"Miracle on Ice" Hockey Game – Feb. 22, 1980

The U. S. Men's Hockey team celebrating their victory
over the Soviets in Feb. 1980

The U.S. Men's Hockey team beat Canada yesterday to win Olympic gold for the first time since the famous 1980 "Miracle on Ice" game in which the U.S. defeated the Soviet Union. 

It was exactly forty-six years to the day. Unbelievable.

Remembering the last time we won a gold medal in hockey brought back a lot of memories for me. I remember watching the 1980 game in my dorm room at Ohio State. It was a four-man room (we called it "the Quad"). We had a room full of people on that Friday night. I still have several photos from that get together. And I'm still very close friends with two of my roomies.

The U.S. victory in 1980 caused my roommates and me to experience a brief hockey frenzy, and we started going to OSU hockey games at the Ohio State University Ice Rink. They had a great team and season that year. Good times.

Anyway back in Lorain, here's the front page of the Lorain Journal from Feb. 23, 1980 the day after the U. S. men's hockey team defeated the Soviets.

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Here's a nice account on the AARP website about the 40th anniversary of the "Miracle on Ice" in 2020.

Christmas Carol Contemplation

Do you have a favorite Christmas carol or holiday tune?

They've been piped into the stores since Halloween, so you've had plenty of time to enjoy them (or get sick of them, as the case may be). I know for me, I've got to be in the mood to listen to them, otherwise I tune them out. 

Sometimes my family used to have them playing in the background while we trimmed the tree. I think Republic Steel used to sponsor a nonstop, commercial-free Christmas music marathon on FM radio back in the 1970s and we might have tuned into that. Either that or we had Herb Alpert's Christmas album (a Brady favorite) playing on the stereo in the living room.

Anyway, my all-time favorite Christmas tune is one that really isn't a Christmas tune at all, but it might as well be because it's only played around the holidays: Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride." 

Why? Because it's timeless. It's come to symbolize the holidays for me.

As a little kid, I remember listening to it being performed at various holiday programs by a choir and enjoying the clippity-clop sound resembling a horse. Later, I remember either playing it and/or singing it at Masson in the various bands, orchestras or choirs. And even later, we performed it at Admiral King High School with my brother Ken doing the horse whinny on his trumpet at the end. So it's the one melody that seems to tie together every Christmas over the years for me. I never get tired of it and I always get a little teary-eyed when it comes over the radio, because I feel like a kid again.

As for some of the other Christmas tunes that come over the radio, I must confess that I'm pretty burned out on many of them. "Santa Baby" is one that is played a little too often; same thing with "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." But who doesn't break into a smile when they hear Burl Ives singing "A Holly Jolly Christmas?"

Be sure to leave a comment about your favorite Christmas melody.

Notes on My Time in a Lorain Salsa Band in the 1970s

From Journal's weekly Latin News column – May 22, 1976 

Did you know that for a time in the 1970s, Lorain was a hotbed of local salsa bands and other Latino musical groups?

I had a ringside seat for some of it, because during my junior and senior years at Admiral King High School, I was a trombonist in a Lorain-based salsa band.

It started when our old trumpet teacher Alex Visci called our house. One of his former students, Tony Delgado, had started a salsa band, Orquesta Charambo, and was looking to add another trombonist.

Would I be interested in sitting in at a band practice, asked Mr. Visci?

Since I was already in a polka band, I wasn't particularly interested in joining a Puerto Rican band. But Mom convinced me to at least go to one practice as a favor to Mr. Visci. 

I was a little anxious when I entered the rehearsal, which was in the basement of a house on Lorain's east side. Almost everyone there was Puerto Rican, and I didn’t understand a single word that was being said. But I was quickly put at ease by Tony. Dominic, the other trombonist (and the only other white guy in the band) also went out of his way to make me feel comfortable with a steady stream of funny remarks. In fact, all of the band members – including Anibal (piano) and brothers Elmer (on bass) and Ivan Arocho (on trumpet) – made me feel welcome. 

At my first practice, we ran through a few tunes in a way that became the standard procedure. Tony would pass out the music that he arranged. Then he would play a record of the tune, over and over again. By listening to it several times, everyone was able to learn their parts, including those band members who couldn't read music.

Here's one of the first salsa tunes I played at that practice: El Que Se Fe, performed by Roberto Roena y su Apollo Sound.

I quickly learned that salsa tunes had a definite structure. There was an intro, a main melody line and a series of repeated choruses separated by the singer’s improvised verses. There might also be a bridge and key change to another melody line, which was broken up by horn solos and more improvised verses by the singer. Whether to keep repeating a section or move on was communicated by hand gestures by the singer or the leader, such as an arm extended in the air. So you had to pay attention.

