Glasses For Sarah Elizabeth

When my great great grandmother Sarah Elizabeth wanted to buy new eyeglasses back in the 1850s and 1860s, she must have had a very hard time. She was not wealthy, and lived in rural Pennsylvania. And she needed special glasses, tinted blue or green - they would have been harder to find, and definitely more expensive.

There was no such thing as being able to buy eye glasses online of course. You had to go to an optician in person, usually in a city. This wasn't easy for someone like Sarah Elizabeth, who lived a fair distance from Philadelphia. If she had been a wealthy urbanite, she might have chosen a fancy lorgnette or scissors glasses to peer through at the opera or parties. These were both types of glasses on a handle that were especially popular with women from the late 18th century on through the 19th. They were often gilded and had elaborate decorations. The lorgnette had a single handle; scissors glasses were V shaped. You can see pictures of them both below - aren't they beautiful?

A lorgnette

Sarah Elizabeth's more utilitarian glasses were wire framed, and tinted to protect her eyes from glare. Sir Thomas Longmore writes in 1885 in The Optical Manual that blue or smoke-tinted glasses were best for this purpose. If tinted lenses were not enough protection, he wrote, you could buy "Eye Protectors"; these were also tinted, but were spoon-shaped to keep dust and grit out of one's eyes (rather like goggles).

Scissors glasses

Luckily we have a much easier time when we buy glasses these days. I'm always amazed at how many styles of frames and lenses there are. My current glasses are bifocals - Longmore called them Franklin glasses, after Benjamin Franklin. Over the holidays all of us in the family are going to get new glasses - more bifocals for me, of course. And maybe this time we'll order them online, from GlassesUSA.

GlassesUSA.com is a terrific place to shop for glasses right now (or any time really, but especially now). They guarantee the 110% lowest price on all kinds of high quality glasses and frames, and guarantee 100% satisfaction.

They're having an Early Holiday Sale where you'll get 30% off any one pair of glasses and get free shipping anywhere in the US with the code CYBER2011. This is for basic single vision lenses, but you can get upgrades for additional cost. And if you need prescription glasses you can get 10% off with the code Blog10.The offer expires on December 4, 2011 - so go now and check out all the great glasses they have on offer. There's also a refer-a-friend program that can net you some perks, too. To keep up with the latest from GlassesUSA, you can join their FB page (http://www.facebook.com/glassesusa) and follow them on Twitter (@GlassesUSA).

How Green Was My Daddy

This papa is popping his vest buttons because so many folks love his sweet, green babies.

What is it with green peas and retro ads? You may remember the exciting Canned Pea Carnival awhile back. And green peas do tend to settle around and surround unsuspecting retro gelatin molds in the most disturbing way. But now we've moved into dysfunctional family territory and I just don't know where to begin.

In this distressingly perky ad, that weirdo, the Jolly Green Giant, is the "big green daddy" of the frozen peas. He is even pushing them around in a stroller made out of a peapod. He has put some of his progeny into a large can with his picture on the front, too. This is not good parenting.

Also: he is a giant. They are vegetables. Did he adopt the peas? Did he give birth to the peas? Or did the Jolly Green Giantess do that?

Where is she, by the way - we never see her. Maybe she couldn't take it any more and left. I can understand it. She must have been sick of his obsession with cans - and vegetables. He never talked to her. Never mentioned her in all his ads. He's famous and she's - what? He pays more attention to random little green peas.

But here's the main thing: what kind of daddy lets his offspring be processed by Birdseye and get eaten? Those folks who love his "sweet green babies" aren't just peeking in the carriage and chucking the peas under their green non-existent chins and saying "boy, they look - just like you...kind of..."

No, they are eating his babies. With strange "taters" that look more like bananas than potatoes.  I wouldn't be surprised if they really were bananas. Just like the admen who thought this one up back in 1960.

Live From the Contour Lounge

Straight out of Popular Mechanics (November 1960) here is the perfect Christmas gift* for all the exhausted executives at your house: a Contour Lounge.

It sounds like a nightclub decorated with geometric shapes and silhouettes, but it isn't. It's sort of a cross between a hospital bed and a really uncomfortable sofa. Just put it in your office, and whenever you get tired, you go over to it and have a little nap.

