Pop Goes the Blogger

In Between Panic and Desire, Dinty W. Moore (and, yes, that is the author’s real name—see the book for an explanation) explores his youth and young adulthood as they occurred during the turbulent decades of the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. In this page-turner, Moore references a smorgasbord of mid-20th-century pop culture—from Leave it to Beaver to Captain Kangaroo, Richard Nixon to Father Knows Best. In tribute to this rollicking rollercoaster of a memoir, today’s “Linking in Lincoln” focuses on the pop culture hits of yesteryear. Hold on to your bouffants and bell bottoms—this could be a bumpy ride!

Want to know the home address of the Cleaver family from Leave it to Beaver? (485 Grant Avenue in Mayfield; they later moved to 211 Pine.) Or what Ward Cleaver did for a living? (Possibly accounting, but it’s a bit of a mystery.) For answers to more useless Leave it to Beaver trivia, visit the Leave it to Beaver fan site’s “Frequently Asked Questions” page at http://www.leaveittobeaver.org/faq.htm.

Too young to remember the chronology of the Watergate scandal? Or is the entire decade of the 1970s a bit of a blur? Visit the Washington Post Web site’s “The Watergate Story Timeline” page at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/watergate/chronology.htm for a breakdown of the major milestones of this notorious political scandal.

Did you know that John Lennon had an obsession with the number 9 or that Richard Nixon once referred to himself as the “7th Crisis” during a bookstore signing? For more random pop culture anecdotes, visit http://anecdotage.com/.

Not convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone? Check out Wikipedia’s page on the plethora of conspiracy theories on the John F. Kennedy assassination at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_assassination_theories.

Marcia! Marcia! Marcia! Maureen McCormick, the actress who played Marcia Brady on The Brady Bunch, released a music album with her co-star, Peter Knight (it was a complete commercial failure). For more Brady tidbits, visit Internet Movie Database’s “Trivia for The Brady Bunch” page at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063878/trivia.

I’m all popped out. Be sure to come back tomorrow for “This Week in History.” Have a good day, bloggers!