Cynthia, you’re amazing! (Comment yesterday) It must have been 71 years ago when I saw that episode of Kukla, Fran and Ollie, not long before I left home for Oberlin. And you conjured it out of the ether for me. I was pleased at how well I had remembered the words of the sea chanty, not that they were very demanding. I’m afraid I have no memory of Shari Lewis and Lambchop at all. My sister and I are planning a Zoom meeting for next week. I’ll try her on them.

Tamar, I, too, remember seeing television at other people's houses. I remember my father telling me, during the war, that he had seen it demonstrated -- and that after the war, we would all have one. I loved going to the movies, in those days. The thought of television was beyond wonderful. Here in Edinburgh, relatively recently, when I was out and about, during the dark months, I used to look into the houses of people who hadn't drawn their curtains, and see the televisions, and think what a miracle they would have seemed to my 10-year-old self.

My father's mother, in Constantine, Michigan, had a floor-standing radio with a number of buttons on the controls -- and one of the buttons said "Television" although it produced no result. It was a promise of magic to come.

I’ve had another pleasant day of tennis – the Ladies’ Semi-Finals. My money is still on Ashbarty. The tennis was of very high quality in both matches. Navratilova was commentating again – we saw her briefly, between the matches, looking very fit. Billie Jean King was in the audience, looking a bit old and disagreeable. She was sitting with a woman who looked almost identical. Does she have a sister?

 

I ribbed diligently on, but didn’t press it too hard. The Men’s Semi-Finals tomorrow should finish it off.

 

1825 steps. Not good at all. It does, however, represent a circuit of the garden. I’ll try to put in a few paces up and down the passage before bed.