If this hasn't convinced you, why, just look at the expression on the model's face. Talk about relaxed and happy. He is still clutching a file of papers, but that doesn't mean he isn't having a relaxing Zen moment. Perhaps.

Just make sure you have a good excuse when your boss comes in to ask where the Johnson report is, and he sees you fast asleep on the Contour Lounge with your feet raised and the file folder being used as an impromptu sleep mask.

*We know it's a Christmas gift idea because the Contour Lounge is emitting little red bells, stars and snowflakes.

A Disturbing Loafer

So I guess it's officially the season for holiday shopping now (being Black Friday and all) so that means it is holiday gift ad season here at Kitchen Retro. So to start things off just right I present to you this glamorous, exciting ad from 1940 in which a ghostly disembodied Santa Claus points to a large, boring shoe.

But the shoe is not as boring as it looks. It has turned the lady on its left into a disembodied zombie with blank burning eyes. And Santa. What's with him? Why is he saying "This way ladies..." Why is he grinning like that at the thought of all the ladies staring at the large boring shoe and turning into zombies?

Oh, Santa, that is not very festive of you at all.

The other thing we can learn from this ad is that the way to a man's heart is a beige Nettleton Double Duty Loafer. Not a pair, mind you: just one. For they are Double Duty Loafers. Does that mean it can somehow occupy both feet at once? That, and the power to hypnotize, too. Maybe you should just buy the man on your list a tie or something. Just don't tell Santa.

Old-Time Flavor Magic

Oh, those old-timers and their flavor magic! I am sure that the early settlers back in the Massachusetts Bay Colony were busy shaking Poultry Seasoning over their turkeys so that they didn't have to go to the messy trouble of chopping onions. I can relate, I don't like chopping them either.

But what's really disturbing me about this 1957 advertisement is what is going on on the surface of that lovely pumpkin pie. Those aren't trendy caramelizations, I don't think. That is someone going crazy with the cloves and the cinnamon, to show us - what? How not to do it? Because as far as I know, you're supposed to add the spices when you mix the pumpkin filling. Not as an afterthought.

And if that stuff on the pie is Poultry Seasoning, well - don't tell me. I don't want to know.

I wish all of you down in the Lower 48 Plus 2 a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving - may your dishes wash themselves, may your family gatherings be zesty not testy, and may you always grab the right McCormick's box at the perfect moment of cooking.

Oh, and also: I have a new blog! It's not about retro ads either...It's more about culinary history, world cuisines, travel and holidays and folklore/folk medicine - everything from peppermint tea to medieval remedies to different kinds of Pocky (the Japanese biscuit sticks with a sweet coating). It's called Cinnamon Moon (link in the sidebar, too) - cinnamon for the culinary, moon for travel (just like they always show a full moon on Pilot Guides, you know?). And also because they are two of my favorite words. Anyway, I have about 5 posts there and counting: blue lobsters, ube cakes, and Alexandre Dumas' favorite food (you won't believe what it is). See you there, I hope!

The Boss of Sauce

Would you like to be a sauce boss this Thanksgiving? I know, maybe you'd like to be boss of something else, like a multinational corporation. Or even the boss of the family, because then you'd get to tell everyone what to do and how to cook everything while you sit in an armchair with a glass of champagne and some canapés.

But Hellmann's Mayonnaise can only offer you this. To be the boss of sauce. It is not a particularly powerful position, really. It just means that you have a jar of mayonnaise and believe that you can make any kind of sauce by adding things to said mayonnaise.

For example you can mix mayo and canned cranberry sauce to make Tart Berry Sauce. Or add soy sauce and ginger to mayo and make, ahem, Yum Yum Sauce. Anyway, you carry on adding things to mayo and putting them into cabbage-leaf bowls until everyone becomes so frightened about your obsession with Hellmann's that they just make you sit down somewhere quiet in the living room, far from the cooking.

And of course, this is exactly what you wanted to have happen! Don't forget to grab the champagne and some snacks on your way out of the kitchen.

