The Tin Lizard

Geezinslaws

Do you ever have odd flashes from the past?  I did this morning.  Suddenly, I wondered "whatever happened to the Geezinslaw Brothers?"

They were a country duo.  I recalled them doing a tune back in the 1960s that achieved some play at the national level.  They weren't a big favorite of mine, so I have no idea why they came to mind.  When I thought about them, though, I figured they had probably been one of those one-hit wonders who stopped performing years ago.

Thanks to the miracle of Wikipedia, we can find out about these important historical issues.  It turns out they were kind of a one-hit wonder as far a "national" exposure was concerned, but they continued to perform and even put out an album as recently as 2005.  At some point they made a major name change, from "Geezinslaw Brothers" to "Geezinslaws."  

I'm guessing one of their early LPs would probably be worth a little something today to fans and collectors, but I'm not regretful, since I never owned one of their records. 

Now, my collection of the first Mad magazines, from issue number 1 through about 30, that's a different story.  Growing up as a military kid, I had to toss those magazines as "excess baggage" prior to one of our many moves from place to place.  A quick check online tells me that Issue #1 isn't currently on sale at any price; but issue # 13 could sell for over $1,000 in "near-mint" condition.  That's regretful! 

Rhee-ly Ancient

Last week I picked up the newspaper and saw a headline saying something about a new documentary film on "Rhee's record."

Why, I wondered, would anybody do a documentary on former Korean President Syngman Rhee, and who would care to watch it?  In Korea maybe, but here?   

I remembered Rhee from my childhood.  I would have been only three when he became President in 1948, but he stayed in office through the Korean War and up until 1960.  No doubt  he must have been often in the front pages of U.S. newspapers,  maybe TV newscasts (though we didn't have TV until well after the Korean War had ended) or even (dare I say it?) news Rheels.

It turned out however that the headline reference was to a different Rhee -- former District of Columbia Superintendent of Schools Michelle Rhee (no relation, I guess).  She left office only a year ago, so she was far more proximate to me in time and distance.  Yet it was Syngman who was the fresher, more immediate Rhee in my mind.  A sign of age, I suppose.

Now, speaking of vivid images of forgotten foreign politicians ...

I can also remember being fascinated by front-page photos of former Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes dangling from the gallows, having been hanged for various crimes against the Constitution by a Turkish military court after a military coup.   I had to check, though, to see what year that was: 1961.   It was many years later when I worked in Turkey that I learned more about him, and that he was by no means forgotten.  Izmir's airport today is named after him.

 

Will The Real Holiday Please Stand Up?

Which statement is correct?

Last Sunday was Veterans Day in the U.S. 
Last Monday was Veterans Day in the U.S.

They both are.  When Washington calendar-manglers decided, in the early seventies, that nearly all our national holiday observations should always take place on a Monday, Veterans Day was included in that sweeping proclamation, to occur on the fourth Monday of October.

But it wasn't long before veterans' groups pushed to retain the original date, November 11, because of its historic significance as the date of the armistice that ended WW I).  That move was duly approved, and Veterans Day was officially restored to November 11.

Or not.  This year, we have the confusing situation of two Veterans Days, for no better reason than that November 11 fell on Sunday, so nobody got the day off.  Call me old school, but it seems sensible to me that a holiday with a specific date should be observed on that date.  If it happens to fall on a Saturday or Sunday, that's too bad.  Particularly since veterans specifically requested it be observed always on November 11. 

Moreover, in the case of Veterans Day, the things we normally do to observe the day can be accomplished perfectly well on a Sunday (maybe better):  parades, observances, and the like.  And even moremoreover, we already have another day honoring veterans -- Memorial Day, in May. 

The push for all these Monday holidays is/was commercially driven.  For retailers, any day off is a day that people should devote to shopping.  In all cases, it cheapens the meaning of the holiday by turning it into a fire sale.  Let's restore integrity to Veterans Day, and productivity to our economy.   

