Remembering Mr. Wizard

I recently purchased a Time magazine from Nov. 19, 1951, because I found its full-page ads interesting . . . but while paging through the magazine I was pleasantly surprised to discover an article about Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert) who had ties to my hometown of La Crosse. As a kid in the 1950s, I can remember watching Mr. Wizard on TV and regarding his science experiments as fun and cool . . . unlike my drab science classes in school. Herbert was born in Waconia, Minn., but his family later moved to La Crosse and he graduated from La Crosse Central High School in 1935 and La Crosse Teachers College in 1940. Attached below is a reprint of the 1951 Time article which included the above photo. Herbert died of bone cancer at age 89 on June 12, 2007, at his home in Bell Canyon, Calif.

The Truant Teacher
(Reprinted from the Nov. 19, 1951, Time magazine)
Though he is a teacher at heart, Don Herbert hates the dry stuffiness of a classroom as much as any truant schoolboy. On Mr. Wizard, his popular science show for kids (Sat. 5 p.m. NBC-TV), he uses brief, ad lib comment instead of hectoring lectures, everyday objects like balloons and tumblers instead of beakers and fractionating columns, and he would rather conduct his experiments with a potato or a spinning top than with test tubes and Bunsen burners.
Herbert's object is to show his audience (estimated at 850,000) what goes on in the world — why the wind blows, what makes a cake rise, how water comes out of a kitchen tap. To explain rain, he boils water in a coffee pot, compares the steam to clouds, and shows how “rain” will condense on the sides of a glass held over the spout. He demonstrates static electricity with a charged rubber comb, lets it pick up a cluster of cork filings and then release them in a miniature snowstorm the moment they are oppositely charged. Using an infrared ray, he pops pop corn without burning the cellophane container. Last week, Herbert explained the importance of air speed to a pilot, by tying a paper plane to an electric fan and showing how it rose and fell in relation to the speed of the fan.
A graduate of La Crosse (Wis.) State Teachers College in 1940, Herbert soon found himself piloting a B-24 in Italy instead of teaching in a U.S. high school. After the war he was sidetracked once again, became a freelance radio writer and actor in Chicago, helped create the memorable It's Your Life series of documentaries. Last March, he got the idea for Mr. Wizard, sold it to NBC and hired 12-year-old Bruce Lindgren as his helper and sometimes skeptical stooge. Bruce now knows more about the basic principles of sound, air pressure, oxidation and leverage than the run of high school graduates.
Though Mr. Wizard has a sponsor (the Cereal Institute), NBC thinks enough of it as a public service program to furnish the time free of charge and none of the 54 TV stations carrying the 30-minute show gets any money for it. Chicago's Federated Advertising Club was so impressed it created an award especially for Mr. Wizard. But the most surprising tribute came from the Voice of America; it entered a standing order for recorded transcripts of each show.

Winter Wheeling

I recently said the heck with taking the city bus to work and, instead, dusted off my "winter bike" and rode it the 2.5 miles from my home to work in downtown La Crosse. Was fun and, even better, it was faster and cheaper than the bus. I've found that one of the keys to winter biking (in addition to riding a bike with wide tires and fenders) is to ride on little used side streets (in this case, South Sixth Street) where auto traffic is light. And, of course, having lights on the bike when riding in the dark.

Trail Hogs

This photo I snapped recently shows one of my pet peeves when riding my bike on La Crosse's marsh trail: people who hog the trail while walking on it, giving little room for bicyclists to pass by. When I approach such walkers from behind I have to ring my bike's bell or sing out, "Passing on your left." The reaction I often get is a hard glare and frown from the walkers as if I have intruded on their own private walkway. Go figure.

Childhood Memory Maker

This old billboard for Sunbeam Bread (featuring "Little Miss Sunbeam") on the side of a building in downtown La Crosse affords me memories of my childhood as the bread was a common sight on my family's kitchen counter during my boyhood days in the 1950s. Erickson Bakery was a well-known bakery in La Crosse for many years, operating from the late 19th Century to 1989 though I only recall its Sunbeam Bread being sold locally from the 1950s to early 1970s. Though it's been a long time since I tasted Sunbeam bread, I don't recall it being anything special . . . just a bland, white bread that was much inferior to my grandmother's tasty homemade bread which she made nearly every morning most of her adult life. Who does that anymore? Few I would suspect.

A Horse Tale

When passing by Bakalars Sausage Co. at 2219 South Ave. in La Crosse, some sharp-eyed people may have noticed a marred emblem located behind the firm's sign (see photos). What is/was it? It's all that is left of a plaster relief of a horse's head . . . part of the building's decoration when it was built in 1902 as a horse stable for La Crosse's Gund Brewery. When Bakalars purchased the building in late 1961 they chiseled the horse head off (leaving just part of the mane which still can be seen) because they didn't want their customers thinking that the firm sold horse meat. Maybe it's just me but but it's too bad Bakalars could not have been more classy and covered the horse's head up in some tasteful way instead of chiseling it off in a half-ass manner and leaving a scar behind. In protest, I have never spent one penny at Bakalars . . . though that's not hard to do since I'm a vegetarian. Ha!

Pelican Pilgrimage

Yesterday while on a bike ride for the first time in my life I had the fortune and pleasure of seeing hundreds and hundreds of American White Pelicans flying north along the Mississippi River at La Crosse. Most of them were flying very high and out of camera range but one group was flying lower for some reason and I was able to snap a photo (see above) of the lead birds in the group as they passed overhead. Out of curiosity I checked the Web when I got home to learn about the migration habits of American White Pelicans and discovered they spent the winter along the Gulf of Mexico from Mexico to Florida. In March they begin to head north along the Mississippi - usually spending three weeks in the Illinois area before continuing north in late March or early April to their nesting grounds in northern Wisconsin/Minnesota and southern Canada. Cool. I never knew that.

Ghost Business

The other day I happened to notice an old Pepsi Cola warehouse being razed in the 1800 block of West Avenue South in La Crosse. In the razing process a false facade on the building was removed, exposing the building's original front and a sign for the Miller Broom Company (see photo). I did some checking in local history files and discovered this building was erected in 1919 for the Miller Broom Company which occupied the structure until the early 1960s. There is not a lot of available information about this broom firm but I did find this interesting account from 1904 in "La Crosse, Wisconsin: The Gateway City: A City of Great Enterprises, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Agricultural Resources Unsurpassed" when the business was located in downtown La Crosse:

AUGUST MILLER, Manufacturer of Fine Brooms, 111 South Front Street. In 1882 Mr. August Miller established his present business and since that time has been enjoying a steadily increasing accession of patronage. He is manufacturer of fine brooms and whisks and his reputation for making a first-class article is well known. Twenty hands (17 men and three boys) are employed, 13 machines operated and about 50 dozen brooms and whisks are turned out per day. The factory occupies two floors and basement of a building 20 x 100 feet and they ship their goods to California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, these states being thoroughly canvassed by four traveling men. Mr. Miller is the originator of the famous "Little Daisy," which is the most popular broom in the northwest. He is a good business man, a faithful citizen and well liked by all who know him.

Makes me wonder if a "Little Daisy" broom could still be found in some broken down shed in Montana. Guess I need to go on a road trip someday.