1986 computer game: "Come party with Jane Austen"

This quarter-page advertisement appears in the May 1986 issue of Computer Gaming World magazine, which features MicroLeague Baseball, Autoduel and Alter Ego, among other games, on its cover. 

It represents a bold move, for sure: Trying to cater to the segment of 1980s computer nerds who were just champing at the bit for a good Jane Austen game. Sold by New Mexico-based Berserker Works Ltd., Pride and Prejudice let one to six players roleplay as young women in Regency era London. 

"Your object — achieve the best possible match and above all avoid spinsterhood," states the advertising copy. The game was available for Apple II, IBM-PC and Commodore-64 computers and cost $34.95, which is the equivalent of $106 today — more than the $99.99 for the Ultimate Edition of this year's release of Grand Theft Auto VI.

I uncovered more about Berserker Works and this game than I thought I might when I started this post, so let's dig in:

• According to this site, author Fred Saberhagen (1930-2007) and Joan Saberhagen led the design and distribution for seven Berserker Works games from 1982 to 1989. In addition to Pride and Prejudice, there were Wings Out of Shadow, Berserker Raids, Sign of the Wolf, Wizard War, Star Ball and Electric Dragon. Pride and Prejudice was designed by Walter Jon Williams. 
• Another advertisement featured on Games That Weren't states that the game involved balls, parties and hunts. "Compete for the fickle attention of Regency bucks! Spread vile gossip about your rivals!" Games That Weren't also has an image of a 1986 review of the game by Bob Lindstrom for The Guide to Computer Living. Lindstrom writes: "Six spinsters take what money a poor family can muster to spend a 15-week season amid London's social whirl. ... Each turn in the game corresponds to one week in London. During a turn, a player can choose to attend a social event, get tutoring or visit the Duchess. ... Though not a game of unlimited complexity, Pride can provide some provocative fun, particularly when played with a group of live, conniving human opponents. And for those who think the game is sexist, the manual explicitly states that the values and goals reflected in the game were chose only to recreate the priorities of their period."
• Some screenshots for the game can be found at this My Abandonware page. One screenshot lists Williams as the creator and Steve Perrin (1946-2021) as the writer.
• Documentation for the game is part of the Fred Saberhagen Papers at Northern Illinois University.

If you have more to share about this game, please leave a comment!

It's the 50th anniversary of the opening of Brigantine Castle

Brigantine Castle, the haunted attraction on the pier in Brigantine, New Jersey, opened 50 years ago, on Memorial Day weekend in 1976. It was in operation for less than a decade and burned down before it could be demolished, but it lives on in the memories of many who went to the Jersey shore's beaches in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

In fact, it's in so many memories that it spurred more than 600 comments on a Vintage Philadelphia post on Facebook that went up just this morning. Just a few of those comments:

• "I remember going as a kid. I thought it was a real castle. What a great time to be alive."
• "Scary tv commercials wedged in between the terrifying 'Creature Double Feature' on channel 48"
• "Its TV commercials were the first time I ever heard J.S. Bach's iconic Toccata and Fugue."
• "I went through it as a kid. Remember the fake rats going across my feet!"
• "Best Job I ever had!!"
• "We went the year it opened & didn't get past the first floor, that witch did us in. Granted we were 5, 10, 11 & 13."
• "The vampire that jumped out of the portrait scared the crap out of me!"

I wrote a fair bit about Brigantine Castle in this 2016 post, which you can check out, so for this anniversary I wanted to share some images from a hard-to-find brochure that I managed to track down a few years ago.

Related posts

• Brochure for the Boris Karloff Wax Museum in Niagara Falls 
• 1977 children's book about actual (maybe) haunted house
• Dilapidated structures of Southern Jersey

Zacherley's 1960 Transylvania passport for fan club members

This night of a nearly full moon seems like an appropriate one for this post about a parody passport that TV horror host John Zacherle (1918-2016) made available to members of his fan club in 1960. 

Zacherle got his start as host of Philadelphia WCAU-TV's Shock Theater in 1957 (playing a host named "Roland") and after a year or so moved to New York's WABC-TV for Zacherley at Large (they added the Y to the end of his name, and it kind of stuck).

According to an article on Zacherley.com (yes, he still has a fan website): "Zacherley was aggressively merchandised. One of the most fondly remembered souvenirs from that era was the 'Transylvanian Passport' which was available by sending two labels from Strawberry Cocoa Marsh Syrup to the manufacturer." Indeed, the back of my passport states "PRINTED IN THE MOONLIGHT BY COCOA MARSHMEN IN TRANSYLVANIA."

It's most fun on the inside, though. The text begins: "The undersigned CREATURE is hereby granted entrance to the SOVEREIGN STATE OR [sic?] TRANSYLVANIA DURING THE YEAR 1960; the year of the FRANKSTEIN JUBILEE."