A Wild Tonic in the Drain

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"The exhilarating sound of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

It's almost time for some fun retro Thanksgiving ads, but this one caught my eye this morning: one of those dramatic 1930s ads with a Can-This-Marriage-Be-Saved? storyline. "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" is a Ladies' Home Journal column, still running today, that I used to read avidly back in the 60s when I was little. I read all kinds of stuff back then. I'm not sure my mother was aware of it, exactly.

But I never came across a couple who were having problems because of the bathroom drains.

Having said that, one problem here is that he's "a man who doesn't talk much" and just glares at you when something's the matter. And when the drain is a little bit slow, his eyes shoot out daggers! I think he'd have a little problem here because our house is old and so are the drains and, well - you have this happen sometimes, too, right? It's just one of those things.

Just grab the Drano, sir, and pour it in. It really isn't anyone's fault. Maybe your wife has to use a lot of starch on your shirts and that clogs things up (OK, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but bear with me). Dressing up like F. Scott Fitzgerald every day takes a toll on the sinks - all that washing and using hair pomade and so on. You never saw Zelda using Drano. Not even in the fountains she and Scott were dancing in every night.

Nevertheless, just one little tablespoon of Drano gets the drains "open and fast flowing." Too bad it can't get Scott here to be open and - well, not fast flowing. Maybe to give everyone a little smile. A half smile? Even a smirk would be a vast improvement, sir.

In the end, I really don't think drains are this couple's worst problem.

Bacardi Rum Is Not A Food

Bacardi Rum is not a food.

Well no, not unless you serve it in a fruitcake. And even then, it depends on the fruitcake.

But it's a good thing you mentioned that, 1954 Bacardi ad. Because when I saw that delectable cottage cheese next to a limeade-grenadine-rum cocktail I couldn't decide which of them would make a nice retro diet meal.

Actually, when I see cottage cheese with chives I think of the restaurant on Long Island we used to go to when I was a kid. It was in an inn and was very mid 20th century Classic American. So among the things you got on the table instead of a bread basket were a dish of cottage cheese with chives and some melba toast to put it on.

I do not think that I would care to dip any melba toast in my Perfect Low Calorie Bacardi Cocktail, though.

I didn't do a calorie count on this one, but it probably does have fewer calories than the cottage cheese, assuming that the latter is full fat. I like the raspberry-pink color of the cocktail, though. Very nice. I ought to do a post about pink cocktails. For the holiday season, maybe next month. And I'd better make a note of that or else I will forget.

By the way, I am working on a new blog! When I get a couple more posts up, and finalize the name, I will take it live and stick it on Entrecard (I know, I know, I have problems with it too, but still...) and link to it. It's sort of a blog for armchair chefs and travelers - world cuisine, culinary history, odd facts about food, herbs, spices, folk medicine, folklore and food through history. So I might write about Napoleon's favorite cake (I just made that up, I have no idea if he had one) followed by a post about tisanes followed by a post about weird flavors of Pocky. A grab-bag, like my other blogs - but different stuff. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I'm enjoying setting it up...

Still Life With Piepan Cans and Zans

If you ever read Dr. Seuss books as a child (or read them to your kids) you might recall that one of his characters is the Zans. And what the Zans likes to do best is to stand around in your kitchen opening cans:

At our house we open cans
We have to open many cans
And that is why we have a Zans.
A Zans for cans is very good.
Have you a Zans for cans? You should!*

The innovation on your right should make any Zans happy -  a mince pie in a can. Or rather, in-a-can. Just in time for Thanksgiving 1954, you can just open up a piepan can - which rhymes in a Seussian fashion:

Your Zans will love these piepan cans:
Mince piepan cans have many fans
Since food is cannier in cans:
Consider cheesy Liederkranz
Or chicken divan
Or raisin bran
All these might fit into a can!
On holidays our Zans is true
To cans filled up with Cordon Bleu
Canned cranberries, canned peas, canned flan
And cans and cans 
of hams and yams
Never does our valiant Zans
Say that he can't - he always can!
And celebrates this fine advance
That brings us pastries sealed in cans.

*From One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (1960). And the Zans picture, originally from the book, was found in Charles Apple's Washington Post article about can history, here.

