What We Leave Behind

Some finds just can't come home with you. My wife and I went to an estate sale in Lemay a few weekends back.  It was at a property I've driven by for years.  It was a Craftsman style home built sometime in the early 1900's.  

Tucked back among its trees, I never realized how vast the property was.  Both the house and the grounds seemed to go on forever.  

When I saw the estate sale workers digging up plants, prying up stepping stones, and dismantling exterior buildings, I knew this wasn't an ordinary sale.  As it turns out, a developer had bought the property plus several properties flanking either side and was putting in a 60-home subdivision.

Behind the house, we found this building.  I'm not sure if it was a summer kitchen, guest house or a child's playhouse.

Inside was an stone fireplace, oak flooring and original knotty pine wall planks.

The fireplace and paneling were for both for sale at $100 each.  I wish I could have taken the whole structure with me.

The estate sale company said there would be a sale at the  property next door as well.  I know this house well from driving by it so frequently.  It was on my route to my first job and my wife's, then girlfriend's, home.  I always thought it would be a great house to live in.

The best, or maybe saddest, discovery was behind this house.

You can't see this log cabin from the road and I never knew it existed.

  

I don't know the age of the cabin or its history, but it's clearly old and I would guess it was the original residence of the property.

Hopefully, the log cabin will be saved and moved somewhere else.

Near the log cabin is what I'm presuming to be an ice house, probably dating from the same time as the log cabin.

I hate seeing more of the old community and history torn down for new subdivision homes. Whenever I walk through estate sales, it's never far from my mind that they are the sign of the end of something, and the items for sale a story of  a lifetime and what was left behind.  Seeing this sale and the destruction of the properties makes me wonder -- what are we  leaving behind?

Blonnnndiiiieeeeee!!!

I was at an estate sale today and came across a shoe box full of what appeared to be loose puzzle pieces. Picking a few up, I immediately recognized what, or rather who they were.

Priced at $1, I couldn't pass them up. Similar to paper dolls, these heavier cardboard pieces apparently were intended to be nailed (!) down using the included (!) hammer and nails.  You have to love old toys and their carefree attitudes about child safety. 

Dagwood, Blondie and Alexander "Baby Dumpling" Bumstead. The presence of Alexander and the absence of "Cookie", the Bumsteads' daughter, places this set between 1934 and 1941.

Dagwood and the ever-present sandwich that bears his name.

Blondie, sporting a decidely 30's hair-do and a slightly mangled leg.  Perhaps by Daisy or  Dagwood in a hunger-induced rage.

The handle of Alexander's wagon is also a shovel.  There were some odd accessories with this playset.

And of course, Daisy.

The set came with a secondary set of heads which oddly enough don't fit as well, particularly Blondie's which causes her to swivel her neck 180 degrees.

I was going to crop out the upper portion of this image, but I like the way Blondie looks up at the disembodied heads of Dagwood and Alexander.

Some of the accompanying accessories.  I'm not sure how these could be used in play.  Perhaps it originally came with a backdrop.

I was never a huge fan of the strip, although I read it, but I was a bigger fan of the movie serials starring Arthur Lake and Penny Singleton, who later voiced Jane on "The Jetsons".

Cartoonist Chic Young originally began the strip in 1930 about the free-spirited adventures of a young flapper named Blondie Boopadoop and the romantic pursuits of her boyfriends, including one Dagwood Bumstead, son a wealthy railroad baron.  As the depression worsened, the popularity of the characters began to dwindle and Chic decided it was time to bring them down to earth.  Dagwood proposed to Blondie, his parents disinherited him, and Blondie and Dagwood settled down into a middle-class existence complete with a child and a dog.  Americans embraced the new Blondie and Dagwood and publication of the strip, under guidance of Chic's son Dean, continues to this day.

Hippety Hoppity, Easter's on its Way

Easter is on its way and as a child, that meant dying eggs the night before.  Actually, with children of my own, it still means that.  We were a pretty standard egg dying family and stuck with the old reliable Paas tablets. The effervescent tablets bubbling in vinegar is an image (and a smell) etched in my memory.

Comedian Patton Oswalt does a pretty funny bit about Paas Easter egg dye kits  (warning: language) and how they're the only game in town.  And though it might seem that way, it wasn't and it still isn't. 

 I found these vintage Easter Egg dye kits at the same estate sale I found the Police Circus film.  The first is Chick-Chick brand which appears to have been lost to the ages. This kit probably dates from the 1970's.

Unfortunately, the Space Station originally included wasn't present.

Cha Cha Cha Cha Changes!

