P.S. They really don’t use books any more. At least not here. Our school district leases Lenovo laptops to students once they enter middle school and they can continue with the same one for years. Families pay for them yearly. Back in my day, we were issued used textbooks and we covered them with paper ads, such as Mrs. Baird’s bakery or Big Red. We had to fold them just right at the corners to keep them in place.
This is one I’ve actually kept for 40 years. Any of you recall doing this with paper bags?
Though we don’t think of 1936 as a particularly hopeful, happy year in American history, the students at the University of Kansas seemed to be doing just fine.
Interesting jazzy artwork, no? Costume parties, bicycles built for two…
Roller skating, swimming, snowmen, shooting, wrestling, and a toucan that is in no way a jayhawk, their mythical mascot. The name is a combination of two birds — the noisy blue jay, known to rob nests, and the sparrow hawk, a stealthy hunter.
The typical hazing took place.
The ladies of the YWCA posed for this portrait.
I found this an odd item to place in a university magazine. What say you?
My granddad Bill was born in 1920. Wasn’t he a happy toddler? As a child of The Depression, he tended to hoard things–things others might toss without batting an eye. Much of it was unnecessarily saved, but among his piles of things salvaged were monthly tests. Today I share one that he took in 1930, just after he turned 10 years old.
I hope that you have found this interesting. You can see how children only 9 and 10 were already learning about Fascism before they ever learned about Hitler. One wonders if children nowadays are so aware of their political system. Actually, one is certain they are not. They are busy playing Fortnite. Perhaps I will share more of these in the future, as a testament to the lives of those in The Greatest Generation.
The evil big-box stores have already stocked their aisles with back-to-school items, an affront to all American children, trying their durndest to enjoy the apex of global warming seasons. As a parent of a teen, my days of purchasing Elmer’s Glue and huffing markers and dull scissors are over, but we’re still expected to pony up for supplies. Evidently, $7000 in property taxes on a mighty modest home does not cover Kleenex.
To all this mid-summer school rigmarole, I at least ask the makers of supplies to look backwards for inspiration, and not to the future. This ad makes education positively dreamy.
But what if you’re too thin, and you need to bulk up? Simply sport a Hugh Downs jacket!
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Hugh Downs was a once-relevant broadcaster who is still kicking it at 97. Look how attractive his family is, wearing bulky red-orange. And who’s the lady fondling his son’s hood? Go back to Paris, Simone.
Maybe you’re too young and hip to wear anything from an old fuddy-duddy and his family. Maybe you’re avant garde like Pat Boone, who lives life on the cutting edge.
Dressing like Pat Boone ensures that girls think you are a liberal arts professor. And maybe they’re into that kind of thing. Remember, remember, you’re mine… Wow, he really did wear white shoes.
Speaking of white, perhaps you missed my earlier post on putting more sugar in Lisa. Here’s another misguided Sugar Information ad, advising moms to put more sugar in their teens, so they can become slovenly-dressed sugar-swinging freaks–just in time for back to school!
Turtles don’t need seat belts, y’all. They just don’t.
Today I read on Pollie Bland’s site that an “antique” is something made 100 years ago or more (like the still-going Olivia de Havilland and Kirk Douglas), “retro” refers to anything that looks out of style for the current time period, like 1999 light rinse jeans (not technically vintage), and “vintage” is something 20 years or older, like most of your memories. So the 70s can’t be called “retro,” because they are actually twice vintage.
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.
These students tried out the wheelbarrow at Allandale Hardware & Variety.
This Piggly Wiggly image gives insight to mid-century grocery stores before big chains like Wal-Mart and Target served our grocery needs.
Butter Krust was the best bread around; we used to cover our textbooks with Butter Krust advertising sheets.
Isn’t this last one fun? I like how they spell Bubba as “Buba.”
I Don't Get It 