New Scaratings

We still have a drive-in theater here in Clarksburg. I try to see at least one movie there a year BUT:

The last time I went, there were so many kids wandering the lot with CELLPHONES aglow, that it was distracting.

Did not go last year, because there are even more cell phones now.

I only remember Calgary's last drive-in, the Corral 4, which closed down in the 1990s sometime. The screens and buildings remained in place, and there was occasionally talk of somebody buying the place from Cineplex Odeon and reopening it. The end came in August of 1999, when the Hub Oil petroleum recycling facility located next door blew up. The resulting cleanup required razing the drive-in

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/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

Station Wagons are for the most part gone.

This looks like my grandfather's.



This was one of mine from the past.



My son still drives an ancient Volvo station wagon.



They were damn good vehicles. Sadly, I think the SUV, mini vans, and others have sent them the same way as typewriters. Do any of you guys remember having a station wagon, or better yet do any of you still own one?

It's been fun, but it's getting too late, so...



............. Goodnight, I'm going to bed.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

There was once a time when your pet dog had freedom. In the morning, he would be standing by the door, wagging his tail, and ready to go out to explore the neighborhood. You opened the door, and he dashed out to go find his dog friends and have fun. Those days of freedom for dogs are long gone. Today they are confined to a backyard with a chain link fence, or prevented from socializing with other dogs by an invisible fence, that will come close to electrocuting them, if they try to stray off your property. If they are lucky enough to have someone, who takes them for walks, they have a steel choke collar around their necks, and never get to go anywhere more than ten feet on either side of the street that they are being walked on.

This animal is man's best friend, and I think it is unconscionable how the Nanny State has passed laws that deprive them of the freedom they deserve.

Where are the animal rights people on this...?

p.s. Some think that Homo Sapiens would not have survived and progressed without their early alliance with dogs. If so, do they deserve what we are doing to our canine friends today?

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"The game is afoot."

The news I heard on the way to work this morning: 30 dogs abandoned on the side of the road--mangy and a few hairless, a couple of them already dead. Humane Society has asked for donations from the public for medical needs and for folks to adopt the dogs once they are healthy.

Anyone needing good karma, here's an opportunity.

I will never forget the first time I met Dixie Cups at someone's birthday party at Cortland Street School in Geneva, NY. I think I was in the 1st grade. (That would have been in 1952.) They came in a short, little paper cup, full of ice cream, and included a tiny flat wooden spoon to eat them with. I think they are now things of the past. However, after trying to Google a picture of one of them with no success, I found that the company is still in business.

Here's an early TV commercial for them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1UgYn8vHiQ

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"The game is afoot."

Cloudy, I totally forgot Dixie Cups. I had them long before first grade. My favorite was the chocolate sunday. I would chew on the liitle woden to get the last of the flavor. You jogged my memory do you remember Push Ups. I have not seen any in the Chicago area in years, but apparently they are available in other parts of the country.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

Frank, I never got the fancy Dixie Cups. My folks didn't have much money back then, and the only time I ever saw a Dixie Cup was at someone's birthday party at school, and then they were always just vanilla. I never got a Push Up either. Looks like you had a spoiled childhood, with all of the fancy stuff you got. Hell, for years the only soda pop I ever got was stuff left over from my parents' bridge parties the next morning. One time there was a half bottle of Club Soda sitting there. Not knowing what it was, I thought, "Wow..!" and poured it into a glass. Barf... That experience had to have been in the late 1950's. and I have never tasted a drop of Club Soda ever since.

It's really late so...

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.............................................. Goodnight, I'm going to bed.

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"The game is afoot."

Cloudy, my family was a minimum wage family. Dixie cups and Pushups were rare treats.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

Party Lines...

No, I'm not talking about waiting to get to the bar or to go through the buffet at a wedding reception. I'm talking about old land line telephones, where you shared your telephone connection with other people. They were cheaper than private lines, so in the early days my folks had a party line. You could pick up the phone and listen in on other's phone conversations. If they needed to use the phone, they would cut in on your phone conversation, and ask you to get off the line so they could make their call.

