Party Time!

                                     
          As you may already know, in September we will celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the premiere of "The Waltons." When I was a boy growing up in the backwoods of Virginia during The Great Depression I could never have dreamed that　those days, those times, that little village and the events we experienced as a family, would become material for stories to be broadcast, over something we had never heard of called television, all over the world.

　　Not long ago I looked through some of the early reviews of the series when it first went on the air over CBS. I thought it might be interesting to see how we were first perceived 40 years ago.

　　In The New York Times, a writer named Anne Roiphe wrote the following:

　　"A bobwhite cry breaks the quiet of night among the firs and pines of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia "Goodnight Ma." "Goodnight John-Boy" "Goodnight Pa" and the lights of the Walton house on Walton’s Mountain somewhere in the early nineteen-thirties dim, and a million viewers turn away from their television sets, eyes wet, souls heavy with false memory and hopeless longing. C.B.S has filled another Thursday night with nostalgia, bathos, soap opera, formula plot, tear-jerking junk, and I and all those other viewers share a moment of tender shame at having been so painfully touched by such obvious commercial exploitation."

　   Commercial exploitation! Bathos! Tear-jerking junk! At this point I was so offended I was ready to cancel my subscription to The New York Times and write a scathing note to the lady. And then I read on:
      "Since every Thursday night I am reduced to ridiculous tears, I had to ask these questions and explore the program’s skill at piercing touch hides, revealing sentimental ooze that can no more be than controlled than the shift of dreams that sill wake us screaming every now and then."

　　Sentimental ooze! Come on, Miz Roiphe? 

      You keep on this away I am liable to forget that I am a　Virginia gentleman　and say something I might regret!

　　A few lines later she continues, "The Waltons" may be romantic nonsense, may bear only superficial and misleading resemblance to real life, but it is very good magic. It is a good, workable dance to scare away the evil spirits of loneliness, isolations, divorce, alcoholism, troubled children, abandoned elders, - the real companions of American family life, the real demons of the living room."

　          Romantic nonsense, Miz Roiphe?

       There was nothing the least romantic about the Great Depression of the 20’s and 30’s and we never portrayed it that way. It was a time when we were tested as a people, and we came through with courage, persistence, and faith in our country and our leaders. Poverty was just one of our challenges. It was a time when prejudice still stained many areas of the country, some racial and some religious, and we examined those issues too. The threat of Nazi Germany was becoming clear to many of us and one of our finest episodes dealt with that sport so beloved to the Nazis’ - book burning.

      But more than that, we told stories about two people who loved each other and were dedicated to raising a family. We told stories that were dedicated to the strength of the American people that brought us back from the brink of ruin.

　         Romantic nonsense! Nonsense!

　   To make matters worse the writer illustrated her piece with photographs by Walker Evans showing emaciated children, haggard women, defeated men, people in rags, filthy shacks, which prompted my sister Marion Hawks (Mary Ellen Walton) to write an outraged letter to The Times" pointing out that the photographs only added to the inaccurate portrayal of our family. I think she was even a little threatening, but you know Mary Ellen.

       After The New York Times piece it was a relief to find a review that I could relate to. It was written by critic Val Adams and his review goes as follows:

       "Circumstances surrounding the Waltons provide one of the more interesting situations of this fall’s television series. It is different from any other show on the air which does not necessarily make it good. "The Waltons" has no excitement and no glamour. It is a story about simple people – a large family of three generations living at the foot of The Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia during the Depression of the 1930."

       A little more favorable, but still it fell in the category of many other reviews which asked "Who will want to watch a series about poor people eating possum, swilling moonshine, and scratching out a living in the backwoods of Virginia during The Great Depression?"

      The answer? Huge number of viewers. You – the audience. You found the series, liked it enough to come back the following week, liked it enough to tell your friends, liked it enough to write letters of support to CBS, and by the end of the season the series had risen to the Number One position in the ratings.

      We went on the air in September. Most of the TV critics predicted a quick cancellation. Who, they continued to ask would watch a sprawling poverty-stricken backwoods family, swilling moonshine, feuding, and fighting, marrying each other and singing old Baptist hymns? Who would watch?

                  THE PEOPLE WATCHED!

      And by December we were the Number One show in the ratings and we stayed there for several years.