If I had any thoughts of just going to that first practice and then never going again, the idea was quickly abandoned. At that first practice, I discovered that I loved the catchy melodies, the bold horn parts and the sound of the percussion instruments: the timbales, conga drums, cowbell, etc. Thus I was very pleased when I was invited to join the band. 

When Tony found out that I was an art student at Admiral King, he had me do a drawing of the band for one side of our business card.

Many of our gigs were at Gargus Hall on Route 254, where huge holiday dances and fund raisers were held. Many other local bands often shared the bill with us on these jobs, including Latin Explosion and Trio Puerto Rico. We would also back up nationally known performers (such as Bobby Rodriguez) or share the bill with them and take turns performing. 

From Journal's weekly Latin News column – Nov. 20, 1976

Here are a few more samples of the music we played. These YouTube videos feature the original artists, but since Tony made his arrangements from these recordings (minus any saxophone parts) to me it sounds like Charambo performing. Hopefully you can get a taste of why I loved this music so much. You could hear it on WLRO on the weekends during special Latin programming segments.

We also played some novelty songs, like this one from Bobby Rodriguez, who as I mentioned, we backed up at one dance. Sunday Kind of Love is an old standard from the 1940s, and one of the few tunes we played with English lyrics. 

For some variety, we also played hits like Santana's "Oye Como Va" and "Low Rider" by War.

I also remember going into the Rebman recording studio (which was in a house next to the bowling alley on Oberlin Avenue) and recording a demo tape for the band. It was all very exciting.

Although my time as a member of Orquesta Charambo was brief, it made my senior year of high school very memorable. Wherever there were cities with large concentrations of Puerto Ricans, there were bookings, and we would travel there to perform, sometimes renting an RV for the trip. Besides many gigs in Lorain and Cleveland, we went on road trips to Detroit, Youngstown, and Rochester, New York. It was fun and exciting and often we were treated like minor celebrities.

We were paid well too. I remember making a hundred bucks on some of these out-of-state gigs.

Looking back, I'm surprised that my parents allowed me to go on these overnight gigs, seeing that I was only 17 or 18. But they had complete confidence in Tony, who kept an eye out for those of us that were still in high school and made sure we were always safe and out of trouble.

From Journal – May 28, 1977

Besides the music, I became very fond of Puerto Rican culture, especially the food (pastelitos, alcapurrias, etc.) served at the dances. I also came to appreciate just how beautiful Latino women are. The language barrier was a problem, though; at one dance, I tried to talk to one particularly cute young lady – only to learn that the reason she could only giggle and smile was because she didn't speak a word of English! (Maybe I should have taken Spanish instead of French all those years.)

But in the fall of 1977, I was heading off to college and my secret life as a member of a salsa band was drawing to a close. The band gave me a generous gift towards my college expenses, and I was sad to have to quit. I did get one last opportunity to perform with them during my freshman year when they played at Ohio State for a Hispanic function at the Ohio Union. 

I would rejoin Lorain's Latin music scene after college with another band. But that's another story.

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Charambo carried on well into the early 1980s, becoming more and more popular and performing alongside even bigger name acts out of New York. By the time the band was winding down, it was generally advertised and accepted as the best salsa band in Ohio.

Dec. 17, 1977 Journal ad

From Journal of July 28, 1978

From Journal of July 20, 1979

Today, a few members of Charambo are still performing! Former Charambo leader Tony Delgado and bass guitarist Elmer Arocho are members of the popular Latin City Soul (of which Elmer is the band director). Click here to visit the band's website.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 1966

Here's wishing all of you a most meaningful and Merry Christmas!

Above you see a photo of my younger brother and I visiting Santa Claus from Christmas 1966. Midway Mall had just opened a few months earlier, so I kind of think that's where it was taken. (I seem to be missing a few teeth, so I guess I gummed Christmas dinner that year.)

I have a few more photos from the Brady archives, but first I'd better post the obligatory full-page sponsor ad from the Journal. This one is from 1963 and ran on Christmas Eve that year.

As usual, successor banks and cemeteries seem to be the only businesses that are still around. 

Here's another charming full page ad from the same 1963 edition of the Journal, this time for Lorain Telephone.

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But now on to some more photos from Brady Christmases of the past.

My sister was the only Brady kid in the house in this photo from Christmas 1957. Note that she's wearing an authentic Annie Oakley cowgirl getup.

I don't know what color scheme her outfit was, but it was one of these two, most likely.

A year later, my older brother Ken (the first baby in Lorain of 1958, which I wrote about here and here) celebrated Christmas 1958 with his sister.

