HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC – VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish.
(THEME)
This is Doug Johnson. On our program today we:
play some songs by Waylon Jennings …
answer a question about five-and-dime stores …
and report about something called a palindrome.
Palindromes
HOST:
Do you know what a “palindrome” is? The word comes from the Greekword, “palindromos,” which means “running back again.” A palindromeis any word, sentence, poem or number which reads the same backwardsas it does forwards. Sarah Long tells us more.
ANNCR:
One of the best known palindromes in the English language is thesentence, “Madam, I’m Adam.” If you write it on a piece of paper, itreads the same from the end to the beginning as from the beginningto the end.
The country and western singing group “Riders In The Sky”recorded a song about a man who speaks only in palindromes. Let’slisten to some of it:
((CUT 1: “THE BALLAD OF PALINDROME”))
This palindrome was writtenone-hundred years ago to honor American President TheodoreRoosevelt: “A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!” Here is anotherpalindrome: “Rise to vote, sir.”
There are other simple palindromes. For example, the name of apopular Swedish rock and roll group was ABBA, spelled A-B-B-A. Somenames are palindromes. For example, Ava, spelled A-V-A and Hannah,spelled H-A-N-N-A-H.
This year, Two-Thousand-Two, is apalindromic year. The experts say that a palindromic year usuallyhappens only about every one-hundred-ten years. However, the lastone happened in Nineteen-Ninety-One. Experts also noted a historicmoment in palindromic time that took place recently, at two minutesafter eight o’clock at night on February twentieth. That is whentime on a twenty-four hour clock read as a palindrome. The time wastwenty hours two minutes, on the twentieth day of the second month,in the year Two-Thousand-Two. So it was written Two-Oh-Oh-Two,Two-Oh-Oh-Two, Two-Oh-Oh-Two.
Five and Dimes
HOST:
Our V-O-A listener question this week comes from Russia. AlexeyMozgovenko wants to know about five-and-ten-cent stores, also calledfive-and-dime stores or dime stores.
A dime is an American coin worth ten cents. The idea forfive-and-dime stores came from Frank Winfield Woolworth. He was bornin Rodman, New York in Eighteen-Fifty-Two. He worked at the localvillage store as a young man. Later, he accepted a position with abusiness in Watertown, New York. It was there that Mister Woolworthproposed his idea.
He suggested that the company cutthe price of goods it had trouble selling. Mister Woolworth proposedselling those goods for just five cents. Company officials agreed totry his idea. It was a huge success. The campaign was so successfulthat it was expanded to include new goods.
In Eighteen-Seventy-Nine, Woolworth opened the firstfive-and-ten-cent stores in Utica, New York and Lancaster,Pennsylvania. The company quickly expanded. Six groups of storesresulted from the five-cent experiment. They were united inNineteen-Twelve to form the F.W. Woolworth Company.
Mister Woolworth became a rich man. In Nineteen-Thirteen, hebuilt the Woolworth building in New York City. At the time, it wasthe tallest building in the world. Frank Woolworth died inNineteen-Nineteen. At the time of his death, his company operatedmore than one-thousand stores.
Most American towns in thetwentieth century had a Woolworth’s store. The stores offered lowcost clothing and products for the home. Many also offered hotmeals.
As recently as forty years ago, the United States had thousandsof these five-and- dime stores. Other businesses attempted to copyMister Woolworth’s idea. They had names like Ben Franklin, Grants,Kresge’s and G.C. Murphy’s.
However, few have survived today. Experts say the dime storeswere unable to react to changes in the American economy. Largerstores began to offer the same products and more choices at lowerprices.
Five years ago, the Woolworth Company closed all its generalproduct stores in the United States. It had become clear that thestores could no longer compete with larger companies. Yet manyAmericans still have happy memories of shopping at the localfive-and-dime.
Waylon Jennings
HOST:
Country music singer Waylon Jennings died last month. He hadrecorded more than sixty record albums and had sixteen country musichit songs. Shep O’Neal has more.
ANNCR:
Waylon Jennings was known in the music business for refusing totake orders from country music officials. He played a kind ofcountry music that was a mix of western, blues and rock and roll. Heonce said the three kinds of music were almost the same.
Waylon Jennings was born in thestate of Texas in Nineteen-Thirty-Seven. He worked in small bandsand on radio programs as a child. He later played in the band of oneof the most famous of the early rock and roll musicians, BuddyHolly.
Waylon Jennings often recorded with friends like Johnny Cash andKris Kristofferson. He and Willie Nelson won a Grammy Award inNineteen-Seventy-Eight for this song, “Mammas, Don’t Let Your BabiesGrow Up to Be Cowboys.”
((CUT ONE: “MAMMAS, DON’T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO BECOWBOYS”))
Many Americans remember Waylon Jennings best for singing the songfrom a hit television program in the Nineteen-Eighties. His recordof that song sold more than one-million copies. It is called “TheDukes of Hazzard.”
((CUT TWO: “DUKES OF HAZZARD” THEME))
Waylon Jennings became a member of the Country Music Hall of Famelast October. We leave you now with one of the songs responsible forthat honor, his biggest hit, “Luckenbach, (LUKE-en-bock) Texas.”
((CUT THREE: “LUCKENBACH, TEXAS”))
HOST:
This is Doug Johnson . I hope you enjoyed our program today. AndI hope you will join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC – VOA’sradio magazine in Special English.
This AMERICAN MOSAIC program was written by George Grow, NancySteinbach and Paul Thompson. Our studio engineer was Tom Verba. Andour producer was Paul Thompson.