The passport holder could check a box to classify themself as a He-Wolf, She-Wolf, Vampire, Mummy, Ghoul and/or Monster.

Then there's a spot to check boxes if the holder has been inoculated for Werewolf Fever, Moon-fright, Coffinitis, Sunrayphilia, Banana Blight, Fur Fullout, Egyptian Itch, Chronic Fangosis and/or Embalmer's Rash.

The "Restrictions" are described as follows: "This PASSPORT is issued by the AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE with the understanding and condition that the BEARER CREATURE will travel only during the hours of DARKNESS and will do no EXCAVATING IN THE STATE GRAVEYARDS after visiting hours. WOLF-CALLING is restricted to nights of the FULL MOON."

The ambassador-at-large is, of course, Zacherley, whose photo and signature appear at the bottom.

There are quite a few books and magazines filled with information about Zacherley. If you're interested in horror hosts in general, a good place to start is Elena M. Watson's Television Horror Movie Hosts: 68 Vampires, Mad Scientists and Other Denizens of the Late-Night Airwaves Examined and Interviewed.

Please share any memories you have of Zacherley (or other horror hosts) in the comments section. I'd love to hear them! 

 

Halloween newspaper snippets from 100 years ago

Here are some Halloween clippings from the October 31, 1925, edition of the Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal. This is the "Women's Page," filled with recipes, party ideas, etc. A headline states of Halloween: "The Mad Hour When Witches Ride and Black Cats Stalk on Fence Tops May Be Celebrated With an Eerie Party." It includes a recipe for "drop doughnuts," which is included in an image below. And there's an advertisement for Merita bread, which claims that it's great for Hallowe'en sandwiches.

Snippets from the April 24-30, 1971, edition of TV Guide

Let's peer inside this defaced, 54-year-old issue of TV Guide for April 24-30, 1971. Specifically this is the Chicago Metropolitan Edition. This is all the stuff that was on TV when I was just 4 months old. Under editor Merrill Panitt, it features articles and reviews by Neil Hickey, Cleveland Amory, E. Joseph Bennett, Dick Hobson, Richard K. Doan, Judith Crist and Bill Davidson, among others. 

In a biography of Walter Annenberg, the website Immigrant Entrepreneurship states: "(TV Guide) Editor Merrill Panitt and (publisher) Walter Annenberg fully understood that television had to appeal to a wide audience in order to be profitable, but they also pressured television networks to raise the quality of programming. For that matter, TV Guide encouraged networks to end the practice of single sponsorship for programs, because giving networks the final say over scripts might improve quality. ... Walter and Merrill Panitt encouraged readers to tune into symphonies, ballets, and public broadcasting. In 1961, they used their platform to petition the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to enforce the stipulation that stations air programs 'in the public interest' in order to renew their licenses."

1. Up first is a page from the day-by-day TV Movie Guide. This is what was available to watch. It was still about a half-decade before VCRs began to trickle into American homes and before cable services such as HBO began to be available. So unless you had an 8mm film projector, this represented what you could watch at home, in the Chicago area. It wasn't an awful selection, though! You could start your Saturday with a Blondie movie, watch the Val Lewton-produced western Apache Drums, be thrilled by Hammer's The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb and fall asleep to Laird Cregar in The Lodger. Or maybe something else on Saturday's list strikes your fancy.

2. "Hot Dog" was an NBC documentary series for kids that was hosted by Jo Anne Worley, Jonathan Winters and Woody Allen (!) but ran for just one season. Those few who watched and remembered it seemed to love it. One reviewer on IMDb wrote in 2006: "'Hot Dog' was unlike all the other kids' fare on Saturday. No animation at all. The cast were asked to explain things like 'How do they get toothpaste in the tube?' Woody Allen and Jonathan Winters of course came up with bizarre answers. Then we'd see how it's really done -- a filmed piece set to music, no narration, would take us through the process start to finish. The show was fun, interesting, original and different. Wish I could see it again."

3. The Sunday morning religious shows included "Mass for Shut-Ins." The history of the broadcast is discussed in an article on the website of the Historical Society of Quincy & Adams County. It notes: "The origin of the popular religious program began with casual conversation during a meeting of the Knights of Columbus Fourth Degree in September 1962. Father George McDivott, a Franciscan priest at Quincy College, suggested that the Knights of Columbus Fourth Degree sponsor a televised Mass for nursing home residents, the homebound and others unable to attend weekly services in their churches. ... WGEM-TV, the NBC station in Quincy, agreed to record the Mass at its studio at 7:30 p.m. Saturdays and televise it the following Sunday mornings. The Knights took on the responsibility of designing and building the set. (Bert) Wensing built the altar, and donations provided the crucifix hung behind the altar, along with linens, candles, cruets, hosts and wine the Mass required."

