​As readers of these pages know, I have great affection for the summer camp I went to -- Camp Nebagamon in Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin.  In fairness, it's not the case of going away for a few summers.  Rather, I began going as a pre-school kid to family camp. Then, when my dad was camp doctor for four years as Doctor's Son (the official title), and later a camper and eventually counselor.  A very long time.  So, it's not just some fond summer memories, but a major part of my life.  But then, the camp has been around a long time itself -- 91 years.  

(I have a friend who will bring up his own summer camp in Wisconsin, so relentlessly and glowingly that it makes me look mute.  Every once in a while, when he gets to the point where you sense he's about to insist that no other summer camp in the world worth noting exists or has ever existed since time began or will exist into eternity, I politely mention to him that the fellow who ran the camp he loves so much actually went to...Camp Nebagamon.)

Over the near-century, they've had a lot of famous people who went there, most notably the Broadway composer John Kander (Cabaret, Chicago), Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride and All the President's Men) and his brother also Oscar-winner James Goldman (The Lion in Winter, the musical Follies with Stephen Sondheim.)  Lots of others, though I'll just add Jason Kander (great-nephew of...) who was Secretary of State of Missouri, and who I've referenced here periodically as a growing voice in the young wing of the Democratic Party. 

Fun, too, is that the camp song, "Thanks for the Pines" was written the husband-and-wife couple Gus and Grace Kahn, both professional songwriters, and among his credits are "It Had to Be You," "Dream a Little Dream of Me," "Makin' Whoopee," "Carolina in the Morning, "I'll See You in My Dreams," "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby,"...and a LOT more.  (The 1951 movie, I'll See You in My Dreams was a biopic about the Kahns, starring Danny Thomas and Doris Day.)  For those who care about such things, I wrote here the fun story how the camp song came about, and how decades later I got to sing the song to then 90+ year-old Grace.

I mention all this as backdrop about another Camp Nebagamon alum I just found out about.  No, not at that level, though fairly popular these days, TV host Andy Cohen.  And this came about because of a video I found where he's a guest on Stephen Colbert's show and reads from a bunch of letters he wrote him when he was going to Camp Nebagamon -- all of which his mother saved.  It's pretty darn funny.

And as a bonus, here is a photo of an alumni reunion a few years ago, and there he is, returning to the North Woods as an adult -- clearly not hating the camp, as he notes in one of the letters -- sitting in the front row, all the way on the far right, in a green shirt.

UPDATE:  I was going to delete this photo, but leaving it up allows me to post a response from the current camp director Adam Kaplan, who responded to a Facebook discussion.  It was in reference to camp alum trying to figure out the year of the photo, figuring it was a while back, since Andy Cohen doesn't look quite the same as he does now.  What Adam wrote was --

"To be clear, while I am not sure what year the photo is from, it is clearly from the last 5(ish) years.....And the reason you don't recognize the TV Andy Cohen in it is because the guy in the green shirt is indeed Andy Cohen. But a different Andy Cohen who has been a wonderful staff member for quite a few years. The TV Andy did come visit camp in the late around 2009 and did a very cool Trails Forward for the kids. He indeed did not hate camp and has been a terrific friend to camp....As a cool side note, the TV Andy Cohen met the green shirted Andy Cohen during his visit and the two went sailing together!"

Side note:  "Trails Forward" is a program during the camp season when a former camper or counselor returns for a day or two and gives talks about what they've gone on to do in the world and makes himself available to the kids throughout the camp.

Well, this was a weird experience yesterday.

On Wednesday evening, I got an urgent phone call from a friend saying that Ralphs Pharmacy here in Los Angeles were now accepting appointments for COVID-19 vaccine shots for the group I qualified in.  But the slots were filling up really fast, so I should go to their website immediately.  He began telling a story about his experience signing up and what went on when he was...and I cut him off instantly without relying on politeness and in his mid-sentence I said, "Goodbye, I'll call you later!" and hung-up.

