Two years before American screenwriter Rod Serling delivered a powerful commencement address at Ithaca College in May of 1972, he spoke in an interview for student-run TV there that survives today in the school’s archives. Mr. Serling talks about the importance of externalizing ideas because thoughts that remain unexpressed ultimately have no impact on the world.
“Instinctive creativity must follow the act,” he said, “the physical act of putting it down for a sense of permanence. Once you get that prod, that emotional jar, that ‘I have witnessed something’ or ‘through observation, I have been moved by an event,’ I think the answer is to get it down. Get it down quickly. Write it down.”
Wise words.
Serling speaks with the instantly recognizable authority and cadence made famous by his narration of his early ’60s series on CBS, “The Twilight Zone.” The Jacksonville broadcast market in the ’70s continued that series on periodic rerun throughout the decade and it was a staple on our family’s boxy back porch Zenith.
There was no cable, no satellite dish, no Wi-Fi or Bluetooth; a big screen was 28 inches. We loved “Hawaii Five-O,” “The Prisoner,” “UFO” and “Space 1999.” Our television’s antenna received broadcasts from the three VHF stations and one UHF station in Jacksonville. There was a community restriction on rooftop antennas in PV that resulted in interference being a part of our television experience. It became a reminder of the atmosphere around us and sometimes the UHF frequency would disappear entirely into a field of static in the middle of a program.
When we would visit our cousins in Palatka, their TV station was broadcast out of Gainesville and their programming was different. We had “Lost in Space”; they had “It’s About Time.” Programming mattered and it influenced our tastes for what matters the most.
When my older brother, Eric, first connected a clunky electronic box device to our phone’s receiver in 1975 at the urging of Mr. Birch at Bishop Kenny, he and I would hear for the first time that scratchy sci-fi computer tone from the mainframe of the surplus IBM computer installed at BK as the machine acknowledged the Bell South connection.
The computer took up an entire classroom on the ground floor of the main building adjacent to the library and at the end of the hall leading to the cafeteria. Don Birch at Kenny led the project, and with his Master of Education from UGA, he taught physics, chemistry, mechanical drawing, and was chairman of the science department. He lived in Jax Beach up near Fletcher.
“Ask it what the population of Madagascar is.” My question made my older brother bristle. In his mind, simply making the connection and hearing the tones were enough to signal an electrical engineering success. But I wanted more. I wanted to emulate “Star Trek” and address the machine as “Computer.” Television’s programming had taught me that. It was the way my young mind worked.
My brother reminded me that the machine could only return what someone had already programmed into it. It was our preview of the age of information. Atari would follow, then eventually Nintendo. An 8-bit home computer would become affordable in the early ’80s. Very few saw what was coming, but those who did took notes. Now we have Quest headsets and immersive experiences.
Charter Oil required its executives to become comfortable with computers. Raymond Mason had one in his study at Epping Forest. Billy Mason and J.P. Smith had theirs in PV.
Rod Serling continues in the interview, “How very often, by virtue of the very enormity of the emotion, you will write it down perhaps in a distorted fashion or an improper fashion or an incorrect fashion, or your values may be a little juxtaposed. You may be too moved by the emotion; you haven’t stepped far enough away; back to get a perspective of the event. But I think as a basic overall thing, the clue to the writer, to the creator, is don’t let it die aborning in the head. Don’t let it exist as just a simple memory that will move you or will conjure up a beautiful tune later on.”
Observation can be described as a tenet of our being with experiences containing within them sensations that drive emotion. These are my words, not simulated musings. Watch Howard Hawks’ classic “The Thing from Another World” with a group of young children and observe their reaction to the intensity of the scene when the alien swings open the door, is doused with fuel and lit on fire. Is the film even appropriate for young children? We carry images with us for a lifetime and when we dwell on them, it’s as if we are once again living through them in real time.
Summer. Walking into the main entrance of the Surf Club under the blue canopy. The privet hedge is blooming with an exotic fragrance. The rush of cold, conditioned air is pulled outside by the opening door. The Surf Club rarely had a doorman except during special events. Past the front desk where the house phone sits against the wall immediately to the right near the manager’s office. “Dial ‘8’ to get out. Local numbers, ‘5’ then the last four digits.” Past the Surf Shop, the display windows; the temperature set to 68 degrees. The double-plate glass doors with heavy aluminum push bars and framing lead to the breezeway where the aromas of lunch on the patio begin around 11 a.m.
Somewhere, nearby someone is smoking a pipe. The tobacco mingles with other flavors in the air to create base-notes for those admiring the now lost collection of giant shark’s teeth mounted behind glass hanging to the right. The portico’s carpet under bare feet feels freshly cleaned.
Left through the center of the patio with tables on either side of the large circular nautical compass design on the floor. Its Tiffany-esque blue complements the blue-and-white umbrellas shading the casual diners. The sounds of conversations, laughter, metal utensils on white china plates, glasses with ice being filled from pressed aluminum pitchers held by serving hands holding white cotton tea towels to absorb the metal’s condensation. The occasional scraping of chair legs on the ground echoes like a snort in the enclosure.
Sounds from the kitchen, the men’s locker room and showers backing up to the lifeguard’s cave; the steps leading up to the adult sun deck ocean front on the roof of the dining room. The brick steps flanked by cabbage palm trees, shrubs and flowers defined the entrance to the Olympic pool and lifeguard hut there. This is a portrait of the start of a summer day at the Club in the ’70s and the longer visitors lingered within it, the greater their experience.
But these are just words and the images in your imagination are yours and yours alone. No two will be entirely alike.
In the museum field, studies have shown the average time a visitor spends looking at a single work of art is only 15 to 30 seconds. Reading the label for that work takes up to 10 seconds of that total time. Details matter and when we savor the experience, seek out the details, examine the opportunities for memories that take root in the immediate and mature with time, our lives are richer for it. Tomorrow will always be better, and always, we begin again.
It’s the nature of the creative class that Richard Florida wrote about over 20 years ago, or the “Thing Among Things” that John Yau chronicled in 2008. It’s the smile on a young Yo-Yo Ma’s face when he receives a miniature cello commissioned as a Christmas present.
Experience matters the most. Ideas have a real impact on the world and out of action comes the human connection. I have an idea. Write it down. It becomes real. Enjoy the summer in this smartly casual place of all places, Ponte Vedra Beach.
