Baby Boom Matches

I overslept this morning. I didn't mean to! I heard the alarm, closed my eyes for two minutes...and when I opened them, it was 7:50, and I had to work at 9. I barely had the time to write in my journal, eat, dress, and call Uber. I wasn't going to have the time to take my bike. The driver arrived in 9 minutes, and I was still 10 minutes late. They took 8 minutes going home.

Being late was not a good thing. We were busy almost the entire afternoon. It's the beginning of the month, and there's a lot going on this weekend, including playoff games. I was on my own with the sweeping and the carts and putting away cold items until the afternoon bagger came in at 2 PM. It was almost impossible for me to keep up with the carts, but it was too busy for them to spare anyone to help me. It helped that it slowed down a bit by 2 PM as well. The weather helped, too. It was cloudy when I went to work, but by the time I finished, it had turned into a beautiful spring day, gale-force windy but sunny and not too hot, in the lower 60's. 

Listened to Kind of Blue on CD when I got home and got changed. This is Miles Davis' most famous album, and arguably his best. It's certainly his most influential. Lovely numbers like "Blue In Green," "Freddy Freeloader," and "All Blues" have been delighting jazz fans since the late 50's. Certainly, it was mellow enough for me to calm down to after work.

Finished the night with a shower, dinner, and today's Match Game marathon. Though the baby boom of the 50's and 60's was cooling off by the time the show started in 1973, questions about babies and those who take care of them still abounded. There were baby questions on the week with Jack Albertson and Lynne Redgrave from 1975, on the syndicated week from 1980 featuring the guy with the amazingly luxurious mustache, on Marcia Wallace's first week in 1974 and Clifton Davies' in 1975. One of the most famous baby-related questions on the show ended with Orson Bean's answer "nymphomaniac" later in '74. 

Of course, babies didn't just appear in the questions. An actual toddler dressed as a cowboy appeared at the end of a syndicated episode from 1981. Bill Anderson showed off a photo of his newborn son in a 1980 syndicated show. There were lots of expectant mothers on the show, including two in the panel. Jo Ann Pflug and Patti Deusch appeared on the panel while pregnant. Motherhood just seemed to make Jo Ann a little testier, but Patti was serene and glowing (and honestly matched a little better than usual for her). 

Expectant contestants appeared, too. One mother wore a shirt that all but proclaimed her pregnancy, even if her growing belly didn't. Another actually went into labor in the audience while her husband played the game. Poor Gene was nervous as heck, and even the panelists seemed tense. They sent them a really cute show business-themed baby announcement a few weeks later after the child was born, which Richard Dawson, himself a father, got to read.

See the mid-20th-century population explosion for yourself and enjoy the wackiest baby shower ever in this hilarious marathon!

Match Game Sunday Classics - Baby Shower Marathon