East St. Louis Elf

I had to work a 30 hour shift this weekend starting Friday morning and lasting until noon on Saturday.  I was pretty tired driving home, but not tired enough to not stop at an estate sale in Oakville.  The saling force is strong in this one.

Being afternoon, I was a little late for the sale, but still found a few interesting items.  This elf I picked up for $2 was one.

His label is pretty worn, but you can still read what it says: "Souvenir of East St. Louis, Ill."

These days the only souvenir you might pick up in East St. Louis is a case of the clap or a cap in your...er...well, you get the idea.

What was on TV - February 18-24, 1978

It's time once again for "What was on TV".  Today's blog looks at 35 years ago: February 18th through the 24th, 1978. 

On the cover is the ever-changing cast of Charlie's Angels.  Apparently, there was much strife on the set amongst the girls.  Blame at this point had been laid upon Kate Smith.

Oh HoJo, Where'dja Go?

I bought a stack of oversized postcards at an estate sale this past weekend.  There were 12 postcards featuring 2 different designs, both for a Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge located at 6929 South Lindbergh Blvd in South St. Louis County, Missouri.

As it turns out, it was a only a few miles from the estate sale. That's my neck of the woods, so it intrigued me as I didn't remember there ever being a Howard Johnson's there.  The postcards appear to date from the late 1950's and early 1960's, based on the car models.
On that site today is a retail shopping center with a Marshalls, J. C. Penney furniture store and Krispy Kreme.  Not a hint of HoJo anywhere, completely erased from the landscape. 




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Starting with a corner drugstore and soda fountain in 1925, Howard Deering Johnson built an empire of 1,000 restaurants and 500 Motor Lodges. Known for their orange-roofed inns, weathervane-topped cupolas and 28 flavors of ice cream, they are remembered as an icon of the golden days of cross-country travel. But just as they were peaking in the 1970's, Hojo's fell victim to the oil embargo and the resulting drop in travel. By that time they had diversified their company with other restaurants such as Red Coach Grills and The Ground Round, one of which operated a few miles down the street from this location near 5731 South Lindbergh Blvd. Sold from company to company throughout the 1980's to the 2000's, there stands only 2 Howard Johnsons restaurants today, although the hotel chain continues under the umbrella of a corporate conglomerate that operates other familar chains such as Super 8, Travelodge and Knights Inn.

What Was On TV - February 12-18, 1983

Inspired by my last post, I've decided to try to make "What Was On TV" a regular feature.  This week brings us to February 12th through the 18th, 1983.  This week 30 years ago, M*A*S*H was wrapping up its 11-year run.  TV Guide celebrated with a foldout cover.  By this point, M*A*S*H had gone from zany, but sometimes poignant to downright preachy.  To my 14-year-old self, the whole "keep that damn chicken quiet" Hawkeye scene on the bus from the series finale was disturbing.

Alive Mother!

One of my best scores ever was a box of old postcards I picked up at a garage sale back in the Summer of 2005.  I know, I'm reaching way back on this one, but hey, garage sales are a bit slow this time of year so I thought I'd do some "Best Of" posts.

I had found some other items at the sale and had looked at the box of postcards which was marked at $5, but put it back.  When I asked about the price on the things I did have, I balked at her quote of $8.  When I did, she said she'd throw in the post cards for an even $10.  Deal!

The postcards dated from the 19-teens to the 1970's and most were written on and postmarked from various locations throughout the U.S.  The majority were sent to a Marjorie or possibly two.  Early postcards (1917) up to about 1945 are made out to a Mrs. Marjorie Malone (husband Gomer) while later cards are addressed to Mrs. Marjorie Durham (husband Freeman).  The latest cards I have places an elderly Marjorie in Acopolco in 1980.  Mother/daughter?  2 husbands?  We may never know.

Anyway, one of these days I'll blog about the bulk of the collection, but for today I wanted to share my favorite of the lot.  It's a postcard from a carnival staged at Grand Blvd. and Laclede Ave. in St. Louis in September, 1940.

Written on the back: "Sincerely Dollette. A Midget Mother Has 3 grown sons & she's 53 years of age. Got this Sept., 1940. St. Louis, MO Carnival on Grand & Laclede.

I ended up selling this card on eBay for $64.

What was on TV January 20th through 26th, 1979 -- The Superbowl Sunday Edition

I was never a sports fan growing up, or even now for that matter.  My family just never watched sports.  But I can appreciate the significance of the Superbowl, especially when it's given a retro spin.

A few years back, I came into possession of a large lot of vintage TV Guides.  I acquired them from Freecycle.  If you're unfamiliar with Freecycle, it's a Yahoo! Group that allows people to offer up items they no longer want.  You can reply that you want the item and then you and the other person work out a time to pick the item up.  The groups are set up by localities, usually by city or county.

It's from that batch that I present you Super Bowl XIII from the January 20-26, 1979 edition of TV Guide.

Free is Good

On my last post, I suggested this blog was no longer limited to garage sale finds, but thrift store, estate sale, and other finds.  I need to add one more to the list: curbside finds.  I've blogged about curbside finds in the past.  These are items the previous owners have decided are no longer usable or wanted and have set out to the curb either for the trash man or people like me.

While out dropping off bags for Scouting for Food with my sons last November, my second oldest son spotted a pinball machine sitting at the curb.  This wasn't a full size commercial unit, but it was larger than the usual toy version.  As it turned out, it's a 3/4 scale pinball named Star Galaxy that is sold in the UK and Australia for home use.  It runs about £499 which currently is almost $800 USD.

The pinball was missing its power adapter.  I googled for a new one, but it has an odd requirement of 22v 3amps max.  I contacted the company for advice on finding a replacement adapter to which I received the response, "It wouldn't work because we have different voltage in Australia".

A friend at work offered some old laptop adaptors he had laying around.  I wasn't confident about them working, so they sat in a bag in my garage for the last couple months.  This weekend, I decided it was time to either get rid of the pinball taking up room in my garage or figure out if it worked.

I picked an adaptor out of the bag.  It was for a Compaq laptop and ran 18v 3.2 amps.  The connector actually fit pretty well so deciding I had nothing to lose, I plugged it in and turned it on.  It immediately came to life.

Like I said, it's not a full-size pinball, but the play is pretty good and it uses real bumpers and electric flippers.  The sound effects are fairly decent.    One of the sound effects is actually the sound of laser fire from a tie-fighter.  Don't tell George Lucas (or Disney).

The game worked great for a day, then the connection at the adapter started to get stubborn, shutting off in the middle of game play.  I ended up cutting off the adapter end and soldering the wires directly to the circuit board.  No more issues after that.

The kids have been having a great time playing it (Dad too).  There's a pretty good demonstration on Youtube that will give you an idea of what it's like.