Cathy Burnham Martin's Blog, page 105

“What if I told you 10 years from now your life would be exactly the same? Doubt you’d be happy. So, why are you afraid of change?”

— Karen Salmansohn

American self-help author

(Image by Gerd Altmann)

“The human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in return.”

— Maria Edgeworth (1767-1849)

British writer

I am in the demographic group known as the Baby Boomers. We are those born between the end of World War II (1946) and 1964. Baby Boomers are known for “rejecting and redefining traditional values.” So true…  I mean, the Flower Children live here. We took pride in being informed citizens and questioning government.

While being very capable, we do now feel the pinch of age discrimination. A bizarre slice of poetic justice for the generation that said not to trust anyone over 30… and now we are all well over 30.

While we are often cast as the scapegoats for political jousting and social ills, some fine accomplishments are credited to the Baby Boomers coming of age.  For example, safer driving evolved with seatbelt laws. We are the generation of crazy road trips, dedication to public service and volunteerism, and standing up for gender equality. We protested against war, ended the Cold War, ushered in an era of freedom, and we worked for environmental protection. We launched Saturday Night Live and turned movies into culturally iconic series.

Baby Boomers invented the Internet (noooooo…. It was not Al Gore), personal computers, the USB port, screen time, the Flex-Foot prosthesis, text-to-speech technology, the automated external defibrillator, the disposable cell phone, and Viagra. Baby Boomers also made great advances in areas such as forensic science, including DNA fingerprinting. And New York-born and New Hampshire’s own “Einstein,” better known as Dean Kamen, racked up a number of important inventions. From the ambulatory infusion pump and the portable dialysis machine to the Segway and the iBot, I believe he will be easily recognized and remembered as the greatest inventor of our time.

We Baby Boomers also became the American “sandwich” generation, caring for both youngsters and elders. We have a legacy in social attitudes. And, oh, yes! Baby Boomers put the “rock” in rock & roll music, as it became central to our teen subculture.

See it all as good, bad, or indifferent. That is fine. But with life expectancy dramatically increased, we are not done yet!

(Image by Christian Dorn)

Smile, laugh, scoff, or awwww… but tell a joke… or two.

A man went into a seafood restaurant and asked for a lobster tail.

The waitress smiled sweetly and said, “Once upon a time there was this handsome lobster…”

“Doc, I can’t stop singing the ‘Green, Green Grass of Home.”

The Doctor replied, “That sounds like Tom Jones syndrome.”

I asked, “Is it common?”

He answered, “It’s not unusual.”

Why don’t pirates take a shower before they walk the plank? They just wash up on shore.

According to unofficial sources, the new, simplified income tax form has only 4 lines.

What was your income for the year?

What were your expenses?

How much do you have left?

Send it in.

(Though it sounds like it could have been told now, that ditty appeared in Readers Digest back in 1945.)

A grasshopper walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey! Did you know there’s a drink named after you?”

The grasshopper replies, “Really? There’s a drink named Stan?”

And just to prove that I’m an equal-opportunity-insulter:

A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says, “Ugh! That’s the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen!”

Fuming, the woman walks to the rear of the bus and sits down. She says to a man next to her, “The drive just rudely insulted me.”

The man says, “You go up there and tell him off. Go on, I’ll hold your monkey for you.”

Laugh or cringe… I’ll be here all week!

The classic film “Wizard of Oz” debuted in Hollywood, California on this date in 1939. It opened across the United States on August 25th. While she started as a fictional character in L. Frank Baum’s children’s novel, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” in 1900, it was actress Margaret Hamilton who breathed life into her in the film. Actress Gale Sondergaard was originally cast as the Wicked Witch of the West, but withdrew when the sly role turned sinister, the green glamour gown was replaced by black, and her skin would be green.

The character had terrified me greatly as a child. However, I also found Hamilton’s portrayal to inspire something I call a rather dark side of human nature. When she would come on the screen, I would cover my eyes with my hands. BUT, I would leave one little crack so I could peak. That translates into so many times in our human existence when we say that we can’t look! And yet, we also cannot quite look away.

