Rod Serling: In almost everything I've written there is a thread of this:

[mahatmakanejeeves]

The '60s at 50 Retweeted

Serling: "In almost everything I've written there is a thread of this: man's seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself."

Link to tweet

[Dennis Donovan]

1. Rod was a neighbor of mine.

Sort of; he lived across Cayuga Lake from us, but we ran into him from time to time at Hibiscus Harbor in the 60's and early 70's.

[Sugarcoated]

6. My grandparents lived in Aurora, right on the lake!

Which side are you?

[Dennis Donovan]

9. East. Just north of Aurora, on the north end of Union Springs

We had a camp south of the village of Cayuga.

[Sugarcoated]

12. Cool!

Ahoy there That region is one of my favorite parts of New York, many good memories! Are you still in the state?

[Dennis Donovan]

16. I still live in the area - about 4 miles from Aurora

Cayuga Lake's in my blood. However, The Simpsons from 4/28 - "D'oh Canada" - had a bit about Upstate NY that was hilarious (and a bit on the nose ).

[klook]

7. Lucky you.

One of my favorite people. I got to see him speak once. He was hilarious and inspiring.

[Dennis Donovan]

10. He would come into Hibiscus in his Chris Craft. We'd wave...

...he smiled and waved back.

[klook]

13. "Consider, if you will,

one Dennis Donovan — a resident of a small, sleepy Northeastern town where nothing ever happens... As he does almost every day, Dennis is enjoying a quiet tour of the lake. But today will be different. Dennis is about to take a detour up a forgotten inlet — into the Twilight Zone.”

[Dennis Donovan]

15. That's some cool fan fiction right there!

[watoos]

2. I took a Theater Arts course in college in the 60's

to get my GPA up a bit. We had a class on one of his Twilight Zone episodes, "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."

[Adsos Letter]

3. Was it a replay of the story by Ambrose Bierce?

Famous piece of American literature.

[klook]

5. That was a French short film based on the Bierce story.

I remember clearly seeing it as it premiered on American television, thanks to Serling. It was a brilliant production, and a great gift to the viewing audience for him to devote a week of TZ airtime to show this film.

Years later as a college student, I was reading a book of short stories in the library and randomly came across the Bierce story. “Hey!” I thought, “this is that story I saw adapted on The Twilight Zone!”

Edited to add link to info about the film:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Occurrence_at_Owl_Creek_Bridge_(film)

[ret5hd]

4. Well, maybe...but I look at it more like this:

Man's seemingly palpable need to make himself disliked.

or even more precisely:

Man's seemingly palpable need to make himself disliked by ME.

[underpants]

8. Turns out my parents were frequently at dinner/cocktail parties with he and his brother Rob

I didn't know about this until a few weeks ago. Both of the Serlings went to college at the small school in the town I lived in in my yearly childhood. Coretta Scott King, Stephen Jay Gould, and Leonard Nimoy.

Oh some other people too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Antioch_College_people

[LuvNewcastle]

11. I think that is what politics is all about, too,

or at least it is here in the USA at this point in time.

[MicaelS]

14. It's a cookbook!!!! n/t