Covering the Cambridge city council in the 1950s

Your editor's coverage of the Cambridge city council for the Harvard student radio station in the 1950s as one of the reasons he has never regarded politicians as role models. Here are some details of this experience. Sam Smith - On a May morning, the Harvard Crimson came out with a story that Cambridge city …

A mountain disaster too close to forget

[A friend has sent me a long, recent story from the Philadelphia Inquirer & Daily News site, Philly.com, about one of Canada's worst mountain disasters that occurred 62 years ago. The reason he sent it to me was because one of the seven boys killed went to our school and was a member of Boy …

Tom Whitbread

Sam Smith - I was sad to learn belatedly that Professor Thomas Whitbread of the University of Texas had died last fall. After all, I had known him for about sixty years and had never grown tired of this fine poet going “Woof” in response to something I had just said.   As the obituary …

WHRB: Unofficial sounds of Harvard in the 1950s

Sam Smith WHRB was started during World War II as an AM station, using as its antenna the university's electrical wiring system running through huge tunnels for the steam pipes. Its signal was not supposed to be heard beyond the campus, but there were periodic reports of it being picked up as far as Medford …

Making DC safe for poetry

    Sam Smith - I  saved the tape from a late 1950s news conference held by Harvey Rosenberg, member of the DC and Texas bar, who had been hired the previous evening to represent the Coffee 'n' Confusion Cafe. The DC government was trying to shut it down. Although there were already perhaps 1,000 …

So Fidel Castro walks into a bar and this guy says. . .

Sam Smith My first job in 1959 was as a newsman at Washington’s radio station WWDC, which had just introduced the Top 40 format to the area, would start the first Washington news service for independent stations, and would later be the first station to play the Beatles in America.The station had also hired Steve …

Practicing anthropology without a license

Sam Smith {From a speech delivered to the 100th anniversary conference of the Berkeley School of Anthropology] Ever since I got the invitation to speak to you all I have been bragging because to an anthropology BA this is a bit like an ex-con being asked to address a conference of the American Bar Association. …

Harvard Magna cum Probation

Sam Smith One of the first things I noticed about Harvard Square was that it was not square. At its center was a long island that formed a triangle. At one end was a baroque subway kiosk. Legend has it that a Harvard president opposed its construction, leading to the Crimson headline: PRESIDENT FIGHTS ERECTION …

Sweet Daddy Madison

Sam Smith, 2005 - Every time I get totally fed up with Washington, something happens to remind me that some of the best of the city isn't gone, only hidden. Like the big house on Portal Drive across the street from the one towards which I was heading for a holiday party. I had never …