And it clearly was filling up fast.  The first few days were already gone, and when I got a date that was available, but the time I got to the end of the form, that date and time was no longer open. So, I picked another date and time, and the same thing happened when I reached the end.  It took four tries before I finally got an appointment for a little over two weeks from now.  But huzzah.

I was really surprised to hear about the scheduling, since I hadn't read anything about it on the news, but was very glad for his call.  He hadn't known either -- and he's usually on top of most-everything -- but his daughter had called him.  And word clearly spread everywhere.

Anyway, yesterday morning, I called Ralphs Pharmacy to find out if they'd be keeping a waiting list in case they got cancellations, since I live walking distance from it -- and it's actually the pharmacy I tend to most use.  The person I spoke to said, no, there wouldn't be a waiting list, but then asked when my appointment was for, which surprised me. But I told her, and at this point, the conversation went -- 

“The appointment’s been cancelled.”
 
Long pause.  “What do you talking about???”
 
“The appointment has been cancelled.  It’s only for healthcare providers.  You should be notified.”
 
Trying to digest this.  “What do you mean I should be notified??  Are they planning to send emails?”
 
“You should get an email about it.”
 
Taking a deep breath.  “This doesn’t make any sense.”
 
“You should keep the appointment, but right now it’s cancelled.  They’ll let you know.”

It made little sense to me, and was a bit disconcerting, needless-to-say.  But when it became clear that she didn't actually have information and couldn’t add more than to say that right now they were only giving the vaccine to healthcare workers and that Ralphs might be sending out an email, I knew that there was no pointing in getting upset with her or even arguing.  So, as much as I wanted to say, "You handled getting this information across really, really poorly" (after all, if I didn't ask follow-up questions, she would have left it at the perfunctory, "The appointment's been cancelled" -- which it must be noted is also a poor way of phrasing things when you later add, "But keep your appointment") -- I also recognized that they were likely overwhelmed with phone calls and harried, so I said goodbye, ungnashed my teeth, and hung up.
 
As the day went on, I talked to some people and read articles, and though there was nothing specific to learn, the situation did become a touch more clear and somewhat more comforting.  (With an emphasis on the "somewhat.") It appears that Ralphs jumped the gun and wasn’t supposed to create appointments yet.  In fact, for that same sign-up form on their website, “Coronavirus” is no longer listed among the options of vaccines that Ralph offers.  Press releases from Ralphs as of two days ago, however, say that they are, in fact, now giving the vaccine to healthcare workers.
 
Equally important to the picture is that a friend in Texas said the exact same thing happened there a couple of weeks ago.  There were sign-ups and then it turned out that they didn’t get their allotted vaccine supplies, so everything was put on hold.  But what's important to add -- and added to the comfort is that not only did they subsequently get their vaccine supply…but he got his first shot this past Tuesday.
 
That said, I don’t know exactly where things stand.  What I do know is that they said, “Keep your appointment.”  And no email has been sent out yet putting anything on hold.  Also, most people who signed up have times that are still a week or two weeks off.  And the Biden Administration is coming in next Tuesday, so there is probably a big push now to get vaccine out.  In addition, we know that Ralphs Pharmacy does, in fact, have vaccine which they are currently giving to healthcare workers.  And we know, too, that 30 million doses have been distributed but only about 10 million shots have been given.  So…it seems like things should be fine.  Though I don’t know.
 
But also, there is a possible good side to this, at least on a personal level.  The screw-up by Ralphs of jumping the gun early may explain why there were no big news stories about it – which in the end helped allow people to sign up for an appointment so early before there was a huge public rush.  So, assuming they do get it worked out, everyone who now already has an appointment probably has it earlier (perhaps much earlier) than they would have had otherwise.
 
And again, it remains comforting my friend in Texas said that this exact same thing happened there, and he not only kept his appointment, but got his shot earlier this week.

Of course, this all presumes that they do get their new allotment.  If not, they will have a huge mess on their hands for all the people who signed up the earliest and find their appointments cancelled, pushing them back into the pool.
 
