The Home – Page 4 – I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

Staying Cool Before Air Conditioning

Air conditioning has become a ubiquitous part of our lives. We work in it, drive in it, and live in it in our homes. Even the cheapest built tract homes have central heat and air installed. And most older homes have had air conditioning added, whether central or with multiple window units.

But go back to our childhoods, and odds are there were a lot of windows open and fans running in the summertime.

We thought nothing of speeding down the highway with all four windows down in July. Sure, mom’s hair would get messed up. But she would much rather deal with that than burn up in the heat.

And school in September! There we were, miserable after that much-too-short summer vacation, and to top off the agony of being back in class, it was at least 90 degrees in the room!

Evaporative “swamp” cooler, another heat buster

Most tract homes built before the mid 1960’s simply didn’t include the expensive option of air conditioning. Our home, built in the late 40’s, had a floor furnace for heat. That was it. Summers involved having every window in the house open, and fans running everywhere. At night, a fan would be placed in a window to draw the cooler night air in.

And you know what? We didn’t sit around complaining about how hot we were. We got used to it! It was life.

In 1967, dad sprung for an evaporative cooler like the one pictured. The concept is simple: water runs down big panels on each side of the unit. A large fan inside draws air through the water, evaporating it and getting cooled in the process. The cooler air is circulated through the house. You opened a window at the other end of the house to let the air escape.

They work very well in dry air, not so well where it’s humid. Northeast Oklahoma is a humid place, but the swamp cooler did cool the air down enough that it was a good buy when air conditioning was still prohibitively expensive.

Movie matinees were another welcome summertime diversion. The tickets were discounted, and you got to sit in cool heaven while the movie played. Of course, that made the heat at home seem temporarily unbearable. But, you soon got used to it again.

I get a kick out of folks with narrow ranges of comfort. Every office has them: freezing at 70 degrees, burning up at 73. Ironically, many of these permanently dissatisfied individuals did just fine as kids when the living room temperature was in the upper 80’s.

Slinking Panther Lamps on the TV

Perhaps the single biggest change in the lives of Boomers and their parents was the widespread introduction of the one-eyed monster, and its subsequent presence in the majority of homes in the US.

Along with the television came the necessary accompaniments to the electronic device itself. For instance, many a 50’s or 60’s home had a lamp perched on top of the idiot box designed to provide a pleasant ambient light to accompany one’s viewing.

And in a large number of cases, the lamp took the form of a slinking cat.

Sometimes, the cat would simply be an ornament, with no capability of providing illumination.

But that doesn’t change the fact that, for many Boomer kids, viewing the television included occasionally acknowledging the presence on top of the set of a feline protector of the dear investment that dad had made.

The cats frequently took the form of the depicted image. This particular one had a cavity on its back side that would hold a night light bulb. When switched on, it would provide a nice indirect illumination bouncing off of the living room wall, perfect for cutting down on the unpleasant glare that the set would create in a totally dark room.

Of course, that’s not to say that EVERY TV lamp was shaped like a panther. But when one looks back, it seems like a majority took that form. The panther was popular with everyone, from grandma to Aunt Sophie to dear old mom.

I recall seeing a TV lamp or two from my childhood that took the form of a covered wagon, its canvas providing a perfect shade to soften the night light bulb’s brightness.

Some would take exception as to what constitutes a TV lamp. This particular blogger states that a TV lamp must provide back lighting in order to qualify. In other words, if a shade is required, than the lamp is not truly a TV lamp.

I must respectfully disagree. If it sat on top of a TV and provided subtle light during the Jet Age or the Space Age, it’s a TV lamp.

Interestingly, although my own childhood home was classical 60’s atmosphere, we never had a TV lamp. But I saw them at friends’ houses, along with various figurines that would perch upon the wooden cabinet that housed the electronic works.

And yes, many a figurine was a slinking panther.

