The 1939 Story of Rudolph

In this episode - The 1939 Story of Rudolph . . .

Everyone knows Rudolph was the last reindeer to join Santa's team, but few people know about the department store copywriter who brought his story to the world.

The year was 1939, the Great Depression was waning, and a manager at Montgomery Wards in Chicago, Il. decided that the store should create its own children's book for the annual holiday promotion. Free to kids who came to see Santa Claus.

The boss tapped Robert L. May, an ad man for the store, to take a crack at a story. May always a hit at holiday parties for his way with limericks and parodies. But May didn't see himself as a winner. He had always felt like a bit of an outcast, and, at 35, he thought he was far from reaching his potential, pounding out catalog copy instead of writing the Great American Novel as he had always dreamed he would.

The now-famous story of a misfit reindeer named Rudolph turned his “nonconformity" of a large shiny red nose to advantage and saved Christmas by leading Santa's sleigh through a foggy Christmas night.

Here is the Original version by Robert L. May - Enjoy!

However, it wasn't the Montgomery Wards book that made Rudolph famous. It just so happened that May's brother-in-law (Johnny Marks) was a songwriter. May talked him into writing a song about Rudolph.

That song was recorded on June 27, 1949, by the singing cowboy Gene Autry. It sold more than 25 million copies and paved the way for the classic Rankin/Bass stop-animation film.

Thanks to Rudolph, Robert May's family was taken care of financially through the end of his life and beyond.

And as for Rudolph, well, as they say, he went down in history.

I'm Patrick Ball; Merry Christmas. See you in the next episode.

Comments

Back to School (Without the Triple Lindy)

I hadn’t set foot inside a public library in over thirty years. Last Saturday, when I walked through the sliding doors of the modern County of San Diego branch on Eucalyptus Avenue in Vista, my eyes instinctively scanned the floor for the familiar, comforting sight of varnished oak cabinets and brass pull-handles. Nothing . No card catalog. No little wooden drawers. No rows of index cards typed by someone who presumably had beautiful penmanship and a pension. I walked up to the front desk, looked the librarian dead in the eye, and asked with complete earnestness: "Where’s the card catalog?" She didn’t laugh, though she had every right to. Instead, she offered a warm, dry smile: "We magically had the computer digest it." And just like that, I was enrolled. Not the Rodney Dangerfield kind of back-to-school. No diving board, no loud blazer, no campus party, and thankfully, no need to convince anyone I belonged there. Just an overdue reminder that while I was busy with ...

Beyond Facts-The Deep Dive

✨ In this episode, Beyond Facts: Reimagining School–in the Age of AI . . . This week's podcast is a bit different; it's another example of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can offer tools to creatively enhance your analytical presentation of information. We took this week's blog and copied it into Gemini with the question, “If a story is to work, it must, on some level, create an illusion of escape and also achieve a goal simultaneously. Does this apply to my blog post that follows?” What's created is not just an analysis of the writing, but an AI-generated discussion produced “On the Fly” - Enjoy! Did you know that the word "school" comes from the ancient Greek word scholē , which originally meant "leisure"? Not a rigid schedule or droning lectures filled with "facts," but free time for thinking and conversation. To the Greeks, learning happened best when life slowed down—when you had room to reflect, to ask questions, and to wrestle ...

The Rhythm of the Woodpecker

The morning in Vista often begins under a heavy, gray marine layer that rolls in from the coast, pressing a damp, muffled stillness over the neighborhood. At 4:30 a.m., the driveways are still full. The local commuters are either blissfully unconscious or stumbling blindly toward their showers, clinging desperately to their last shred of peace before the nine-to-five grind claims them for the day. I, on the other hand, am voluntarily wide awake in the dark. When your agenda consists of absolutely nothing, it is critical to get an early start. Inside the house, the quiet is profound, broken only by the sharp, mechanical click of the kettle as it reaches a rolling boil. I stand at the counter, watching the dark ground coffee bloom as hot water hits the French press's stainless steel. The smell is sudden and heavy—a deep, roasted-earth aroma that cuts through the morning fog. I push against the plunger’s gritty resistance, pouring a cup that radiates dark, stinging heat against my pal...

Stamps and Snow

In this episode, Stamps and Snow . . . You don’t usually walk into the local Post Office expecting a time warp . . . but here we are. All we wanted were stamps for this year's Christmas cards— yes, the old-fashioned paper ones that require licking, sticking, and hoping the Postal Service is feeling ambitious this week. But holiday errands have a talent for slowing you down, almost like the universe whispering, “Relax. You’re not getting out of this line any faster anyway.” So we waited. And while we waited, we talked (Are you surprised?). Because the Post Office is one of the few places where people still look up from their phones long enough to talk . . . Maybe it's because they're holding packages. It’s the modern town square: part civic duty, part free entertainment, part sociology experiment. The discussion began with holiday specials streaming on Netflix, Paramount+, and other services during this time of year. One gentleman who has lived in Vista since 1958 told us,...

On The Fly

Search This Blog