And by the time Christmas 1959 rolled around, I was on the scene.

My siblings look pretty happy to get matching hoodies. Note the sack of something to the left of Ken. What is it? Why, a Sifo's Mailbag of Blocks!

Ken did get at least one cool toy that Christmas: a Mirro Satellite Explorer Space Helmet.

I did pretty well that Christmas too. Here I am with my holiday haul.

Note to my right is a Charlie Brown Hungerford figure. Highly collectible today! I wrote about it back on this post, which also features some other photos from Christmas 1959. The Koo Zoo seems to have been a rather bizarre toy, sort of like a menagerie encased in amber.

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As usual, I'll be taking my annual break from blogging for the next few days so that I can enjoy the holidays. (I'm sorry, Don – but maybe you can crank out another tome to keep busy.) But I'll be back just before New Year's Eve (most likely with the usual gruesome 'don't drink and drive' public service type ads). See you then!

Philip Morris Cigarette Ad – Nov. 5, 1953

Cigarette smoking is something that I never tried.

I remember the day that someone put a lit one in my hand and dared me to take a puff. It was down at Willow Creek Park and I think I was in junior high school. But I was too scared. Both of my mom's parents smoked and each of them literally dropped dead of heart attacks at ages 65 and 70, respectively. 

Mom never smoked, but my father did. Salems. Not a lot, just a few cigarettes a day. He told me that he started in the Army during World War II; they even put cigarettes in the K-ration boxes. If you smoked, you were entitled to more work breaks – and that's how he started. 

I remember that he would smoke a few cigarettes when he took my brothers and I fishing. It was kind of shocking and I worried that he would get cancer someday.

In later years, he would sneak a few puffs on the side of the house. I think he did it just to have something that he could keep from Mom, although I don't think she was fooled one bit with his ever-present candy mints. When he finally stopped driving and was stuck at home, I went out and bought him his Salems. An eventual heart attack finally made him quit. He never had cancer, but the damage to his body and heart had been done.

For a while in the 1980s, a woman I dated smoked for a while. Guess what brand? Salems!

All of this is just a lead up to the ad below, which ran in the Lorain Journal on November 5, 1953. The ad positions Philip Morris as "The cigarette that takes the FEAR out of smoking!" 

But the fear isn't about dying; it's the fear of 'irritating vapors.' The exclusive ingredient Di-GL in Philip Morris Cigarettes apparently prevents those vapors, leaving only the 'rich flavor and aroma.' The ad copy even notes, "Only Philip Morris offers you this record of safety."

It would be another ten years or so before the US Surgeon General would issue his warning about smoking.

Today, it's hard to believe people still smoke. Many people at my work – people that I like – still smoke, and head outside several times an hour for a smoke break. I feel kind of sorry for them, and I'm glad that I never got started.

But I gotta admit, I liked the smell of Salems.

Lorain International Breaks a Record – July 3, 1971

Although Lorain canceled its International Festival early this year on account on the pandemic, it’s a good time to remember the "good old days" when the event was held in the May Company parking lot at the Sheffield Shopping Center. It was a huge event back then, and to miss it was unthinkable. Sometimes we went to the festival all three days. (It was free admission, too.)

Above is a nice reminder of those days. The article, written by Journal Staff Writer Marsha Nutter, ran in the paper back on July 3, 1971 – fifty years ago this month. It notes that the opening day crowd of 30,000 people was a record setter.

But it was a different Lorain back then. There were still many thriving ethnic organizations and clubs, so there really were authentic foods at the once-a-year bazaar that you looked forward to. I still remember getting great egg rolls at the Golden Dragon booth. And there was an out-of-town (I think it was in Lakewood) bakery that had a booth at the festival each year, with genuine German pastries and goodies. I remember that the family who owned the bakery all wore German outfits (including the cute daughters).

There were other differences between the International Festivals of the past and the current version. There was plenty of nearby parking at the Sheffield Center. The huge festival tents there insured that rain or shine, the show would go on (although it could get pretty hot in there). The picnic tables were a convenient place to take a break; there was also the grassy hill overlooking the festivities where you could catch a breeze and relax under the trees.

The Admiral King Marching Band used to have a booth selling pop, and it was fun to work there during the weekend and people watch. It was always a bummer when a syrup tank was empty and we’d have to have it replaced.

Anyway, I haven’t been down to the modern Festival at the riverfront for years. The last time I went, the festival weekend coincided nicely with the annual arrival of the lake flies. 

But I’ll give it another try next year.

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I wrote about the very first Lorain International Festival back here.