The panther pictured at the beginning of this article was a gift from my daughter. It’s hand-carved onyx from Mexico. However, many of the intimidating predators were either made of cast glass or painted ceramic.

Like so many of the common household objects we grew up with, vintage TV lamps are hot collectibles. At presstime, I spotted a black panther indirect lamp from the 50’s on eBay with a buy-it-now price of $39.99. That particular lamp probably cost less than five bucks new, forty bucks is certainly a reasonable price for such a piece of history.

The problem is that many of us have sprung for thin-paneled high-def TV’s, which have finally become affordable enough to supplant the bulky tubed models that we have had from time immemorial.

As nimble as panthers are, it’s nigh impossible for one to sit on top of a 48″ LCD screen.

Thanks to TVLamps.net for help in researching this piece!

Plastic Pink Flamingos

Sometimes, our childhood Boomer memories are of things that never went out of style, that continue to exist in an unchanged state today.

That is the fortunate case with plastic pink flamingos that our mothers would plant around the big concrete birdbaths in the back yards that we had. Odds are that you, or your kids, have a set of them that are pretty much identical to their 1950’s ancestors.

That’s because pink plastic flamingos have a staying power that transcends faddishness. Over their lifetimes, they have been gone from status symbols to tasteless icons of White Trash, and everywhere in between. But despite whatever social status they may have presented, they have always stubbornly existed in large numbers.

It all began with the building boom that existed with the pre-Depression economy of the 1920’s. Tens of thousands of real estate speculators and tourists headed to our “tropical” state: Florida. They spent their money on lots and beachfront property. Many brought home souvenirs bearing pictures of a bizarre pink bird that lived there – the flamingo.

Displaying flamingos implied that you, too, were a Florida investor. Everyone wanted flamingo decorations, and the American business machine was more than happy to provide them.

Wallpaper, gift wrapping paper, fabrics, product packaging, and much more began being decorated with images of pink flamingos.

But it wasn’t until 1952 that pink flamingos first ventured out into midwestern lawns. The Union Plastics Company of Massachusetts introduced a pink flamingo lawn ornament. The first ones were simply flat representations on a stick leg. Nothing too intriguing about that. They tried making three-dimensional styrofoam models the next year that sold better. However, if the yard in which they resided contained a dog or two, many of them were quickly shredded to bits by the playful canines.

Like the helpful uncle in The Graduate, a magic word popped up in Product Development: plastics.

The first atomic-pink molded plastic lawn flamingo went on sale in 1957. The brightly-colored durable birds were a smash hit, and millions of American housewives, including my own dear mother, went out and bought them. Many a 1960’s era photo of the back yard included the ubiquitous flamingos dutifully standing tall in the grass.

But as we drew into the 1970’s, the pink plastic flamingo began to take on an air of disgrace, not unlike the stereotypical black jockey ornaments also seen across white America. Indeed, pink flamingos were as White Trash as abandoned cars in the side yard.

That tone was picked up on by people who like to do what I do: stir the pot. If snooty neighbors looked down on pink plastic flamingos, there was only one thing to do: Go buy some!

Flamingos were back on the must-have list by the mid 80’s (with lots of help from the mega-popular Miami Vice), and have pretty much stayed there. Indeed, their trashy reputation they gained in the 70’s makes them more appealing than ever now. In fact, one of urban America’s most loved practical jokes is to “flock” your neighbor, i.e. put dozens of plastic pink flamingos in their front yard during the night. It’s a good-natured shock to their system when they step out in a bathrobe to get the morning paper and are confronted with a sea of pink birds.

Many towns have a business or two that specializes in the undercover planting of flocks of flamingos.

So here’s to a bit of Americana that has survived trendiness, the judgments of the self-righteous, and the test of time.

Keeping the Grass Mowed

One of the things I remember about Leave It to Beaver was the fact that Wally (and later, the Beav) had to push one of those rotary mowers like the one to the left. That was a relic that I don’t remember, myself. My older brothers no doubt had to drive the gear-driven workout machine through our grass, but later faced a different challenge: trying to get a beat-up old machine to start.

