Beethoven's Birthday

 

 Peanuts. 16 December 1964

Charles Schulz gained appreciation of classical music as an adult, and began to like it. In his cartoon strip, he revisited some stories. Some saw these set pieces as continuing in-jokes or leitmotifs.  In this way, the reader was re-enforced in knowing the characters. Lucy will always pull the ball away from Charlie's kick. Snoopy is a WWI aviator, a member of the French Foreign Legion, and so are Woodstock and his friends. Snoopy types on top of his house. Linus is the philosopher, and theologian who has a security blanket, and waits for the Great Pumpkin.  Lucy offers counseling for a nickel. Schroeder plays the piano. While Schulz enjoyed Brahms the most, Beethoven's name had more comic sound. Before Schroeder comes into the cartoon, Charlie struggled with Beethoven on violin. Year, after year [27 of 49], Schroeder reminds us of his idol's birthday.

1 more day

mocking acquisitiveness

 

 30 November 1960

It is a short jump to suggest, the anticipation before the holiday is for material gain. The cartoon is talking of Beethoven's birthday, but substitute the commercial, material, and secular replacement of Advent in the United States, before the observance of the Nativity of Jesus.

8 more days until Beethoven's birthday

St. Nicholas

6 December is St. Nicholas's Day. The night before gifts come to children in eastern, and central Europe. In this stamp Nicholas is dressed as an Orthodox, or Byzantine, bishop. He is the special saint for children.

The communists in Slavonic lands tried to replace him with Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost), and his other ethnic cousins, such as Dedek Mraz, on New Year's Eve. In capitalist America he was similarly replaced with a Christmas season Coca Cola guy.

Greyhound

"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've gone to look for America

Riding that old grey dog was not as romantic as Paul Simon sang it. From the Great Depression, through the War, to after the highways were completed, until perhaps the first oil crisis when Nixon was president it was not too bad. Decay and increased dodginess came ever more apparent. There also were passenger trains for long distance travel, but air travel was less common. Having a car was less necessary, especially for daily travel to work, and shop, and errands for there were streetcars and such. Old people who never learned to drive, college students, military servicemen, and people with little means looking for a new town rode the buses. But at one point, something changed in America. This company was not managed well and sold a few times, employees were not treated well. Terminals were not maintained. Some people that habituated the terminals were rough, crazy, and had criminal interests eager to engage (this was true then too, but it grew). Travellers did not like to be there, and felt discomfort and unease. If i had the inclination, i would not be surprised to see the figures on percentage of people using cross country, and inter-city bus travel to have declined from some high point (but i am not writing for academic publication). Since Osama bin-Laden allowed gwbjr and his minions (and their successors) to add paranoid security, another level of unpleasantness has been thrown at people. Now everyone is a suspected terrorist.

 Louisville 1937

  Cleveland  1948-2012
both layered with some smooth rounding

William Strudwick Arrasmith was the architect of some sixty plus of these puppies. The first being in Louisville Kentucky (where he was based) in 1937 (now gone for more than a generation). He applied the Streamline Moderne style of industrial design to architecture.  Cleveland's was the first completed after WWII in early 1948 and the last in that style and the end of Art Deco. The Louisville depot's exterior was porcelain enameled steel in Greyhound blue, Cleveland's (then the largest) is in limestone with aluminum.