I remember the music section of Osco Drug in Kirkwood Mall back when I was a kid. All the audio cassettes were in a sealed wall on one side of an aisle, and the wall of cassettes were covered by a giant plexiglass cover with a bunch of round holes in it. Additionally, each cassette was in an extra security case. You could look through the plexiglass/holes and look at all the cassette spines for a cassette you wanted, then reach in through one of the holes and pull it out of the wall. The holes were big enough for your hand to go in, but not big enough to pull your hand out along with the cassette in its security case. So what you had to do was drop the cassette to the bottom (often cracking the cover), where there was a narrow conveyor belt between the wall and plexiglass. Then you had to get an employee to come over and activate the conveyor belt to move the cassette to the side where the employee could access it, remove the security case and then sell the cassette to you.
Some people get nostalgic for the past, but that was pretty effed up.
Tag Archives: vintage
Soo-wee!

You say “yip like a terrier” like it’s a bad thing.


Gadzooks! Post-Victorian Fashion!

A huge Fall and Winter 1902/1903 catalog for Chicago’s Tailor-Made Clothing Co. filled with — so this is where that phrase comes from — fashion plates!
I learned something!
(See tape dispenser for scale. I won this at an auction but still haven’t figured out how to store it because it’s too wide for my plastic bins.)
Continue readingMoments later, they were trampled by the herd.

Get to the choppah!

We were promised personal helicopters.
Dick Won All Around When…

They’re plenty keen.
Price comparison: In 1946, four thin Gillette blades cost 10¢. In 2019, four Gillette Fusion ProGlide Men’s Razor Blade refills cost $17.99 on Amazon.
Continue readingChicks dig it.

Odds and ends:
A portière (mentioned at the bottom of the ad) is a hanging curtain placed over a door or doorway. I am not sure if a beaded curtain officially qualifies as a portière, but why not, eh?
Online, I found a couple of variations of the Lewando’s mother cat delicately and lovingly hanging the chicks up to dry, and when in color, each of the clothespinned chicks is a different color. Probably because of their dyeing services, but maybe just because it’s cute. Dye hard.
“Cleansing” sounds much more elegant and thorough than “cleaning”. You can probably charge more for it.
Sometimes Lewando’s has an apostrophe, and sometimes Lewandos doesn’t have an apostrophe. Lewando does what Lewando wants.
Continue reading“Your time has expired, leave.”

This Week in Ephemera

This is a score! The entire 1916 year of McCall’s magazine and in beautiful condition, especially considering these twelve issues are over a hundred years old.