My stepmom has some cool old things at her house

We went to my dad's house tonight for our annual holiday party. We always celebrate on the Saturday after Thanksgiving since it is usually the easiest day to get everybody together. Of course, this year I almost had to miss it due to work, but that is another story all together. (If you are repeating that line right now like in "Airplane," Good job!)

We had a good time, even if we are all exhausted. I'm staying up with the dogs right now since they've been home alone for a while. Hopefully this means they won't wake us up at 6:30 in the morning. I'm sure they will anyway.

Anyway, the whole reason I started this post was to show you a couple of picture of things from my step mom's collection o' stuff. She has a lot of cool old things, not all antiques in the sense that they've been restored, but a lot of old cool knick knacks that have been around for a long time. For some reason I've taken a liking to this kind of thing. I don't know why, but when I find something old and worn I want to take a picture of it. If I wanted to, I could probably spend a week photographing all the cool things that my step mom has collected.

Take a look at this matchbox. First, ignore the blurriness, it wasn't very well lit in the basement.

This doesn't have a date on it, but look at that phone number. It's only five digits. I like how it says to check bleeding of small cuts and scratches. I wonder if the matches will work, or explode in my hand.

Next are some funky hangers.

Cool designs, don't you think? I think the text on the top one is in German, but I'm not positive. Using my awesome researching skills, I see that the Hotel St. Moritz was built in 1930. I'm not saying the hanger is from that same year, I'm just pointing that out. I bet I wouldn't get those stupid shoulder nipples on my clothes if I used these hangers.

There is a ton of other stuff at the house. I'm going to try to get a picture of something every time I go. I saw at least three old cameras. I don't know what kind they are since I'm not up on camera history, but they looked neat.

SIMMH: #3

I've decided to drop the word shit from the title. You know, for the kids. (Actually, I'm too lazy to keep typing it out.

Today we move into the bathroom of my mom's house. Remember Plax? The pre-brushing rinse? I want to say it came out in the 80's, but I can't be sure. Here is a commercial from 1990 to jar your memory.

So, maybe it came out in 1990? Tough to say. But, you see that bottle? Yep, that is the same one in my mom's linen closet. Take a look.

One thing that you won't notice in the commercial is the extra stuff floating in this bottle. What is it? Spores of some kind? Dead Cavity Creeps? Here's a close-up of them.

It's nice to know if you keep this stuff for 20+ years in closet something will grow in the bottle. It's like a science experiment for your linen closet. Anyone work in a lab who wants a sample of this stuff? Anyone want to drink it? I'll give you a dollar.

Shit in my mom's house #1

My mom is one of those people who never throws anything away. It's not like she needs to be on Hoarders, it's mostly stuff in cabinets and closets that have lost their usefulness long ago. I'm not saying I'm good at letting stuff go, actually I'm far from it. You should see the garage. But my stuff isn't really old, therefore it is not very funny or interesting. Take this for instance:

Imitation butter flavored salt. The name pretty much describes exactly what it is. How can you tell this is super old. Well, the name gives it away. It's like some scientist is describing it to me. No flair at all. If this was on the shelves currently it would have a name like Wonder Salt for Popcorn. Or, something like that. I'm not a marketing guy or anything.

So, how old do you think this is? Any guesses? Come on, I'll wait....

Can you read that date? Yep, it says November 17, 1979. This bottle was in my mom's cabinet before we found out that Darth Vader was Luke's dad! Hell, we probably smuggled this bottle into the theater to put on our popcorn.

There is much more stuff like this in my mom's house. I won't post them all in a row or anything. But there are some doozies.

Weekend Assignment #335: History

Wow! I actually have something ready on time for the weekend assignment and it even includes pictures. This week the topic from Karen is local history.

We don't all live near the site of a battlefield or other world-famous event, but any place has its own history: political, cultural, even natural history. How aware are you of the past of the town, city or state where you live now? Share with us a story of local history.

This worked out pretty well for me. I've been meaning to get pictures of this old windmill that I had found out about. So I made plans to go out there last week and I figured I'd tie it in with this week's assignment.

First a quick photo of the windmill:

It's called the Fayban Windmill now since it was once owned by a General Fayban who had it moved out to his land back in 1915 after it fell into a state of disrepair in it's original location.

According to what I can find out here, this is an actual working Dutch windmill that was assembled in 1875 in what is now Lombard, Illinois for two farmers. It was Dutch-built prefabricated kit that was shipped out there to be put together. I guess houses aren't the only things that you can buy prefabricated.

It's was bought in 1915 by General Fayban and moved in 1917 to it's current location. Again, it was disassembled and re-assembled. Not unlike a big Erector set. It stood, and was used, in the current location until 1937 when the counter acquired it after the general passed away. Then it just sat there and was a tourist attraction, and still is today.

