My mother’s father, Daniel Kenly, was blind and reported to be a scoundrel. A good catholic man – he was married 3 times. His first two wives being smart enough to divorce him. My grandmother was very stubborn. She simply decided to outlive him.
Anyhow, I always remember him on Halloween. Not because I actually remember him – because I don’t. But, I remember that grandmother always pointed out the he had been sorely frightened by the Halloween 1938 broadcast of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds.
It always seemed like a good story. But, upon reflection – maybe there was just a tad of Granny’s revenge to the telling of the tale.
Grandmother owned a “Korean Convenience Store” – well, the 1930’s version of same. She was the sole employee. And, would have been working late on All Hallows Eve, to make a buck and to protect her property from “trickers”.
So, it stands to reason that Grandfather was Home Alone. And, he would have listened to the radio. What doesn’t follow is that he would have been sufficiently scared to run screaming fearfully out onto the sidewalk and on to the grave yard to await his fate.
You see, Grandfather had a big ass ham radio rig. He was on it all the time. So, it seems to me that rather than running to the grave yard he would have run to his ham station and talked to his buddies. Maybe even some in New Jersey. It would be like me hearing a news report of invaders from Mars in Boston – I’d get online. So, I presume that Grandy would have fired up his radio setup. Just because he was a blind scoundrel – it doesn’t follow that he was a dumb blind scoundrel.
Download or stream the original broadcast from:
http://www.archive.org/details/OrsonWellesMrBruns
I am too busy at my volunteer job.