I remember that every mower we had throughout the 60’s was old, and tough to get going. While I didn’t start mowing the lawn until I was about eleven (the summer of 1971 was my first one to do the weekly chore), I remember my brother Bill struggling to get our mower running. It had a Briggs and Stratton motor with what the manufacturer called a coffee grinder starter.

What you did was lift the handle on the top up and lay it open 180 degrees. This produced a crank which you turned like a coffee grinder, tightening a spring. When the spring was sufficiently compressed (i.e. when it got hard to crank the handle), you folded it back down and turned a cylinder-shaped release on the side of the mower. The spring would release, turning the engine a few revolutions and, in theory, starting it.

In fact, though, that mower, five or more years old, would NEVER start with the first crank. It usually required at least ten tries, with the air being filled with salty language in between each cranking session.

That mower was so unreliable that I could have fun endlessly cranking and releasing the starter spring with absolutely no danger of the mower actually coming to life. I have fond memories of that coffee grinder starter, although I’m sure my older brother doesn’t.

Fortunately, dad tired of mowers that wouldn’t start by the time I started mowing. We got mowers at estate auctions and from the want ads every time the current one would start acting up. Once, dad found a behemoth of a Yazoo high-wheel push mower. It must have weighed 150 lbs. It was ten years old, but Yazoos were built out of heavy duty materials ands would run a long time. The Aussies have a mower down under called the Victa that shares the same tough reputation. It was rough pushing that monster up our hilly yard’s slopes, though.

Dad never bought a new mower, to my knowledge. He got his first new one when the three of his sons went together and got him a nice Snapper in his golden years.

Of course, mowing wasn’t all there was to an immaculate lawn, circa 1967. There was also grass to trim around trees, bird baths, and such. If you were lucky, you had a little electric hand-held trimmer with oscillating blades. If not, you had a hand-powered clipper. Either way, you were down on your knees sweating profusely.

The first string trimmer was invented in 1971. It was electrical, which required a long extension cord. By the next year, both trimmers and extension cords sold briskly as we said goodbye forever to hand trimmers.

Nowadays, many of us Boomers take advantage of the plethora of lawn maintenance businesses with nicely competitive rates to let someone else do the work. Many of us have also reverted back to quiet rotary mowers, for our health’s sake and to keep the neighborhood tranquil. But most of us still fire up the power mower and do it ourselves. Me, I have a nineteen-year-old still in the nest who will do the job if I remind him regularly.

Hey, he’s lucky, too. His mower starts with the first pull.

Making Ice in Metal Trays

What would a hot summer day be without a tall glass of iced tea? Or what would a bourbon on the rocks be without the rocks?

In the scheme of things that are essential to life, ice cubes probably rate quite a ways down the list. But as far as the enjoyment of life is concerned, ice cubes are as essential as fuzzy slippers, the love of the right person, or your team winning the World Series.

We Boomer kids can recall when ice cubes were strictly a hit-or-miss proposition. Theoretically, we had plenty of them in the freezer. But in practice, getting cubes out of those infernally buggy aluminum ice cube trays was an act of skill, blind luck, and the grace of the freezer gods.

Oh, and don’t forget the wrath that would come down from mom and dad when a tray was left with one or two cubes of ice in it, instead of being refilled as we knew we should have done.

The ice cube tray’s invention is shrouded in a bit of mystery. According to one online source (about.com),

In 1914, Fred Wolf invented a refrigerating machine called the DOMELRE or DOMestic ELectric REfrigerator. The DOMELRE was not successful in the marketplace, however, it did have a simple ice cube tray and inspired later refrigerator manufacturers to include ice cube trays in their appliances as well.

No images of that original ice cube tray exist, nor even any detailed descriptions, as far as I can tell. But it wasn’t made of plastic, that much we know for sure.

