Things that Disappeared When You Weren’t Looking – Page 12 – I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

The Wet Head Is Dead

The Wet Head is dead. Long live the Dry Look. Even though I now comb my hair with a washrag, circa 1976, I must have bought a can of The Dry Look at least once a month. It took a lot of hairspray to hold my baby-fine blond hair in place.

It was a relief when I finally gave up trying to make my thin locks look like Roger Daltrey’s massive mane and let my growing expanse of baldness shine. Nowadays, I shave my head twice a week, whether it needs it or not.

But jump back to about 1975, and it was a different story.

Hairstyles for men have changed as much as hairstyles for women. Throughout the 60’s, dudes used Vitalis or Lucky Tiger to keep their locks slicked back and looking good. But when the above commercial first appeared in the early 70’s, sales of hair oil dropped precipitously overnight. A little dab’ll do ya? Forget it. The wet head is dead, complete with his own grave stone to prove the point.

Gillette scored one of its biggest advertising coups ever with this campaign. That’s because word had not yet gotten around to the entire nation that slicked hair was passe’. The 60’s saw long, beautiful hair as a sign of rebellion. But as the turbulent decade faded in the rearview mirror, a less confrontational 70’s saw longer, dryer hair as the new standard for the well-groomed guy’s coiffure. And when you watched the aforementioned commercial, it was clear that the wet stuff had to go ASAP.

Dudes with thick hair required only a light spritz of The Dry Look to keep things under control. How I hated them. My fine hair demanded a veritable deluge of chemical spray to keep that middle part nicely elevated and secured.

Two BIG problems: I rode a motorcycle at the time, and a helmet was required. Ergo, my hair would look like crap when I arrived at my destination. Two, in the mid-south, rain is possible 365 days a year. Not only would the rain destroy my hour of blow-dried art, it created a runoff that tasted like, well, the aforementioned crap.

Of course, the sole purpose of the teenaged male is to attract the amorous attention of the teenaged female. So, to no great surprise, the girlfriends I attracted with my heavily-worked-but-physically-lightweight hair didn’t stick around too long. My lifetime love, 24 years now and counting, was bagged when I gave up and just let my balding head shine in its natural glory.

The wet head may have died in the early 70’s, but the skinhead lives on.

The Shoe Store

Kids grow fast, and so do their feet. That means that most of us Boomers made frequent trips to the shoe store while we were growing up.

I say MOST of us, because those of us who had an older sibling just ahead of us instead received hand-me-downs.

But that wasn’t the case with me. My older brother was ten years older than me, and it might as well have been a hundred, such was the gap between six and sixteen.

Ergo, I experienced frequent trips to the shoe store on Miami, Oklahoma’s Main Street.

That, of course, was where a kid could obtain P.F. Flyers. That was decidedly cool. But it was also where I would obtain dress shoes for church. Not nearly so cool.

The first thing that you noticed about the show store was the wonderful aroma. It was a heavenly nasal concoction consisting of a combination of leather, rubber, cigarette smoke, the salesman’s cologne, and perhaps some fresh floor wax.

The first thing the salesman would do is have me sit down so he could measure my feet.

I never had a clue what the hoogus was called that he would use to calculate the exact size that my sock-clad foot required. In researching this column I learned that it’s known as a Brannock Device, and it is still proudly made in the USA.

Anyhow, the tool was slightly scary to me when I was very young, but I soon learned to relax, as there was absolutely no pain involved in its use. Instead, it came to feel reassuring to have the familiar device, well-worn from years of use, applied firmly against the bottom of my foot. It meant that in the topsy-turvy world in which I lived, one thing could absolutely be counted on: my shoes fitting perfectly. Of course, that took into account the leaving of an extra inch of growing room in the toes.

The Brannock tool was fun to play with while my mom shopped for a pair of shoes for herself, which always took a lot longer than it did to select mine. More entertainment was provided by the angled mirrors that were designed to show a customer just what their potential new shoes looked like from the side. And the little bench the salesman sat on had wire runners for legs that made it perfect to push one’s self around on the carpeted floor of the sales area, pretending to ride a sleigh.

Despite the Brannock tool having been around for ages, my elder brothers might possibly have gone through a more accurate, if not dangerous fitting procedure.

X-ray machine found in 1950’s shoe stores

Beginning in the 1930’s, portable fluoroscopes began showing up in shoe stores. The devices would bombard customers’ feet with a twenty second or longer exposure to pure X-rays!

The fluoroscopes grew in popularity over the years, and many of the more senior members of the Boomer generation can recall getting their feet X-rayed at the shoe store on a regular basis.