When I had that phone conversation this morning with the pharmacy it was – as you might imagine – very weird and disturbing and very poorly handled.  But knowing more now, while still in a state of uncertainty, I do feel better about it.  And I especially feel at least a sense of comfort from being told, “Keep your appointment.”  And if and when there is any update – including to say that appointments remain on schedule – emails will be sent out. 
 
Anyway, that’s the news, which I suspect is good to know for other areas when they get their vaccine allotment and start to make appointments.

Thankfully, there is a vaccine.  And it will get administered soon.  But it's Impressive how smooth and impeccably well-organized everything about handling the pandemic and protecting the country has been by the Trump administration which alas, unlike the coronavirus, did completely disappear last March.

​January 20th can't come soon enough.

UPDATE:  There is an addendum to all this.

Since writing my column, an article in the Washington Post appeared which may be the explanation for the problem at Ralphs Pharmacy.  While Ralphs is at fault for jumping the gun, it will not shock you to learn that what caused the larger problems is probably because the Trump administration was lying.  Here’s the opening of the article –
 
“When Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced Tuesday that the federal government would begin releasing coronavirus vaccine doses held in reserve for second shots, no such reserve existed, according to state and federal officials briefed on distribution plans. The Trump administration had already begun shipping out what was available beginning at the end of December. Now, state and local officials across the country are realizing their limited vaccine supply will not immediately increase, dashing hopes of dramatically expanding access for millions of people.”

Y'know, it makes it oh-so much easlier to run your operation at "Warp speed" when you don't have to deliver what you promised.
 
Hopefully there’s enough time between now and my appointment – and with the Biden Team taking over in five days – for them to get a supply out and I can keep the date.  But I’m not holding my breath on that.  The next hope is that when they do start rescheduling appointments that Ralphs will keep the current schedule and just move those to the front of the line where they were.
 
For those interested, you can find the full Washington Post article here.
 

Yesterday, I saw the following tweet that I just absolutely loved.  

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I burst out laughing when I read this and can absolutely confirm it. And so can almost every fellow-screenwriter I know.  In fact, I also sent the tweet to the producer on my current film project, and he thought it was a hoot and far too true.

The amount of time spent trying to make any sort of break-in believable and, ideally, fresh (even as simple a break-in as a character locking himself out of his house) can bring the writing process to a screeching halt.  I once wrote an intricate scene of a character breaking into a patrolled mansion -- not even a structure nearly as protected as a secure government building with video cameras, motion detectors, fingerprint entries, electronic alarms, heat sensors, and army guards -- although I kept it short to save screen time, since the break-in wasn't the point of the sequence, but what happened after she got what she was after and left.  However, when the director read it, he thought it was too quick and should be a significantly-more elaborate and convoluted scene, and he wanted me to make it much more believable and fun and fit the meticulous detail of the rest of the script.. Even when I explained that it might had 3-5 minutes to the film, he didn't care.  Even though the break-in wasn't important, and yet had a clever plan to get inside and a lot of meticulous sneaking around, it was still too quick for his taste, and he wanted audiences to understand it was as difficult, as near-impossible to get in as possible and believe all the effort it took.

So, I went back to the drawing board, made a lot of convoluted notes, set up an overload of hurdles and reversals, and did just that.  And in the end, added five adventurous pages to the story.  And I think it's a lot of fun.  But if I wrote the scene today, I might have just had the character walk in, get what she needed and wander out.  And if anyone complained it was too simple, I'd insist on its believability and would fight to keep it as is.

The only thing I wouldn't do is have the character stop to take a selfie with a butler.  Not because I didn't think it was believable, but when the story takes place, mobile phones hadn't been invented yet.  But other than that, yeah, I'd stand by saving myself time and making it simple.

Because on Wednesday, they just...walked right in.

Huzzah to the beloved Northwestern for winning the Citrus Bowl 35-19 over Auburn. And the 400th coaching win by defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz who is retiring after 51 years in college football.
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And to Pat Fitzgerald who just won the Dodd Coach of the Year Award for college football.

