Canada has been a regular topic on this blog since I launched it back in 2009.
Why? Because I have a strong affection for the Great White North. I spent a lot of time in Canada over a twenty year period beginning in the late 1980s, with regular trips to Toronto, Niagara Falls and North Bay – sometimes several times a year.
I still make it up to Windsor every few years, but I miss driving Canada's great highways, such as the QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way) and Highway 11. The roads were always in great shape and the scenery was always interesting, especially once you got a few hours north of Toronto. I really miss it, and plan to hit the road again, eh, once I finally retire.
Courtesy Roger Fox
Anyway, one of the landmark highways is the Trans-Canada highway. And as the article below from the June 22, 1963 Lorain Journal explains, the summer of 1963 was the first time that the highway was open for the entire length, "a ribbon of asphalt running nearly 5,000 miles spanning the entire length of Canada."
There was a strong marketing push to promote the Trans-Canada Highway. Consequently there were many maps and brochures distributed to literally 'increase traffic' as an ad man might say. Looking at these vintage printed publications makes me feel wistful and nostalgic for the days when we navigated using maps.
1958
1964
1970s
Lake Superior Route via Highway 17
Trans-Canada Highway Memorial – Rogers Pass, B.C.
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I did drive a portion of the Trans-Canada Highway back in 1997, the section from North Bay to Sault St. Marie. It was very scenic, but much of the area around Sudbury looked like a lunar landscape thanks to its mining heritage.
I'll keep the suds flowing one more day with a selection of clippings about Dog N Suds that I've accumulated over the past few years.
As I've noted many times, the official Grand Opening of Ilene's Dog N Suds was back on July 1, 1966. That means that next year it celebrate its 60th Anniversary with Ilene as the owner.
But the history of the Dog N Suds on North Ridge Road actually starts a few years before, which has muddled the waters a bit as to how long it has actually been open. As the article below from the September 28, 1963 Lorain Journal notes, former Cleveland Indian pitcher Dick Tomanek was the original manager when it opened in 1963.
Here are a few Journal clippings from that first year.
Oct. 18, 1963
Oct. 19, 1963
A fire struck the Dog N Suds in Sept. 1964. It wouldn't be the only one.
Sept. 29, 1964
I'm not sure of the details as to why, but Dog N Suds closed under its original ownership and its N. Ridge Road address was listed as vacant in the 1965 county directory. But the following year, a classified ad ran in the Journal promoting owning your own Dog N Suds.
Feb. 7, 1966
Later that year, Ilene and her husband re-opened Dog N Suds. But less than two years later another fire struck the drive-in. This time, according the article below from the January 31, 1968 Journal, 80% of it was destroyed.
But by the beginning of March 1968, Dog N Suds was open again. Here's Ilene in front of the iconic sign.
For more Dog N Suds fun, revisit some of my old posts.
If you're a fan of Ilene'sDog N Suds, then you won't want to miss this month's Leisure Living magazine. The beloved coney dog and root beer drive-in is the subject of a feature article in the magazine written by yours truly.
For the article, I had the pleasure of interviewing Heather Grosswiler, the current manager of Dog N Suds. Heather is very close to her good friend Ilene, the longtime owner, and is carrying on her legacy.
"I have worked at Dog N Suds since 2011," Heather said. "It was my very first job. I've been managing since 2022. I've worked other jobs throughout the years and always worked at Dog N Suds in some aspect around my other jobs. I was working full time in Sales when Ilene's husband, Tom, died in 2020. Ilene asked me if I could manage and I was making great money at my full time job, so I declined at the time.
"In 2021, Ilene hired a manager to try to help her but it just did not work out. Ilene had to close after just 5 weeks open. In 2022, she asked me again if I would help her keep the business going. She had limited options and was facing a few health issues and recognized that I was one of few that knew the business well enough to run it, so I agreed to leave my job and manage Dog N Suds.
"It’s been one of the best decisions I've made this far," she smiled.
