Radio Memories: Easter Renewal

We talked of many things, of the changes that living with cancer brings, of the changes seen by eyes living through eight decades of love and loss, growth and decay, grief and joy.

Many of her oldest friends have passed on, and she bears their loss on shoulders frail with age, in a body failing her in ever increasing measure. Yet just as the cane supports her fragile frame, her faith supports her spirit, allowing her to persevere through the decline with grace, gratitude, and a smile beaming with hope.

As our lunch went on, our talk moved from insights about the present to memories of the far past, eventually to her previous life as a high school teacher. "Are the teenagers of today any different than the teenagers of your time?", I asked her. "Despite all the changes in the world around us, have young people themselves really changed all that much, since you used to teach them?"

Her eyes looked into space, as if turning the pages of a large book, and after a pause she related an anecdote that instantly hit home with me. About how when they think nobody is looking they will come to you after class and ask to talk, and the young person sitting there, crushed by their insurmountable problems, hoping there is someone to go to for answers, that this young person is the same person in every age, looking for confirmation of the same eternal truths.

Our time was almost up, and I ventured a last question on a subject untouched so far: the future. "Are you hopeful?", I asked.

"Yes and no", the former teacher answered, hesitating, clearly favoring the "no" but not willing to go against her hard-won positive attitude. She did permit herself a quick glance in my direction, as she gathered her things to leave our table, adding a final caveat through a whimsical smile:

"Well, maybe a little more hopeful than I used to be..."

That humbling Good Friday experience was the perfect prelude to Easter Sunday, and the spirit of renewal in general.

It's Sunday, and when time allows it I take advantage of Sundays to slip in another in our series of Radio Memories, a weekly pause spent listening to, and learning from, echoes from the past.

There's much to enjoy from television's predecessor, the dead-but-not-forgotten medium of dramatic radio, the theater of the mind.

One of the most entertaining programs from that bygone time was the comedy series "The Great Gildersleeve", following the adventures of Uncle Gildy's challenges in raising his orphaned niece and nephew. Sponsored throughout the majority of its run by Kraft Foods, to help sell the (relatively) new wonders of Kraft Processed Cheese and fast-cooking Kraft Macaroni, the show matured in style year after year, abandoning its initial cartoon-like trappings (although not losing the voice talent of supporting actor Arthur Q Bryan, more recognizable to modern audiences from his lifetime job as cartoon star Elmer Fudd, than from his busy radio work of the time), evolving closer to soap opera, with plotlines stretching through the length of entire seasons.

One of those later serialized stories proved to be profoundly bittersweet, centered as it was on Gildersleeve's stumbling attempts to kindle a romance with his nephew's piano teacher. The listening audience cringes in sympathy as week after week Gildy never seems to catch the break he needs, never seems to find the right word for the right occasion, and we begin to sense that this is a romance that is not meant to be. We tune in, episode after episode, not so much to learn how he will win, but instead to discover how he'll handle the eventual, inevitable heartbreak.

This particular story overlapped with the series' Easter tradition, where the last few minutes of the show would be turned over to the Seventy Two year-old patriarch of the Kraft Foods company, Mr James L Kraft himself. Last Easter we introduced you his poignant, 1943 wartime Easter broadcast; this Easter we bring to you the message he delivered Wednesday, April 2nd, 1947.

At the 26-minute mark of the show, star Harold Peary assumes an uncharacteristically solemn tone to introduce what, by that year, a cherished moment for the audience listening at home, the annual visit from the elderly gentleman considered as much a part of the Gildersleeve family as Gildy himself.

Mr Kraft's 1947 Easter message:

Again this year it gives me the greatest pleasure to send Easter Greetings to Kraft men around the globe, and to friends both known and unknown everywhere.

The Easter season is a time for rejoicing all over the Earth. A time for renewing faith, and re-examining the true values of life. Even nature, at this time of the year, seems to join in this affirmation of eternal hope and everlasting life.

A long time ago it was said, “know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.” To find eternal and unchanging values amidst so much that passes away, had always been a goal of men. And much of modern science, invention and education, holds this knowledge of the Truth as their objective.

Yet, in the field of the human spirit and moral conduct, it is of even greater importance that we seek out the unchanging Truth, that it may make us free.

Our Truth may be regarded as an abstract quality, a far-away goal to be desired by the seeking mind. But it is also, and more vitally, a living quality, revealed in a way of dwelling in harmony with one’s fellow men.

This Living Truth was expressed perfectly in the life of Him who’s death and resurrection from the dead the whole Christian world observes this week.

