Wampole's Preparation Stimulation Tonic

This is a "card", of roughly postcard size, which serves many purposes.  It is an advertisement for Wampole's Tonic, it is an ad for a Philadelphia drug store, it is part of Wampole's bird series, helping you to identify that bird sitting on your clothes line, it serves as a ruler (rulerS, metric and inches), and the other side was a blotter material, a common necessity when writing with the slow drying ink of a fountain pen.  I can only guess that it's from the 1940's. Another card from the Bird Series was spotted on EBay; it was suggested that the card was from 1941, but there was no accompanying support of that date.

Rather than tell you about Wampole's Preparation, I'm going to send you to Chris Otto's amazing blog PAPERGREAT (The world of books, ephemera and knowledge, one piece of paper at a time).  He offers an extensive discussion of Henry Wampole and his Tonic.  Go to 

http://www.papergreat.com/2011/02/delving-into-henry-j-wampole-company.html

you won't regret it!

Oh, how did I get this card?  No idea.  It surfaced at home.  I did learn from Mr. Otto's blog that these folks had a factory on 4th Street "near Arch", which is where my Aunt Helen lived.  

Thanks to My Friends From Down Under - You Were the Best

Bertie the Bunyip (left) and Lee Dexter

I admit that I don't know what kid's shows were on local television in NYC or LA in the 1950's and 1960's, but there is NO WAY that anyone could have been as lucky as kids in the Philadelphia area, any kid whose parents' TV antenna could pull in Philly Channels 3,6, and 10, and later some UHF channels.

I don't remember them all, but there was Pete's Gang, that had Chuckwagon Pete, who was Pete Boyle. Pete would show things like Our Gang "movies", and would also draw (and of course, tell stories). Apparently Pete was eventually replaced by Bob Bradley, who was replaced by a character named Lorenzo. In the 60's, when UHF channels became available, Captain Philadelphia had a show, as did Wee Willie Webber, Gene London, and the biggies - Pixanne, Chief Halftown, Sally Starr, Happy the Clown, Miss Connie on Romper Room, and the Captain and Mrs. Noah and the Magical Ark.  They all showed us movies and introduced us to the Three Stooges, Clutch Cargo, and an incredible collection of old cartoons.  If you want to see them all, you can watch WHYY's one-hour special, Philly's Favorite Kid Show Hosts, on- line at:

http://video.whyy.org/video/1780796549/

Of course, I looked forward to Chief Halftown and that hot cowgirl Sally Starr.  I even was a big follower of Happy the Clown, but my favorite character was the weirdest character on TV (until you got to know him). A special thanks needs to go to Lee Dexter et al., who created my favorite show, with my favorite character, Bertie the Bunyip. I never appreciated what a bunyip was (a cross between a bunny and a turn-yip?).  I'm probably the last to know, but a bunyip is an imaginary mean, Jersey Devil kind of character that originates in Australia (as did Lee).  According to Lee, a bunyip was part bunny, part collie dog, and part duck-billed platypus.  It is an Aborigine good spirit in some stories, not so good in others. While Bertie was definitely a kind and gentle spirit, he was probably not a typical bunyip.

(On cryptozoology.com, there is information on The Bunyip: Mythical Beast, Modern--day Monster, a fierce man-killer.  A bunyip is a "dreamtime" spirit.  There is no real agreement on how they looked; they were often animals who's cries or screams or howls you may hear late at night, but they were never seen.  More modern Aboriginal bunyips are herbivorous, grazing animals.)

 Bertie was actually a character on Pete Boyle's show before he had a show of his own.  It was Lee who explained that God created all the animals, then used the leftovers to create the bunyip.  When Lee made Bertie, he made a wooly tube of a body, with kangaroo ears, a platypus bill, bubble nose, and puppy fur (parts left over from the other characters he made). Bertie also wore a nice looking red and white polka-dot tie (well, black & white), and I always thought he was an excellent actor and TV personality (Bertie, not Lee).

Lee created a rich cast of characters on Bertie's show, which included Sir Guy de Guy (a fox who always seemed to want to take over), Humphrey the Rabbit, Fussy and his brother Gussy, Cindy (a dog), Twinkie (a squirrel) Nixie (a pixie), and Winnie (a witch).  They all lived in (can you guess?) Bunyipville, which I think is just east of Philadelphia.  I've seen them all referred to as "puppets".  I just thought they were real.

Bertie lived on Channel 3, and was on at a number of different times.  When the show premiered in 1953, it was an hour-long show, Sundays from 11 to noon.  I very clearly remember watching the Bertie the Bunyip Show for as long as I could, while my father patiently waited to drive me to Sunday School. Apparently the show actually was the reason why some churches changed their Sunday School times. There were times when Bertie was on Saturdays, and he had a daily program for awhile, as well.

I think I loved Bertie and the show because the cast worked to entertain between cartoons and movies, as much as a puppet can entertain.  Bertie didn't have arms and I never saw any legs - he was a one of a kind creature.  But he seemed very comfortable with himself, and I just enjoyed watching him interacting with his diverse group of friends.  Bertie could have been very self-conscious about what he was, but instead he enjoyed life, and was happy to be.

