Actually, this isn’t Austin at all. It was in downtown Cincinnati at something called D’aug Days back in the 70s. I used to be more tolerant of weirdness in my youth. Perhaps this is just interpretative dance. But as I age, I understand all the feelings of that family of four. The moon goddess doesn’t need your shaken tambourine, hippies. Go stretch your hip flexors back at the commune. This ground is filthy, and you’re going to get hepatitis–and you probably don’t have insurance, even though that’s the law, so my tax dollars will be paying for your antibiotics. This is clearly not the safety dance.
It’s WWII. An injured soldier tolerates appreciates the twang of a skilled Red Cross Gray Lady, plucking the strings of an autoharp. Why Gray Lady, you ask? Because she has gray hair? No. Gray Ladies were volunteers who performed non-medical services to sick, injured, or disabled patients. They were not nurses, but they could read to patients, write letters home for them, or in this case, perform talents worthy of an appearance on Star Search. My question is: why isn’t he donning an open-backed hospital gown? Instead, he sports a Chinese stand collar, frog button jacket, as though he is dressed for his shift at The Golden Tiger. I don’t get it.
Kodachromes by Joseph J. Scherschel and James L Stanfield, June 1967 NGS
Mrs. James Caufield (because magazines didn’t care about married women’s first names) shapes cotton gloves at the Prairie Glove plant in Carlinville, Illinois on what appears to be a giant fork. At this point in 1967, the firm employed 170 townspeople and churned out 10,000 pairs a week. Is it me, or do they look Goliath-sized?
Personally, we’ve stopped our usage of gloves and simply wear masks and use sanitizer as of late–some wonderfully smelling ones from Bath & Body that we procured yesterday in a clean, manly scent, as well as a Sunshiney lemon one. It is a bit disconcerting to watch a waitress wearing the same gloves at an outdoor restaurant, bring your drinks (touching the rims, which was a HUGE server no-no back in my day), then touch your neighbor’s plates, etc, throughout the entire meal. I would have rathered she just washed her hands repeatedly. Such is our new learning curve.
I’m still surprised how hard it is for folks to figure out how to use gloves, that as soon as they are covered in germs, you toss them, instead of climbing into your car and grabbing your wheel and touching your radio and yanking the emergency breaks. Now you’ve just transferred all the nasty germs all over your car. Folks are stupid. Guess we should stick to the OG gloves when this pandemic is over.
Have you eaten Joan of Arc brands in your neck of the woods? It must be a geographical item, as I’ve never seen such a thing.
“The Good Old Days” by Time Life
I don’t envy grocers nowadays, trying to keep their stores clean, their employees healthy, and their shelves stocked. But the lean WWII years also challenged grocers with government rationing lists. Here, this grocer attempts to label his stock with an accurate price in points. Can you imagine?
Yikes, if this was what passed for a beard in 1948, that’s a sad, sad state for facial hair. My brother-in-law is only capable of patchy spots on his face, but my husband can grow a full beard quickly. Now that it’s mostly white, he resembles Santa with only the aid of his round metal readers. Nobody likes a Santa with a fake beard.
I’ve never worn a mask like this. I’ve never been in a temperature that was a single degree. The folks in this pic are sitting (voluntarily) outside, in thirteen degrees below zero. Now I know many of you Yankees (that’s everyone above the Mason-Dixon line to me) and Canadians will scoff and wave your hands. “Oh, that’s NOTHING!” Well, it sounds horrendous. But football fans are die-hard, and this couple was among 50,000 other crazy fools.
It was the FIRST NFL game ever played in subzero weather. New Year’s Eve, 1967, Green Bay’s Lambeau Field, kicking off to the Dallas Cowboys. And while the Packers scored a victory, the fans may have proven a bit too rowdy. RIP, goal post.
So much is happening here. Desi Arnaz appears to be flashing the peace sign, which is entirely possible for the era, as it was Halloween night of 1968. Here he is strumming his guitar exuberantly for presidential nominee Richard Nixon, at the (get this) headquarters for “Good Latin-American Democrats for Nixon.” I guess that was a thing. Enough Democratic Latinos despised Hubert Humphrey enough that they switched allegiance to support Nixon? Anyway, I love the look of the mariachi man with the sombrero. And while this Desi looks much more haggard and aged than the twin bed Lucy version we grew up with, I do want to point out that his age here is only 51, the same age that Jennifer Aniston is right now.
I Don't Get It 