I’ve been reading once again the story of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. It is a profoundly moving story. You will remember that after Pilate’s interrogation of Christ, Jesus said, in substance, “I came into the world, that I should bear witness of the Truth.”

Then Pilate asked a question, which many before him and many since have asked: “What is Truth?”

By His death and resurrection as by His life among men, Christ gave the answer to that question. For only as men are able to live humbly and unselfishly together, expressing by all that we do the Truth that is in us, will we be able to solve the great problems of the world today. Only by casting aside all pettiness and selfishness, and by following a straight and simple path of doing unto others as we would have others do unto us, can nations and people learn to live in peace and harmony together.

At this Easter season, let us all witness by our daily living, the Faith and Hope and Truth that in us lie, let us walk daily in our great faith, and hold the flame high for all to see.

Only thus can the eternal promise of this sacred day come to flower on the Earth.

Previous 2010 Radio Memories posts:

Lux Radio Theater: Hitler's Children
Biography In Sound: The Story Of Science Fiction
Mr President: Romance In The White House
Frontier Fighters: George Pickett
Destination Freedom: Citizen Toussaint [Toussaint L'Ouverture]
Ports Of Call: Haiti

For a list of our 2009 Radio Memories listings, go here.

Radio Memories: Easter Passion

"The Theater Of The Mind": for many years this was one of the favored ways of describing the early 20th Century's beloved, and dearly departed, art form of radio drama. Today's radio offers news, music, this and that, but precious little of the kind of programming that filled its airwaves for that brief window of time when radio, not television, was king.

Every Sunday, through these Radio Memories posts, we pause to pay tribute to "The Theater Of The Mind", as we take a break from blogging about more serious subjects to listen a while for echoes of a different time, through a lost art.

This week we feature an episode from the waning years of radio drama, from the series that believe it or not was actually responsible for coining the very term, "theater of the mind", in its opening credits (the expression had to come from somewhere, after all..!): the one-of-a-kind CBS Radio Workshop.

In his 1979 autobiography As It Happened: A Memoir, CBS President (and longtime owner) William S. Paley revealed that this was one radio series that his company would always handle with special treatment. It was broadcast as what was known as a "sustaining" program, meaning that it would never be commercially sponsored; the network would insist on paying the bill, themselves. Not for lack of interest on the part of potential sponsors; many came calling but all were turned away. Paley felt that the moment the show possessed an actual sponsor it might dilute the purpose of the series: to creatively experiment with the art form of radio drama, in music, sound effects, story content, acting styles... whether it was adaptations of Alduous Huxley, the Gettysburg Address or the King James Bible, each week's effort would be a unique theatrical result, and as close to "art for art's sake" as the business of show business might ever aspire to.

The pioneering anthology series ran in several packages over the years, starting off in 1936 as the Columbia Workshop, lasting in some comercial-free form or another until 1947. So many of the network staff missed the show's creative challenges so dearly, that Paley brought the program back for one final year's run in 1956-57, as the CBS Radio Workshop.

For their Sunday, April 21st 1957 Easter broadcast, the Workshop offered "The Son Of Man", a play written (or should I say, edited) by Archibald MacLeish, consisting of Gospel passages read by Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall, Victor Jory and Robert Young, with narration by Raymond Burr, all interwoven around the music of J.S. Bach (narrator Burr explains that "the music has an actor's part", a delightful description of the stirring use of music in this play).

It is a reminder of a different time, of the power of words, and of the faith that can come from them...

Previous Radio Memories posts:

Great Gildersleeve: Easter Rabbits

Dimension X: Time And Time Again

An American In England: Women Of Britain

Cavalcade Of America: Bob Hope Reports

The March Of Time: Feb 10 1938 broadcast

Hear It Now: Coming Home From The Korean War

Escape: Vanishing Lady

Rogers Of The Gazette: Rewinding The Town Clock

Radio Memories: The Return Of Hope

Back when my wife and I were still engaged we took an afternoon to visit the picturesque community of White Rock, curious to see the actual white rock there. The end of our pleasant day together saw us strolling, hand in hand, along a deserted sidewalk when suddenly our path crossed that of an elderly woman heading in the other direction. I forget what she looked like, but I’ve never forgotten the advice she offered us as we passed by. After we smiled and greeted her with a friendly hello, she suddenly said to us, a note of urgency in her voice: “Love each other while you still can, while you’re still young together”.

