One more example of the exuberance of the 50’s automobile manufacturers is the Ford Skyliner available from 1957 to 1959. It was a wonder to see the hardop retract and fold into the trunk. This commercial with Lucy and Ricky captures something about the feel of the 50’s. You just naturally expected Lucy and Ricky to be dressed up. Today they would probably wear ratty sweats. You can see what is coming as well with the banter as Lucy takes charge. Women are serious and men are silly even though that wasn’t the theme in ‘I Love Lucy‘ where Lucy was always doing silly things.
A more contemporary appreciation of the Skyliner from a car auction shows off the syle that the car still shows today.
My Favorite 50's Car 1958 Lincoln - the Star of the Fabulous 50's My father followed our failed 1958 Edsel with another Ford product- the flagship of the Ford...
Patriotic Nostalgia - The St. Louis Arch [/caption] This weeks nostalgia is a visit to the St. Louis Arch which was completed in 1966. The architect was Eero Saarinen, probably the preeminent...
Ford Has Hybrid Electric Cars in Works Recently, Ford automotive submitted to congress a business plan of attack, covering all angles, detailing the automobile manufacturer's plans for profit. The most notable of...
Bright Automotive's New Plug-In Car Having branched from the Rocky Mountain Institute this January, Bright Automotive is currently building a concept hybrid electric car that can achieve 100 miles to...
One iconic piece of furniture from the 50’s is the tulip chair designed by Eero Saarinen, the preeminent American architect of the mid 20th century. This chair represented the promise of a wonderful future as I left home for college in 1959. The simplicity and elegance of this chair and the matching table was completely alien to traditional furniture and even the new Scandinavian modern designs using wood. This chair was seemingly one piece plastic although actually had an aluminum base and fiberglass seat and back, painted to appear as one. They were expensive in the 50’s when I dragged my parents to the Merchandise Mart in Chicago when they took me to my first year at college and they are still expensive today. My father felt that paying for college was better than buying chairs. The manufacturer still makes them and they still look like the future. One of my early goals was to assemble a collection of modern classic furniture. There always seemed to be better places for my money along the way so that stopped with our Eames Chair but what continues to amaze me is the timelessness of those designs. So many of the pieces of furniture tagged as classics in the 60’s when my tastes were jelling are classics today.
Vacation Nostalgia - 1953 Chevy Bel Air In 1953, my family made it's most ambitious road trip. We visited Washington DC. My two brothers and me in the back of the Chevy...
My Favorite 50's Car 1958 Lincoln - the Star of the Fabulous 50's My father followed our failed 1958 Edsel with another Ford product- the flagship of the Ford...
Remodel with Furniture Arrangement There's a growing trend in interior design in which furniture arrangement is the biggest change in a room, while making it look as if it's...
Back to Basics: Reduce your debt Being in debt simply means that at one point you borrowed money to fund some purchase, and are now paying it back over time. (For...
Some of the most popular posts have been remembering cars that my family drove during the 50’s and 60’s. In those days cars were personal and distinctive quite unlike today’s peas in a pod cars. In the 50’s you didn’t ever wonder about whether a car was a Chevy or a Cadillac. I have listed links to some of the most popular below.
Another Carlson Car Past [/caption] The hottest family car ever purchased by my father was a sharp black 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible. This one looks great in red but...
What can I learn from comment counts? Image by svenwerk via Flickr I know it when I see it. Until recently, the only criteria I had to decide the quality of a...
5 Green Gifts of Experience and Time As the holiday season of sparkle and glitter quickly approaches, it’s easy to get swept up in the costly winds of buying, giving and receiving....
Player Profile for Patty Sheehan Patty Sheehan was born on October 27 in 1956 in Middlebury, Vermont, and is an American professional golfer who became a member of the Women's...
The Eames House in Pacific Palisades is another icon of modern design. It was completed in 1949 but belongs with other examples of mid-century modern that we associate with the 50’s. Built using off the shelf parts with very little pretense and no ornamentation, it was home for Charles and Raye Eames from Christmas eve 1949 until their deaths in the 70’s. Today you can visit the outside but there is only rare access to the interior.
