Tabla de contenidos para January 2018 en Reminisce Extra

TEAM MASCOTS Were you the one wearing the furry animal costume? What did you do at game time? Were there rules to follow? Pep us up with your team spirit and share the love for your school’s mascot. Label your story “Team Mascots.” LEISURE SUITS It was one of those ’70s trends we could do without. But let’s face it, leisure suits were all the rage, mainly because they were made from no-iron polyester. Show us your style and tell us when and where you wore it. Label your story “Leisure Suits.” A TIME TO GIVE After any natural disaster—hurricane, wildfire, flooding—we are reminded of the importance of giving back. Tell us what you’ve done, what you’ve seen, or what others have done for you. Label your story “A Time…

U.S. POET LAUREATE Robert Frost MASTERS TOURNAMENT CHAMPION Arnold Palmer ~ EMMY AWARDS ~ BEST DRAMATIC SERIES WITH CONTINUING CHARACTERS Gunsmoke, CBS BEST COMEDY SERIES The Phil Silvers Show, CBS ~ TONY AWARDS ~ BEST MUSICAL Meredith Willson, The Music Man BEST CHOREOGRAPHY Jerome Robbins, West Side Story ~ GRAMMY AWARDS PREMIERE ~ RECORD OF THE YEAR “Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)” Domenico Modugno, artist ALBUM OF THE YEAR The Music from Peter Gunn Henry Mancini, artist ~ ACADEMY AWARDS ~ BEST PICTURE The Bridge on the River Kwai BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE Joanne Woodward The Three Faces of Eve BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE Alec Guinness The Bridge on the River Kwai…

TIDY TOTES Keep gift totes of all sizes stored, rumple-free and ready when you need them with this double-sided hanging gift tote organizer, which slides in neatly alongside your coats and things. $20, CONTAINERSTORE.COM GREAT DIVIDE Slip a Whitmor honeycomb organizer into your sock drawer to give each pair its own compartment (and finally conquer jumble). Works for other items such as scarves and belts. $10, AMAZON.COM TO A TEA Toss those random boxes and compress your tea stash to fit in a 5-inch-deep space with a slim double-decker YouCopia tea organizer. It holds more than 100 bags. $18, AMAZON.COM HANG UPS Sturdy hanging bins with built-in chalkboard labels hook onto one another, transforming any closet rod into a set of open-air drawers. $15, GREATUSEFULSTUFF.COM PAIRS-GO-ROUND Get your loafers off…

My father’s family first arrived in America in 1900. My grandparents Peter and Elizabeth Herold packed up their belongings and crossed the Atlantic Ocean with two active little boys, Henry, 4, and my father, Fred, 2, plus an infant, George, 5 months, before settling in Philadelphia. Two years later, they changed their mind and went back to Steinau, Germany. While there, they had another son, John. My father had unpleasant memories of his time in Germany; playmates chided him for talking with a different accent than theirs. My grandparents made their second trip to the U.S. aboard the Kronprinz Wilhelm, this time with the threat of hurricanes, in October 1904. A few years ago, my youngest son, Tom, took his family to Ellis Island and found among the records a…

Architect Alfred Mosher Butts invented an early version of the game in 1933. It was originally called Lexiko, a short form variation of “lexicon,” meaning “vocabulary” or “language.” Initially, no game manufacturers were interested in it. Butts and his business partner, James Brunot, an entrepreneur and game lover, began producing the game themselves and called it Scrabble, which means “to grope frantically.” About 33 percent of American homes own a Scrabble game. Competitors in the North American Scrabble Players Association’s annual championship tournament use tiles that are smooth on both sides, so they can’t tell the blanks from the lettered tiles when selecting them from the bag.…

Brownie camera photos courtesy of CHUCK BAKER The Brownie box camera sold for $1 in 1900, the year Eastman Kodak introduced the art of the snapshot to the masses. Now, anyone could try photography. Thousands sold. Early packaging featured the Brownie Boy, a good-natured sprite borrowed from Scottish lore and star of a series of children’s books by Palmer Cox. By marketing the Brownie camera to a younger audience, George Eastman assured future sales of film and processing. The camera’s compact size, plus its reliability and durability, led to amateur photo buffs capturing many a Kodak moment. The orginal Brownie was made from cardboard and wood with a leatherette cover. Later models would feature flash attachments. Camera bodies started out in black or brown only, but by the late 1920s,…

DURING MY STINT IN KOREA, one of my most emotional experiences was the time we spent with a 6-year-old girl we called Sunny. My unit, Company B, was working to improve supply routes, and Sgt. James McIlwain, known to most of us as Hoss, and his engineers were laboring over a road when they heard moans from behind a hedgerow. There the sergeant discovered a little Korean girl who was ill and malnourished and holding her little brother, who was probably half her age. Through a translator, we learned her story. When the Chinese attacked her home, her mother took her and her brother south, traveling with other displaced Koreans. Just north of Chechon, her mother died, and the two children were separated from the other refugees. Alone and lost,…

