I used one regularly in the 60’s. I think that’s how much I paid. This one is clear, but I recall that I preferred the white ones.
I am still teh g33XXør.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Category Archives: Memories
The Right Stuff
No, these are not Buddhist monks. Astronauts John Young, Neil Armstrong, and Frank Borman with Deke Slayton during desert survival training. Awesome pic, (but I couldn’t help thinking of Capricorn One.)
Found at Retronaut.
Saltair, ca. 1900
The first Saltair pavilion in Utah, around 1900. Several resorts have borne the name over time.
Trains every 45 minutes from Saltair depot. Fare, Round trip, 25¢
From the above brochure. Of note: third from front on the right, and fourth from front on the left, are my grandparents – Delbert M. and Frances Rogers Draper. This would date the photo above to around 1912, the date of their marriage.
As the Wikipedia article mentions, the resort has had a checkered history, but in its heyday was one of the premier tourist wonders of the nation.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Sunshine Golden Raisin Biscuits – another blast from the past
So I had another Marcel Proust moment last night.
A group of empty nesters had gathered in the home of a neighbor for our weekly Family Home Evening, and our hosts for the week were a delightful couple from the UK. They spread out a groaning board of goodies, chips, dips, cupcakes, fudge, and other treats… and something that caused a massive flashback for me.
Growing up in New York, my mother used to get these little flat biscuits filled with raisins that we simply called “raisin cookies.” I loved them – they were one of my favorite treats as a child. And then in 1969 I moved away from the city and never again thought upon them.
Until last night.
There they were, in all their glory. These were a currant version, but they were the same, the same, the same.
Our hostess graciously gave us a packet to take home, and I discovered they are called Crawford’s Garibaldi biscuits, and have long been a treat in the UK. I mean, long – with a history spanning 150 years.
After re-discovering these, I wondered why I knew of them, and it turns out that Sunshine produced a version of these which it called “Golden Raisin Biscuits.” When Sunshine was acquired by Keebler in 1996, the expanded “Golden Fruit” line was quietly discontinued, but apparently the later incarnation was nothing like the original.
Edit: Kelloggs acquired the Sunshine brand from Keebler in 2000. Pester them about bringing these back.
I’ve found several recipes that purport to be a fairly close approximation of the packaged version, and I’ll try one at some point – but for now, I’m delighted to know that these can still be had.
Now, if I can just convince Sara Lee to bring back their All Butter Frozen Brownies, (scroll down a bit) and get TGI Friday’s to resurrect Rockslide Pie. It astonishes me that there are no pictures out there – based on the number of other people who remember it fondly, I would have thought someone might have captured an image or a vintage menu.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Reminiscing: My first job
A news article on October 11th, 2010 reported that the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Winona, Minn. filled its last-ever lot of soda bottled in returnable six-and-a-half ounce glass bottles.
Refillable bottles played a big part in my first real job.
Aside from a few television and movie bit parts that my parents wangled for me (like a Kraft macaroni and cheese commercial, or episode 64 of “Twelve O’Clock High”), I wasn’t gainfully employed until I was 16. At that point, I was hired by the Daitch Shopwell grocery store on 1st Avenue and 58th Street in New York City.
Daitch advertisement from Mar. 4, 1970 – found at Soyo Sunset
Too young to qualify for cashiering, I functioned as a stock boy on occasion, putting stuff on shelves after stamping them with the prices:
Price stamps – we’d use this purple ink to stamp the tops of cans. These photos found at Itsy Bits and Pieces.
But my main job was driving one of these all around the local vicinity delivering groceries. Mine was gray, but it was the very same beast.
I was a small kid, and these things could get heavy – fortunately, New York doesn’t have a lot of hills. But I recall enjoying the job, because finally I was earning money of my own.
In addition to my salary – a big $1.50 per hour – I’d get tips from the people whose groceries I delivered. In 1966, a quarter was average. Fifty cents was good, and there was one family named Bruff who usually bought four jillionteen gallons of milk, who would invariably tip me a dollar. I got rich that summer, and ended up with a huge jar full of change, which I would scour for additions to my coin collection. You could still find a lot of silver coins in change back then, and buffalo nickels, and the occasional Indian-head penny, so it was a win all the way round. Some folks, however, instead of tipping me in cash, would give me their empty bottles to return for a deposit. At a nickel a shot, four six-packs would net me $1.20 back at the store, so I was always happy to oblige.
Funny the things we think of for no reason. The Daitch chain was aquired by A&P, the store itself has long been something else, but the memories linger…
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Useless products from a bygone era
Striptease Tie
The Nothing Box. I always wanted one of these, but the fact that it died hard after a year put me off.
The Pet Rock
The Invisible Dog – another brilliant idea from the 70’s.
Pogs. Originally the stopper for a glass bottle of milk – today the perfect example of a collecting craze created by marketing and based on nothing. Happily, short-lived.
Original pog.
Reflections on Corn Country
1987 – (Written during a business trip to Northern Illinois University)
Drive for an hour or two west of Chicago and you are in another world; life is different in the corn belt. Corn really does grow as high as an elephant’s eye, and creeps right up to the edges of the roads in endless regiments of green, waving stalks. Stop by the roadside, get out and walk up to it like an impenetrable forest, each stalk strong, tall, with tough, gnarly roots rising up from the rich soil. No sprinklers here; God waters these crops. No fences either; they just don’t seem needed.
