Movie Friday: Ma and Pa Kettle

The Ma and Pa Kettle movie series started from the movie The Egg and I, in which Ma and Pa and their clan were characters, but not the main characters.  Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride...Ma (Marjorie) reminds me so much of my Granny.  My grandparents bought the whole series (I think) on VHS for my sister and me back in the early-mid 1990s.  I'll have to dig them out sometime and convert them to DVD.  Marjorie Main played a similar "trailerite" character in the Lucy and Desi movie "The Long, Long Trailer."

Ma and Pa Kettle have 15 children (they would have their own show on TLC these days) and in this movie, Pa enters a slogan writing contest so that he can get a new tobacco pouch and winds an amazing house of the future.

If you haven't watched a Ma & Pa Kettle movie, you've really missed out!  Great old fashioned family comedy!

I tried to find a clip to show the amazing mid-century house that they won, but was unable to find a clip online.  As a teacher, I do however enjoy this fun clip featuring Ma and Pa teaching a math lesson on how 25 divided by 5 is 14.  You...well, you'll just have to watch the clip to see how this one works out!

I don't think that the above math clip is from the movie I'm featuring today, but from one of the others in the series.  Still, it's good clean fun!

Have a fantastic Friday!

Happy Birthday, Barco!

The Barco Drive-In Theater opened 60 years ago today, April 29, 1950, right here in my hometown.  This is one of the few theaters in the state that has been in continuous operation and never closed.  There are several open in the state at this time, as can be seen here, but very few have been in continuous operation all their life.  Many closed and were then later reopened.

The Barco is a landmark in this small town.  The screen was constructed so that there were living quarters inside it for the owner.  That is why the screen is so deep, it doubled as a house.  The only thing that has been replaced is the sign in front telling what movie is showing.  The house next door is where the owner lives.  In the past year or so, the theater began operation by the same organization that runs our historic Plaza Theater (I'll share the Plaza in a future post).  The original owner passed away and the community desired the Barco to remain open.  Find a need, fill a need, so the community stepped up and found a way to keep it open.  60 years under the stars (61 seasons)!

Happy birthday Barco!  Here's to 60 more years.  I've included photos of the theater as viewed from the highway, the sign by the highway, and a shot of the snack bar, projection house, and bathrooms, which are all in one building.  The theater has a 400 car capacity.  I've also included an aerial photo, found on Google Earth.

The original speakers which attached to the door of your car were replaced at some point with an FM radio transmission system so you can hear the movie over the stereo in your car.

It's such a fun place to go on the weekends, and there are always good movies showing.  Most of the movies are family oriented, as they gather the largest crowds.  One of the best things about going to a movie at the Barco?  Playing chicken with the other cars to get out of the parking lot at the end (this is where driving an old car comes in handy)!

For more photos and information on the Barco, visit the Barco's Facebook page here.

Ed Sullivan Wants YOU to Drive a 1956 Mercury!

More people voted Mercury the #1 value over 10 other cars in it's class!  Mercury value is provable value!  Gotta love that big M beauty.

What ever happened to the days where the spokesperson for the show you were watching did the advertisements for their sponsors?

These old commercials always make me think of Lucy and the Vitametavegamin commercial.

Have a great Wednesday!

I've Started the Bathroom Collection...

So, I did decide to go ahead and find vintage photos to make a collage for the wall in the bathroom.  I'm specifically looking for photos of people and their cars, but this group also has people with a bus and a plane (also pretty cool).  I found a person on Etsy selling a stack of 9 vintage photos for $3, so I snatched them up.  Most sellers want at least that much for one photo.

The above photo is marked July 4, 1949 on the back.  That old convertible sure looks like fun!

This photo is dated June 3, 1951.  Big Ridge Park, TN. Bertie and Howard.

This photo only has a stamp on the back from the processing studio.  "Peoples Studio, 133 S. Gay St., Knoxville, Tenn."

No information on this photo taken in front of a National Trailways bus.

No information on this photo either, the woman sure was dressed up though, fur stole / scarf and all!

Another unmarked photo.  The car that this girl is standing in front of has suicide doors, though.

