffic of such buildings. The water supply would be inadequate, and the sewers, too. The sidewalks would become a solid mass of suffocating humanity. Such a piece of foolishness is unthinkable, and, anyway, there are not enough people to serve as tenants.
No city was ever meant to contain the buildings of fabulous size—fifty, sixty, seventy stories and more—that have been attached like monstrous parasites to the veins and arteries of New York. Those who create such buildings, in my opinion, are taking an unfair advantage of their neighbors, of their fellow property owners, of their fellow citizens.

Horowitz couldn’t have foreseen how New York, and its population would continue to grow. Just as he couldn’t have imagined that skyscrapers would someday inspire fear and envy among fanatics.

But in the wake of 9/11, he wouldn’t have been surprised by the construction of the new One World Trade Center. When completed in 2013, it will be the world’s tallest office building (and able to withstand the impact of a 747). He probably would have been proud to see the beacon atop its spire, at 1776 feet, flashing out the city’s energy, resolve, and defiance to the world.