4. This episode of the news show "Cromie Circle" featured some compelling topics, back when news shows were much more intellectual, education and quiet than they are today. According to the website "History? Because It's Here!" Robert Cromie did it all at the Chicago Tribune, handling World War II coverage, sportswriting and book reviews. "WGN television broadcast 'Cromie’s Circle' from 1969 to 1980 and WTTW television broadcast 'Cromie’s Book Beat' nationwide from 1964 to 1980. As a reporter, he was enchanted with people and their life stories and he despised injustices and revealed them through vivid newspaper stories," the website notes.

5. Here's part of an interesting full-page advertisement urging people to invest in full-acre parcels in Meadview, Arizona. "People are moving into Arizona to escape congestion, strife and bad weather," the advertising copy notes. "The U.S. Census Bureau predicts Arizona's population growth at twice the national average in the coming decades." Indeed, Arizona's population was 1.7 million in 1970 and is about 7.6 million today. Meadview didn't quite fulfill its promise, though. About 1,400 people live there today and it's an unincorporated community with limited local infrastructure.

6. Want spooky movies? Here are some TV Guide ads for spooky movies. Strait-Jacket is a William Castle film written by Robert Bloch and featuring Joan Crawford at her Mommie Dearest scariest. The College Girl Murders (1967) is the U.S. release of the West German thriller The Monk with the Whip, one of many Edgar Wallace adaptations. Screaming Yellow Theater was hosted by the famous Svengoolie.

7. Speaking of spooky, the 1970s pretty much belonged to Vincent Price. In addition to his Hollywood movies, he was everywhere else, too: guest appearances on TV shows, talk shows, game shows, commercials, voiceovers and more. Here are a couple items from this issue of TV Guide:

8. Finally, I thought this was an interesting excerpt from an article by Richard K. Doan about the "happy talk" approach (sort of) taken by WABC Channel 7's evening news broadcast in New York City. Whether that was a good development in the long run for TV news is up for others to decide. I suspect it had a mixture of positive and negative consequences, though. We could probably use a bit more good cheer and positivity these days, so long as it's grounded in truth, and not misinformation or gaslighting.

Milkwalker knows where you live

I drank from a lot of milk cartons during my K-12 school days in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida (maybe that's why I've never had a broken bone). But I never came across anything as creepy as Milkwalker. 

Indeed, Milkwalker is real. Or, at least, the milk-carton public service campaign by Darigold that featured Milkwalker was real. When I first came across Milkwalker in one of my social media feeds, I figured it was too good to be true. It had to be a clever fake, because it looks too much like something that someone would invent as Slenderman's weird cousin. 

But Know Your Meme has the lowdown:

"Milkwalker, an anthropomorphic milk carton, was originally created by Seattle-based dairy and agricultural co-op Darigold, Inc. [in the mid 1980s] as the mascot of the company and a public service announcement character that encourages children to remember their full name, address and telephone number in case of emergencies. On November 28th, 2016, over three decades after its introduction, various images of the obscure mascot began circulating online after it was highlighted by the Tumblr blog Heck-Yeah-Old-Tech."

I even found this short article in the June 5, 1985, edition of the Whidbey News-Times of Oak Harbor, Washington (click to embiggen):

Some folks embrace Milkwalker and reject the creepypasta angle of it being just another thing to fear. In a Facebook comment in August 2024, Holly Gee wrote: "Yes, the milkwalker definitely looks like a spooky cryptid, but I like the idea of him being a force for good, protecting the innocent by milkwalking all over the wicked from the shadows. He's terrifying, but terrifies only the deserving."

But while Milkwalker seemingly originated with Darigold in the 1980s, how long has it actually been around? Is it, perhaps, ancient? I'll leave you with this curious excerpt from the March 24, 1876, edition of The Stockport Advertiser in Stockport, England. Interpret it as you wish: 

From the readers: Long's Park mile marker, skeleton bookplate and more

Time for another round of reader comments. Thank you to everyone who continues to read Papergreat, whether it's the new posts or delving deep into the archives.

"Suzi and the Milestone" — helping to market Stel-Mar postcards: Cory Van Brookhoven, who writes the From Brunnerville to Broad Street blog about the history of Lititz, Pennsylvania, comments: "Yes an authentic Turnpike marker that was once next to Long’s Park in Lancaster, PA. It’s been MIA for decades."

Oh wow! I used to to drive past Long's Park every day on the way to work. And I saw a performance of Twelfth Night there that used No Doubt's "Just a Girl," circa 1996. I wonder what happened to the marker. Is it in someone's basement?