Bertie's acting skills were legendary.

Lee Dexter's show has been called one of Philadelphia's most charming and wholesome shows. 

It also made me happy when Bertie would say, always say, "remember kiddie-kiddies, Bertie always loves you."  We loved you too, you little mutant you!

Thanks to web sites that keep the Bertie Story alive:

Lost Kid Shows:  http://www.tvparty.com/lostbertie.html

Broadcast Pioneers:  http://www.broadcastpioneers.com/bertiethebunyip.html

The Waffleman:  http://dwaffleman.com/Welcome/Old_Philly_kid_shows.html

The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia:

   http://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/childrens-television/bunyip-photo/

I also wanted to acknowledge www.cafepress.com, for actually selling Bertie the Bunyip postcards.

© John Allison 2013

Dream Books

"Dreaming is one of the few remaining delicious pastimes open to the public that's absolutely free.  There is no better way to remain passionate than to dream big."

R. Brooks, B.L. Richardson, "You Should Really Write a Book"

Coming out of the first part of the 20th Century, and World War II, families began to create the American Dream - to have more than their parents had, to finally live a life of luxury - a house for all with white picket fences. 

In the 1950's and 60's we, like everyone else, had a magazine rack in the living room.  If you don't know what that is, it's fine.  It was a bad idea, a place where you could keep your magazines close, but without clutter, so you could reach in and read them at any time.  Of course, they usually filled up in about a week and sat there, next to a growing pile of magazines on the floor.  We had a magazine rack, and it seemed to collect what I call Dream Books - books that we would look at and think about what we might want.  Books that let us dream the American Dream.

Of course, catalogs like the Sears Catalog and the Penny's Catalog and the S&H Stamps Catalog were there; these let you look at clothes and appliances and all sorts of things and think about what you may choose to purchase some day "when your ship comes in".  The Sears Catalog had been a Dream Book for many decades. The first Sears catalog was published in 1888.  By 1894 it was already more than 300 pages long!  In 1993, Sears stopped publishing its general merchandise catalog, but all through the 50's and 60's we had them.

A reproduction of the "1909 Sears, Roebuck and Co., Inc. Consumers Guide", (Cheapest Supply House on Earth) must have been a great dream book, with not only clothes and tools in it but jewelry, musical instruments, furniture, guns, cameras, everything you could imagine.  I used to pretend that it was 1909 and I had $5 to spend.  I would make lists for myself, choosing things like the 64 cent American pocket watch over the Swiss Calendar watch ($5.88); or the Remington Derringer for $4.25.  If I had given myself more, I would still have favored the cheaper Beckwith Home Favorite Piano for $89 over the $138 Beckwith Artist's Grand Piano.  (All of their grand pianos look like uprights to me.)  You could get a perfectly fine shotgun from Sears for $11-17. 

In addition to the Sears Catalog, cookbooks were an interesting kind of Dream Book.  In the 50's and 60's we were flooded with them, as booklets somehow associated with a product.  They took you away to thoughts of dinner parties and entertaining - to thoughts of having the money to throw dinner parties and entertaining.  In the 1950's, as new appliances were becoming available, many manufacturers provided cookbooks to accompany their product.

Every product seemed to come with a booklet that gave you something to look forward to.  I have a brochure from perhaps 1954 advertising "Low Cost Room Cooling".  It was portable! Reversible!  It was Automatic!  If it was hot, it turned itself on; cool, it turned itself off!  There was even a picture of a happy eskimo in front of his igloo on the cover.  All this fuss was over a 20-inch Window Fan!  But to read about it, this was true luxury.

In 1961, my parents bought a Kenmore washing machine from Sears for $209.00, possibly the first one for them that didn't have a wringer.  "NOW - make washday a JOY instead of a JOB!"  It tells about the pleasure of using this Automatic Washer.  This was a woman's user manual.  Accompanied by drawings of well-dressed women, there are tips to make washing better - by defining the  tasks of sorting clothes, preparing clothes before washing, pretreating, prewashing, and of course, using Kenmore Detergent.  We all take detergents for granted but it wasn't too long ago that families would periodically make small batches of their own soaps, none of which worked very well for cleaning clothes. 

We had a 1962 booklet that accompanied freezers and those newfangled refrigerators with freezer compartments, again from Sears.  It was titled "How to Prepare foods for Freezing".  It was filled with color pictures of the great food you will have if you freeze fresh strawberries, meats, etc.  The 35 page booklet contained lots of recipes too.  Apparently when freezers came out, you needed help to use them.

Even my parents' Sunbeam Automatic Percolator came with a booklet, containing lots of pictures of coffee being poured.  "The best automatic percolator made!" (also described as the "Finest Automatic Percolator Made".)  Several references are made to the perfect coffee that you will enjoy, now that you have it. 

An electric iron from Westinghouse came with a booklet - "The Secret of Easier Ironing With Steam!"  It was the easiest iron you've ever use!  The last page contains technical details (weight, cord construction, heating elements, steam generating principle, etc.); the page is labeled "for men only".