Back in 1997 the county hired a third-generation Dutch millwright, Lucas Verbij, who declared it to be a great specimen that should be restored. This was completed in 2004. It is open on weekend for tours, which I didn't get to do, but I'd like to now, and they still mill grain on occasion for tours.

I really want to go inside this now. Who's with me?

Weekend Assignment #321: Ancient Technology

Karen has the topic this week, and while I can't say I've heard the saying, "X has gone the way of the buggy whip," I certainly have some things that fit the expression.

We sometimes hear the expression, "XXX has gone the way of the buggy whip." In other words, technology and society have moved on, and something that was once commonplace barely exists anymore because it's no longer needed. Do you still have something in your home that has become essentially useless? If so, why do you still have it? If not, when did you get rid of it?

I have two things that fit with the topic this week. First, is my cassette deck. Jenn hates that it is sitting with our audio equipment since it doesn't work well and just takes up space, but I'm having trouble giving it up. I can't remember the last time I played a cassette in there, but I know I dragged it out of the garage a couple of years ago when I found a box of cassettes that I hadn't heard in a long time. See, many of them are not in CD form, or are hard to find.

This particular cassette deck I got back when I was in high school, so it's not exactly new, though it was slightly advance for it's time. I loved making tapes on it, usually by hooking my brother's boombox up to it, and I liked the cool blue light it used for it's display. I thought I was pretty cool with this thing. Now it sits and collects dust in the family room. Such a sad way to go.

The other piece I wanted to mention was my Laserdisc player. I did move that out of the entertainment center, mostly because I didn't have a cord long enough to reach the back of the TV, but at least it's out. This is a little newer than the cassette deck. We bought this just before we got married as I was leaving my job at Circuit City. Still, that was at least 15 years ago. DVDs weren't around at the time, and from what I remember, it seemed there was a format war going on, so I thought it was going to be a long way off. I don't believe it turned out that way. Oh, well.

I still have some cool stuff on Laserdisc. I have The Abyss: The Director's Cut, Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Criterion Edition, Star Trek:First Contact, a RUSH concert video, and best of all, Star Wars: The Definitive Edition. The last is the complete trilogy in original form (no added CGI) in CAV format that came as a box set with a book on George Lucas. Jenn bought that for me a long time ago. I should sell it on eBay.

Anyway, yes, I have some old stuff that is out of date and should be out of this house.

Extra Credit: Have you ever worked in an industry that has gone the way of the buggy whip, or is in danger of doing so?

As I said, I worked at Circuit City. Does that count since they went belly up?

Go back to the main Weekend Assignment site to see the other responses.

Remember when your TV was a piece of furniture?

Do you remember when your TV was a piece of furniture and the size of a freezer chest?

Behold!

Please note the paneling, the little bit of the orange shag carpet you can see by the fireplace and the fact that the TV had two tuning knobs. See, back in the day kids, we got two different kids of channels; VHF and UHF. Those were exciting times, I tell you. Of course, we only got a few channels on each, but that's all we needed.

Also, notice me sitting and full six inches away from the TV. Hey, I couldn't sit closer, I didn't want to ruin my eyes. Oh, maybe this is why I have worn glasses since 5th grade. My parents were right. Damn it!

I wish I could tell what I was watching. It seems the guys are all wearing tuxedoes on whatever show it is. Was it an awards show? A talk show? A Dean Martin Celebrity Roast? I want to

know.

I remember this TV very well. The Ca-Chunk as you turned the knob to switch through the channels, waiting for ten minutes for the picture to come on after turning it on, and trying to see how fast I could go from channel 32 to channel 44. Channel 44 had Speed Racer, I had to switch quickly to that, it was my favorite show.

I wonder if I could have hooked up a TiVo to that thing? Imagine how big that would have been!

What era do you think this kitchen is from?

It shouldn't take you long, but check out these photos. I'll give you some time.

The awesome green should give you an idea. I swear, back in the late 60s and early 70s this must have been the color of everything. Why is that? Was there some kind of surplus of green in the pigmentation industry (I just made up that term, but it could be a cool band name).

I thought those bricks on the wall were super cool when I was little. The big problem was they were like 100 grit sandpaper when you rubbed up against them. Me, being a total klutz, did that a lot. Luckily, when we changed over the kitchen to white, the bricks were painted which filled in the pores making them much smoother. You really had to try hard to crape a shoulder on them. Believe me, I tried.

You know what was neat? The little toaster nook between the oven and refrigerator. You could leave the toaster out and nobody would notice. Now my mom has to store it in a drawer so it's not an eye sore.

