Posts Tagged ‘Indianapolis’
The Mellowness of Autumn: James Whitcomb Riley’s “When The Frost Is On The Punkin”
In the past two years I have heard three people reference one of Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley’s most famous poems—“When The Frost Is On the Punkin.” Two were people I know who mentioned the poem—by referencing its title–in casual conversation about fall weather; the other was a television weatherman who mentioned it when discussing…
Read MoreNewton Minow, John Bartlow Martin, and the “Vast Wasteland.”
On this date—May 9—in 1961, Newton Minow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, issued his famous description of television as “a vast wasteland.” It turns out that the famous words were the edited version of a phrase created by journalist and JFK speechwriter John Bartlow Martin, a Hamilton, Ohio native who spent most of his…
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