The 50's and 60's Nostalgia Roundup at RCB It is easy to get nostaligic about the 50's and 60' . Since they were my high school and college years, I have many wonderful...
What others say about courage. [/caption] Quotations from others that I like: Dale Carnegie: Quotes of Courage Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want...
Coyote Creek Golf Club Coyote Creek Golf Club is located in San Jose, CA Phone: 408-463-1400 Website: http://www.coyotecreekgolf.com/ Course History: There are two courses at Coyote Creek, the Valley...
An iconic piece of 50’s stye that is still a star today.
“The first Eames lounge chair and ottoman was made as a gift for Billy Wilder, the director of “Some Like It Hot,” “Irma La Douce,” and “Sunset Blvd.” The heritage of the chair goes back to the molded plywood chairs pioneered by the Eameses in the 1940s. Charles Eames said his goal for the chair was that it be “a special refuge from the strains of modern living.”
It was my early aspiration to own several classic pieces of furniture. The Eames was pretty much as far as we got. Our’s is the real thing from Herman Miller with rosewood veneer. Rosewood is no longer available – not because you can’t get rosewood – but because Rosewood is not farmed and therefore using it is classified by Greenies as bad. If I ever want a second chair for cozy fireside chats with my wife, I will have to hit the resale marketplace. One works out beautifully because the chair is a piece of sculpture that owns the room. Two is overkill.
Charles and Ray Eames talk about design and introduces the Eames chair on the Home Show (a popular show about living in the 50’s – somewhere between Oprah and Martha Stewart in today’s terms.)
13 Ways to Improve Your Marriage Never forget the old saying: “Happy Wife- Happy Life.” Make a commitment- that is what love is. Tell her you love her and tell her...
Fasting I have been experimenting with fasting over the past two weeks. I became intrigued with discussions on different blogs but I was especially interested in...
Some Good Home Improvement Advice There are many points of view from which you can take a look at home improvement advice. When we discuss the different home improvement options,...
You may already have won a foreclosure! Who would've thought it? Ed McMahon is in default on his Beverly Hills home. Star searches these days reveal rich-and-famous folks getting behind on their...
My father followed our failed 1958 Edsel with another Ford product- the flagship of the Ford Motor Company, a Lincoln. This was the most magnificent automobile – in my humble opinion- he ever owned. It was huge, substantial with a cavernous interior. It had magnificent broad shoulders and big protrusions at every corner. You were never in doubt about the location of any extremity on that car. It wasn’t lithe. It rode more like a boat – or perhaps a cruise ship but driving that car, I always felt like the center of attention – pretty good for a nerdy 17 year old kid. Ours was navy blue- a more fitting color than the white in the picture giving it an imposing presence. This was the car I drove to my Senior Prom. This car hauled my stuff from Kansas City to Chicago for college and brought me back for summer. My father was on a roll in the late 50’s because our other car was my runner-up favorite.
I was heartbroken when, during my second year at college, my folks told me that the Lincoln had burst into flames as they crossed an intersection after a stop sign. They escaped unhurt but the car was a total loss. I was disappointed when my father replaced it with an ordinary Cadillac. He never said but perhaps living with this beautiful beast was not as pleasant as I remember.
Another Carlson Car Past [/caption] The hottest family car ever purchased by my father was a sharp black 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible. This one looks great in red but...
President's Day History Lesson If you're at work today, you should be ashamed. Today is a hallowed day and we should celebrate it as... oh I'm just kidding. Technically...
Inexpensive Graduation Gift Ideas Graduation season is quickly approaching. I always find myself getting a little nostalgic this time of year as I remember my own graduation from college....
The 50’s were a time of optimism. Just a decade past World War II, America could do anything and we weren’t about to be subtle . One example was the exuberant tail fins that appeared, flourished and then vanished.
Class Last weekend, a local car dealer sponsors a Concours just down the street. This year I planned to attend. There are supercars on display which...
Social Networking Image by luc legay via Flickr Why I started About a year ago I began to hear about Web 2.0 applications and social networking. People...
Coca Cola Going Green (Their Trucks, Not the Soda) Coca Cola Enterprises made an announcement that their fleet of delivery trucks will be bolstered by the larges number of hybrid delivery trucks by any...