My mother's Sunbeam Mixmaster came with a 45 page cookbook called "How to get the Most out of your Sunbeam Mixmaster". It also contained full-page ads for their other products such as the Sunbeam Ironmaster, the Coffeemaster, the Waffle Baker, the Automatic Egg Cooker, and the Shavemaster.  It was quite an impressive line of products.  We would dream about having a house full of Sunbeam xxxmasters!

Dream books related to products made it seem like just about everything was brand new, and needed explanation.  They filled your head with exciting new ideas, often for dinner parties and barbecues (all things you didn't do before, but now would do because of these products).  One particularly exciting booklet from the Reynolds Metals Company, Compliments of the Penn Fruit Co. Cookout Center, was called "Outdoor Cooking with Reynolds Wrap."  The opportunity to make corn on the grill by wrapping it in the latest "tin foil" was exciting, and well photo-documented.  The promise was clear - life was going to be good!

The American Dairy Association put out a booklet called "Let's Eat Outdoors" (A Cook Book of Recipes and Ideas for Picnics, Barbecues, Patio Parties and Camping).  I'm sure we never would have even thought of having a patio party, or even a patio, before reading this full color booklet.  Of course, page one was dedicated to "Milk Coolers for Outdoor Fun".  You remember Milk Coolers, Right?  One very exciting one was called the Calypso Cooler.  ("Bartender, One Calypso Cooler for my friend here!")  The recipe was as follows: " To one quart of thoroughly chilled milk, add 8 tsp. of Nestle's Quick.  Stir briskly and serve."  Another, the Raspberry Flip, was made by adding Stokely's Red Raspberry perserves to milk.  Yum (I think).  Where have Milk Coolers gone?

I'll spare you the details, but we had a booklet (1961) from Knox Gelatine, called "Do you really want to lose weight?  then here's the KNOX EAT and REDUCE PLAN".  I used to know what Knox Gelatine was, but not any more. 

There was a 1965 booklet in the magazine rack called "quick recipe favorites".  There are drawings of some desert-y looking things, a salad mold, and even a ham on the cover.  Can you guess who it's from?  The subtitle is "distinctively different with 7 Up"!

Sealtest published a free booklet entitled "Serve Cottage Cheese" (selected favorite recipes from the Sealtest kitchen) that made you just want to have a Cottage Cheese patio party!  We also had a "Royal Baking Powder ROYAL Cookbook", a "Bisquick party Book" (from Betty Crocker), a "Calumet Baking Powder Company book of Reliable Recipes", and a picture book of recipes called "Flavor and Spice and All Things Nice" from McCormick.  They all did an impressive job of convincing you that your life would be better, more elegant, if you made some of their recipes.

A distinctive red, white and blue booklet from Betty Crocker, "How to prepare appetizing, healthful meals, with foods available today" is dated 1943, and Betty's Forward begins with "Hail to the Women of America!".  It really is an interesting read, with sections such as "Stretching Meat".  It talks about what to do when meat is rationed, and how you should consider asking for bones and trimmings to make soup with.  It must have been very complicated because the war made heavy demands on the meat supply, so "homemakers" were well-versed in meat grades, correct methods for storage and preparation, how to make plans for left-overs, and even techniques such as "salvaging drippings".  It was a different time. Even in the 40's during the war, this cookbook booklet discussed Hospitality in Wartime, and making food for activities such as a victory garden supper, a basket social, a community sing, or perhaps a barbeque or hobo party.  We still had to party!

Magazines peaked in the 1960's.  They were big and glossy, filled with photojournalism and news and lots of exciting color ads for alcohol, cars and cigarettes.  Life magazine (1936-1972) led the pack.  Its mirror image Look magazine, had a similar rise and fall (1937-1971).  The ads in these things certainly raise them to Dream Book Status.

One of my favorites in the Dream Book rack was "The Sherwin-Williams 1959 Home Decorator (and how to paint book)".  It was given to us compliments of John Wanamaker (Philadelphia) who apparently used to sell house paints on the 5th Floor.  The color pictures of beautiful homes and rooms painted with Sherwin-Williams paints really did make you believe that their paint could convert your row house into a sprawling ranch.  "This is your book of Wonderful Ideas" is how the book begins.  All of the rooms they showed looked so nice, and we could have them, because "everything in a room can look new with a change of color on the walls".  That's quite a promise.  Filled with words like perfect, exciting and beautiful , it really did make you want to go out and improve the quality of your life by painting!

Get some paint, paint the walls, paint the doors, paint the piano!, you can even paint the kids!

We only had a few issues of a publication called "Popular Home" (your how-to-do-it magazine), but that was more enough.  We looked at them over and over.  They came to us complements of the Scholtz Lumber Company, 85th and Tinicum Ave, Philadelphia.  (SA 9-5500; "we're as near as your phone").  They had so many ideas on how to fix up an attic or a bedroom or family room, you wanted to go to Wanamaker's and get some Sherwin-Williams paint, then stop off at the lumber yard, so you could turn the attic into that extra space that every family needs.

Pulling these ideas together was a "magazine" called "Hospitality Home" (A digest for Modern Homemakers), circa 1956.  