Do any of you old guys remember party lines?

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........................................................ "Get off the damn phone. My house is on fire, and I need to call the fire department!"

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"The game is afoot."

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/```\
(o\_!_/o)

Hey, ICEMAN, is your icebox running?

_________________
/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

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........................................................ "Fräulein, does your tobacco store have Prince Albert in a can? Yes, it does! Well, let him out."

p.s. I borrowed the above image from ICEMAN. It isn't something that I found on Google.

Anyway...

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.................................................. Goodnight, I'm going to bed.

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"The game is afoot."

This is a very, very old one that my mother told me.

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.................................................................... "Fräulein, are your lights burning? Yes, they are! Call the fire department, mein schatzi."

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"The game is afoot."

I'm going to spark one. Forgive my spelling.....I've enjoyed a few......

Try to remember when was your first memory of the Olympics.

For me, it would be the Summer Games of 1972. Not because of the sad moment of olympic history. This year I was 8 years old and living in Spain. In the summer, I lived in a place north of Madrid, and there I hung out with my friends, one of which was deeply into swiming. For him, as a Spaniard, and his friend, me an American, he talked nothing all summer except about Mark Spitz. Mind you that even though the olympics were in some nice town in Germany, and that made it the same time zone, I didn't care that some American was winning lots of gold medals for my country. I was 8 years old, and my next door neighbor had a pool open for the summer. He could say what he wanted to, and actually wear the same speedos as Mark Spitz (he was 8......ok???). I had a pool open all summer. I had the summer of my life.

Years later, when I move State-side, we moved next door to a guy who was dedicated to sports memorabia. He had a box of Wheaties with Mark Spitz on it. As I asked, I understood what this athlete ment to our country. He later asked me if I knew what happened during the games, and I said, dispite some gymnast doing well, I didn't know why he was sad. I remember him telling me about athletes dying.

A couple of years later, I was a teenager in Kentucky, enjoying the winters that Kentucky can bring, and watching the winter olympics of 1980. Some place in New York, per my parents I was born "close to". I can still remember laying on the couch watching some guy called "michales" saying "Do you belive in miracles? YES " .

From then on, I was, and always will be, a fan of the Olympics

I was too young in 1984 to remember anything directly connected to the Sarajevo or LA games

So, my earliest memory would be standing in the February cold on 6th Avenue just outside Caesar's Steak House, official Olympic candle in my hand, waiting for the torch relay to pass by on its way to McMahon Stadium for the opening ceremonies. February 13, 1988, if my mental calendar is uncorrupted. I think that's a pretty good first memory

A week later, my older cousin took me out of school for the afternoon. We went to the Corral, and watched Czechoslovakia take on . . . I don't remember the opponent, other than it wasn't Canada. Maybe one of the Germanies, or even the USSR. So my second memory is of a hockey game involving countries that didn't exist half a decade later

_________________
/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

Beautiful memories and post, Yoda. My first memories of the Olympics was probably 1960, but I do not remember anything.
I definetly remember Mark Spitz and the Munich Olympics. I was 25 then.

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"Truth Like Football. Gets kicked around much, before reaching goal." - Charlie Chan

" Don't look back, The bastards might be gaining on you." - Satchel Paige

Frank

Seeing that we are on the Olympics, I'll throw a trivia question up here.

Why didn't Cassius Clay win the heavy weight gold medal in the 1960 Rome Olympic games?

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p.s. For those of you, who might not know, Cassius Clay is from Louisville, KY., and so is Muhammad Ali.

p.p.s. I have met him, his mother, Odessa, and his younger brother, Rahman. Ali's mom and brother, sat next to me at our kid's nanny's (Margret's), birthday party back in the 1980's, It was a great time, and everyone drank a lot. They were really good people.

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"The game is afoot."

Why not leave on a pleasant memory...?

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....................................................................... Goodnight, I'm going to bed. God bless you, Odessa in heaven, and God bless you Muhammad and Rahman too.