Cathy's Little Free Libraries in Globe, Arizona: The Family and Friends of Cathy Sanchez-Cañez write: "Thank you so much for featuring our Little Free Libraries in your blog. Since Cathy’s passing, six years ago, we have helped circulate over 12,000 books into the region, including Teacher From Heaven. We appreciate the shoutout, and the effort to keep Cathy’s legacy alive."

You're very welcome. It's a truly wonderful set of LFLs.

Ephemera I wish I still had: Christopher (not me) writes: "Somewhere in storage, I have a self-published book by an unhinged HVAC tech from Milwaukee who claimed that Jesus Christ was part of a 'woodworking and carpentry sex cult.' I treasure it."

I couldn't find any online trace of a book that fits Christopher's description. But there is the (slightly) more mainstream 1970 book titled The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, by John Allegro, which, according to Wikipedia, "argues that Christianity and other religions originated from ancient fertility cults involving psychoactive mushroom rituals, claiming Jesus was a mythological figure created under the influence of psychoactive substances."

That sounds exactly like the kind of book that would have been published in 1970.

RIP Art Bell, of the Kingdom of Nye: Anonymous writes: "He was the best!"

What are the odds Bell discussed The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross at some point? Or might that have been more of a Long John Nebel thing?

Box of Dennison DeLuxe Gummed Reinforcements: Anonymous writes: "I've been using an old box of De Luxe O gummed reinforcements for about 15 years to reinforce my government three-month calendar display. I believe I have enough until I retire. Just got curious and looked them up. Found your article. Thanks!" 

Sorting out the tiny drawers: I had asked, "How often does one truly need a thumb tack or rubber band in the course of a workweek?" And Anonymous replies: "But how much time does one spend looking for one when one really needs one and doesn't have a place to keep them?"

Which is why we have tiny drawers! And why (ahem) some folks still have Dennison DeLuxe Gummed Reinforcements.

1924 advertisement: "Heaney's Great Milk Can Escape": Anonymous writes: "Did Heaney charge for the secret of how to escape after you'd bought the can, perhaps?"

I'm guessing the $30 covered the construction of the milk and the accompanying directions on its use, which would indeed be the closely guarded secret. And once you bought someone else's secret, there was an incredibly strong honor system not to tell others. You don't want to anger magicians.

Old bookplate featuring a beard-grabbing skeleton: Robin Heisley Helfers writes: "Virginia (Mimi) and Ed were my Great Aunt & Uncle on my father's side of the family. My Grandmother was Effie Mason Heisley. Both sisters were accomplished artists! I'm thrilled to find this unusual example of Aunt Mimi's talent!"

I'm glad I could help in a small way to keep the memory of Virginia Mason Gifford (Aunt Mimi) alive! That's what Papergreat is all about.

Cheerful Card Company can help you earn extra money for the holidays: Anonymous writes: "I worked summers with a group of college kids in the White Plains, N.Y., post office in 1958-60 shipping boxes of their Christmas cards all across the US. That's all we did all day long, loading boxes into dusty canvas mail sacks. By Labor Day, we were in great shape to head back to college."

Excommunicated! A family story (maybe) about Communion cups: Unknown writes: "Do records of the First Reformed Church of Easton or Dr. Kieffer still exist? If they do they should have Mr. Otto's address somewhere in them."

Great question, and that's something I should have mentioned. Yes, church records would be the very best starting place in the next stage of investigating this historical incident. And maybe there's even an official document of excommunication and/or papers regarding the Communion cup issue. And there are a lot of news articles and website that discuss Kieffer, given that he was a noteworthy author, but I'm not sure much of it would contain clues regarding this mystery. The more I've thought about this, by the way, the more I think it's most likely that the John B. Otto who was temporarily excommunicated was the 57-year-old single alderman, and not my great-great-grandfather. Which doesn't make the story any less compelling. It just means my family was not involved. 

1924 advertisement: "Heaney's Great Milk Can Escape"

From 101 years ago, here's a catalog entry for Heaney's Great Milk Can Escape from 1924's Heaney Magic Company Catalogue No. 25. Per Wikipedia, Gerald Heaney (1899-1974) was a stage musician and magic props supplier from Berlin, Wisconsin. He started a mail-order business for tricks, props and other magician supplies in the early 1920s. 

A profile of Heaney by Pat Fitzpatrick in the October 31, 1965, issue of The Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wisconsin, states: "In the early years Heaney built numerous escapes used by himself and his wife in the shows. Many times during the past four decades, Princess Aloiv [his wife, Viola McCarthy] has floated through the air, under the showman's hypnotic powers. An accomplished musician, she plays the organ during performances, and records music for playback in the course of the show. Heaney has had many assistants over the years. The principal requirement for girls working in mysteries is that they must be small enough to fit into the Chinese torture wheel and the vivisection illusion."

