Four Bells! -- A "Theme Thursday" Post

This week's Theme Thursday topic is "bell," and although there will be the usual creative approaches to the subject from the many Blogger-bloggers who've signed up, there's one thing which probably all of us will have in common besides (obviously) the "bell" theme itself.

More on that shortly.

My own slant on the subject is to give you some background info on one of the television kiddie show hosts I grew up watching in the early 1960s. And for once, I'll be relatively and mercifully brief.

I grew up in southern Massachusetts, and the majority of TV stations we of that era tuned to were based in Boston. One of the local personalities was a gentleman known as Captain Bob Cottle. When I watched him, Captain Bob worked for channel five, WHDH-TV, which was then a CBS affiliate... although in the early 1960s he also played host to Hanna-Barbera's Ruff & Reddy Show on NBC, somehow...

I collect whatever late 1950s & early 1960s New England kiddie show memorabilia I can get my hands on, and I have a few mementos from Captain Bob, including the two magazines shown above and a "Jasper" squeaky toy based on Captain Bob's puppet sidekick.

Oh, and I did manage to pick up one other item, a store display for a Captain Bob product...

Which brings us back to "bell." Like the bell in the upper left-hand corner of my sidebar. (Feel free to click on that, by the way.)

One of the Blogger-bloggers whom I'm acquainted with is a Canadian gent named Barry, who writes a blog called An Explorer's View of Life. Today, at two p.m., EST, Barry will be ringing a bell in accordance with... Well, let me quote from an earlier post on Barry's own blog:

High on the wall next to the exit from the Chemo Day Care Centre at Princess Margaret Hospital a bell is waiting for me. As I mentioned in my post a week ago Friday, there is a ritual at PMH that those patients completing their last treatment of chemotherapy, ring the bell as they leave.

Today is Barry's last treatment. But he won't be ringing that bell alone. Not exactly. Bloggers from literally all over the world have latched onto this idea, and in honor of Barry (and every other person who's ever battled some form of cancer), there will be hundreds of people ringing some sort of bell -- dinner bells, bicycle bells, bells supplied via YouTube videos, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera! -- or making some sort of noise, to show their solidarity.

Kind of inspiring.

And as for me? Well, if you know me at all, you know I wasn't satisfied with just the display for that "Ship's Bell" of Captain Bob's.

Yep, I tracked down one of those Captain Bob brass bells, in its original box, no less. And that's the bell that I'll be ringing at 2 p.m. EST.

That's right, this land-lubber will be ringing a ship's bell! Just for Barry. And if you read this post before 2 p.m., feel free to join us.

(And in case you're wondering, the "four bells" mentioned in my title -- if I understand the way these things work -- is how they used to mark the hour of 2 p.m. at sea.)

Now let's make those bells ring... and the ground shake!

Thanks for your time.