It was cheap thick leather; the watch was held in place by two leather straps that snapped shut. Heavy and hot, and not in the “fashionable” sense, although that much was true in the deluded terms of the age. What this picture, or any amount of description, cannot fully communicate is the way the thing smelled after a year of wear.
Let’s welcome Bob, who’s just caught a whiff of the assistant floor director’s watch band:
We have to pause to note that Bob, while always dapper, was as much of a victim of fashions as the women who appeared on the show. Brown and Blue.
The contestants are the usual crew; there’s the Farmer’s Daughter, in town for the 4-H Butter Expo:
And of course Rue Callahan, looking for fresh souls:
When they called this lady’s name, the entire family made it on TV, including their beloved son, High-Water Harry.
She came down the steps like a Himalayan boulder slide, she did:
But it was allll business when the first item came up for bid:
Dual Lazy-boys! You got those things rocking in sync, you disturbed the earth’s rotation.
The winner was Mrs. Object Lesson for Pam Anderson On Aging Well:
Or maybe not.
Or maybe not. She had a smoker’s voice and mentioned her “boyfriend,” which was fine; nice to see she was still young at heart. We’ll meet her again, in a bit.
Little Miss Sunshine makes it up and charms everyone with her gosh-darn total cute all-around niceness . . .
. . . but the guy with the leather watchband wanders by and ruins it all.
In the showcase, it’s Lynne, who reminds me of Polly Purebread somehow; I’m guessing a job in a bank, right?
She’s up against . . .
Yes, her name is BOO BOO, and she’s doing a borgnine-face over these lovely prizes:
The clock are familiar to anyone who grew up in the 70, including the “digital” models. The numbers flipped over every minute with a tiny click that soon became a conforting part of the house’s background noise. Imagine, in my parents’ age, clocks ticked every second. Now they just tick once a minute. My children will live in an age when they only click once an hour! Thank you, Space Program.
Of course, the showcase had more than clocks. It had:
A trip to Merrie Olde Swing Like a Pendulum Do, arranged by Beltz. Johnny Olson noted that Beltz provided “multilingual tour guides,” so there wouldn’t be any problem trying to order mangers and bash, or whatever they call it, in Cockneytown, or wherever you go for that stuff.
I leave you with this: the comic stylings of Miss Boo Boo Cooper.