      Beginning in 1972 the series was seen on Thursday nights on CBS by an average of fifty million viewers in the United States. It was also seen in Canada and Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Fiji and in Ecuador, to mention only a few of the countries where it became popular.

       The series was awarded six Emmy awards, six Christopher Awards, The Golden Globe Award from the Foreign Press Association, The People’s Choice Award, and the highest award given in broadcast journalism: The coveted Peabody Award from the University of Georgia. The series received commendations from the Council of Christians and Jews, The Society of Southern Baptists, The Religious Public Relations Council of the United Methodist Church, and the Church o0f Latter-Day Saints. One Sunday we went beyond my wildest expectations. In a magazine called "Twin Circle," which is the voice of the National Catholic Press, a picture of the cast of The Waltons was given equal space with a picture of the Pope. At that point I began to worry that we had gone too far

        For each of us who were involved in the series it has changed our lives. The series became the building block for a brand new production company called Lorimar which went on to produce such memorable series as Dallas, The Blue Knight, and Eight is Enough and another of my long running series, Falcon Crest. For the actors, writers, directors and crew it meant more than ten years of steady employment, dependable income in an industry where such good fortune comes to few people. And even though the series caused some of the actors to be type cast, known only for their Walton roles, it did opoen doors, bring them to prominence in the industry and made their names and faces known wherever in the world there was a television set.

        The show also provided a special kind of relationship to those of us involved. Because of kind of stories we told and because we were all portraying members of a family, we came together as "family" – a relationship that continues right down to today. We attend each other’s wedding, anniversaries, birthdays, funerals, christenings, bar mitzvahs. And so it was that we mourned as a family when we had to say goodbye to such special members of the cast, such beloved actors as Ellen Corby and Will Geer.

　   None of us had thought ahead to the effect the show would have on my family. Because the series was based on the character and structure of my own family it was important that I be true to the way my family members they were portrayed. This required my being in my office near the set all during the day attending casting sessions, network meetings, screenings, story meeting, and then at night writing or rewriting scripts to insure that they gave a honest representation of my family members. This became a burden on my own family when I realized that I was devoting more attention to a television family than my own and that I had not been home for dinner in months. It was a sober and shocking revelation. Believe me I was home for dinner from then on.

         It was a bit of a family affair. Both my daughter, Caroline and my son, Scott were extras in "The Homecoming." And then my son, Scott, a writer, came aboard as a regular contributor to the series. His script, "The Reunion," became the last scheduled episode when we finished our first run.

         To the audience The Waltons brought an hour of television each week that supplied a very personal and intimate experience to a vast number of people here at home and in every country of the world. Even today, forty years after the original first run, the series is being shown on three different cable channels, Hallmark, INSP, and GMA. I receive mountains of mail, sadly more than I can ever answer, and most of the letters say either "Your stories remind me of my own life." Or "This is how I wish my own life had been."

        Change also came to my own family back in Virginia. Because the character were based on my mother and father, my brothers and sisters, they became known by their television names - my brother Cliff as Jason, my Sister Audrey as Erin, Brother Jim became Jim-Bob and so on.

        And my hometown became a tourist destination! Fans from other countries and many other states came looking for the locations we had mentioned on the show such as Rockfish, The Dew Drop Inn, Drusilla’s Pond, the Baldwin residence and The Baptist Church and The Walton Museum.

       The Hamner home is today listed on the Register of Historic Homes in Virginia and is owned by a local family. The house was a "company house" built in the 20’s and needed repair. Pam Rutherford, the present owner, renovated it and refurnished it and today there is a tour of it for a modest fee.

       One of my favorite memories came one day after the series has become a hit. I often phoned my mother on Thursday nights right after the show to see how she felt about what she had seen, and her responses were always favorable. And then one day when I called, she spoke with me for a moment and then said, "I can’t talk long. There’s this nice young couple here. They’ve come all the way from Ireland and they just love the show!"