I always especially appreciate bowl game wins -- let alone just bowl game appearances -- because my dad had season tickets to Northwestern football for 51 years, and for almost all of those years they not only didn't play in a bowl game, but lost most of the games they played.  This includes a 34-game losing streak, still the longest in NCAA Division 1 history.  

So, really -- huzzah.

This is an awkward piece to write.  Not in a bad, problematic way.  More an eye-rolling, deep sigh, teeth-gnashing  and pissed off kind of thing. 

It's a bit long, but I think the background is helpful, and it's what's in the news, after all, but I feel pretty comfortable in saying that if you stick around it will all be worth it.  Really.

I suspect most people by now have seen the story about the idiotic op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about the author taking Dr. Jill Biden to task for daring to use her PhD credentials in her name, when the "kiddo" isn't a medical doctor and didn't deliver a baby.  (And no, having children doesn't count.)

It was a truly awful, belittling article on so many levels, not the least of which is the starting point that I'm sure the author, Joseph Epstein, has had not problem over the years referring to Dr. Henry Kissinger or Dr. Martin Luther King among many others, none of whom ever delivered a baby in either way.  And if for some imaginable reason he did have a problem, never wrote a public article about it.  Nor did the Wall Street Journal ever publish such an article, by anyone.

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal should not be let off the hook here.  After all, if Mr. Epstein had just written his screed and sent it privately to a fellow-misogynist, no one would be the wiser or care at his self-contained rantings.  It took such a major national newspaper to bring the thing such national attention.  And to make matters worse, they doubled-down on creating a problem for themselves when the op-ed page editor Paul Gigot wrote a defense of publishing the piece, noting (among other things) that as a public figure, Dr. Biden "can't be off-limits."

And, well...yes, that's very correct, Dr. Jill Biden should not be off-limits.  If she does something wrong, she (like everyone in life) should be held accountable.

The thing is, and this is the very important point, which happily should be incredibly easy to understand -- earning a PhD and using the "Dr." title that you earned through difficult, long academic scholarship is NOT doing something wrong.

The article was truly awful.  And the defense was tone deaf.  

Tone deaf, too, was some criticism of Dr. Biden that she should have a tougher skin to put up with articles like this one.  In fact, she only put only one response, and it was very polite, gracious and didn't even reference the author or the article.  It just made a point about young women and girls.  And indeed that's why the outrage at Joseph Epstein's article was so justified.  Not because it hurt Dr. Biden's feelings -- I'd be shocked if it did -- but because it sent such a horrible, public message to young women and girls (and all women, for that matter) that your scholarship doesn't matter.

(There was one amusing side note to Mr. Epstein's article.  It's when he referenced how he'd taught at a college for decades and never used a "Dr." in his title.  But it turns out that that's because he never earned a doctorate!  That makes it really quite difficult to legitimately claim one.  He has a Bachelor's degree.  Hey, I have a Master's degree, so even I outrank him!  In fairness, Joseph Epstein does have an honorary doctorate -- but well...y'know.  That doesn't carry you too far with college administrations trying to decide on tenure.  Or getting you a better table at most Wendy's.  And while it would be at the very least interesting to know where his honorary degree is from, alas he doesn't even name it.  He does at least mention that the president of the University who awarded it to him was later fired.  For the record, the school is Adelphi University.)

By the way, it should be noted that this isn't the first time that Joseph Epstein has come under great criticism for misogyny.  He did as editor for 22 years of The American Scholar, official magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa society. His views and articles were seen as critical of feminist scholars (yes, there's a shock to discover), and rarely gave voice to opposing views.  This included given a platform without opposition to such far-right voices as Dinesh D'Souza, who later pled guilty to a felony and subsequently got a pardon from Trump.  Even as eminent a writer as Joyce Carol Oates co-wrote an editorial calling for Epstein's firing.  He was, finally, fired in 1997, with a former president of Phi Beta Kappa commenting, "He has been driving people crazy for years. What has changed is that more and more senators were elected who are uncomfortable with the totally one-sided views in the journal.".

Okay, here is where we get to the awkward part.  And no, all that above was not "awkward," just reprehensible.  Very different concepts.