Heather has certainly been doing a fantastic job and making Ilene proud. The food and service are truly great and the prices are more than reasonable. And true to Heather's considerable experience in sales and marketing, she utilizes social media well, with daily Dog N Suds posts on both Facebook and Instagram.
Her efforts are paying off. The drive-in is busy each time I visit, and Kasey (my favorite car hop) tells me that there are new first-time customers each week.
Anyway, be sure to stop in at Dog N Suds this summer. You'll agree that the food is – what else? –doggone good.
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Unable to get your hands on a current issue of Leisure Living? Don't worry. You can read the current issue onlinehere.
Cartoonist Al Capp's popular Li'l Abner comic strip has been the subject of numerous posts on my blog over the years. It was my favorite comic in the Lorain Journal, and for years I looked forward to reading it when the paper came late in the afternoon, especially when the continuity involved Li'l Abner's 'ideel,' Fearless Fosdick.
Since I spend a lot of time reading old Journals while prepping material for this blog, I've noticed that Li'l Abner wasn't in the paper all during the 1930s and 40s. So when did it finally show up?
The small ad above in the June 1, 1953 edition of the Journal provided the answer. It had been mixed in with a bunch of other ads on the movie page and I almost missed it.
Of course, I had to go back and review previous editions to see if there was a full-fledged teaser campaign. There wasn't (unlike what had been done for Dennis the Menace). I only found one front page ad from May 29, 1953, featuring Old Man Mose. He was the bearded, ill-tempered fortune teller who lived in a Dogpatch cave that Li'l Abner went to for advice. His predictions were always somewhat cryptic and told in rhyme, but they always came true.
The Journal did make one small mention of the addition of Li'l Abner (and Abbie an' Slats, another Capp creation) on May 26th.
Li'l Abner was still at the height of its popularity in 1953, so it was probably a pretty big deal that the Journal was going to run it. And it very likely wasn't cheap either.
As for me, I became aware of Li'l Abner in the mid to late 1960s. Dad had an old 78 of Li'l Abner, Don't Marry that Girl in his record collection.
We had an old newspaper comic section from 1952 with Li'l Abner in it, down in our basement, lining a Christmas decoration box, I think. There was a one-shot TV show that appeared around 1967, and we were getting the Plain Dealer on Sundays, which included Li'l Abner, (but only on that day, not weekdays). So I was well aware of the strip.
I loved the humor of it, especially the hilariously violent "Fearless Fosdick" strip-within-a-strip. I eventually clipped it every day for several years, beginning with the adventure that started with this strip that ran on May 15, 1970.
In the story, a police informant wants to give Fosdick some evidence incriminating his gang. But the malnourished detective is more interested in the steak served up by his longtime fiancée, so he makes him wait.
May 18, 1970
May 20, 1970
May 25, 1970
As a result, the informer is gunned down by his old gang, who wants the evidence hidden in his suit.
May 28, 1970
But Fosdick ends up with the suit because his old one is worn out and he can't afford a new one.
May 29, 1970
May 30, 1970
The rest of the story concerns the efforts of the gang to get the suit back from Fosdick.
Regular readers of this blog know that from time to time, I like to do posts showing what movies were being shown locally (especially when I don't have any other topic prepared).
Above you see the movie page from the Journal of June 19, 1975 – fifty years ago today.
There's not a whole lot to be nostalgic about. No Bowery Boys, no cartoons, no classic Westerns. After all, this is the mid-1970s.
Instead we get a real mixed bag. The biggest movie on the page is Jaws, which was about to start its original run at Midway Mall Cinema. I never saw it in the theater; it was decades later that I saw it on TV, and decades after that when I saw the uncut version with bloody, chomped-off limbs sinking into the briny deep. It's a great film, one of those that I watch wherever it pops up on TV.
Walt Disney Productions was still cranking out live-action comedies, in this case it's The Strongest Man in the World with Kurt Russell. By that time, my siblings and I were too old for typical Disney fare.