Heaney's Great Milk Can Escape states, in part: "Looks impossible and it seems as if the performer will meet his fate in the padlocked can. The large can is filled with water and the performer enters in a bathing sit, a screen is drawn and the assistants stand outside with hatchets and watches in their hands, knowing the over four or five minutes in the water filled can would mean a drowning death. The escape is made in a very short space of time and the can is found to be as secure as before the escape. Our Milk Cans are of the best material and labor. They cannot be duplicated. ... Can be performed by anyone."

The cost was $30.

That's more than $560 today! Being a magician was costly, and the secrets were expensive!

50 years ago today: Crazy curl perms & "Crazy Mama"

Just for the halibut, here are some headlines and advertisements from the Friday, July 25, 1975, edition of the Worthington (Minnesota) Daily Globe:

• Main story on A1: Yellow gas knocked out astronaut
• House rejects lifting ban on sale of arms to Turkey
• Voting rights act extension passes; Ford plans to sign
• Americans pay more than ever for beef
• CIA reveals how it monitored U.S. mail
• Dairy, swine judging held at Osceola County Fair
• Ford presented Mayaguez wheel
• Accused rapist will press charges against avenging feminists

John Bressler Otto, plasterer

As a complement to last week's post about an increasingly less likely possible family excommunication, here's a small newspaper advertisement for the business of my great-great-grandfather, John Bressler Otto (1837-1906). 

It's from the July 28, 1887, Hazleton (Pennsylvania) Sentinel and states: "John B. Otto, Plasterer and dealer in plastering material. Cornice Work a Specialty. Office on Laurel St., Diamond Addition."

I learned that he was a plasterer from his death certificate. Various tidbits of information have now allowed me to piece together a little bit of John Bressler Otto's timeline (complicated by there being a lot of John B. Ottos in Pennsylvania!):

• 1837: Born in Hegins, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, of which his grandfather (William B. Otto, 1761-1841) was one of the early pioneers.
• 1863: Was a private in the volunteer 173rd Pennsylvania Regiment, Company F, during the Civil War. The regiment participated in the pursuit of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, from July 12-24, following the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863.
• 1869: Living in Hazleton when my great-grandfather, John Algernon Otto (1869-1963), is born.
• 1887: Living and working as a plasterer in Hazleton
• Sometime in the 1890s: Family moved to Allentown
• Late 1901: Family moved to Easton, where he was buried in 1906

Upon further review, I think this timeline makes it extremely unlikely that John Bressler Otto was the "John B. Otto" who was briefly excommunicated from First Reformed Church of Easton in 1903. I don't think he could have become a deacon after moving there so recently. I'm still very glad I did that post, though, because it's a great story that should be remembered.

"Famous Chicken Inn" menu from 1939 New York World's Fair

That poor chicken being clasped by a hand does not look happy. It's not clear to me how that somewhat-violent image would make a person excited about eating once-living birds. 

Anyway ... this historic artifact is a menu for the "Famous Chicken Inn" at the 1939 New York World's Fair Amusement Center. We know it's 1939 and not 1964 because of the food and beverage prices, the reference to Bird in Hand restaurant at 711 Seventh Avenue in New York City's Times Square and a tiny piece of attached paper that references the Parachute Jump (I wrote about a postcard involving this attraction in 2016).

The featured item is milk-fed Southern Fried Chicken, with "all the trimmins," consisting of cole slaw, potatoes, rolls and butter. Cost: 65 cents! That's the equivalent of about 15 dollars today, adjusted for inflation. So it seems like a pretty fair price, especially given that prices at fairs tend to be a bit inflated.

Here's a sampling of some other prices from the menu:

• Renault champagne cocktail, 35 cents
• Individual bottle of Renault sauterne or brandy, 50 cents
• Chicken soup with noodles, 15 cents
• Chicken liver with onions (or mushrooms), 50 cents
• Tomato juice, 15 cents
• Ham sandwich, 20 cents
• French fries, 15 cents
• Chicken platter (cold), 75 cents
• Plain cake, 10 cents
• Ice cream, 15 cents
• Coffee with cream, 10 cents (though a red stamp in the margins indicates "iced tea or coffee, 15 cents")
• Edelbrau & Goldenrod beer on draught, 10 cents

Pasted to the back of the menu is a separate typewritten and mimeographed sheet with the Famous Chicken Inn special platters, which cost 35 cents and thus looked like pretty good bargain. They included:

• Fried filet of sole, tartar sauce, carrots and peas, mashed potatoes
• Beef paprika goulash, spaghetti
• Macaroni and ham au gratin, string beans
• Creamed chicken and mushrooms, string beans, mashed potatos
• Chopped tenderloin steak, smothered with onions, carrots and peas, mashed pot.
• Chicken chow mein, rice and noodles
• Chicken giblets, mashed potatos, carrots and peas
• Spaghetti and meat balls
• Vegetable dinner
• Famous chicken salad
• Ham and potatoe salad

And you could finish it off with a slice of chocolate cake for 15 cents!

Related posts (some of which were written before I stopped eating meat)

• Old postcard: "The World's Most Famous Chicken Dish"
• Swift's Premium, Meat power and two fried chicken recipes
• Celebrate Papergreat's 400th post with a gallery of chickens
• Celebrating Papergreat's 600th post with chickens, past and present
• Mystery RPPC: Feeding chickens
• Mystery RPPC: Feeding chickens (Chapter 2)

From the readers: The Golden Institute, 'Bridge Babies' and more

Let's take our minds off the rapidly unfolding events in the Middle East for a few minutes with a roundup of recent reader comments...

Ads from a 1983 Marvel comic: RJSMACHINE writes: "Just came across this ad in a reread of New Mutants 3 from 1983. Don't know why it stood out but, yep, I too was curious about The Golden Institute. My search led me here. That's it, lol."

And Dustin adds: "I was also led here by an ad in a 1983 Hercules comic book I just received."

All roads from 1983 comics lead to The Golden Institute ... and Papergreat. But the answers may remain forever a mystery. I did a new search and didn't come up with anything about the $4 cures for loneliness, either.

1938 receipt from Albert Brothers Steam Bakery: Nancy Hayes writes: "Actually, the founder of Albert Brothers was my grandfather, Stanley Albert. He and his brother Henry founded the business. Stanley Albert died in the early 1960s. His wife was Gertrude Albert, nee Steiner, and they lived across the street from the bakery on Railroad Avenue." 

Thanks for sharing this information, Nancy! We now have a more complete and accurate record of the history.

Saturday's postcard: Ginza Tokyu Hotel: Anonymous writes: "When I was a kid, we did the 'round the world' trip and, while in Tokyo, stayed in this hotel. I remember that we stayed in the 'Western-style rooms,' but there were 'Japanese style rooms' also. I remember it was very close to the Kabuki theater."

Curious book cover: "Bridge Babies": Anonymous writes: "My dad was a competitive bridge player. This was in our house. As a kid I would look at this book for hours. Inspired my sense of humor for sure." 

It's definitely an unforgettable book cover!

The Lost Corners of Paul Crockett: Thanks to this 2018 post and the ongoing discussions in its comments section, I think we're destined to be discussing Crockett, the Manson family and Paul Watkins until the end days of Papergreat. 

The commenters have even included actor Wings Hauser, who, sadly, died earlier this year at age 77. I'll always remember his memorable scene with Bruce McGill in The Insider.

Anyway, in 2023, Chris Harris made the following comment on the Crockett post: "Much has been said in a negative way about Paul Crockett. I witnessed over a period of two years having introduced him to many notable people that Paul Crockett had a tremendous ability to inspire a positive attitude in all the people he met, including myself."

On May 18, Anonymous replied to Harris: "I was 3 or 4 times advantaged by spending some time with Crockett between 1971-1973 in Death Valley —  Baker (I think, or Shoshone), and at last at Little Paul's in Tecopa, where I also met a guy named Chris. I suspect that was you. I commented here in 2019 that a biography of the Big Paul I knew, whose influence I saw in others there, would stand as a useful memorial to his exceptional understanding of our natural selves. I thought then that Manson had also learned aspects of this way of being, that this was a source of his ability to control adherents, but which he ended up turning against those he envied and despised. Paul probably believed it'd be better not to have to live the rest of his life completely in the shadow of the Manson phenomenon. Many others, however, would now be better off knowing more about Paul Crockett."

Going back 45 years for a product that I'm not putting in the headline: Anonymous writes: "Arthur's used to have well-made women's clothing that you will never see today. All my clothing when I was little came from Alfred Carlos's Polly Flinders smocking."

The (new) oddest stuff I've found tucked inside a book: "evape" writes: "I found 6 small jigsaw puzzles among my father's old things. In the bottom it says © 1933 Cynthia Mills, Boston. I don't know how it got here but my grandather was in USA some time."

A letter my grandmother mailed to me 33 years ago: Tom from Garage Sale Finds writes: "What a sweet letter and a great keepsake. I remember 1992. I was just hitting the job market and couldn't find anything. Of course it wasn't so bad I was selling bleach door to door. Those people knew hard times.

Coincidentally, because I couldn't find a job during that year (1991 to 92) I spent a lot of time with my grandparents too and got to know them a lot better. I wish they were still around as I have so many questions now that I never thought to ask."

And even our parents. At least once a week I think of something I wished I had asked Mom about, or written down when she answered.

"Jim and Judy," a 1939 grade-school textbook with a York connection: Anonymous writes: "I started 1st grade in 1952. The Jim and Judy book was our primer. I loved them and have fond memories of learning to read with them."