Many of the devices had three settings for men, women, and children. You would put your feet into a slot on the front of the machine while standing, and the exposure would begin. You could then peer through the viewer (there were three, one for you, one for the salesman, and one for mom) and see your feet’s bones on a green screen, ghostily surrounded by the shoes.

By the 60’s, the devices had fallen out of favor, so no exposure to X-rays at the shoe store for me.

Nowadays, visiting the shoe store is still a pleasant experience. That great aroma is still there, minus the cigarette smoke. Those angled mirrors still do the trick for side views. And some stores even have a Brannock tool for me to play with while my wife takes her own sweet time to pick out the perfect pair of shoes.

Nehru Jackets

Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, served from 1947 to his death in 1964. He was a good friend of Ghandi, saw his country through the first difficult years of independence from the British, and also tried hard to eliminate the Indian caste system, which assumes that if you are born into poverty, it must be because you’re a horrible person who did horrible things in a previous life.

Obviously, he was a fine leader who did a lot for his country. However, he is more famous for lending his name to an article of clothing that is uniquely 60’s in its appearance.

The Nehru jacket appeared in the mid 1960’s. Its mod look went perfectly with Twiggy, paisley prints, and sitar music. Soon, it was seen on none other than the Beatles themselves, vaulting its popularity. Dr. No was seen wearing one in Sean Connery’s first Bond movie. Other Bond films released in that decade with Nehrus, or close Mao lookalikes, were Diamonds Are Forever and You Only Live Twice. In fact, Bond villains have continued to sport them right up to recent releases.

Arte Johnson wore a Nehru at the weekly Laugh-In cocktail party. So did Sammy Davis Jr. (he owned over 200 of them), Mike Love, Johnny Carson, and lots more hipsters. Even baseball player Ken “The Hawk” Harrelson sported one on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

The funny thing about the Nehru is that it has never completely disappeared. Steven Seagal is known to have one on. Of course, Dr. Evil and Mini-Me are adorned with their immaculate Nehrus in the Austin Powers movie series. The look is really sort of timeless, an alternative to a suit and tie that was a modern one from the start, and continues to look strangely in style. Contrast that with, say, a pair of red-and-white striped polyester bell bottoms.

The jacket itself: a band collared, hip-length closely-fitting coat, first appeared in India in the early 1940’s. It took a while to catch on in the US, but by 1968 was seen all over TV, magazines, and movie screens. Chairman Mao lent his name to the similar Mao jacket, which basically looks like something a communist leader would wear. Perhaps if the Chinese leader would have been svelte like Nehru himself, the Mao look might have proven more ageless.

So here’s to the Nehru jacket: It’s definitely a blast from our past, but, like us, refuses to go away quietly.

Leisure Suits

Ah, the 70’s. It was a decade following the most tumultuous social uprisings in the 20th century. There was a real fear of anarchy breaking out from the protests, as well as the continued fear caused by the Cold War.

By the middle of the decade, though, things had settled down to a nice, mellow hum. It was time to boogie!

Polyester clothing was a smash hit in the 70’s, and it identified that particular ten-year span as when EVERYONE wore the inexpensive substitute for silk that you could just throw in the washer.

And nothing made the ultimate in a polyester statement like the leisure suit.

Hey, times were too laid back for silly things like neckties. We needed open collars accompanied by shirts that unbuttoned nearly down to the waist, to reveal a shag carpet mat of chest hair that set our gold chains off in high fashion.

Of course, I was too young to have a hairy chest to show off, but I saw plenty of thirty-somethings parading around in gear that they probably hope today that there is no photographic evidence of.

The leisure suit craze found its way into television shows (Starsky and Hutch in particular) and the movies (What would Travolta be without that snow-white beauty?).

Today, leisure suits are viewed with equal parts contempt and ridicule. But hey, they are the exact sort of clothing fad to make an unlikely comeback.

Besides, you can find authentic 70’s vintage suits in perfect condition. Polyester lasts forever.

Iron-on Denim Patches on Your Jeans

Playing was hard work for us Boomer kids. A typical day would involve creating roads in the grassless dirt under the shade tree with our Tonka bulldozers, creating battlefields for our GI Joes, or perhaps exploring imaginary moonscapes with Major Matt Mason.

All of that activity had one thing in common: wear and tear on your knees. Thus, in short order, our denim blue jeans had holes worn in them that our moms dutifully repaired with iron-on patches. And it was a rare pair of jeans worn by a kid at play of the Eisenhower, Vietnam, or Watergate eras that didn’t have the ubiquitous rectangles secured in place halfway up the legs.

