Tuesday Reads

Maybe the morons who criticize Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in all its incarnations need to read this article.

As the pages were coming along, his wife’s condition worsened.

“Spring slipped into summer. My wife’s parents came to stay with us to help,” he later wrote. In July, she passed away. His boss gently offered to pass the assignment off to someone else. “But I needed Rudolph now more than ever. Gratefully I buried myself in the writing.”

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Montgomery Ward printed the story as a soft-covered booklet in 1939 and distributed 2.4 million copies for free. Then, the small publishing house Maxton Publishing Co. offered to print it in hardcover. It became a best-seller, but Rudolph’s story didn’t really become world-famous until May’s brother-in-law Johnny Marks wrote the musical version that Gene Autry sang. The tune topped the charts in 1949. “I don’t think it ever would have had the coverage if it weren’t for the song,” Lewis says.

And, just as Rudolph helps families have a happy Christmas in May’s story, Rudolph the brand helped the May family get through a tough time.

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This article sums up the idiotic "controversy" of the above-mentioned story and movie.
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