Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i Reminisce Extra

WHEN IT COMES TO THANKSGIVING, I think of family first. Mine is spread across the Midwest, so getting everyone together at one time is next to impossible. I commend those families who are fortunate enough to find togetherness no matter the miles. The thing I love about spending time with family is the comfort, ease and familiarity that comes from a shared history of traditions. To get a glimpse of others’ shared histories, be sure to take a look at “Service with a Gobble” on page 44. There you’ll see how stunning table settings and out-of-the-ordinary turkey platters rallied our readers into creating their own holiday heritage. During the countdown to your holiday meal, don’t miss the 90th Anniversary Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. If parades are your thing, be sure…

In the summer of 1947, a flying disc reportedly crashed into a farmer’s pasture near Roswell, New Mexico, scattering rubber, tinfoil, paper, tape and sticks over the field. Initially dismissed in reports from the Roswell Army Air Force Base as a weather balloon, the airborne object became the source of subsequent speculation about alien invasion. Interest peaked from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s. In 1994 the Pentagon declassified related files, disclosing that the balloon crash near Roswell was part of the top secret military operation Project Mogul, the purpose of which was to detect sound waves generated by Soviet atomic bomb tests. No fewer than five books, including The Roswell Incident, published in 1980, have been written about the 1947 occurrence in Roswell, many with a conspiratorial slant.…

Cool as a Camel DICK JOHNSON TULARE, CA IN 1966, I WAS 27 and the manager of the Firestone store in Merced, California. As a member of a Masonic lodge, I decided to join the Tehran Shrine in Fresno. The Shriners were going to have a ceremonial initiation and parade through downtown, with about 50 new-member candidates—plus three camels. They needed three men to lead the camels and three to ride them. I quickly put my hand up, thinking, How often do you get the chance to ride a camel? They dressed me in Middle Eastern garb and helped me onto the camel. About halfway through the parade, my camel began to jump and buck. I let go and landed in the street on my feet. A few days later,…

MY SHOOT-OUT WITH TONTO occurred in a Menlo Park, California, supermarket parking lot. The Lone Ranger was my favorite show, so when the traveling show came to town, I went in my cowboy boots and hat, packing two six-guns. I got picked for the quick-draw contest against Tonto, and he let me win. At the end of the show, Tonto gave me two autographed pictures. Best day ever! ALVIN DEXTER POLLOCK PINES, CA “HI-YO SILVER, THE LONE RANGER RIDES AGAIN!” My papa and I listened to him Sunday evenings at 5:30. Although the Lone Ranger was my all-time hero, I saw much more of myself in his friend, Tonto. I was a first-generation Sicilian-American whose parents spoke broken English and whose ethnicity was subject to malicious bias by those whose…

PREMATURE BURIAL In the mid-1960s I was a seventh-grader at a rural Catholic school in northeast Wisconsin, looking forward to serving as altar boy at my first funeral Mass. Not only would I get out of school, I’d be invited to the bereaved family’s home for dinner, complete with wonderful Bohemian desserts. After Mass, we all walked over to the parish cemetery. The priest was giving a final blessing before the coffin, which was on a riser above the grave site, would be lowered into the ground. I stood between two other altar boys, holding a large cross that was considerably taller than me and felt as if it outweighed me by several pounds. One of the boys asked if I knew how deep the grave was. Curiosity got the…

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OKTOBERFESTS & BREWERIES Tried-and-true beers made Milwaukee famous. But a resurgence in small-batch craft brewing has changed America’s drinking landscape. What’s been your experience when it comes to sampling, brewing or reveling with the crowd at beer festivals and tastings? Do you brew your own or leave it to the brew-masters? Give us an inside look. Email your submission with “OKTOBERFESTS & BREWERIES” in the subject line. STAR WARS What began in 1977 as a limited-release science fiction film has become a pop culture classic. Star Wars and its sequels have garnered a loyal (and enormous) fan base, inspiring tributes, spoofs and merchandise galore. Does Star Wars float your boat? Which episode is your favorite? Tell us, or better yet, show us, what Star Wars means to you. Email your…

The idea for a reference book started as a pub dispute over the flying speed of game birds. Sir Hugh Beaver, managing director of the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland, used the idea of a definitive guide as a marketing promotion to resolve pub quarrels. Beaver hired twins Norris and Ross McWhirter to compile the book of facts and figures. The brothers’ initial research on the project took almost 3 1/2 months of 90-hour work weeks. The first edition of The Guinness Book of Records was published on Aug. 27, 1955. Beaver sent promotional copies to about 1,000 pubs. The initial printing consisted of 50,000 copies, followed by reprints, reaching 187,000 sales. Holding the record for the most copyrighted books sold, The Guinness Book of Records boasts more than 130…

The first Macy’s parade was on Thanksgiving Day in 1924 but was called Macy’s Christmas Parade. Live animals, including lions, bears, tigers, camels, goats, elephants and donkeys, were a part of the original processions. Macy’s replaced the animals in 1927 with its now-famous giant balloons. Since 1927, 171 giant character balloons have appeared in the parade. Balloons were released at the end of the parade from 1929 until 1931. Lucky finders could return balloons to Macy’s for a $50 gift certificate. The tradition ended after a balloon drifted into the propeller of an airplane that was trying to catch it for the reward. (The plane managed to land safely.) The parade has ended with Santa Claus every year except in 1933, when the jolly old elf led the parade. Because…

The Thomas Edison National Historical Park is located in West Orange, New Jersey. The park consists of two areas: Glenmont, the estate of Thomas and Mina Edison, and the 20,000 square feet of exhibit space within the Laboratory Complex where Edison and his staff conducted experiments. To tour either the Laboratory Complex or Glenmont, you need to obtain tickets at the Laboratory Complex Visitor Center. Tickets to Glenmont are limited and given on a first-come, first-served basis. The estate is closed from January through March. To check the park schedule and plan a visit, call 973-736-0550, Ext. 11, or visit nps.gov/edis/planyourvisit/.…