No markings other than "May 56" for the processing date.  Look at that beautiful ranch house in the background!

This young lady is sure dressed up and ready to go!

Three women, I'm wondering if they might be Daughter, Grandmother, and Mother.  This scan didn't turn out very well, but two of them have large corsages on.  It looks like there are some flowers starting to come up in the yard behind them, so I'm guessing it's Easter.  Oh, and check out that beautiful convertible to the left of the photo!

I'm still trying to figure out how to make this collage.  My original plan had been to individually frame each photo, but getting frames this small and in such strange sizes will be difficult.  I though about building some, but that's a project that would never get finished.  I'm thinking one big poster frame now with a black poster board background and making the collage on that.  I'll have to pick up a frame once I get enough photos and play around with it.

Treasure Haulers

So, occasionally we get glimpses of the treasure haulin' vehicles of other bloggers, such as Mick's Lincoln (seen here) and Maria's Escape (seen here).  I'm of the opinion that a good vintage treasure huntin' person has to have a nice large treasure hauler.  After all, how are you going to get that beautiful piece of Heywood Wakefield, that Kroehler Chair, or that piece of Broyhill Brasilia home without something large to accommodate it?  So, in that spirit, today I am sharing my treasure haulin' kids.

First, you really need a nice big truck to get those big things.  Here's my 1992 Ford F150.  Like most of my possessions, this one was a bargain.  I have had it 2 years now, I had to put a new transmission in it, and I've put about four thousand miles on it.  He's also had new tires and motor work (it was a cheap truck after all) and it needs a little more work, but it runs pretty well, and since it's an extended cab, I can put all the big stuff in the bed and all the fragile stuff in the back seat.  I've had it pretty full before!

Now, my other treasure hauler, my car.  I kind of outgrew this a couple of years ago and so I got the truck.  No more calling Dad to come with the truck to pick stuff up.  Still, a nice big car is great for out of town trips and filling up with finds at that flea market that you just happen to come across on a trip somewhere.  My treasure haulin' car is...

...a 1996 Buick LeSabre.  She's got 52,000 original miles on her.  She's my daily commuting car, and for such a large car, gets amazing gas mileage.  I can take her out on the highway and get 29 to 30 miles per gallon out of it, and my usual combined mileage for city and commute driving is in the 25 miles per gallon range.  My little Grand Am's didn't do any better than that, and they were smaller with 4 cylinder motors.  I've always been a fan of the big, full size car.  I prefer rear wheel drive, actually, but the LeSabre is a front driver.  Incredibly comfortable, she floats down the road, having that classic boulevard ride that was once a signature of American cars, you barely feel a bump in the road.  Add an interior that is about the same as two sofas, and you have a great road trip car.  A good thing, too, as it's going to Texas and Colorado this summer!  My great aunt and uncle bought this new in 1996 and when I bought it from my great aunt when she went in to assisted living 2 years ago, it has 26,000 miles on it.  An average of just over 2,000 miles per year up to that point!

So, what's your treasure hauler?

What a Day!

So, yesterday, I was dreaming of a day of no rain for a great city-wide garage sale.



(Blind Melon - No Rain)

But instead, we had a day that brought this:


(Jars of Clay - Flood)

(How about that creative way I found to incorporate a couple of my favorite music videos from the 1990s? - I know that the songs are neither really about no rain or floods, but they are both good songs.)

So, after getting everything set up Friday night (we're about half set up in this photo):

And having a night of light sleep making sure that I'd be up in time, I was greeted with cloudy skies.

Around 7:30 or so, it started lightly raining, and then it started pouring.  We covered everything up, waited for the rain to lighten up, and quickly shoved everything into the living room here at the Shack.  It's a mess.  We're going to try again next Saturday.  We would have used the garage, but it's full with other stuff.

So, once the mess was picked up, I went out to a few sales.  Most of them were pretty picked over by this point, but I had my hopes up, as it was really dead for a city wide garage sale day.  Not as many people ventured out in this nasty weather.