_________________
"The game is afoot."

I think "Golden Books" are still around, but barely. Certainly not like they used to be. Back when I was a kid there were dozens and dozens of "Golden Book" titles. They were for sale all over the place, and I'm pretty sure they cost less than $1.00. They had wonderful stories, and their illustrations were the best. Even though none of them probably had much more than 30 pages, they were hard bound in thick cardboard. I fear that many of the stories they told are forever lost for future generations, because there are so few of them left today, and they aren't making any more of them. Here a few of them that I remember:

..... ..... ..... ..... .....

There are so many more, but I have only put a few of them up here, because it became too tedious trying to find them on Google Images, copy them, and post them here. One of my favorites, which I found, is too politically incorrect these days, that I thought it best to just skip over it.

Here is what the backs of the early "Golden Books" looked like, with a list of other "Golden Books" that were available:



It's gotten too late tonight for me to post a list of "Golden Books" I grew up with, that I loved as a little kid, but I might find the time to list them some day in the future. If any of you older gals or guys remember these books, I would like to hear your comments on them.

I will add that if you are a father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, or anything close, and you've got young one's to share reading books, looking at pictures, and turning pages with, you might want to go online, and pick some of these old "Golden Books" up. I promise you that the young ones will love them. They told stories...!

Darn, It looks like I now have to put my recommended list up here. It's too much work, so the books won't have pictures, but good Lord willing, I will do my best to come up with a list of titles that little kids might enjoy. However, I can't do it tonight, because:

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..................................................... Once again, I'm going to bed. Sweet dreams everyone.

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"The game is afoot."

Back to "Golden Books"

Here's a link that lists all 1,144 "Golden Books" to check out. However, I will go through them for you, and give you the ones that I remember that I can recommend, or at least comment on.

http://www.childrensclassics.com.au/ccp ... -list.html

I had no idea that there were that many. Most of these "Golden Books" must have been published long after my mom stopped buying them for me in Geneva, NY, for 25 cents at the corner drug store, back in the 1950's. This will be a tedious task, but I will check them all out, and try to find the ones that I remember, which I think your young kids or grandkids might like.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I just lost two hours of work on this post. After going through all 1,144 "Golden Book" titles, picking out the ones I knew, and commenting on them, the "ScaRatings" logged me off, while I was doing it. Don't ask me how I feel about this, because if I said what I think and feel right now, I would surely go straight to Hell, when I die. Shit, I was going to spend two hours putting these "very mad" icons up here to express my anger, but my bladder just told me that there are other things to take care of. Hell, God damn it, one more!

(A belated comment: Yeah, I guess I wasted a whole lot of time on something that few, if any, would have been interested in. However, it would have been nice, if it was up here for them to skip over, if they weren't interested. Heck, they might have been sucked in, if they read it, and found something they liked.)



Goodnight, I really need to go to bed. (I'm going to log myself off now, without the help of the "ScaRatings" doing it for me, when it feels like it. Actually I only selected 32 "Golden Book" titles, and I don't think everyone would have found my comments all that boring. Maybe, I'll try do do it again, but if I do, I will hit submit after every sentence, and enter each following sentence as an edit. It will take time, but I won't lose two hours of work this way.)

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"The game is afoot."

Cloudy, I love ya, but you've gotta write your novellas in Word, Notepad, etc., or invest in an egg timer. It takes only three mouse clicks and three keystrokes to capture a text document and dump it here for posting. Say what you will about Microsoft Office, it has yet to log me out of a letter

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/°v°\ • Every time Linux boots, a penguin gets its wings
I'm a solipsistic conspiracy theorist. I'm sure I must be up to something, and I won't stop until I find out what
Why not downgrade Plutonium to a dwarf element?

Thank you, PENGWN, I'll give it another shot. I need to add that none of these "Golden Books" are recommended for kids beyond the 3rd grade. (Some of the later "Golden Books" might be of some interest to older kids, but not the ones I'm gonna mention.)