Although 1957 saw the premiere of two of television’s most beloved series, Leave It to Beaver and Perry Mason, the ’57-’58 season is better remembered as the year of the Western. Fifteen TV “horse operas” debuted that season, including Maverick and Wagon Train, which became viewer favorites. The thirst for Old West programming was understandable: In 1957, eight of the top 20 shows were Westerns, led by Gunsmoke, which had premiered in 1955. 26 Men Arizona Rangers keep the peace. Boots and Saddles Adventures of the Fifth Cavalry. The Californians A half-hour drama set in San Francisco. Colt .45 The gun maker’s son is a government spy. The Gray Ghost Based on a real Confederate soldier. Have Gun, Will Travel A gun-for-hire works out of San Francisco. Man Without a…

TELL US HOW TO FIND YOU Whether you send your submission via mail or email or post it online, include your full name, daytime phone number, email address and mailing address. If you have a post office box, tell us your street address too. HELP US SORT THINGS OUT Include the name of the department your submission is for (Motoring Memories, Growing Up, etc.) on the first page of your submission or in the email subject line. For any photos you submit, please identify the people, city, state and year the photo was taken. We reserve the right to use submissions in any section of our magazine, or elsewhere. We do not return unsolicited materials. Send quality photo reprints or email high-resolution JPEG files (300 dpi at 8x10) so you…

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Heavens to Murgatroyd, no! At Reminisce, we’re all about remembering the past and bringing back the good times. The song says a lot, however, about friendship and keeping in touch across the miles. I have friends on both coasts and in other countries, and although I’d love to personally visit each of them, in today’s high-tech world we’ve found cellphone pictures the next best thing to being there. But I still remember loading the camera, paying processing fees to develop the film and deciding between prints (with or without borders) and slides. Many of you became shutterbugs at an early age, recording the world in images on paper every chance you got. For a look through other readers’ creative lenses,…

On a sunny October day in 1958, a blonde teenager named Donna Ludwig was cruising Southern California’s San Fernando Valley. The top was down on her white Ford convertible as the radio blared KFWB, the main Los Angeles rock station. Suddenly a familiar voice wafted from the car speaker: “I had a girl, Donna was her name.” Ludwig—surprised and shocked—instantly recognized both the singer and the tune. It was the song that her recording-artist boyfriend had sung to her over the phone months earlier. But Richard Valenzuela had never told Ludwig that “Donna” would become his next single. Del-Fi Records owner Bob Keane dubbed his 17-year-old recording sensation Ritchie Valens in order to reach a wider audience. Valens had scored a minor success with “Come On, Let’s Go” before “Donna”…

BEV AND I MOVED into our first home on Dec. 31, 1956. We found the place while visiting models in the Dunhurst Heights area of Wheeling, Illinois, the previous June. The subdivision was built in phases; ours went up in phase two and took about six months. We paid $13,850 for a 1,000-square-foot, three-bedroom, one-bath ranch house, no money down. Payments were $82.75 a month, including taxes, and we had 30 years to pay. We had three children when we moved in, and the house was quite comfortable. Over the years we added a detached garage, a screened-in porch and another four children, but Bev always managed to find a place to put things. My son Gary wanted a train set, so we set out to accommodate him, building a…

Back in the 1950s, I was a flight attendant with American Airlines. In those days we were called stewardesses. I was based in Chicago and worked either five-city flights to New York City and back, or overnights to the West Coast. The round trips to New York meant that we flew the same trip for several days each week. Between arrival and return flights, we got to spend a few hours in the lounge or with passengers in the airport. I loved watching the passengers come and go. Some had great smiles on their faces as they greeted a loved one. Others were in tears as they bid someone goodbye. The downtime between flights gave us flight attendants a chance to meet people who wanted to talk or who seemed…

As the population of America boomed, so did the number of immigrants arriving from around the world. With them came surnames that may have sounded strange in the new surroundings. Contrary to popular belief, names were not changed at any of the ports of entry. Arrival and departure manifests had to match. At times, U.S. arrivals changed their own names, perhaps to: Fit in or become more “American”—e.g. Pedersen to Peterson Make the name easier to pronounce; Heckenliable to Heckenlively Erase a past scandal like illegitimacy or prison record Hints for research: Follow the paper trail of your family. Check every census; peruse court records. Check newspaper announcements. Look for a translation: Weber = Weaver. Write down the various ways people may have heard the name pronounced, perhaps adding an…

“When my wife and I play Scrabble, we clog up the board so you can’t move!” SHAWN REYNOLDS • GUYMON, OK When one of us shouted, “Let’s play a game!” that usually meant Scrabble. Although one corner of the burgundy box was held together with yellowed and peeling tape, it was still our favorite. Our version had only one true blank tile, as we had etched an A on one and an L on another in ballpoint pen. A 14-year span separated the oldest sibling from the youngest in our family. Anytime we played there was much cheating, usually in favor of the youngest. “Let me see your letters,” we’d say, and then we’d all brainstorm on how to get the most points. We kept our two-letter word list handy,…

