Sugardale Ham Thanksgiving Ad – Nov. 24, 1953

Do you have your Thanksgiving menu all set yet?

Just like last year, I know several people that are having ham for their feast on Thursday instead of the typical turkey. Since most of them are in their 20s, I assumed that it was just an example of the rebellious youth thumbing their noses at tradition. 

But as you can see from the ad above for Sugardale Ham, which appeared in the Lorain Journal on November 24, 1953, this particular preference for pork has been going on for a long time.

The ad features our old pal, Sugardale mascot Hamlet all decked out in Pilgrim attire. As usual, the porcine traitor follows the directives of his corporate overlords by promoting the serving of his own kind.

The "Ham Hints" in the ad are kind of interesting. One includes a recipe for a white sauce that includes chopped peanuts (which potentially could be deadly to someone with a peanut allergy); the other suggests pan-broiling leftover ham and serving it on Melba toast with Welsh rarebit.

I wonder if the current generation of youth, who grew up eating chicken fingers and Lunchables, even know what Welsh Rarebit is?

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I've mentioned several times how the Bradys didn't have turkey on Thanksgiving when I was a kid. For many years, Mom made two birds: a capon and a duck.

Duck for Thanksgiving? Hey that reminds me of this great Daffy Duck cartoon!

Marathon Gasoline Ad – Nov. 6, 1953

Did you know that Marathon Petroleum Corp. has its headquarters in Findlay, Ohio?

According to this Wiki entry, the company's roots trace back to several small oil companies in Ohio that banded together in 1887, forming the Ohio Oil Company, which was based in Lima. It was acquired by the Standard Oil Trust, but later became independent once again (thanks to anti-trust laws) – and started expanding outside of Ohio. 

Ohio Oil Company bought the Transcontinental Oil Company in 1930, also acquiring the Marathon brand name in the process. The company would change its name to Marathon Oil Company in the early 1960s. Marathon Petroleum would be spun off from Marathon Oil in 2011.

But in 1953, the Marathon name was still just a brand of gasoline, and that's what we see below in the ad that appeared in the Lorain Journal back on November 6, 1953.

It's an eye-catching ad, with its strong visual right out of Jungle Book promoting its "Cat" Gasoline. The ad copy cleverly cautions drivers that filling up with Marathon "Cat" gasoline may lead to the temptation to speed. 

Of course, the most interesting thing about the ad is the old Marathon logo consisting of a scantily-clad runner.

But even then, Marathon was using its great "Best in the Long Run" slogan.

Today, the Marathon Petroleum website notes that the company operates the nation's largest refining system. Pretty impressive for a company based in Findlay, Ohio (where Old Dutch Beer was brewed for many years).

Meet George Pankratz – Nov. 1953

The same Nov. 12, 1953 edition of the Lorain Journal that included a profile of E. J. Kelley (that I posted yesterday) also featured a story about another elderly Lorain character with a strong work ethic who spent some of his life on Lake Erie. His name was George Pankratz and he had an interesting story to tell, written for the Journal by Joe Gilmore.

As the story at the top of the page notes, "Few people in Lorain, or anywhere, can look back to the turn of the century and remember experiences as clearly as if they happened only last year. George Pankratz can. But he is only 71, a youngster in the ranks of the city's pioneers.

"George Pankratz, who fires tugs in the harbor, is not an extraordinary man in his accomplishments. He modestly refers to himself as "only a laborer." He has never skippered any famous lake freighters, never carved a city out of a wilderness and never made a great mark in the annals of Lorain history.

"Still, there's something about the sparky little man that denotes strength, vitality, spirit and character. Perhaps it [is] because he just won't quit.

"Well past the retiring age, according to national working standards, Pankratz has no intentions of retiring from his job. "I figure on working until I can't work anymore," he said.

"A marine engineer by trade, Pankratz came to Lorain in 1895 as a boy of 14, finished his schooling here and went to work. His starting pay was six dollars a month. "I used to deliver meat for Bill Ashbolt when he had a meat market on Broadway, remember running around on the muddy streets in a cart pulled by a small pony." At the time he worked at the meat store, Broadway was the only paved street in town. All the rest were dirt – mud in rainy weather.

"Pankratz spent most of his life on the lakes. He worked on tugs for a while in 1911, then began fishing commercially. His most vivid recollection is when the bottom fell out of the fishing tug Saturn in 1922. He and five other crew members aboard the boat left the vessel minutes before it sunk. He was serving as engineer.

"He has been working at his present job since 1940, after he retired from engineering jobs. He has served aboard many of the lake freighters, tugs and barges, always a part of Lorain's marine activities.

"During the building of the breakwalls of the harbor, Pankratz worked on a tug named George Pankratz. Although the name is the same, he doesn't know the man for which the tug is named. "It belonged to some fellow in Wisconsin. No relation to me."

"During the winters of his years on the lake, Pankratz worked at the American Shipbuilding Company. This winter, he figures on working at his present job of repairing tugs for next summer's work.

"Pankratz now lives with his wife and two children at 1222 Ninth Street. Although he is the sole support of his small family, he insists that he does not continue to work for that reason alone. "I like my work," he said. "I've just never thought about retiring."

"On the piano in his comfortable home is a clock that has run perfectly for 40 years. Unlike its owner, the clock ceased to work a short time ago. Pankratz simply can't understand why it stopped."

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Mr. Pankratz passed away on September 27, 1966 at the age of 84. His obituary noted that he was a retired Marine engineer and fireman for Great Lakes Towing.

"He was born in Russia and lived here 70 years. He was a member of St. John United Church of Christ, Eagles Lodge 343 and Tugmen's Association."

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Note that on that same page of the November 12, 1953 Lorain Journal is another celebrity Blue Bonnet wearer: Mrs. Johnny Mize, wife of the famed ballplayer who at that time was winding down his baseball career.

Meet E. J. Kelley – Nov. 1953

Every city that has been around for a long time seems to have had least a few colorful characters – citizens who happily marched to their own beat, attracting attention in the process. They often lived alone and were seen as eccentric, but were very much a part of the community nevertheless.

A good example is the gentleman profiled in an article above, which appeared in the Lorain Journal back on November 12, 1953. It's the story of E. J. Kelley and it ran in the paper on his 73rd birthday along with two photos of him.

The article notes, "Today is the birthday of one of Lorain's loneliest men. He's 73 today, but he doesn't really think he's so lonely.

"E. J. Kelley lives in a sturdy little shack on Colorado Avenue. He built the shack – part living quarters and part workshop – by himself out of scrap lumber he picked up in the course of business. Kelley sells firewood to Lorain area and Cleveland citizens. In fact, to anyone who happens to wander onto his small plot of ground.

"Familiar to most Lorainites as an "odd job" man, Kelley has been at his present location for five years. Before that, he had two locations at two separate times on East Erie Avenue. "One lot was sold and I just didn't do any business on the other."

"His present location, sheltering a home-made saw constructed from a weird collection of machinery and wood and a 1929 "A" Model Ford engine, and about four or five piles of cut lumber, provides him with a meager living, supplemented by an old age pension check.

"Possessed with a marvelous sense of humor, Kelley looks at death in a somewhat philosophical way. Although he enjoys living, he chuckled as he said, "I been on the death list for the past six years. Be dead now except for old Doc Patterson. He referred to Dr. F. R. C. Patterson, who has an office at Broadway and 13th St.

"Kelley was born in Lorain, married a woman from Perrysburg, and has spent most of his life either in that city and here. His wife died in 1933. He is the sole survivor in a family of 13 children.

"His odd jobs – beyond his wood yard – include killing rats, working on breakwaters and various labor jobs around people's homes. "One week I killed 35 rats in one woman's house. Boy did she have the rats. They came from all the houses around." Asked about his system of killing the rodents, Kelley presented a sly look and said "I got a real potent poison. I put it on bread and stick it in the rat holes. The next day, I give them another slug and 'bingo' they're dead.

"Like most oldsters in Lorain, Kelley has served time working on the lake.

"I sailed on the E. D. Carter, the Watson and the Wilkinson. I was chief engineer on the Wilkinson and second engineer on the Watson."

"The old man admits that living alone gets pretty lonely at times, but he forgot about it while showing his handywork in building his small frame shack. Actually, the shack is cozier and warmer on the inside than it looks like it would be on the outside.

""Come around tomorrow, Kelley said, "I'll get the saw hopped up and we'll saw some wood.""

Edward J. Kelley finally did make the death list a few years later on July 2, 1957 at the age of 80.

Buckeye Motors Ad – Nov. 1, 1973

Yesterday we saw how back in November 1973, Manners hoped to lure kids (and their families) into its restaurants by sponsoring a coloring contest. Today's post shows how Ford Motor Company tried the same approach: appeal to kids in hopes of getting the parents through the door – in this case, the door to the auto showroom.

Above is an ad for Buckeye Motors on Kansas Avenue that ran in the Journal back on November 1, 1973. The ad highlights the new 1974 Ford LTD, with an invitation to the public to "come in and see it for yourself."

The bait for kids was the opportunity to "take home our soft cuddly type."

