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This is the nerve center of my home, the coffee station. It is where I spend my first conscious moments every day. Above the coffee pot is an original drawing by Jack Davis. Its subject, Alfred E. Newman, and his words are familiar, but this particular rendering has been seen by few. I will tell you its story.
The late Paul Burnett taught journalism at Auburn University. When it came to the basics, he was rock solid. If an aspiring reporter could have but one mentor, there was no one better than Paul Burnett. That was fortunate, because he represented exactly one half of the journalism faculty at Auburn in the early 70s. However, he was stupefyingly wrong about one thing: he liked to tell his students, “All you need to start a newspaper is a typewriter.” My young bride Rheta and I, students of his, bought this clap-trap and departed Auburn for St. Simons Island, Georgia, where we established a weekly newspaper. St. Simons was a young reporter’s dream, an interesting character and an interesting history around every corner. Nobody ever had more fun going broke than we.
One day, someone told us, “Jack Davis is vacationing on Sea Island.” Having derived a significant portion of my education from Mad Magazine, I knew exactly who Jack Davis was. It turned out Jack, a Georgia native, was an annual visitor to nearby Sea Island, the Palm Springs of the deep south. We reached him by telephone, which you could do in those days, and he agreed to let us come out for an interview. We knew nothing about Jack, really, except his work, but we learned firsthand the grace and good nature for which he was famed among colleagues. He sat with us pups on a screened porch, spending over an hour of his vacation entertaining our naïve, earnest probing. After the last note and photograph were taken, and he was home free, he asked, “Would you like me to draw something for your article?” Would we. The next day, a friend of his dropped the above drawing at our office.
It might be my favorite possession. Jack Davis died yesterday at 91. It just now occurs to me, many of you may think you don’t know who Jack Davis is. Google him. You will be amazed.
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95 responses to “Where My Day Begins”
Re Thelma and Louise with a male cast, a man may not have rejected the rape which caused T & L to take off in the first place, but more importantly no man is going to drive a beautiful convertible over a cliff. I almost drove off a cliff once, but that’s asfad.
Did it again!
Good morning Villagers….
Wow, JJ, thanks for sharing your morning rituals with us.
…and did Mad magazine’s back page fold into another pic or something…been so long since I’ve seen that magazine, loved the ‘Spy vs. Spy’ antics.
Emb, thank you for clarifying my cooler adding heat to the outside…it understand it much better now.
And a blessed belated birthday wish Doumocon.
Steve, that is on my ‘bucket’ list…a nice long train ride across Canada.
Mindy…loved that pic…too funny.
They got the vitamin D added to the water supply…my eggs shells should be stronger, thicker in a few day. Battling cracked eggs on the packer gets on my nerves.
And a good morning to you Old Bear. Never understood that 6 degrees of separation, but there’s a lot of things in life that are hard for me to understand.
love to all….
And Jackie, I was wondering about your chickens yesterday…thanks for the update.
GR 😉 you got that right….I love her voice in this one…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXKXBsZv3r4
today’s grin…
http://cheezburger.com/8760840448
Yes, Mad had their “fold-in” on the inside back cover. When you got it lined up right, the apparent picture and text changed into something completely different.
And it did start as a comic book, changing to magazine format to get around the “Comics Code Authority”. That was a censorship board set up to regulate comics in the 1950’s when certain people took a strong dislike to the horror and crime comics of the time. Their regulations killed off the original comics line from the owners of Mad, and left them with only that publication as a going business.
TIP BlogSpot: Toulouse-Lautrec didn’t do just nightclubs. Peace,
http://thatispriceless.blogspot.com/
MAD’s ‘fold-ins” and Spy vs Spy (and sometimes Spy vs Spy vs Spy. Remember the gray lady Spy?) the two best reasons to read it!
Isn’t Thelma and Louise already a remake–Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? They did jump off a cliff in the end! 😉
“Steve, that is on my ‘bucket’ list…a nice long train ride across Canada.”
Not sure I want to go that far, but do envy Steve living where he can travel from A to B by rail. Definitely the way to travel. From late ’30s-early ’40s did that regularly from NYC-Pawling, NY and back on the New York Central RR [2 hr.], and ’47-’51 from NYC-Ithaca on the Lehigh Valley RR, NY [9 hr.] while attending Cornell U.
Last long trip [overnight] in the USA [mentioned here before], was with Elaine / the “El Capitan”, Chicago-L.A., June ’55 [preceded by rail from Ann Arbor, MI to Chicago, + taxi to the other rail station]. I came back from CA by station wagon w/ other grad students. Elaine had to leave earlier, flew, got sick at Chicago [Midway; O’Hare wasn’t there yet]. May have had something to do w/ her condition; our oldest was conceived about Paul Revere Day ’55.
Since then, our only train rides were overseas, ’82, ’83, ’85, maybe other: UK, Fr., Ger. Also rode trains there ’52-’53 while in USAF, same three places.
Debbe: You’re welcome. Thanks for the teachable moment.
Another t. m., one similar to those Ghost and OB like to point out. There’s a misplaced “I” in a previous post. Don’t feel bad; just ran across something like “He and I went . . .” in an online newspaper. [Hope the three booboos I found above were the only ones.]
Peace,
Currently on Amazon, for Mad fans: https://www.amazon.com/Absolutely-MAD-Magazine-50-Years/dp/B000HKMQ64/ref=sr_1_1?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1469801036&sr=1-1&keywords=mad+magazine+dvd
Although I did read Mad, I was not so deeply into it as some, so indeed I did not recognize Jack’s name. However, I was very sad to hear that Richard Thompson died. Cul de Sac was one of my absolute favorites despite its short tenure: Right up with Calvin and Hobbs, and A&J. (Don’t be modest, Jimmy! As a comics reader, I really do consider A&J a top comic!)
In the early 80’s I was taking frequent helicopter flights, usually boring. There was once when we flew by a double waterspout and once when the door next to me popped open.
Me again. Mark I love the Birmingham site.
Jerry in Fl, good deal. I have been reading it since I ran across it a couple of years ago. Since it is in my home area I take a special interest in the 1960’s and 1970’s pages, things that happened while I was growing up. And the earlier items help explain how some things got the way they are now.
I rode the train to Chicago in 2013 and realized it was the first time that I has ridden a train in the US. I’ve been lucky enough to ride trains in Japan, UK, Germany and Italy. Service there is much nicer and smoother. It’s nice to relax without having to worry about driving.
Jean dear, Thelma and Louise drove off a cliff at the end; Butch and the Kid jumped off a cliff during; and 9 Chickweed Lane jumped the shark months ago. But the result was the same…they all hit bottom. 🙂
So did you get your mama’s computer updated? I am going to have to break down and get mine reinstalled and turned on. Ditto TV or maybe not? I haven’t missed it yet.
Paying the bills for nothing but I seem to do that a lot.
Steve from Royal Oak, the difference between passenger service overseas and here usually boils down to one thing. Here the rails exist mainly to carry freight and the passenger trains operate at the freight carrier’s sufferance. They have no stake nor interest in the passenger trade they gave up in 1971. Most foreign service is privately operated and must maintain certain standards of service and is not bullied around by the freight operators.
Think of what the interstates would be like for drivers if the trucking companies owned those roads and you could only operate your car when and where they allowed it. That is the situation Amtrak is in. And unlike your car, where you pay to operate and maintain it, Amtrak is largely dependent on the whims of the Federal government, and we all know how well they budget.
Since emb mentioned it, here’s my grammar tip:
Use “Sam and I” where you would use “we” in a sentence.
Use “Sam and me” where you would use “us”.
Trucker: Nice lesson. Peace,