Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2022/January 2023 i Reminisce

We have a dear friend back for a visit in this issue. Linda Kast, who used to be the brand editor of Reminisce, has written an interesting story tracing the history of artificial Christmas trees. “All That Glitters, but Never Grows,” page 42, looks at the many kinds of fake trees, from early examples out of Germany in the 1800s to the plastic bristle and aluminum versions of the modern era. Linda’s nostalgic trip down Tinsel Lane made me long for the drugstore metallic tree my Aunt Annabelle had in her small house in Toronto’s west end. It always looked spiffy, year after year. It held up much better than the toilet brush–style tree Mum bought in the late 1960s. That thing lost its grandeur early on as the holes…

Challenged to pick one experience that surpassed all others in my joyful childhood in Butte, Montana, I would have to pick making our snow lady in the winter of 1952. My dad, George Hyndman, was a wonderful, creative guy who always carved out time from his busy schedule to make fun for his children. Montana winters brought substantial snow, and one afternoon Dad got us all to help build a snowwoman. She was an impressive 6 feet tall at the shoulders. Dad had to roll the last few feet of the base because we could not move it. After we rolled the midsection, Dad strained to heft it atop the base. After he added a head, we gathered more snow and Dad sculpted two arms extending from her broad shoulders.…

Christmas trees—the natural version—have been around for centuries and were especially popular in Germany. They became tradition in England and elsewhere after 1848, when the Illustrated London News ran a colorful engraving of Queen Victoria with her husband, German-born Prince Albert, and their children next to a decorated pine tree surrounded by presents. Artificial holiday trees go back to about the same period in Germany, where makers crafted trees using wooden dowels as the trunks, wires for branches and dyed goose feathers as leaves. In the 1930s, U.K.-based Addis Co. used its toilet brush-making machinery to form artificial trees. These brush-bristle trees were popular during World War II, when real trees were hard to come by. By the war’s end and the ensuring space race, our perception of traditional holiday…

When Lee Iacocca took over as Chrysler Corp. president in 1978, he faced his toughest sale — convincing Congress to guarantee loans that would keep the company out of insolvency. Iacocca made the sale. He also advanced two concepts that his former boss, Henry Ford II, had rejected: the inexpensive, front-drive K-Car platform, and the minivan. The K-Car enabled Chrysler to pay off those guaranteed loans by 1983. Minivans became a cultural phenomenon: By 2019, the company had produced 15 million minivans, equalling Ford’s success with its Model T. Chrysler and Ford set out in the early 1970s to improve on the Volkswagen Microbus, which had a niche market in the U.S. But in response to the 1973 oil crisis, the companies shifted focus to redesigning passenger cars. In 1978,…

EVERYBODY CHALYPSO! Dancers on TV’s American Bandstand bop to Billy & Lillie’s “La Dee Dah,” one of several tunes with Latin rhythms that inspire a dance combining elements of calypso and cha-cha. Host Dick Clark, above, dubs it “chalypso.” The dance remains popular for a couple of years before the twist sweeps the nation. MODERN MOVES Alvin Ailey, below, a dancer, director and choreographer, organizes a troupe of young dancers of color to perform for the first time as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Based in New York, the company soon sets out on its first tour, which Ailey calls the station wagon tours because that is the vehicle they use—driven by Ailey’s good friend Marilyn “Mickey” Board. SHINE ON The Hope Diamond, the distinctive and rare deep blue…

Writer Jack Kerouac initially used the phrase “Beat Generation” to describe a state of world-weariness. Later, he said it conveyed a sense of spiritual enlightenment (“beatific”). Adding “nik” (a la Sputnik, Russia’s satellite launched in 1957) to the term, which had come to mean hipster, was the work of San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. The newly invented word conveyed mild derision toward the Bohemian subculture known for rejecting social mores and embracing artistic self-expression. Merriam-Webster added the word in 1958, the year Caen’s column appeared.…

For our Christmas pageant at Ralph Waldo Emerson School 58 in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1952, I was the angel. I was so happy and proud to be picked from among three eighth-grade girls. I’m sure I got the part because I was tall (5 feet 8 inches) and had a loud voice from the stage. My one line—which I’ll never forget—was “Hail thou that is highly favored, the Lord is with you.” As I said my line, I held a branch over the baby Jesus. What a good memory from those grade school days!…

The Army decided it could trust me with its military vehicles even though I didn’t have a driver’s license in 1958. My mother had taught me to drive in our small Kansas town, but my father didn’t let me drive much in his 1950 Chevy, afraid I would zoom up and down the streets and gravel roads like the country kids. I was in the Women’s Army Corps, serving in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The Army allowed us a week to master the ins and outs of military driving in Germany. A young GI was paired with me and one other Wac who had never driven before. Our first training vehicle was a sedan, which we practiced driving on a huge range outside Frankfurt. German mothers liked to bring their…

