When it comes to American exceptionalism, we Americans have long had an exceptionally voracious appetite for red meat, making us the proud leader of the free, meat-eatin’ world.

In this land of democracy, meat has reigned as king.

But recently after much maligning in the media, red meat is being dethroned as a nutritional superfood. Is this meats denouement?

Long before it was vilified, the conventional wisdom of my childhood assured us that “ meat was what made America great” and mid-century Americans were on a cholesterol high.

What’s So Great About America?  Meat!

Meat Serves Everybody, the people, the soil, the nation! Vintage ad American Meat Institute

Meat, ads proudly proclaimed, was the American way. It serves everybody!

Nothing was more American than a back yard barbecue when slapping a hunk of meat on a Weber grill proclaimed to the world “I’m proud to be an American.” In the suburban summers of my childhood, the sizzling smell of prime democracy perpetually hung in the air

Sniffing the steaming steak fragrance, an American tradition!

“No other nation in the world,” my barbecue bound-father often boasted, while carving a first off-the- grill sirloin into juicy slices (another ready to go, is ‘waitin behind the first) “is blessed with the amount of good, rich, nourishing meat!”

In this land of plenty one thing we had plenty of was rich, red meat.

With WWII meat shortages and rationing still a fresh memory, mid-century Americans were more than ready to play catch up.

Meat was as American as apple pie. and everyone was entitled to a slice or 2 or 3 of this tasty American dream.

The pulse-quickening excitement of a sizzling steak brought out the patriot in a man.

Way before the current war on meat, meat itself had gone to war.

“Meat helped win the war by keeping us healthy and vigorous. American meat,” my Army veteran Dad would say nearly choked up, “had done its job!”

Meat was our secret weapon – our arsenal of democracy.

Meat Will Win the War

More and more meat was going to our armed forces and our fighting allies with less meat for the home tables . Vintage ad Swift and Company 1943

Food we were told during WWII, will win the war and no food was more vital to victory than meat, which became a materiel of war as soon as the hostilities began. Morale boosting meat was needed most to fight on and to win on.

War made a staggering demand on American livestock and meat industry.

In a never-ending barrage of ads and articles the  American meat industry reminded us, “that supplying plenty of meat for the fighting men and gallant allies was their first and foremost job.”

“There’s never a shortage of meat when Uncle Sam goes shopping for his armed forces.” WWII Vintage ad Swifts & Company

Uncle Sam went on a shopping spree, buying up all the top quality meat supplies for our 10 million hungry boys overseas so that meant for those on the home front there would be fewer of the familiar choicest cuts.

Along with sugar, and coffee, gone were the all American Sunday roasts deliciously browned and larded with fat.

When Meat Doesn’t Make the Meal

WWII Vintage Ad 1943

For Americans who abided by the notion that “meat makes the meal” thriftiness and ingenuity had to be learned when it came to mealtime.

“Waste not the meat” stated one headline. “Lest not forget the ounce of meat we save is an ounce of insurance that meat is being used more effectively as a weapon of war.”

Where’s the Beef?

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1943 “The New Pioneer Woman in Meat” Todays homefront housewife “has learned it is fun to go adventuring in new meats.”

Making a little look like a lot particularly when it came to meat was the homemakers rallying cry as they were encouraged to make the most of meat.

Home front housewives like my grandmother, were bombarded with information on how to keep precious meat from spoiling, learning to rely on meat extenders  and tips on cooking meat in ways that reduced shrinkage.

The American Meat Institute tried to convince housewives that less expensive cuts that were available had the same fine nutrition as that Sunday roast, providing the same energy, stamina and vitality.

Vintage ad American Meat Institute 1942

As much as her mother tried to dress them up, my teen age mother Betty wasn’t too thrilled trying the less familiar, often tougher, thriftier cuts of beef.

Though today you pay a premium price for it, free range, grass-fed beef was called utility beef in the 1940’s because it was cheap, plentiful, point free, and oh yes, tough.

Articles coaxed us to try utility beef, untried by most housewives, but long used in economical households. Utility or grade C beef, it seems, was cut from cadaverous-looking cattle that have forlornly roamed the range, feeding only on grass, the poor chemically deprived souls.

Vintage WWII ad Swifts 1944

Choice beef comes from contented cattle that spend 2-7 months in a spa like feeder lots where they dine extravagantly on corn or silage.

Grass feeding produces lean, less choice meat. Corn feeding produces fat, well-marbled cattle – and fat, well marbled people.

Blue Print For a Post War Product

An American Masterpiece! “In the not too distant future,” The American Meat Industry tempted us, “the kind of living that has made our country famous all over the world will return to our land.” Yes, the kind of living that hardened our arteries and clogged our colons.

As the war began winding down, The American Meat Industry whetted our appetites waxing poetically about meat painting a rosy post war vision of juicy steaks and standing rib roasts.

“Here,” they teased a carnivorous craving public “is a wartime arsenal with a peace time future.”

“In the not too distant future, the kind of living that has made our country famous all over the world will return to our land.”

With  high cholesterol levels and heart attacks  far from our minds, they promised…“Final victory will hasten the day when there will be plenty of meat for everybody.”

Post War Promises

For four long years, Americans had rolled up their sleeves and had wholeheartedly cooperated.

They had done with less. They conserved and extended their share of meat in every possible way so that our fighting boys and fighting allies could be assured supplies.

Vintage illustration for A&P 1951

But with victory achieved, it was payback time and Americans were ready to cash in on those post war promises of picture-perfect prime rib.

Meat All American Hero

When red meat returned to the home front it was lionized as a hero – it had done its part for victory. Along with other war heroes, it took its rightful place marching in the victory parade, ribbons and medals festooned on its rump roast.

Vintage Ad American Meat Institute. Painting a post war dream with a broad brush the copy reads: “This is not just a piece of meat…this is something a man wants to come home to…something that makes his wife proud of their meals…”

“Meat is life,” proclaimed one advertisement reverentially. “When the war is over is it any wonder that as meat moves back to the home plate we look on meat with new regard not just for its enjoyment, but as a nutritional cornerstone of life.”

Meats esteemed place in the red white and blue American diet was assured.

Leaders of the Free Meat Eating World

Vintage illustration 1958 Saturday Evening Post

When the boys came marching home from the war,  it wasn’t for some sissy cheesy carrot ring casserole, but for a he-man steak. Our new post war wealth allowed us to buy large chunks of steaks and chops. And binge buying we did, filling up our new deep freezers with all  manner of meat.

The rest of the world still reeling from the horrors of war, its industrial base shattered,  its farmlands untended or blown to bits, could only sit back in amazement and watch.

USDA Approved. Vintage ad for Swifts Meats

While the allies were busy carving up the post war world, Americans were living high on the hog, carving up their fat larded roasts.

And what well marbled, tender meat it was.

DES – It’s No Wonder

Are You Sure You’re Right In Liking Meat? In this land of the free, home of the brave, you might have to be brave to eat some of this meat L) Vintage Eli Lilly ad for Stilbosol ( diethylstilbestrol) (R) Vintage ad American Meat Institute

When hormones were introduced into livestock production after the war, the meat industry was fairly salivating .

The manufacturers of diethylstilbestrol, known as DES, hailed the event as the most important moment in the history of food production, right up there with frozen food.

And my father couldn’t agree more.

His cousin a Junior  executive with Eli Lilly, knew the benefits and importance of this breakthrough and explained it to my mother:

“Because it produced more fat and more weight on the animals,” Cousin Albert marveled,”and thus more profits for the meat industry, DES, rightfully so, was being used on more than 90 % of American cattle. It was short of a miracle.”

This new wonder drug he promised, “would give meat juicy tenderness that cannot fail-the best eatingest…melt in your mouth goodness cut with a fork tenderness ever served!”

Are You Sure You’re Right in  Liking Meat?

Just in time for the baby boomers diet! ( L) Vintage Ad for DES (R) Vintage ad Gerbers baby Food Meat

Baby boomers born into this golden age of meat consumption would grow up consuming this sizzling DES deliciousness folks don’t forget.

Decades later those unfortunate people who would develop cancer wouldn’t forget either.

Although the carcinogenicity of the synthetic DES in test animals was known by 1938 it was approved in 1947 by the USDA. With profits sky-high , it’s no wonder.

By the time I was born, meats place in Americas life was as firmly attached to their dinner plates as the plaque lining their arteries would become.

Next: When baby Sally says mmm she means meat. It’s never too early to start ’em on a life time of eating.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Getting sick is nothing to sneeze at!

Dear Readers,

I am calling in sick.

Despite the copious capsules of vitamin C and the endless drops of echinechea I regularly consume, I have caught a nasty winter cold that has knocked me for a loop.

Until the cotton and dense fog that seemingly surround my brain subsides and I am back at work, please enjoy some new re-purposed posts.

Getting sick is nothing to sneeze at. Stay well!

 It’s the height of cold and flu season again which means it’s all out war on sniffles and red running noses.

For those battle fatigued sufferers, endless reinforcements of Kleenex are constantly being supplied to the front lines.

Today we take for granted those ubiquitous boxes of soothing tissues, but for an earlier generation who battled the 1918 flu epidemic, the existence of Kleenex would have been nothing short of a miracle.

Kleenex Cleans Up

Kleenex wouldn’t make its debut until the mid 1920’s and a grateful nation suffering from hay fever and winter colds sat up and took note.

Kleenex Guards Against Germs

No one was more grateful than my grandmother Sadie.

Tucked into her sleeve, or balled up in her pocket, Nana Sadie never went anywhere without a tissue at the ready, her first line of defense against deadly germs. Nana was certain the air was filled with dust and germs which could then be inhaled resulting in a nasty cold…or worse.

To her, the invention of Kleenex was a modern marvel of science, rivaling sulpha drugs and penicillin in saving mankind. With the simple toss of a disposable Kleenex into a waste basket, you were wiping out thousands of dangerous germs, and saving countless lives.

 1918 Flu Epidemic

As a veteran of the first and worst flu epidemic every, old fears and suspicion borne of that war, had scarred Nana Sadie for life.

In 1918 America was at war, not only over there but here at home  as  well. The Influenza epidemic of 1918 meant it was all out war on the home front too.

The public in 1918 and 1919 was petrified of the Flu.

It was a panicky time, when everyone and everything became suspect as the cause of contamination mirroring the Red Scare which reached near hysteria that year.

Provoked by a fear that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent – a revolution that would destroy the American Way of Life, ordinary people became suspect of being Anarchists and Communists.

So it was with the Influenza, when even everyday items such as books, candy wrappers came under scrutiny and attack as transmitters of the dreaded disease.

Vintage posters Warning of the 1918 Flu Epidemic

Everything came under suspicion – paper money, ice cream, even wet laundry. No one was safe from that villainous brute Influenza.

 “Everyday someone else you knew got sick,” my grandmother would explain sadly.

“It killed the young, the strong, the healthy, the rich, the poor, people who had so much to live for…my own brother and sister, so young, God- rest -their -souls. People avoided one another, they didn’t speak, if they did they turned their faces away to avoid the other persons breathing…”

Dangerous germs, scowling and sneering could be lurking right around the corner- yesterday a suspiciously shared sarsaparilla in a soda fountain, today, a sneeze on a shared seat in a sullied streetcar, tomorrow-who knows- the blunder of a borrowed book from the public library.

But the favorite source of blame continued to be handkerchiefs.

Vintage illustrations from children’s book on the proper use and care of handkerchiefs

Those lovely embroidered, heirloom hankies that every proper lady, gentleman and well brought up child always carried- might well be aiding and abetting unseen armies of influenza germs, rendering your dainty, lace trimmed hanky as dangerous as any incendiary device.

Carelessness on your part, and suddenly your monogrammed handkerchief, harboring germs, could be turned into a weapon of bio-terrorism, threatening you and your terror-stricken neighbors with the dread menace of infection.

The conventional wisdom at the time was that the menacing influenza virus when scattered by an infected sneeze, or a soiled hanky, could continue to live in household dust and infect the whole family with the flu even six weeks later.

(L) Vintage Poster 1918 Flu Epidemic- Warning to make sure to use a Handkerchief

As Nana explained it, “spittle contains many little disease germs and when the spittle dries these little germs are set free, caught by the wind and begin to fly about.”

Fear ran so deep that soiled handkerchiefs were stigmatized as dangerous transmitters of the flu, and people frantically resorted to using pieces of linen in their stead, which were then subsequently burned.

So when the miracle that was Kleenex appeared as an alternative to messy unsanitary hankies it was truly considered life saving.

Germs Can’t Escape

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1933
“As long as that cold hangs on use sanitary disposable Kleenex only! Kleenex, far closer in texture than any handkerchief stops germs holds them fast; keeps fingers dry clean and non infectious.”

“Keep that cold to yourself,” Kleenex pronounced in this 1933 ad.

Because hands catch germs as they seep through handkerchiefs, they could be considered weapons of mass destruction in re-infection

“Germs slip through the tightest weave of linen or cotton handkerchief as though through a sieve, contaminating everything you touch,” warned Kleenex ominously. “And its damp rough handkerchiefs that add so much to the misery of a cold by constant irritation.”

“Kleenex is so much more sanitary,” the ad emphasized. “You use it just once then discard it. Cold germs are discarded too instead of being carried about in an unsanitary handkerchief to reinfect the user and infect others.”

A Beauty Discovery

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1930
This modern discovery offered a new way to remove cold cream that was cheaper than spoiling and laundering towels.

But Kleenex’s great contribution to health, my grandmother recalled,  was nearly missed.

When Kleenex was first created in 1924 by The Kimberly Clark Corp. it was originally marketed as a way for m’ lady to remove cold cream.

In 1925 the first Kleenex tissue ad appeared in a magazine showing “the new secret of a pretty skin as used by famous movie stars.”

Young women like my grandmother wanted to emulate beautiful actresses like Helen Hayes who was featured in ads removing make up “the scientific way” using this “modern disposable substitute for a face towel” called Kleenex Kerchiefs.

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1930
“The Kleenex patented pull out carton assures economy. Hands cannot mess up other sheets in the package or take out more than required from the patented serv-a- tissue box.

It was so new a product they needed to explain and instruct  a curious public just what it was.

“Here’s what a Kleenex tissue is like: it’s the size of a handkerchief.  It’s very soft. Every tissue comes from the box immaculately clean and fresh,” they explained.

Even the box itself was proclaimed a marvel of ingenuity and modern design.

“One of the things you will like about Kleenex tissues is the unique patented box they come in. Kleenex tissues are fed out one double sheet at a time! You do not have to hold the box  with one hand while taking tissues with the other.”

The patented  serv-a-tissue pop up box invented by Andrew Olsen was “… cleverly made to hand out automatically through a narrow slit, two tissues at a time ( the correct number for a treatment).”

It was a hit with the public!

Don’t Carry A Cold in Your Pocket

A few years later, the company’s head researcher persuaded the head of advertising to market tissues for colds and hay fever

In 1930 Kleenex re-positioned themselves as the handkerchief you can throw away. “You know what Kleenex tissues are – those dainty tissues that smart and beautiful women are using to remove cold cream.could also be used for hay fever and colds ?”

“Did you know that Kleenex is rapidly replacing handkerchiefs among progressive people? Doctors are recommending it. Nose and throat specialists are using Kleenex in their office.”

Now Kleenex was marketed with the slogan “Don’t Put a Cold in Your Pocket” and its use as a disposable handkerchief replacement was solidified.

The Cold Rush is On

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1941

Vintage Kleenex ad 1940

Vintage Kleenex ad 1940

Soon the company was swamped by letters from consumers offering  ideas for all sorts of uses for Kleenex.

Kleenex began running  the suggestions in their ads under the title “Kleenex True Confessions” offering $5 for every story of how they used Kleenex.

Vintage Kleenex ad 1940

Kleenex was handy ammunition wherever germs lurked

When Kleenex was first introduced they pointed out that they were economical too. Not only it was more hygienic they costs less than laundering handkerchiefs! “Kleenex is a great saving if you have your wash done

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1940

Encouraged to adopt the Kleenex Habit we were encouraged to keep a box of tissues in every room in the house as well as in the car where you could install a special chromium holder to fit under the  glove compartment.

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1940

And if health wasn’t an incentive, vanity was. Kleenex promised m’ lady it would  keep her girlish figure.

“Now I’m streamlined,” boasted one young modern. “Carrying four or five hankies in my pocket during colds made my figure bumpy in the wrong places! Now I carry Kleenex and I’m in good shape again!”

Three Hanky Movie

Vintage Kleenex Ad 1940

Although hankies eventually came back into favor (and Nana, like my mother always carried an ironed and neatly folded hanky in her pocketbook) she would never dream of actually blowing her nose in one.

Dabbing an eye at a three hanky movie maybe, but generally handkerchiefs were rendered inoperable by that king of tissues Kleenex.

Copyright (©) 2016 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Happy National Doughnut Day

Doughnuts to dollars, this is a favorite day of celebration for many.

From coast to coast, thousands are lining up outside their local Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kremes for a free doughnut.

Donuts or Doughnuts, glazed or  powdered sugar, Americans are nuts about these circular doughy treats larded with nostalgia and sprinkled with goodness.

