Button, Button

I recently found this sheet advertising "Fun Paks" of buttons made by the Badge-a-Minit company of LaSalle, Illinois.  These buttons would be sold on a display carousel in "high traffic retail locations".

It's a fun slice of 1970's humor.

Decoregger

It's time once again to dye and decorate the unborn children of our fowl feathered friends. Yes, I'm talking about Easter.

Tired of those cheap Paas tablets that turn your fingers all the colors of the rainbow?  Then might I suggest "The Decoregger" (as seen on TV!...in the '70's)

April Fools

The joke isn't that you're squirted with water by what appears to be an everyday utilitarian item.  It's the fact that no kid today would even understand what this is supposed to be.

And what's even more amazing is that every guise this gag took, as demonstrated on the card back, is now an app on our phones.

RIP Beverly Cleary

I'm a few days late on this post, but I couldn't let the passing of Beverly Cleary go unmentioned.

When I was in 4th grade, our teacher, Mrs. Heineke, read a passage to us from "Runaway Ralph" by Beverly Cleary.  I was instantly hooked.

By then, I already enjoyed reading, but strictly of shorter children's books like Babar the Elephant,  the works of Dr. Seuss, the Berenstain Bears, "Harold and the Purple Crayon", "Where the Wild Things Are", etc. This would be my introduction to "chapter" books.  

It helped that the cover was so darn cool.  The blazing red cover with a mouse riding hell-bent down a hill, wearing a crash helmet made from half a ping pong ball and a rubber band, whiskers blowing in the wind and his tail carefully tucked under his arm to keep it out of the spokes clinched it. How could I NOT want to read this?

You Can't Take It with You

Wow, that was a long gap, but here I am again, popping up when least expected.  Well, it keeps you on your toes, doesn't it?

This will be a little bit different Garage Sale post in that its about something that didn't come home with me.  But it was something that struck a personal chord and triggered fond memories.

I was at an estate sale this weekend (a particularly good one, I might add, but that will be for later).  As I walked into one of the bedrooms, I immediately noticed the door, or more specifically, what was on it.

Stag Famous Firsts

Just in the nick of time for your New Years Eve party are these helpful party and snack tips from the folks at Stag Beer.  There's no date on this, but based on the hair and clothes styles, I'd put it late 1950's.

Revlis Starlite Christmas Tree

There's a neighborhood garage sale in Affton, Missouri that's held annually in June to which I've been going since discovering it about 3 years ago. It's an older neighborhood and always seems to bring out some good items. This year, I came across a beaten up box filled with what appeared to be white branches to a Christmas tree.  Further digging revealed they were indeed that and that the box also held the trunk.  It looked similar to the silver aluminum trees I'm more familiar with having 2 sections of trunk that fit together with holes drilled into the trunk to receive the varied sized branches.  The needles weren't aluminum, but rather plastic or vinyl. 

It wasn't marked with a price, so I asked the woman who was hosting the sale.  She said $10.  Not knowing if all the branches were there, I was a bit hesitant and put the tree back.  As I was getting ready to check out with my other items, her husband whispered, "I'll let you have it for $5".  So I went home with it.  Setting it up, I found it was missing just one branch which didn't really affect the look.  I put it away in our attic and almost forgot about it until this past week.  I dug it out and set it up and decorated it using just red, green and gold glass ornaments and an atomic tree topper (another garage sale find).