Trigger Happy Toddlers

Last month I ran a newspaper ad (above) from September 1959 for the Neisner’s store in Lorain. The ad shows a variety of toy guns designed to appeal to those kids glued to their TV sets watching the countless Westerns being shown.

To me, the ad triggered (no pun intended) thoughts of a simpler time, when kids could live out their western gun fantasies without causing fear and panic throughout their neighborhood.

On that post, I remarked how my brothers and I all had toy guns as kids, and that there were photos of my older brother Ken and me from the late 1950s/early 60s posing with our toy six shooters.

Well, I dug up the photos. They're from Christmas 1960, which means that Ken was a few days away from being three years old, and I was a couple months short of two years old. Here’s a ’split screen’ photo of us. I love the look of unbridled glee on Ken’s face.

Although I’m not wearing a holster (maybe I was going to tuck my pistols in my cuffs), I did get one for Christmas along with my guns. It was visible in the uncropped photo of Ken. The holster was sitting in its open box on the coffee table to the left of him. You can clearly see the name Hubley on it.

The box lid looked like this.

Toy guns were big business back then. Hubley produced entire catalogs of guns and holster sets. Here’s a cover and page from two catalogs.

Anyway, it was a different time that’s for sure.

Just for fun, I took a look at the collection of Harry Volk clip art from the 1950s where I work, in the Art Department of a Cleveland printing company. Sure enough, there were plenty of illustrations showing pistol-packing preteens.

Here are a few of those stock illustrations.

1955

1955

1956

1956

1958

I guess that means that Ken and I were just your average, well-armed American kids.

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UPDATE (Oct. 4, 2019)
I received an email yesterday from a regular reader, who is about my age, who has contributed some great content to the blog over the last few years. Attached was photo (below) of himself as a rootin' tootin' toddler, with cowboy hat, boots, guns, holster – and diaper! "Got you beat!" was his comment. I think he does!

Of Robert Taylor and Grandma Brady

Robert Taylor in a late Western, Return of the Gunfighter (1967)

I watch a lot of GRIT TV – the nostalgic cable channel that runs mostly old-time westerns. Although many of the films feature John Wayne, there are many other fine actors whose pictures are highlighted.

I’ve grown quite fond of many of them, including Joel McCrea, Audie Murphy and Randolph Scott. But there’s one that I’ve come to appreciate because of what he meant to a member of my family.

The actor is Robert Taylor and he was Grandma Brady’s favorite. Taylor passed away this month back in 1969. Here’s a small article that appeared in the Journal on June 7, 1969.

Taylor died the next day on June 8, 1969.

As an article that appeared in the Journal on June 12, 1969, noted, “He epitomized an era of motion pictures: a time in the 30s, 40s and 50s when all leading men were handsome. During those decades the matinee idol was at his height.

“Of them all, Bob Taylor was perhaps the most popular in Hollywood."

Well, he was popular with Grandma, that’s for sure. She even had his photo taped to her cash register at Kline’s in Downtown Lorain, where she worked for thirty years.

Grandma lived a hard life. She was only eleven when her mother died in 1909, just a couple years after the family arrived in Lorain from Europe. Her brother Ben was killed at U. S. Steel in 1937. Her husband was out of the picture by the end of the 1930s; within a few years her son (my Dad) would be in the Army and away from Lorain for three years. In later years, she took care of her ailing and bedridden stepmother without complaining.

But despite Grandma's hardships, my own mother remembers her mother-in-law as sweet, kind and generous. She was practically a saint.

Maybe that picture of Robert Taylor taped to her cash register helped Grandma cope, like a little window into a private world where she could forget about her problems for a while – and dream.

Yes-Yes, Virginia, Those Caramel Cookies Existed

It’s supposed to be Girl Scout Cookie season, although I have yet to be ambushed by any of the pint-sized cookie entrepreneurs outside my local grocery store.

When I’m not suffering from empty-wallet syndrome, I usually buy a box of the Samoas® – those toasted coconut-covered delicacies – although sometimes they seem to be called Caramel deLites®.

Was the cookie’s renaming due to some sort of concern of disrespect towards the friendly Samoans? No, the two different names has something to do with which regional bakery produced the cookies, according to this blog.

Anyway, buying a box of these coconut-and-chocolate cookies always reminds me about a similar cookie that my mother used to buy when we were kids. The cookie was called a Yes Yes.

Unfortunately, no one I know has ever heard of them.

I would even describe the box the cookies came in (it had little palm trees on it). But still, nobody remembered them.

I eventually Googled these Yes Yes cookies, and found that there were others – on the chowhound.com website – who fondly remembered them too. 

