Category: Vintage

This Diamond Ring Doesn’t Shine For Me Anymore

Corbis/Bettmann UPI
Corbis/Bettmann UPI

Forget pawn shops. These two freshly-divorced women threw caution (and jewelry) to the wind in observance of the Reno, Nevada custom of tossing their rings into the Truckee River. What I don’t get is why they wouldn’t want to sell them since it was 1932, amidst the Great Depression. At least get enough to buy a celebratory whiskey! And why were they wearing Hawaiian leis in the middle of the dessert? And what did their husbands do to warrant such a dismissal of vows?

In 2013, The Huffington Post shared this image, with Nevada still #5 in a list of Top Ten Divorce Capitals.

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Any of these hotspots look familiar?

Ripped At Sixty

credit: Sid Avery
credit: Sid Avery

Actor-comedian Joe E. Brown gets toweled off by wife Kathryn at his Brentwood home in 1951. She doesn’t seem to mind his toned 60-year-old physique. The two were married 55 years until his death in 1973.

He was one of the most popular American comedians in the 1930s and 1940s, with successful films like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Earthworm Tractors, and Alibi Ike. In his later career Brown starred in Some Like It Hot (1959), as Osgood Fielding III, in which he utters the famous punchline, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

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giphy.com

Doesn’t he look like the happiest camper ever? joe brown

Can you tell who the woman is here with him? I’d recognize her anywhere.

http://www.doctormacro.com/
http://www.doctormacro.com/

When It Rains

Illustrated History of the U.S.
Illustrated History of the U.S.

WPA (Works Progress Administration) workers load a truck with flood debris in Louisville, KY in 1937. It sure looks a muddy mess, but since we haven’t seen a drop of rain since May,  I’d take a muddy mess right now.

The Touch, The Feel Of Cotton

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Most of the yearbooks I collect have ads in the back. Rarely are they interesting beyond the typeset or logos of the times, but this 1955 Lion’s Lair yearbook shows student at the places of business.

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These students tried out the wheelbarrow at Allandale Hardware & Variety.

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This Piggly Wiggly image gives insight to mid-century grocery stores before big chains like Wal-Mart and Target served our grocery needs.

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Butter Krust was the best bread around; we used to cover our textbooks with Butter Krust advertising sheets.

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Isn’t this last one fun? I like how they spell Bubba as “Buba.”

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Enough Already

Acme Photo
Acme Photo

Okay, okay, I get it. The war is over. Japan has just surrendered, and folks in Washington DC are understandably celebrating with copious amounts of PDA. But tone it down, folks. Save it for the bedroom. I’m turning into an old fuddy-duddy, aren’t I?

Signs O’ The Times

DTHJuly84-019

Tossing out old newspapers today, I stumbled on to this choice (and timely) comic. In fact, I did toss the 7/14/1984 Dallas Times Herald into the trash, but not before scanning these ads.

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And what about a nearly $1200 Beta Recorder? Bet that was only useful for a few years.

Now this just proves boots have always been expensive.

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In another I Don’t Get It moment, we have an ad for Sofa Country, hosting wrestler Kerry Von Erich to sign autographs. WTH?

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I’d never heard of him, but evidently he was part of the Von Erich family of professional wrestlers. Here he is with you-know-who.

pinterest
pinterest

And lest you think cell phones were invented in this millennium, think again.

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Save $400?? Can you imagine what the starting price was?

Polly, Want Two Crackers?

The Joy of Life by Kunhardt
The Joy of Life by Kunhardt

Two jovial Chicago ladies, arm in arm, become bird perches at Miami’s Parrot Jungle. I love their smiles, the hat, the earrings, the glasses, the lace pocket, the buttons–every bit of it! Carpe diem, ladies.

Fixodent And Forget It

The Joy of LIfe by Kunhardt
The Joy of LIfe by Kunhardt

For the folks in Amsterdam who are neither potheads nor prostitutes, fun is often had by an affable after-dinner egg-blowing game. However, one woman blew so hard that her false teeth flew out of her mouth and landed on the table–to the delight of those around her.

For more on egg-blowing, visit last year’s post.

For more on keeping dentures in place, Fixodent and forget it.