I'm not sure what a digest is, but it says it was.  We got a few issues from B& W TV, Furniture & Appliance, 402 MacDade Blvd. Collingdale PA (Phone Sharon Hill 1187).  There were articles on things to sew, things to do in the summer, something to build like a bookcase, some new recipes, often something on flowers (The Magic of Annuals) and lots of ads - from Hotpoint.  The month that they printed a full page ad on Hotpoint air conditioners they also published an article on air conditioners called "Styled from a Woman's Point of View").  Hotpoint washing machines and dryers got a double-page ad, with a photo of a family - wife, husband, two girls, a boy and a baby - with what now seems like a confusing title - "Everything this family is wearing (yes everything!) can be perfectly washed in a Hotpoint. . .".  Articles such as "Don"t be a Snob about Modern!" seemed to fit well with another one, "Fit TV into Your Home" (Have you puzzled over the best way to fit television into your life and living space?).   Surprisingly, Hotpoint also sold TV's, even portable ones, called Hi-Vi TV, because of the VIvid picture, VIvid sound and VIvid styling!

wanted this room then, still want it now!

Of course, we don't get free booklets or anything any more - although similar things may be on the internet for you.  I think these Dream Books represented dreams for those who created them as well.  They spent the money to give loyal customers something good, and by making this investment, they would get more customers.  They had their dream too!

This was a time of dreaming, a time of so many changes, a time of new technology, making the lives of our womenfolk easier, and brighter, a time when, even if you couldn't have all of the latest colors and alcohol and cars and appliances, you could dream.  Someday it would happen, some day you would be there.  You would have a Patio Party and become part of the high society in your town.  Life had the potential to be good.  All we had to do was dream, and dream we did.

© 2013 John Allison

THE PERFECT CORNER - recollections from back then

Probably, as far as intersections go, the epicenter of Philadelphia, at least from a Cheesesteak perspective, is the funky intersection of 9th Street and Passyunk Avenue in South Philly, where you can find both Geno's Stakes and Pat's King of Steaks.  

However, for me, my favorite corner was a much more interesting place.  It was on the line between Darby, PA and Philadelphia.  Both streets changed names.  Island Avenue/Island Road change to become the Cobbs Creek Parkway.  Main Street from Darby becomes Woodland Avenue in Philadelphia.  Main Street/Woodland Ave. carried the #11 Trolley from Darby to Center City (and still does).

Lets start at the Trolley station in Darby, and catch the #11.  

The cobblestones on Main Street, while tough on the ankles, would have lasted as long as cockroaches and twinkies after the world ends, were it not for the brilliant whoever who decided to remove them decades ago.

This trip is full of decisions.  Which side  do you want to sit on?  What window do you want to look out of?   If you sit on one side of the trolley, you can look at the houses and stores of Darby drift by.  If you sit on the other side, once you get to 4th Street, you get to look at the homes of Colwyn until you get to my favorite intersection.  4th Street, 3rd Street, 2nd Street, Front Street, and finally Water Street pass by on the Colwyn side.  The houses are all up on hills, above Main Street. 

On one side of Front and Main in Colwyn is 20 Main Street, where my grandparents lived for years, and where I spent much of my summers when I was young.  It was a good life - I had a group of kids on my street in Collingdale who I played with, and when my mother went to her parents, which she often did in the summer, I had another set of kids there to play with.  The kids in Collingdale were "good" compared to the kids in Colwyn.  I enjoyed both, but the Colwyn kids enjoyed exploring much more - "getting into things" as my mother would say.  Plus they always seemed to have firecrackers, and knew where to find "punks".  Real ones.  A few blocks away there were some garages, and a big wooden fence with a loose board that would let us get into a part of the train yard of Fels (more on this later).  There were four train tracks (that seemed like twelve) that passed through this forbidden spot.  Fast trains - Amtrak, as well as freight trains, I seem to recall.  Crossing the tracks really was extremely dangerous.  You couldn't dodge an express at full speed.  It probably wasn't wise to put our ears to the track to hear if a train was coming either.  We used to put pennies on the track, to let the train smoosh them to the size of silver dollars (so the lure went) but we never did find a penny after it was run over.  Of course, there was also the fear that, as lure also went, you could derail a train this way.  On the other side of the tracks was, as always, a "woods".  For some reason, every town seems to have unfinished areas that are left as woods.  This woods, which you can get to if you survive jumping the tracks, had the Cobbs Creek run through it, and a little pond I seem to recall.  If you look at a map, you'll see that you could walk in the woods and end up all the way out by I-95 at the Tinicum Wildlife Preserve!  I remember going to this woods with my Colwyn friends for the first time.  It must have been like how it felt for the founder of the Mormons when they came out of the mountains and saw the valley below, now Salt Lake City, and said, "this is the place".  When I first saw the middle of the woods, with groups of kids playing there . . . I had no idea!  A little kids Mecca - and I'm sure few of their parents had any idea where they were.  Our own little lost world.

Back onto the trolley.  After we pass Front Street and Water Street, on the Colwyn side you ride on a bridge, over the Cobbs Creek, and can see the grounds for the Fels Naptha Soap Company, also called Fells & Co.  The factory, which made Fels Naptha Soap, was built on a source of water, as factories often were, and was on the train line as well.  

