1960’s

What is the Royal Canadian Air Force Trying to Tell us?

Linda Vernon 1960's, Health and Beauty, The Daily Routine , , , , , ,

Welcome Dear Readers!  Have you been eating a little too much of everything lately causing you to feel fat?  Feeling fat is a horrible feeling. To find out how horrible ‘feeling fat’ is let’s look at where feeling fat lies on a scale of one to ten:

Feeling Fat on a Scale of 1-10

Well never fear, Dear Readers!  Help for “Feeling Fat” is on the way from the Royal Canadian Air Force!

Yes you too can look hot in your Royal Canadian Air Force uniform if you ignore the shoes!
Yes you too can look fetching in your Royal Canadian Air Force uniform (providing you leave the shoes at home)

Now you’re probably saying to yourself, but, Linda, what gives?  (If you’re not go ahead and say it to yourself, I’ll wait)

You’re not even a Canadian, Linda. Shouldn’t a post about exercising with the  Royal Canadian Air Force at least be written by a blogger who is actually from Canada like Zoe, or Trent,  or Helena? Or at least a blogger who recently visited Canada – like the effervescent Guap?  Or even Lily, our most beloved Canadian poser?

Effervescent Guap
“Peel me a poutine!”

And the answer is a resounding NO with 5 Canadian exclamation marks not including this one → !

While I was Schlepping

For I ask you, Dear Readers, where were all these so-called Canadians while I was schlepping around the thrift store hunting my fingers to the bone looking for Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise booklets from 1962 to keep you, Dear Reader, from “feeling fat?”

I’ll tell you where they were!  They were relaxing on their ice-sculpted couches, eating their poutine with their miniature hockey sticks, that Canadians use instead of forks — all the while going on and on about how great William Shatner is ad naseum in between sticking the letter “u” in random words that are just fine without them — that’s where!

But let’s get back to the topic at hand:  Feeling Fat, America’s National Epidemic that the Canadian Royal Air Force is trying its darndest to help us out with

People in Canada don’t have a “Feeling Fat” epidemic because they’re a hardy bunch of stalwart individuals who brave the bitter cold each and every day. In fact, Canadians burn more calories walking to and from their cars in freezing temperatures in one day than a typical American will burn in a week paddling on an air mattress to Hawaii or Alaska (but usually Hawaii).

So now let’s open the The Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise book and see just exactly what exercises the Royal Canadian Air Force tells us to perform to keep us from feeling fat:

Feeling fat
The Royal Canadian Air Force stresses that if you don’t have a rough towel any type of sandpaper will work.
" okay
For  “Feeling Fat” Americans  this is going to be while putting on our socks as shoes weigh us down when we’re swimming to Hawaii or, less rarely, Alaska 
Oh boy
In Canada stepping out smartly always includes carrying a chair in Canadian underwear — which, of course, goes without saying, and we Americans would do well to follow suit.

And there you have it, Dear Readers! If this little exercise in exercising the Royal Canadian Air Force way has helped you to feel a little less fat, then their job here is done, and they can go back to what they do best which is, of course, carrying chairs around in their Canadian underwear.

Until next time . . . I love you

Flipping Through a 1967 TV Guide

Linda Vernon 1960's, The Daily Routine , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome Dear Readers!  News Flash!  There’s something very strange happening in California.  Now don’t panic, but when I got up this morning instead of the sky being its usual blue, it seems to have turned a murky, purgatory gray overnight!  What could it mean?

I don’t know if it’s the end of the world, Dear Readers, but just to be on the safe side we’d better eat our dessert first today.

In the meantime, let’s flip through this old TV guide from 1967, shall we?

1967 TV Guide
Isn’t it wonderful?

Remember Jack Cassidy?  He was a pretty well-known actor.  He guest starred on lots of TV shows in the 60’s and 70’s .  He is also the father of David Cassidy and was married to Shirley Jones aka Mrs. Partridge.  Jack Cassidy was tragically killed  in a fire.  Poor Jack Cassidy.

Paula Prentiss and Richard Benjamin were a married couple who starred in all kinds of things.

Here’s a clip I really love of  Paul Prentiss and Peter O’Toole from the movie, What’s New Pussy Cat:

Richard Benjamin went on Johnny Carson once and told about how his wife, Paula, didn’t wash the pots and pans very thoroughly, and that he always had to rewash them after she went to bed.  For some reason, Johnny Carson thought that was the most hilarious thing he had ever heard.

Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss
Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss are still alive and still together. Apparently having to rewash pots and pans is not only good for your marriage, it’s good for your health.

 Here’s a 1967 ad for 7-up:

a 1967 ad for 7-up
Back  when 7up was cool.

I remember 7up’s theme song during this time went like this:  “Wet and wild, 7up is wet and wild.  First against thirst, first to satisfy you — so wet and wild and cool! “

Well I thought it was pretty cool too.  I even went to the trouble of picking out that  song  on the piano when I was a sophomore in high school.  We had an  orange piano that was down in the basement that had come with the house (both the basement and the piano).

It seems like 7up has never been as cool since. Now it’s just something you drink when  you’re feeling sick to your stomach.

Hey Look!  Talk about the perfect name for a rock band!

Warts and corns of 1967

Unlike 7up, warts and corns were never cool, not even back in 1967 — though Two Corns and a Wart would have made a great name for a rock band.

As you can see from the ad, apparently warts and corns were much more cruel in the 60’s than they are today.    Of course, the remedies available to help with wart/corn cruelty never completely cured the problem because why should any company purposely put itself out of the lucrative corn/wart removal industry?

Remember him?

1967 TV Guide Richard Basehart Ad

Richard Basehart was an actor who starred in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and who sometimes wore his pants like Fred Mertz.  He and his crew bombed around underwater in their submarine having underwater adventures left and right.

I remember really liking that show, though now the only  thing I remember about it was the pinging of the submarine noise they played every ten seconds lest you forget they were underwater on a submarine!

A ping that sounded not unlike this one:

Caution:  Do not listen to this if you hate submarine pinging!   (But it’s not really all that bad, Dear Readers, I just wanted an excuse to use a different colored font.)

And finally, there’s this:

gmi855

What’s this?  Dr. Alfred Kidder has been inhabiting the North American continent for more than 15,000 years?  And I’ve never even run into him once! Could  Dr. Kidder might be pulling our legs?

Well, Dear Reader, this concludes our 1967 TV-guide-flipping session for today.  And it looks like the sky’s still a murky gray.  So I think it best if we get started eating  dessert, just to be on the safe side in case the world’s coming to an end.

Until next time (if there is one) . . . I love you

My Brain Peanuts Remembers: My Mother Janey

Linda Vernon 1960's, My Brain Peanuts Remembers, Who am I? , , , , , , , , ,

Hello Dear Readers and welcome to my brain, Peanuts remembers. Today’s topic is my mother, Janey.

Janey - Copy
My Mom Janey

Janey was a Fainter

When my mother was  little, my grandparents had a record they would play of a bird singing.  Every time, my mother heard it, she would  pass out by  falling over backwards.

You’d think after the initial discovery, my grandparents wouldn’t have played that record anymore, but people just thought things like that were funny in those days.

Janey and her parents
Here’s my mom with her parents, who apparently weren’t playing the bird song at the moment, anyway, since my mom is upright

Janey also fainted in movie theaters and department stores.  Once when I was in the 8th grade, we were shopping in the Crescent Department Store in downtown Spokane looking at sweaters.  I hadn’t seen my mother for awhile so I thought she was trying on clothes.  Well, it turns out she had fainted and woken up in the manager’s office.

Funny, it never occurred to me until just now that when Janey fainted, the clerks must have drug her into the manager’s office — like in the movies when somebody gets murdered!  (If my mother was alive today, I’d call her up right now with this new revelation!)

Janey had a delicate appetite

One of my mother’s main themes in life was that her appetite was easily ruined.   Any number of things could occur in which Janey could lose her appetite, not the least of which being unpleasant conversational topics at the dinner table, as well as having to observe someone (such as one of her kids) not using good  table manners.

One never knew  exactly what would set off  Janey’s “loss of appetite” but looking back on it now,  she never seemed to equate it with the case of Nestle Crunches she always kept on the top shelf of the cupboard and that she was always nibbling on — as being a factor in her  “loss of appetite.”

The only thing standing between my mother and starvation!
The only thing standing between my mother and starvation!

The time Janey was a trooper

Janey was never big on water sports, but one summer Janey bucked up and decided to try her hand at water skiing behind my dad’s new fishing boat.

His boat  had a weak outboard motor that was about as powerful as a sick kitten.  It barely managed to pull a child up out of the water on skis, let alone an adult.

But for some reason, Janey, who had never been much into water sports decided to try water skiing.  We were all a little shocked when she suggested it, as we had never see her swim without keeping her hair from getting wet, but try she did.

