Tabla de contenidos para January 2020 en Reminisce Extra

COMMERCIAL MASCOTS What do you remember of those illustrated mascots for our favorite foods, such as the Campbell’s Soup Kids, Grapette Girls, Mr. Peanut, the Jolly Green Giant and others? Did a mascot ever visit your school or town? Did you hum the jingle or dress up as a mascot for Halloween? Label your story and pictures “Mascots.” BRIDGE NIGHT We’re looking for stories about bridge clubs—the players, the parties, the prizes. When you were the dummy, did you hit the drinks cart? Label your story and pictures “Bridge Night.” THE CORNER STORE Tell us about your favorite corner store back in the day. Was it a classic five-and-dime or mom-and-pop specialty retailer such as a bakery or butcher? Label your story and pictures “Corner Store.” THE ’60S AND ’70S…

On the two separate vacations I encountered Walter Cronkite, there was no such thing as selfies, so I don’t have photos with him. But both meetings gave me memories that I cherish. The first time we met was in 1995 at the Imperial Hotel in Vienna, Austria. My husband, Hank, surprised me with a trip to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary and my 60th birthday. Hank had taken note of a group trip to Vienna that I learned about in a travel class, and unbeknownst to me, he signed us up for a weeklong fantasy trip. As part of the trip, Hank and I attended the famous New Year’s Concert held in the Musikverein concert hall, which is next door to the Imperial Hotel. Zubin Mehta was the conductor that…

Art is the top draw for visitors to the city, with Tate Modern, which opened in 2000, and the National Gallery drawing 11.6 million tourists in 2018. They, like other museums in London, are free. The British Museum hasn’t lost its charm—more than 5 million visitors a year come to learn about human history and culture. Parks also are on the “free” list, and London has many. Hyde, Regents, Kensington Gardens, St. James and Richmond—with its famous deer—are just a few. The London Eye gets 3.75 million visitors a year. The 20-year-old observation wheel is the most famous paid site in the U.K. Historical sites like the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral, below, and Westminster Abbey also are popular, with paid attendance of more than 6 million.…

A DIETARY CONDITION prevented my father, Stanley, from serving in the military. Instead, he spent World War II working at the Badger Army Ammunition Plant in Sauk County, Wisconsin, making powders for hand grenades and bullets, and propellant for rockets. The 7,400-acre facility operated around the clock and housed as many as 8,000 workers and their families. After the war, my father’s experience working with and mixing chemicals helped him land a job with a fertilizer manufacturer, where he worked until he retired in 1984. It was not until his retirement party that I thought to ask him about his wartime duties. I was at the midpoint of my own career as a supply chain manager for the refrigerator maker Greenville Products and wanted to know how inventory was managed…

When the war started, some farm workers left the fields to join the fighting in Europe, raising concerns about food security. The longer the war went on, the more hands reached into America’s breadbasket. In response, the president encouraged Americans to grow food in unused space. Many were new to gardening and the Department of Agriculture worried that these inexperienced gardeners would waste seed, fertilizer and tools. To help, the government provided training pamphlets, and schools taught gardening skills. Home gardeners responded, as they had in WWI. Some 20 million victory gardens were planted. By 1943, 40% of the vegetables eaten in the U.S.—fresh, canned, dried and frozen—were raised in those small plots.…

When the U.S. entered the war, it turned to war bonds to finance its military efforts. The bonds paid a lower rate than other market securities, but the initiative leaned heavily on an appeal to patriotism. Ads on radio, in newspapers and magazines, and on movie newsreels kept bonds front and center, and Hollywood stars went all over the country plugging the campaign. Denominations ranged from $10 to $1,000, and sold for 50% to 75% of their face value, but were still beyond the reach of some. Military mothers were known to save for the bonds by paying 10 to 25 cents at a time. More than 80 million Americans bought the war bonds, which yielded revenue of over $180 billion.…

