hats off to agribusiness

Some cool old swag circa 1980 back when United States Steel was into agribusiness.


Another artifact, likely from a decade or so ago, this hat from the Peanut Growers Cooperative Marketing Association:

A cursory Google search shows the PGCMA is still in the news.

Maybe a color image of the once ubiquitous blue Bravo hat is somewhere.

Till then, here's a detail from a black & white photo my oldest brother took. Not intended to show off the hat, the image may jog the memory of anyone who ever saw one of these.

seven on the flip side

click for a closer view

The above is from circa spring 1978 when my oldest brother kindly send me a clipping of a Richmond Times-Dispatch article on jazz music.

Thirty-one years later, sifting through my old old stuff, I found these movie ads on the back.

Of all of these movies, I've only seen Which Way Is Up?. If working my way through to watch the others, the Pam Grier and Rudy Ray Moore look the most promising. The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 will likely wait.

IIRC, these were all Neighborhood Theatres. The GNH seen in the movie times was short for Good Neighbor Hour and designated the cheaper matinee showings.

Only the Byrd and the Towne (now known as the National) are still standing. The Byrd shows movies and features a cool theater organ. The National is a concert venue.

But even the fallen Colonial, Capitol and State theaters live on at Cinema Treasures. All sorts of links to photos and such can be found, including this old newsreel of the State Theatre's opening in 1933 (no audio):

your handwriting analyzed

Well, actually, as mentioned long ago, my handwriting (digitally scrubbed away):


Analyzed circa 1971 by a computer set up in Mercury Plaza in Hampton.


While one or two out of the five results were somewhere in the ballpark, the others were pretty off base:


I had just learned cursive lettering (and have since sworn off of it).

Sound '78 @ the Virginia Beach Dome

Yeah, back in July 1977, my brother took me to the Sound '78 expo at the Virginia Beach Dome and all I got was this frisbee.

Oh, and a program . . .


Rather like the stereo man. It's like some dude really wanted to be John Lennon but instead became a reel-to-reel based component stereo system.



Nope, sorry, no memories of the wondrous Klatu the Quasar robot. [UPDATE: very cool Quasar image here.] Just my cluelessly wandering through display tables of stereo gear . . .




Gotta love the tie-in here to the 1976 Presidential Debate (my highlighting below):


This was before my days as a noisy popster, so I didn't even notice any instruments and music gear there.

But it's funny now to see vintage gear like the Electro-Harmonix Small Stone and Big Muff listed so clinically under their model numbers. Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to 1977 . . .

book of Surrey House matches

The Surrey House Restaurant has come and gone and come again.

These matches came from whenever it was that the management there also ran the Coppahaunk Restaurant in Waverly.

pen from Loraine's

You've seen the jacket, now the pen.