Memorably Mundane

My wife noticed a Macy's ad in the local paper a couple of days ago, offering a simple rolled carbon-steel Chinese wok at $14.99, and it was exactly the same as one we both recalled buying shortly after we were married 37 years ago.   In fact - ever the food lovers - we remember deciding we could use it, and ordering it from an American Airlines inflight catalog en route to our honeymoon destination.  So we had a nice little trip down memory lane.

Surprisingly the price is the same today as then (for some reason I recall it costing us $14 or so).  That would be a good deal - though I wouldn't be surprised if the contemporary version uses a higher-gauge (thinner) steel - but we still have, and use, the old one so we don't need a replacement.  The low-tech stuff lasts and lasts.

In the same category is a plain nylon Dopp kit I bought in a PX in Saigon the day I arrived in Vietnam.  I can't remember what I was using before then for shaving equipment and toiletries.  But I do remember the item cost $1.10, because even then it seemed cheap, and it was a strange amount - why not .99, or 1.00 even?  Here again, a trip down memory lane, wandering around the limited attractions of Tan Son Nhut while waiting for an onward flight to my duty assignment farther north in MR2. 

I still have that item too - simple and basically indestructible.  True, it's a little ragged now.  If I were traveling more often these days, I might get a new one, but where would I find such a thing?  Maybe The Dollar Store. 

I bought a camera that day too, my first SLR, I still have it and I'm pretty sure it still works but I confess I haven't used it in years. I've probably owned a half-dozen cameras since then, and these days rely more on my cell phone for photos.  Unlike the Dopp kit or the wok, the high tech stuff has a very limited life.

The Great Heinz Pickle Mystery

As a kid of about four, I recall, I used to enjoy snacking on a whole dill pickle, applying cream cheese to it with a knife.  I would guess those dill pickles were probably Heinz, because in those days (late 40s) Heinz WAS pickles, and if there were other brands, nobody paid them much attention.  I also recollect that my mother for years used to invoke the Heinz name to indicate large quantity, as in "why, they've got more dresses in that store than Heinz has pickles!"

Things have changed, though.  The Heinz brand of pickles has disappeared from store shelves in my part of the country.  A decade ago, I could still find them in local drugstores (only the "spears" though); now, I am told in some parts of the country (California?) you can find them in Target and Wal-Mart grocery departments (but not in those stores in my area).   You can find a certain type of Heinz pickles being sold online, always in multipacks of huge jars.

Other interesting facts:  Heinz has abandoned the pickle as the theme logo for its "Heinz 57" products, in favor of the tomato.  If you search the Heinz website for "pickles" you won't find a trace of pickles among the product listings there (just a reference to the change of logo above).   If you ask Heinz's public relations department, as I did, whatever happened to their pickle business, you won't get an answer.  The website of Pickle Packers International, a trade organization, lists Heinz as a brand but offers scant info on where they exist.  Finally, a recent Consumer Reports review of pickles covered a number of brands, but failed to give Heinz even a mention, indicating that CR doesn't consider Heinz a player in pickles any longer. 

Well, there are indeed a lot of other kinds of pickles now available, from brands that didn't exist 50 years ago, to locally produced deli brands, so fortunately we aren't lacking for pickles.  Personally, I like the brand purveyed by my local supermarket chain under its own name.  If Mom were still alive, she'd have to adopt a new phrase, but I'm not actively hunting for Heinz pickles except as a matter of curiosity. 

Still, the apparent disappearance of Heinz makes an interesting product life-cycle story.  It seems from all indicators that Heinz has deemphasized pickles in its product line, and may have stopped producing them at all, or could be producing them to be sold under other brand names. If so, those still available, whether on California store shelves or in odd packaging online, may soon be a new category of "collectible."

 

 

Britannica, Another Death By Print

Have we all heard the news that the venerable old Encyclopaedia Britannica, after more than two centuries, will no longer publish its print edition?   This comes on the heels of other disappearances that I've lamented (the Schwann Catalog, for example). 