THE SPERRY & Hutchinson Co. sold its first Green Stamps in 1896. Merchants used them to steer customers away from using credit and to create loyalty, counting on more sales to pay for the stamps. The programs really caught on, especially for grocery and gas purchases. By the late 1960s, nearly 80% of households in the U.S. collected stamps, exchanging them for everything from dry cleaning to funerals. Stores backed off the stamp business in the early 1970s, softening the blow with lower prices. S&H phased out paper stamps, allowing them to be exchanged for digital greenpoints. Greenpoints continue in the internet age, but their website greenpoints.com states paper stamps are no longer accepted as of October 2019.…

With customers across the country redeeming more than 1 billion stamps a week in the mid-1960s, S&H was a powerhouse retailer of consumer goods. It was the largest wholesale purchaser of General Electric small appliances, Coleman lanterns and Bissell carpet sweepers. Manufacturers would approach the company about stocking their products, sometimes offering exclusive S&H designs as incentive. Among the name brands offered through S&H at midcentury are those whose products are prized among today’s collectors, including Libbey glass, Melmac, Pyrex, Corning, Rubbermaid, Magnavox, Panasonic, Sunbeam, Spaulding, Buxton and Mersman furniture.…

MUSEUM PIECE Illustrator Robert O. Reid takes a humorous approach to the serious subject of wartime rubber rationing. General Tire turns scarcity into a positive message about the rare qualities of its tires. The ad also hints at the synthetics that later would dominate domestic tire production. PAT HER HEAD FOR ME A touching ad illustrated by Edwin Megargee, a gun-dog breeder and avid painter whose work often appeared in Field & Stream. Polk Miller made drugs and chemicals primarily for treating animals. This is a case of a company trying to connect to the sense of community generated by the war effort. OPTIMISM IN A BOTTLE The ad claims Coca-Cola is “the drink of our fighting men” and shows guys in uniform hanging out at a canteen, which would…

At Reminisce , history is personal. Our readers explore everyday moments in time that shape who they are: Nancy Culver’s special bond with a horse who rescued her from loneliness in Growing Up (page 18); Sidney Hepler’s misfired car trick that brought him closer to his father in Motoring Memories (page 50); Virginia Amis’ touching recollection of playing outside in winter without the protection of snow pants in Lasting Impression (page 58). Their stories loom large on the page today. Yet in the great book of the past, these experiences are snippets—pieces of private histories. That very intimacy makes them fascinating. Of course, there is also History with a capital H—major events of the past that shape our culture. In the last century, no event had a more profound effect…

Songwriters Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss wrote Perry Como’s million-selling classic “Catch a Falling Star,” which was the Recording Industry Association of America’s first gold record, awarded in March 1958. But the partners’ next success took years to materialize—and happened only after Vance’s 9-year-old daughter had provided its serendipitous inspiration. The hit song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini” led to a rush on the suddenly popular swimwear item. One chilly June day in 1959, Vance, his wife, Margie, and their daughter Paula visited Long Island’s Lido beach. As a surprise, Margie handed Paula a bikini, at the time a bold new bathing suit design that had yet to find acceptance in mainstream America. Paula asked, “Is this all there is to it, Mommy?” After she’d changed into it,…

My family moved from our small farm to a ranch in southern Oregon in 1944. I was 4 and my sisters were 13 and 15. Soon after, they went away to boarding school, and I had no one—not even a neighbor—to play with. My mother did her best to entertain me, but my parents were concerned I was lonely. So when the opportunity came up to buy a horse, Dad took advantage of it. Sweet Nellie was a rodeo horse, but was retired because of a leg injury. She’d been around adults most of her life, yet she seemed to know immediately that we were going to be buddies. My parents couldn’t afford a saddle, so when I got on Sweet Nellie’s bare back I had to take hold of…

