In keeping with yesterday’s eyeglasses post, we continue with the theme.
1964 Westerner
Is it me, or does Mr. Gibson have Jungle Book snake eyes?
He’s like one of those cats with two colors of eyes.
And check out Mr. Curry down below. While Richard’s pipe and Donald’s head of nails are interesting features, Paul has the intoxicating eyes. You can’t turn away.
Maybe it was something in the water. Even some of the professors at Western New Mexico University had crazy eyes.
Professor Morton looks like he just hid the body and is biting his tongue to keep quiet.
I almost cropped Professor Habeeb out of this image but I did not want to deny you his amazing salt ‘n’ pepper hair, valiantly defying gravity as it swirls about his skull like a kudzu vine.
Dick Nixon did much of the 1956 campaigning for the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket. Here he and wife Pat ride through a snowy Evanston, Illinois.
Eisenhower defeated Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson II (there are actually four) in both the 1952 and 1956 elections, due to attitudes like this.
The beach at Nantasket, Massachusetts was brimming with Ford motorcars on The 4th of July 1925. After a dip in the ocean, how would you find your way back to your car? With such lack of variety in models, how would a 50-year-old man buy a “crisis car”? Could you steal another’s spare tire and afix it to your own vehicle? When did they start marking parking spaces with white paint? Didn’t the black absorb the summer sun?
Fifteen more years would pass before the 1940 Packard offered factory-installed air-conditioning. But even by 1969, only half of all new cars had it. We never had it in our cars in the ’70s. That metal lapbelt clasp would scald the bejeesus out of my skin. Remember how it felt when the vinyl seat ripped the top layer of your thigh skin off?
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P.S., where can I get a brassiere like this? This defies gravity.
Here’s some morale for the troops! LIFE asked Ginger Rogers (not shown here) to give a dream party to a GI, and the lucky recipient was the lipstick-covered Private John Farnsworth. The 22-year-old Farnsworth had served three years in the Pacific during WWII and returned home in 1944 to recover from malaria. After lunch, dancing, and games, the women sent him on his way–with a story to tell his buddies.
Women shown above include: Barbara Hale, Lynne Baggett, Gloria DeHaven, Lynn Bari, Jinx Falkenburg, Dolores Moran, and Chili Williams.
The Herald Sun declared this milk bar in Brunswick (a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria) “a sight unlikely to last much into the 21st century.”
But what is a milk bar? Those two words don’t go together. Perhaps a milk chocolate bar, like a satisfying Snickers (not fun-size please). But when I think of a bar (and I do, often), milk is not included. No dairy, no cream, no White Russians for me. Just the pints, ma’am. And maybe a whiskey sour. But certainly not a glass of milk.
Actually, the USA does have seven bakeries called milk bar, which its own website praises as “a culinary empire and lifestyle brand founded by award-winning pastry chef and masterchef judge christina tosi.” You see how they did that? They used lowercase on her name to balance out the pretentiousness of overpriced dessert. Bad grammar doesn’t fix the fact that a SIX INCH birthday cake is $50.50 online. Holy Mary mother of God, I saw an 8″ fresh fruit tart at Sprouts yesterday for $6.99. Now what’s the better deal? Sorry, it’s just that when I see terms like “lifestyle brand,” I throw up a little in my mouth.
But back to real milk bars. It’s actually quite simple. They were general stores/corner stores, where one could go to pick up groceries such as milk. They are being replaced by more modern convenience stores such as 7-11, and the ones that do exist serve mainly ice cream and milkshakes. Below is said to be the first recorded milk bar in Australia.
Englishman James Meadow Charles opened the first milk bar in 1930 as the “Lake View Milk Bar” at Bangalore, India. The concept spread to the UK, where it became a morally acceptable alternative to the pub–a place to get diabetes instead of alcohol poisoning. By 1936, over 1,000 milk bars had opened nationally. Sounds like a perfect place for teens to gather.
And this one is full of Australian brands of which I’ve never heard: Streets, Peter Jackson, Tarax?
Once upon a time, elementary school boys wore ties to school–natty ones which matched their hunter green socks. Global warming and aspartame had not caused ADD yet, so children sat perfectly still, carrying on conversations void of uncouth words. They were well-mannered and neither stood in the aisles nor threw spitballs at their bus drivers. Was this just a fantasy?
A generation later, the bus was brimming with free love, altered states, lewd bare arms, and sunglasses to disguise dilated pupils. One young man even attempted to punch his way through the roof in an ill attempt at a glass ceiling metaphor. I can smell the patchouli from here.
I Don't Get It 