A Toothsome Jingle Contest

It's been such a long time since we had an advertising jingle contest, so here's one for Dr. Lyon's Tooth Powder, from 1939. I don't know who Mary Noble was or why she was so excited about Dr. Lyon's Tooth Powder, but she was. Oh wait, it says she was the titular character in a radio show called Backstage Wife (Dr. Lyons was one of the sponsors). Perfect choice: someone who is (a) on the radio and (b) backstage. So we have no idea what shape her teeth are in.

By the way, I love how it says, in parentheses, at the end of the incomplete verse, "rhyme with bright." That's because they do not think we are, very:

For beautiful teeth to shine bright
Use Dr. Lyon's morning and night
Your smile will be prouder
Because of this POWDER....

...But if it's still lame, that's all right.
...Even though it won't cure overbite.
...Although you still dress like a fright.
...We're begging you please to just try it.

You can try it, too, if you like. Although unlike Mary I don't have any nice cash prizes for you or anything. On the other hand, I won't insult your intelligence by saying, as the shop guy is in the bottom cartoon, "And all you do is just write a line to rhyme with 'BRIGHT.'" Yes, thank you. We get it!

A Fine House In Edmonton

Jasper is just a few hours' drive from Edmonton

I haven't been to Edmonton in many years, but I have really good memories of visiting there, back when I lived in Alberta. I remember the downtown was full of interesting stores, bookshops and theatres with a few nice old buildings mixed in. And it was just the sort of size I like, for I am rather like Goldilocks these days when it comes to cities - I like them not too big and not too small (odd, I know, for a born-and-raised New Yorker, but there it is). And it is also close to Jasper Provincial Park (about 225 miles away).

We went to Jasper one weekend with some intrepid friends who taught us how to camp - and I really liked it. We camped on a gorgeous stretch of sand next to a stream, and I actually had a good night's sleep in the tent. Plus we got to hike in the mountains and got closer to a glacier than I have ever been, before or since. It is a wonderful place, and I hope to be able to get back out there one of these years.

Government House, Edmonton, AB

There are several interesting neighborhoods in downtown Edmonton. I wish I had taken a better look at places like Westmount, Garneau and Strathcona (across the river, but still part of the city) where there are many old houses and even a few mansions. In particular, when I go back, I want to visit the lovely Jacobean Revival style Government House. It was built in 1912 and was the official residence for the lieutenant governors of Alberta from 1913 until 1937.

Government House was used as a military hospital during the World War II period and afterwards, housed convalescing veterans  - a most fitting thing to think of today, on Veterans' Day. It is now a provincial government conference center (or, to use the correct Canadian spelling, centre). One of the nicest of its features is the porte-cochère - the porch-like structure on the right, literally a porch under which a carriage could sit. So that when you were driving up to attend a formal dinner, you could avoid getting snow or rain on your ball gown. A most civilized architectural invention, don't you think?

[Images from Wikimedia Commons.]

A Profitable Reflooring Job, 1887

Winthrop, Massachusetts

If you have ever done any home renovations - or if you just like a good treasure hunt - you will appreciate (and envy) the lot of Victorian home renovator Ellen Tewksbury of Winthrop, Massachusetts. Winthrop is a suburb of Boston, and is one of the oldest towns in the United States, dating back to 1630.

Back in 1887, Mrs. Tewksbury decided that it was high time that the rather run-down and dilapidated Tewksbury estate got an Extreme Makeover. I think that this was the Tewksbury-Wyman house, which, according to the Winthrop Historic Commission*, was built about 1800. In other words, it was high time Ellen starting thinking about putting in new floors and doing a little painting and patching. This was long before the days of This Old House and the many resources we have nowadays for renovating homes, so Ellen was pretty much on her own.

Now of course she wasn't going to do the work herself, being a Victorian lady. She hired several people to work on various parts of the old house. An old lady* - her name, unfortunately, lost to history - was set to work on the carpeting. After she dealt with pulling up the old carpets, hired men would be installing some nice new wholesale flooring, of course.

But the old carpeting lady discovered a loose floor board. And since I am imagining that she was familiar with the more suspenseful kinds of Victorian novels, she knew at once that a loose floor board might well lead to an interesting discovery. In the late 1820s, Mormon founding father Joseph Smith concealed the Golden Plates, on which were written the future Book of Mormon, in a box under the floorboards of his parents' log home. And in 2000, a huge Viking treasure was found under the floor boards of a 9th century Swedish house - hidden there by a 9th century Swede. So finding a loose board during the Tewksbury house renovation was the sign, perhaps, of something interesting.