In 1940, President Roosevelt asked William Knudsen, head of GM, to get business leaders to retool for war. By October, Knudsen had secured 920 contracts for goods ranging from planes to mosquito nets. Industrialist Henry “Hurry Up Henry” Kaiser used modular design to mass-produce his Liberty ships in California. He cut ship production time from 365 days to a single day. Unemployment plummeted from 19% in 1938 to 1.2% in 1944. Through 1945, 17 million new jobs were created, industrial productivity was up 96% and corporate profits doubled. The economy grew about 11% each year. America’s war output is estimated at 96,000 bombers, 86,000 tanks, 2.4 million trucks and 6.5 million rifles.…

WILLIAM R. LONG SALT LAKE CITY, UT TO DO OUR PART FOR THE war effort, our family grew a victory garden in the backyard. My brother and I collected cans, bottles and aluminum foil. We also gathered milkweed pods to be processed into fill for life jackets. Our mother watched the newspaper to know when soap and nylon hose were available, and sent my brother or me to the store. When the supply of Javanese kapok was cut off during the war, life jackets and flight suits for the armed services were filled instead with the waterproof and buoyant floss from common milkweed. Children were an important part of the national campaign to gather the pods from roadsides and ditches. The first year of the war, I was 13 and…

THE PREMISE WAS simple: Shoppers earned stamps every time they bought something, and when they’d saved enough stamps, they got free merchandise. A full book of stamps was 1,200 points. S&H wanted merchants to hand out one stamp for every 10 cents customers spent, to cover the cost of the items S&H stocked in its local stores and offered through the catalog. Instead, stores used double, and even triple, stamp days to entice customers, which dug into S&H profits. Trade associations claimed the stamp programs were unfair, arguing shoppers paid more for items than they should have to get the stamps. Customers didn’t seem to mind, and they always had the option to redeem their points for cash: 1,000 stamps would net $1.67. Redeemed stamps were quickly destroyed by incineration…

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…

Each issue of Reminisce Extra through 2020 will highlight a different aspect of World War II. If you or someone you know has a tale covering any of these topics, we’d love to read it. MARCH Decisive battles, including Pearl Harbor, Battle of the Bulge, Midway and Okinawa. MAY Serving in Europe. JULY Serving in the Pacific. SEPTEMBER The official end of the war and the immediate postwar period. NOVEMBER The war’s lasting impact and the Honor Flight Network. Share your WWII stories and photos: REMINISCE.COM/ SUBMIT-A-STORY…

Quickly after its debut in October 1960 on CBS, The Andy Griffith Show became a gentle respite from the turbulent 1960s. Test your knowledge of life in Mayberry with Sheriff Andy Taylor and the gang. 1 Andy and Opie Taylor are headed here in the show’s opening credits. 2 Who played Opie—and grew up to become an Academy Award-winning director? 3 This veteran actor won five Emmys playing Deputy Barney Fife. 4 How many bullets does Barney carry in his shirt pocket? 5 Aunt Bee is a fine cook, except for her pickles. What do they taste like? 6 She was Opie’s teacher and became Andy’s love interest. 7 He is Mayberry’s absentminded barber. 8 His appearance as a dimwitted gas station attendant led to his own spinoff sitcom about…

OUR FAMILY’S CEDAR chest is majestic in size and emotional weight, but the pendulum of time has swayed and clanged. It’s time to downsize. I comb through the collection: a christening gown, pressed flowers, baby shoes, birthday cards, a wedding dress, an unfinished embroidered doily. Pickup day arrives. I am admittedly vacillating on my decision. I open the lid one last time and discover something in a compartment. I touch my father’s World War II naval uniform. Just then, the pickup truck arrives. On its side is a phrase: We Help Veterans. My decision to donate is suddenly validated. Now everything is where it belongs—the cedar chest on its way to someone who can use it, and my father’s uniform in my arms. Share your stories: REMINISCE.COM/SUBMIT-A-STORY…

Glen’s letter is a stunning example of why we must not rely solely on the internet for research. It is estimated that only about 10% of what we need to research families is online; other vital data is in libraries and archives. Glen found a tremendous amount of history on William Busch, who was a prominent resident. Some of it William himself wrote, which makes it more personal. William left many bread crumbs to follow. He served in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was an attorney and a published author. He went on a lecture tour to Europe. But wait! There’s more to be found about William. It is imperative to seek obituaries and articles that may be found on subscription newspaper sites. Often they can be…