As the twentieth century wore on, ice cube trays were made from lightweight, plentiful aluminum. A mechanized contraption was devised which would either expel the cubes when a lever was lifted, or when each individual divider was forced ahead by a fraction of an inch, releasing a single pair of cubes.

That last model was nearly impossible for a seven-year-old kid to operate, by the way.

And of course, the aluminum was pretty fragile. Many an ice cube tray divider was tossed in the trash after losing its ability to expel cubes due to stretching or breaking of the metal.

And that meant that the actual tray, which was still intact and %100 operational, would gain a second life as a catch-all in dad’s garage.

Somewhere along the line, plastics took over, even as Mr. McGuire predicted to Benjamin in The Graduate. The first plastic ice cube trays would get brittle after just a few uses, but by the time they broke, better ones were already on the market.

And as aggravating as the ever-snapping-plastic trays were, they still weren’t as annoying as an aluminum ejecting mechanism that broke in your hands as you were eagerly anticipating big ice cubes in your drink.

Nowadays, most of us get ice automatically made for us in our high-tech freezers. How sweet it is.

But let’s face it. As nice as our automatic ice makers are, they make for really lousy catch-all trays in the garage when they finally break down.

Magnus Chord Organs

The world was full of budding keyboardists in the 1960’s. However, that didn’t mean homes were full of pianos. Pianos were big, heavy, and expensive. Having one in your home meant that you were committed to playing it, otherwise it just took up space.

The same wasn’t true for a musical instrument that was inexpensive, lightweight, and small enough to tuck away into a closet when not in use.

Chord organs were found in lots of homes during this time. The most common brand was Magnus. Magnus chord organs were made of various shades of plastic. They were made to sit on a tabletop, or there were also models that came on legs. They would necessitate benches with built-in compartments for the sheet music that was also a familiar sight.

We never had a chord organ in our home. I guess that’s a comment on the Enderlands’ musical talent. But lots of my friends had them.

The Magnus chord organ had a fan, which you could hear spin up when you switched it on. When you pressed the keys, you allowed air to blow over certain reeds. The resultant sound was similar to that of a harmonica, which works the same way.

There were also chord buttons on the left side, which could be used to provide nice background sound to your expertly played keys.

Of course, expertly played keys did not necessarily accompany the organs. The sheet music showed you how to play the right notes, but the music actually required talent to be done well, something which I, and many of my friends, sadly lacked.

However, many successful musicians did start out with a humble Magnus chord organ, and used it to propel them on to bigger and better things. A likely upgrade for such a prodigy might be a Hammond organ, capable of all sorts of cool stuff. Its electronically-produced sound made for imitation of different instruments like the trumpet, the clarinet, or the piano.

Most of the time, when I write about old toys and gadgets, I can find a good deal of information on the subjects. That’s not the case with the Magnus organs. Lots of folks remember having them, but nobody seems to know the origin of the toy/musical instrument itself.

I did find one website that stated that Magnus organs originated during the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps they did, but the plastic/electric models we had in our homes more likely arose sometime in the 50’s.

Some households proudly owned nicer wooden Magnuses. They coughed up three-figure prices for the organs, which would then be considered considered real furniture, not to be placed in the closet when not being played..

Nowadays, you can buy nice Casio keyboards capable of some amazing electronic sounds for around a hundred bucks (considerably cheaper than the Hammonds that cost over a hundred 1966 bucks). They will pipe music into your computer, where you can save it as a midi file. While not nearly as commonplace as the Magnuses of the 60’s, many aspiring musicians are discovering their talent by playing with them at a young age, much as we did with our plastic, air-driven chord organs.

Lights on a Pole

Our living rooms in the 1960’s were comfortable places, indeed. Ours had a homey ambiance that made for a wonderful place to spawn memories. I can clearly recall the paneled walls, the sunken floor furnace, the area rug with rectangular shapes with 1 1/2″ wide borders that were PERFECT for driving your Hot Wheels cars on, and a familiar means of illumination of the era: a three-light floor lamp.

