pexels-gantas-vaičiulėnas-4133390.jpg — What are some of the major, early memories of your life?

by John Clayton

Have you ever thought about interviewing yourself? Sure, that may sound preposterous or hey, even zany, but it’s the curiosity factor that intrigues me.

Curiosity has always played a significant part in my life – especially during my time on radio and television. It’s the old journalistic fact of the 5 W’s: Who, Why, Where, When and the What of life, and of things and yes, people, that I find fascinating. I’ve always wondered why someone did this or that, or when did you decide to ACTUALLY do it, or what influenced you to make that decision – or whatever?

Taking all of this to the next logical step, let’s assume the astute and shrewd folks who plan and publish PULSE every two weeks, asked me to yes, interview myself, would I do it? Yes, in a millionth of a second. One of the – in my view – many benefits of this format, is that it allows for a “third person view” in a story and article, rather than the use of the Personal Pronoun, of I.

It begins like this: John, you grew up many years ago in Great Britain, and we wondered what sort of memories stand out from those days as being, well, noteworthy? John pondered the thought and it was obvious his mind was trying to determine which memory WAS the most meaningful.

“I remember as if it were last week,” he says with a grin on his face, “the day Kleenex and similar products came onto the market in Great Britain. What really struck me as unusual, even weird, was that the (advertising) copy said things like, “once you’ve blown your nose, you can throw the tissue away.” John noted that although he’d grown up in a financially “well off” family, he continued, “back then, once you’d used your handkerchief, you’d place it back in your pocket to use again. Why throw out this thing now called a tissue… it seemed so wasteful.”

Childhood memories had obviously struck a chord with John. “For years I’d used a fountain pen (he wonders, as an aside, “How many reading this actually KNOW what that is?”) and because a fountain pen had to be frequently refilled with ink, I was over the proverbial moon with delight when – I guess in the mid-1940s – a “New Writing Instrument,” as only the advertising community would promote it, was introduced, called a Biro in Great Britain. It could, so the ads informed us, last, almost forever. In fact I vividly recall one ad said in its copy, “the Biro can write underwater!” Why, I wondered, would anyone want to do that?”

Looking THAT far back in his life, we were curious if any other idea or invention, jumped immediately into his mind. He didn’t even have to contemplate it for a second. “Yes, absolutely. WW2 ended, as we all know, in the summer of 1945, and there were still hundreds of thousands wonderful, very friendly American military in the UK – especially in London where I lived -- and at the one and only Oxford street store of Selfridges, they promoted the fact that they had a collection of very special American and British WW2 maps now available in their store.”

John goes on to explain that when allied aircrew aircraft – mostly British, American and Canadian -- were shot down over Europe, each crew needed as much help as they could get, in A) Not being captured, and B) Finding their way around the Continent. “So,” said John with a wistful look, “the clever military intelligence folks created a mass of European maps of key areas…. but,” he says -- looking as if he’s going to reveal what REALLY happened to Amelia Earhart, an American aviator who mysteriously disappeared in 1937 while trying to circumnavigate the globe - “These maps, all in full glorious and vibrant color, were made of superb silk and, if necessary, could be crunched up into a little ball and hidden in say your shoes. NOT possible with a paper map that could be torn or damaged. GENIUS!”

Given the fact of John being a military aficionado from “way back” he, of course, purchased at least half a dozen of these silk maps. Now, 57 years later, we could hardly hold OUR curiosity to ask him WHERE these possibly historic and valuable WW2 treasures of his might be? His countenance was one of sadness; “I wish I knew.”

An added, let’s call it a somewhat more “recent memory,” occurred in 1963. “At the time,” says John, “I was living in Hollywood, and having now gotten used to the magic of this movie capital, I wanted to see and find out more, about what lay BEYOND the confines of Hollywood. A friend of mine suggested we drive to a place called ‘The Palos Verdes Peninsula,’ and I said it sounded interesting.” John says they both toured the colorful hills and valleys of Palos Verdes, and also discovered a unique place called Marineland.

Historical Note: Opening in1954, Marineland of the Pacific (as it was known) was a seaside animal theme park, which had the world's largest Oceanarium when it opened. Interestingly, it launched one year before Disneyland, and many considered it California's first major theme park.

As John and his friend eventually departed this idyllic country like setting, and headed back to Hollywood, he turned to his companion, who was driving (remember, this was in 1963!) and as good as he can now recall in 2020, said, “Palos Verdes would be a super place to live, but that home we looked at, what was it, about forty thousand or something, Gosh, that seems like a lot of money.”