As readers of these pages know well, I went to Northwestern University, my dad taught at the medical school there -- and had season tickets to the school's football team for 51 years,, my brother went to medical school there, and about half-dozen relatives went there.  (Okay, I can guess most people can guess where this is heading.  But you don't, exactly.)  I love Northwestern University.

And yes, the school where Joseph Epstein taught for 28 years was...Northwestern University.

It is indeed galling.  That he was a visiting lecturer there for all those years and not a professor is no salve.  It is still galling to know.  Especially that he taught there for 28 years.

And here's the odd thing -- that's not even the most awkward part.

It's that -- while I can't swear to it, though I'm sure I could find out for certain -- but I am pretty sure that I had him as a teacher in one of my classes!  Yes, really.

I didn't put his name together with my time at Northwestern.  It's a fairly common name, I was there long ago, and remember the names of very few of my teachers there.  But last night, Brian Williams had a story on MSNBC about the whole controversy, and they showed an old photo of him.  And even though it was so long ago, and it was just one class, the picture flashed by and the name "Joseph Epstein" kept getting repeated -- and suddenly I went, "Oh, my God, I think I had him as a teacher!"  The professor was thin and had short hair name, like the person in photo, it was an English literature class (and that's what this Joseph Epstein taught) and I'm near certain that the teacher was named "Epstein" and as I focus on it, "Joseph" rings a bell.  And I even think he was a lecturer, not a professor.  I can't swear to it.  But if I absolutely had to bet, and afterwards we'd track it down in old transcripts, I would bet that, yes, I had Joseph Epstein as my teacher for an English literature class.

The class stands out because, though my college studies were in the humanities and not science, and my career work has been in writing, I think it was my only pure literature course.  Though I can't swear to that either.  But the other reason the class stands out is because of an amusing aside that took place one day.  For whatever reason, the name of author Arthur C. Clarke came up, and his story of 2001:  A Space Odyssey -- and the subsequent movie phenomenon.  And the teacher (this Joseph Epstein, I presume) asked the class to raise their hands if they'd either read the book or seen the movie, and all the hands around me shot up.  Then, he asked who had neither read the book or seen the movie -- and my hand was the only one to raise.

For what it's worth, my hand would still go up if asked the question...

By the way, there is one positive in all this.  

After the MSNBC story and my ruminating thoughts, I went online to do some research about "Joseph Epstein" and his time at Northwestern.  A Google search turned up a page for him on the Northwestern University website, so I clicked on it.  But unfortunately it turned up a "Page Not Found" result.  I did other searching and found other information.  But today, I checking out information for this article, I discovered something new -- Northwestern University, to their great credit, has actually scrubbed Joseph Epstein's emeritus page from its website!

Huzzah.

​There is a happy ending to this after all.

As we've reached the third night of Hanukkah and reached the weekend, that means it's time for my annual tradition of my New Tale of Hanukkah, along with the tale behind it.  Okay, so it's not music, but...well, you can hum along with it, if you like.

Today's little known holiday song -- this time, for Hanukkah on the second night -- comes from what I believe was the first season of the animated series South Park.  It was their initial Christmas special, centered around the adventures of Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo, which brought the show even more attention.  I have a tangential story connected to the song, "It's Hard to Be a Jew on Christmas."  

As I think I've mentioned, back in my dark days of P.R. I was the unit publicist on the movie BASEketball, which was directed by David Zucker (of the Airplaine! and The Naked Gun series, which was why he brought me along) and starred Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who did -- and still do -- South Park.  During the movie's production, which overlapped with them being in production on South Park (so, in essence, they were doing two jobs at the same time), Matt and Trey mentioned that the only reason they signed to do the movie is because they were sure the TV series would be canceled after 10 episodes, and they'd have plenty of time to make the movie.  Ha.  So much for the best laid plans.  It was during the movie's production that the TV series started peaking -- for instance they made the cover of both Time and Newsweek during the film.  They said that if they had any idea that the TV show would still be going on, they never would have agreed to be in the movie.  It was a crushing schedule -- including having an editing trailer for them on the set every day, and going back to their production offices after the day's filming -- but they handled it seriously impressively.

