Happy New Year - 1960 Lorain Style!

Well, here's wishing all of you a Happy New Year and a great 2010!

If this was December 31, 1960 you might be getting ready to welcome in 1961 at Heilman's. As you can tell from the above newspaper ad, Tall Paul Dean had a big night of entertainment planned. I like the fact that they invited frustrated musicians to bring along their instruments!

I'm a frustrated musician – but I'll bet that if I try to bring my trombone into the restaurant tonight, I'll probably get the bum's rush! Oh well, Happy New Year!

Happy New Year Edition of the Passing Scene

Here's another of Gene Patrick's The Passing Scene comics, this time from the end of December 1966. It is a nice time capsule looking back at the events of that year. (Click on it for a larger view.)

Sights of the Season

Here are a few holiday snapshots from around Lorain and around my house as well.

The rather beat-up plastic light-up Santa is my favorite Christmas decoration. I bought it years ago in an antique shop down in Homerville – for a buck! But that's not why it's my favorite; it's because it obviously saw a lot of use outside and brought a lot of joy to some family and its neighbors. Now he's inside doing the same for us.

I love the vintage light-up snowmen as well. My parents had one just like the smaller of the two. Theirs was also missing whatever it was the snowman was holding in his hand!

Merry Christmas!

Here's hoping that all of you enjoy a wonderful Christmas! I'll be back next week, blogging my way towards the New Year.

Christmas 1960: O'Neil - Sheffield Center

Here's a full-page Lorain Journal newspaper ad for the old O'Neil - Sheffield Shopping Center. It's rather clever, as the kids could cut out the Santa, glue him down on some cardboard and assemble him like a puppet. (If you click on it and print it out, you could assemble your very own 1960s Santa puppet!)

Of course, no discussion about the Sheffield Shopping Center at Christmas time would be complete without mentioning the Talking Christmas Tree (which is mentioned in the ad). I remember going there with my family and chatting with it along with my siblings, wondering where a talking Christmas tree fit in with all of the various Christmas legends, TV specials, etc. But it didn't really matter. It was magical and fun and just for kids, and that's how Christmas should be. Or at least that's how it was in a more innocent, simpler time.

Christmas 1960: Giant Tiger ad

Here's part of an ad for another local gone-but-not-forgotten store: Giant Tiger. (Click on the ad so you can see all the neat stuff.)

At one time, Giant Tiger was a pretty popular department store in Northern Ohio. According to this article, it was eventually sold to Gaylords, another chain.

This ad is interesting not only because of the toys (Three Stooges colorforms, Tinker Toys, toy pianos, etc.) but because of Giant Tiger's advertising mascot. What the heck is Tony the Tiger doing in a Giant Tiger ad?? Someone call Kellogg's!

Christmas 1960: Gray Drug ad

Here's another ad (or most of it at least) from December 1960, this time for Gray Drug Stores. That's a drug store chain that I had forgotten.

The ad is hilarious though, with Jolly Old Saint Nick chompin' on a cheroot! I don't think they could get away with that today.