The purchase of a pair of Levi’s was a long-term investment. A new pair of jeans was designated “for school.” That meant the only wear the knees would receive would be on the playground. We didn’t have our Tonkas, GI Joes, or any other dirt toys with us there, so the knees would last perhaps a couple of months.

But sooner or later, the fabric would begin to part directly above a kid’s patella like a miniature Red Sea. The school jeans just became play jeans. And it would be time for mom to trim off the loose threads and apply the patch, which would adhere somewhat firmly with the aid of an iron’s heat.

I say “somewhat,” because what would happen within five or six washings is that the patch would begin to come loose. beginning with one of the upper corners. Kids being kids, it was a supreme test of one’s will to keep from grabbing that curled edge and accelerate the patch’s separation from the pants leg.

If that was to happen, then mom was faced with a decision: do the jeans rate the application of an additional patch, or do they become cut-offs?

Sometimes, the peeling patch would be reinforced by a set of stitches applied with mom’s sewing machine. But if the jeans were too stained/torn/ugly to repatch, they would be summarily shortened with the aid of a pair of stout scissors for summertime wear. We growing kids had ever-lengthening legs, but our waistlines would generally stay about the same. Oh, for THOSE days!

A Boomer buddy of mine reminded me that many moms out there would go ahead and patch brand-new jeans with iron-on patches. I don’t recall my own mother doing that, though. She was more reactive than proactive, worn-out-knees-wise.

My own kids weren’t as passionate about playing in the dirt as I was. I don’t recall my wife ever applying the patches to their jeans. Perhaps their memories will involve things like the batteries in their light-up tennis shoes dying before the shoes themselves wore out.

We kids of the Boomer generation have our own special sartorial recollection: stiff denim patches on our knees that would extend appreciably the life of an expensive pair of Levi’s.

Fuzzy-Wuzzy Soap

Ahh, the simple days of old, long before computers, video games, and other modern-day diversions that capture the attention of the nation’s youth.

In those simple days, a kid’s interest could be piqued by things like soap that grew fur.
And the power of advertising would cause that kid’s interest to bloom into full-blown obsession, causing relentless hounding of the parents into obtaining this truly strange example of Boomer nostalgia.

I mean, think about it. Soap that grows fur? Fur much like that which sprouted on that forgotten turkey left over from Thanksgiving which you discovered looking for something to munch on during the NFL playoffs two months later.

The origin of Fuzzy-Wuzzy soap was impossible for me to track down. It was manufactured by an outfit called Aerosol Corporation, which, as near as I can tell, was swallowed up by someone else called CAC Industries, which continues to manufacture novelty soaps.

However, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, the hair-growing soap, is no more.

But what a glorious existence it had! It was endlessly hawked on Saturday morning TV commercials, ensuring that we kids would be hooked on the idea of hair-growing soap residing in our millions of bathrooms.

But wait! There’s more!

Hidden deep inside each Fuzzy-Wuzzy soap was a toy! Shades of Cracker Jack and sugary-sweet cereal! This truly was brilliance in product design.

So Fuzzy-Wuzzy soap sold millions of their offerings to eager Boomer kids everywhere.

How did it work? I don’t have a clue. Like I said, childhood recollections of the hirsute astringent are many, but actual documented facts are rare. The fur would apparently begin growing after the soap was removed from its sealed plastic bag. The fur was of a nature that simply touching it caused it to wither and vanish on the spot. And once you actually used the soap, the show was over. The hidden toy provided great impetus for kids to scrub themselves beyond squeaky-clean in an effort to gain access to that treasure hidden deeply inside.

In fact, some kids threw common sense to the wind and ATE their way to the center!

The toy was a typical plastic trinket, a whistle or some-such. Its discovery would often be accompanied by disappointment, causing us to recall our fathers’ oft-repeated wise words on those long drives to vacation destinations: “Getting there is half the fun!”

Burma-Shave

I was a kid who was whisked down Interstate highways at 75 MPH. Billboards had to be huge in order to be noticed.

But my older brothers were able to experience a more relaxed and charming way of travel: Being driven down two-lane motorways that passed through rolling countryside that included one of America’s most beloved forms of advertising: Burma-Shave signs.

Burma-Shave got its start back in 1925. The Burma-Vita company made a smelly liniment designed to aid the sore and sick. It sold modestly well, but the company directors concluded that making a product that you didn’t have to be in a bad fix to use might be a good move, business-wise.