"The Fire Engine Book" (Young kids will love this one, even though the fire engines are old.)
"Three Little Kittens" (Pretty much for pre-schoolers, but they will like it.)
"The Little Red Caboose" (A "Golden Book" classic.)
"The Little Red Hen" (Kids after the 2nd grade probabaly won't get excited about this book. However, it does teach a very good moral.)
"The Pokey Little Pup" (A cute story for young kids. It actually had several sequels.)
"The Animals of Farmer Jones" (A good learning book for for young city kids, who have never been to a farm.)
"Bongo" (This is a great story. I highly recommend it. It's fun and exciting. This is one that adults might enjoy as they read it to their young ones.)
"Brave Cowboy Bill" (I would think that youngsters would really like this one.)
"Busy Timmy" (This one is definitely for pre-schoolers only. However, I think it's a pretty good one for the tiny tots.)
"Chicken Little" (Another younger kid book, but it has a good moral.)
"A Child's Garden of Verses" (A good book to introduce young kids to poetry.)
"The Circus is in Town" (Your kids or grandkids will never see a circus under the big top. This could be a learning experience about the past for them.)
"Five Little Firemen" (An exciting story for little kids. I think they will like it. I believe that there are more similar firemen and fire engine stories from "Golden Books".)
"Fix it Please" (If my recollection is correct, this is a story where mom and dad fix things instead of tossing them out. It has an eco-friendly message, maybe the first.)
"Gaston and Josephine" (Two very rosy French pigs)". This is a strong recommendation. Perhaps it is better for slightly older kids, and I think you might enjoy it too.)
"The Good Humor Man" (A fun story that will teach the kids about something that they will probably never experience.)
"Hansel and Gretel" (Yeah, I know they all know this story, but the illustrations are really good.)
"Helicopters" (Never had this one as a kid, but seeing I flew helicopters, I threw it in here.)
"Hopalong Cassidy, and the Bar 20 Cowboy" (Hoppy was my favorite cowboy. Today's kids will never hear of him, but I think they should.)
"Howdy Doody..." ("Golden Books" has a bunch of them. Howdy is long gone, but why not let the kids, who will never sit in the Peanut Gallery, know about Howdy?)
"Little Black Sambo" (This one is terribly politically incorrect today. However, if you can get past the title, Sambo is very smart, and outwits the tigers with his plan.)
"Little Pee Wee" (A strong recommendation. It has a great story that the kids will like, and you will probably like it too.)
"The Little Trapper" (A very strong recommendation. It has a wonderful story for kids, who love wild animals, and has a moral too.)
"Mr. Dog" (This isn't one I had, but one I got for my kids. It's a cute story.)
"The Noises and Mr. Flibberty Jibb" (A strong recommendation. It is unique. This is a good story that I think the kiddies will like, and you might too.)
"Peter and the Wolf" (Another one that all the kids know the story of, but it's worth it for the illustrations.)
"Pinocchio" (A great synopsis of the story, and once again the illustrations are wonderful.)
"The Saggy Baggy Elephant" (This is a story that I think your young ones will enjoy.)
"Scuffy the Tug Boat" (A cute story about a little tug boat that gets the job done.)
"Scuppers, the Sailor Dog" (Another one that I read to my kids, but it's a good one.)
"The Seven Sneezes" (Another strong recommendation. It is a story that you will never find any place else.)
"So Big" (Heck, I don't remember anything about the story, but I remember the title.)
"The Little Engine that Could" (A nice story with a moral.)
"The Tawney Scrawny Lion" (A cute story that I read to my kids.)
"The Three Bears" (Every kid knows this story, but the illustrations make it worthwhile to read with the kids again.)
"Tootle" (Little kids will love this one.)

I have recreated this post as best I could. I may have omitted some from before, or have added some that I missed after checking out all 1,144 "Golden Book" titles again. However, I think that these are great books for younger kids. If you go to the link, you will find that over the years "Golden Books" have wandered all over the place. They include everything from religion, to fairy tales, to classics, to education, to TV shows, to cartoon characters, and more.

