'Forrest Gump' and a self-described Forrest Gump, PLUS Pitchin' Whoopie Pies in Portland & Savannah Bananas attempt to rescue baseball (Part I)
Also the Everything is a Primary Source tries its hand at trivia and professional development
What a whirlwind end of the schoolyear and end to another podcasting season—which in itself was a bit of a wild ride. Now that summer is here I hope to get back to Substack and post more so we can have fewer of these mammoth updates.
Forrest Gump meets Forrest Gump
The late, great writer Winston Groom, with whom I was fortunate enough to share an email exchange some years ago, published Forrest Gump in 1986. Groom joined fellow Vietnam War vets, such as Philip Caputo and Oliver Stone, in channeling their experiences and their feelings on them into art. It’s evident in the book more so than the 1994 movie, but Forrest Gump’s time in Vietnam stays with him in one form or another the rest of the story.
By the mid 1980s the entire country was coming to terms with the Vietnam War and what it did to society, culture and politics. There was a healing that was needed, and Groom & Co. took to their pens and cameras to cauterize from the inside out. Forrest Gump the novel came out before the 1991 Gulf War, the public reaction for which, I argue, was to make amends for the way Vietnam was handled by the people, and the Tom Hanks movie arrived afterwards. This may explain how the book has much sharper criticism of the post-war veteran experience than the movie does. That being said, Gary Sinise, whose portrayal of paraplegic Lieutenant Dan Taylor in the 1994 film, was lauded by disabled vets of all American wars for his accurate depiction of their shared experience. I always make this point when showing this documentary in class, which Sinise narrates.
The podcast about the 1986 book and 1994 movie has already been turned into a pair of entries in the Everything is a Primary Source Project archive. There are plenty of opportunities to contribute, especially once the new school year starts. Click on the screenshots to take a look and listen:
Rowland Scherman
As evidence of Forrest Gump’s impact on our lexicon, even Rowland Scherman, who was behind the camera lens during such momentous occasions as The March on Washington and Woodstock, refers to himself as a “real life Forrest Gump”.
That’s being humble. I reserved my interview with Rowland and his friend, Art and Culture legal expert Michael E. Jones, for the last episode of the third season of the podcast because I was so excited to hear the backstory of so many famous primary sources.
I still can’t get over the way I was able to arrange the conversation with Rowland and Michael. During one of my families many visit to Goodwill Buy the Pound this winter, I came across an autographed copy of Michael’s book, Timeless: Photography of Rowland Scherman. This was the springboard to locating Michael online, emailing him, and then hearing back about a week later that not only he was interested in talking, but Rowland was too. We took some time in mid- March to converse about just a few of his many unforgettable shots, which have been used for the last 60 years to relate the 1960s to both those who were there and those of us who weren’t.
Take a look at the EPS Project entry for Rowland, and keep a lookout for his work in the wild, so you can add it to the gallery section.
Read Part II here, but first:
