Uncanny Finds -- Peanuts Edition

No, not a can of peanuts, but a can that launched a thousand (well, 2) Peanuts strips.

When I saw this old can of Neatsfoot oil, my mind jumped back to reading a paperback collection of Peanuts comic strips when I was a kid.

Magnetic Fun Board

Kids on long road trips this summer will have no appreciation for the hours of boredom children of my generation experienced.  With their phones or tablets, they'll be able watch shows, listen to music, play games, and communicate with friends. The hours on the road will fly by.

This what we called a tablet in the 1970's, and if you were lucky enough to have one, you at least had some distraction until you eventually grew bored. I didn't even have this. I stared at billboards.

Of Slurpees and Video Games

When I look back on the '80's, I sometimes feel I was more of an observer than having experienced them first hand. I don't mean that I wasn't the right age, I was.  I turned 13 in 1980, prime time coming-of-age age. But due to lack of funds, proximity of my home, and an overprotective mother, I saw little of the things most of my generation did. One of those things was video arcades. I didn't have any near me and we certainly didn't have quarters to "throw away". Another was 7-11 Slurpees. We had a 7-11 in town, but my parents never bought gas there, and we certainly wouldn't have gone inside to buy a frozen drink if we did. Like I said, I was aware of all of these things; I watched a lot of TV after all.  But as far as tasting or playing them, Slurpees and arcade video games were out of my reach (full disclosure, I did have an Atari 2600 after 1983).

Perhaps the best representation of my pop culture gap is summarized in these cups I found this morning at a garage sale.  They date from 1982 and apparently there was at least one more series in 1983.  Coincidentally enough, they cost a quarter. I didn't mind "throwing it away".