Back in 1947, folks weren’t meeting up at Starbucks for $6 coffees. They were meeting at diners for nickel Cokes. Never coined Sprite nor Big Red nor Fanta Dates, this ad hyphenates it as “Coke-Dates.” No gal worth her salt would show up to sip soda in a t-shirt and jeans. Perish the thought! So Joan Miller made this fantubulous dress of men and women, gussied up in hats and suits, drinking Cokes themselves. Add a ruffled collar, and voila! Coke-Date material. Literally.
But it wasn’t just ensembles that needed vetting for dates of Coke. No, siree, Bob. You needed bonafide Coke-worthy shoes as well. And what better to marry that fizz than with leather moccasins, in five gay colors? You could get the traction you needed on asbestos-infused linoleum flooring. After all, you don’t want to spill the very drink for which you came.
The boys were home, Hitler was dead, and all was well on the western front. Time for snazzy frocks and fizzy drinks. Time to celebrate!
Could there be a more fetching color than kelly green? I think not. And “if you want to make like 1947” (which we all do, let’s be honest), then you’d do well to keep a longer hem. See below for more tips on how to be slimmed out like a soda straw.
It’s okay. It means joining two hemmed pieces of fabric together with decorative stitching. But can we just talk about her enormously thick Peyton Manning head, balancing on a neck that is even thicker than her waist? Have any of you a waist smaller than your neck?
And what of her hips? Has she any? How is she to put forth more Peyton-headed children from such slim loins? ‘Tis a mystery. I don’t get it.
Chicago, Italian neighborhood, by Perry Riddle, July 1975
What do you think? Does Mario bear any passing resemblance to the 94-year-old crooner? Tony has certainly sung about Chicago plenty.
BEST ON RECORD — “8th Annual Grammy Awards” — Pictured: Singer Tony Bennett during a special presentation of Grammy winning songs and performances from the 8th Annual Grammy Awards (Photo by NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
So much in this one tiny image. The slender woman at the balcony, trying to fill the emptiness of her husband’s neglect with six ounces of Earl Grey, as he obliviously tries to pack away his clubs into a luxuriously long and lean baby blue ’64 Cadillac. Note the fender skirt. Have you ever driven a car with a fender skirt? Has the term changed because a skirt implies gender, though cars are often thought of as female? Can I call this a house of antebellum architecture? Or is that passé, now that Lady Antebellum has become Lady A, due to the fact that columns = slavery = plantations = racism? Better take Lincoln off the penny, as he denotes STRONG connotations of the Civil War, and we shan’t want to be reminded of that baser time. In fact, weren’t ALL times baser? Do not we become more woke and woke each day? At least, we all have the right to vote these days, but what of Yellow Dress up there? How can she get to the polling booths if Stan is taking the car? There was no mail-in in 1964. LBJ beat Goldwater that year, but perhaps his victory lies in part, due to all the housewives who simply could not make it to the booths that year, due to their golf-happy spouse’s Tuesday game. Makes you wonder.
Tired of cashing your unemployment check and sitting on your bum all day? That sounds amazing, actually, but I imagine it could get old. And who cashes checks anymore anyway? We don’t even have coins. Well, if you’re one of the millions of Americans who aren’t working these days, and you’ve grown weary of looting and blinding officers with lasers and toppling statues (Frederick Douglass, included–seriously, y’all?), I present to you some options that may or may not be essential, but you’re better off without them.
all images from Nat Geo 6/67
Numero uno: mining. Nevermind the grime or the chafing overalls or even the soggy lunch pail egg sandwich; the worst part was the community shower at Orient No.3 Mine near Waltonville, Illinois. Are we still allowed to say Orient? Anyway, these guys deserved double overtime. You think your cubicle stinks? Try spending half a day 800 feet below the ground, extracting bituminous coal. Pass.
You might think those miners would give their right pinky toe to trade places with this next lady, spending all day in the sea air, mending the nets of her fishermen husband, but it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It exacerbates (if not induces) rheumatoid arthritis, offers the agreeable company of no one, save an errant and greedy seagull, has zero promotion, and requires solid maintenance of sturdy prescription readers.
Next: kidnapping a blind shoeshine man and taking him to Florida to experience the joy of green turtle hatchlings frantically peddling to the sea for their first swim. Terrible pay and no travel reimbursement. Possibly illegal.
Numero quatro: feeding and hefting an endless procession of magazines at the RR Donnelley & Sons commercial printing firm in Chicago. Despite the boss cap, gloves, and jacket, the tasks were backbreaking and tedious. Presses printed more than half a million pages an hour. If stacked atop each other, a single month’s press would tower over 27 miles high, or the same amount of miles it would take to hit the gas and drive from Chicago to Munster, IN, where the amount of vandalism and arson is considerably lower.
And lastly, a job that requires both creativity and compassion: talking people off a cliff.
That might seem like a job better suited for 1967 than 2020, as we have any number of reasons to hurl our bodies over the edge these days, but 1967 was a time of civil unrest. Sure, RFK and MLK had yet to be assassinated, but the nation was reeling from the loss of young men in Vietnam and plagued by riots and demonstrations of its own.
In any event, somebody had to man the cliffs like a modern-day second class angel Clarence to the handful of would-be bridgejumping George Baileys. Sometimes it could be hard to determine which park visitor was there to appreciate fall foliage, and which one was there to give up the ghost. However, bonuses were fresh, clean air and a view.
Let us now pause and be jealous of John Harrison, who has arguably one of the best jobs on the planet, as a Dreyer’s ice cream “tastemaster.” Spending four to five hours a day, sampling 20 different flavors, one understands why he has kept the job for 30 years. And no, he doesn’t use a wooden spoon, as that would distort his tastebuds. Nay, he has a gold-plated spoon (and those buds are insured for a million buckaroos, per payscale.com). Now back to work.
After a series of snubs and inefficient service by rude waiters in Sanary, France, followed by a très oversalted beef bourguignon, visiting elephants literally turn tail and wade into the salty sea, headed east toward Switzerland. A spokesman for said elephants said they will never summer in France again.
I Don't Get It 