Category: History

Christmas Is Closer Than You Think

lifenov5-51-002 lifenov5-51-001

This GE clock radio is pretty dope, and it would look nice on my night stand. The ad says the radio turns your coffee maker and television on. Did they really have that technology in 1951? In any case, I already have a clock radio, and it’s entirely useless. It doesn’t matter if I fall asleep at 11pm or 3am (both of those scenarios happen weekly, btw) because I’m up with the sun or before the rooster crows. My body won’t let me sleep in. Even on the Sundays that I have to be up by 7am to go sing at church, I’m always up before then. But I set it just in case. In fact, I haven’t actually heard the alarm go off in years because I’ve risen and shut it off before it ever meets its hour. And when I arrive to church at 8am, and others are yet tardy half an hour later, they always say their “phones didn’t go off.” Well, perhaps they need to buy a clock radio. One with a plug. Then it will never need charging.

When The Can-Can Just Can’t-Can’t

LIFE celebrates 1945
LIFE celebrates 1945

After the victory in WWII, there weren’t enough planes, trains, and ships to carry all the men home as quickly as they would have preferred. Families back home chanted, “Bring the boys home, bring the boys home!” Dozens of USO shows were dispatched to distract the servicemen with bare legs and pretty smiles. It didn’t work. The new chant became, “No boats, no votes!” And with that, Congress brought three million servicemen back home by November. One million were promised to soon be on their way. Sometimes you want eye candy: sometimes you just want to be back in your own warm bed again.

Happy 134th Birthday to Martin Van Buren!

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Today marks the birthday of our 8th president, Martin Van Buren. This morning I couldn’t have told you one fact about him. But now I’ve learned several!

  • He was the FIRST president to be born in the U.S.
  • He was the first president NOT of British or Scots-Irish ancestry; he was Dutch and spoke Dutch as his first language, with English as his second.
  • His political enemies nicknamed him Martin Van RUIN.
  • He married his childhood sweetheart and first cousin once removed, Hannah Hoes, but she died 18 years before he was sworn in. FYI, a first cousin once removed is either your cousin’s kid or your parent’s cousin

Once I learned that, I immediately thought of FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt and how ew it was that they were cousins. And how Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year-old cousin back in the day. But did you know Edgar Allen Poe married his 13-year-old first cousin, too?

So did Einstein, Jesse James, and composer Stravinsky. Thomas Jefferson married his third cousin. Johann Sebastian Bach had 20 children, seven of them with his first wife and second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach. Charles Darwin married his first cousin and had ten children. Cue the natural selection jokes. The real Christopher Robin married his first cousin and had one daughter, who was later diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy. Makes you wonder. 

Now check out Einstein and his handsome cousin.

http://oldcatlady.com/
http://oldcatlady.com/

Because Sometimes Tom & Jerry Just Need Rum

12/19/49 LIFE
12/19/49 LIFE

Flipping through my festive 1949 LIFE, I noticed this ad for Puerto Rican Rum. My first thought was how I remember the texture of glasses like that on my fingers. You never see those at the department store homeware section any more. My second thought was how odd it seemed to get “something different, something gay” for your two friends, Tom and Jerry, including a personalized mug. Are they supposed to share it? What are the chances that Tom and Jerry even fell in love? And once the bickering starts, won’t this mug be the first casualty in a heated dish-breaking episode?

To me, Tom and Jerry are a cat and mouse. And I wasn’t sure which came first, the chicken or the egg. As it turns out, it was the drink, devised by British journalist Pierce Egan in the 1820s, not the cartoon debuted in 1940. Have you ever drunk a Tom & Jerry?

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For research purposes, I wikipedia’d the cartoon animals, just to make sure they weren’t lovers. I was under the impression they hated each other. It said, “both characters display sadistic tendencies, in that they are equally likely to take pleasure in tormenting each other,” but that wasn’t any help. I continued to read the list of characters:

  • Toodles Galore
  • Butch
  • Mammy Two Shoes, who appeared in Push-Button Kitty
  • Fluff, Muff and Puff
  • Uncle Pecos, who plucked one of Tom’s whiskers off to replace broken strings on the guitar
  • Miss Vavoom
  • Meathead, a brown, mangy alley cat who wears a red toupee

I’m pretty sure I met half these people in college at downtown dance clubs. Well, maybe not Mammy Two Shoes. Evidently, she wore layers of skirts and her face was rarely shown.

mammy

 

I don’t get it. So confused. Guess I”ll pour a jigger of rum and catch up on some Tom & Jerry reruns.

giphy.com
giphy.com