“Sometimes Ya CAN “Go Home”

Even if only for a little while, every now & then.  One really has no choice but to cope & function in today's world, whether you want to or not, but there's no law that says you can't surround yourself a little bit with a few things from much better times.....(not yet anyway------give 'em time).

As we hit the teen years, the toys start going away, mostly tossed as we begin dating and start turning into "adults"------if there really IS such a thing.  But for a lot of people, myself included, as products get "cheapened" in this "new age", and values start to deplete, there sometimes comes a desire to "Go Home"

You CAN'T go home.......not completely anyway, but as nostalgia has taken a firm hold in this country, antiques shops have thrived.  So has EBay.  There is a big antique store in Boise for example, that has a sign on the main desk that reads........."Your grandmother used it......your mother threw it away.....and now you're buying it back!

Because people HAVE hoarded stuff in their attics for years, then died or were put in old age homes, a lot of their children have made a pretty good living of consigning old stuff to collectors out there-----at a cost of SEVERAL times what the items would have cost originally.  But for a lot of us who grew up in the 40's, 50's & 60's.........just having some of these things around, is a comfort....a reminder of when it was REALLY good.............and will readily bid for things that strike certain chords for us.

Allow me to share a few........and you guys who grew up WITH me, take a little stroll down "Memory Lane" with me, and see how much YOU remember:

A Lone Ranger alarm clock..........and some "tins"......"Boraxo soap, used to sponsor the tv series, "Death Valley Days"......a very rare "Sir Walter Raleigh pipe tobacco can, and a Prince Albert can, (which are still out there in SOME numbers.

The Auburn company made a ton of hard rubber cars.  Only the axles were steel.  Right:  these old tin cars are fairly rare, and you just DON'T see "pull-behind trailers".....I was in a store at the right place & time for THIS one).

An oldstyle 7-up bottle....................your mom threw these Log Cabin syrup containers out by the dozens.  I hadn't seen one of these old "Brasso" cans for a lot of years, and THIS one is still about half-full!

Some early railroad tin and a bronze cable car.  At Right:........these business cards came with any "Have Gun Will Travel" set if you got a "Paladin cap gun for Christmas or your birthday.  There are still some of these cards floating around on EBay.

Blatz Beer......."Milwaukee's Finest".......proudly sponsored the old "Amos & Andy" television show in the early 50's.  We watched that show when it was live, and I still enjoy seeing those old episodes today.

And gents.......if you didn't have a TONKA TRUCK at least once in your life, your childhood had a missing gap in it.  All steel....made right here in the USA........and 60+ years LATER.........

These old Admiral and General Electric radios are straight out of the 50's---(and BOTH still work).  Marvel Mystery Oil.  I still use it in my cars today, but it's been awhile since the cans were metal.  Note the "pour spout" on the rectangular one.

This very old ammunition box was something I could NOT walk away from.  No ammo in it, but the box is in great shape for as old as it probably is.  (Western has been defunct for as long as I can remember).

HERE are a few items you don't see too often.  A "Rocket" ballpoint pen and complimentary book of matches from your local Oldsmobile dealer back in the 50's.....Right:  a hood ornament from a '55 Olds Super 88, and a piston from the engine of a DC-3!

I'll wrap this blog up with an item that really holds no interest for anyone but me, and it's tied in with my first car:  (below).

Your first car is always special, and when I first got out of the Marine Corps in 1969, I lived in Fremont, California for awhile.  Getting ready to do a tune-up one Saturday, I stopped in to the local speed shop for set of special spark plugs, and there was a big bucket of flat-tip screwdrivers for (49 cents each, as I recall).  There were 40 or 50 in there, all standard "yellow/amber" handled......a half dozen were red-handled....and ONE was sort of an emerald green.......

Well, even back THEN, old "Zook" had to be different.....couldn't do like everybody else.  I had to have that GREEN one, that, except for the color, was no different than the OTHER 50---all the same brand & model.

Over the next 40 years, that screwdriver found its way into a lot of other toolboxes, in a lot of other cars.  THEN, a few years ago, I decided to "RETIRE" that old screwdriver, and keep it with my "collectable stuff".  Every time I look at it, I see that old Bel Air, the Saturday night cruises and the beach runs out on Highway One.

I don't want to lose track of that thing, even by accident............

We live in a world where "anything's for sale for the right price."  I know people who would sell their grandmother if the money was right.  Not with ME though.  That old 49-cent screwdriver (for example) has ridden in many a car, on many a venture, and while ANYBODY ELSE would just look at it as an old tool you could buy for a quarter at any flea market..............you couldn't walk up to me and write a big enough check to buy it.  FACT.  My priorities in life are much different than most other folks'..........(this too, goes back to my "minority blog.")

The last photo on the right...............just "junk" to most, probably.  To me----"toys in the attic".......stuff from adobe-built gas stations & garages............and the times that I still cherish.

Yep............"Your grandmother (or grandfather) used it".........."Your mother threw it away"...........and "Now you're buying it back!"