Looking at old photos from another century that were in Mom’s photo box was an unexpected kick in the feels. You know how photos were back then, more than a half century ago, mostly birthday parties, Christmas, and Summer vacations taken on an old Browning box camera with Kodak film.
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This photo makes me chuckle. It was an unwritten rule. Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, Construction Sets…. Dad got to play with them first. We always had to build the picture on the box or tube first before I could chew on or lose any of the critical pieces.
Birthday parties were always in pairs. Every child shared the party with cousins born that month. Diane (in the high chair) and I both celebrated in the November party. Nancy. in front, appears to be ready to toss the cake on the floor. I don’t believe she was trying to get even for anything I did during her September party… at least nothing I will admit to here.
Here’s a triple portrait from when there were only three of us. Nancy, Mary (the littlest one) and Me. No David then. But a 60’s space-age design on the curtains.
Mary was one of the triplets all born the same year. Jeanette and Janice were our twin cousins. The three of them celebrated their birthdays together.
Here is the situation the stork dropped down the chimney when I was eight. David was my little brother that is now taller than me, and he weighs more too.
Three of us on Halloween. We were very scary. Especially the evil little demon dressed like a princess. My kids like to make fun of this picture.
Here’s the one that made me cry. Patty was the second cousin whom the Berillas (On my mother’s side of the family) put in charge of me when we went all the way to Cleveland to visit. She was three years older than me, and she kept me out of trouble when we visited the Cleveland Zoo. As we were looking at these pictures, Mom told me that Patty came out of retirement last winter to work as a nurse again during the pandemic nursing shortage. For her trouble, she contracted Covid and died in December. I’m devastated still.
And here’s the last one for today (though not the last one I copied to share with my poor phone-camera skills.)
This is not the Cleveland Zoo. This is the Deer Farm Zoo in Mason City, Iowa. We could feed the deer by hand then with corn and little green “deer-food” pellets. There are still deer in East Park in Mason City half a century later. But they are fended off from people now. They still don’t bite… the deer, I mean. But they have to be out of the reach of people now so they don’t get hurt or get fed something that will kill them (even if it is considered food by crazy people.)
Catch a Falling Star 
Coca-Cola Mind Control
If you’ve read very much of my goofy little blog, you’ve probably run across the fact that I am something of a conspiracy theorist and strange-twist believer… sometimes referred to as a tinfoil-hat-wearer, or that old uncle you don’t want your kids sitting next to at the Thanksgiving dinner table. And I’ve got another one for you. I discovered while obsessing about nostalgia and old ads in the Saturday Evening Post, that the Coca-Cola company is probably responsible for warping my mind as a child.
My plan in revealing this hideous conspiracy is to take a look at ads and illustrations that I saw as a kid addicted to reading Saturday Evening Post every week at Grandpa and Grandma Aldrich’s farm. I will scour them for hidden meanings and try to reveal to you the insidious plot underlying these mind-altering illustrations. Keep in mind that you should probably take everything I say in this article with a grain of salt. No, really, salt can protect you from subtle mind-control messages.
And, yes, I realize that not all the messages are that subtle. Sometimes they shout at you, “Drink Coke and you will have more sex!” And you have to remember we are trying to avoid that kind of mind control. We have to fight every instance of ad companies trying to take control over us by exploiting our baser animal urges.
So, let me take a momentary interlude, a break if you will. I have this big glass of Diet Coke I just bought at QT, and…
Well, that was good!
Coca-Cola has been at this for a while. This ad from the 1940’s is apparently attempting to win World War II through choice of soft drinks. Look at this feisty brew the soldier is about to quaff. It is actually struggling in the cup to get out and go bite some German soldier’s face off. Any American soldier who can choke this stuff down is tough enough to take on the Axis powers, Napoleon after Hitler dug him up and used Frankenstein’s scientific breakthroughs to re-animate him, and even several countries we weren’t actually at war with. Even Rush Limbaugh and his weird lesbian-farmer-subsidies theory can’t compete with Coke on this level of propaganda wars.
I also think Coca-Cola ads may have something to do with why I became a Cardinals fan when I lived in a place full of Cubs and Twins fans. I admit, I added the dialogue and the commentary, but I used to do the same thing in my head when I was eight and the Cardinals went to the World Series… and the Cubs could not win it all even with Ernie Banks on their team. The Cardinals beat the Yankees in 7 games!
I blame Coca-Cola. Especially their ad department. Cause the generic manager is telling the generic Oubs player to “Relax… take it easy.” But the Cardinals won because Bob Gibson had that laser-intensity stare that bored holes through Mickey Mantle’s bat! (It is Oubs, not Cubs, by the way. Look at the big “O” on his jersey.)
And you can’t tell me that the Coca-Cola ad seen here, the one with the white-haired goblin child casting a spell on you with his crazy eyes and pointing at your dark, delicious master isn’t seriously trying to mess with children’s minds. There used to be a big five-foot-tall metal sign with this very picture on it in the one and only alley in Meservey, Iowa. The one time I went to the barber there to get my hair cut I had to sit in that barber chair and stare at this evil thing staring back at me from the alley across the street. It warped me. For one thing, I never went back to that barber shop again… at least until I was in college and the sign was gone.
So, I seriously believe Coca-Cola was messing with my mind as a child. They did it through subversive ad illustrations in Saturday Evening Post Magazine. And if I’m completely crazy now, I blame them. You don’t see that kind of thing going on today, do you? Well, I mean, we should be very worried. Because it probably means they have gotten better at it.
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Filed under autobiography, baseball, baseball fan, commentary, conspiracy theory, foolishness, humor
Tagged as coca cola, conspiracy theory, humor, mind control, propaganda