Here are all of my finds:

I nearly fell over when I went to a sale and sitting there was a pile of boxes marked NuTone.  I picked one up and here's what the label said:

Recessed toilet paper holders in the Coronado style.  New in box. 14 of them.  They all came home with me.  Only one problem - look above the bar code and you'll see what I'm talking about.  Still, they're nice and heavy duty, not like the flimsy thing in my bathroom now.  I'll have it switched out soon.  They aren't marked Hall Mack, but the part number indicates Hall Mack, I believe, with the letters "HM" at the beginning.  I'll probably be selling some of these.  I don't have 14 bathrooms!

I also found a vintage metal cart, which will have a meeting with a can of spray paint this summer. $4.

Here's the pile of the rest of my finds:

Up first, this fun gold mermaid bathroom towel ring - 50 cents.

Look closely, do you see what I see?

Hall Mack!

A box of vintage blue Christmas ornaments- 25 cents.

A beautiful red-orange ceramic thing.  Another piece that I'm not quite sure what it's purpose is, but I love the color.  $1.00.

Vintage Glasbake divided baker.  I've been trying to look online for this pattern.  Does anybody know what it is called?  50 cents.

A fun yellow-green with gold fleck planter.  It's pretty small, maybe 6 inches in length.  $2.00 (one of my pricier purchases).

Brown planter.  I'll have to pry that block of florist foam out of there.  50 cents.  It's not new, but not really old either.  Maybe late 1980s or early 1990s is my thought.

Small vintage Club Aluminum pan.  I have a set of these already, and I use the little one all the time.  $1.00.

Vintage Fire King ramekins.  I think that I'm going to have to learn how to make creme brulee now.  I don't think that those three in the stack in the back have ever been apart - they still have their original paper dividers between them.  75 cents for all 7.

Finally, a little keepsake from the old O'Sullivan Industries factory that was here in town for years.  O'Sullivan made ready-to-assemble furniture.  After several decades in town, the old girl took one last breath, rolled over and died a few years ago.  Now we're left with a big empty factory on the edge of town, right across from the city park.  We're also dealing with staggering unemployment (which is slowly getting better) as at it's heyday, the factory employed close to 1500 people in town and also had locations in Utah and Virginia, with our local factory housing the head offices of the corporation.  I believe that there were still around 700 people there when it closed.  It will be interesting to see what the population of the town is when the census is finished.  I'm  sure that it has dropped since the 2000 census.  A friend of mine used to work in the offices at the factory, and gave me a little memento as she had several of these left after the place closed down.  A nice tape measure with the company logo.  Free!

Now, here's hoping we can have the sale next week!  Have a beautiful Sunday!

A Little Poem...

Twas the night before garage sale

And all round the Shack

Every creature was stirring - even someone's cat

The tables were set in the yard here and there

Knowing that 7AM soon would be here

The treasures were strung out all over the land

As we madly dashed from place to place with things in our hand

Mother brought her futon, my sister her new American Eagle jeans

And I filled in the rest with so many things

When out by the street an old car stopped with a clatter

And we had to look up to see what was the source of the chatter

Out piled a family, so many in that little car

Was it a clown car?  It was so bizarre.

"Y'all sellin' stuff tonight?" asked a woman,

The leader of the clan.

"Please come back tomorrow," we politely said.

Still on they came, a wild glint in their eye,

Eager to be the first through this sty.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour,

They gathered their finds, and we no longer had to cower.

Into the car they piled again

Making us wonder if all would fit in.

Able to return to our chore,

We finally finished setting up our temporary store.

The tent set up to keep us safe from the sun,

Knowing that boxing up the remnants would be no fun.

The tables were covered with plastic with care,

To protect the treasures hidden there.

We said our goodbyes, knowing that all too soon,

We would be getting ready for the rush, what a frantic tune!

As they got into their cars, to return home for some sleep,

I quickly cried out, in more than a peep:

Now Mother, Now Father

Now Megan, My Sister

To the end of the loop, and round the bend

Make it safely home and back again!

Tomorrow's a nightmare, oh what have we done!

We must surely work in the sun!

So, my poetic skills stink.  And, the part about the people in the car didn't happen, but at least I had a little fun coming up with this!  Here's hoping that tomorrow's a success!