        There’s even a Walton Mountain B and B directly in front of the old home place, an excellent home away from home if you are staying overnight in Schuyler. It is attractive and comfortably furnished, the food is great and an extensive collection of Walton memorabilia is available (including autographed copies of "Good Night John Boy"

　   There are two celebrations of the 40th Anniversary coming up in September. On Friday, September 28th there will be the traditional reunion of the Walton International Fan Club, hosted by President Carolyn Grinnell. As usual many cast members will be in attendance giving fan and actors an opportunity to mingle and Carolyn has promised a surprise or two. The party will be held at:

                    6:oo pm at The Holiday Inn
                       Burbank Media Center,
                    The South Pacific Ballroom
                    150 East Angeleno Avenue
                         Burbank, Ca. 91502

        The dinner is sold out, but occasionally there are cancellations. To see if any spaces do become available call Carolyn at 336-993-2752 or her e-mail at
thewaltonsinternationalfanclub@mail.com

         The following evening, Saturday September 29th there will be another celebration of our 40th Anniversary. Celebrating Family and Education, the proceeds will go to Kami Colter’s Environmental Charter School. Hosted by William Keck, Senior Editor at "TV Guide," the event will be held at The Wilshire Eubell Theater beginning at 6 o’clock.

     For ticket or further information visit the event’s website
                      www.waltons40th.com      　

      So come and join us at either or both of these celebrations. Some of you have already made arrangement to be with us. People are have already made plans to travel from Australia, Canada, Germany and England as well as many of our own states. Many cast members will appear at both parties. I will attend both of these events and look forward to seeing you.
　
Warm Walton Wishes
Earl Hamner

Twinkle Twinkle Movie Star!

                                                  Part One

            In 1939 an unlikely event came to our part of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Hollywood visited the Spencer’s Mountain area and for the first time we back country folks came face to face with the rich, the famous, with movie stars whose faces and names were known all over the world!

           I was fifteen years old. Paramount Studios was making a film called "Virginia," a highly romantic and utterly unreal picture of rural life in our area in the late thirties. The location filming was being shot about six miles from my hometown in a village named Howardsville. I knew Howardsville pretty well. It was the meeting place of the James and the Rockfish River and the bridge at the edge of town led to Buckingham County where my father’s people, as tobacco planters, had settled originally and where cousins to the second and third degree still lived. We often spent our Sundays over there visiting relatives and always stopped in Howardsville to see a novelty – an albino squirrel which was kept in a big wire cage in the yard of a home along the main street.

         Another family coincidence was that at the top of the mountain above the town was an area called Mount Alto. My Uncle Curtis Gianinni, my mother’s oldest brother, had a farm there which was destined to be immortalized in the film "Virginia."

         Once news that the filming was underway, a whole pack of us youngsters hitchhiked down the Rockfish River Road to see what was going on. What was going on was HOLLYWOOD! And there were STARS!

         An encampment had been set up consisting of private dressing rooms for the cast, limousines to deliver them from the Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville where they were housed, camera trucks, costume trucks, food trucks, make up trailers.

        And - Oh the stars! In that part of the country we were just coming out of the tail end of The Great Depression. It had been a grim time and our day-to-day lives had seldom encountered such glamour and luster as the movies had celebrated. And suddenly right there in front of us were stars and they were giving off a glow. We country folks were in awe of such beautiful people. When they were not on camera they took it easy sitting in directors chairs, chatting among themselves, studying their scripts, giving autographs or going back and forth to their individual dressing rooms. There was an air about them. They moved with ease and grace. They were dressed in fashionable clothing. The ladies were gorgeous, the men were handsome. To those of us Blue Ridge folk they could have been gods and goddesses.

       Madeleine Carol, a stunningly beautiful actress was being filmed supposedly arriving by train from New York.

      Miss Carol was of British birth. In her time she was one of the highest paid female actors in the business. At one point, after the death of her sister during a German air raid, she gave up acting to entertain troops in the European Theater of Operations.

      In the movie "Virginia" she was portraying a member of an aristocratic family returning to the old plantation to dispose of it. She had planned to make quick work of it until she fell in love with a local gentleman farmer, Fred MacMurray.

     MacMurray in his career starred in over one hundred films, the most famous being "Double Indemnity" in which he starred with Barbara Stanwick. He is best known today as the father in the long running television series "My Three Sons."

      In "Virginia" soon after falling for Fred MacMurray, Miss Carol meets a rich northerner, Sterling Hayden. She wavers between the two men, as one reviewer notes, "while the audience settles in for a good long nap."

    In real life Madeleine Carol was to marry Sterling Hayden, according to studio publicist known as "The most beautiful man in the movies."

