Category: Nostalgia

Vaquero And Mini-Me Passing Banana Lady

Nat Geo, Nov 1983, Comayagüela’s San Isidro Market

Nothing warms the heart like a little buckaroo, even if he doesn’t have boots to match. His shoes seem much more sensible.

Modern San Isidro shops offer smaller baskets, should you so desire to transport bananas on your head.

flickr

If you prefer a platter, that’s always an option as well.

wikimedia commons, Ghana woman

When Only The Finest Organ-Shaped French Saint Legumes Will Do

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?

http://gdonna.com/

Housewives had to be thrifty, sometimes to the point of excess.

It was important to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing, as it is today.

1948 Sexiest Beard Contest

Texas Tech 1948

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.

giphy.com

 

Trying To Get The Last Toilet Paper Today (Yes, It’s Happening Again)

The Century

Yes, I did go grocery shopping today, and yes, the TP and paper towel aisle, which is enormous, was nearly wiped dry.

Fortunately, we got our always overpriced $20 8-pack of Cottonelle last week, and that should last us until Halloween, which I’m pretty sure won’t exist this year, unless you can finagle some sort of contactless curbside amongst kids who were never able to try on costumes in the first place because fitting rooms are closed. And speaking of Halloween candy and chocolate, the pictures above were images of children in Berlin, excited to their cores about the “American chocolate bombers” who dropped candy tied to miniature parachutes as they flew into the city. Can you imagine a selfless world of kindness like that today?

Not These Kind Of Masks

Nat Geo 3/69

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.

Desi ‘Splainin’ How Many Wives He Had

Houston Chronicle Archives

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.