The Waxing Nostalgic Café – – C'mon In

Saturday morning haircuts where you got to read the new comics.

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This is one of my fondest memories as a kid . I had gotten a 6 band Soundesign radio for Christmas . Our local radio station used to play this at either 11 or midnight every night . It was a challenge to have it play loud enuff to hear and yet not too loud to wake my father .
 
Remember those tiny catalogs that used to come in the mail with all kinds of junky gifts to buy? Harriet Carter, Lillian Vernon, etc. I always got a kick out of this particular ad:

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You just never know when you might have a sore neck - and four different sizes!! (some women have longer necks, you know)

I am reminded of ads placed by an outfit, located in Hollywood, Florida, from which you could order via US mail baby raccoons, skunks (descented), alligators (caymans, actually, IIRC), and assorted other "exotic pets" (maybe ocelots too?). Were they for real? You bet! Circa 1968 my brother and I "borrowed" around $3.00 from our grandmother, mailed our order, and a couple of weeks later received, in the mail, a live baby alligator (cayman). We nurtured that little feller or gal untils/he was too hot to handle, @ which point we "donated" her/him to the Lincoln Park Zoo, where a neighbour & close friend of our parents, Curator of Birds @ LPZ, facilitated the transition to the "reptiles guy". Turns out the cayman was female and she thrived @ LPZ for many years. I'd guess that most of the specimens involved in the "exotic pets" trade did not come to happy endings.
 
For many years, there was a company based in Michigan (?) called Johnson & Smith Novelty Co. Their catalogs offered thousands of fun items....false teeth, whoopie cushions, every sort of mask you could imagine, and quite a few items that would be considered "racially inappropriate" or "insensitive" these days....
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In NJ, in the days before Home Depot and Lowe`s, we had Channel Lumber....a very well-stocked home-improvement center....

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A place for pics or words. Just a place for us to sit and banter with images or words on what great memories you have from your past. Maybe a pic of America as you remember it being when it was in your sweet spot. Stuff like that. It's an open mic forum, judge-free zone.

Based upon a recent thread about Howard Johnson's, I began looking and remembering. And then I came across

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I grew up here and this was my store. It brought back a flood of memories from by PT/Early teen years. And though this song is not about Murphy's, it really is about ALL of these Five and Dime stores. Great memories.

Looks very much like the GC Murphy I remember in Westminster,Maryland.
 
Yeah,I grew up listening to Shep too.We lived in Maryland,but WOR was a blowtorch at night.
The first paragraph describes me to a T. Back then, thought I, and twp friends. were the only one who did this. Little did we know how much of an impression he would eventually make on America.

Thanks for the attachments, guys. I too am a big fan. I have dog-eared copies of "In God We Trust -- All Others Pay Cash" and "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories" that I've been dragging out and re-reading every couple of years since I was ten.
 
In DC, the local PBS station played "Inside Jean Shepard" from 3:30 - 4:30 Monday through Friday back in the early 1970's. I was grinding my own 8" Newtonian reflector lens at that time and spent those days listening to him while grinding away. Do those episodes still exist??
 
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