Stand back! Janey’s going in!

She slipped right into the water, oblivious to the fact that she could ruin her hairdo  as well as  smudge her fire-engine red lipstick.  My brother, Peter,  helped her position herself in the water with her skis.  When she was finally ready,  Peter gave the signal and my dad gunned it as it were.

But instead of popping Janey up  out of the water, the boat pulled her  along underneath the water.

I’ll never forget the image of Janey’s fire-engine red lipstick shimmering from beneath that green wake of water  that was pouring over the top of her head.

But still,  she  hung on for dear life.  And she hung on and she hung on until finally a miracle occurred!  She suddenly popped up from beneath the water, and proceeded to water ski in a big circle around Williams Lake — albeit in a squatting position, but still!  

Janey was water skiing! Hurray!

I hope it’s true what they say about your whole life flashing before you eyes when you die.  Because I do so want to see that part again, Dear Readers!

Until next time . . . I love you

Janey
Janey? Is that you?

Fun with Dad Memories: Seven Pounds of Junk Fish

Linda Vernon 1960's, The Daily Routine , , , , , , , ,

When I woke up this morning, my brain, Peanuts, had been dreaming about fishing with my dad. My dad loved going fishing and this post is about some of those happy memories.

Father/Toddler Hunting Trips

Fishing is one of the main things I can remember doing with my dad, besides going on Pheasant hunting trips with him when I was really little. On these hunting trips, he would balance his loaded gun on the front seat of our Pontiac at the ready, and I would stand on the front seat next to his loaded gun.

Of course, this was way before seat belts and car seats.  Little kids simply stood on the front seat of the car or sat in the back seat when they got too tall.  In this case, because it was just my dad and me, I got to stand in the coveted spot on the front seat right next to the loaded gun.

I remember my dad having a can of Olympia beer between his legs and every once in a while, he’d slow down the car to shoot at a Pheasant through his open window (that’s where the hunting part came in) and then he’d take a sip of  his Olympia beer. (Probably in consolation for having missed it by a mile.)

If my dad would have had a Baby on Board sign in the back window in those days, it would have said:

baby on board

Fishing with Father


Anyway, when my dad would take my two brothers and I  fishing, he would make each of us a fishing pole. He’d cut a long branch from a tree and tie fishing line, a sinker and a hook to the end of it.

Then we’d pull out a poor, defenseless,  angle worm from our coffee can filled with them — digging up worms being one of our many personal pursuits at the time — and affix the poor dear to the hook. (The whole thing just seems downright cruel thinking about it now.) Then we’d stick our lines into Coppei Creek and sometimes we’d even catch a fish!

Giving Suckers More Than an Even Break

The ones my brothers and I  always caught were called suckers, and we had to throw them back because they weren’t good to eat.  But for some reason, the ones my dad always caught were called trout; those we’d eat.

My dad taught us how to clean fish when we were pretty little.  We’d cut into them and peel out their innards and launch the whole mess downstream. Thinking back on it now, it’s a wonder we didn’t get typhoid from eating the fish we caught in Coppei Creek.

Before Bruce Willis

One summer, we went on a vacation to Coeur d’Alene lake. Back then, it was just one of many Podunk lakes within driving distance of our town — way before Bruce Willis and his trendy ilk/elk moved there.

On that vacation, I caught a seven-pound “junk” fish.  Boy was it ugly!  It looked just like the fish pictured below that was recently caught alive, a lovely little fish thought to have been extinct for 65 million years.

"And here we thought he had been dead for 65 million years! Oops! Our bad!
Poor thing would have been better off extinct!

We were all afraid of the junk fish I caught.   I made my brother, Peter, take the hook out of its mouth.  And I remember Peter told me, “If you’re old enough to fish, you’re old enough to take the hook out of its mouth.”  And I thought, “Gee he’s right.”  He was nine and I was six, but I never forgot this sage piece of brotherly advice.

Boy Those Flowers Smell Healthy

The proprietor of the resort took the seven-pound junk fish off our hands and put it in the flower bed in front of his store to fertilize his flowers.  He didn’t bury it, so it laid there decomposing for the rest of our vacation.

Everyday we’d walk by it on our way to the lake.  It was kind of sad really. The more it stunk the more we realized our vacation was coming to an end.

That’s all the time we have for  fun with dad memories, Dear Readers, but I hope you’ll check back in for more Fun with Dad (and maybe even Fun with Mom) memories which I’ll write about as soon as my brain, Peanuts, remember some! 

Until next time . . . I love you