Christmastime is generally thought of as joyful. But 40 years ago, it was a somber time for my wife, Geri, and me. Both of us were about to lose our jobs. I was an educator and Geri was a psychologist. To make matters worse, we had mortgages on two houses—at a time when interest rates hovered at 16%. The sale on our other house was supposed to have closed before our new-home purchase closed, but it fell through at the last minute. A place to call home looked extremely dim for us. Yet we were determined to celebrate Christmas in our new house before we faced the terrible prospect of becoming homeless. So we did something drastic: We bought a Christmas tree. It was an artificial tree—the cheapest we could…

KODACHROME CHRISTMAS My dad, Chester, owned Mark Window Display near Kansas City, Kansas. He decorated businesses for all the holidays, so every year at Christmas he went hog wild doing up our living room. I love that these slides from the 1950s and ’60s still look good! 1. Steve, sitting, and I start with the small stuff in our Shawnee home.2. Grandmother Lena Marks and Dad with us boys and our toys in Overland Park. The tinsel tree had a color wheel that made it change colors.3. The real fireplace behind Dad is covered with a paper one.4. Mom Shirley and Grandma keep an eye on the chaos circa 1963. COMING UP: Dance Class…

Unable to find work in Erie, Pennsylvania, after being discharged from the Army as a tank mechanic in 1958, I felt lost. When my mother suggested college, I reminded her of my struggles in high school. But she had faith in me, and I enrolled at Slippery Rock State Teachers College. At college, I was just getting by academically. One day while I was having lunch, a girl I had never seen before came into the cafeteria. I felt an immediate attraction. Shortly afterward, I saw her picture in the paper: Her name was Nancy Evans and she was in the running for homecoming queen. I was sure I had no chance with this great-looking young woman. It took more than a year to convince Nancy to go out on…

Our family is of Slovak descent, from the Czech Republic. To celebrate our favorite holiday, we follow the Christmas Eve traditions of our heritage. The most important part for our family is attending Mass on Christmas Eve. Then we come home for our dinner, a meal called, in Slovak, vilija (va-LEE-ya). The mostly meatless dishes are simple, representing that Jesus Christ was born poor. Oplatki wafers with honey are broken and shared with family members to offer good wishes. Then we fill the table with traditional foods: mashed potatoes, fish, sauerkraut and mushroom soup, noodle and cottage cheese casserole, and prunes. As a child, I ate only the mashed potatoes so I could hurry the meal and get to the presents. It was our own tradition for Father to slip…

Given the popularity of Christmas music, many singers and groups have released holiday collections, including Eddie Fisher, whose Christmas with Eddie Fisher came out in 1952. In the 1950s, as the American economy prospered and the holiday shopping season grew longer, festive music was in heavy rotation in stores and at home. These were the bestselling Christmas albums each year of the decade. 1950 MERRY CHRISTMAS BING CROSBY Originally released in 1945, and the bestselling Christmas album each year through 1950, Merry Christmas is also the second bestselling Christmas album of all time with some 15 million sold; “White Christmas,” the album’s most famous single, has sold an estimated 50 million copies. 1951 MARIO LANZA SINGS CHRISTMAS SONGS MARIO LANZA A Philadelphia native, Mario Lanza popularized opera when he starred…

Growing up in the small oyster town of Rowayton, Connecticut, I was impressed by Jim Caviola. A somewhat unconventional guy who was a couple of years older than me, he was fun and motivated, bombing around town in cool cars and on motorcycles. By the late 1970s, I hadn’t seen him around for a while. One night I asked my friends what had become of Jim. I learned that he had moved out to California, and was driving around in a 1964 Caddy convertible. I thought, He’s living the dream in that California sun. What a lucky dog! Some 10 years later, I’d also moved to California. My daily driver was a red 1963 Chevy Nova wagon, which stood out as a classic among the 1980s models of the time.…

ACROSS 1 Eartha Kitt’s 1953 Christmas hit 6 “_____ the Halls” Christmas carol 8 Vichyssoise vegetables 9 In 1943, Bing Crosby crooned “I’ll Be Home for _____” 11 Where the Magi saw the star 13 Like many turkeys during roasting 14 Monopoly game piece 16 Old _____ Seasoning 17 Christmas present topper 19 _____ Trail (wagon route) 20 For no charge 22 Hawaiian wreath 24 Take off 25 “_____ Merrily on High” Christmas melody, 2 wds. 27 Supplied food 29 “I saw three _____” carol lyrics 31 What the presents are stored under 32 Depart 34 “The _____ Days of Christmas” song 35 Big _____ era (jazz and swing) 37 Raiders of the Lost _____ 39 Protective kitchenwear 40 They were merry in a traditional English carol DOWN 1 Bing Crosby…

My grandfather Charlie worked for the New York Department of Sanitation in the 1930s and ’40s. He lived in the Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn, but his daily route took him into the Bedford-Stuyvesant and Flatbush neighborhoods, where he knew his customers by name. Sometimes, one of his customers would wave him over to give him something too nice to refuse, such as a new dress for one of his daughters or a new coat for his son. One day, a customer was struggling to drag a heavy trash can to the curb. Grandpa jumped off his truck, took the can from him and dumped its contents into the truck’s trash receptacle. The man thanked Grandpa and said, “My friend, I have a good tip for you.” Well, it was…