Indeed it was. She reached into the hole in the floor and pulled out a mysterious package covered in "mildewed brown paper from which the strings were falling." And in the package was a stack of bank notes - no less than twenty $100 bills, which had been concealed under the old wooden plank floors for a very long time.

You won't be surprised to learn than Mrs. Tewksbury was quite delighted and put her $2000 windfall straight into the bank. Perhaps she even used the money to help in her renovation project - which would really prove the point that installing excellent new flooring in your house can really pay off.

Sources:
"A Long-Hidden Treasure Found," New York Times, Sept. 13, 1887.
Winthrop, Winthrop Historic Commission (Arcadia: 2002), p 15.
 "Viking Treasure is Discovered After 11 Centuries Under the Floorboards," David Keys, The Independent,4 Sept 2000.
"Golden Plates," Wikipedia article, see here.
Images from Wikimedia Commons.

*A working class old lady, that is to say - one who didn't own any large houses, herself.

The Plaque of the Baskervilles

A very fine address plaque, Mr. Holmes!

Do you ever think about how your address is shown on your house? The great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes had to think about many important things - such as that pesky Hound of the Baskervilles, and the Red-Headed League and what they were up to - never mind getting Dr. Watson to come along and go someplace dangerous - but at least he had a terrific address plaque. He is probably one of the few fictional people who has a real one. You can see it at 221B Baker Street in London, England - and also in the picture on your left. It is quite a charming plaque, too. And I must tell you that I've had it in my mind lately. This is why:

Not a bit like our house, actually

We live in a house built in 1929, so as you can imagine there are a lot of things that have needed renovating and fixing up over the years. Our latest projects have involved the front and back porches. The back porch is now an enclosed three-season room - rather rustic looking, with lots of windows. It reminds me of the porch at a cabin we loved renting several summers ago and I love sitting out there looking at the trees and reading - and watching our cat try to scratch the indoor-outdoor carpeting (happily, she can't make a dent in it).

Then there's the front porch, which we've rebuilt and are repainting. The floor is now a handsome dark green - it was grey and peeling when we moved in. But two things we haven't fixed yet are the mailbox and the address plaque. I am looking forward to replacing the mailbox, which is quite old but not in the cool retro sense of the word - it is just kind of old and terrible looking. Our house number is on the mailbox in bright blue masking tape so we really need something to go with the forest green floor and the new railings and banister - maybe one of the bronze address plaques or custom address plaques you can get these days. Some thing almost as distinguished looking as Sherlock Holmes' address plaque. We may not solve any mysteries around here, but at least we will look like we could - if we wanted to. And as far as people being able to tell our house number - a plaque would make it - well, elementary, my dear Watson.

A Rum Calorie Count

Well, first of all, it's "fewer calories," not "less calories" - Bacardi or not. You use the term "fewer" if you can count the number of things. "Less" is for things like sand. We're not going to count how many fewer grains of sand are in your sneakers a week after you get home from the beach than there were at first (answer: there is actually more sand in your shoes; it's a scientifically proven fact). I know; I'm being picky. But this is the sort of thing that drives me crazy. And now that we've got that out of the way, let's address the actual question here:

Does a Bacardi cocktail have (ahem) fewer calories that 2 slices of pineapple, or what? The recipe given in this 1954 ad says that the drink has exactly 88 calories.

Well, according to Calorie King, one slice of canned pineapple with juice has 28 calories in it. So 2 slices would be 56 calories. So no, the cocktail is more fattening. Sorry, Bacardi! Even if it doesn't taste like whiskey or gin (and why would it, it is rum).

And it's a good thing that Bacardi is rum because rum is an old slang word that means odd or peculiar. Which sums up this ad, really.

*****

I am easing off on NaNoWriMo and just posting a few fluffy posts here and there for now, since I got hit over the weekend with the double whammy of a really bad cold and some other physical ailments - am on the mend, but the confused chunk of ersatz fiction I'd done so far for NaNo is just going to have to hang out on the back burner for now. That's OK. I always like putting bits of plot together (like a really fun mental puzzle) but I never really like writing fiction as much as I think I will. So I'm going to think about that, too.