But it wasn’t until recently when I had a free trial subscription to newspapers.com that I found a small graphic of the Yes Yes box. It was part of a grocery store ad in the Sioux Falls, South Dakota Argus Leader in January 1964.

Here’s another rendering of the box (below). This illustration ran as part of a Woolworth’s ad in the October 7, 1964 edition of the Minneapolis Star.

At last - confirmation that my memory was not playing tricks on me (at least this time). 

Anyway, there was yet another cookie out there that was similar to Yes Yes. They were called Yum Yums, and were baked by Sunshine Biscuits.

Here's that box (circa 1970s), courtesy of Pinterest. No palm trees, but the typography is kinda cool.

Neither Yes Yes nor Yum Yum cookies are around today. 

Dutch Maid seems to have gone out of business. (Lil Dutch Maid is a different cookie company.) Sunshine Biscuits was bought out by Keebler, which today is part of Kellogg’s.

But although Yum Yums are not to be found on your grocer’s shelves, Ernie the Keebler Elf must have stashed the recipe in his hollow tree. Today Keebler makes their own version of the cookie.

Crazy for the Cutlass

Here’s an ad for the Oldsmobile Cutlass that may very well have had a big impact on my parents. It ran in the Lorain Journal on March 5, 1968 – 50 years ago today.

I’ve mentioned before how my parents were loyal Oldsmobile customers. But the Cutlass would eventually be their favorite car of all time.

They started their long-running Olds connection with a new 1963 F-85 as the family car. But when we began to take cross-country family camping trips – towing a fold-up trailer – a bigger car was needed.

Thus the F-85 became Dad’s work car, and my parents purchased an Olds Delmont 88. They didn’t keep it for very long, since it didn’t have air conditioning and we were planning a major trip Out West. So they got rid of the Delmont and bought a Delta 88. That car was still one of the smoothest-riding cars I’ve ever been in. It felt like you were floating while riding in it.

Meanwhile, a variety of cars had served as transportation for us kids. We had inherited Grandma’s 1963 Buick LeSabre, which my older brother drove to Admiral King High School. We also had a used early 70s Chevy Impala which my sister drove to LCCC.

So eventually we needed another used car, and the choice was a 1971 Cutlass with bucket seats. It was the first of many used green Cutlasses, many of them purchased from Milad’s in Amherst.

Over the next six or seven years, a variety of used, green Cutlasses graced the Brady driveway. Looking back, I think we had almost every model year from 1968 to 1973 represented. (I think we were missing a 1970 in there.)

The Cutlass with a built-in maraca that I drove
during my senior year at Admiral King 

When my Dad got rid of his F-85, he replaced it with a used 1968 Cutlass. My parents also bought a used 1969 Cutlass (with cool mag wheels) from some teenage shyster. It turned out that the driver’s side window had been broken at some point, and the door sounded like a cheap maraca when you opened or closed it. It also leaked broken glass out of a small hole in the door. But I happily drove it during my senior year.

We also had a 1972 Cutlass (green – what else?), purchased from one of my mother’s co-workers at U. S. Steel. That was the last of the green ones; my parents had moved on to a 1973 burgundy Cutlass Supreme. (They later had a Cutlass Ciera.)

The 1972 Cutlass lasted the longest. It went down to Ohio State with us, and when my younger brother finished college in the early 1980s, the Cutlass came back to Lorain. I bought it from my parents and held on to it for a few years out of pure nostalgia, but it was too difficult trying to keep two used cars going. The Cutlass also had a nasty habit of conking out unexpectedly when I least expected it.

One story I like to tell is how I was living at the Overlook in the mid-1980s with two cars – the 1972 Cutlass and a 1976 Buick Skylark. It was winter, and I was heading out to a big band gig. (I think it was New Year’s Eve 1984.) I wanted to take the Skylark, which had good tires, but the battery was dead. But when I went to take the 1972 Cutlass instead, one of its tires was flat! So I ended up changing the flat, and then driving the Cutlass over to the Skylark and jumping it.

I can’t remember if I was late for the gig.

The nicest and best car I ever owned was an Olds Achieva back in the mid-1990s. I sure loved that car. But did I ever buy a new Cutlass myself?

I did indeed in the late 1990s. It was a white Cutlass Supreme, and very cool-looking. I ended up driving it into the ground until finally the engine block cracked. I hated to see it go as I knew it was probably the last Cutlass I’d ever own.

It wasn’t long after that that General Motors got rid of the Oldsmobile brand entirely. It was the end of an era. I’ve never been emotionally attached to any car brand since.

And I still get a lump in my throat when I see a refurbished 1960s Cutlass on the road.

Another ad from the same campaign. This ran in the Journal on April 9, 1968.