See that microwave? It wasn't one of the first ever, but it was close. That thing is almost the size of one of the ovens, and it almost cook as quickly. Yes, it was slow. It took me more time to warm up a piece of lasagna in the microwave than it did to cook the whole pan in the oven. Hardly convenient. Also, this was before the era of the rotating base built into the microwave. We actually had a thing called the Micro-go-round that you'd wind up and put it in the microwave so the food could turn, thus cooking the food evenly. Can you image the infomercial in this time for something like that? You have some old lady punching the "open" button on the microwave to turn the food and she'd rip a nail then drop the food on the floor. All while the announcer says you don't have to be such a loser. Just buy this spinning plate.

Holy cow, they still sell these things! I didn't know you can still buy a microwave that doesn't have the turn table in it, except for the commercial microwaves.

Did anyone else have an intercom system in there house. That's the big thing on the wall. We used to mess around on that thing a lot. You could set it up so you could spy on your older sister or brother. Not that I ever did anything like that. Also, it was great for your mom to call you upstairs so you could change the channel on the TV. Unfortunately, it no longer works at my mom's house. And since that was the best way to hear the doorbell ring through the house, she essentially has no doorbell. It's not that the house was so big, it's just the way the thing was wired.

Anyway, I found these pictures at my mom's house and I thought I'd share. I found a bunch there of various rooms before they were fixed up. I think they took 'before' pictures, but I haven't found the 'after' pictures yet. I did find one of me sitting six inches away from our giant console TV though. Hey, it was only 27 inches! It's not like I could sit too far away.

Mr. Goodwrench was kind of a dweeb back in the day

Back to the 1976 newspaper clippings:

Here I found an ad from a Chevy dealer that is still in existence. Check out Mr. Goodwrench. He looks a little dweeby to be working on cars, doesn't he?

Don't we all expect some burly guy to come out from the back of the shop, wiping his greasy hands while explaining to you why you really need to have your transmission replaced. I used to work in a repair shop a while back, nobody there looked this wussy. Not even the female mechanic.

But, as Wikipedia explains, this was all in an effort to show they were helpful and could fix whatever was wrong with your Chevy. And, if you were as unlucky as my sister who had one of the lovely Vega you see pictured here, you really needed somebody like Mr. Goodwrench Actually, what you really needed was somebody like the Rusty Jones character who would ride on the top of the car as you drove around so he could fix your piece of junk at every stop light. By the way, was Rusty Jones a national rustproofing chain? Does anyone know the commercials I'm talking about?

Take a look at the Mr. Goodwrench site today. These are the kind of people you want working on your car, right? They look like they have the know-how to fix your newfangled, computerized car.

Like I said before, this dealer is still around, so I just want to say I'm making fun of this tag line from over 30 years ago, okay IF i remember correctly we bought a few cars from them over several years and we were happy with them. Well, except for the Vega, but that was GM's fault for building a miserable car. Anyway, who thought this made sense:

Come in and see why our friends say -- When other dealers can't Hos'kins

I understand why they are putting there name in it, and what they are trying to do I guess, but...what? Even if it did make sense, it doesn't really roll off the tongue. You know?

That's all for today. Coming soon, gauchos and a former president!

Weekend Assignment #292:The Oldest thing

This week Karen wants to know what kind of old stuff we have in our houses. It's kind of like that show where you find old stuff in your house and hope it's going to make you a millionaire. That's not going to happen here.

Weekend Assignment: #292: What is the oldest thing in your house or apartment?

By far the oldest thing in our house is one of my coins. I'm not a big collector, but I have a few things I've picked up since I was a kid. A few I got through the mail, but most of what I have I got through the regular money circulation channels. I used to wait tables, that is the best way to get a lot of change. Especially when you work in a restaurant that caters to old people. It was not unusual to get a tip of 78 cents. At least this was the before people had easy access to tip calculators, I probably would have been given pennies cut in half if that were the case.

Anyway, my oldest coin is a 1895 Indian Head Penny. As you can see, it has seen better days; about 41,600, or so. Exciting isn't it? Imagine, this coin has gained about 5000 percent in value since it was made. Of course, since the value started at 1 cent it's not that big of a deal. I wish I had a ten dollar bill laying around that had gained the same value.

As I was looking through the coins I have, I found some I had forgotten about. Don't worry, I won't bore you with the all of them. I found a few from other countries that I forgot I had. I have some from Israel, Mexico, Sweden, Italy, and the tiniest coin from the Netherlands. Look how small this is compared to our old giant silver dollars.

Isn't it cute? It's like a tiny baby coin. Can you imagine carrying around those tiny things and trying to find it in your pocket to buy a Coke?

Extra Credit: Is there anything from your childhood that you've managed to hang on to all these years?

I have a lot of things from my childhood at my mom's house. The kids have brought a few of them over here. My son had brought my old Star Bird spaceship toy home a long time ago. I loved that thing as a kid.