This is an “Official Mickey Mouse Club” 45 rpm record from 1955 called Mousekedances – 6 Dances and how to do them. Unless there was an insert that has been lost, they only tell you how to do two of the dances. Oddly the instructions for the Big Bear dance do not match up with The Big Bear Boogie, so I won’t be including it in this post.
So for those who are keeping track, that’s 6 Dances and how to do one of them.
Side 1 has one of my favorites from this record: The Mickey Mouse Mambo. This probably marked the end of the Mambo craze in the US. You know an adult musical fad is over when they record a version for children.
My other favorite song is The Big Bear Boogie with the chorus of “Hug a bear, hug a bear, hug a boogie-woogie bear”. That will get stuck in your head. It’s not a bad thing.
This brochure and letter was sent to an Alameda, California high school senior in 1944 or 1945, inviting him to experience “The war’s newest and most dramatic technical development” as a Radar Technician.
“No member of the United States Navy, or any other branch of the armed forces, takes greater pride in his job than the man in blue who wears the ‘RADIO TECHNICIAN’ insignia. And none can boast finerr training for an indispensable, vital job in civilian life when victory and peace are finally ours.”
Under the cut are more scans of the brochure and letter, plus a transcription of the letter too.
“This may be YOUR opportunity… an opportunity to serve both your country and yourself. At least, you owe it to yourself to investigate.”
Things slowed down here a bit to much. Sorry about that. I started a new job on the 14th and it’s been sucking up all my energy. I’ll get back on track soon.
The image is a sign I bought at the Trader Vic’s warehouse sale a few years back. The message is pretty apt right now.
My grandfather had a variety of stuff in his “treasure box”. Some of these things were packs of cigarettes he picked up on his travels. The designs are pretty cool, so I scanned them. These are good for design or color scheme inspiration.
Another estate sale find. I picked up some old educational slide show presentations, complete with cassette tapes. First up is a presentation about the Trees of Mystery in Oregon.
I scanned all the slides, digitized the tape, and put it all together in iMovie. This was my first attempt using iMovie, and it turned out OK. It’s about as exciting as you’d expect from a 1970′s classroom presentation, complete with “Paul Bunyan” doing the voice-over.
Here’s a treasure I picked up at a rummage sale a while ago. Two very large 16″ acetates* that lost their labels a long time ago. I love picking up unmarked acetates as they’re a complete surprise. Sometimes it’s a child’s bad piano rehearsal, sometimes it’s gold like this one.
The recording is a WWII field report for NBC that’s almost 13 minutes long. The reporter (Tom Stewart) is in Italy doing a segment on a Red Cross Trainmobile called the “Yankee Dipper”.
I have been trying to research the “Yankee Dipper”, but have not found any information. The Red Cross website says:
Records indicate that specialized use of railroad cars during World War II may have been limited to two “trainmobiles” that delivered services and comfort supplies to Allied armed forces overseas, much like the converted buses and trucks, called “clubmobiles“, that provided doughnuts and coffee to the military.