Donuts are a fad that haven’t faded

The first Friday in June is designated National Doughnut Day  and was first celebrated in 1938. Organized by the Salvation Army in Chicago, it was to raise funds during the Depression in remembrance of the women who served donuts to the doughboys on the front lines in WWI.

A Nutritious Treat

More importantly  who knew these deep fried goodies were a healthy treat…good and good for you?

That is, according to Crisco  who boasted that  doughnuts were as digestible as they were delicious… if they were prepared with their product.

Vintage ad Crisco 1938 .Handy recipe for Dandy Mincemeat Doughnuts

This 1938 ad explains to the reader  the importance of fat in a growing tykes life.

Don’t say “No” when your youngsters beg for grown up foods. Don’t dismiss their craving for pastries and fried foods with “they’re not good for you.”

Remember children spend their energy much more recklessly than you do. Winter demands that little bodies be “well stocked” with foods that contain extra energy in other words with foods containing fats.

That’s why foods containing fats should be on the diet of growing children- if these foods are digestible. Your doctor will tell you, too, that light tender pastry such as Crisco makes is better for you than the heavy greasy kind.”

Yes, your small fry will love em’; it’s never too early to start building up their cholesterol count.

Does it feel like our nation is on the verge of a nervous breakdown?

Is there anyone who’s nerves aren’t frayed?

Between mass shootings and stalled gun laws, Britain falling and markets plunging, xenophobia spreading as fast as the Zika virus, is it any wonder our collective nerves are overwrought?

And that’s not even counting extreme floods and wildfires, tainted water and tainted politicians,  terrorist threats and climate deniers, and those old stand byes racism, sexism and homophobia.

Time to break out that old bottle of Dr Miles Nervine.

Vintage ad Dr Miles Nervine 1939

A once upon a time popular nerve tonic that sold through the late 1960s, it was a money back  guaranteed  treatment for anxiety, nervous exhaustion, restlessness, hysteria, headache and sleeplessness.

For frazzled folks during the great depression, Nervine  was a life saver. Just ask Mrs. White whose testimonial is presented in this 1930’s ad.

For today’s retro Republicans who long to go back to the good old days, this tonic might seem quite appealing. After all no segment of the population seems more on the brink of mental collapse than those  disenfranchised, patriarchal loving, nativist, white Americans who  seems in a state of extreme distress.

Just like Mrs. White.

Though Nervine is no longer sold, these anxious, nervous nellies have sought relief  through another dubious tonic – Donald Trump.

Wanting to make America great again, Trump has swooped in to save Americans from nervous collapse. Under the illusion that Trump will be the elixir for what ails this country, it turns out Trump’s solutions are as bogus and ultimately toxic as Dr. Miles Nervine.

The amazing, scientific  ingredient in Nervine was Bromide. Sure they state, “Dr Miles Nervine is the formula of a well-known nerve specialist,” and the tonic  claimed to be “…among the safest of effective medications to calm the nerves.”

Of course that was not the whole truth.

Dr Miles Nervine Tablets Vintage ad 1939

Despite being “compounded under the supervision  of competent chemists in one of the most modern and completely equipped laboratories in the world” the truth is that excess consumption of bromide can lead to bromism, which is a condition that leads to various psychiatric, neurological, and gastrointestinal problems.

It was removed from all over the counter sedatives in 1975 but Bromine and/or forms of bromine (e.g., bromides) are currently used in pesticides, disinfectants, flame retardants, as a gasoline additive, and for swimming pool maintenance.

Where the miracle ingredient in Nervine was bromide which would act as a sedative, Trump’s own boastful bromides are filled with self-serving inaccuracies, laced with xenophobia and racism  and enough misinformation to make a fact checkers head spin.

Trump’s prescription for Americas recovery only proves once again that the treatment is as toxic as the problem itself

If Trump wins, we will all need something a lot stronger to sedate us than Dr Miles Nervine.

(©) 20016 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Beat the Summer Heat – World Book Encyclopedia 1955

As we suffer through an oppressive heat wave, an offering of  mid century tips for a very contemporary problem.

In the early 1950’s the Atomic Energy Commission decided that parts of Utah and Nevada would be the sight of a continental proving ground for nuclear weapons. It became the first American Ground Zero. “Accidents Will Happen- By The Bombs Early Light.”Collage of appropriated images by Sally Edelstein

Rivaling the Grimm Brothers, one of the greatest stories told by the U.S. Government to its citizens  was the safety of the nuclear testing done in Nevada in the 1950’s.

Sally Edelstein “Accidents Will Happen- By the Bombs Early Light” Collage of appropriated images

Our government insisted that the spate of nuclear atmospheric testings in the American West were no more a danger than the new fangled TV transmissions racing through the sky. The Atomic Energy Commission  had decided that Utah and Nevada these “virtually uninhabited territory” would be the perfect site for Nuclear testing.

Most shrugged off the potential hazards of atmospheric testing especially the long-term danger.

In fact the danger lay in not doing the tests.

Most Americans agreed that the ultimate benefit of peace and security that only nuclear bombs would bring us was more than enough for the potential risk.

Alarmists

Sally Edelstein “Accidents Will Happen- By the Bombs Early Light” Detail. Collage of appropriated images

Of course there were outlandish allegations from some alarmists who attributed everything from rising cost of living to climate change, birth defects even throwing the very earth off its axis, to the tests.

The government debunked each of these fears.

Carefully crafted “friendly atom propaganda” appeared covering over much evidence of bombs harmful effects on human health.

It was, Uncle Sam said with a shrug, the same nervous Nellies who thought we should be concerned about the safety of DDT! Radiation was like taxes, not pleasant but you learned to live with it.

This was the most prodigiously reckless program of scientific experimentation in US history. Over the next 12 years, the governments nuclear cold warriors detonated 126 Atom Bombs into the atmosphere at the Nevada test sites. “There is no danger” Atomic Energy Commission assured the public. Like most Americans citizens most of the residents in the area just didn’t think their government could do any wrong. Years later when the cancers and leukemia appeared, their unquestioned faith in their government was shattered. These were American citizens referred to by their government as “low use segment of the population.” Sally Edelstein “Accidents Will Happen- By the Bombs Early Light” Detail. Collage of appropriated images

Our government had guaranteed us the safety of the testings and if you couldn’t trust the USA who could you trust?

Every school kid knew the father of our country George Washington would never tell a lie, and so a trusting public believed that our Uncle Sam’s word was as trustworthy as a boy scout.

With a ringing endorsement from the AEC confirming that Uncle Sam had taken all the necessary precautions to ensure our safety, the Nevada Test Site only 65 miles from Las Vegs became quite the attraction. Why some folks even made a family trip of it, catching Frank Sinatra at the Sands Hotel while they took in the sights at the Nevada Test Site.

Folks were encouraged to pack their Brownies and Coppertone and head west for a rip roarin’ good time. And if you forgot your Brownie Hawkeye at home not to worry; the experience would give you long lasting memories to relive again and again.

Nevada Test Site

Minutes before the first light of dawn on Jan 27, 1951 an Air Force B 50 Bomber dropped an atomic bomb on the desert west of Las Vegas. The flash of light awakened ranchers in northern Utah, the concussion shattered windows in Arizona; radiation swept across America contaminating as far as northern NY.  Sally Edelstein “Accidents Will Happen- By the Bombs Early Light” Detail. Collage of appropriated images

Thousands were flocking to Nevada to witness these bombs bursting in air.

Capturing the rugged flavor of the old west where the sky is not cloudy all day- except of course when the bomb goes off- the desert landscape became littered with lawn chairs and luncheon meat. Insulated tartan plaid coolers dotted the desert as sight seekers in pedal pushers and sunny summer separates made themselves comfortable for the countdown.

Before the first light of dawn, dazzled tourists, their hearts thumping in their newly purchased wash n wear resort wear, sleepy kids in their pajamas and Roy Rogers hats, gathered with ex-GI’s in Bermuda shorts wearing WWII issued anti-glare Ray Bans.

Rockets Red Glare

As the pink clouds drifted across the flat mesas, the shock waves booming against the chests a veil of radioactive particles floated over the test site. With the rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air, the heat from the blast stimulated a healthy radiant blush on the visitors, leaving them with an envied sunburned vacation glow.

Downwinders

We were still fairly innocent about Atomic Power in the early part of the decade. Few knew that by the late 1950s radioactive elements released in above ground bomb tests had traveled invisibly thousands of miles to land on grass American cows ate and so entered the milk American children drank. Sally Edelstein “Accidents Will Happen- By the Bombs Early Light” Detail. Collage of appropriated images

And for those folks who couldn’t make any of the 126 test detonated over 12 years, no worries.

