It’s 1911 in Antartica, and British engineer Bernard C. Day returns to base camp after driving one of the first motor sledges used in Polar exploration, during the South Polar Expedition aka the Terra Nova Expedition aka the British Antarctic Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott (photo by Herbert G. Ponting from Then & Now). While Scott perished the following year, trying to be the first to reach the South Pole, Day lived till 1934.
What do you think? Hat or no hat?
You know how magazines have those sections where they stuff all the cheapo ads together, and you wonder if anyone ever grabs a magnifying glass to read their teensy font? Well, today we’re checking out those ads.
These all come from April of ’54, and you can see that hippity hoppity, Easter was on its way. Seriously, that’s a weird car, right?
Anacin has been around longer than anyone reading this page, and you can still get it. She sure looks glad that she did.
Some ads are so tiny, you wonder what was the point. And was it really necessary to spell kiwi phonetically?
Vernell sounds like that great-aunt who lost her husband 30 years ago and wouldn’t think of remarrying, but she’s a really good cook and could definitely score a spouse if she would just move on with her life.
This next one is so fun with our friendly Nirc making his debut on this blog. Not to be confused with Narc, this little guy is concerned with the cleanliness of your rugs. They needed a mascot for that?
And speaking of weird acronyms, this next ad is for NCB, accepted from pole to pole. So odd!
We’ll wrap up with something none of us ever thinks about, fine driving lights. I knew cars were usually feminized, but I didn’t know headlights were as well. Now that I type that, it makes sense. Do you ask your husband to run to Auto Zone and grab a couple Lorraines?
Does Lorraine make you think of quiche or Newman?
Must … wear … Laconian Debs.
Y’all, it is rare indeed when a Google search turns up with zilch, nada. But such is the case for Laconian Debs. I guess they only existed for this one moment in my 1947 Seventeen magazine, which evidently could hardly contain their foot fetish. Apparently, those weren’t the only Debs around. Polly Debs were climbing up the charts.
I just don’t get this. These are NOT super flat. They have at least a one inch heel. And what a metaphor! Is a Coke comfy? That’s an odd word choice. You’ll love them like Mink? What? Are we talking about fur now? I’m so confused. But it’s good to know they’re live. All shoes should be live. Shouldn’t they?
Let’s move on to Kickerinos. That’s just fun to say, like Vinnie Barbarino. Anything -ino. It must be eye-talian!
Next up are the musical Monomacs, in either elk or Bucko Calf. Bucko Calf? There’s another thing Google’s never heard of. What a banner day!
I don’t know what music has to do with moccasins, or why tiny elves are handstitching the seams, but there you go. Now on to something south of the border!
Finally, something I’ve heard of. Huarache sandals, too …. A bushy, bushy blond hairdo … Surfin’ USA. ♫♪♫ Calf skin? I’m familiar with it. I get it. Wait, they come with foot shortening vamp? What the heck is that?
Who knew shoes could be so complicated?
Before a cutter was a person who took a knife to their skin just to “feel something” in a world of apathy, Cutters were shoes worn to catch men’s eyes. Maybe he’s not a breast or a thigh man; maybe he’s more interested in your arches. Super. And these would have been the choice for any butterface gal back in ’47 (that’s a woman who looks lovely everywhere “but her” face).
Let’s enjoy the symmetry of this next ad.
Three shoes, six gals, three shoes. Finally, some order. Everyone needs a few smooth, young Connies. Wouldn’t you agree? But smooth, young Connies grow up to become Old Town Trollers. It’s inevitable.
Two more years and I’ll be one myself. But at least I’ll be queen of them all! Still, nobody likes a troller. I’d take these adjectives any day. 
Soft and supple. By the way, I’ve heard about Teena’s “brilliant night play.” Now, THAT’S something Google understands.
The girl in the center is suspicious, trying to determine which one transmitted it to the rest.
Probably Margaret.
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!
So much beautiful fagotting going on here.
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.
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.
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.
While most of us may not remember the taste of joy and victory, time was when a whole country could come together to support an accomplishment, like this August 16, 1969 parade on Houston’s Main Street for Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. While Armstrong has since passed, Aldrin and Collins turn 90 this year.
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII love a parade… ♫♪♪
I Don't Get It 