I recall the lamps being in all sorts of homes I visited. Ours had metallic shades that directed the light at whatever you wanted to be lit up. It sat by the easy chair, so dad could point the glaring 60-watt bulb directly at his copy of the Tulsa World.

My grandmother in Mason, Texas had one with glass shades that were bright blue and orange. It was something to see, especially when she would festoon it with tinsel, ornaments, and strings of popcorn each year at Christmas time.

There are thousands of snapshots like the one to the right that were taken during the 60’s that featured the ubiquitous form of lighting. They were inexpensive, looked modern (today, they look RETRO-modern), and did a great job of lighting up what needed to be seen. They also got very hot, and one of my earliest learning experiences was that you did NOT aim the light by grasping the shade. No, you grabbed the end with the rotary switch to keep from burning the heck out of yourself.

I’m surprised I don’t cower in fear at the sight of the old floor lamps. The one we had also taught me at the age of five that it’s a really BAD idea to stick your finger in the socket!

The lights served an additional function: they were a nice place to drape shirts and such that weren’t quite dry when it started raining and mom had to hurry outside and remove them from the clothesline.

I’m not sure when the multiple light floor lamp became passe. I don’t recall seeing too many of them in the 70’s. I remember mom got rid of ours when we got new living room lamps at an estate auction. She used those lamps for thirty years until her death.

It seemed like everyone else got rid of theirs, too. Nowadays, they are sought after by folks looking for the retro feel (like my wife and myself). But go back about forty years, and they were seen in millions of middle-class homes all over the world.

Just don’t grab them by the hot metal shade!

Kit-Cat Clocks

The Great Depression was a very difficult time for our parents and grandparents to go through. Times were bleak, and there just wasn’t very much to laugh about.

A designer at the California Clock Company thought that what the world needed was a clock that would bring a smile every time you looked at it. Thus was born the Kit-Cat clock.

The cat, in case you didn’t know, is Felix, who was a popular comic strip character during that era. The original Kit-Cat clock is black and white, just like Felix himself.

Anyhow, many of us remember the Kit-Cats hanging up in the homes our grandparents. Many of these clocks no doubt dated back to the 1930’s decade. The clocks indeed brought good cheer to their owners, as advertised.

The clock has a bit of an art deco look to it, appropriate to a design of the era. Eventually, Kit-cats were produced in different colors and designs. The gaudiest were covered in jewels and produced in limited editions.

The Kit-Cat was one of those things we didn’t have in our house, but we knew lots of others who had the perennially eye-rolling and tail-wagging timekeepers. I always got a kick out of seeing them.

Despite the fact that Kit-Cats continue to be marketed, and in fact claim great sales, it seems that you don’t see them around like you used to.

So many of the companies who manufactured the products we bought have gone out of business or been absorbed, it’s a refreshing change to talk about the California Clock Company. They have been cranking out hundreds of thousands of Kit-Cat clocks since the Depression. And they still make them here in the USA. In fact, you can order yourself a Kit-Cat online at their website.

I Want My Color TV!

The 1950’s was the TV Age. When the decade began, most US households didn’t have televisions. Entertainment consisted of listening to the radio. By the end of the decade, the trend had reversed. Televisions were found in a majority of homes, and radio shows had gone the way of hand-cranked cars.

Televisions revolutionized households. Teenagers of ten years earlier listened to Fibber Magee and Molly on the radio. Now, they watched Wally and the Beav on the idiot box.

That was a pretty profound change. But the next big change was already in the air.

I remember the first time I saw HDTV. It was a golf tournament, and I was astounded to see every blade of grass, and the little dimples on the golf ball itself.

Regular television would never look good again. It was two long years of misery before I could finally afford my own HDTV.

The same feelings befell those who saw color television in the 50’s.