The wind would carry the mushroom cloud downwind, dispersing radioactive elements over the purple mountains majesty, above the fruited plains, making you feel just like you had actually been there.

Accidents Will Happen

Sally Edelstein “Accidents Will Happen- By the Bombs Early Light” Detail. Collage of appropriated images

In 1961 Physicians for Social responsibility was founded by doctors concerned about the public health dangers associated with the testing and use of nuclear weapons.

Despite the government protestations of I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing, several serous health affects such as increased incidences of cancers, leukemia, thyroid diseases and congenital malformations have now been well documented to those citizens known as downwinders- individuals and communities exposed to radioactive contamination from nuclear weapon testing.

The irony of the Atmospheric testings is that the only victim of the US nuclear arms since WWII have been our own citizens.

 Accidents Will Happen – By the Bombs Early Light Collage will Be On View:

Embedded Messages, Debating the Dream: Truth, Justice & the American Way

University Art  Gallery at the University of Redlands. 1200 E Colton Ave, Redlands, CA 92373.

October 18 –November 12, 2016

Gallery hours: 1-5 pm Tuesday-Friday, 2-5 pm Saturdays and Sundays, Gallery is closed on Mondays.

Opening Reception:  Wednesday October 19, University  Art Gallery, 4:30-6:30 pm, Gallery Talk by the exhibiting artists at 5:15 pm

Prints are available: Sally Edelstein Collage

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Americans are worried…First they came for our tobacco, now are they coming for our sugary drinks?

This election has caused  panic among our citizens.

While many alarmed Americans are agitated, losing sleep over possible deportation, distressed over the state of their healthcare , control of their own bodies and basic civil rights, others are going into sugar shock at the very thought that soda, their beloved syrupy elixir, is being unfairly taxed.

Now that a soda tax  is in place in more than a 6 pack of American cities, some folks are alarmed.

be very afraid…soda taxes are coming for your 64 ounce liter of Dr Pepper.

While we grappled over the presidential election, a penny per ounce soda tax was passed in three different California cities this year (Oakland, San Francisco and Albany). Boulder Colorado  and Cook County, Illinois encompassing Chicago  passed similar measures joining Berkley in 2014 and Philadelphia this summer.

Super-Sized Americans

Sugar sweetened beverages are one of the major culprits in the obesity epidemic particularly among children.

The “good cheer” of Coke has come under blistering attack over the past several years  for its empty calories contributing to the obesity epidemic, high rates of diabetes and other health issues, especially among children,

The American Dream may have been downsized, but American’s ever expanding waistlines have clearly not been. Blame in no small part can go to our love affair with soda and penchant  for the super-sizing of our soft drinks.

Will Soda Fizzle Out?

“This young man is 11 months old – and he isn’t even our youngest customers by any means,” 7-Up crows in this 1955 advertisement. “For 7-Up is so pure, so wholesome you can give it to babies and feel good about it.”

The tax measure aimed at discouraging people from drinking soda naturally caused an outpouring of action from the beverage industry, worried that soda may be fizzled out of the American diet

Hardly.

Started on a slow drip at an early age, the soda industry has created and encouraged  a nation of addicts.

It was never too early to get your toddler hooked on the sweet stuff.

The trade organization American Beverage Association spent multi-millions of dollars to beat the soda tax, saturating the public with TV ads, full-page advertisements and flyers arguing it will be costly to consumers, calling the soda tax “discriminatory and highly unpopular.”

The powerful group got beaten back.

Big Soda, Big Lies

“Soft drinks are youngsters top favorite when it comes to cool refreshment, whether they’re little leaguers or teenagers. No matter what kind of container this billion dollar market likes best, remember Continental has the right soft drink package for you.” Continental Cans ad 1958

For almost 100 years the  American Beverage Association has been carefully coaxing us to drink their carbonated beverages.

It’s no accident that soda pop, as American as apple pie and equally as loaded with sugar,  has been a ubiquitous part of our diet for nearly as long

The American Beverage Association (ABA) the trade association that represents America’s non-alcoholic beverage industry was founded in 1919 as the American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages.

In 1919 there were about 600 bottlers who formed the association to provide a more unified voice before Congress and government.

Carbonated drinks have a number of “pet names” but only one high standard, we were told by the organization. “Up New England way some call for tonics and ginger ales. Park Avenue N.Y. might ask for “charged water,” and Parkville Tenn for “soda pop”…But just so the drink is carbonated and bottled you know it’s good and good for you.”

Within a few years they began an aggressive advertising campaign to promote the consumption of carbonated beverages  touting the healthful wholesomeness of their product…especially for America’s small fry.

 It’s Good and Good For  You

7-up was the family drink so wholesome you could share it with the kiddies, no matter the age..One 7-up ad proclaimed “so pure so good so wholesome for everyone including the tiniest of tots.” Vintage ad 1953

Unlike today when most nutritionists are saying soda poses risks to children’s health, once upon a time soda was marketed as a wholesome, refreshment for kids of all ages…the younger the better

The ads  run by the American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages relied on the esteemed  medical and academic communities to vouch for its healthfulness.

If fussy children were not getting enough liquids in their diet, not to worry Mama,  let them drink soda- pure water and nourishing sugar!  Mothers could rest assured,  soda was high in calories, at a time when calories had a positive connotation. In fact one ad  boasted of the beneficial high calorie content of soda that had more calories than fish, milk or vegetables. And what fun to drink.

“None is more palatable nor invigorating for you and your children. These health beckoning beverages are food as well as drink.”

“Good and good for you” was their motto for decades.  And good for their bottom line too.

No Fuss No Muss- A Simple Modern Approach

Vintage ad 1927 American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages

“Youngsters do not get sufficient liquids in their regular diet, ” begin this ad from 1927 . “Your family doctor will tell you there’s a simple modern remedy.”

Tempt the family’s thirst with the irresistibly delicious tang of Bottled carbonated beverages. Serve these taste tempting drinks right with the meal…”between times”…and for ever social occasion. Refreshing bottled beverages are made with pure water, nourishing sugar and wholesome flavors.

They’re good and good for you.

Children Enjoy the Tang of These Delicious Drinks

American Bottlers of Carbonated Beverages Vintage ad 1927

A feast for the few year olds! And the best of it is that these bottled carbonated beverages are not only good but good for them.

The food basis of these drinks-invert sugar –  is simply high-grade sugar made highly nourishing and pre digested by natural action in the drink itself.

In fact, Prof J.H. Buchanan, Iowa State College recently proved by test that bottled carbonated beverages contain more calories per pound than fish, fresh asparagus buttermilk, cabbage or carrots. Moreover, the pre-digested food in these soft drinks is instantly assimilated by the blood.

Besides the finest sugar, these good drinks contain pure water and wholesome taste tempting flavors. Perfect carbonation- possible only when the drink is bottled- adds the delightful tangy taste.

No other food product is handled with greater care for sanity and purity.

Keep a case of your favorite carbonated beverage always on hand, ready to serve for any occasion.

Wholesome

Vintage ad 1937 Canada Dry Ginger Ale

“Let the children have all they want,” advised this 1937  ad from Canada Dry Ginger Ale. “It’s wholesome and crystal pure.”

“Its gingervating,” the copy continued. “A sparkling glass of ginger ale cools you off to help pep you up…it’s a drink with a reason.”

Morning, noon or night was the right time for a carbonated beverage.

Of course it failed to mention that a 12 ounce serving of wholesome ginger ale has 31.84 grams of sugar which is equal to 8 teaspoons.

Sugar Rush

Vintage ad 1946 Corn products refining Company

Yes, it was never too early to  include sparkling soda in your diet.

And why not… sugary soda was considered energizing goodness.

“You burn up  lot of energy in today’s fast pace…make sure you get it back…with sugar. A drink of sugar is like recharging your batteries.”

Yup, there was no better way to get going than with good old dextrose.

Vintage illustration from Dextrose Sugar ad 1941

Like other food products, beverages were made better enriched with Dextrose sugar according to a series of ads run by the Corn Products Refining Company.

In the 1940’s a great deal of money in advertising was spent by the Corn Products Refining Company promoting the virtues of corn syrup, an inexpensive form of dextrose much favored by manufacturers.

Just as today the Corn Refiners are trying to re-brand High Fructose Corn Syrup as “corn sugar,” so 70 years ago the Corn Products Refining Company was fighting a similar battle to have sugar derived from corn accepted as a wholesome, nutritious ingredient, superior to old fashioned cane or beet sugar.

And they succeeded.

Dextrose became the new wonder nutrient touted for its energy giving properties. It was not just an ingredient or sweetener, it enriched food with the energy of the sun.