I do remember that the whole Brady Bunch went to see The Return of the Pink Panther at the Midway Mall Cinema. Dad was a fan of Peter Sellers, and my siblings and I liked the Pink Panther cartoons so it's not too surprising that we saw it as a family.
Sixty years ago today, Sandy's Hamburgers celebrated the Grand Opening of the Meister Road restaurant that was part of the Lorain Plaza shopping center. Above is the large ad that ran in the Journal on June 17, 1965.
I've written about 20 posts devoted to Sandy's.
The problem is, these days, it seems that very few people remember Sandy's. That's because it wasn't around very long in our area. By May of 1973, it had been taken over by Hardee's and the restaurants were going through a makeover.
Hardee's isn't all that well remembered either, even though it is still around (and the subject of two blog posts of its own).
Anyway, a few weeks after the Grand Opening, this short article appeared in the Journal on July 2, 1965.
Sandy's kept the excitement going the following month when it celebrated the 7th anniversary of the burger chain's opening with a special promotion. Below is the ad that ran in the Journal on August 26, 1965.
I really miss those early days of fast food in the 1960s. The unique architecture of the restaurants, the memorable mascots (like Miss Sandy) and the regular scheduling of special events made fast food fun. Today there is much more variety and heathier choices across the fast food spectrum, but the food is not cheap. The restaurant buildings are designed to be generic as well (and easily re-purposed), and there is no longer any fun in the restaurant experience. But fast food chains like McDonald's are doing better than ever, even without balloons and visible mascots.
Remember when famous professional athletes from your favorite local team used to make personal appearances at shopping centers and fast food drive-ins? You actually had a chance to meet them and get an autographed photo.
I've written about a few of these events, including this promotion for Casey's Drive-in that featured several Cleveland Indian ballplayers, and this one at Sears that featured several Cleveland Browns players.
Otto Graham and Cleveland Browns Head Coach Paul Brown
Well, at the top of this post is an ad that appeared in the Lorain Journal seventy years ago today on June 17, 1955. It was announcing an appearance the next day at Cedar Point by Cleveland Browns quarterback Otto Graham, sponsored by Esmond Dairy. As the ad notes, you could shake hands with him and get an "ottograph" from Otto.
As his Wiki entry notes, "Otto Everett Graham Jr. (December 6, 1921 – December 17, 2003) was an American professional football quarterback who played for the Cleveland Browns in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and National Football League (NFL) for 10 seasons.
"Graham is regarded by critics as one of the most dominant players of his era and one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, having taken the Browns to league championship games every year between 1946 and 1955, making ten championship appearances, and winning seven of them. With Graham at quarterback, the Browns posted a record of 105 wins, 17 losses, and 4 ties, including a 9–3 win–loss record in the AAFC and NFL playoffs. He holds the NFL record for career average yards gained per pass attempt, with 8.63. He also holds the record for the highest career winning percentage for an NFL starting quarterback, at 81.0%."
Also on the bill that day at Cedar Point was Casey, the Homer Hitting Hen. Here's a promotional ad for the the plucky pullet from the March 7, 1955 issue of the Food Field Reporter.
So how did it work? According to another article in the same issue, there were four trained Caseys. "The birds are taught to peck at a rubber loop which operates an electric switch. The switch swings a small baseball bat that backs a small rubber ball through what looks like a pinball machine. If the ball bounces around the rubber baseballl figures and hits the fence at the back of the field, it creates another electrical contact. This causes lights to go on, a buzzer to sound, and a few grains of chicken feed to drop in a cup at the end of a runway.
"As soon as the ball hits the homerun contact, the chicken knows it will receive food and rushes down the runway to get it. If then comes back to pluck at the rubber loop again. If the ball does not reach the back fence, the chicken knows it. If the lights do not go on and the buzzer does not sound, the chicken knows there will be no food, and so pulls on the loop again to try for a homer.
Casey's owner, Keller Breland Associates, distributed a list of rental rates for their various attractions. One found online and dated 10/1/55 noted that to rent Casey for a week cost $400, with a 20% discount for each additional week.