Part of a peacekeeping force in South Korea after the war, I was a military policeman in the 55th Military Police Company, Detachment No. 1, at Camp St. Barbara. Cpl. Cho, my South Korean Army partner, and I had spent most of the day patrolling the countryside in our jeep. It was nearing shift change, so we headed back to camp. We were close to the gate when I noticed a little girl cutting tall grass along the road with a sickle. I pulled over and grabbed my camera—I thought the scene would make a great photo. As I raised the camera to my eye, Cho grabbed my arm. His action took me by surprise; he’d never done that before. “Why did you stop me?” I asked. “It’s not a…

1974 Which Is Which? Top Choice was a top seller for General Foods, along with its other pet brands Gaines-Burgers and Gravy Train. All said their dog food was like human food. “It even holds together like real hamburger,” this ad says. It was a clever ploy, as dog food labels rarely listed ingredients, so the claims were hard to dispute without a human taste test. 1959 All Meat Alpo, short for Allen Products Co., favored only canines in its ads through the 1950s and ’60s. But as pet food sales grew more competitive in the ’70s, Alpo hired popular Bonanza actor Lorne Greene as spokesman. The job landed Greene in the doghouse for a time: Alpo used horse meat in some of its products—and Greene…

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Long before Microsoft brought us the Xbox, kids entertained themselves with these simple games and toys. Which ones do you remember? 1 Sixty years ago, kids needed to supply their own spuds to play with this Hasbro offering. 2 By 1958, kids could play with four colors of this modeling compound (blue, red, yellow, off-white) originally marketed as wallpaper cleaner. 3 Five dice, one cup, one score pad, two pencils and 20 plastic chips came inside a box that touted this product as “the FUN game that makes THINKING...fun!” 4 Sales for Wham-O’s gravity-defying spinning plastic rings were estimated at more than 100 million in 1958 alone. 5 It bounces, stretches and settles into a blob if you leave it alone. And at one time kids used it to transfer…

After seeing Doris Day in Calamity Jane when I was 10, I was hooked and determined to meet the lovely lady with the gorgeous smile and beautiful voice. I even started networking before it was a thing, eager to find other Doris Day fans. Thanks to Photoplay magazine, I joined the only official Doris Day Fan Club, based in London, England. Through the club, I met other fans—Eileen, Hilda and Mary—who lived in the Los Angeles area. We became friends and kept in touch via letters and phone calls. My parents questioned why our phone bills were so high with calls to the West Coast. My plan was one day to travel there, meet my new friends, and with luck, see and meet Doris Day, too. I made my first…

Enza and I met at a dance more than 62 years ago in the neighboring town of Ovid, Michigan. A couple of our mutual friends had introduced us. He was 19 at the time and I was 17. On our second date we went to another dance. We ended the evening in my driveway, visiting in his car, a classy yellow Dodge convertible roadster with a black top and sharp air horns on the right front fender. That car was dreamy! My mom, Magdalen Motz, quite watchful about how long I spent visiting in cars, would switch the porch light on and off to let me know it was time to end the date. So that night, when the lights started flickering, I went into the house and watched as…

GENERAL ASSEMBLY DOROTHY HUTSON • EAST PROVIDENCE, RI Jack and I drove to Washington, D.C., for our honeymoon in April 1951. We happened to arrive the day Gen. Douglas MacArthur was returning home from Asia after being fired by President Truman. The place was crowded and we had nowhere to stay. You can see the throng of people behind me in this picture, which was taken with a Gnome Pixie camera. CAUGHT IN THE ACT TOM WILLIAMS MANHEIM, PA My Kodak No. 2 Folding Cartridge Premo, which I got as a gift in the 1940s, came with me when I entered the Navy in 1950. I snapped pictures at boot camp, on board ship and at stops around the world. I took this at Marineland in Florida in 1953. AS…

I had never driven a car and had no driver’s license, but that didn’t matter to the Army. AFTER GRADUATING IN 1951 FROM Wilby High School in Waterbury, Connecticut, I enlisted in the Army. I had 16 weeks of infantry training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, then went to Fort Benning, Georgia, for airborne (parachute) training. Next, after receiving my jump wings, I was transferred to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where I received orders for combat duty in Korea. At the end of the war, my unit moved to Camp Wood, near Kumamoto, Japan. I had never driven a car and had no driver’s license, but that didn’t matter to the Army—they assigned me to the motor pool. My duties were to maintain a jeep and keep it ready for…

Movies in my childhood were in black and white, measuring 12 inches across the screen of our Admiral TV set. Then one day in 1958, I learned I was going to a real theater to see my first real movie, South Pacific. Almost 7, I felt grown up going with our neighbor, who was 16 and the most sophisticated person I knew. We wore dresses and our Sunday shoes. I took a sweater in case I got cold from the air-conditioning, still a novelty then. My father chauffeured us to the State Theater in Columbus, Ohio, and the adventure began. I remember feeling sheer excitement at seeing the vivid colors on the huge screen. The action, music and scenery captivated me, even though I didn’t fully understand the World War…