A Movie for a Struggling City KAREN HINZ CLEARWATER, FL When Rocky hit the big screen in 1976, I had only recently moved to the Detroit, Michigan, area. I had grown up around Chicago, Illinois, where my grandfather ran a neighborhood tavern out of his basement. We had deep roots in the Windy City. So when my dad found a new job in Detroit, it was a shock to move to a different place. To make matters worse, it was during the era when gas prices, which had been steady for years, seemed to double overnight. Detroit’s lifeblood was the auto industry, and it was falling on hard times. With so many of its workers losing their jobs, the Motor City was ripe for a movie such as Rocky. It…

BORN INTO A FAMILY OF 12 children, Billye Peal Lumpkin (Mom) learned her way around the kitchen at an early age. At her mother’s side, Billye began her lifelong journey of making delicious, creative meals. When Mom married Dad in 1943, her most treasured wedding gift was Irma S. Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking. For the next 55 years, Mom, with her trusty book, prepared thousands of amazing meals and desserts for her family of six. The normal chattering of her four daughters disappeared at mealtime, replaced by quiet utterances of appreciation. As for my favorite recipe, that would have to be the coconut cake decorated with seven-minute icing. She made it for my birthday every year. Not only was it beautiful, but it was pure JOY to eat. Thank…

Hattie has lost two hatpins in this issue! If you find them, tell us at reminisce.com/hatpin. We’ll randomly select 10 winners to receive a year’s subscription to Reminisce Extra. In the September issue, we hid one on the buggy on page 14 and beside a violin bow on page 19. Bonus: Did you find the third hatpin on the orange buoy on page 38? There’s no purchase necessary to enter to win. Purchase will not improve your chances of winning. Sweepstakes is open to legal residents age 18 years or older of the U.S., its territories and possessions, or of Canada (excluding the Province of Quebec). Sweepstakes begins on 10/27/16, and ends on 1/5/17. For official rules, visit reminisce.com/contests/hatties-hatpin-rules-rem/. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. Sweepstakes sponsored by RDA Enthusiast Brands, LLC.…

An Avid Letter Writer JOAN SIBINSKI COON RAPIDS, MN I WAS 13 IN 1955 and, back then, a big fan of teen magazines. They always included a section with the names and addresses of readers who wanted to become pen pals. I decided to write to a boy in Minnesota and was excited to receive a letter from him. Over the next couple of years we stayed in touch; he called me “L’il Sis.” After a while he told me about a girl named Jane whom he’d started dating. Soon Jane and I became pen pals. We wrote each other for about two years, and she invited me to visit her family after I graduated from high school. During my visit, I met Jane’s brother, Lenny. It didn’t take long…

Depression Dad, Family Hero CHRISTINE HALL-GAGNON GRANITE BAY, CA MY PARENTS, Vernon W. Hall and Eleanor Finneran Hall, lived through the Depression. During the tough times, my father took any job he could—house painter, surveyor, service station attendant, deliveryman—to put food on the table for his family. In 1934, Dad got a job with Pacific Gas & Electric in California. He worked his way up the ladder from grunt to apprentice lineman to journeyman lineman, building tall steel towers, stringing wires and handling hot sticks, as they were called, with live current running through the cable. His job security was simply showing up where the job site was—sometimes driving through the night for 100 to 200 miles—to be first in line for work. Besides the weeklong grind, at each job…

Conquistadors in Mexico in the 1500s took wild turkeys back to Europe, where the birds were domesticated. The descendants of these birds then came to the New World with the colonists. Wild turkeys were hunted to extinction in Massachusetts by 1851 and were nearly wiped out across North America by the early 1900s. Captive breeding programs in the 1940s reintroduced wild turkeys to many of their ranges. Today, there are about 6.5 million wild turkeys in the U.S. and Canada. A turkey’s gobble can be heard from a mile away. Wild turkeys sleep in trees. Courting toms will strut like peacocks, displaying their tails, showing off the bright snoods atop their beaks and waggling the wattles underneath them. In 1949 President Harry Truman received a gift turkey that likely…

1974 1974 “BOOTS WERE DEFINITELY the fashion statement when I was a student at Henry C. Conrad High School (Wilmington, DE),” says Claire Ciarlo Austin of Fredericksburg, VA—shown in white lace-up boots and a belted sizzler skirt. Claire says she wore go-go boots to the All Class Reunion held in April 2016. “Am I gaga for go-go boots? You bet I am!” she says. “I have about 15 pairs in my closet, and I always will.” Fifty years ago, syndicated musical variety shows helped popularize go-go boots from coast to coast. “WHILE GROWING UP IN DELAWARE, I watched TV shows like Shindig! and Hullabaloo,” recalls Virginia resident Claire Ciarlo Austin. “I would dance around my house in go-go boots and pretend I was one of the dancers on TV. Attending…

PILGRIM’S PROGRESS One afternoon sometime around Thanksgiving, I was out taking a walk with my friend Betty Leach. We were going by her son David’s home. He saw us and came out to talk a bit, along with his two young children, Margaret and Denzil. We were chatting happily when I noticed Margaret was looking at me. “What is it, Margaret?” I asked. “Jody,” she said, “were you here when the Pilgrims were here?” David’s face went chalk white, but I laughed. Today I’m known as the Pilgrim Lady, and I love it! The kids, now 19 and 20, still call me that. JODY PERKINS AMESBURY, MA PIE PRINT When I was 8, our pastor and his wife were coming for Thanksgiving dinner, a coup for my mother, who was…