So they released Burma-Shave that year, with the radical concept that you didn’t need a brush to create shaving cream in a cup any more, you could just open a jar of Burma-Shave.

It was a good product, but suffered from ineffective advertising. Allan Odell pitched a unique sales idea to his father, the owner of the company. He had noticed signs along the road while he was out trying to sell his father’s products. So use small, wooden roadside signs to pitch Burma-Shave. Dad wasn’t wild about the idea but eventually gave Allan $200 to give it a try.

Allan picked a couple of busy roads near Minneapolis and put up a dozen sets of signs in series, so that you had to read them all to get the whole message. The format would ensure interest from drivers and their passengers, he hoped.

He was right.

Drug stores in the Minneapolis area began calling in orders for Burma-Shave. The company, which had nearly gone under, was reborn. A sign service was hired in 1926, and Burma-Shave slogans began springing up alongside roads all over the US.

Our parents grew up reading Burma-Shave signs, and so did the elder members of the Boomer generation. They were good stuff. Here are a few examples from Wikipedia:

The monkey took / one look at Jim / and threw the peanuts / back at him / he needed / Burma-Shave
Listen birds / these signs cost money / so roost awhile / but don’t get funny / Burma-Shave
If you don’t know / whose signs these are / You haven’t driven / very far (No final “Burma-Shave” sign)
Round the corner / lickety split / beautiful car / wasn’t it! / Burma Shave
That big blue tube / is like Louise / it gives a thrill / with every squeeze / Burma-Shave
If harmony / is what you crave / get a tuba / Burma-Shave

They once posted a slogan meant to be a gag that implied that if anyone brought or shipped a fender to the Minneapolis headquarters, they would get a free jar. Well, needless to say, they were inundated with fenders from genuine and toy cars. And every person who held up their end of the bargain got a free jar of Burma-Shave.

As Interstate highways began opening up in the late 50’s, the Burma-Shave concept of a series of six small signs stopped being effective. Sales slumped, and the Burma-Shave brand name was sold to the Philip Morris company in 1963. The new owners immediately ordered the removal of any remaining Burma-Shave signs. That’s why I personally don’t remember ever seeing any of the genuine article.

But Burma-Shave was a treasured memory of many of the more senior members of our generation. It was also a symbol of how the old would have to make way for the new as times changed and got faster. For better or worse, that sums up the years we grew up in.

Beatle Haircuts

It’s impossible to overstate the influence the Beatles had on us Baby Boomers. Well, I guess it IS possible, if you mention a certain Son of God ;-). But much more than their mere music affected us.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and within weeks of their arrival in New York, the hair of young men was allowed to grow longer than it had ever been before. And it wouldn’t be cut short again for a very long time, stints in the military excluded.

Prior to this, guys were still greasing up and making ducktails. Even if hair was allowed to grow a bit long, it was slicked back to stay above the ears.

Then, out of the distant east, four British lads stepped off a plane and the slick look vanished, seemingly overnight.

By the time I entered school in 1965, there were many sons of tolerant parents in my class with hair that crept over the tops of their ears. I was decidedly NOT among them. Dad insisted I come home from the corner barber shop (within walking distance) with one of two styles: a flattop, or a crewcut.

The flattop allowed me to have just a tad of hair left to comb, so it was my usual choice. By the way, a flattop would be completely impossible for me today ;-).

Intervals between haircuts for me were generally longer in the summer. My parents equated well-shorn hair as a school-related phenomenon. So when I walked into the barber shop around August of 1966, the time was right for me to spread my wings.

“What’ll it be today, Ronnie? Flattop, or crewcut?” asked Paul.

“Give me a Beatle” were my daring words.

Paul looked at me a little funny, as I recall, but granted my request. He cut a pretty decent Beatle for an old school guy. I went home proudly sporting my longer locks.

Dad hit the roof. He was livid that I would waste three dollars of his hard-earned money on a haircut that looked like it barely shortened my already-too-long hair. I was back in the shop getting my flattop within minutes.

I was in junior high in the 70’s before my hair finally started creeping over my ears. And that was as long as it ever got. Some of my schoolmates ended up with two-foot-long ponytails. Hair on the shoulders was a common 1970’s sight.

It wasn’t until the 80’s that guys finally started cutting their hair short again. The Beatle haircut began a trend that lasted twenty years.

That’s a lot longer than my one and only Beatle lasted.

Wing Vent Windows

Anybody up for a good conspiracy theory? The makers of automobile air conditioners have teamed up and made wing vent windows disappear!