“The fizzing flavor and fragrance of pure soft drinks have captured America’s thirst to the tune of 40 million bottles a day-13 billion bottles a year,” the  copy to the 1946 Dextrose ad explained.

The key to its success?

Gratify

Vintage ad 1948

Smart for a teenage or grown up party is this attractive grouping of ice cold soft drinks. Perfect pairings salami cornucopias filled with creame cheese and chives.

Such popularity must be explained. Water merely satisfies-soft drinks gratify the thirst; provide refreshment, natural stimulation positive nutrition.”

Progressive bottlers use a blend of mildly sweet dextrose and sucrose ( both fine sugars) to achieve proper “body” without masking the true flavors o their popular beverages.

Dextrose adds real quick acting food energy the kind that makes “refreshment” a fact-not a catch phrase. Many fine beverages are today enriched with Dextrose enjoy their true energizing goodness!

Another  Dextrose ad from 1948 boasts:

The key to energy! There’s nothing soft about soft drinks! Vigor abounds in every bottle! Deep down energy that sparkles with tempting wholesome goodness.

Americans of all ages enjoy soft drinks bountifully… to the tune of 50 million bottles a day!

67  years later the average Americans now drinks 45 gallons of sugary drinks a year.

That’s progress!

Sweet Thought

For now, folks can relax as the rest of America still remains submerged in a syrupy sea of over sized soft drinks. It’s when that sugar shock wears off though, that they may be worry  and realize who they really voted for in this presidential election.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

My cold war childhood filled with cold war warriors could easily have turned hot if not for MAD… oh, and our nuclear policy of Mutually Assured Destruction too. Mad Magazine covers (L) Fidel Castro October 1963 (R) JFK October 1961

Though a half a century apart, November now marks the death of two Cold War icons.

Just four days after the anniversary of the assassination of President John Kennedy, his nemesis Cuba’s Communist leader Fidel Castro has died at age 90.

Both loomed large in my cold war childhood.

Any Communist foothold in our Hemisphere seemed an affront. Life Magazine June 2, 1961 Fidel Castro

It is hard to imagine today the dark shadow cast by Castro extended all the way to a suburban N.Y. child.

That the fear of communism represented by the bearded bombastic Fidel Castro on a small island 90 miles from Florida could so menace an entire hemisphere seems today almost inconceivable.

But panicked Americans were convinced Castro and his Communist cohorts were aiming to undermine the influence of the US and break ties with Latin America which was in the United States sphere of influence.

Communist control in Cuba it was feared would trigger similar uprisings throughout Latin America and so extend Soviet Influence.

More importantly, not only did Castro bring the cold war  to our hemisphere, he brought it right into our homes,

No more so than during the Cuban Missile Crisis, those harrowing 13 days in October 1962 when Castro and Khrushchev  nearly brought us to the brink of thermonuclear war.

It is a story I have never forgotten and it is worth remembering again.

Measle’s Crisis of October

There was a time when measles was all but wiped out

I didn’t know until years later that they called it the Cuban Missile Crisis. In my mind it would always be remembered as the “German Measles Crisis.”

It was late October, and trick or treating  was just a few short weeks away.

For that years Halloween my parents had picked out our Halloween costumes for my older brother Andy and I. There would be no glittering fairy princess with a magic wand for me. No ghosts or goblins for my brother.  No, my parents had something more ghoulish in mind.

Vintage Halloween mask Fidel Castro

Mom and Dad thought it a hoot to costume their children as Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev and Cuba’s very own Fidel Castro.What better way to keep a cold war chill in the air than to dress my brother and I as those 2 lovable cold war communist cut ups.

But as luck would have it, I came down with a nasty case of the measles.

The itchy red spots were spreading from my face to my body as quickly as Communist aggression was visualized on maps and films at school.

Those scary red splotches of Communism shown slithering around the globe, oozing over continents, a ready reminder that the Russians were hell-bent on world conquest, were a familiar feature in My Weekly Reader.

Now the measles red rash was on its own expansionist path with me.

German Measles

German Measles were goose-stepping across my ravaged body. (R) Vintage German Nazi Stamp “Victory at Any Price”

To make matters worse, I learned it wasn’t just plain old measles.

They were German Measles; Nazi measles goose-stepping across my ravaged body.

Despite having been born a full decade after the end of WWII, which in a child’s mind is an eternity, I was tormented by the very thought of Nazis.

I used to have nightmares that men in brown shirts, black jack boots, and wide Sam Browne belts, rank and file members of the Nazi Party would storm into my suburban ranch house, lustily humming the Nazi anthem Hort Wessel Song, brutally taking me away.

Now the Germans and their horrors fused with the Russians and their nuclear bombs, and there was nothing to stop the fiery red rash that was charging across my 7-year-old body.

Monday

House Calls

Monday, October 22 began as sunny clear day. A burnish of autumn on the sycamore trees that lined my suburban block made everything look peaceful and predictable.

But all was not quite on the Western Park Drive front.

Inside my house things were anything but peaceful; I awoke with a fever, sore throat, blotchy skin and the streaming morning light burned my watery, red-rimmed eyes.

My body was clearly sending out distress signals. With a sinking feeling about the telltale rash, Mom called the doctor.

Within the hour my pediatrician came to the house and confirmed the diagnosis.

The spots had Deutschland written all over them – German Measles – Rubella.

Solemnly my pediatrician Dr. King informed me that to prevent the spread of the very contagious disease, I would have to be quarantined.

Like a heat seeking missile, a careless sneeze, or an explosive cough could shoot troublesome germs in your direction at a mile a minute speed. In case they invaded the tissues of your throat, you could be in for a cold, or…worse.

I was to get back to bed mach schnell. And stay there.

Think Pink

Besides bed-rest, baby aspirin and fluids there was no cure. A big brown bottle of soothing Calamine lotion along with a suggestion to clip my fingernails to stop me from the inevitable scratching were the doctors best suggestions.

Not even the venerable Ben Casey could come to my rescue.

There was no debate about the merits of a vaccine because there were none. A vaccine would become available for measles in 1963, a rubella vaccine wouldn’t exist until the end of the decade.

The Longest Day

Mom had already had her longest day dealing with the measles crisis when the Cuban Missile Crisis was announced. (R) Headline of NY Daily News announcing the Cuban blockade

October 22 was also my parent’s 12th wedding anniversary.

They had planned on going to the movies that evening to see “The Longest Day”, that star-studded spectacle about D Day the Normandy invasion.

But now that our normally germ-proof home had itself been invaded with a contagious disease, plans were promptly cancelled.

John Wayne would have to wait.

Besides which my parents were anxious to watch President Kennedy’s live broadcast on television that evening.

Panic Goes Viral

President John Kennedy addressed the nation of the Cuban Missile Crisis on television

At noon while Mom was preparing lunch, JFK’s press secretary Pierre Salinger had made a dramatic announcement that the president would speak that night “on a matter of the highest national urgency.”

The crisis that was brewing in Cuba that had begun a week earlier had been kept top-secret. Now with rumors circulating, there was a nearly unbearable sense of foreboding and tension.

Across the country while American’s eyes would be fixed on their TV sets gripped in the most intense moment of recent history, I was confined to my bedroom without a TV. At a loss, I trained my ears to tune in to the console playing in the living room.

We Interrupt This Program…

At 7:00, I could hear the TV announcer from the popular game show based on the game charades saying: “Stump the Stars will not be seen tonight so that we can bring you this special broadcast….”

Along with 50 million other Americans my parents listened in pin-drop silence as President Kennedy spoke about Cuba.

Sitting behind his desk, a solemn President Kennedy got right to the point. This was no time to play charades.

He grimly announced to a shocked nation that Russia had sneaked missiles into Cuba just 90 miles from Florida. Along with the Offensive Missiles, Khrushchev had deployed bombs and 40,000 Soviet troops.

Fidel Castro welcomed them with open arms.

The alarming evidence from photographs showed that nearly every city from Lima, Peru to Hudson Bay, Canada would lie within push button range of thermonuclear bombs in Cuba.

Panic was about to go viral

Every major US city would lie within push button range of thermonuclear bombs in Cuba.

“To halt this offensive build up,” a determined Kennedy said, “a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment to Cuba is being initiated.” The Navy’s mission was to block the flow of Russian weapons to Cuba.

Like me, the Russians would have a quarantine imposed on them but Dad wasn’t convinced this was the best tactic. It might work for preventing the spread of the measles but not for the missiles. If Russians didn’t withdraw the missiles as demanded, a U.S. pre-emptive strike against the launch site was inevitable.

The United States would not shrink from the threat of nuclear war to preserve the peace and freedom of Western Hemisphere, Kennedy said firmly.