      A man of action, he was always in love with the sea and ran away from home at seventeen to join the navy. He distinguished himself for his military service during World War Two.

      Day after day we country folk flocked to Howardsville to watch the filming. At one point my Uncle Curtis and some of the local men were hired to work as extras, portraying farmer types sitting on a bench outside a county store. Curtis also made another extra couple of bucks by allowing the crew to film a sow in his pigpen that had just given birth to eighteen piglets.

     When the film premiered in Charlottesville we all were there. Sadly the shot of Uncle Curtis had been edited out of the movie, but there was still occasion for elation. When the shot of Curtis’s pig came on screen, we rose in a body and shouted, "There’s Curtis’ pig!"


                       TWINKLE TWINKLE MOVIE STAR!

                                                 Part Two

      During my early years at NBC radio I worked with a good many stars, especially on the showcase NBC THEATER OF THE AIR where we adapted classic stage plays to a radio format. Most of the stars of our shows tended to be actors from the New York stage, often not well known except to the theater going public. But when I came to Hollywood I became exposed to a good many film stars.

      Fred MacMurry, Sterling Hayden and Madeleine Carroll, the first movie stars I ever laid eyes on, were stars of the old school. It was a lifetime later before I came into meaningful, personal contact with Hollywood stars.

     During the filming of "Spencer’s Mountain" I was introduced to Henry Fonda and Maureen O"Hara but I cannot say we actually worked together. I would run into Fonda at Delbert and Ann Mann’s Christmas Party each year. Later when we were casting "The Waltons" I offered him the role of John Walton, but he rightfully pointed out that the star of the series was John-Boy and in his words "I’m too old to play second fiddle to a fifteen year old boy."

     One star I later came to know well was Patricia Neal. She was a joy to know and to work with, and there is a story about her in the archives of this blog that you might enjoy.

     On "The Waltons" each and every actor was a star, but they were and are still young people and I am talking here about a special group of actors. Most of them tended to have some special quality that set them apart, a kind of luminous quality that the camera liked. Most of them were under contract to one of the major studios, their lives and reputations closely attended and guarded, their careers carefully crafted. The studios groomed them to be stars, paid them outrageous salaries, nurtured, and exploited them all the while their image was being carefully built by publicity agents. Bette Davis had that star quality, so did Barbara Stanwick, Katherine Hepburn, Lana Turner, Dame Judith Evans, Joan Crawford, Jane Wyman and Ingrid Bergman, to name just a few. John Wayne had it and so did Jimmy Stewart, Ronald Regan, Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, Clark Gable and Lawrence Olivier.

      It was when we cast Miss Jane Wyman as Angela Channing, the owner of Falcon Crest, a prosperous vineyard in the Napa Valley that I came to know a star from that special galaxy. And from her I learned a little bit about stardom, what it is like to be a star, what makes them shine and how they guard that luminous quality.

      Miss Wyman was born Sarah Jane Mayfield in St. Joseph Missouri on January 5, 1917. Raised by foster parents she dropped out of high school at age 15 and came to Hollywood where she found work as a manicurist and switchboard operator before she started obtaining small parts in films. Small roles led to more important ones and her big break came in 1945 when she appeared in "The Lost Weekend" with Ray Milland. A year later she was nominated for an Academy Award for her work in  "The Yearling." She was now able to choose her own films and was finally on her way to true stardom in such films as "Johnny Belinda", "The Glass Menagerie" "Magnificent Obsession" and "The Blue Veil" to mention only a few.

      Miss Wyman married Ronald Regan in 1940 and they became the darlings of the press with every minute of their lives documented by the reigning queens of show biz gossip, Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper. They were divorced in 1949 due to what has been suggested as "political differences."

      Miss Wyman was our first choice when it came to casting the matriarch, Angela Gioberti, owner of Falcon Crest Winery. I was already on location in the Napa Valley, but a day or so before we were to start filming, I went to the Sacramento Airport to met her and bring her to the valley.

     To meet her in a manner commensurate with her stardom I had rented the longest, most impressive limo I could find. She smiled a greeting, stepped inside the limo, and after a few moments she launched into a discussion of her character that was right on target. Her remarks about the script were knowledgeable, informed and useful. Stars know what they’re doing! At one moment a gorgeous Napa Valley vineyard caught my eye and, I happened to look out of the window of the limo. She touched me on my arm and said, "Don’t look away when Mother’s talking. You might miss something!" From that moment on I knew she expected my undivided attention.