You might have noticed some changes around here at Garage Sale Finds, and they're not all pretty.

After 5 years of coasting with the Blogger defaults, I'm attempting to create my own banner and look.  And I have a bit of a learning curve.  Bear with me until I find my groove.

Thanks and happy saling!

8MMusial

I've never been a big baseball fan, or any sports fan for that mater, but I can appreciate the tradition of the game and I've always thought I might have been a fan if I'd been born about 30 years earlier.  There's something about the early players that seems lost to the current generation.  Maybe I'm romanticizing a bit, but the players of the 50's and 60's seemed almost magical, setting record after record and maybe none more famous than the battle of '61 when New York Yankees teammates Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle fought for the home run record held by Babe Ruth.  Maris won by hitting his 61st home run in the final game of the regular season.

In 1961, baseball was being played by the St. Louis Cardinals at the old Sportsman's Park.  And though Stan Musial was nearing the end of his 23 year career (missing the 1945 season and part of the 1946 season while serving in the Navy), he was still the star of the team and worshipped by the fans in St. Louis.

Juxtaposing Musial was a new up and coming pitcher named Ray Sadecki.  After having won the Cardinals' Rookie of the Year for 1960, he was now a full-time starter and held much promise.

Among the 8mm films I bought at the estate sale in St. Louis Hills last fall, I found footage of the 1961 Baseball Cardinals at Sportman's Park.  Titled simply "1961 Stan Musial and Ray Sadecki" it features Stan (#6) and Ray (#37) warming up for a game.  In addition, you see other players milling about the field including #32 Ernie Broglio whose unfortunate footnote is being traded by the Cardinals for Lou Brock in 1964.  Later in the film, the game begins and you see Musial hit a triple.

In honor of the home opener here in St. Louis (although it looks like a rain-out), I offer the the 1961 St. Louis Cardinals.

This second film appears to be from another game.  I'm not sure who the Cardinals are playing here.  Maybe someone out there recognizes the other team.  The highlight of the reel is the footage of Sportsmen's Park and a home run by Stan Musial.  Also seen is the Anheuser-Busch neon eagle.  It now resides on Highway 40/61 in downtown St. Louis, still lighting the night and greeting visitors to St. Louis.

In one scene with Musial, you see a few other players standing behind the batting cage.  A couple uniform number, 21 and 10, are attributed to Curt Flood and Alex Grammas, while two others, 5 and 22 are a mystery as I can find no information on these numbers being used by the Cardinals in 1961.

Although he went on to pitch in the Cardinal-winning World Series of 1964, Ray Sadecki was a disappointment for the team and was eventually traded to the New York Giants in 1966.

In 1968, Stan Musial was inducted into the Baseball Hall of fame and in 2011, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Just last month, he was honored with a bridge in St. Louis.  The so-called Stan "the Span" opened February 9th, 2014.

What was on TV March 31st through April 6th, 1979

Baseball was on the minds of TV viewers this week in 1979.

Who's Laughing Now?

I visited a junk shop in Maplewood last Monday during lunch and came across a set of vintage Funny Face cups.  The cups were marked $2 each.  I only had $12 on me, so I bought as many as I could.

Funny Face was a powdered juice mix drink made by Pillsbury starting in 1964.  It was similar to Kool-aid, but was pre-sweetened with cyclamate (an early sugar substitute) and touted as a dietary drink. In 1968, cyclamate was banned in the United States because it was found (in high dosages) to cause bladder cancer in laboratory rats.  Funny Face re-released their drink with Saccharine, however, consumers found the aftertaste unpleasant and sales dropped.  In 1970, Pillsbury followed Kool-aid's suit and once again re-released Funny Face without sweetener as a "just add sugar" mix.

The first four Funny Face mugs were initially offered in 1969.

*ad image courtesy of theimaginaryworld.com

Goofy Grape

Lefty Lemon

Freckle-Face Strawberry

Choo Choo Cherry

Two additional mugs were offered in 1970.

*ad image courtesy of theimaginaryworld.com

Loud Mouth Punch

Jolly Olly Orange

When first released, Jolly Olly Orange and Choo Choo Cherry had less-than-sensitive ethnically-derived names and imagery.

*package image courtesy of theimaginaryworld.com

*package image courtesy of theimaginaryworld.com

According to the story told here, in 1966, Native Americans brought an official complaint against the Pillsbury Company for the use of offensive stereotypes resulting in the change to the new names.

By the mid 1970's, sales of Funny Face were being trampled by a certain anthropomorphic pitcher with a penchant for yelling, "Oh Yeah!"  Their once Funny Faces faded to a frown in 1983.