Here’s some happy fun joy that happens when your phone number is all over town next to a picture of a lost dog. Ring ring Hello?

(two voices, sounding excited)

Hello?

Yeah you the guy (unintelligible, something about dog)

Yes? Lost dog? Do you see him?

Yeah he’s right here, we seen him -

Where are you?

(unintelligible; cross talk between caller and someone else, as if they are coordinating the capture of a dog)

Don’t chase him. Tell me where you are.

(unintelligible)

We’re behind (gives location; gives cross street.) How big is he? What color?

About fifty pounds (and I'm thinking, you should be the one to tell me how big he is, and what color he is.)

He just ran into the alley. I’ll call you back, my battery is at one percent

This is the second time someone who just saw my dog had a battery at one percent.

The line disconnects. I stare at the phone. Then it rings again. Different number Different voice. Sullen and low and mean.

Yeah, don’t chase, how the fuckem I spose to get him

Do you see the dog? Where are you?

There a reward?

Tell me where you are. If you could describe the dog.

There a reward.

I have your number. If we get him we can arrange something. Don’t chase him, though -

Yeah well I got your dog.

You have him?

I can bring him to you. What’s your address.

What’s the dog’s name on the collar?

There a reward?

What’s the dog’s name on the collar.

pause

This ain’t your fuckin’ dog (click)

Pretty obvious what was going on here, but based on the slim-to-none chance there was a kernel of truth to this, I drove to the area, found the alley, and walked up and down swinging a claw hammer as I looked through the back yards, furious with these miserable people.

Went home and made dinner, and then managed a few moments of peace in . . .

Well, remember? Gazebus Maximus. Factus Est.

I paid a guy. It would never have gotten done; I did what I could, but since any spare moment is given over to The Search, the construction had stopped with the completion of the roof beams. The contractor guy had eyeballed what needed doing, and decided he could do it himself. But . . . the manual says it’s a four-person job to get the roof up. Not if you building a structure that holds up the sections after you’ve raised them one by one. Clever fellow, quality work.

Good Lord it is huge. You can stand on one end and whisper into the roof and someone will hear it on the other side.

More random looks at 1949, salvaged from an old site everyone forgot. Back from the days before I had themes and places for these things.

Later, after dinner: KA BOOM

Possibly Dennis the Menace's father:

Check the signature: that's Al Buell, famous pin-up artist. What has terrified this young woman so? Why does she seem on the brink of an total breakdown?

If you read the story - and the magazine had many stories - you might be surprised. That's her brother. He's trying to convince her that her fear of dogs is foolish. In the magazine, there are two Dobermans in the picture; that's what she's looking at. Does she get over her fear, and find love?

Well, yes. Of course she does. That's why Mom is enduring his outburst. It pains her, but it's for the best.

Note the item under brother's left arm - it may take you a second or two. At the time such a shape was universally understood to be a pipe, tucked in his breast pocket. Men did that.

It's 1967. Everything's changing, as all the cultural histories remind you.

Surprised it’s not the Great American Candy Robbery. They loved that Great American XX stuf. The artist, as I may have mentioned before, was ubiquitous; you saw that style everywhere for a while.

It's your basic story of a crook who's really okay, because there's a worse crook, and a sleazy cop who's trying to pin something on the not-entirely-bad crook, who doesn't hurt anyone, and besides, he's Dick Powell, so c'mon. Give Mr. O'Clock a break.

We begin in New York:

Best use of the Omega Man typeface outside of the Omega Man movie, ever!

But it’s too early for Omega Man. It also has Godfather overtones.

See how the youth movement and the strains of counterculturalism are subtly exploited and neutered?

Fight back against potato conformity! Up against the wall, Establishment Tubers!

Lest anyone think these colors weren’t really that popular or widely used:

It's described as avocado green. Antique gold would later be replaced or swapped out with deep reddish browns, a color combination that really dated a kitchen.

The blue just doesn't work for me here. Oh, sorry - Persian Blue. Nice package design, though - it’s pleasantly abstract without being ugly, and has a clarity and sophisticated cleanliness that puts the Welch crap above on the Ugly side of the ledger. But in years to come we’d see more Welch than Kleenex. Unless it was the New Yorker, where all the ads were horribly dull.

That haircut had about one more year to go:

Then it was Mikey bowl-cuts. The era of the Straights was ending; clean-cut was out. That’s a late Ike-era school, with a flagpole the corner of every room. In a few years they’d start building schools with Modular Pods, or whatever they called the new idea that grouped round rooms around a circular hallway to encourage New Thinking, or something. Your teachers started to look like Daniel Berrigan and had big sideburns.

		As seen in Life! These were okay, if you had to have one, but the brand everyone really wanted was . . . Can you name it?

The Cigarette that says: Needs more cowbell

If you’ve studied the ads of the era, you know the tagline wasn’t used the same way twice in the same ad.

		If you’ve studied the ads of the era, you know the tagline wasn’t used the same way twice in the same ad.

It's quite ingenious. You know it, you listen for it, you tap something twice, and you’re satisfied.

Just like having a Winston.

Exhausted again. Every day starts with a call. More happy fun tomorrow!