      On the way to Napa I told her we had made arrangements for her to stay at the local country club. She said, "No, I want to stay where the crew stays." I rearranged her living accommodations so she lived at the Holiday Inn with the rest of us. It was a sound move. It put her in touch with the technicians, drivers, make-up people and costume people who would be looking after her. They liked her for being so democratic. That she was, but she in no time knew the name of every person on the crew and they adored her. It was a sincere gesture, but it was also a smart one.

     Someone once asked why an actor of her standing, a woman who had once been married to Ronald Regan, someone who had no financial worries, would want to come out of retirement and take on the heavy burden of starring in a television series. For one thing Jane’s friends Barbara Stanwick and Loretta Young had already made such a move and it had not been professionally harmful. My own contention was that she was lonesome for the world she had known and probably bored with sitting alone in her luxurious apartment in Santa Monica gazing out to sea.

      After the location filming was finished we returned to Los Angeles for the interior scenes, which we filmed at the CBS Studios in Studio City. Shortly I was to have a revelation about stardom.

      I needed a private conversation with the lady so I called her and said that we needed to have a chat, and that I had made reservations at Jimmy’s, a restaurant in Beverly Hills.

      "Good," she said, "They know me there."

      I added, "And I asked for a table in the back so we could talk without interruption."

     "Call them back and tell them to give us my usual table," she said. "I never sit in the back of the room." Star talk. Hollywood royalty.

      At the dinner we were seated at the Number One table and managed not a word of the discussion we were supposed to have because of the friends and fans that stopped by to say hello or to ask for autographs. We discussed many things, but essentially Miss Wyman was a private person. Once when we were having dinner and I had more wine that then was wise, I asked "What was it like being married to a President of the United States." She answered, "I never discuss the gentleman."

      "Falcon Crest" was fun and our cast was rich with great actors. Jane was without doubt THE star, but we also had such exceptional stars as Susan Sullivan and Robert Foxworth, David Selby, Ana-Alicia, and Lorenzo Lamas, Margaret Ladd, Abby Dalton and Chao-Le Chi. There was a feeling of camaraderie on the set, no professional jealousy over who gets the best lines, at least that I was aware of, and a sense of mutual respect for their fellow actors and members of the crew.

      Excellent guest stars were attracted to the series. We were a hit, but big stars also came because Jane was our star and they knew certain standards would be set. Mel Ferrar became a running character, as did Caeser Romero. It became "the thing to do" for stars to take guest starring roles. Gina Lollobrigiga came over from Italy for a series of episodes. Kim Novak left her hide-away in Big Sur long enough to lend her enchanting presence.

      One of the most controversial stars to join us was Lana Turner. Lana was a legendary actor in her time, first discovered at a soda fountain by the owner of The Hollywood Reporter. After his recommendation to a producer she soon became cast in a film. Known at first as "the sweater girl" she quickly became a major star playing opposite such male stars as Clark Gable and John Garfield. She was a skilled actress but she was equally known for her eight marriages and a messy affair in later life with a gangster name Johnny Stampano.

     When Jane learned that I had cast Lana she said, "I wish you had mentioned you were casting her."

     "Why?" I asked. "She’ll be good for the ratings. What’s wrong with casting her?"

     "She’s not a lady," Jane replied.

      Jane was polite, but distant when Lana came aboard. At one point the CBS photographer asked if he could take a shot of the two of them together.

     Jane was in her chair on one side of the sound stage waiting for the next scene to be shot. Lana was seated clear across the stage some distance away. I explain to Jane what the photographer wanted and Jane said, "Sure, bring her over."

      Trying a bit of hillbilly diplomacy, I next went to Lana and explained that the photographer wanted a shot of her with Jane.

       "Sure," replied Lana obligingly, "Bring her over."

       In the end the photographer got his picture. He took it just as the scene between the two of the ladies was ending and they were walking off the sound stage in chilly silence.

       Although I enjoyed "The Waltons" it had been a demanding series. During its long run, in addition to Falcon Crest I had also created and produced two other series, "Boone" and "Apple’s Way" which had limited runs. I was tired and so I left "Falcon Crest" at the end of the fifth season.

