LIKE THOSE OLDIES?

CLICK HERE AND WE'LL TAKE YOU TO THE NOSTALGIA MACHINE!

BIG BAND HISTORY MADE: MAY 7, 1941

I'm a year older than "Chattanooga Choo Choo"!  That's right, folks.  You might think Chattanooga Choo Choo has been around forever but, let it be known....I'VE BEEN AROUND EVEN LONGER!!

It was May 7, 1941 that the Glenn Miller Orchestra recorded that classic song.

REMEMBER THE '50'S?

You'll have to be really, really, really old to remember this stuff.  If you really are that old, this is going to bring a tear to your eye as you think about your lost youth.

Laundry Day: The times have changed!

When we were kids Mother had to wait for a sunny day to wash clothes so she could hang them out on the line.

 

Today I decided, since it was raining, it was a good day to wash clothes.  My outside chores will have to wait for another day.

A TEST FOR THE OLD FOLKS HOME

NO Cheating - don't look at the  answers until you take the test!!!
  History Exam...

Everyone over 60 should have a pretty easy time at this exam. If  you are under 60 you can claim a handicap.

This is a History Exam for those who don't mind seeing how much  they really remember about what went on in their life.
  *** Get paper & pencil & number from 1 to 20.
  ****Write the letter of each answer & score at the end.

Then before you pass this test on, put your score in the subject  line. Send to friends so everyone can HAVE FUN!!!!
1. In the 1940s, where were automobile headlight dimmer switches  located?
A. On the floor shift knob.
B. On the floor board, to the left of the clutch....
C. Next to the horn.

2. The bottle top of a Royal Crown Cola bottle had holes in it..  For what was it used?
A. Capture lightning bugs.
B. To sprinkle clothes before ironing.
C. Large salt shaker.

3. Why was having milk delivered a problem in northern winters?
A. Cows got cold and wouldn't produce milk.
B. Ice on highways forced delivery by dog sled.
C. Milkmen left deliveries outside of front doors and milk would  freeze, expanding and pushing up the cardboard bottle top.

4. What was the popular chewing gum named for a game of chance?
A. Blackjack
B.  Gin
C. Craps

5. What method did women use to look as if they were wearing  stockings when none were available due to rationing during WW II.
A. Suntan
B. Leg painting
C. Wearing slacks

What postwar car turned automotive design on its ear when you  couldn't tell whether it was coming or going?
A. Studebaker
B. Nash Metro
C. Tucker

7. Which was a popular candy when you were a kid?
A. Strips of dried peanut butter.
B. Chocolate licorice bars.
C. Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside.

8. How was Butch wax used?
A. To stiffen a flat-top haircut so it stood up.
B. To make floors shiny and prevent scuffing..
C. On the wheels of roller skates to prevent rust.

9. Before inline skates, how did you keep your roller skates  attached to your shoes
A. With clamps, tightened by a skate key.
B. Woven straps that crossed the foot
C. Long pieces of twine.

10. As a kid, what was considered the best way to reach a  decision
A. Consider all the facts..
B. Ask Mom.
C. Eeny-meeny-miney-Mo.

11. What was the most dreaded disease in the 1940s and 1950s?
A. Smallpox
B. AIDS
C. Polio

12.. 'I'll be down to get you in a ________, Honey'
A. SUV
B. Taxi
C. Streetcar

13.. What was the name of Caroline Kennedy's pony?
A. Old Blue
B. Paint
C Macaroni

14.. What was a Duck-and-Cover Drill?
A. Part of the game of hide and seek.
B. What you did when your Mom called you in to do chores.
C. Hiding under your desk, and covering your head with your arms  in an A-bomb drill.

15 . What was the name of the Indian Princess in the Howdy Doody  Show?
A. Princess Summerfallwinterspring
B. Princess Sacajawea
C Princess Moonshadow

16. What did all the really savvy students do when mimeographed  tests were handed out in school?
A. Immediately sniffed the purple ink, as this was believed to get  you high.
B. Made paper airplanes to see who could sail theirs out the  window.
C. Wrote another pupil's name on the top, to avoid their failure.

17.. Why did your Mom shop in stores that gave Green Stamps with  purchases?
A.. To keep you out of mischief by licking the backs, which tasted  like bubble gum.
B. They could be put in special books and redeemed for various  household items.
C. They were given to the kids to be used as stick-on tattoos.

18.. Praise the Lord , & pass the _________?
A.. Meatballs
B. Dames
C. Ammunition

19.. What was the name of the singing group that made the song  'Cabdriver' a hit?
A. The Ink Spots
B. The Supremes
C. The Esquires

20.. Who left his heart in San Francisco ?
A. Tony Bennett
B. Xavier Cugat
C. George Gershwin
----------------------------- --------------------------
ANSWERS

1. (B) On the floor, to the left of the clutch. Hand controls,  popular in Europe , took till the late '60's to catch on.
2. (B) To sprinkle clothes before ironing.. Who had a steam iron?
3 (C) Cold weather caused the milk to freeze and expand, popping  the bottle top...
4 . (A) Blackjack Gum.
5.. (B) Special makeup was applied, followed by drawing a seam  down the back of the leg with eyebrow pencil
6. (A) 1946 Studebaker.
7. (C) Wax coke bottles containing super-sweet colored water.
8. (A) Wax for your flat top (butch) haircut.
9. (A) With clamps , tightened by a skate key, which you wore on a  shoestring around your neck.
10. (C) Eeny-meeny-miney-mo.
 11. (C) Polio. In beginning of August, swimming pools were closed,  movies and other public gathering places were closed to try to prevent spread  of the disease.
 12. (B) Taxi , Better be ready by half-past eight!
 13. (C) Macaroni ....
 14. (C) Hiding under your desk, and covering your head with your  arms in an A-bomb drill.
15. (A) Princess Summerfallwinterspring. She was another puppet.
16... (A) Immediately sniffed the purple ink to get a high.
17. (B) Put in a special stamp book, they could be traded for  household items at the Green Stamp store.
18. (C) Ammunition, and we'll all be free.
19. (A) The widely famous 50's group: The Inkspots.
20.. (A) Tony Bennett, and he sounds just as good today.