Scholastic book: "27 Cats Next Door" (aka I feel seen): Kittiana of the blog Wind-Up Castle Of Wonders: Self Discovery writes: "I just wanted to thank you for posting! I enjoy your blog very much & hope you will continue posting for a long time to come!"

That's so nice of you to say! Thank you. I hope I can continue posting for a long time, too. 

Callous Facebook advertisement for a Chernobyl air humidifer

I've seen and heard a lot in my 54½ years, so it's hard to shock me. But I did a disgusted double-take when advertisements for a Chernobyl nuclear power plant air humidifier began showing up in my Facebook feed. 

"Where history meets health," states one advertisement.

"From disaster to delight," states another.

In 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, located in what is now Ukraine, exploded and caught fire during a routine test that went catastrophically wrong due to a critical reactor design flaw. Deaths eventually totaled in the thousands as radioactive contaminants spread across Europe and the Soviet Union.

How many thousands? That's a difficult question to answer, given the uniqueness of the disaster, the complication of tracking radiation across a vast area, and the reality of long-term health effects that take years to emerge. The conservative scientific estimate is that between 4,000 and 16,000 deaths can be directly attributed to Chernobyl. Other assessments that cannot be lightly dismissed put the death total as high as 90,000.

And those are just the human deaths. No one, to my knowledge, has attempted even a ballpark guess on the number of animal deaths.

But, hey, from disaster to delight, right?

Also, more than 300,000 residents across three countries were permanently displaced due to deadly radiation levels.

Here are passages about Chernobyl, then and now, from the 2021 book "Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape," by Cal Flyn:

• "In the immediate aftermath of the nuclear accident, there was a huge spike in ionizing radiation. But many of the radioactive elements released were highly unstable. They self-destruct, sometimes in seconds. Others over weeks. The most feared product of nuclear fission, in terms of its health impact, is iodine-131, which is easily absorbed by the body. Iodine-131 is stored in the thyroid, where is emits harmful beta radiation, damaging flesh in the immediate area or causing either the gland's destruction or, in lower doses, cancer. (At least four thousand cases of thyroid cancers among the children of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia have been attributed to the radionuclide's effect.)"
• "Seventy percent of the [Chernobyl exclusion] zone is now forest. Pripyat is the territory of the birch and the maple and the poplar, and their leaves lie in a thick litter on the tarmac, branches bare and colorless  but for the globes of green mistletoe and the mustard lichen that mists their bark. Matted shrubs crowd their lower reaches, flecked with the red points of rosehips gone soft. Ivy weaves between their legs. Apartment blocks rise like concrete islands from a sea of green. The trees are standing too close, crowding doors and blocking windows, growing in tight against the walls."
• "It is the most radioactive environment on Earth. These radioactive hinterlands are the consequences of human folly, hubris, of deaths made with the devil."

So, yeah, let's not support crap like this humidifier. We can be better.

From 1929: Buy your mom a canary for Mother's Day

This advertisment from the May 3, 1929, edition of the Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Intelligencer Journal urges folks to buy a $4.95 canary from Keystone Furniture Company as a Mother's Day gift. 

There are many guarantees, including that the birds are "Guaranteed Genuine Imported, Male Hartz Mt. and St. Andreasburg Rollers." That refers to Harz Rollers (from the mountains of Germany), and St. Andreasberg Rollers, which are a substrain of that canary. 

That $4.95 pricetag (payable in installments of 50 cents per week) would be a whopping $92 today. And of course Keystone Furniture was happy to also sell you a cage and stand to go with your pricey songbird.

From roughly the 1880s through the mid-1930s, hundreds of thousands of German canaries were shipped to the United States each year. It was quite the prosperous trade, though all I can think about are the birds being shipped across the Atlantic and then across the United States.

According to an article by Robert Francis on the website US Bird History, "These birds mostly came from Germany, where there were entire villages whose primary industry was breeding and selling canaries. Shipping these birds was an exhausting, treacherous work that rested on the backs – sometimes literally – of traveling merchants."

Merchants might carry 200 hundreds birds on their back to reach market. The best birds were saved for German buyers, who would pay exhorbitant prices, Francis explains. After that, sellers focused more on the hardiness of the birds, rather than their singing ability, in deciding which ones to send across the Atlantic.

"If Fritz could make it to New York with 85 percent of his canaries still breathing, both he and his employer would be happy," Francis writes, citing the 1888 book Canaries and Cage-Birds by George Holden.

It would have been far more humane in 1929 to just buy Mom some flowers or chocolate, either of which would most likely have been produced domestically. (That's not necessarily the case today, when the great majority of Mother's Day flowers and chocolates and imported and there are real concerns about the labor practices in the countries providing them to us.)