There wasn’t much color television to watch back then. NBC took the lead in providing color programming, but the local affiliates had to upgrade their own equipment before viewers across America could actually see color television shows.

But if the local station was broadcasting in color, a sure-fire way to see it was to drop into the local television store. They would have a color model in its full glory circa 1959.

And, of course, once you had seen the magical NBC Peacock in full color, black and white would never be the same.

But what was a black and white television owner of limited means to do? Easy. You dropped twenty bucks on a color filter that would magically give you a “color” television!

Stick-on color TV filter for black and white TV’s

The filter was blue at the top, green at the bottom, and red in the middle. That meant that, at least in theory, grass would be green, the sky would be blue, and faces would be flesh-colored (if your flesh was as red as strawberry licorice).

After several hours, you would get used to it. Then, one day, you would take the plastic filter off and rediscover black and white television. By then, your painful memories of how gorgeous color television looked had likely faded to the point that good old crisp B&W looked watchable once again.

Now all you had to do was wait until 1967 or so, when color TV finally got affordable enough to purchase in its genuine incarnation.

And thrifty Boomers, if HDTV is still beyond your financial pain threshold, just pop a DVD into your computer. You’ll be getting full HD on your monitor.

Stereos of the 70’s!

The 70’s was a decade known for lots of wild and crazy stuff that came and went in a flurry. I mean, what was hotter, then colder, than disco music? Other uniquely 70’s crazes that appeared for a bit, shined brightly, than vanished included fondue pots, macrame, and CB radios.

Another 70’s debut, but one that didn’t vanish as much as it evolved into smaller, lighter incarnations, was hi-fi stereo systems.

When we were kids of the 50’s and 60’s, we got along fine listening to transistor radios and portable record players. But as we became teenagers and young adults in the 70’s, why, it was time for some serious musical upgrading to take place! And manufacturers of huge wooden-encased components were more than happy to help us out.

One of the first things that I became aware of early in the 70’s was that sound could be heard in absolutely amazing stereo. My mom had a venerable record player console that sounded pretty darned good, with its 12″ woofer providing bass thump that was very impressive despite its its 50’s vintage. But even though it had the word “stereo” on a plastic label on its front panel, it was most assuredly a monophonic system.

I listened to Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run (still one of my favorite albums) on my oldest brother’s headphones about 1972. The stereo sound made me determined that I would have my own sweet sound system as soon as possible.

I began with a Radio Shack FM/cassette deck with satellite speakers in 1975, shortly after I landed my first job sacking groceries. It set me back $199, and a component turntable was another 50 or so bucks.

It sounded great, but lacked deep bass. So two years later, having graduated high school and begun working full time, I sent a check for $1200 to an outfit called Illinois Audio for a Pioneer system.

My dad thought I was nuts. He figured that check would be cashed and I would be ripped off. But within two weeks, a semi-trailer was in Bentonville, Arkansas with a bunch of big boxes inside that belonged to ME!

I’ll never forget the thrill I felt as I unpacked my 40 watt receiver, my Dolby cassette deck, my direct-drive turntable, my gorgeous HPM-40 speakers, and my high-end Koss Pro 4-AAA headphones that I had splurged for.

That stereo turned out to be a whale of an investment. It provided me with an amazing amount of pleasure and entertainment over the years, and a few years later, my brand-new wife was pleased that I had a decent sound system. Lord knows I didn’t have much else in the way of material things!

Nowadays, I do most of my listening to music in the car or on the computer (Carly Simon’s Spy sounds good through my Creative subwoofer system as I pen this piece). But I still have a bonzer home system, too. The last of my original Pioneer components to go were my HPM-40 speakers. They sold in a yard sale five years ago. My kids had managed to push both woofer cones in as they struggled to master the fine art of walking, but they still sounded good.

But as long as I live, I’ll never forget the ecstasy I felt as I unpacked my heavy, wooden-clad Pioneer stereo components and hooked them all together, then listening to that first rush of high-fidelity sound.