Beistle Creeping Cat

At the same sale where I found yesterday's die cut, I found this Beistle creeping cat.

Black (Cat) Gold

This find from a few months back just goes to show there's still some gold to be found in the wild.

Halloween -- It's My Bag, Baby, and Here We Go Again!

Welcome to Halloween 2021!  Well, technically, we have 30 more days to go.  But today kicks off my 7th annual participation in the Countdown to Halloween wherein I (attempt to) entertain you with my Halloween-related items I've bought at garage and estate sales in the previous year.  And let me be clear: I stretch the definition of "Halloween-related" pretty far.  Hey, I need to pad things out if I want to post every day.

As is de rigueur, my first offering is this year's bag:

The Countdown is Coming...

 

Stay Tuned...

Punk Metal

I didn't buy this, but I couldn't resist taking a picture of it at an estate sale today.  You expect to see this sort of thing on a school notebook, but a toolbox?

Shakey Memories

When I was a kid, eating out was a special event that might only happen 2 or 3 times a year and pizza was never one of my parents' choices.  Though I rarely got to eat it, it was my favorite.  I can recall a couple times my older sister took my other sister and I to Pizza Hut, but other than that, my pizza exposure was limited to Totino's or Jeno's frozen pizza at home when my parents went out without me.

But there was a golden period of about 4 years when pizza was a once-a-year guarantee. Starting in 7th grade, members of the school band could go to a week-long summer camp (yes, Band Camp) hosted on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO) in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. My sister, four years older than me, started going in 1977.  I would attend beginning in 1981.

Essentially, you practiced with same-aged kids from bands gathered from around the St. Louis Metropolitan area and at the end of the week on Friday night, give a concert for parents.

After the concert, we would go out to eat.  I'm not sure how it happened, but Shakey's Pizza was the decided restaurant.  The restaurant itself was in an old brick building, similar to this:

Snoopy Comes Home..and Goes To School

Most schools have already started back for the year a couple weeks ago, but in my day (cue old man voice), we didn't start until the Tuesday after Labor Day.

And in 1974, I was starting 2nd grade. But I wasn't starting it alone.  Not only was my sister still riding the school bus with me (her last year in elementary), but I had a brand new Snoopy lunchbox, made by Thermos by my side.

In the picture below, you can see me clutching it and charging toward our driveway after coming home on the first day of school.