The Times

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My first baseball game that I attended? Cincinnati Reds vs. Pittsburgh Pirates at Crosley Field. Roberto Clemente at his best. The cheap seat in the 'sun deck' in right field. Do you remember 'lunch tickets'? Christmases when I always got up at 3 am to play with my toys....one half hour after Mr. and Mrs. Clause got to bed. (paybacks really are hell!) I can recall cutting out all of those baseball cards that came on the backs of Post cereals. Like so many of the boys of that era, I had shoeboxes full of baseball cards...really old ones...but now I have no idea where they ever ended up. Too bad.

One of the best things to come out of that time were the cars.....Stingray, Pony, Goat, 'Cuda....
Power was everything, but then gasoline was only 19 cents a gallon. My first car was a 1963 Chevy Impala. Two-toned (if you count "rust" as a color). It had no real power but at least it would get me where I wanted to go. It could also leave an AMC Hornet in the dust....but so could the dog next door! (sorry, sis.)

Do you remember some of these...

Ipana toothpaste                       Think-A-Tron                         banana seats and monkey bars
Sinclair gasoline                        The "wayback machine"          color wheels for Christmas trees
Buster Brown shoes                  Heckle and Jeckle                   King Leonardo
Farfle the dog                           Hedda-Get-Bedda                  Gabby Hayes
Lew Alcindor                           El Kabong                               Snowbird
Sno-Cone Machine                  BurgerChef hamburgers          1313 Mockingbird Lane
Fizzies                                      Pepiņo                                    The Banana Man

Sometimes the best part of television wasn't always the network's feature show. Television executives figured out early on that there was alot of money to be made in advertising. One of the better commercials involved two characters that had themselves a popular show. The Wild Bill Hickock Show was a very much watched western who's advertising sponsor was Kellogg's Sugar Corn Pops. (note: Yes, I said "sugar". That was before it became a bad word with mothers everywhere.)  Perhaps these gentlemen (the distinguished voice of Andy Devine played the character of Jingles) did more for the sales of that kid's cereal than they did for promoting their own show.       

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Feel free to write me with your memories

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