We moved to our own farm in 1955 or so. We had owned it for a while but my grandparents lived there while we still lived on the farm my father managed for his boss from his day job in the city. Somewhere along the way we acquired a pickup truck, useful for hauling our Shetland ponies around as well as the ocassional pig or lamb. It was a stick so I had to learn how to drive it although I don’t remember ever driving it on the road, just around the farm. It was several years old when we got it and it definitely wasn’t cool. Ours was green, pretty close to the classic Jaguar green but withoug the cache.
I never gave much thought to how we grew up but clearly we were living some fantasy of my father. He used to talk about someday getting a ’spread’ by which he meant a lot of grazing land to run cattle. He would sometimes talk about it mostly during road trips or driving vacations. When I think back on my childhood, thanks to my father, I had some remarkable experiences which my kids never got in the ritzy neighborhood, we chose for them to grow up in. My older son drives a pickup now but you would never get him to haul a hog in it.
Life is a trip and you never know when you are in the moment what might really matter.
Will you be my.....neighbor? Walter at LionSlinger posted a comment on my blog this week. I had been reliving some of my blogging experience trying to put the experience...
Obstacles-not barriers but challenges Obstacles are normal It is normal to think that obstacles stop us from achieving our goals. At least that is what the majority thinks. Everyone...
It is easy to get nostaligic about the 50’s and 60′ .
Since they were my high school and college years, I have many wonderful memories of those times. Check them out. Maybe you have some nostalgia to share as well.
Save Money By Making Your Own Beer A couple of years ago, we started making our own beer. My brother was kind of enough to buy me this beer making kit as...
In high school, we moved to an eighty acre farm of our own. I got a room of my own and a new friend – our Farmall Cub. During the summers, you would often find me mowing our pastures (mowing cuts down weeds and lets the grass grow better). About 40 of the acres were pasture, so this wasn’t a trivial pastime. I picked this picture because it shows the type of mower we had. Ours looke pretty much like this except it was red. It had a big rotary blade and you could raise or lower it to change the height of the mowed grass or to make it easier to get through places where the weeds were very high.
This was my first motorized vehicle and I got pretty comfortable even on slopes like the dam for our pond. In those days (late 50’s) nobody even thought of carrying music players with you and though we were just beginning to see tiny (5″x7″) transistor radios. Even an ipod might not be effective on a Cub because it makes a lot of noise. In those days we didn’t expect to be entertained every moment of the day so I was content to daydream as I mowed.
How self doubt can challenge your progress. [/caption] Last night it hit me. You can call it the wet, cold mackerel of truth. You can call it having the curtain lifted. You...
Maybe I'm Zen? [/caption] I have posted earlier on fasting. To my surprise, it has been easy to do, painless and I have been losing weight after being...
Goolge's newest employees? 200 Goats. I know this is off topic for a Tech blog, but it concerns Google, so please indulge me. According to Google's blog, they are using...
How to Fix a Lawn /caption] For some people, keeping a good lawn simply means installing a sprinkler system and making sure that it is mowed nice and short every...
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=ab944563-0b40-4c12-8070-132b109d85b7)
Related Posts 
My Favorite 50's Car 1958 Lincoln - the Star of the Fabulous 50's My father followed our failed 1958 Edsel with another Ford product- the flagship of the Ford... 
Patriotic Nostalgia - The St. Louis Arch [/caption] This weeks nostalgia is a visit to the St. Louis Arch which was completed in 1966. The architect was Eero Saarinen, probably the preeminent... 
Other Websites You Might Enjoy 
Ford Has Hybrid Electric Cars in Works Recently, Ford automotive submitted to congress a business plan of attack, covering all angles, detailing the automobile manufacturer's plans for profit. The most notable of... 
Bright Automotive's New Plug-In Car Having branched from the Rocky Mountain Institute this January, Bright Automotive is currently building a concept hybrid electric car that can achieve 100 miles to... 
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=b6abc442-8eb2-4228-9224-c8ff0b75bf80)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0130a879-4b25-4ea1-b8d2-faf4aa790fc7)
Ralph on 
Sire on 
Julius Kuhn-Regnier on 