Unsung

While out estate saling last Friday, I stopped at a sale in Mehlville.  While I was browsing, I heard people talking about the owner of the home being a local coach.  His name was Coach Raymond Cliffe and after doing a little research found he was well known and fondly remembered in the high school level sports scene, having taught over 40 years from 1948 through 1992.  In fact, he was inducted into the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame.  He was also a locally exhibited artist, helping design the scenery for the first holiday lights show at Tilles Park in Ladue.  The Post-Dispatch wrote a nice article on him when he passed.

But with all due respect, this blog is not about Coach Clifffe.  It's about his wife.

While rummaging through a box of photos and various ephemera, I came across what appeared to be publicity photos for a Miss Shirley White.

Blowing Smoke

I found this toy muzzleloader pistol at a sale a while back.  I bought one just like it from K-Mart when I was about 9 years old.  This was at the height of Bicentennial-mania when everything olde tymey was in style.  My dad had taken up black powder hunting and so I had a fascination with the toy version.  I was surprised to find this in it's original cardboard packaging.

Rockin' the Mid Century

It's been a month since my last post.  Sometimes life is like that.  Sales have been very slow and what sales there have been just didn't work out with my schedule.  But that changed this past Friday.  I was actually off work and my wife and I made a morning of hitting some sales.  The first sale we hit was on Meramec in South City.  We arrived about an hour after opening and I was surprised to see there were very few people there.  Of course, I hit the basement first.  Remember, the good stuff is always in the basement.  I noticed a couple of outdoor rockers in the corner, but after giving a cursory glance, I went on to other things.   It was my wife who brought my attention back to them.  They were clearly mid century, but I was thinking we already had enough porch furniture plus they were marked at $16 each.  She really liked them so I relented and we came home with them.

On the way home, we stopped by TFA on Chippewa and I saw a nearly identical pair set out front.  I asked about them and they were priced at $112.50 each.

Once home, I commenced to cleaning them up.  That's when I noticed the label:

I of course recognized Heywood Wakefield as one of the largest manufacturers of Mid Century Modern furniture during the 1950's and 60's, but I was unfamiliar with the Lloyd branding. 

Marshall Lloyd invented the Lloyd Loom in 1917.  The loom created wicker sheets using kraft paper-wrapped wire which was then used to create furniture.  The furniture was very popular and was used in restaurants, cruise ships and even Zeppelins.  Lloyd Manufacturing was bought out by Hewyood Wakefield in 1921 who used that technology to create their line of wicker furniture.

The chairs are actually very comfortable, contoured just right.  I plan on spending quite a few summer evenings relaxing in them.

What was on TV March 18th through 24th, 1978

It's time once again for my irregular feature, What was on TV.  This week, it's March 18th through the 24th of 1978 with a  Lyndsey Wagner cover.

Can He Swing from a Thread?

While I enjoy going to garage and estate sales for the thrill of the hunt, it's always nice when I can make a little scratch from my finds.   Thinking back to my childhood,  I guess I've always tried to make a buck where I could.

There were the "original" Spider-man stories I sold which were actually one-page typed, worked over retellings of episodes of the 1967 Spider-man cartoon which I watched religiously every day after school.  I sold those for fifty cents each to willing (read gullible) classmates.  Then there were the hand-drawn comic strips featuring my own creations which I would sell for a quarter a piece.  Perhaps I was taking advantage of my classmates, but at least they were getting a deliverable product for their money.

When I found this vintage '70's squirt ring at an estate sale a few months ago, my mind spun back (foreshadowing pun intended) to the 5th grade and an unrealized business venture.

It's Got a Beat and I Can Pray to It

For the last few days, all eyes (okay, not all but a lot of eyes) have been on Rome and the Vatican.  And when the smoke cleared (literally) today, we Catholics had a new leader.  It seems like an appropriate time to profile the flexi-disc I found at an estate sale about a month ago.  Entitled, "The Voice of the Holy Father", it's a recording of Pope Pius XII made in 1949.

 

It's double-sided.

A digitally cleaned version of side 1 can be heard here.  Strangely, the announcer speaks longer than the Pope actually does.

A less than stellar recording of side 2 can be heard here.  Side 2 suffered from warping more so than side 1, so some skipping occurs.  I also didn't apply a filter to that side. Hey, it was late and I was getting tired.

Cowboys and Indians



Given the distractions offered kids on long car trips these days in the form of phones and tablets (*editors not: updated for 2020 from "flip down tvs, dvd players and handheld game systems" in original 2013 post), it's hard to imagine how they would have tolerated the cross-country drives my siblings and I took during the 1960's and 70's.  Back then, the trip was part of the experience and it wasn't the interstate race to your destination that it's become today.

In fact, one of my favorite aspects of a classic roadtrip was the stop at various tourist trap gift shops where one could pick up a rubber tomahawk, faux leather-covered tom-toms or a dyed chicken feather headdress.  These were common items you could find in any gift shops in the far western states such as Tennessee or North Carolina (sarcasm implied; I live in Missouri).  While all 50 states can certainly lay claim to occupation by Native Americans, one normally associates such accoutrements with the plains states tribes.  I grew up watching cowboy and indian movies and televison shows and had more than a little fear of meeting an actual "indian", although I knew some were friendly like Tonto.  I have a vivid memory of being in Cherokee, North Carolina and spying a  Native American sporting what in my memory looked more like a Hollywood interpretation of native dress than traditional Cherokee.  I imagine he was offering  to have your picture taken with him for a donation, but I thought he might attack at any moment.  Noticing my apprehension, he looked down at me and smiled and I gathered the courage to ask, "Are you a good indian or a bad indian?"  He laughed and assured me he was good.

Sorry for the rambling story, but this really does lead to nice little find I acquired at an estate sale a couple weekends back.  I recall seeing figures like these at tourist gift shops on these trips.  I never bought any though, always opting for the more action-oriented items mentioned above.