Hey, it’s a little plausible. After all, I remember a dramatic difference in the interior temperature of a big Plymouth when those vent windows were opened to blast wind into your surroundings at 60 MPH.

Wing vents had all sorts of uses. I really miss them.

I don’t miss that whistling noise that would inevitably appear as your vehicle aged, though.

So, what was a vent window good for? I remember watching cigarette smoke miraculously get sucked out of the barely-cracked wing vent as mom would drive down the road. Every trace of smoke went straight for that vent window.

It was also perfect for sticking a seven-year-old foot through on a hot summer day.

And then there’s access to a locked vehicle. My first car was a 1965 Falcon. I remember leaving my keys in the ignition once with the doors locked. No prob. A strategically placed pocket knife blade pried up the vent window’s locking lever and I was able to reach in and grab the keys.

Yeesh. It’s a wonder nobody stole my $29.95 underdash eight-track player.

If your wing vent was unlockable from the outside, it was also the cheapest window to break if all else failed.

There’s no doubt about it, though. The air blast you got from wide open wing vents on a hot summer day when your thrifty Norwegian father was driving down the road with the air conditioner turned off kept you cool. And if another window was open, it also kept the interior of your car completely free of small lightweight objects.

Wing vents disappeared gradually. The 1968 Camaros and Firebirds were released without vent windows. Hey, who needed them when you had Astro Ventilation and 29 cent gas?

See, I told you it was those A/C manufacturers behind all of this! 😉

As the 70’s went on, more and more carmakers did away with the diminutive windows. My 1973 Celica didn’t have them. However, Toyota did put them in pickups until well into the 80’s.

Today, though, there is nary a vent window to be seen. Lock your keys in the car and you’re better of forking over 50 or more bucks to a locksmith than breaking a big window. And it just doesn’t seem as cool inside on a hot summer day with regular windows rolled down.

Curse that A/C manufacturing cartel!

When Food Was Delivered on Roller Skates

Going to a drive-in for a meal of burgers and fries was fun for a Boomer kid in a whole lot of ways. First of all, a hamburger, fries, and a shake tasted like heaven. Second, eating in the car was a blast. And thirdly, your food was deliverd by a cute teenaged girl on roller skates.

How much better could life get?

It all started back in 1921. Automobiles were beginning to be a ubiquitous sight in Dallas, Texas. A businessman named J.G. Kirby and a physician by the name of R.W. Jackson decided to take advantage of the fact that many people owned cars, and that many of them were also lazy, too lazy to get out of their cars to eat. They opened a restaurant called the Pig Stand.

Do you get the idea that these guys didn’t think a lot of their customers?

A&W, which began business in 1919, soon followed suit as drive-in restaurants became more and more popular. The A&W corporate website actually claims to have opened the first carhop restaurant in 1923, but Pig Stands had male carhops from their inception.

Soon, carhop-delivered food could be obtained in drive-ins all over the country. A particular hotspot was the Los Angeles area, a haven for car owners even in the early part of the century. L.A. probably had more drive-ins than any other urban location in the first half of the century.

Flash forward to the 1950’s. Drive-in restaurants had a population explosion, as fathers who fought in WWII were looking for places to take their families out to dinner that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. Drive-ins filled the bill perfectly, as moms loved getting a break from cooking, and kids, well as I mentioned before, they loved drive-ins for a variety of reasons.

You would pull up to the drive-in, and a carhop would come skating out to take your order. Then, she would glide back into the restaurant, beauty in motion on eight wheels. Perhaps fifteen minutes later, she would return, carrying your order on a tray that was made to fit perfectly on your father’s window rolled up about two inches. Then, dad would distribute the hot, sweetly aromatic, paper-wrapped delicacies amongst the other inhabitants of the Plymouth.

I’m not sure I’ve ever tasted anything as delicious as carhop-delivered-French fries, circa 1967.

Drive-in restaurants with carhop-delivered food have declined since that golden Eisenhower decade. But they still exist. And the ones that are still around are doing quite well, thank you.

The one with the best food, IMHO, is In-N-Out, an L.A.-based chain that stretches as far east as Vegas, whose franchise unfortunately doesn’t feature carhops. But I remember carhop service at one in Azusa, California, about 25 years ago. Other chains that are still around (and that still have carhops in at least some of their locations) include Sonic, Dog-N-Suds, and the aforementioned A&W.

Some independents still have their carhops on skates. Workman’s comp costs have put the rest on sneakers.

So here’s to a cute teenaged girl bringing you your burgers, fries, and malts on a tray to your car window. For pete’s sake, leave her a tip, would you?