History Adventuring

Let's time-travel back to 1935, and lose twenty pounds of fat in just four weeks. According to this article, a St. Louis, Missouri lady wrote, "I'm only 28 years old and weighed 170 pounds until taking one box of your Krushchen Salts just four weeks ago. I now weigh 150 pounds. I also have more energy and furthermore I've never had a hungry moment. Of course this is all nonsense. The only way that you're going to lose that much weight that quickly is to chop off your head, and you would actually need two heads! But this kind of thing is still popular, and while there have been attempts to limit how much people get swindled, it's still a big business, especially on the internet. But the more I think about this, the more I'm inclined to be a bit jealous of people who could be so hopeful. I call them "unreasonably optimistic", and they tend to be the opposite of people who just don't believe anything.  In my lifetime I've found that it's

I was talking to my top history adventurer today (who prefers to remain anonymous), and the subject strayed to certain terms that have been used to politely describe someone who is fat. I recall seeing the word "husky" in the Sears catalogs for boys jeans (not that I was ever husky, I was scrawny!), and nowadays the preferred word is "big". If someone says "Go talk to that big man over there", I don't look for someone tall and built like a football player, I look for a fat man. What used to be called "portly". You don't hear the word "portly" anymore, and I wouldn't be surprised if some young people had never heard it. I obviously knew what it meant, and that it wasn't a very nice term to use, back in the 1980s at a men's store in Los Angeles, when I overheard a woman ask in a very loud voice where the "Portly Short" suits were. Yes, I guess it was a recognized size. I wonder if it is anymore? Probably not,

I've been retired for many years now, and there really isn't much reason for me to take an Uber, but yesterday I needed to go for a dental cleaning, so I did. It's January 19th, 2023, and this is the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, in 2020, that I wasn't reminded to wear a mask by the app, but I did anyway. My nice cloth "Arizona wiener dogs" mask is dirty, and I didn't want to take the time to wash it and dry it, so I wore an N-95, which has been sitting around my kitchen for years. And after my ride to the dentist, wearing it all the while (getting no comment from the driver, who wasn't wearing one), even when I checked in at the front counter, I realized that there were no more signs telling me that masks are required, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much casual acceptance I found of it. No one told me "Masks aren't required anymore!" or "Why are you wearing a mask?", they just accepted it, the way that so

I like audiobooks, and I just discovered a series narrated by one of my favorite voice actors, Martin Jarvis, called "Just William", which is about an 11 year-old boy who does ordinary stuff. And after listening to many episodes I noticed that while the world changes around him, he's always 11. I'm a background watcher, and just am realizing that this character lives through the 1920s, and (according to Wikipedia) makes it all of the way to 1970. Of course he's always 11, but his background, which happens to be a small town in England, changes. Apparently these stories were written to show how real boys acted, as opposed to the idealized versions that were popular in fiction. And I can attest to the accuracy of the boys, because I used to be eleven at one time, and I did the same thing that William does, such as playing with bugs, not wanting to wash my hands before dinner, that sort of thing. Boys will be boys, and they never change! If you've never been a li

Although I like learning about the real old west, I also have a great affection for what I call "The West of the Imagination", which includes all kinds of things that are pretty far-fetched. And my favorite character is the lone stranger, who drifts into town, never looking around, never acknowledging anyone, and who is inevitably confronted by a group of local men, who don't like him. Of course, he's the hero and they're all just lowlifes, according to the story, and he guns them down. Of course, in the real old west, and even in the modern west, acting like that would probably get you in trouble, or even killed, no matter how handy you might be with a shootin' iron. And unless you've never gone anywhere, or moved into a new neighborhood as a kid, you already know that. Yeah, I know that it wouldn't be much of a story if a stranger drifted into town from the high plains and asked where he could get a good meal, or where he might stay? If you've ev

I'm watching "Cannonball Run II" on YouTube, and it's reminding me of the days when the posted speed limit on America's Highways was 55 miles per hour. By the way, the movie isn't all that great, not as good as the original, but I'm enjoying it because it lets me time-travel a bit. I learned to drive at the time that the national speed limit had been lowered to 55, in 1974. I just Googled it, and it looks like it lasted officially until the mid-nineties, with a compromise in the late eighties in the rural areas. It really didn't affect me, for many reasons. First of all, when I was learning to drive, in my teens, I was so timid that I rarely ever got on a freeway, and even on major streets I just poked along. I remember hearing from my mom, who was exasperated by how slowly I drove, when I was 16, or 17, to "At least drive the speed limit!" I always wondered about that. In my college years, at Phoenix College, and ASU, I very rarely ever used

I've been watching some old Westerns on YouTube lately, most of which I hadn't seen since I was a kid, and now that I'm older I'm seeing things that I missed back then, or that made no sense to me. The movie that I'm watching right now (don't tell me how it ends because I haven't finished it yet!) is from 1971 and is called "Something Big". As near as I can tell, movies like this are kinda throw-away, which is why you can watch them for free on YouTube. So really don't expect much, unless you're like me, and it jogs pleasant memories of watching Westerns as a kid. It's a light-hearted story, which I'm liking, and even though it was made in 1971, it seems to have a lot of the feeling of the '60s, with what my mom used to call "suggestive humor". That is, you have to understand things to get the jokes, like "He didn't even take his boots off!" Of course, as a kid, suggestive humor just went past me, and now

I'm a little bit too young to have been in on the CB (Citizen's Band) radio craze of the 1970s, but I was very much aware of it. This ad, which is from 1977, brought back memories for me of songs, like "Convoy" and movies, like "Smokey and the Bandit". Let's time-travel. This ad is from November 13th, 1977, and it's for the Sears "Roadtalker" (only at Sears) 40-Channel CB with 3-Way Meter. I have no idea what all the terminology means, but here it is: "S/RF meter plus SWR meter with calibrator. LED channel readout with automatic dimmer; RF gain control plus automatic noise limiter, switchable blanker, squelch control. #38081." Also of some interest is that "You can operate your CB with a temporary permit when you apply for your FCC license. Temporary permit forms available at Sears". I had no idea that any kind of license was required, it seemed like back then just about everyone had a CB radio in their car! For those of

Time-travel with me to Phoenix in 1970, and let's go watch a musical group at the Ramada Inn - Johnny Talon and Evolution. And if we stay until May 18th, we can go see Helene and Jeannine & the Fine Arts! If your first reaction is "Who?" and you're wondering why anyone would go to the trouble of time-traveling back to 1970 to see a group at the Ramada Inn, I understand. Most people would prefer to see the Rolling Stones, or some other famous group, but not me. I'll see if I can explain. By the way, this will have to be an imaginary journey - I wasn't anywhere near Phoenix in 1970, I was too busy being an annoying nerdy little kid in Minneapolis, learning to play the piano. A few years later I learned to play the guitar, and most of my friends in high school played some type of musical instrument. And that's where I developed my fascination with watching live music being performed. I like listening to live music, especially voice and guitar, or piano. I