My mother, Wilma—or “Willie,” as her brothers called her—married my father, Art Sprester Jr., in 1941, when she was just 17. The war was raging, so their honeymoon was short-lived. Dad was drafted and was soon deployed to Asia. Willie moved from Coleville to Bradford, Pennsylvania, to be closer to her mother. She found a job with Bradford Motor Works, which had been an oil field supplier but had transitioned to making fuses and adapters for bombs. Mom spent 21/2 years working shifts, sleeping when she could, while also caring for an infant. Mom spent 2½ years at the factory, working rotating shifts, sleeping when she could, while also caring for an infant. She was proud when the company received an award of excellence for outstanding service to the troops.…

ADRIAN GILLEN FARIBAULT, MN THE NINTH OF 10 CHILDREN, I was one of the last at home on the farm at the start of the war. We had chickens, milk cows, hogs, and beehives in the apple orchard. A large garden kept us busy, and the food we grew really made a difference as the war went on. Gas, rubber tires and sugar were rationed, and we either lived without it or substituted something else. Toward the end of the war, my next eldest brother was drafted and I was the last boy on the farm. I was in my first year of high school when my dad, almost 70, said, “I’m not saying school isn’t important, but you know what we have to do to keep the farm going.”…

THE POPULARITY of S&H Green Stamps irked many retailers, prompting them to create their own plans. A Blue Chip stamp pact among Safeway, A&P and others in California was very effective in freezing out Green Stamps. And there were signs as early as 1965 that the multimillion-dollar trading stamp industry was in trouble. Big grocers were cutting out stamps in favor of discount pricing. Chains that had helped to put S&H on top—Colorado’s King Soopers and New Jersey’s Acme—abandoned Green Stamps. The oil embargo of 1973-’74 was the death blow. Gas stations were the largest retail group offering Green Stamps, but oil shortages made incentive programs useless—dealers had no gas to sell. S&H lost up to 25% of its business. It took years for the embargo’s effects to dissipate. By…

7 The number of gallons of pure alcohol, known as ethanol, Americans consumed per capita in 1830. This equates to almost two 750 ml bottles of 80-proof alcohol per person per week, about three times the current U.S. average. Notably, the nation’s first temperance activities began in 1826. 18th The constitutional amendment in 1919 that banned making, shipping and selling liquor. Drinking? That was still legal. $ 11,000,000,000 The total tax revenue that the federal government lost in liquor sales. This was on top of the $300 million it cost to enforce the law. In fact, many of the economic benefits temperance supporters touted never materialized. .05% The legal kick alcohol could have, spelled out in the Volstead Act, the enforcement tool for Prohibition passed nine months after the 18th…

Victor Insulator Co.in Victor, NY, devised thick-walled mugs in the 1940s, when the Navy sought a cup that wouldn’t chip in rough seas. After WWII, the qualities that made the mug a good choice on ships—durable and sturdy—also applied to American diners. Soon, eateries were using Victors—often customized with the diner’s name screen-printed on the side. Over the years, the mugs have been much imitated (such as the one below), but an authentic Victor can sell for $20 today.…

The suit I’m wearing today is crisp and professional. As I dressed this morning, I chose a black-and-white blazer and skirt with complementary heels from the racks in my closet stuffed with clothes. Sitting outside the courtroom, preparing to argue my client’s case, I notice the clothing others are wearing. Some outfits appear to have been rescued from the hamper, sniffed and determined to be good enough for one more go. Others are sharp—tailored dresses and pressed suits and ties. I always watch the fashion parade—floral prints with stripes, ski jackets with miniskirts—and wonder if the ensembles are intentional. I also remember to say a prayer of thanks simply for having the choice of what to wear. Winter came early when I was 11. In our housing project in Pittsburgh,…