(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on April 20, 2021)

 

I don’t know how many years ago I saved this, but I figured it would be the case thereafter…………..and, so far, I’m right.

Remember the Grandpa Curly Kibbe post from 5 months ago? If not, go here: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=11782

 

I found that to be somewhat humorous………….until I recently found this:

 

They did it to her father, so she does it to her son:

 

I guess I was kinda curly at one point:

Well, at least Mom didn’t box 10” dreads (nothing wrong with dreads, but if I had them, I would have preferred it to have been as an adult).

 

So I found this in a new bag of stuff that was a bit overwhelming: lots of things to post and a ton of pictures and ephemera for the extended family:

 

Inside the box was my baby book – none of whose contents, thankfully, is included in this post (do you really need to know how tall I was at age 3 years and 4 months?). But all the papers under the book were much more interesting:

Between the bag and the box, I had so much stuff that I had to sort everything out on the floor. Each past relative’s pictures and papers were in their own little pile:

There are resumes, last wills & testaments…………..even a 16-page family history for one family of cousins that went from the 1600s to the 1800s and is titled “Appendix J”. God help me if the rest of the alphabet shows up!

 

I think I’m gonna show the items first and then the rest of it.

 

Here’s something I haven’t seen in a long time:

I didn’t know WHAT to expect to see. I think I recall something like these that showed somewhat…………um………risqué images.

That was definitely NOT the case here. These showed my mother and her mother at a dinner somewhere (these are the two best ones):

 

Switching grandmothers to the paternal side, I present these spoons:

 

A closeup of one appears to show a last name of “Seymour”:

Nana’s father’s first name was Seymour, so I’m guessing that someone before him may have had that as a last name. I don’t have her family history handy, but if I find it and that’s the case, I’ll make the necessary corrections.

 

Nana’s maiden name was Dorothy Dunbar, so that would be the “DD” spoon, whose bowl says, “Hannibal, MO”. I don’t know what the connection was with a town in Missouri. The “D” spoon’s bowl says “1902”:

 

Moving on to her son (Dad), you may recall that his first automotive job was with a Studebaker dealership in Bergenfield, NJ. This scraper doesn’t identify any dealership, but it’s the most-likely place he would have gotten it:

Wait! Stop the presses! Super-close examination shows some very worn raised letters on the handle.

I can make out:

T  D  ‘S         V

4                                        AVE

Bergenfield, N.J.

It has to be:

Teddy’s Service

(a number that begins with a 4 with “S. Washington Ave” following it)

Bergenfield, NJ

It IS from where Dad worked.

 

Similarly, this item probably came from one of his two Chevrolet dealership associations:

 

It’s obvious which dealership these came from (and where he probably ate lunch):

 

The strange thing about this cufflink is that I only found one of them:

Just what you want on your wrists: a tiny metal business card.

 

The secret side of Dad? (well, it sure ain’t Mom’s):

 

I’m trying very hard, but nothing pops out (I’ll bet Mom disabled it):

 

Speaking of disabled, it took a while to get this stamp unstuck from its pad:

 

A couple of my items………from the first half of the 1960s:

(I’ve GOT to clean that football more often!)

 

I’ve shown this pic before (one of my favorites) and I know exactly when it was taken (my last day of being 10 years old and in-between vacation visits to the Baseball Hall of Fame and Niagara Falls), but I could never remember the name of the place………..

 

……………until I found this item:

 

 

This has an interesting story. So I’m in Manhattan in the 1990s with a just-arrived music collectibles expert from Bonhams Auction House – London and his lady friend and we’re on our way to Yankee Stadium.

We started talking about toys and I mention one I had a long time ago that had something like a yo-yo with magnetic center protuberances that ran along metal tracks in one direction and then the other direction based on your hand movements.

He didn’t seem to know what I was trying to describe.

We were in midtown and had to catch the #4 subway to the Stadium. I don’t think either of them had experienced the subway before.

