We'll get to that in a bit. Turned into another sunny warm day - 82 predicted for Wednesday. No rain. Ever again, I guess. Everyone thinks this is the Last Nice Day, but they keep coming. Chill morn en route to the office, though, and I have that sinking feeling about the months ahead. You forget that being outside can just plain hurt.
I like starting the day by uploading the Substack. Plants a flag in the day and claims it: DID SOMETHING. I wrote most of Wednesday's entry, then checked the mail . . . ah. Well, some people never learn. Brought down the ban on your favorite comment-troll. It's one thing not to wash your feet before you get on the plane, but it's another to take your shoes off and put them up on the seat.
Now some excerpts from the upcoming Annual Reports site, which gets larger and larger. I don't know why I do this to myself. I could've been perfectly happy for the rest of my life not knowing that these were archived, but now I can't stop. Well, I'll probably stop at the series for Planters.
Inside, a picture of the average week's clientele.
The "Neighborhood Store" in the old-timey typeface was an admission that they had to tell you that, because you didn't think about them that way.
Details: America, 1974.The guy in the center seems as if he just dropped in and found himself in a photo shoot. Aren't you cold, dude? Nah I'm fine
The patterned shirt collar over the polyester jacket: perfect early 70s look.
"I just happen to have milk carelessly positioned in my basket!"
The average customers:
The salary is eye-crossing to modern eyes.
And Al Capone danced the Charleston on a flagpole
Fibber wouldn't be big until the next decade, but everyone had forgotten the particulars.
More to come when the Annual Reports site premieres in the Miscellany section.
Someday.
It’s 1955.
I’m not saying the Fifties had a penny-pinching DIY ethos we totally forget because it clashes with the notion of a prosperous time when everyone had cool mid-century sofas, but . . .
Foam-rubber cushions weren't comfy, and they fell apart. Kids would just pick chunks out of them.
Now why would you want one of those?
Either to detect radiation after the Bomb dropped, or, more likely, because you wanted to go prospecting. Big money in Uranium in those days, or so everyone thought.
Also, television rentals. So you could check it out, see what the big deal was all about.
Ah, here’s another. Mineralights!
“Royal Scintillators.” What?
This. The building still stands. Right across from the cemetary. I think it was low-rent back then, too.
An odd look for a cigarette ad. Most of the manly-man audience didn’t care to think about other dude’s hands. That was a girl thing.
It’s the Moose, looking a little petulant, or like he was practicing for the Liberace look-alike contest.
The Marciano-Moore fight, telecast to a movie theater:
The Minnesota, or Radio City, was the glorious ornate and completely doomed palace on LaSalle, about which I have a site here.
And because the Internet is marvelous: Here.
Newest high-tech marvel: underlane ball return!
The underbed ball-return system gave you a greater approach area: makes sense. Ah the das of Morning Leagues!
Long gone, due to highway construction, and now the site of one of the city’s worst light-rail stations.
All things considered, I think you’d want your Fly-Tox to be deodorized.
Does not contain that stuff you heard bad things about, the stuff we were touting just a while ago as the best invention ever! Contains other stuff. New stuff. Don’t worry about the new stuff.
The hotels ran copy-heavy ads to remind you that you don’t have to be a traveller from out of town to enjoy the benefits of a large, ornate hostel in your city. It made you feel as if you were part of a cosmopolitan enterprise.