Here and there an oasis in reverse, a dry patch among the endless plains of verdure that stretch as far as the eye can see. Places like Malta, Illinois, Pop. 1000. Drive through the center of town and go back in time 50, 60 years. The general store with its 3-stool lunch counter looks like it hasn’t been modernized since 1943. It hasn’t, either. Some of the products on display might have last been paid for with silver dimes and quarters, old silver dimes and quarters. Three men sit playing cards in a corner. They, and the proprietor, belong to the same era. Since he is busy, one of the card players gets up to help me. I feel Gumbyesque, walking through the pages of a prewar novel. Everything here is slow, quiet, peaceful.
Malta, IL – General store, looking exactly the same as it did in 1978. Found at Flickr.
The rest of the shops on the street all seem to have been closed for years, but signs on the doors give the owner’s phone number – trade by appointment. I would have liked to go into the antique store. This whole town is an antique: what forgotten treasures might be found within? Malta’s public library is housed in a small brick cottage with a picket fence, half the size of my first home. Open Tuesdays from 1 to 6 PM, but today is not Tuesday.
The next town down the road is Creston, Pop. 500. They must go into Malta to shop.
On the campus of Northern Illinois Univerity, rabbits hop through the bushes. One of the buildings looks just like Emily Brontë could have lived in it. Where one might expect placards explaining fire escape routes, instead one is told what to do in case of a tornado, and when evening falls, the shrubbery and trees flicker with hundreds of tiny, falling stars: the fireflies which my desert children have never known. In spite of their cold luminescence they impart a warm feeling to the dusky night air.
An invitation to a private viewing of a Burmese art exhibition in the campus museum. In one corner of a room, a Burmese lady is dishing up rice and something which looks vaguely like chop suey for the guests. I have eaten, but cannot resist. Having partaken of glowing coals in sulfuric acid, I retire to my room in the on-campus hotel, wishing I could find some nice bland Szech’uan cooking to quench the fire in my entrails.
The following day found me at Toad Hall in Rockford, one of my favorite bookstores in the whole wide world. I could happily starve to death there.
I regret only that I don’t have a lifetime to explore and photograph all the beautiful nooks and crannies in this part of our nation.
The Old Wolf has spoken, for no reason.
Vienna: Old Jewish Cemetery – 1976
I found this section of the Vienna Central Cemetery (Zentralfriedhof) beautiful, but haunting and melancholy. Given the destruction of the Jewish community during World War II, few were left to care for it, and it is returning to nature.
Almond Soap, Rhapsody in Blue, Marcel Proust, United, and more.
used to fly with United. A lot. This was back in the days when their on-time record was #1, and not in the crapper; before they broke guitars; when I had earned Premier Executive status and was upgraded on a regular basis; and when even coach flyers were treated like valuable customers. I remember flying as an unaccompanied minor in the 50’s and being very well taken care of by the flight attendants.
Sigh.
Those days are gone forever, I fear me.
But some memories will linger forever, and come roaring back in an instant, and that’s where Marcel Proust comes in. In Remembrance of Things Past, Proust was instantly transported back to a childhood memory by the taste of a madeleine[1] soaked in tea, an experience which was charmingly riffed on in Pixar’s “Ratatouille”, when Anton Ego’s heart suddenly grew three sizes, spurred by a sudden recollection of a comforting childhood gastronomic memory.
(Brilliantly played by Peter O’Toole)
The senses of taste and smell (inextricably related) are some of the most long-lasting and evocative in terms of memory. I’d be willing to bet almost all of us have had the experience of smelling or tasting something, and instantly being taken back in memory to the time and place where that smell or taste was experienced.
The Goodwoman of the House is a practical soul, and knows how to squeeze a penny so hard that Lincoln begs for mercy:
Some time ago, she bought a large bottle of hand soap to refill our pump dispensers at the sink. It happened to be almond scented. One whiff of that, and I was whisked aboard a United Airlines 777 headed for Frankfurt, because it’s the same scent as what one found in the jetliner lavatories. At the same time, my ears would fill with the strains of Gershwin, because United used Rhapsody in Blue as their theme music for almost the entire ten years when I was traveling around the world extensively.
This is the underpass between United’s terminals B and C at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. The psychedelic flashing Neon lights, the tinkling interpretation of Gershwin, and the repetitive nasal voice intoning “The moving walkway is ending… please look down” all come back when I wash my hands, and by the same token I can’t ever hear Rhapsody in Blue without thinking of United. It’s a curse, I suppose, but not the worst one I could have been afflicted with since I’m quite fond of Gershwin.
But I won’t fly United again until they get their act together; I’m not holding my breath.
The Old Wolf has Spoken.
1 If you’re interested in learning how to make Proust’s famous Madeleine’s, visit Cooking with the Old Wolf.
A Most Touching Monument
Found in the Salt Lake City cemetery, Salt Lake, Utah.
I shed a tear every time I walk past this. It’s so beautiful. Just saying.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Playing in the World Game 