The World Is Safer

For all the crackpot America haters who assure us that George Bush caused terrorism to rise, by going to war against the terrorists (a logical non sequitur on its face, but Liberals seldom concern themselves with logic, much less facts) here’s a little inconvenient truth:

Terrorism attacks have greatly declined in the world, and sympathy for Al-Qaeda in the Muslim world is also in steep decline:

http://www.humansecuritybrief.info/

  Happy Memorial Day.

Freedom isn’t free. It’s paid for by American soldiers.

 

Songs That Make Me Smile

Florida has gone quiet for another season. The snowbirds have returned North, and the streets and restaurants are quiet as the lazy, hazy days of summer settle in. But how long will it be before this tune is heard again in the North??

The song is Drive South,  and in the video the drive is in an old Mercury Comet.  Some of the lyrics…

♭♭      …windows open….all the way to Dixieland…

           it gets hot down where we’re going     ♭♭

 

And a lifetime ago, Grandma and Grandpa Levitt drove South in a Mercury Comet too…   

 

Mothers Day

In honor of Mother’s Day, a few photos of my mother, with her mother, down through the years:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Mothers Day Mother

 

 

 

Grand

People who know me well know that, when I’m asked “How are you?” or “How are you doing?”  That I frequently answer “Grand!” 

But you probably don’t know where that response came from. (You may not really care either, but you’re going to find out, regardless, unless you stop reading now)

It comes from a little known, short lived television show from the early 1980s.  Here are the opening credits and theme song from the show.

 

 

 

And here are the lyrics to the song:

 Let me ask a question, you can take a guess.
Who holds the keys to your happiness?
Is your life up to you, or does fate have it planned?
Don’t think too much just do it, do it Grand.

See we’re all different drummers playing in the same
big band. And, if you’re going to play it, play it Grand.

 A lot of wisdom in the few words of a jingle.

 

Television Sets

A few months back, one of my favorite blogs, The View Through the Windshield , had a post talking about some of the manufactured goods that the United States formerly excelled in but now doesn’t manufacture.  One cited was television sets…and some of the great US brands of days past in television. I certainly remember some of the old brands:  Zenith,  Admiral, Motorola, RCA Victor, Magnavox, and our family favorite, Sylvania.  Just as in days past when there was more brand loyalty in automobiles, people tending to buy Ford, General Motors, or Chrysler their whole lives; so too it was with televisions.  And we bought Sylvanias.

Growing up, we always had Sylvanias.  My earliest television memory was our old Sylvania Halo Light, in a blond cabinet, with doors to conceal the screen when not in use, and even matching bookcases on each side of the cabinet.  Here is our very set, in the bottom right of this advertisement:

Years later, after a series of black and white televisions which included a few garage sale finds, we managed to convince Dad to at last buy a new color television.  It was, of course, a Sylvania, and once again in a beautiful wood cabinet. 

Nowadays televisions no longer come in beautiful wood cabinets, and although many of the fine old names  are still around, the companies aren’t.  You can still buy a new Sylvania (and since old habits die hard, I have a nearly new Sylvania in my bedroom) but it’s just a marketing name, the rights to the name owned by a Dutch company I believe, and the sets themselves probably made in China. 

So where am I going with all this?  Believe it or not, I do have a destination. 

Presently, my main TV is something called an Olevia.  I don’t even know the right way to pronounce it.  I’d never heard of it, but it was the least expensive 32 inch LCD HDTV I could find, and it had a pretty good picture.  It’s received good reviews in Consumer Reports.  I’ve had it more than a year now, and am satisfied with it; but I’ve given it, and this entire topic, little additional thought.

Fast forward to today.  (yes, we’re getting closer to that destination) I was sitting in the waiting room at Autoway Lincoln Mercury, waiting for a cruise control repair on one of my Town Cars, resulting from a recall notice.  I was thumbing through Popular Mechanics, and came across an article about Olevia televisions.  And I had to stop and reread it, because I thought I must have read it wrong.

Olevia televisions are manufactured in the United States. 

Yep, it’s an American company.  The sets are designed and engineered in America by Americans, and even assembled here.  In California no less.  There is the inevitable outsourcing of some of the component manufacture overseas, but all those parts come together right here in Californ-i-ay. 

So what’s with the name?  I think they need to shop around for a nice American name.  Sylvania has a nice ring to it.   ;)

 

My Polaroid Dreams, Part II

Here is where it all began for me with Polaroids, the infamous Swinger.  Tell me those of you of a certain age don’t remember this commercial jingle:

Meet The Swinger

And yes, that’s a young Ali McGraw, swinging her Polaroid around.  So to speak.

 

I met my Swinger on Christmas Day, 1966, and my Polaroid dreams began.  Here is one of my first photos, taken that morning, of Grandpa Levitt:

 Imagine that…a photo in just 15 seconds.  It sure beat riding my bicycle, in the cold, over to the Super X drugstore and leaving film for developing, which sometimes (it happened to me twice ) was lost. 

The Swinger was the first Polaroid camera to be available at anything approaching a reasonable price, or at least a price reasonable for a gift to a child; and the $19.95 price made it the most popular, by far, Polaroid camera ever sold.  Furthermore, it was a really well made camera, very sturdy, and even today, 40 years later, mine still has a shutter that works perfectly and for all intents and purposes, it still looks like new.

But the Swinger had some shortcomings.  The photos were quite small, around 2×3, and they were only in black and white.  Granted, black and white was cheaper than color film, but after the initial fascination wore off I began to dream of…color.  And that’s a Polaroid dream to be shared on another day.