It was a pretty well protected property - not the kind of place you could walk onto, unless you knew where the one loose fence board was.  Of course, I could get into the factory whenever I wanted - I would even get the grand tour and be introduced to everyone.  My father worked there.  Often he would walk to my grandparent's house for lunch, or my mother and I would take lunch there for him, or I would walk there by myself and he would take me to the Fels cafeteria for lunch.

I don't want to get too far away from the Colwyn corner of Front and Main.  As I said my grandparents lived on one corner.  On the other corner was a house on top of a much higher hill, with dozens of steps from Main Street up to the front porch.  Along The Front Street edge of the property there were several garages, built into the side of the hill, presumably built because the other houses had no garages, and these were rented out - not to anybody we knew, but the garages were always full.

"The Old Man" lived alone in this house for years, and then he died and it went up for sale.  While we never were up close to the house, lest we get caught and eaten, we did find the garages interesting, and the cars in them that never seemed to move, and didn't appear to have owners.  Each garage door had upper windows, which we could see in if we stood on our tippy toes, which we often did, so we knew.  We knew that one garage, and only one, had a door on its back wall.  It could only be one thing, it had to be a door that lead to a stairway or passageway that went up - up to the house.

Shortly after the Old Man died, the car owners must have been contacted, because one day the garages were empty and unlocked.  Within a week, they were all padlocked closed, but we took advantage as soon as we could.  My Colwyn friends and I slipped, one by one, through the barely open garage door and into the dark, clammy garage.  We stood in front of the solid wood door on the back wall, and one of us finally got up the nerve to touch the doorknob.  The door was unlocked, and up we went, up a staircase, in total darkness, almost on hands and knees, feeling the next step, then the next, not even talking, not knowing who may be in the house.  The first of us finally bumped their head on soft wood, the top of the staircase.  We sat there and listened, and hearing nothing, again tried a doorknob, and the door opened into a well-lit room on the main floor, bright sunlight shining in, no curtains or shades anywhere.  Again we listened, again, it seemed like we were actually alone.  The house was three stories high, a tall house on top of a big hill.  There was little wallpaper on the walls.  There was no furniture.  It was almost as if someone prepared the walls to wallpaper or paint a decade earlier, and never did it.  Many of the rooms had fireplaces.  It must have been an incredible house in its time.  There were two staircases that went from the first floor to the second.  Drawn on the walls, some of them, were arrows - arrows drawn in pencil.  They were hard not to follow.  They pointed up the steps to the second floor.  Some of us followed one set, some followed the second set.  Both led upstairs.  Both sets of arrows led to the same wall, in the same room, on the second floor.

Back on the first floor, on the shelf above the dining room fireplace, sat a beautiful old camera.  It must have been made of mahogany with a black bellows.  It was a large, professional camera.  Its color, against the stark off-white walls, was striking.  It was also scary.  Someone swore they heard a creak upstairs.  We realized that we had no game plan.  What if someone came up the steps from the garage?  Which way would we go?  What if we were on the third floor and the front door opened?  Would we hide?  Run?  The exploration was over.  We found a light switch that lit a series of light bulbs all the way back down the staircase to the garage, and another switch that let us turn them off at the bottom.  We slipped out one at a time, leaving space between us in case parents saw us, but no one did.  At least no one that we know of.  Urban exploration like this has always been one of the most exciting things to do, I've found.

If we continue on the trolley ride to my intersection, you now know that the Fels & Co. factory takes up one corner.  Across the street, if you had been looking out the other side of the trolley we were riding on, you'd see a falls on the Cobb's Creek, and on the corner, a little house.  

The sign indicates that it is a historical site, the Blue Bell Inn, where supposedly George Washington actually slept!  At this point, Main Street becomes Woodland Avenue, so as you go through the light, you move from Darby/Colwyn into Philadelphia. 

On the corner adjacent to the Blue Bell Inn is a little triangular "block" that I think just had a little parklet on it.  Whenever you have five square feet or more of grass, it's officially Fairmount Park in Philadelphia.  I'm not even sure if there was a bench there, but there had to be. 

There is the fourth corner, which was really an exciting place for me to go with my father on a Saturday morning.  On the corner, I forget, but I think it was a Pep Boys store.  I loved the smell of the place.  They sold car parts, bicycles, all kinds of great guy stuff.  There was a narrow alley that led to a garage behind the store, where you could get work done on your car.  Adjacent to the alley was another alley that went back to a garage behind the next store, which was a Penn-Jersey Auto Parts Store!  Pep Boys and Penn-Jersey were independent but very, very similar stores.  Being able to cruise one, then go next door and cruise the other, was great fun.  It made about as much sense as having gas stations on adjacent corners.  I mean, what kind of sense could that possibly make, right?

Behind Pep Boys and Penn-Jersey was another building, off of Island Rd., which held white collar offices and the cafeteria for Fels employees.  

Fels owners and workers ate together there.  Workers went because it was very inexpensive, and owners because it was such a good deal they couldn't pass it up either. 