Easter is around the corner, and not too many decades ago that meant a lot of Easter-themed programs broadcast over television’s entertainment ancestor, the theater of the mind: radio drama. Resurrecting the tradition I had to put temporarily aside in February, this week we resume our regular Sunday Radio Memories posts, taking a break from blogging about more serious subjects in order to spare a moment to renew our hope in better things to come, by remembering the good things that have already come our way.

To help get in the mood for Easter weekend, this week’s Radio Memory is a sentimental favorite, a radio play with an important plot point revolving around an encounter similar to the forementioned one my wife and I personally experienced that unforgettable afternoon in White Rock.

The episode is entitled “Easter Rabbits” and was first broadcast Sunday evening, April 25th, 1943. It is from the immensely enjoyable situation comedy series The Great Gildersleeve, sponsored for the first 13 of its long 16-year run by Kraft Foods. In those simpler days the common practice was that one sponsor could afford one whole program themselves, which frequently led to a fascinating, almost quixotic individuality in programming, as a series would grow to reflect something of the values of the individual family business sponsoring it. For The Great Gildersleeve, Kraft alternated advertising its still comparatively new products, Kraft macaroni and cheese dinner (introduced in 1936), and Parkay margarine (introduced in 1937), as well as their contribution to renewing America's love of cheese, courtesy of Kraft's development of long-lasting, processed cheese.

A remarkable tradition began with this particular wartime episode: each year septuagenarian Mr. Kraft himself, Canadian-born Mennonite (and later Baptist convert) James Lewis Kraft, would offer Gildersleeve's listeners some hopeful thoughts on the spirit of Easter, through a short talk re-routed to Hollywood from his company's home base in Chicago. Starting at the 25:49 mark in the closing moments of this Easter broadcast, Mr. Kraft delivered the following three-minute address, which I've transcribed below for the sake of those who may not be able to listen to the actual episode.
I find J.L. Kraft's epilogue invigorating to listen to today, and as comforting to those of us challenged in our time to keep faith in a positive future, as it must have been to those back in 1943:

“I’m glad of this opportunity to bring Easter Greetings to Kraft men and women everywhere, and to the families of our boys and girls who are now in the service of their country.

When we think of Easter we naturally think of the Resurrection; the two words are eternally linked together. In every Christian land today, the celebration of Easter will bring its age-old message of hope to a war-darkened world. The fact of the Resurrection and the faith which it symbolizes, have never been so significant to so many nations and to so many peoples in the world’s history.

In itself, the word ‘resurrection’ is one of the most beautiful in our language. It means bringing back to life, the conquest of death, the return of hope.

At this springtime of the year, all nature tells the story of resurrection. We read its meaning in the budding trees, and in the miracle of nature’s re-awakening to vibrant life.

There is still another significance to the word ‘resurrection’: to bring back to memory that which was forgotten or lost. And it is upon this meaning of resurrection that I have been reflecting on this Easter Sunday. While our boys are away fighting for freedom around the world, enduring hardships, loneliness, weariness, we on the home front have a high responsibility toward them. While they are absent, our virtues grow in their minds and our shortcomings are forgotten.

Let us so live our lives that their ideals shall not be shattered when they return. Let us make them as proud of us as we are proud of them.

And so it seems particularly fitting to me that each of us at Easter time should resurrect our faith in God, and in the ideals of our forefathers. That faith and those ideals upon which this nation was founded, and by which it grew strong and great.

As youngsters our mothers taught us to say, when we pray, ‘now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord my soul to keep’. I have just had a letter from one of our own boys in North Africa, in which he says that eight men of his group kneel at their bunks every night and speak this prayer as they go to sleep. It means something to them, it meant something to us as children.

Let us then, as we think of these simple prayers, resurrect the trusting faith of our childhood, and approach God understandably. Let us resurrect and renew our strength in the God-given pioneer virtues.

Let us, at home in our daily lives, have the courage, the strength and the fortitude of those who fight for freedom; that we and our children, and they and their children, may live in peace. They are counting on us, depending on us, to maintain their ideals of home and family, until they join us again.

And in this we cannot fail them.

The times change, but the message remains the same, doesn't it: to love each other as we can, so that even in the aftermath of painful loss the darkness of personal despair may be gently dispelled by the light of another's love, sparking a renewal of individual faith, leading to a general return of hope.



Previous Radio Memories posts:
Dimension X: Time And Time Again
An American In England: Women Of Britain
Cavalcade Of America: Bob Hope Reports
The March Of Time: Feb 10 1938 broadcast
Hear It Now: Coming Home From The Korean War
Escape: Vanishing Lady
Rogers Of The Gazette: Rewinding The Town Clock