Time Capsule: September 30, 1955

September, 30 1955: Back to college we go as television and music star Eddie Fisher drops in on the student body at Notre Dame, broadcasting his NBC program, Coke Time, live from the pep rally at the old field house. Along hand in the production were the Notre Dame Band and Glee Club.

After the program, Fisher and wife Debbie Reynolds mingled with students; both were in attendance at the football game against Indiana the next day.

We've learned John was not the BMOC at this point so we find it doubtful he was in attendance at the pep rally.

Memoriam: Helen Cresswell

Author Helen Cresswell died Sept. 26 of cancer at her home in England. Cresswell is best remembered for his books staring Lizzie Dripping, the girl with a witch as a best friend, and The Bagthorpe Saga, the tales of inept British eccentrics, both later adapted for television by the BBC. "I do not particularly believe in what most people call reality. I only really believe in truth of the imagination," she said.

BBC: Helen Cresswell's literary legacy
Links: FantasticFiction

Fidgety Feet

Digging through the trenches recently we stumbled upon an online record store where one could purchase a slew of unfamiliar albums from almost anywhere across the world (mainly Poland, the Czech Republic, the eastern half of West Germany and so on). One particular record caught our eye: a 1988 album by the USSR-based Nevskaya Vosmyorka Jazz Band. The album is entitled Fidgeta.

Remembering Roommate Ronald Cardwell

Fifty years ago this fall John Bellairs began life as a college undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame. While there are the usual number of firsts anyone undergoes transitioning from high school to college, one first of Bellairs's was this semester he had a roommate in Zahm Hall. Actually, in four years of college at Notre Dame, Ronald Cardwell would be Bellairs's only room mate.

Whatever happened to Cardwell is uncertain but another Zahm resident - Bellairs's life-long friend Alfred Myers - was nice enough to recall their brief encounter:

Who Is Chubby Lewis?

That's the question we were once asked and we didn't have a good answer. Why are the Lewis Barnavelt books sometimes referred to as the "Chubby Lewis" series?