Here's the link to all of the "Golden Book" titles again:

http://www.childrensclassics.com.au/ccp ... -list.html

One of the best things about these books would be the illustrations. Garth Williams illustrated many of the early "Golden Books", and his illustrations are wonderful!

Here's a link that will tell you something about Garth Williams:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Williams

Here's the link to the list of all 1,144 "Golden Books" again:

http://www.childrensclassics.com.au/ccp ... -list.html

Here's a link that tells a little bit of the "Golden Book" story:

http://www.randomhouse.com/golden/lgb/story.html

p.s. I don't think you can buy them at the corner drug store for 25 cents anymore. After checking the Internet out, I think a few of these "Golden Books" are going for $50.00 or more these days, but check around, you might get lucky on eBAY. (Most of them are for sale for less than $10.00 Better yet, the "Goodwill" stores might have one or two tossed into the book bin, and of course there are always yard sales, where you might pick them up for a nickel.

p.p.s. I'm kind of guessing, but I think Garth Williams', and other famous illustrators' pictures may be why some of the old "Golden Books" cost so much. They filled "Golden Books" with pictures that all little kids will love, and that old folks will think of with memories of the past, when they too were once young. (It bothers me to think this, but there is a possibility that some may buy the books, cut the illustrations out, frame them, and sell them for more than the book cost.)

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"The game is afoot."

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I've gotta throw this one in for my Canadian buddies:



(These are just a few of the "Landmark Books". There are many, many more, and they cover a whole lot of history that people should know.)

"Landmark Books" were real books, which I would say would be appropriate reading for kids from the 4th grade through junior high school. They were written for kids in this age group to be able read with little problem, and they were well written. They were hard bound, and the early ones had dust jackets. I do not believe that there was ever a series of books that taught kids more about history than the "Landmark Books". The illustrations weren't great, but the words were. Many famous authors contributed to them.

Sadly, Random House stopped publishing almost all of them years ago. (There are a few, very few, that they still publish in paper back.) I would guess that is because even though these books taught kids stuff they should know, the books became no longer profitable for Random House.

If you want your kids or grandkids to know stuff that they don't teach in school anymore, find these books for them to read. Some of the stuff might be a little dated today. but not much. If they read enough of them, it won't be long before they will know more than their teachers. and getting A's in class.

I realize that I am known for posting goofy stuff on the "ScaRatings", but this time I am very serious. Young people, who read these books, will learn stuff that will give them an advantage as they work their way through school, and beyond.

I tried to find a complete listing of the "Landmark Book" series. Perhaps it is out there somewhere, but this was the best I could come up with. I'm pretty sure it is not close to a complete listing of the "Landmark Books" series:

http://www.goodreads.com/series/49757-landmark-books

(There are many more. Just try one that looks good, see how it works, and if you kid or grandkid likes it, you've got a lot more to find.)

p.s. Sadly, almost all of these books are no longer available at your local bookstore. Heck, they are nearly totally gone. If you want to get them, you will have to search for them on the Internet, and find the best deal you can get. I'm sure that they will cost more than what they did when they were new, but if the kids read them and learn, I think it would be money well spent.

p.p.s. Heck, read them yourself, you might learn something too.

p.p.p.s. I tried to find a link to a complete list of the Landmark Book series, I Googled it, but it isn't there.

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"The game is afoot."

I find it hard to believe that I have had no replies to either my "Golden Books" or "Landmark Books" posts. Were none of you ever exposed to them, or did I just bore everyone to sleep? As goofy as CLOUDY sometimes seems, this is one time when you might want to listen to him. These are books that kids should experience. Yeah, most of these books are long out of print, and some may cost something beyond you want to pay, but not all of them. I think you can still find many on the Internet for reasonable prices, if you look around.

I sure would like to hear from any of you, who have ever had any experience with either of these book series from the past.

Okay, that's enough for me tonight:

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........................................... Sure hope to hear something from somebody about this tomorrow, but goodnight I'm going to bed.

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"The game is afoot."