       Jane and I remained friends. I would stop and see her occasionally on the set, and we always visited at Harry and Pattie Harris’ Christmas party which was a tradition and which Jane always attended with her daughter, Maureen Regan. Toward the end of the series health problems made it necessary for her to miss some filming. It must have been painful for her because she had always been a "trooper," and dedicated to her work. When the series was over she moved to Rancho Mirage, and while we spoke occasionally by phone I was never to see her again. When I received the news that she had died I felt, not only that a star had fallen, but also that I had lost a friend.

HARVESTING

When I was a boy growing up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia during the Great Depression we subsisted partially on my father’s ability to hunt for game, on the plentiful bass and catfish from the Rockfish River and also on wild fruits and berries which grew in abundance in the area, but most especially on the vegetable garden which we tended and which rewarded us generously from the early spring peas to the huge pumpkins that we harvested and either carved into Jack O Lanterns or made into pies in the fall.

I was a sensitive boy, a failure as a hunter.It was painful to me to deal the coup de grace to a quail that had only partially been killed by the spreading birdshot of a twenty-two rifle. I was repelled when a deer had only been wounded and the harsh struggle that had to take place in order to subdue it. And while I continued to fish even into adulthood there came a time when I questioned if the gigantic king salmon experienced pain while I engaged in the hour of “sport” it took to drag it out of British Columbia’s legendary Rivers Inlet.

The one source of food that I took part in planting, cultivating, and harvesting and which gave me the greatest pleasure was gardening. My father’s earliest garden was a sizeable plot on the bank of the Rockfish River. We planted our crops following directions from “The Old Farmer’s Almanac” (Plants that were to be harvested above ground to be planted when the moon was full. Plants that came to fruition underground were to be planted on the dark of the moon!) And it worked!

It was my duty to take water from the Rockfish River and carry it to whatever hill or row was carrying seed. I can still remember the awe and astonishment I experienced when the first tiny leaf of tomato or a string bean or cucumber first showed its face.

I suspect that if my life had followed the pattern like that of the other boys in my village I might well have become a farmer, found a nice local girl and settled down to a life similar to that my parents knew. But due to a set of near miraculous circumstances it was not to be my destiny. Laura Horsley, the wife of our local doctor had friends on the board of directors and nominated me to receive a scholarship at the University of Richmond. The scholarship was awarded and I left the Rockfish River behind. In my sophomore year I was drafted into the Army of the United States and left Richmond, Virginia behind. As a soldier I was stationed in Paris and for a while I fell so in love with that city that I nearly left my own country behind.

I was a far different person when I returned to Schuyler Virginia after the war. While I still hated to wring a chicken’s neck or killing the deer. I could do it. And I discovered that while the Army experience had toughened me, I still felt the awe and wonder of a seed’s awakening and growth. I had visited New York City on our high school Senior Trip. We had gone there to visit the 1939 World Fair. The fair must have astonished most visitors, but coming from my background, it was a glimpse into a world I could not even have imagined. We stayed on Columbus Circle at a hotel that I believe is still there. I loved the city from the moment I first stepped out of the hotel door and breathed in something ineffable that told me that this was my spiritual home. And I promised myself on that trip that someday I would come back and live there. Soon after World War Two I kept that promise and from the moment I arrived I became a New Yorker.

The apartment I rented was described in the classified ads as “for the discerning few.” Actually it was rather special for the price. The owner was an architect and he had stripped the walls down to the original brick and painted them white. Although it was really one large room the space had been utilized adroitly. The bed conveniently disappeared under a raised stairway platform, which led down to the floor of the room. The kitchen was hidden behind a folding door and the bath was its own separate room. The most interesting feature of the apartment to me was not the interior but the exterior. All along the length of the front window was one long deep planter box in which the owner had cultivated a showy bed of geraniums.

I am sure that the owner, a fastidious man, would have had an apoplectic fit if he had ever discovered that hidden in the geraniums I had reverted to my childhood passion to grow things and planted tomatoes, cucumbers, and a bed of wax beans.

My profession led me to California and in its endless sunshine, and climate so hospitable to growing things, my passion came alive again. Our house is on a hillside and what level ground there is became a rose garden which is Jane’s pride and which supplies the house with fresh roses just about all year round.

