TomToms finally got priced under $100 so I figured it was time to purchase one. In this technological world, I'm usually the last to get toys that my friends have had for years and that's why they get so "amazed" at my "amazement" about stuff that's probably already obsolete. In case you're even more "technology deficient" than I am, a TomTom is a device that uses GPS (Global Positioning System) satellites to show you where you're at (at least on Earth) as well as how to get somewhere else. I guess what amazes me even more than this technology is how they managed to invent a rubber sticker that actually works...for hours. I remember purchasing things throughout the years that "stuck" to windows such as indoor/outdoor thermometers and they stayed "stuck" on the window about fifteen minutes before crashing to the floor. They were nasty as heck too because you had to lick them to make them work (this was even suggested in their directions). Every time you entered the room and it was laying in the window sill or floor, you would just pick them up and dust them off, lick them and stick them back up. You never questioned who might have "licked" them the last time.
Speaking of technology, that obnoxious "pitchman," Billy Mayes was on TV a while ago pitching some kind of hook that "pokes" through your wall and you hang pictures on them. If you've ever seen Billy Mayes, he looks like a turkish cab driver (unbelievably black beard) and has a voice that sounds worse than Roseanne Barr when she tries to sing the national anthem. I suppose he's most famous for a product called "Oxy-clean," which allows you to wash your best white shirt in a drinking glass. Seems this "hook" he hawks looks like a large fish hook that has been straightened to a "slight curvature," and you simply "push" it gently through a sheetrock wall with your thumb and forefinger (yeah, right...in reality you need vice grips). Once poked throught the sheetrock, it hangs in such as fashion that you can attach a picture frame that can weigh up to 150 lbs. on it and it's supposed to stay there. Mayes (whose face is perpetually locked in a smile similiar to "Mr. Sardonicus," a 1961 movie described in the International Movie Database as "A search for a winning lottery ticket in his dead father's grave causes Sardonicus' face to freeze in a horrible grimace"... ), packages these hooks in a pack of four for only $19.95 + S&H, but if you order today, he includes another 4-pack, that's eight hooks in all for the low price of $19.95. Of course you could purchase some fish hooks that would do the same thing for about a buck. Anyhow, this got me to thinking of some of the crazy stuff my mother purchased over the years from Ron Popeil (inventor of the pocket fisherman who's still around) and people like him.
One of her friends introduced her to a "cult" called the "Fad of the Month" club. She would send in about ten bucks to them each month and she'd get a "surprise" craft to build. She belonged to this club for years so you can imagine how our house was decorated and some of the unusual gifts she gave newlyweds and people celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. One time they sent her a styrofoam Chicken with a hole in it's back so it could double as something useful....a planter. She carefully removed this chicken from it's package and following the instructions, she cut newspaper into small strips and mixed up a concoction that looked like and smelled like) a cross between soured milk and "tobacco amber," and dipped each strip into it, layering them over the styrofoam. On the final application, they furnished what looked like used wallpaper with some "kitcheny" design on it. When this stuff dried (overnight), you couldn't smash this thing with a sledgehammer. Finally you applied a coat of some kind of varnish over it and it was done....ready for your favorite plant. Mom didn't have a plant available but she did have some miniature plastic bananas someone had given her so she stuck these in the hole in the chicken's back and it sat on a shelf in her kitchen for the next thirty years. It was quite a conversation piece.
She also built a purse from popsicle sticks and actually used it....even took it to church. All her "buddies" just "doled" over it and bragged on her talent but I'll bet when they got away from her they laughed their heads off. I suppose this kind of junk should have embarrassed my brother and I but it was so typical of her that we really didn't give it much thought. I always teased her about the "gawdy" chicken with the bananas growing out of it's back and she'd tease me back by saying she was going to leave it to me when she passed on. Guess what? This stupid chicken holds a place of honor in my office and I wouldn't take anything for it. It even "smells" like our house did when I was growing up.
