REMEMBERING Telephones and Trees this month as we offer records and recollections of Alexander Graham Bell’s incredible invention and J. Sterling Morton’s Arbor Day. We’ll place a long distant call to the past to dial up some memories, melodies and mirth.

REMEMBERING Juke Boxes, those colorful coin-operated record players found in diners, dives, drive-ins and ice cream parlors during a nice chunk of the twentieth century.

REMEMBERING married show business couples working together, including Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Louis Prima and Keely Smith, Harry James and Betty Grable, Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and others.

REMEMBERING: Danny Kaye and seven other great show business personalities as we start the New Year right with George Burns, Ethel Merman, Mario Lanza, Carol Channing, Ray Bolger, Sophie Tucker and Elvis Presley. These stars all have one thing in common?

REMEMBERING: Christmas in Chicago in 1940 plus merry music and miscellaneous memories of some celebrity Christmastime birth dates. Also: Seeing the Christmas windows at Marshall Fields in Chicago’s Loop and visiting Wieboldt’s ToyTeria.

REMEMBERING: A carton of cigarette commercials before they were banned from radio and television: Chesterfields, Lucky Strike, Camels, and more, with help from Jo Stafford and Phil Harris. Also: the unlikely writer of a song hit by Les Paul and Mary Ford,

REMEMBERING: a trio of duets starring Bing Crosby with Jane Wyman, Louis Armstrong and Al Jolson. Also: a pair of movies that premiered 19 years apart – the first in 1927, the second in 1946, milestones in the career of “the world’s greatest entertainer.”

REMEMBERING: The king of the road in song and sign as we recall not only the road, but those famous Burma Shave messages along the way. Also: A movie that takes place almost exclusively on Labor Day and a mini-salute to Labor itself.

REMEMBERING: Her Nibs, Miss Georgia Gibbs; observing the birthdays of Singin’ in the Rain stars Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor; Helen Kane, the Boop-Boop-A-Doop Girl; the beginning and end of WW II.

REMEMBERING: James Cagney’s portrayal of George M. Cohan… a visit to the Chicago Theatre to see Peggy Lee and Martin & Lewis… a Perry Como polka that dominated the airwaves during the summer of 1950