This year I had an inspiration. I realized there was a level surface! It existed on a long deck surrounding the swimming pool. Why not raise a container garden! Not exactly compatible elements with a pristine turquoise swimming pool from a decorative point of view, but what the hell! As the saying goes, “You can take the boy out of the country, etc.”

I spent hours at the nursery supply stores studying seed packets, comparing brand name pieces of equipment and the complexion of various potting mixtures. A small fortune went into planter boxes, containers the size of tubs, soil, fertilizer, watering cans, trowels, seeds, a composting system, and a hose long enough to water the entire area.

I envisioned what the Los Angeles Times recently described as an “Urban Meadow,” but once assembled the deck began to look as if the Beverly Hillbillies had moved in. But what the hell! Jane’s roses filled the house with beauty. My garden would fill it with fresh healthy produce.

The spring weather was most beneficial with cool nights and bright sunny days. All the seeds went to work enthusiastically and I would rush down to the deck each morning at first light to rejoice at the miracles taking place.

I fantasized about the rich harvest that was sure to follow. I gazed with pity on shoppers in our market as they spent good money on produce from God knows where, sure to be laden with hormones and cancer causing preservatives. I pictured myself, wearing a straw hat and overalls, going from neighbor to neighbor with gifts of hefty beefsteak tomatoes, baskets of crisp wax beans, slender succulent cucumbers, and huge purple eggplant. My visits would inspire others to follow my example. They would foster good neighbor relationships during this deplorable time when trust and good will are disappearing from our society. My garden would sew the seeds for a better world!!

But then a long wet spell set in and I did not visit my “meadow” as often, but when I did I found my infant plants began mysteriously disappearing.

When I kept watch I discovered that the very blue jays, mocking birds, sparrows and linnets that we had fed and treasured were the culprits. I started afresh but covered the next generation of seedlings with netting. The butterbeans came to vibrant life. The cucumber vines were aggressive immediately and were climbing to ambitious heights and the egg plant blossomed when it was only a few weeks old. I bought tomato plants already close to producing fruit and within a week tomatoes the size of marbles appeared. My garden was a marvel.

And then one morning my produce began to disappear. The tomatoes were the first to go, and then the beans. The mystery was solved when I kept watch one dawn and witnessed the raids by ground squirrels, rats, raccoons, skunks, mice and even a family of ravens. I fought back with traps, but the critters outwitted me. I caught one ground squirrel in a Havaheart trap, but I was too tender hearted to drown it and so I drove to Griffith Park and released it. I did harvest a tomato, but like the great fish in Hemmingway’s book “The Old Man and the Sea,” the trophy has been half eaten and was a skeleton of what it had been.

I did manage to arrive early one morning with my camera to catch the one last item the beasts had overlooked.

I harvested the wax bean and rushed in the house to show it to Jane.

“What shall I do with it?” I asked.

With her usual sweetness and generosity, she said, “Earl, it’s your bean.”

I am happy to tell you that my literary harvest has been more productive. When I came from New York to Hollywood in 1961 Rod Serling gave me my first job – an assignment on “The Twilight Zone.” That job opened the door to a lifelong career in television and film and I will always be in Rod’s debt.

During those years I kept a file of ideas for "Twilight Zone" type stories and just this month three of them are seeing the light of day.

"Dark Discoveries” is an exciting new magazine specializing in fantasy and darker type fiction. The present issue has an interview with George Clayton Johnson, an entire script by Bill Nolan and an article by novelist and poet, Christopher Conlon about work that was intended for “The Twilight Zone” but which were never telecast.

I have too a short story in the issue about an aging writer and what happens when he exchanges his sports car for a more sensible model. It is available at newsstands or by contacting the magazine at http://www.darkdiscoveries.com

The same publisher has an anthology called “The Bleeding Edge” and my contribution is a story about a boa constrictor and two brothers who strive for the affections of an exotic dancer. Available by following this link: http://www.jasunni.com/shop/

I harvested one more story from my "Twilight Zone" file. It is a mysterious tale about the revenge a bonsai enthusiast visits on a man who injures one of his valuable trees. It is in a collection called “Twilight Zone, Nineteen Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary” Edited by Carol Serling. Available from all book stores as well as Amazon.com. This “Harvest” is dedicated with gratitude, respect and admiration to the memory of Rod Serling, a fine man, a remarkable writer and a good friend.