I was looking up Kitty Wells on wikipedia and realied that she was born exactly one week before my mother (in the same year). From that entry:
Her 1952 hit recording, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels", made her the first female country singer to top the U.S. country charts, and turned her into the first female country star.
Kitty's still with us and is 91 now. I was raised on her music and still have a couple of old 45s, including this song:
I've added a few studio versions of this song to my old-timey jukebox. Emmylou Harris's is pretty sweet too.
That cluttered and tacky fixer-upper of yours was a matter of National Security and Civil Defense back in 1954, when "The National Clean Up-Fix Up-Paint Up Bureau" figured out (through numerous experimental nuclear explosions) that nukes aren't nearly as big a problem if you just clean up a little.
It could have been a real Bureau, or even if it was made up, its existence was part of the bigger lie delivered by the Federal Civil Defense Administration. Not surprisingly, this little gem of a Public Service film was sponsored by the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association (I think it's likely that the "bureau" was a film production company that was a branch of the paint/varnish/lacquer group, and allowed to masquerade as a government entity. How's that for some varnish?). And here you thought that corporations heavily influencing the government's actions was a much more recent trend.
Ok. Well... this mightis the weirdest public service announcement about avoiding nuclear holocaust that I've ever seen. Us boomers all had to sit through the cartoon turtle and his "Duck and Cover" where they told us if we got under our desks after being nuked that we'd probably be fine. Hay Joe here (the puppet) explains how to build your bomb shelter and what pamphlets you'll need. I was wondering why I hadn't seen these before, and now I think I know. These are off the scale, and the scale goes way out there. Running time, 10:30.
[source LINK] found via my EJlist, FB, and blog friend RG.
Here's another one from Archive. org. This is your standard gov'mint issue PSA explaining how it's no big deal so stop worrying. The specific topic is radiation. Running time 20:14.
Beginning: Nuclear radiation, it's like the sun, it's natural, and it's your friend. 16:47 your biggest worry might be... baldness!! 9:48 A nuclear blast is not going to break up that card game - and keep on smoking, you may as well... 19:40 Mutations can be a good variation, an improvement... face the facts, your principal worry ought to be that your offspring *will* look just like you. Har har har. Nuclear war is very much like conventional warfare, but with radiation, so try to be someplace else. [source LINK]
Here's part 3 of my low-rent travelogue that follows this one. After we were denied the opportunity to join my dad at Johnston Island by the Air Force, he was transferred to Hawaii in 1956 and we were soon to follow after being temporarily stranded in San Francisco waiting on the Air Force's "ride" -- I don't remember where we stayed or for how long, but I know my mother was HOPPING mad at the Salvation Army over something, I think it was because they turned us away when we were broke. I will also never forget her story about ordering some Chop Suey in a restaurant there, seeing something in it that looked a lot like a tail, and when she asked the waitress what it was, she replied "salamander."
I was about to make my first airplane flight, and it could have ended up being much more memorable (in a bad way) because one of the engines caught fire while we were over the ocean. Somehow we managed to land in Hawaii and it was not by raft or helicopter so disaster was avoided.
The video above (which is someone's modern video, but nothing has changed about it) provides the sound track for this post, it's one of the songs (with dance moves) that I learned while living there - and I may have driven everybody crazy singing The Hukilau and Honolulu Hicki Boola Boo... or maybe not. It really was just one loooong party where people wore their swimsuits all the time and were either dancing, drinking, singing, playing an instrument, or all of the above.
Here I am trying to play my ukulele with some of our neighbors.
There's my record player on the floor, add some refreshments and some Hawaiian garb and it's a party.
We lived there no more than 2 years and I was about 4 when we left, so I don't have the usual type of touristy memories. My mother and grandmother had told me that a praying mantis would spit tobacco juice in your eyes, so I remember trying to get back to our apartment when I saw that I had to pass what seemed like a giant praying mantis, so I was frozen with fear and couldn't get past him.
More of the neighbor kids, probably other military kids. That's me sitting on the ground. I've never been much of a ham.
I also remember being absolutely horrified at the sight of hot lava. I mean, how many kids get to see bubbling molten lava in person? I developed a great fear and fascination with volcanoes. I never visited another one, but found the story of Pompeii to be one of the scariest things I ever read.
My mother at the beach, looking stylish in 1956. She was naturally very thin. I didn't inherit that trait. She actually used to drink those weight-gain concoctions but they never worked.
You had to have a muumuu. I still have this one. It's probably valuable. All I need is a buyer.
My mother, dressed up and sitting by the Banyan tree.
I very seldom saw my dad when he was not in uniform, but here's an exception.
and here's me wearing the same outfit (not just a matching outfit - the same one)
Except for the gigantic tobacco juice-spitting bugs, the bubbly hot molten lava, and getting a really short haircut, Hawaii was one of the nicest places we were assigned to live. I'd love to go back someday.
The next Chapter will be about the Florida panhandle and living on a chicken farm. For previous installments, click on the "lifestory" label.
Here's your soundtrack for this post, from 1953 - Frank Sinatra.
For my birthday (on the 24th) I put together a small collection of scans from that place and time, Phoenix Arizona in the early 1950s. We lived there until 1955, when we went to Hawaii for a short time. Click any pics to enlarge. I was born on Luke AFB, which has an awful lot to do with my life in general. People ask where I'm from... I say "the Air Force." Here's a picture of the doctor who delivered me. It's from a hardback book that is exactly like a high school yearbook (published a year after I was born). We lived in a little red trailer off-base somewhere, then later moved to a duplex.
Here are my folks with their new little bundle of joy.
I suppose I needed a bath. My mother seems to have dressed up for the occasion. I did the opposite.
Here's my mother getting a similar kind of bath. Not really. It's one of those fairground photo booths, fun for the whole family. (I more than half expect photobucket to yank this one, along with another one of these I have posted there.)
A bunch of little cowpokes from the neighborhood.
Here's a bunch of other kids playing grownup. Those cigarettes are a nice touch, aren't they? Candy cigs, I'm sure. Well, maybe not so sure.
A hilarious picture of my mother Lola, a sausage, and a couple of my dad's sisters Ethel and Ruth. The "in-law" relations were always pretty bad, despite the smiles for the picture, but then they were smiling for their little brother.
For recreation, we would drive out into the desert somewhere and have a picnic. There's our car in the background by the saguaro. My folks drank coffee practically by the bucket, and what sounds better when you're out in the middle of the Arizona desert than a steaming hot cup of coffee? That's right. Nothing. My parents loved their coffee so much that once when on a camping trip, they boiled some hot dogs, then realized there wasn't enough water left for coffee, so they made it out of the weenie water.
For a side job to being in the Air Force, my dad was part of the pit crew at Manzanita Speedway for Tucson race car driver Bill Cheesbourg. He racked up some fairly impressive stats in his life. I don't think this is his car. The two sports I my parents liked were car racing and wrestling.
Another fun family event, visiting the carnival and watching the freaks sideshow.
Jesus, please don't leave me and let me go to Hell.
I don't remember this place, but everywhere we lived I got to spend a lot of time in the various dives, honkytonks, taverns, etc. On the back of this was handwritten to my dad, "To Bill, Just to remind you alway about the 3 Sister, July Betty & Jessie" (sic)