The President’s voice faded away as my parents grimly turned to another channel to watch “I’ve Got a Secret.”

Struggling with the ramifications of what they just heard, the longest day was about to get a lot longer.

A Rash Decision

Temperatures were rising as the Cold War heated up. (R) JFK clashed with some military advisers about invading Cuba. After criticizing Kennedy’s call to blockade Cuba as too weak a response, General Curtis LeMay Air Force Chief of Staff (seated closest to JFK in photo) told the President that his refusal to invade Cuba was a mistake and would encourage the Soviets to move on Berlin. Photo by Abbie Rowe National Archives

As the cold war heated up so did my fever, and I was wracked with chills.

Despite being doused with great blotches of pink calamine lotion I was struggling not to scratch the angry rash that was invading my body.

Hot and bothered, the US military were having the same problem.

Just itching to go to war, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had to restrain themselves from scratching that very dangerous itch.

The Soviets had crossed the line. They had come into our Hemisphere, their nuclear warheads aimed directly at us and we had to make sure they didn’t strike first. The time had come for a direct military showdown with the Soviet Union.

Luckily cooler heads prevailed.

We Can Work it Out?

JFK and Khrushchev arm wrestling for power as they sit astride nuclear weapons in this Oct 29, 1962 cartoon.

On Wednesday, when Soviet ships changed course rather than make contact with the naval blockade, there was some relief.

No new weapons were being shipped to Cuba. But Hi-ho-hi-ho it was off to work they go as industrious red dwarfs continued to work day and night on the existing missiles which would soon be operational.

The pressure on the President to order an air strike or an invasion was mounting.

As the tension grew, many atomic armchair strategists felt strongly that the best defense was offense – get ‘em before they hit us. “If the Russian offensive build up continued, Kennedy would have no choice but to unleash the mighty US force,” Dad remarked  gravely.

Russian nuclear retaliation would be inevitable.

Going on the Defensive

Short of building a fallout shelter, there was little anyone could do about the missile crisis, but it was all out war on the measles at my home. (L) Vintage booklet “Fallout Protection Kit” for your shelter

An air of crisis hung over the country.

Short of building a fallout shelter, there was little anyone could do about the missile crisis, but it was all out war on the measles at my home.

Prepared to do battle, Mom took the offensive with the pre-emptive striking power of Lysol, Lestoil and Listerine, to immobilize and incapacitate any rogue germs. There was a full frontal attack on dirt – every counter every surface in the house was scoured and sanitized, hands were washed and rewashed until skin wrinkled and puckered.

School Daze

A Page out of history (L) Vintage illustration from “Our Country Historical Color Book” 1958 depicting the Atomic Blast at Hiroshima

With the containment policy strictly enforced, the days passed slowly for me but I busied myself with Colorforms, Crayolas and coloring books.What better way to pass the crisis than coloring in a picture of the Atomic Blast at Hiroshima in my American History Coloring Book.

Barricaded in my bedroom, I could still hear the ominous sound of the air raid drill alarm ringing every few hours at West Hempstead High School a few blocks away. I could picture all the frightened school kids jumping out of their desks as I had done countless times, kneeling underneath desks, hands clasped behind necks, eyes closed waiting for that imminent flash.

I had little sense how school officials were currently scurrying to make all sorts of contingency plans for what seemed like the possibility of a real attack.

Several years earlier, my school district had developed a plan for evacuating elementary school kids in the event of a threatened enemy air raid upon N.Y.C. We had been issued plastic dog tags with our picture and address on it that we were to wear in case of an attack.

School Day drills (R) In a photograph published in Colliers Magazine June 1952, schoolchildren in Nevada practice what they have been told to do in case of an Atomic attack:lie flat on the ground, shield their eyes with one arm and protect their head with the other arm

On Thursday my fifth grade brother brought home a printed permission slip for my parents to sign, allowing students to participate in a practice walk-home air raid drill.

In case of emergency it was thought better to be incinerated at home rather than at school.

Irritable and impatient as only a sick 7-year-old could be, I was deeply disappointed that I would miss out on the fun of the walk home drill. Pleading with Mom to let me out of my sick room long enough to view the march, I wistfully watched from the living room window as my classmates, lined up in size order, earnestly paraded down my deserted block.

The loud roar of an overhead jet temporarily distracted me.

Anxiously I scanned the blue skies from our picture window for an enemy attack, as though it were WWII and I were a spotter standing on a rooftop scanning the skies for the sight of a Japanese flag painted on the belly of the aircraft.

I was too young to comprehend the total annihilation of nuclear war. All I knew was, we were to be prepared. I knew a nuclear attack could occur any time anyplace any day. Would this be the day?

My parents would shake their heads, as they watched me but neither of them had the heart to tell me what they already knew – that now, by the time you eyed the enemy…it was already too late.

Tossin’ and Turnin’

By Saturday I had taken all the orange flavored St. Joseph aspirin that I could, yet my fever had still not broken. Along with the shivering and shaking, there was a whole lot of tossin and turnin’ as the red splotches of German Measles continued their assault goose-stepping across my body.

A vaporizer had been brought in to help with the breathing and between the fog and my feverish delirium, disparate sounds and thoughts merged in my mind, as I drifted between states of fractured foggy wakefulness and fitful sleep.

Have Gun Will Travel

Blending with the hushed anxious tones of my parents, the shrill, ear-piercing, buzzing signals on the radio during the CONELRAD broadcasting system tests and the ominous news bulletins, were the incessant commercials constantly blaring on TV…

“…..And now a word from our sponsor… This is only a test…In a world threatened by thermonuclear holocaust…. it’s new…. its different….it….gives the surest protection-the new Missiles with Gardol, wonderful new Anti-Russian fighter forms an invisible shield of radioactivity around them….They can’t feel it – taste it – see it – but its protection won’t rinse off or wear off all day, just like New Pepsodent…..

“…Don’t settle for wishy -washy conventional weapons….New deep penetrating Thermonuclear Bombs bring speedy relief from Reds…. Goes in-goes in fast….help restore restful democracy, relieves pesky Russian interference…

“Yes, fast acting Ajax the white tornado…. Ajax missiles kill millions of people associated with Communism, ..Reaches all infected areas in minutes….shrinks populations, restores free way of life. An exclusive anti communist Ingredient….That’s all there is to it…

“…This is not a test…we now return to Have Gun Will Travel…If this had been an actual emergency ….. take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning…”

As hot as I was with fever I knew things were only going to get a lot hotter once this thermonuclear war began.

On Sunday morning my fever broke and Moscow announced their decision to dismantle the missiles and return to sender. I wouldn’t understand until years later that the Russians backed off or as Dean Rusk was to famously say “We were eyeball to eyeball and they blinked first.”

Though my fever and measles eventually healed, the cold war chill I caught that week would never leave me.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Critical Care

As the halls of Congress morph into a Critical Care Unit, the GOP’s prescription “to preserve our freedom” appears to be to pull the plug on Obamacare- STAT!

Although some Republicans overt hysterics appear to have gone into temporary remission, the bilious rage against the Affordable Care Act escalates.

Festering for 4 years, the scorn Republicans have felt for Obamacare  has blown up into an ugly, raging boil. The repeal fights are bound to be bloody as the GOP are doing their best to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

Repeal without replacement is just plain bad medicine. Snatching away health care from as many as 30 million people is poor prescription for good health.

A Bitter Pill to Swallow

Health Insurance Heartburn (L) Vintage Pepto Bismol Ad 1957 (R) Vintage illustration from 1955 Insurance Ad

The health care crisis in America has a long troubling history, the bitter debate about Federally Funded Insurance, persistent.

For decades, Republicans have suffered from Chronic Obstructive Healthcare Syndrome, a debilitating disease characterized by acute agitation, myopic vision, paranoid delusions, ultimately devolving into a state of delirium.

The seemingly incurable disease first presented itself during the health care debate in the late 1940’s when President Harry Truman, a staunch supporter of  National Health Insurance, argued before Congress that the federal government should play a role in health care.

Cries of “socialism” reverberated in the halls of Congress, and the histrionics we now associate with  Chronic Obstructive Healthcare Syndrome began to appear like a bad rash.

Socialized Medicine

Vintage illustration from 1944 Advertisement

In the chilly climate of the Cold War lawmakers wanted to make sure that the US would not catch a bad case of socialized medicine.

Because America was on red alert, opponents  to Compulsory Health Insurance were able to make socialized medicine a symbolic issue in the growing crusade against Communist influence in America

The revered leader of the Republican party in domestic affairs, Senator Robert Taft was dead set against National Health Insurance.

