What can we say? Some pictures just make us smile. Straw boaters, anyone? (If only they had one big enough for our melon head…)
Category: Time Travel
The Amphicar: One Sweet Ride Float
This post steps outside our usual preferred timeframe, but we try to be flexible…
We don’t recall if we’ve shared with you before that our father owned, for more than thirty years, a Volvo dealership (for some of that time, he co-owned it with his father). Though they sold Volvos throughout that span, over the years they occasionally took on a second line of cars to sell (though they ended up carrying each of these secondary lines only briefly): Toyota, Triumph, Sunbeam.
Our favorite of these additional makes of cars was the Amphicar. This was a West German car, manufactured for just a few years in the 1960s, that you could drive right into a lake and then skim about on the surface of the water like a boat (but more slowly, one assumes). The Amphicar was somehow sealed so as not to sink (we read something somewhere about a bilge pump?), and it featured propellers that allowed it to putter about on the surface of an open body of water.
We can recall once, when we were very young, getting to ride in an Amphicar. Our father at the wheel, we set out for a lake near our hometown of Oklahoma City (we don’t recall which one) and were all set to drive into the water when it was decided that there was too much wind that day (as there so often is in Oklahoma) and the water was too choppy for us to safely take the plunge (if you will).
You can imagine our disappointment.
What we didn’t know until recently was that none other than Lyndon Baines Johnson used to own an Amphicar. The story goes that he liked nothing more than to load guests visiting his Texas ranch into the Amphicar (without telling them in advance about its unusual capabilities), point it down a steeply inclined stretch of lakeshore and exclaim with feigned panic as they neared the water, “The brakes don’t work! The brakes won’t hold! We’re going in! We’re going under!”
Of course, the car was designed to go deftly from land to water, and our prankster President and his guests were able to navigate the surface of the lake successfully.
We’re pleased to have found this picture of LBJ behind the wheel of his Amphicar, primarily because it assures everyone we’ve told about this unlikely vehicle over the years that we’re not delusional, that they reall did exist.
Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
There’s a woman who serves as just the slightest irritant every day during our morning commute by trying to foist upon the new edition of one of those 10- or 12-page free daily newspapers—AM New York or the like—as we make our way through the Fulton Street subway station in lower Manhattan.
We don’t kid ourselves that our face is particularly memorable—dozens of women over the years have easily wiped it from their memories—but wouldn’t you think she’d eventually begin to recognize our hats? After all, among the many people who pass her every day, how many are wearing fedoras? Very few, we would think.
We consistently decline the proffered paper, but every morning, she throws her arm out in front of us, folded fishwrap in hand, like a human turnstile that we must make our way past.
But today, she won us over, if only temporarily. we still didn’t take a paper, but we smiled as we ran her one-woman gauntlet because she’d changed her newsie’s rap. We don’t know if perhaps she’d watched an old movie on TCM last night or what, but this morning, her barker’s pitch went like this:
“Renovate Penn Station! Renovate Penn Station! Read all about it!”
Read all about it! It’s the first time in our life we’ve actually heard someone call out that oh-so-familiar phrase as they hawked newspapers! The only thing missing was an “Extra! Extra!” or two, but that’s nitpicking.
It made our morning, we don’t mind telling you, and we won’t be the least bit surprised if the warm glow we’re experiencing doesn’t last well into the afternoon.
(Retro)active Browsing: Vintage Christmas Catalogues
Anyone who spends time browsing antique fairs, flea markets, and eBay knows that vintage retail catalogues are in demand and command a pretty penny, but no catalogues are more coveted than vintage Christmas catalogues.
As we’ve said here before, there’s something about Christmas that fosters a wistful nostalgia more potent than any other holiday, and it’s the pull of Christmases past, we’re convinced, that keeps these old mail-order catalogues in such demand.
If you find you can’t swing the price of one of these treasured commercial publications, don’t despair. We’ve found a site that will fill in ably while you’re saving your pennies.
Wishbookweb.com boasts scans of complete Christmas catalogues dating all the way back to 1933 (and up to 1988). The majority of the catalogues featured are from Sears, but there are other delights to be enjoyed, too, including a 1941 Lord and Taylor catalogue and a Spiegel catalogue from 1933.
And this site doesn’t just offer selected highlights from these forty-plus catalogues; they’ve scanned and posted each in its entirety.
So if you’ve ever wondered what kind of holiday toys might have enticed your parents, your grandparents or, heck, even your great-grandparents when they were whippersnappers, you need wonder no more.
And of course, Christmas catalogues don’t limit themselves to toys—these publications are terrific resources for researching and tracking the changes and advances in clothing, furniture, electronics, housewares, and so much more.
And if you find yourself wondering, while perusing these catalogues, “What would that gorgeous console radio that cost $52 in 1937 run me today?”, just call up the Inflation Calculator, which compares and contrasts prices from as far back as 1800 all the way up to 2014. (To answer our own question: $52 in 1937 was the equivalent of $846.21 in 2014.)
This post was first published, in slightly different form, on December 21, 2011.
New York at Christmas: A Seasonal Walking Tour
We’re not sure we’ve ever mentioned it here, but in addition to various other irons we have in the fire, we are also a licensed NYC tour guide. And this is our favorite time of year, because ’tis the season for our “New York at Christmas” Tour, a 90-minute walk during which we visit the sites and share the stories that have made New York the Christmas Capitol of America!
If you live in NYC or plan to be here during the holiday season (or if you know someone who does), this informative and entertaining holiday stroll just might be right up your alley.
We won’t bend your ear at length about it here, but if you’d like more info, just pay a visit to Avenues and Alleys.