I think I'm better with short pieces anyway. Like blog posts, for example (here and elsewhere). And I have a couple of non-fiction projects I work on regularly, more in that line. But for now I'm going to go catch up on some reading on the couch. My cat has approved this activity by plopping herself right on my stomach so I can't move. Very therapeutic, she is. Now I just have to teach her how to make camomile tea...

Dinner With A Cyclops

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Here's another meal suggestion that (one hopes) nobody ever took Del Monte up on. Salmon loaf with strange white biscuit strata, studded with a central green olive eye. The dinner that stares at you. And its eye is pleading for help. Because it is being strangled, surrounded and besieged by an army of canned peas. This is probably what the Cyclops named Polyphemus served when Ulysses and his men dropped by in the Odyssey. Or he should have, anyway. That would have defeated Ulysses immediately.

You can tell Del Monte didn't really know what to say about this. ""So pretty! So unusual!" That's what you say at the local art show. Or when your neighbor shows you her new hat, the one that looks like a bird taking a nap on two leftover pancakes.

And the peas? They are powerful not only because there is strength in numbers, but because they "have flavor range." Is their flavor good, though? Do we want to ear many many peas with our Linear B Loaf? Well - their flavor ranges. From canned to petrified.

Just put the dish by the kitchen door so that poor miserable salmon loaf can escape. It has that help-me look in its sad olive eye. And then when it's gone - taking all its little canned friends with it  - we can just order a pizza.

The Little House That Could

In 1930, out in Calgary, Alberta, there was a house that gave The Little Engine That Could a run for its money - you think it's tough being a little engine getting up a mountain? Try being a whole two-and-a-half story house that needs to get across a river.

I lived in Calgary several years ago, and it was my first time ever living in the West. It was a great experience, and I got quite interested in the history of Calgary, especially the buildings. I wrote for a local newspaper for awhile, concentrating on historic buildings in the city. So when I saw this article from the July 1930 Popular Mechanics, I knew I had to write about it. I don't know if this house is still around, though. And I wish I knew who built it, because he was clearly a man who didn't let a little mistake like the wrong building site stop him. I like that kind of perseverance.

Calgary's Elbow River

Anyway, long before there were easy ways to find houses for rent in Calgary - in 1930 - our enterprising anonymous hero built himself a house on the banks of the Elbow River (Calgary was built at the confluence, or meeting place, of the Bow and Elbow Rivers). Well, after he got finished he had a good look at the place and wasn't really happy with it. You might say, in 21st century parlance, that the Feng Shui of the house was so far off kilter that - well, that the whole place needed to be in a different spot altogether. Like, on the opposite side of the river.

Now there's a home renovation project and a half. But this clever Calgarian did not give up and say: I guess I don't mind being on the wrong river bank. No, he built himself a temporary bridge made of logs, hired a tractor - and simply had the whole house pulled across the Elbow to the other side, where he had built, in advance of this, a concrete foundation. I especially like the little canopy on the tractor - it looks a little bit like the Surrey With the Fringe on Top from Oklahoma!, doesn't it? And I like the pioneering can-do spirit that inspired someone to haul that house across the river on some logs so that it would be in exactly the right place. He thought he could - and he did.

The Mysterious Case of the Logy Lawyer

"My first big trial this morning," mutters dejected Don, "and the way I feel is a crime!"

Actually, that murder trial isn't your "first big trial this morning," Don. Your first big trial is constipation. And that is why you are "dejected." That is why you are logy and headachy. No mysterious crime here, unless it involves not eating your bran flakes.

Happily, Don's wife Ellen knows just what to do. She doesn't have time to make some swell bran muffins, so it's laxative time! Exhibit A: one gigantic glass of Sal Hepatica, full of magical mineral salts that argue eloquently with the GI tract - and win.