There's a lot of history on this corner, although its almost all gone now.  If you're interested, read on.  If not, thanks for reading this far!  If you stay on the trolley, heading into town, you'll pass some great places that aren't around any more, like the Breyer's Ice Cream factory.  (William A. Breyer sold "a relatively new concoction called ice cream" in 1866, first from his home in Philadelphia, and later on the streets using a horse and wagon.  The company was eventually sold and for awhile owned by Kraft.  Now Breyer's is owned by Unilever, since 1993.)

Lets get back to the Blue Bell Inn in Colwyn.  There is a short video on YouTube so you'll know it actually exists. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHPcfPmoSfE
It is a "George Washington Slept Here" kind of place.  Built in 1766 by Henry Paschall, it was a stagecoach stop for coaches heading south out of Philadelphia.  It is also the site of Pennsylvania's first water-powered mill, sometimes called Printz's Mill or Old Swedes Mill, built around 1645.

 I'm assuming the Mill site is somehow related to the falls that are on the Cobbs Creek, just a few yards away.  This is not to be confused with The Blue Bell Inn in Blue Bell, PA (open since 1743).

I had mentioned the adjacent corner, a small triangular "block" that was just a "park", surely a part of Philadelphia's system of parks, Fairmount Park.  Cobbs Creek is surrounded by Cobbs Creek Park, which is a major part of the Fairmount Park system (the largest urban park in the country).  According to Wikipedia, "For many West Philadelphia and Upper Darby children, Cobbs Creek is their first introduction to wooded greenspaces and freshwater ecosystems. . . . The wildlife includes regional birds, raccoons, opossums, spotted deer, wild turkey, rabbits, and in recent history, even a mountain lion."

Across from the park triangle, in Philadelphia, is the corner where Pep Boys and Penn-Jersey coexisted for many years.  (I can still smell the inner tubes!)  According to their website, four Navy buddies, "Mannie" Rosenfeld, "Moe" Strauss, Moe Radavitz and "Jack" Jackson, all from Philadelphia, put together $800 (in 1921) to start an auto parts supply company.  The Manny, Moe and Jack characters were modeled after the founders. One of the Moes, Moe Radavitz, left after only a few years.

They started out as Pep Auto Supplies, and the story tells of a Philadelphia policeman who worked near their first store, who would often send people to go see the "boys" at Pep, so the "Pep Boys" was in common usage before they changed their name.  They chose the official name of "The Pep Boys-Manny, Moe & Jack" because Moe noticed that lots of businesses used first names, such as a local dress shop called "Minnie, Maude and Mabel's".  There are currently over 700 stores across the US (Pep Boys, not Minnie's).

One of the original Pep Boys, "Moe" Strauss, had a brother, Izzie Strauss.  He started Strauss Auto in Brooklyn, which later became Strauss Discount Auto.  In 1987, the company acquired Penn-Jersey Auto Parts.  Small world.

The Penn-Jersey Auto Stores were founded by Samuel H. Popkin.  His first store, in Easton PA in 1920 was called Sam's Tire Supply Store (according to the Philadelphia Jewish Business Archives).  

Most of these stores and factories were created by Philadelphia's Jewish community leaders.  They built much of modern Philadelphia.

On the remaining corner is the Fels Naptha Soap company factory, which I'd like to say a little more about.  Fels Naptha soap is a harsh soap known for handling heavy grease and oils.  It was Joseph Fells who developed a new soap-making process in 1895.  It started as a home remedy for contact dermatitis, such as exposure to poison ivy - "oil-transmitted skin-irritants."  It became a laundry room standard - reliable and cheap.  The product was so successful, Fels built a factory in Southwest Philadelphia, a "water-powered mill-seat on Cobbs Creek."  At it's peak in the 1930's, the factory employed more than 600 employees.  It is now essentially demolished and a gas station has been built on that corner.

One reason why Fels Naptha soap became so popular was the efforts of Anty Drudge.  According to "Adapting to Abundance: Jewish Immigrants, Mass Consumption, and the Search for American Identity." by Andrew R. Heinze (1990, Columbia University Press), Aunty Drudge advertisements were considered as Yiddish advertisements.  In many newspapers, there was often an Aunty Drudge column, in which the Aunty Drudge character gave housekeeping tips, which often discussed a problem where Fels Naptha soap was the solution.  

Heinze writes:  "The value of being up-to-date, as well as time-conscious, was reinforced by Yiddish advertisements.  Fels Naptha soap, the well-known brand of a Jewish soap manufacturer, was regularly advertised with the character of "Aunty Drudge," a matron who instructed readers in the progressive approach to cleaning.  At times, a drawing of an attractive, fashionably dressed young woman helped to convey the message that Fels Naptha would help keep a woman up-to-date."

Whenever Aunty Drudge (anti-drudge, get it?) was drawn, her dress resembled a bunch of Fels Naptha Soap wrappers sewed together.  She is sometimes referred to as Anty Drudge. 

I do have a small book, "Anty Drudge's Cookbook" (A Cook Book of Tested Recipes, Containing Many Helpful Hints for Housekeepers, Compiled by Anty Drudge, Who will gladly answer any questions or give advice about housework and cooking), from Fels Naptha, Philadelphia, 1910.  