Type of what? What is that thing?

Although it looks like a McDonaldsland reject, or something that you fished out of your bathroom drain with a coat hanger, the ad copy provides some hints. "You can drive me around," it notes. "No matter what you want me to do, I can handle it. (heh, heh)."

It took me a little while to get it. It's a puppet. A hand puppet. And it can handle it. That's a joke, son. And it's supposed to be a car. (Perhaps a car that would be right at home as part of the Carhenge roadside attraction).

Anyway, before I figured out that it was a puppet, I had scoured the internet looking for one of these things, using search terms such as "Ford plush doll" and the like with no success. Once I added the word 'puppet' to the mix, I discovered that there are at least three of them on Planet Earth that managed to escape the trash can in the intervening years since the ad.

I also discovered that it's blue and has FORD emblazoned on its, er, body. Here's an ample sample. 

I still think it looks like something that would follow Ronald McDonald around, mute and menacing. 

This series of photos gives you a better look at its car-like features. The big white stripe or bar is the bumper, and the hood opens like a mouth.

The father of one of my high school buddies worked at Ford, and they had an LTD. But I don't think the offer of one of these puppets had a hand in the selection of that model.

Get it? Hand? That's a joke, son!

Manners Thanksgiving Coloring Contest – Nov. 1973

Thanksgiving is next week. Unbelievable! It seems like it was just Halloween.

Nevertheless, if you haven't already, it's time to start thinking about the upcoming holiday. And to put you in the mood, here's a Thanksgiving-themed ad for Manners that pretty much took up a whole page in the November 5, 1973 edition of the Journal. As noted in the ad, it's the Second Annual Manners Thanksgiving Coloring Contest page.

It was a pretty nice promotion. Kids could bring their finished coloring pages to their local Manners, where their drawing would be put on display. If they brought their Mom and Dad along (presumably to eat dinner there) the young artist would receive a free Big Boy.

Each Manners restaurant would select a winner in each of three different age groups, with $10 Manners gift certificates as prizes. Then the three winners from each location would compete for seven special prizes, with the Grand Prize consisting of a $100 gift certificate from Clarkins department store. 

It's an interesting cross-promotion with Clarkins, especially since the one in Lorain had just opened in April 1973, and was just a few miles from both westside Manners locations.

Anyway, the illustration for the kids to color is quite nice, with plenty of details. What's unusual is that the turkey is rendered realistically, snood and all.

The Manners version of the Big Boy is appropriately decked out with a Pilgrim hat. I still prefer the design of this Big Boy, with his slingshot hanging out of his back pocket, to the more obese version that eventually replaced him. (I explained why there are two different Big Boy mascots to this very day back here.)

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Click here to visit the 'national' Big Boy website and enjoy a very well-done history of the brand. And here is the link to the Frisch's Big Boy website and its history page. 

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If all of this Big Boy talk has put you in the mood for the iconic double-decker sandwich, there are still some Northern Ohio locations, including: 12920 Brookpark Road, Brookpark, Ohio; 1701 E. Perry Street, Port Clinton, Ohio.

Lorain Journal Front Page – Nov. 11, 1922

Tomorrow, November 11, is Veterans Day – originally Armistice Day, which marked the day the fighting ended in World War I in 1918. The agreement to stop fighting took effect at 11:00 AM, "on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month."

Armistice Day was later changed to Veterans Day. It's kind of a shame, because the original meaning of the day – honoring the fallen of World War I, the "War to End All Wars" – has basically been forgotten by the general public, like so much of American history.

Nevertheless, I thought it would be interesting to look at an early Armistice Day front page of the Lorain Journal. The oldest one available was the 1922 edition, which was the fourth anniversary, and that is what you see below.

"CITY PAYS SILENT TRIBUTE TO DEAD ARMISTICE DAY" is the heading of the story acknowledging the remembrance. "Today at 12 noon, everyone in the city on the fourth anniversary of Armistice day, paused for two minutes and stood in silence as a tribute to the American soldiers who lost their lives in France during the World War.

"In celebration of the fourth anniversary of the signing of the armistice, the American Legion held a flag raising of the Oberlin avenue plant of the Ohio Public Service Co. at 2:30 this afternoon.

"Following the dedication of the new flag and flag pole at the Ohio Public Service Co. plant, the members of the American Legion marched to the monument at the corner of 5th street and West Erie avenue where they laid a wreath in honor of their fallen members as three volleys rang out from the firing squad.

"The Veterans of Foreign Wars held a smoker at the Moose lodge to commemorate the day.

"Elsewhere in the city American flags were displayed in honor of the day."