The verdict? It worked. We can't give you a time frame, Your Honor, because - well, we just can't. We plead the Fifth on that one. But we can tell you this: three hours later, Dejected Don was able to smile prettily for the jury.*

That's some jury, by the way. In the front row there's a polka-dotted grandma wearing some brains on her hat, next to a folded-arm guy who thinks he's in a nightclub listening to the warm-up comic. And in the back row: a lacquer-faced department store mannequin and a dastardly mustachio'd fellow who really couldn't spare the time away from his job, which is tying damsels to train tracks. He's probably also the Bad Guy, too. So how did he manage to get on the jury? He got a notice in the mail, that's how! And when you get that notice in the mail, you have to show up.

The lawyers have to show up, too. They can't loll around in bed complaining about euphemistic headaches and "feeling logy." Although come to think of it, that jury also looks pretty logy. The judge needs to call a recess and get everyone a round of Sal Hepatica. They can ask Ellen for some - she probably brought a couple of extra bottles, just to make sure.

Imagine Wearing Glasses

John Lennon did it. So did Harold Lloyd. To say nothing of Groucho Marx. Three of my favorite celebrity guys from the past - all of them glasses wearers. I suspect that they made wearing glasses seem cool to me when I was a kid.

John Lennon and Groucho Marx were sharp, sarcastic, brilliantly funny, never at a loss for words. And even though Harold Lloyd was a silent movie actor, he was always in motion, jumping on and off trains, and hanging off of giant clocks on buildings - all with such panache. And all while wearing spectacles, too!

Harold Lloyd, hanging out in 1928

In honor of John, Groucho and Harold - and all the other cool cats and chicks I've had to leave out (because it would make this post WAY too long*) I have gathered some hints for all of us who wear them:

-If your glasses tend to slip down your nose in hot weather, chalk the sides of your nose before you put them on (just use ordinary chalk) [Popular Mechanics, May 1911]

- To keep your glasses from fogging up in a warm room, run some soap into the lenses and then polish the lenses [Popular Mechanics, April 1914]

-  The latest eyeglasses cleaner in 1910 was a $1, $2 or $5 bill, according to Popular Mechanics, Dec 1910 (via the New York Evening Post). Apparently this was discovered by a gentleman who had forgot his handkerchief one day, and needed to clean his pince-nez on the train home. 

And here's one more eyeglasses hint: Zenni Optical sells eyeglasses directly to you without middlemen or a lot of flashy advertising. They make high quality prescription glasses and sell directly to you at terrific prices. This is great to know about because if you're anything like me you've paid quite a lot for your glasses at some point in the past. So go check them out - I think you'll be really pleased. And in the words of my 1970s era Marx Brothers T shirt (which I've written about before on this blog): tell 'em Groucho sent you.

[All the images are from Wikimedia Commons, by the way]

*But we can do some more posts about them some other time...

Some Vintage Lockers

Popular Mechanics, Aug 1924

Lockers never go out of fashion. It's true, isn't it? They look just the same now as they did when we were kids - and even the same as they looked back in the 1920s. That was when one innovative garage in Brooklyn installed lockers for people to leave their stuff in when their cars were being fixed. The car cushions were stored separately, because they didn't fit in the lockers.

Mind you, when I think about what we have in the car, it really isn't anything locker-worthy. And as for all the gum-wrappers and used-up pens stuck in the seats, and the Kleenex box from 1996 - I think I would just let them be, if the car was going in for repairs. I guess people had fancier car things back in the Jazz Age.

But when I think of lockers, I mostly think about high school - and swimming pools.

Public beach lockers, 1941

I remember the steel lockers at the old swimming pool at New York's Hunter College very well. You see, a long time ago (that would be the 1970s) I went to Hunter College High School which was - well, between buildings, you might say. When I was in 7th through 9th grades, the school was housed on two floors of a huge old office building - long since torn down - on Lexington Avenue. And as you might expect, there was no room for a gym on those  floors. So we commuted to various locations in New York for our gym classes. I took swimming class at Hunter at 8am one year, during the fall and winter - and it was really cold out! We had to lock up our heavy backpacks and any other supplies like shampoo or extra towels and things, in those old-fashioned lockers. I was always so glad to see my stuff there when class was over - especially my glasses, which I wasn't supposed to wear in the pool.* And although I love beaches and the water, I was pretty glad when that gym class was over, too.

*No, no contact lenses for me. I think they were pretty expensive back then; and in any case, I have never liked the idea of them. Although it would have been nice to see during swim class.