In his cool, Ohio twang Taft declared gravely, “I consider it socialism. It is to my mind the most socialistic measure this Congress has ever had before it.” Taft suggested that Compulsory Health Insurance, like the Full Unemployment Act, came right out of the Soviet Constitution and promptly walked out of the Congressional hearings.

It’s a Medical Fact

But no one was more vehemently opposed to National Health Insurance than the American Medical Association.

The idea of compulsory National Health Insurance ran afoul of the AMA one of the most powerful lobbies in the country. The AMA hired public relations firm Whitaker & Baxter to organize it’s opposition, running ads like this one in all the major magazines. The headline in this 1950 ad ask “Who runs America? The Congress? The President? Or You the man next door?” Painting a lurid picture of life under Socialism they concluded that “In the American manner, the people studied the case for socialized medicine and the case against it and they found that the government domination of the peoples medical affairs under Compulsory Health Insurance means a lower standard of medical care, higher taxes, damage to research, penalties for the provider, rewards for the improvident.”

Determined the NHI would be DOA, the AMA poured millions of dollars successfully lobbying congress, and waging a massive slanderous public relations campaign forever entangling compulsory health insurance with that cold war boogeyman Communism.

Your Doctor Knows Best

Vintage illustration of the Family Doctor by Norman Rockwell from Upjohn Advertisement 1943

Mid Century doctors were at the pinnacle of authority figures, riding the tide of unquestioning devotion.

So in 1948 when 32-year-old Frank Goodfellow went for his annual checkup,  he took the expert advise of his genial family doctor  Richard “Dick” Lawson very seriously. Nodding in agreement when Dr Lawson advised him to beef up his daily intake of heart-healthy, AMA-approved rich red meat, Frank listened implicitly as the good doctor spoke about health care and freedom in America.

Health Care Crisis Giving You a Headache? Vintage photo from Anacin Advertisement 1962

Though Frank was in the pink of health, a gnawing, debilitating tension ate at him.

Like many Americans in the 1948 presidential election year, Frank was confused about the battle brewing in between the 2 parties concerning Presidents Truman’s proposed National Health Insurance.

After more than a decade of New Deal Democrats, in 1946 the Republicans had finally taken control of Congress and had no interest in enacting Compulsory Health Insurance charging it was a socialist scheme. Now that Truman was up for reelection, the President  was pushing hard for the health care bill, his opponents fighting back even harder charging the possibility of its passage would result in dire consequences to the health of the nation.

Perplexed, Mr Goodfellow  turned to his trusted family doctor  for some help.

.After listening to Frank’s account of his concerns, Dr Dick-as he was affectionately known-leaned back in his comfortable cordovan leather chair, put a fresh match to the pipe he was smoking and grew thoughtful. Removing his glasses he came right to the point:

Compulsory health insurance was, simply put…un-American!

The Voluntary Way is the American Way

Could it Happen Here? Threat of socialized medicine instilled fear of lost freedoms
(L) Vintage Ad Wyeth Drugs 1944 (R) Vintage Cold War propaganda comic “Is This Tomorrow? America Under Communism” a 48 page cautionary tale of how easy it would be for Communists to take over the US. It was published to “make you more alert to the menace of Communism”

Socialized medicine or anything that even looked or smelled like socialized medicine gave Dr. Richard Lawson the chills and fever.

Reaching across his big oak desk, Dr. Dick handed  Frank a pamphlet put out by the AMA entitled “A threat to health – a threat to freedom!”

The good doctor put on his reading glasses and read aloud from the brochure:

“Freedom is coming under attack,” he began solemnly. “In much of the world today the people have resigned from running their own countries. Others have been quick to step in- first with the promises of security and then with whips and guns- to run things their way. The evidence is on every front page in the world everyday.”

Frank grimaced in agreement as he took a long drag from his cigarette.

“The reality of war has made every American think hard about the things he’s willing to work and fight for- and freedom leads the list.”

The doctor looked up from his reading, giving former Private First Class Goodfellow time to absorb what he had been saying.

L) Vintage illustration from 1948 Park Davis &Co. advertisement (R) Illustration from Boys Life Magazine 1963

“But that freedom has been attacked here recently just as it has been attacked in other parts of the world.” To emphasize the point, the doctor read slowly: “One of the moist serious threats to individual freedom has been the threat of Government dominated Compulsory Health Insurance, falsely presented as a new guarantee of health “security” for everybody.”

Leaning in close, his face flushed with determination, Dr Dick, somberly explained the grave consequences of such an act as spelled out by the AMA..

“Would socialized medicine lead to socialization of other phases of life? Lenin thought so. He declared socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.”

Putting the down the brochure, Dr Lawson appeared to brush a tear from his eye.

Like all good standing members of the AMA,Dr. Dick  believed that compulsory health care would limit physician autonomy and income and cause doctors to “become clock watchers and slaves of a system.”

“It is my business to keep you healthy Frank,” he said sadly, the plume of pipe smoke forming a blue haze around him, “but with this alien way of life, of socialism doctors would be mere slaves.”

Diagnosis: Disaster

Is There a doctor in the House? Unable to resuscitate the badly bruised National Health Insurance bill, it died an unremarkable death in the Congressional committee. Vintage Illustration by Phil Dormont Saturday Evening Post 1944

With the same agility and shrewdness he had diagnosed Franks bursitis, Dr Dick went on to dissect the cancer that would be striking at the very heart of American freedom- Compulsory Health Insurance, the first step towards Communism.

“Communism,” he stated firmly, “was invading our shores.”

Communists were like cancer cells Dr Lawson skillfully explained to Frank, “a monster gone berserk. Relentlessly increasing their numbers, cancerous Communists proceed to crowd out healthy societies and begin to steal from the normal countries around them.”

Driving home the point the dedicated doctor continued. “Communists, like germs lived amongst us undetected and could attack and infiltrate anytime. If you were invaded by germs you could end up in an iron lung- if you were infiltrated y Communism you could end up behind the iron curtain. If we had socialized medicine we were one step closer to being enslaved.

Squirming uneasily in his chair, his legs sticking uncomfortably to the seat covered in plastic Fabrilite, Frank Goodfellow shook his head. “It sounds awful,” he said slowly breathing hard. There was more perspiration on his forehead and the color of his glowing pink skin seemed pale and drained of color.

Leaning forward in his chair, Dr Lawson concluded.“Keeping thing as they were was the only cure for a healthy America.”

“The American health system,” Dr Lawson diagnosed conclusively “didn’t need any curing.”

A country consumed with anti communist sentiment, shrouded in suspicion apparently agreed. Unable to resuscitate the badly bruised National Health Insurance bill, it died an unremarkable death in the Congressional committee.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Who’s Afraid of the Stork? asks this 1951 vintage ad for Lederle a Division of American Cyanamid Company. “The stork is now as tame as a household pet,” it boasts, explaining how safe childbirth has become thanks to new drugs.

Like today, a mid-century gal’s maternity cares were best placed in the hands of knowledgeable men. When it came to birthin’ babies,  a testosterone driven doctor and his pharmaceutical pals knew best.

In the cold war world of convenience, the idea of painful natural childbirth was a thing of the past.

When it came time for my own March 28th birth, my mid-century Mother  like millions of other pregnant gals, would never have dreamed of giving birth without the help of pain-eliminating, memory erasing -miracle drugs.

The American Way of Birth- (L) collage by Sally Edelstein (R) illustration of a baby’s birth from the pamphlet “The Story About You” 1966 American Medical Association

Every lady-in-waiting circa 1955 knew that they would have an easier time than other mothers before them. Having a baby in that push-button- age of jet propulsion was a snap! No Fuss No Muss! “This is going to be fun” – the baby experts cheered. “As of now, the whole business of having babies was taking on an exhilarating new atmosphere.”

A simple, take-it easy atmosphere; a modern atmosphere.

But Birthin’ Babies was serious business and my mother Betty made sure she was prepared for “Operation-Baby.”

If ever there was a time for optimism it was now.

The days of painful deliveries were as old as yesterday’s horse and buggy. Modern childbirth was a miracle of conveniences. This was the modern atomic age and the idea of an agonizing delivery was blown to smithereens.

Though there was some talk about “natural childbirth” promoted by French physician Dr Ferdinand Lamaze, for most gals that was a foreign concept. “The patient,” reasonable American doctors were quick to point out, “who was interested in ”participating in her own childbirth experience was probably infantile neurotic and downright delusional.”

A “progressive” neighbor had lent Mom a copy of the book, “Childbirth Without Fear” that explained the benefits of a natural, drug free childbirth. Not for my Mom. “I want my doctor putting me to sleep before I feel my first pain. That’s what I call “without fear” – to know nothing!”