Anyway, going back several months, we had a read-through of the movie script one night, and given that it was the "South Park guys," families and kids were invited.  And as it happened, the read-through took place the night after their Christmas special aired.

In the milling around phase of the evening, I went over to Trey and Matt to introduce myself, and I also wanted to tell them how much I particularly had love this specific song.  Given the fame of South Park at that time, they were not surprisingly surrounded by a bunch of young boys gushing about the show.  But in particular, they were gushing about another song in the TV special.  So, I stood off to the side and waited for their fans to finish.

The other song in the show as sung by the character 'Cartman," and lasts about 30 seconds, with the words basically being, "Kyle's mom is a big fat b*tch, she's a b*tch, b*tch, b*tch, she's a big fat b*tch," over and over for half a minute.  The little boys just loooooved that.  And one after another, they enthused to Matt and Tray about it, singing the song.

After they all departed, I finally walked over.  I said hi, we chatted a bit, and then I said how terrific I thought the song, "It's Hard to Be a Jew on Christmas" was.  That the lyrics were so funny, yet touching, and the music was wisftul, and it was just really nicely crafted.  And what was hilarious and memorable was how their faces suddenly filled with a smile of relief.  They completely understood why the little boys all loved the "Kye's mom is a b*tch" song -- but this other was an actual song.  And one they took great pride in.  So, they were SO relieved to have someone praise it, rather than the one getting all the attention.

I also had one question for them.  About a minute into the song, the character Kyle singing it mentions some Hebrew phrase which I couldn't make out, words from some Hebrew Hanukkah song he has to sing instead of getting to sing "Silent Night."  I asked what it was, since I didn't recognize the song, and if they did research to find it or what.  Trey broke out with a big laugh, "Oh, that," he said, "we just made the words up.  We didn't know any Hebrew, so we just wrote some gibberish that sounded right."

(Note:  When I've posted this in the past, it's only been the audio track of the song from the special since the sweet video wasn't available.  But I checked once again this year -- and it's at last there, and I found it.  So...huzzah.  Or rather, chuzzah.
​

My friend Steve Fifer back in Chicago (okay, Evanston...) is a wonderful writer, with many non-fiction books to his credit -- including three books written with Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Jimmy Lee and James, about two lives and their deaths which lead to the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act.

All of Steve's books are not about the Civil Rights movement -- some are on politics, he's got a fun book on watching baseball, an excellent autobiography of his own inspiring journey overcoming a debilitating disability -- in which, okay I'm biased -- he mentions my dad, who was a doctor, twice...), and perhaps my favorite of his books is So You've Got a Great Idea, which is full of profiles of successful entrepreneurs and how they made it, along with a "case study" of Steve and his wife Sharon -- also a fine writer of the "Jane Wheel" mystery series -- coming up with an idea and seeing if they could use the lessons learned from the others to pull it off.  However, his new book is not only again about Civil Rights, but one of its major figures.

His upcoming collaboration, It's In the Action: Memories of a Nonviolent Warrior, is an autobiography of Civil Rights legend C.T. Vivian, which he wrote with Steve.  Vivian sadly died this past July at age 96, although happily the book had been completed.  You may have seen the memorial ceremony that was carried in full on C-SPAN (which you can watch here, with video tributes by Joe Biden, Oprah Winfrey, Hank Aaron, and others),  Among many things, Vivian helped organize the Freedom Rides with Rev. Martin Luther King and in 2013 was awarded the appropriately-named Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

​I mention all this because, though the book won't be published until March 9 next year, Amazon has it listed for pre-order -- and I know that publishers look at pre-orders in determining their marketing and promotion plans.  This is not a push for people to order it.  To each their own.  Mainly, I was pleased to know about Steve co-writing such a prestigious book and wanted to bring it up.  But also, given the subject matter, I thought that if anyone does, in fact, have interest in the Civil Rights Movement and C.T. Vivian's autobiography and might be considering getting it anyway, I just wanted to at least note the pre-order option here.  (Know that if the price lowers, Amazon lowers it for those who have pre-ordered it, as well.)