No sooner do we get on the train when we encounter a guy who’s selling the EXACT toy I was talking about (except this one had a musical component). Of course, I bought one and we entertained ourselves with it all the way to the Bronx. And here it is:

What an unbelievable coincidence!

 

 

Paper stuff:

It’s kinda hard to envision your parents as FANS of anyone – they’re far too sophisticated………….and OLD! But it DOES happen and they actually WERE young once………..and they DID get replies:

 

Let’s start with the 1938 envelope from the New York Journal-American newspaper. A little background: In 1938, my father was a senior at Teaneck High School and was the editor of the school’s newspaper – the Te-Hi News. Under his yearbook picture, it said that he wanted to be the editor of a big NYC newspaper.

Apparently, he had just turned 17 and wrote to a columnist at the Journal-American. She wrote back (and bumbled his middle initial):

Don’t recognize the signature? Ever watch What’s My Line? back in the 50s? I did.

Maybe this’ll help (from Wikipedia):

In 1936 Kilgallen competed with two other New York newspaper reporters in a race around the world using only means of transportation available to the general public. She was the only woman to compete in the contest and came in second. She described the event in her book Girl Around The World, which is credited as the story idea for the 1937 movie Fly-Away Baby starring Glenda Farrell as a character partly inspired by Kilgallen.^[2]

In November 1938, Kilgallen began writing a daily column, the “Voice of Broadway,” for Hearst’s New York Journal-American, which the corporation created by merging the Evening Journal with the American. The column, which she wrote until her death in 1965, featured mostly New York show business news and gossip, but also ventured into other topics such as politics and organized crime. The column eventually was syndicated to 146 newspapers via King Features Syndicate.^[1][2] Its success motivated Kilgallen to move her parents and Eleanor from Brooklyn to Manhattan, where she continued to live with them until she got married.

Kilgallen became a panelist on the American television game show What’s My Line? on its first broadcast, which aired live on February 2, 1950. The series was telecast from New York City on the CBS television network until 1967. She remained on the show for 15 years (until her death).

 

I could be wrong, but even if you don’t know her, people seem to remember the name Dorothy Kilgallen.

No word on if my father ever dropped in on her to say “Hello”.

 

I DO know that Dad once interviewed Jimmy Durante in a Broadway theater during his high school years (Dad’s – not Jimmy’s). I’ve seen the exchange and when it pops up again……………

 

………….AND it just popped up along with two friends!

The friends:

 

The 4-14-37 interview:

I realize the interview is kind of small (I just found it on my hard drive from years ago), but whenever I come across it again, I’ll re-scan large.

 

The 1946 WNBC reply that newly-married Mom got (addressed to her at 523 BUMBERLAND Ave) – just as she was turning 24 – came from someone named Bob Smith, apparently a DJ at WNBC.

Mom had sent in a request for a song to be played on her birthday. Bumbling Bob scheduled it “for her birthday on Tuesday December 17” (Mom’s birthday was on the 18th):

 

But Bumbling Bob had a much more recognizable name a few years later that some of you might know (I sure do): “Buffalo Bob Smith” from “The Howdy Doody Show”, which I was on once………….maybe due to Mom’s “connection”? (“Hey – remember me? You played a song for me on my birthday, but you did it on the wrong day. You owe me – put my son in The Peanut Gallery!”).

 

 

Let’s finish up with the time that I – a 5-year-old boy – was taken to the police station by my own mother and fingerprinted!

“For the fun of it”, says the FBI application! It also says that my age was “5 4/5” Nice math, Mom!

 

My criminal classification? “Interested boy” – a likely story. I had to do a little redaction…………..I ain’t postin’ no prints!

 

And what did I get out of the deal? An ID card that expires……AT ONCE! What the hell good is THAT?

 

And now my prints have been on file at the Teaneck Police Department ever since, but I got the last laugh.

They never ONCE got the chance to pull them out for a case.

I’ll bet they feel silly now………..or they would if they were still alive.

 

That’ll learn ‘em!