There is a different "verse" at the top of each page. For example, "Fels Naptha soap makes clean clothes - fresh paint, spotless homes, rested women - happy families."  The recipes, sometimes for complete meals, always are inexpensive, sensitive to the needs of the woman of the house, easy to prepare, easy to clean up, etc.  Several recipes come under the "fireless cooking" category, and there is a large section on paper bag cookery, in which food, sometimes meals, are cooked inside a paper bag in the oven (and some people thought it was just a fad!).

So that's my story of my favorite corner.  Everyone should have one, don't you think?  It was pure Philly.

Growing Up in The 50's and 60's in Philadelphia and Delaware County - Some Things That I Remember

Things I remember:

1.  Tastykakes

2.  soft pretzels

3.  steaks and hoagies

4.  people who sold roasted chestnuts on the street in the winter

OK, those are the ones you were probably expecting.

Looking back, our lives were different in the 50's and 60's, at least to me.

1.  Cars had a single, front seat. These were a make-out heaven.  One hand was for driving and one was for holding.  Why did we go from a bench to bucket seats?  Shouldn't we have voted or something?

2.  It was a time when I knew how to talk about music.  If someone recorded a dozen songs and made those songs commercially available, they would have "made a record".  Apparently use of the word "record" for such a collection confuses people now.  Records came in albums and albums had album cover art, and text on the back and text, occasionally, on the paper sleeve that the record came in.  When you bought a dozen songs, you used to get so much more than what you get now when you download.

3.  If you heard the word Cappuccino, you would assume it was a good Italian family name.

4.  It was a time when the only air bag in your car was when Uncle Elmer was driving.

5.  It was a time when cars were works of art - fins were in, and if your friend's parents had a Hudson Hornet, you got to ride in a cross between a hearse and a mechanical beetle.

6.  It was a time when vocabulary was rich - sampling history, entertainment and politics in daily analogies.  This unfortunately has all gone out the window like high button shoes. 

7.  There were formal battles everywhere, and you had to choose.  These were more important than whether you were a Democrat or a Republican!  Which side were you on?  The Beatles or the Dave Clark 5?  Pepsi or Coke?  Arco or Texaco?  Chevy or Ford?  Catholic or Protestant?  Ivory or Dial? American Bandstand or Aquarama?  Penn Jersey or Pep Boys?  The Bazaar or Jerry's Corner?  Thom McAn or Father & Son?

8.  People actually felt good about putting a tiger in their tanks.

9.  There was ABC, NBC, and CBS.  That was really it. 

10.  Newspapers were great, there were lots of them, and they were a part of our daily lives.  We got the Philadelphia Inquirer (the morning paper), The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin (the evening paper) and the Delaware County Daily Times (on Thursdays).

11.  Radios were AM.  You listened to the music on the radio out of a 2-inch speaker during the day, and an ear bud late at night or, if you were lucky, a bed speaker that you put under your pillow.

12.  Nothing was stereo.

13.  People drank everywhere - in bars, in cars, on porches, in yards. 

14.  The world was black and white - TV, magazines, newspapers, and photography.

15.  People owned clothing that was formal (and often wore it); men had ties, jackets, suits, and vests in their closets.  They were probably purchased at Robert Hall (when the value goes up, up, up / and the prices go down, down, down . . . (you can finish it))

16.  Comfortable shoes were called sneakers, and had no connection to tennis.

17.  People held doors for others.

18.  People let you cross the street, in the absence of laws.

19.  Central air conditioning had little meaning.  You can't cool a house down by running cold water through your radiators.   (FYI, radiators are in houses, not just in cars.)

20.  People ate hot breakfasts every morning.  One utilized a range to do this.

21.  "Drugs" meant aspirin or Alka Seltzer.

22.  Cars rotted.

23.  People "made do" with what they had, and were not ashamed of it.

24.  People liked stories about World War II, airplanes, and private eyes.

25.  You didn't mess with grandparents.  You appreciated them.

26.  If you were going to take a trip, you'd likely get a map at the gas station.  People knew how to fold up gas station maps, and took the time to do so.

27.  If they looked like headphones, they were called earmuffs.

28.  Santa was real.  He had helpers who dressed up like him.  End of story.

29.  Snow fell deeper.

30.  Rain rained harder and longer.

31.  We wore lots of ties.

32.  Boys and girls went on dates if they wanted to be together.

33.  Clocks had hands.

34.  Clocks and watches had to be wound up daily.

35.  Church was mandatory.

36.  Family was everything.

37.  Just because you die, it doesn't mean your television show won't continue to air at the same day and time.  See Lawrence Welk.

38.  Money went a long way.  It seems like, while we had less money, we more often ate steak.

39.  Billboards and ads for smoking and drinking were everywhere.

40.  People smoked and drank on airline flights.  Cigarettes were given to everyone, free, on flights.

41.  Cameras had flashbulbs, and you could only use them once.

42.  James Bond movies were based on Ian Fleming books that you had already read.

43.  People read.

44.  People shopped at the Food Fair or the Acme. 

45.  The Food Fair gave out Top Value Stamps with every purchase.  Some other stores gave out S&H Green Stamps.  We would lick stamps, fill books with them, and redeem books of stamps for everything from underwear to new cars.