As I've also said before, the demise of printed encyclopedias per se is not necessarily bad.  They were expensive, bulky, and most important, out of date almost as soon as they were published, rapidly becoming as unused and unwanted as printed telephone books.  EB has undoubtedly made a good - and necessary - business decision.

Britannica has said it will continue publishing its online product, but this may be an uphill struggle for survival.   Wikipedia is free (but now requests donations from users), Britannica online will run you $70 a year.  How many users will find an EB subscription worth the cost?  I may - I'm thinking about it. 

Britannica can be considered authoritative and unbiased; Wikipedia will likely be more up-to-date, and could be authoritative depending on who has wikied it recently; but on many topics, it's informational quicksand, a constantly shifting amalgam of fact, objectivity, myth, and bias.  Again, as I noted just yesterday relative to a slightly different subject matter, the trend leads us toward slanted information.    

A Christmas Story

Years ago, my wife and I happened to see "A Christmas Story" in a movie theater.  That must have been back in the '80s, when it was a first run flick.  And it must have been accidental, as it's not the kind of thing we usually would go to see.  Yet we found it one of the most enjoyable movies we had ever seen.  Before long, we made it a seasonal tradition to watch it every year.  Yesterday we fulfilled that tradition for 2011.  What occurs to me as most surprising is that even after so many viewings (it must be at least 20, maybe more, at this point) it can still make us laugh.

If you haven't watched it, you're missing a wonderful comedy, a great nostalgia trip back to 1940s middle America, and a great sociology lesson about how certain problems were dealt with more simply back then - admittedly in perhaps simpler times.  You don't have to believe in Christmas or Santa Claus to enjoy it.  It's an unadulterated hoot.  And I'm told it runs continuously on TBS all day today.

Incidentally, this year I wondered about the actor Peter Billingsley, who at 12 played this film's central character, "Ralphie."  According to that invaluable resource Wikipedia, he remains an actor, though he's still best known for his role in A Christmas Story. 

 

 

Halloween And Daylight Time

Blessed relief is in sight!  Next weekend, we begin our annual brief respite from "Daylight Saving Time," and along with it, we'll get our morning daylight back - belated and foreshortened.

Earlier today, I mused about the apparent decline in the practice of trick-or-treating.  There are lots of reasons for this, but I will just point out that Daylight Time may have something to do with it.   One of the reasons we endure DST this late in the year, according to the politicians and others who impose it, is so that the kids can go trick-or-treating. 

WRONG!  In two ways.  First, being out in the dark at Halloween is the whole excitement of the experience; go when it's still light, and you're missing it.  Parents and kids alike seem to recognize this intuitively, because the trick-or-treaters never, ever appear until it gets dark!  They don't take advantage of DST to collect their sweets before the sun goes down; who ever heard of such a thing?

Second, for kids, doesn't it make sense to get out earlier, and get home earlier, since most will be going to school the next day?  DST just makes everything an hour later.  To what purpose?  None.  Daylight Time has contributed to the demise of an American tradition.

Let's face reality (i.e., DST doesn't contribute squat to energy conservation) and stop making up false excuses (e.g., Halloween) to extend it even longer.  If we don't reverse this trend now, we'll soon end up keeping Daylight Time through Christmas so Santa can make his rounds.  Let DST, if we must have it, be "summer time," and let it run from Memorial Day to Labor Day.    

Signals Of The Times

This morning on my daily walk I happened to think about the old hand signals for turns.  In driver training we were all taught these:  left arm straight out the window, left turn; arm cocked at a 90-degree angle, right turn; arm downward, slowing down.  Now, it occurs to me to wonder if anyone under about 50 would even recognize these signals today.

What? You say we don't need them because turn signals are electric?  Twenty years ago I might have agreed with that, but in my observation nowadays, we're seeing a trend away from using our electric turn signals.  Judging from how many folks I see NOT using them at all, it seems there are a lot of people who are worried it will run down their batteries, or cost them too much in replacement bulbs.  So maybe we should revive the old hand signals?  Pie in the sky, of course.   People who can't take the trouble to signal a turn with a simple flip of the wrist from inside their air-conditioned, roofed cabin certainly aren't going to take the trouble to get a window down and stick their arm out of it, taking a chance on it getting wet or hot.  I guess it's more likely that manufacturers will just stop putting turn signals on vehicles (which may occur about the same time they stop putting hand brakes in them).