​At the very least, I'm very happy for Steve.

I mentioned earlier that for this year's Holiday Music Fest I had a few TV specials from the past.  This is the first -- not a standalone special per se, but the Christmas special for the weekly Julie Andrews hour, and they went all out to make it stand out.  This is from December 20, 1972, and the cast includes Jimmy Stewart, Joel Grey, Mama Cass Elliot, Carl Reiner, Steve Lawrence, Sergio Franchi, Dan Dailey, Alice Ghostley and Rich Little. 

(Side note: For those who don't know his name, Dan Dailey had a successful movie career in the 1940s and 1950s, including many musicals, and even got an Oscar nomination as Best Actor for When My Baby Smiles at Me.  I saw him on stage at the Blackstone Theater in Chicago as 'Oscar' in a 1966 production of The Odd Couple, which also starred Richard Benjamin as 'Felix,' who so often played nervous, neurotic characters and was memorably picture-perfect for the role. And years later I got to tell him that when I met him and his wife Paula Prentis at a Northwestern alumni party which was held before the football team played in the Rose Bowl in 1995.  And yes, he was stunned.  And pleased.)
​

(But I digress.
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The special is very well done.  Carl Reiner even has a solo song, and does a nice job on "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day."  Jimmy Stewart is the main guest, and travels around with Julie Andrews – and just when you think that that's pretty much all he'll get to do, later in the show he actually gets a solo number with "Away in the Manger" -- then sings a bit on two  duets, including one with Julie Andrews, which in the singing world is the definition of courageous.

What's also fun is that Alice Ghostley sings one of the little-known Christmas songs I've posted here the past few years from the TV musical The Stingiest Man in Town.  For that matter, they also perform yet another little-known song I post here -- in fact, that I posted just the other day, “A Christmas Carol” from the movie Scrooge.  And are a couple of fun short sketches between Jimmy Stewart and Rich Little.  The spepcial also includes the original commercials which adds some whimsy.

(Note: for some reason, this may open at the 1:48 mark, but  I think I've finally gotten it to begin at the start.  If not, though, you can just click on the scroll bar at the bottom of the video to get it all the way back to the beginning.)

I was very sorry to find out about the passing of Rafer Johnson at the age of 86, one of the country's great athletes, who won the Decathlon at the 1960 Olympics and was a great ambassador for the U.S. since.

How great?  It would be too long to go into detail, but I'll just note that when the United States hosted the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984, the person chosen to light the Olympic flame was Rafer Johnson.

I was very sorry to find out about the passing of Rafer Johnson at the age of 86, one of the country's great athletes, who won the Decathlon at the 1960 Olympics and was a great ambassador for the U.S. since.

This is a good, 4-minute video of Johnson's Gold Medal victory, in what's considered one of greatest decathlon competitions in Olympic history.  Not just because it was between the two top athletes in the world at the time, but they also were not only close friends...but teammates at UCLA, even though they were  representing different countries.

I don't really have much of a personal story to pass along about Rafer Johnson, but he has a very nice autobiography, The Best That I Can Be, which was written with the talented Philip Goldberg, who I was friends with but alas haven't seen for years since moved out of state too long ago.  The only time I cross paths with Rafer Johnson was when I went to a book-signing event.  We didn't talk long -- there was a long line -- but he was gracious and spoke wonderfully about Phil, who over the years always spoke even far-higher of Rafer.​

On his Facebook page, Phil wrote this --

"​I just got the sad news that one of the finest people I've ever known, Rafer Johnson, has passed away at 86. In the 90s I had the profound honor of working with Rafer on his autobiography, "The Best That I Can Be." It was a joy and an inspiration from start to finish, and we remained friends ever since. For those who don't know, or remember, Rafer was one of the greatest athletes in American history, and to my mind an even greater human being and citizen."

If you're interested in the book, you can find it here.