46.  Mom's meals were threesomes.  If you had meatloaf and mashed potatoes, there was a corner of your plate that would be empty, so you also had corn or green beans too.

47.  "Big Brother" was part of 1984, the future.

48.  Barbie didn't have a job or much of a back-story.

49.  Fox was an animal, not a network.

50.  Dress shoes and black socks went along with shorts just fine.

51.  There were small stores that sold mostly milk, called Wawa.

52.  It was enjoyable to go to the movies.  You didn't have the urge to kill anyone near you.

53.  Drug stores sold ice cream and soda, but not radios and grills.

54.  You could walk to a corner store for milk, soda, ice cream, canned goods, bread, and candy.  Within 10 blocks there was probably a butcher store where you would buy your meat, as well as a barber shop, pharmacy, bakery, and hoagie shop.  You knew where a drive-in movie was.

55.  Men wore leather shoes, and when the heels or soles wore down, they were replaced by a shoemaker.

56.  A gallon of gas was 29.9.  That's cents.

57.  You weren't afraid to take a bus, trolley, or the El into town.

58.  If you said, "into town" you meant Philadelphia, if you said "into the city" you meant New York.

59.  You never needed exact change for anything.

60.  Most places didn't take credit cards, and most people didn't have them.

61.  People sent each other cards - you bought them at card stores, and sent them using U.S. postage stamps.

62.  You had to lick the back of a stamp to get it to stick.

63.  People stopped at red lights, and often at stop signs. 

64.  We didn't always understand the difference between local and national treasures.  Couldn't you get black cherry wishniak or Tastykakes anywhere in the country?  Didn't everyone know who Sally Star was?

65.  Ovens were things that were used weekly, and not just as storage areas.

66. You knew not to buy a Dixie Cup (which wasn't a cup, but a cuplet filled with ice cream) unless you got the little flat wooden spoon too.

67.  Food came to you.  Mr. Softee (or the competition, some pirate guy) rode through your neighborhood every day in the summer.  Perhaps someone came to your street with a truck or a station wagon, and sold the things they grew on their farm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EQm_5_XrAU&feature=related

68.  You bought a converter box to attach to your TV to get additional fuzzy channels, UHF channels.

69.  You could dream through catalogs.  Every house had the year's Sears catalog, probably a Penny's Catalog, a Top Value or S&H Green Stamps catalog, and perhaps a Radio Shack or Heathkit catalog.  So many dreams!

70.  Books had hard covers.

71.  Schools required students to protect their schoolbooks.  In addition to buying pencils and pens and paper to start a school year, you probably also bought paper book covers, which were wrapped around the books' hard covers, to protect them.  This was not an option.

72.  Your high school played football on Thanksgiving Day.

73.  Penn football and Eagles football were played in the same stadium.

74.  Ice could be purchased at Ice Houses.

75.  We ate liverwurst, and liver, and baloney.

76. A Volunteer Fire Company was an important, integral part of your neighborhood.

77.  Families found things to do on a weekend that were free.  We could walk around the feet of William (pronounced "Billy") Penn on the top of City Hall, or go see the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall, or tour the Mint, or go to the airport and watch airplanes take off and land.  (There were even observation decks above some gates at the airport where you could not only watch planes come in, but listen to pilots talking to the tower on the radio.) 

78.  At "Christmas time", you went to Wanamaker’s to hear the organ play and to watch the Christmas show.

79.  At Christmas, you went to 69th Street to shop, to see one or more Santas, and to let the kids slide down a two-story slide that was built inside of a big shoe. 

80.  Lawn mowers were muscle powered.

81.  The weatherman on TV was on the faculty at Drexel - Wally Canan the Weather Man.

82.  You couldn't have imagined that the boss with the hot sauce would last for many decades.

83.  The only really "coffee shop" you knew was one owned by Eight O'Clock, in Manhattan.

84.  If you really, really wanted to splurge, you drove into town to Bookbinders, to spend too much for some pretty good food.  (Get the snapper soup!)

85.  Cigarettes (and occasionally, cigars) were usually purchased from a vending machine (when a pack was 40 cents).

86.  In the summer, everyone would roll their car windows down just a little, and roll them back up every evening as the sun was setting.  If you didn't do this, your car would explode and your windows would blow out.

87.  The mummers were, even then, very difficult to explain to outsiders.

88.  There were department stores (not just Wanamakers) like Gimbels and Snellenburgs.

89.  Code for "going to Wanamakers" was "meet me at the eagle."

90.  They were Schmidt's, Schlitz, Esslinger's, Rolling Rock and Ballentine.

91.  The Mayfair was a Philadelphia breakfast treasure!

92.  Matchbox cars were 50 cents or maybe more, but were worth every penny.

93.  There was a White Tower in Darby.  (I was shocked to learn that most were called White Castles!)

94.  "Real" Vanilla ice cream, from Dolly Madison and perhaps Breyer's, had black specks in it (vanilla beans) and little pieces of ice as well.

95.  "We" made train engines (so cool) at Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton.

© 2012 John Allison