As primarily a musical and comedy actress, I have been blessed to play all my favorite roles, and all my favorite “witches.” This includes good ones like the Fairy Godmother in “Cinderella” and nasty ones like Rosina Dainty Mouth (English translation) in the Engelbert Humperdinck (no, not the British singer) opera “Hansel and Gretel.”

When cast with one of the only 2 Equity contracts in Manchester’s Palace Theatre production in the 2000s, some actor friends were shocked. They thought I was “too nice” to play her in the Margaret Hamilton manner. No way! “I was born to play this role,” I recall telling them. As a Margaret Hamilton devotee, this was the one missing role from my repertoire.

I remember the director imploring, “Please tell me that you don’t get along with children or dogs.” Sorry, but I do. (Um…. That’s why they call it acting.) The children playing the munchkins made large, colorful paper flowers and decorated the walls of my dressing room with them. They also changed the name on my dressing room to read WWW, rather than Witch. On Opening Night, they added the words “and Toto, too.” The dog portraying Toto had no space in which to rest backstage, so I invited her owner to share my room.

(Ah, yes… the photo is backstage at The Palace, where we actresses playing the wicked one and the good one could be friends.)

“Whoever does not respect confidence will never find happiness in their path.”

— Proverb

(Photo by Alysha Rosly)

“Listening does not require agreement. Understanding does not necessitate compliance.”

— Cathy Burnham Martin

American author, voiceover artist & dedicated foodie

(Photo by Stefan Keller)

This date was chosen as it commemorates the date on which Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. It’s funny how what’s old is new again. Vinyl records are back. After nearly vanishing in the early 1990s, vinyl records outsold CDs in 2020.

Do you remember your first album? For those of us of a certain age, buying our first record likely happened several decades ago. For Millennials, it could have happened last week.

Was it the Beatles? Guy Lombardo? Elvis Presley? Louis Armstrong? Johnny Cash? My first albums were Dave Clark Five’s “Greatest Hits” and Herman’s Hermits “On Tour.”

Of course, we also had 45s… often a huge collection! I recall buying my first 45 at a Woolworth’s store. “Red Rubber Ball” sung by The Cyrkle hit the charts in 1966.

My funny tale of the day hails from a Strawberries Record store in the mid-1980s. As my videographer Lidia Pedro and I walked past a couple of young teenage girls, we overheard part of their conversation. “Uh-huhhhh! Paul McCartney was too in a band before Wings.”

Well, I couldn’t help myself… I simply had to ask. Nope. They could not name that band. (Yikes! Bring me my walker!)

So, spin your vinyl memories today. Great times shared with lots of great friends!

There are countless jokes told about every single U.S. President, but even Presidents can be funny, too.

As guests consumed a rather hearty amount of alcohol at the 1974 Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner, Gerald Ford delivered a beauty. He said, “At a time when funds for the defense budget may be cut, it’s comforting to see some of the big guns in your industry still getting loaded.”

Our 4th President, James Madison, was known as a jokester right to the end, as evidenced by his quipping on his death bed, “I always talk better lying down.”

Known for straight talking, Harry S. Truman said, “My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a  whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.”

Naturally, there are plenty of speech writers working diligently to spin out great lines and timely “punny” bits to help the President wax eloquently, even when they need some humor. But President Ronald Reagan’s natural sense of humor was legendary. Even as they wheeled him into emergency surgery after the failed assassination attempt, he famously joked with the surgeons, saying, “Please tell me you’re Republicans.”

Enjoyed for his dry, self-deprecating style, President George H.W. Bush told the 1989 Gridiron Club dinner attendees, “I’m known for being indecisive, but I don’t know about that.”

President Barack Obama wrapped up his comments at the 2012 White House correspondents’ dinner with, “I have a lot more material prepared, but I have to get the Secret Service home in time for their new curfew.”

And I’ll close with 17th U.S. President Andrew Johnson’s quip still rings clearly today. “Washington, D.C. is 12 square miles bordered by reality.”

“Anyone who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.”

— David Ben-Gurion (1886 – 1973)

First Prime Minister of Israel

(Photo by Jimmy Conover)