Blindfolded college student Pat Mann bravely jumps from a floor plank to a pan of ice water during a tropical party. Her lei is made of carnations, while the skirt is not grass, but rather nylon and “shrouds of parachute.” Have you any parachute shroud clothing in your closet?
Mona, that’s all well and good, but before you get to the weight loss secret, please explain why your child appears to be both barefoot and topless in a nationwide ad-VERR-tiz-mint. Surely a Hollywood A-lister such as yourself could spring for a blouse and sandals, unless you spent all your money on Ayds.
Now, see here, we’d usually end this post at this point. But I fear you’ll go Googling Ms. Freeman, and you might wind up at WikiFeet by accident, as I did, a site for freaks who enjoy celebrity feet. So to spare you such heathenism, I’ll share this shot of Mona and Tony Curtis learning sign language on the set of the movie “Flesh and Fury,” wherein Curtis played a deaf-mute prizefighter.
And here she is with Roy and Dale, wearing a belted gingham dress that shows off her Ayds waist.
In this shot, she and Jane Russell talk smack about the peons at Paramount.
And finally, a shot of her with leading man, William Holden, while filming “The Streets of Laredo,” incidentally also the name of a New Zealand folk band.
Oh, to be young and lithe!
Sure, now we can Zoom or FaceTime or simply just text our elders. But there’s a whole generation of folks who’ve never even heard of long distance. What’s long distance? Who cares how far Grandma lives or what time we call her? I’ll just hit up her DM. But y’all remember. Y’all had folks you only called at certain times of the day. Y’all had folks you weren’t going to waste a long distance call on at all. Those were the ones you called collect. But that’s a subject for a different post.
The children of Rathdowne Street State School in Melbourne had cause to celebrate the phosphorus and protein inherent in whole milk during a 1959 visit to Jim Davison’s dairy farm.
Cheryl gets a back-to-school perm in the early 50s, looking positively mortified by the tentacles of the electric permanent wave machine, which brings to mind an early prototype of R2D2. Twin sister Carol had hers done as well, and the results speak for themselves.
Actually, she looks better than I feel. Two weeks of making hot tea, hoping one day I will smell and taste again, losing a pound daily for the first 10 days, coughing, nauseated. Oh, what fun it is to have the China virus inside your body, when you never leave home, and a year has passed since any interaction with friends or family. But no matter!
Fanny Thorne presumably lived through the pandemic 100 years ago, and here we see here at the age of 88 in 1951, in the English village of Preston Candover, which today has fewer residents than the amount of students in most of your graduating classes. Fanny’s husband fought in the Boer War, then passed during WWI, while she lived a life of “deliberate sameness,” threshing wheat, sorting potatoes, or cutting kale for cattle because gross, why would humans eat it? At age 86, the great-grandmother of 19 “stooked” an eight acre field of barley sans help in just 11.5 hours. Combined with her years of devoted service to agriculture, the King of England himself awarded her the ribboned-and-silver British Empire Medal.
Not too shabby.
Well, 18 cents a serving is nothing to sneer at. I don’t know about you, but coming from the Lone Star State, I can appreciate the star in the pie crust, a nod to the “star” of the meal, which is Dinty Moore beef stew. Easy peasy!
If you need another side dish, why not green beans? The finest places served them, so you know they’re quality.
As in the above ad, animated characters are singing and dancing over the mere thought of dining. Who can blame them? Dad knows three chords, and kids know lima bean casserole hits the spot.
Let’s not forget a favorite of media, bandwagon. Everybody is doing it! 27 million people are eating soup. I hope you’re not in the minority here.
Next up, processed American cheese, the nastiest cheese that exists. Almost a non-cheese, if you will. But boy, does it melt.
This next one was a new one on me. I didn’t realize folks had peanut butter and jelly parties. This particular showcase is the “Ice Box Raider Special,” with a variety of flavors. I hope they had both smooth and chunky!
And finally, it’s time for a 1951 dessert. No soy milk, full of lactose goodness, and cherries that one associates with the father of our nation, George Washington (until he, too, is erased). Yum!
If ice cream isn’t your bag, you could go for the heavenly flavor of a devil’s food mix. Dorothy Duff liked it, and she’s probably related to Duff Goldman of “Ace of Cakes.” So it has to be good.
Well, there’s your mid-century wrap-up for today. I hope you’re salivating!
In general, most of us humans are 7.5 heads tall. These sanforized women, however, appear to have streeeeettttcccched to nearly nine heads. Must have been hard to find a frock to fit. But seriously, I do enjoy artistic license, and find the image interesting.
I Don't Get It 