Happy birthday to a friend and former boss

He's probably too busy having fun at Philcon today to read this, but happy birthday anyway to a very gifted academician and songwriter/parodist, as well as a dear friend and former employer, thnidu. He was kind enough to put up with my bad habits and pay me to help with a research project a few years ago, when I was having a tough time. For this alone, he will always have a place of honor among my friends...but there is a whole lotta other stuff he's done that makes him worth celebrating too.

Thank you, Mark, for your many kindnesses over the years to an erratic goyische friend.

Two 45th anniversaries this weekend, one sad and one far less so

On this day 4.5 decades ago, our last truly great President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, made the fatal mistake of riding in an open convertible, in a motorcade through the streets of a city I was once pleased to call home (well, a suburb of it, anyhow)...and into the gunsight of a lonely, deranged man waiting in a sixth-floor window of the local schoolbook warehouse with a loaded Italian rifle and a vendetta.

The resulting deaths so shocked the entire world that in this and many other nations, television programming that had originally been scheduled to air that day and evening was either canceled outright or postponed in favor of news coverage. And so it was that the very next day, the afternoon of Saturday the 23rd, saw the airing on BBC One in England of a new program that was ostensibly intended as an educational show to teach kids about history.

That program would become something far, far greater than just another children's edu-tainment show. It would become a British cultural icon, a weekend teatime tradition for both adults and children, and a bona fide worldwide phenomenon. It would gain fans in the millions and last (with the odd hiatus here and there) to this day, and would spawn two feature films and not just one, but two successful spinoff series...not to mention a global cottage industry in souvenirs, clothing, toys and just about everything else imaginable that can be made by the hand of man. And it would fuel conventions, clubs and other events and gatherings from horizon to horizon.

Yes, I'm speaking of the one, the only, the marvelous program called Doctor Who. Ten lead actors (and an 11th soon to come), legions of villainous foes, dozens if not hundreds of companions and uncountable aired episodes, recorded audio adventures, official novels and comics, fan stories and videos and much, much more. And it all began 45 years ago tomorrow.

Were you alive when JFK was killed and Who first aired? Whether you were born yet or not, what memory from then or since stands out most for you? I was all of six months old myself, so I have no real memory of the assassination, but of the show, I have many memories of favorite stories, people and moments...far too many to pick just one:

• The Fifth Doctor informing his other friends that Adric is dead...and that he cannot use his time-travel mastery to save him.
• Fifth using his late companion's gold star pin to help him stop a Cyberman from beyond the grave.
• The regeneration of a dying Fourth Doctor into a rejuvenated Fifth, at the foot of the Pharos Project tower.
• The Tenth Doctor having to leave his beloved Rose on the other side of a wall between universes...seemingly forever.
• Getting to actually hang out with Nick Courtney, the late John Nathan-Turner and Nicola "I Am Not A Fizzy Drink!" Bryant at the legendary Pat O'Brien's in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the last evening of a convention there in 1985...and helping introduce all three Brits to the signature beverage of Pat O's, the Hurricane.
• Brigadier Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart, standing strong despite advancing age, brandishing a gun and ordering Morgaine le Fay to get the hell off his planet.
• Four of the first five Doctors standing together against a mad, mind-controlling Lord President Borusa in the Tomb of Rassilon.
• Donna Noble taking hold of the lever alongside the Tenth Doctor deep in the bowels of Mount Vesuvius, helping him carry out a terrible and historic necessity. (And by sheerest coincidence, BBC America is airing that very episode tonight!)

Share yours here.