I'll miss them, if only for the little turn-signal memories they evoke:   

A foreign visitor once quipped to me that it seemed turn signals were optional equipment on cars in the U.S.

Ah, but that visitor was from northern Europe (U.K. or Germany as I recall).  In Rome, and in many crowded cities around the world, turn signals aren't generally used at all, and progress in driving depends on taking advantage of every little opening to edge forward, while never, never looking behind you.

Turkey was somewhat like that too, but one difference we observed was that Turks often seemed to clock about as many miles in reverse as they did in forward gears.  By that time (late 1980s) cars of course had backup lights, but as often as not, these seemed to have burned out (maybe from overuse?) or maybe had just been disconnected on the theory they gave an unfair advantage to the following driver.  

In Liberia in the mid-1970s there were only hand signals, and there was only one:  An arm out the window, hand flapping idly, meant: (a) I'm turning right; (b) I'm turning left; (c) I'm doing a U-turn; (d) I'm slowing down; (e) watch out, police ahead; (f) the bridge ahead is washed out; (g) I'm thinking about doing something, but haven't decided yet; (h) I spilled my drink on my hand; or (i) nearly anything else.  But the system seemed to work.

In Paris in the late 1940s I remember the old Citroëns with the turn signals that were mounted on an arm that folded flush into the car body, but would snap out from the space in between the front and rear doors when you activated them. 

A recent weird variant of turn-signal placement has popped up on the market just within recent months:  At least one maker is mounting turn signals and brake lights very low on the rear corners of the vehicle; they may even be embedded in the bumper.  Although I don't have the details of make and model, two things are clear to me: These signals are too low to be readily visible, and because of their placement, they are going to need to be replaced after the least minor fender-bender.  A bad idea, I think. 

White Sidewall Tires

Today when I finally had to face the fact I needed new tires for the car, I jokingly said to my wife, "hey, let's get some white sidewalls!"  

Of course I knew I hadn't owned, or even seen, those very proper tires with the clean white strips around the outer wall, for years or even decades.  But we all remember them (don't we?).  Those of us over about 50 probably do.   We may have had them on our early cars, but our parents definitely had them.   My father wouldn't have bought a car without white sidewalls, and scrubbing them free of scuffs and back to a brilliant white was a necessary part of every car wash.  He scoffed when I bought my own first new car, a 1971 Audi with plain old black tires -- they just didn't look "right" to him.

By the way, why were white sidewalls white?  Here's something I didn't even know until today.  Originally, tires were made of natural rubber which (slightly bleached from its natural cream tone) was white; but carbon black eventually was added to the tire tread to make the tires tougher, leaving the sides white.  (Read more in the linked article).

It turns out they DO still make whitewalls, though not for most current model cars (the Lincoln Town Car, reportedly, is the only exception).  They're produced by specialty companies for antique car buffs and restorationists.  In part for that reason, I suppose, nowadays just to utter the term "white sidewalls" conjures up images of white bucks, white sport coats, and pink carnations; or of bonking along the highway on one of those concrete roads laid in sections so your tires went bonk - bonk - bonk as you zipped along at 50 mph.  A part of a bygone era. 

In the late 1970s, just as white was being phased out on car tires, military men I knew seemed to be making an effort to preserve the look by transferring it to their personal wardrobes, sporting white shoes and white belts as accessories to their civvies.  Later, they transferred it to their heads as "sidewall" haircuts become popular.

Given the time that has passed, you have to wonder if white sidewall tires might be about to make a fashion comeback.  But that seems unlikely.  They were always hard to keep clean, and car manufacturers have given us more than adequate substitutes:  wheel caps with intricate designs that are even harder to keep clean.