"Inventions Wanted" in November 1968 Popular Electronics

I still enjoy looking through classified advertisements in old magazines.¹ Physical media, so little of it digitized, remains a portal into the past and a valuable archive. For my first look at the November 1968 issue of Popular Electronics, I'm checking out some of the Inventions Wanted portion of the classified advertisements at the back of the magazine.² 

• The Wall Street Invention Brokerage, which claimed "10 years proven performances," offered to develop and help sell ideas and inventions, patented or unpatented. "Our national manufacturer clients are urgently seeking new items for outright cash sale or royalties."
• Pioneer Invention Service, located on Broadway in New York City, offered inventors "free expert analysis" and, whoa, a "free invention certificate," whatever that means. Everything was "strictly confidential."
• Voron Electronics, located on East Mermaid Lane in Philadelphia, was seeking electronic or electrical inventions. The George Voron Company was, among other things, involved with "piped-in music," according to this article on Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia.
• Gilbert Adams, Invention Broker, of New York City urged inventors to "sell your invention for cash or royalties! Our client manufacturers eagerly seek new items. ... Financial assistance if needed. 25 years proven performances."

The Federal Trade Commission (which has been targeted this year by the Trump administration) has worked over the decades to protect inventors from those who might use deceptive or unfair practices to acquire their work and ideas. A 1980 synopsis of FTC decisions over the years states, "It is an unfair or deceptive act or practice for a seller of idea or invention promotion or development services to misrepresent, directly or indirectly, that potential purchasers will be provided with evaluations or appraisals of the patentability, merit or marketability of ideas or inventions."

In 1997, the FTC set up Project Mousetrap, which was aimed at identifying, prosecuting and fining firms that engaged in fraudulent or deceptive practices aimed at inventors. In a news release, 

"It is a fact that less than one percent of all new product concepts succeed in the marketplace," Jodie Bernstein, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, stated that year. "Yet the fraudulent firms in this industry conclude, after a 'professional' evaluation, that virtually every new idea or product crossing their desks is patentable and has 'tremendous market potential.' They promise enthusiastic inventors that they can provide professional assistance in getting a patent and securing licensing and manufacturing agreements with manufacturers. Time after time, however, these firms lie to consumers about the sincerity of their belief in an idea and its marketability. Mark Twain once said that the name of the greatest inventor is accident. But it is no accident that these firms profit while the dreams of their customers die. That is their plan, and up to now, they have been very successful in perpetrating that plan. Virtually no consumers have even made back their investment, let alone any profit, from these companies' services."

We should be very thankful for the FTC.

Footnotes

1. See, for example:

• Classified ads from 1974 issue of The Monster Times
• "Fate" classifieds, August 1975
• 30 classified ads from the June 1971 issue of "Fate" magazine
• Some 1965 Amazing Stories ads were too amazing to be true

2. The rest of the Electronics Market Place classifieds include For Sale, Plans and Kits, High Fidelity, Shortwave Listening, Wanted, Tubes, Tape and Recorders, Repair and Services, Instruction, Personals, Government Surplus, Books, Authors' Services, Music, Musical Instruments, Rubber Stamps, Magnets, Photography — Film, Equipment, Services, Records, Hypnotism, Plastics, Educational Opportunities, Printing, Remailing Service, Business Opportunities, Real Estate, Stamps, Taxidermy, and Miscellaneous. Yes, taxidermy.

Old ad for "The Black Cat" on WBKB's Shock Theatre in Chicago

This nifty old advertisement for 1934's The Black Cat popped up in one of my Facebook groups. Channel 7 in Chicago was known as WBKB from 1953 to 1968. Its "Shock Theatre" was one of many such shows that launched around the nation when Universal sold its syndication package of 52 classic horror films — called Shock! — to local television stations in 1957 (through Screen Gems). 

Thus was spawned the phenomenon of local TV horror hosts. WBKB's version ran from 1957 to 1959 and featured Marvin, his companion Dear and hunchback Orville, along with a band called the Deadbeats. Dear's face was never seen until the final episode, according to Wikipedia. "Shock Theatre" was remembered fondly by one commenter in IMDb.com in 2014:

"For early television played late at night, this show was the best. The goofy music and the scary things on the show scared a little kid like me half to death but I loved it. Especially Marvin's humor. The movies were old time horror classics like Dracula and Frankenstein, etc. I wish I could get some of the episodes. I don't know if WBKB in Chicago kept any of them or not. Any show named Shock Theater in any other town just copied what was already done in Chicago. Marvin even took some of the show on the road to local ballparks like Comiskey. His band was great also. It even had a guy playing accordion in the band. I would love to see episodes of Shock Theater, even online somewhere."

Here are a couple stills from The Black Cat, including Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff playing chess, and Karloff leading a pre-Code satanic ritual in a German Expressionist setting.