SCORING
17- 20 correct : You are older than dirt, and obviously gifted  with mental abilities. Now if you could only find your glasses. Definitely  someone who should share your wisdom!

12 -16 correct: Not quite dirt yet, but you're getting there.
 
0 -11 correct: You are not old enough to share the wisdom of your  experiences.

TAKE US BACK TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF HOLLYWOOD

Hollywood is taking another look at the golden age of cinema, these days.  Here's an interesting video from the New York Times. 

A GLOOMY LA CROSSE MORNING

This reminded me more of San Francisco in December rather than La Crosse.  I'm beginning to wonder if we'll have any snow, for the holidays,this year.

Thinking about San Francisco in December reminded me of the Christmas I spent in the city by the Golden Gate.  Aunt Jessie and Ted were living in Oakland at that time so I went over there and spent Christmas day.  That was nearly 50 years ago.  Lot's of changes in all those years.  I think San Francisco has held up better than I have. 

1975 REMEMBER THREE DOG NIGHT?

CAN'T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD...

You know how a song will pop into your head and then it just keeps looping over and over and over again in your mind?  It happened to me this morning and I'll never know from what dusty corner of my brain this song popped up.

THE ROCKHOPPER

I looked at Bob's birthday song video with the penguins again and it brought back memories.  There's a one or two second shot of a Rockhopper Penguin.

John L. stopped combing his hair when he was about 12 and he always walked around town with these little tufts sticking out on each side like Dagwood Bumstad.

Katherine didn't see Dagwood.  She saw a Rockhopper Penguin.  She started calling John L. "The Rockhopper" which, absolutely, drove John L. up the wall.

As soon as we realized it drove John L. up the wall we all started calling him "The Rockhopper".  He was called "The Rockhopper" until the day he died.  That wasn't what killed him but it came close to killing him.

I was saying to Roger, yesterday.....

I miss the little corner grocery store, cafe, full service  filling station and all the rest of the small businesses  that used to dot the city of La Crosse.  Remember service?  That's the thing mom and pop took with them when they were forced out of business by the big boxes.

Celebrate small business day.  Take a trip around town and see if you can find one anymore.

Reader comment:
I now understand why so many old people are grumpy.  We remember that old-fashoned thing called personal service, and miss it, resent it when clerks nowadays mostly ignore us.  Once upon a time the customer was always right.  Now, you are on your own.

DREAMS

I had another radio dream last night.  One of the reacurring ones.  Locked out of the control room and the record is running out.

I don't know about the young people, in radio, today but us old timers all know about the radio dreams.  We've all had them...over and over again.

Things are so different now but, back in my time, radio wasn't a job.  It was our life, 24 hours a day, seven days a week and when we weren't living it we were dreaming about it.

I honestly never knew what "working" was like until I left radio and went to work for the airline.  I was almost 40 years old and someone had to show me how to use a time clock.  I had never seen one.  I quickly learned what it was like to get up and think, "I really don't want to go to work today".  That never happened in the radio days.  We weren't working.  We were having fun and getting paid for it, which was silly because we would have done it for nothing.

Rita, Roger, Carl and Kathy return from South Dakota today.

I'm guessing they'll bringing some of those great South Dakota Phesants back with them.

Back in the old days, there was a fabulous night club in Rapid City, The Esquire, that served pheasant under glass.  I can't stand wild meat but I ate it once, just to say I had tasted it if anybody asked.  Nobody ever did.

THE GREEN THING

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days.

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right. We didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right. We didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus, and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.

Remember: Don't make old people mad. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off.

Gladys remembers we did do some trick or treating when we were kids but she added, "Certainly not to the degree it is done today.  I live on main street and usually have a hundred kids.  They come with big bags, grab and go.

I think you kids were in school before we took you trick or treating.  Now, the kids are so much younger when they come out.  I remember Lee always dressed up in a costume.  It did spook some of the kids!"

LET US ENDEAVOR TO LIVE SO THAT WHEN WE COME TO DIE EVEN THE UNDERTAKER WILL BE SORRY~Mark Twain

It was October 23, 1921 that the Green Bay Packers played against the Minneapolis Marines in their first game as an NFL team.  6,000 fans cheered the Packers to a 7 to 6 win.

JOHNNY CARSON WAS BORN IN CORNING, IOWA ON THIS DATE IN 1925

Hard to believe that it was 29 years ago, today, that I moved to Texas.  A lot of water under the bridge since then!

When I was a kid all you heard, this time of year, was WORLD SERIES talk.  Now I don't hear anybody talking about it.  What happened to that?

My book, "Vikings in the Attic" gets better by the page.  Reading , this morning, author Eric Dregni says the Norwegians used to lay the lutefisk, outside, on blocks of ice.  Dogs would occasionally come by and pee on it but they said that just added to the flavor.  According to historians it's not only a joke.  It's true!

Those silly Norskies are a funny bunch, aren't they??

I have to share this story about Beautiful Bald Eagle who I remember seeing in the Days of 76 parade when I lived in Deadwood a lifetime ago.  It's in the RAPID CITY JOURNAL today.