Ron Popeil was the frontrunner to today's infomercial guru. He actually invented most of his stuff and marketed it himself becoming a millionaire several times over. Who can forget the "Pocket Fisherman," a rod & reel that actually fit in the glovebox of your car and had surprisingly decent quality. They still sell it today in those "As Seen on TV" stores. He invented and marketed "Veg-o-matic," a cheap tool that "sliced and diced" potatoes, carrots, etc. I don't know how it was done before those things came along. Same with the "glass froster," a can of freon that frosted a glass right out of the cabinet. Of course it cost about ten dollars and it took nearly an entire can to frost up one glass, a fact Popeil failed to mention in his early infomercials. As he became older and developed a "bald" spot on the crown of his head, he invented (and successfully marketed) a can of spray paint in several colors to cover up the bald spot. I believe that's what Billy Mayes sprays on his face to come up with the beard he has.
Our family was probably the first in the nation to own a Chia Head. Mom collected these...everything from Chia Head to Chia Pet to Chia Fish and even a Chia "Larry" of Three Stooges fame, where you could pull out gobs of his green hair, just like Moe used to do.
Of course the "plant" portion of these Chias take about ten days to grow and they lasted about another ten days. No matter to Mom, she thought the "forms" themselves were attractive so we had several Chia planters (with no plants) on various knick knack shelves throughout our home. I guess she would have purchased some of the "balding head" spray paint and "sprayed" their hair back on if (1) she had thought of it and (2) it had come in Green.
Remember one of the early cartoons that used to come on on Saturday mornings named "Winky Dink?" Broadcast in glorious black and white, the program featured the adventures of a star-headed cartoon lad named Winky-Dink and his dog Woofer - interspersed with the in-studio antics of a host and an audience of kids.
The gimmick here was that the boys and girls at home were asked to help Winky-Dink out of a jam by drawing whatever Winky needed (rope, ladder, bridge, etc.) on the TV screen. This was done with the aid of a Winky-Dink Kit which was sold by mail for fifty cents. "We sold millions of those kits" the show's host Jack Barry commented, "It was well thought out."
You would place the clear piece of plastic that came in the kit over the television screen and connect the dots to create a bridge for Winky Dink to cross to safety, then trace letters at the bottom of the screen to read the secret messages broadcast at the end of the show. Which I guess makes Winky-Dink the world's first interactive video game. This show ran on CBS from 1953-57.
I can't imagine how much of my allowance and paper route money I've spent on junk you would order from cereal boxes or Ovaltine jars. I'd wait weeks to get stuff like "Secret Decoder Rings," or a little car or figurine...stuff you get instantly in McDonald's Happy Meals today. As an Auctioneer, I occasionally run across some of these antique toys (you've got to be pretty "old" to recognize them) and you wouldn't believe the prices they command today. A "Captain Marvel" mask that sold for about a quarter and three Kellogg's boxtops would be worth about a hundred bucks now. Not much of that stuff still around.
Kids today would laugh at the primitive toys we had when we were kids. Our granddaughter can "surf" around a computer like an expert and has been doing this before she was three years old...before she could read. Our other granddaughter can "text" faster than most secretaries can type. I used to brag that my "thumb" was the most muscular part of my body because I used it so much to hitch-hike. My granddaughters have similiar thumbs but not from hitchiking...from "texting!" The closest thing I had to an I-pod was a tin can attached to another tin can via a string. I was in a store the other day (in the toy section) and they had a small plastic carrier that was surrounded by screen wire. It was pink and had a comfortable plastic handle. It was a "bug collector" and sold for nearly three bucks. What happened to taking a used pickle jar, punching a bunch of holes in the top and storing your bugs in there? (made a great night light and it was free). I get astonished at how many kids have these little jeeps or four-wheelers that are battery powered. They cost from $100 - $500. We used to take the wheels off of a trashed lawn mower, find a scrap two by eight and two 2x4's, a piece of rope and would build a downhill racer that would run all day with no power. They were also free.
Holy cow it's getting late so I had better end this chapter. I didn't have to look at my watch to know this. The TV's on behind me and I hear Billy Mayes squawking and hawking his Oxy-Clean. I think I'll remove my shirt from my drinking glass, get a drink of water and go to bed.
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