In post war America, natural childbirth was almost un-American. (L) Vintage Magazine Ladies Home Journal 1948 women and children of Soviet Union (R) Illustration from “The Story About You” 1966 pamphlet by American Medical Association to help in assisting parents of children in grades 4,5,& 6 in explaining sex education

A Cold War Pregnancy

Betty considered natural childbirth downright dangerous, primitive and frankly un-American.

Maybe for some poor unfortunate Soviet woman shackled by communism, who had spent her pregnancy lifting great chunks of rubble and iron, laying bricks, hoisting timbers, swinging picks and sledge hammers who probably had to give birth in a potato field and then head back to her job in the factory, it was okay, but why would anyone go back to those pre-chloroform days?

The combination of drugs – one to deaden pain, the other an eraser of memory, promised to end the drudgery of childbirth. It was half the effort half the time.

“Designed for ease of living, it was a leisure giving convenience.”

But whose ease, whose convenience? Golf- enthusiast obstetricians welcomed it because it gave them more control over the screaming, laboring woman, and more control of teeing off on time. Mama has no knowledge of what occurs between the time she is given the injection and several hours later when its effect wears off. “And once you try it, Doctors smiled, “we think you’ll say “How did I ever manage without it?”

Vintage ad Upjohn for pain-free birth

 Post War Pharmaceuticals

Since Mom had no memory of my older brothers’ birth, the obstetrician gave her a booklet that described the miracle of birth: It was like magic, she thought-pull a baby out of your hat-presto!

In successful cases, the patient soon falls into a deep quiet sleep. When the patient wakes up the obstetrician is rewarded by hearing her ask: “Doctor, when am I going to have my baby?” The quickest way I know to prove that the child is already born is to guide the patients hand to her own abdomen. Puzzled she seeks for the familiar mountainous lump; when she finds it gone, the silliest happiest grin steals across her face.

 After all the Doctor reassures her, she is very likely to spend a half a century with her child, and missing the first few hours of their association is a very brief fragment of the whole. For her, the temporary separation from reality at such a time through the boon of safe analgesia and anesthesia, is a welcome goal. Certainly if you tell your teenage daughter 15 years hence that you had her with medicated childbirth, she could not care less!’

Moments to Remember

(R) Vintage Book “The Wonderful Story of How You Were Born” 1952 Doubleday by Sidonie Gruenberg illustrations by Hildegarde Woodward(L) Photo of minutes old Baby Life Magazine 1953

 My All American Mom had an all American delivery. Thoroughly up to date, she was thoroughly sedated, and fastidiously prepped for “the operation.”

Lying flat on her back on the surgical table, they strapped her feet in stirrups to make sure that she wasn’t going anywhere in case she changed her mind, while her wrists were securely tied to the sides of the table to prevent her from touching the sterile drapes when they were applied.

Naturally she was continually drugged. It was all within the bounds of the Geneva Convention, she was assured.

My very last meal while still in the womb, the one meant to carry me through my big break out to freedom was a healthy dose of -“I don’t know what I’d do without it – Demerol” and “I don’t remember nuthin’ bout birthin’ no babies – Scopolamine,” the preferred aperitif for the boomer baby.

And where is Dad in all this?

My father, like all the other fathers-to-be is nowhere near any of this.

Togetherness was terminated at the delivery door.

But unlike most of the other nervous, expectant fathers who were sent to the waiting room to pace and hand out cigars, my father retreated back home and went back to sleep. But that was okay because my mother was sleeping soundly herself.

Unlike today when a baby’s birth is Instagramed ’round the world, no one but me would remember my birth.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Hand on Dad

How do we make America great again? Burn, baby, burn!

Yes, it’s time to make coal great again!

Wave a white flag; we are ending the long war on coal. Though of course the next time we wave a flag in surrender it’s bound to be a bit soiled from all the air pollution.

As President Trump rolls back those pesky Obama era policies on global warming, let’s just roll back in time, when coal was king and the phrase climate change innocently meant a welcome change of seasons. An innocent time when  greenhouse gas emissions were the furthest thought from our black lungs and  fossil fuel soaked minds.

Coal Can Help Make a Better Future for America

Vintage ad Bituminous Coal Institute 1944. “Experience says…Burn Coal. Every time most people switch on a light, listen to the radio or use a percolator or any electrical appliance they are burning bituminous coal. For most electric power comes from coal- which means of course bituminous coal. It is Americas No 1 public energy- America’s most important source of heat and power. And knowing this, the men who operate the bituminous coal mines have a keen sense of responsibility to the nation their customers and to the men who work for them.”

In Trump’s backwards thinking where the future is viewed through the lens of the past, dismantling the Clean Power Plan and reviving the coal industry will, he assures us, help make America great again and leader of the free world.

But by returning to the past Trump is recklessly running over future generations. Like so many of his pledges he promises a future based on the past.

Sure, coal helped make America great that is if you were living in the last century, that idyllic time period Trump seems to want us to return to.

You Can Count on Coal

You Can Count on Coal! American’s benefited every day in every way from the coal industry. Vintage ads 1950-1952 Bitminous Coal Institute

By mid-century coal not only gave America light and power it gave us all kinds of consumer abundance that helped make America the gold sooty standard of living in the world.

Once upon a time, coal was king and powered the progress of America. Post war America was the envy of the world because of all the bounty provided by the miracle of coal.

Especially bituminous coal. By far most of America’s heat, light and power came from bituminous coal.

To reinforce the vital role coal played in Americas growing economy, the Bituminous Institute, an arm of the coal industry, ran advertising campaigns including slick full color ads glorifying the coal industry and the contributions it made to modern civilization. These ads were deigned to make coal not only patriotic but essential to the American way.

The consumer way

Bituminous Coal…lights the way…powers the progress of America

You Can Count on Coal! What they didn’t count on was the air pollution that would cover American cities, the rise in pre-mature deaths, and the prevalence of lung cancer. Vintage ad 1952 Bituminous Coal Institute

It’s difficult to name anything Americans build, buy, or use that doesn’t take coal,” began this 1952 ad from the Bituminous Coal Institute.

The electricity that runs your lights, your TV sets, all your modern appliances depend on coal…for 70% of the fuel used by America’s utilities is coal. And the steel that goes into your auto, and your refrigerator, your son’s bike and your dishwasher takes coal to make – for coal is an essential ingredient of steel on a ton for ton basis.

And thousands upon thousands of the fine products that make our American standard of living the highest in the world are manufactured with power generated from coal.

Coal Fuels the American Dream

“To Make a Dream Homes Come True” painted by artist Rockwell Kent in 1945 from a series commissioned by the Bituminous Coal Institute  to sell America on the benefits of coal. The ‘spirit’ of coal, referred to as the ‘Coal Genie,’ that appeared in the ads, hovered over some aspect of American life that was seen as benefiting from the industry. In this he hovers over a future housing development benefiting from coal heating.

The American Dream home owed so much to coal.

The Bituminous Institute’s many ads demonstrated the promise of coal as the energy source for post war America. By the late 1940’s fossil fuels like gas and oil were beginning to give king coal a run for its money due to their increased availability and lower prices so consumers began to gradually switch to that as a home heating fuel. These ads strengthened the reputation of the coal industry, reinforcing the many advantages of bituminous coal in their daily lives.

It was important too, that to provide all that plenty, there was plenty of coal.

“So it’s important to everyone that Americas coal industry is the world’s most efficient – that America has enough coal in the ground to supply all the heat, light and power we need for centuries to come!” the ads reassured the reader.

Coal Feeds the Furnace of Progress

Vintage ad Bituminous Coal Institute 1946

Behind that white picket fence (lightly covered in coal soot) Mrs. America benefited from coal in countless ways, the reader learns in this 1946 ad. From headaches to housekeeping, coal contributed to ease of modern living.

Yes, Mrs. America, an amazing number of the everyday things you live with, use, depend on – come from Bituminous Coal. Dyes to color your clothing, curtains, rugs, upholstery…wonderful synthetics fabrics such as nylons…paints and varnishes for woodwork and furniture. In most homes electricity generated from coal supplies lights – runs the radio, telephone, vacuum cleaner, sewing machine.

Of course m’ lady might have to dust and vacuum daily from all the coal dust.

Hundreds of medicines including the marvelous lifesaving sulfas come from coal! So do moth balls, perfumes antiseptics, aspirin and many other drugs. Also cosmetics and plastics for toothbrushes, combs, fixtures. Paper as well as long list of chemicals depend on coal. And of course you know 4 out of every 7 homes in America are dependably and economically heated by coal.

Have a headache? Reach for aspirin, made possible by coal-tar. For the source of aspirin and many other pharmaceuticals is phenol, a coal-tar derivative which is a jack of all trades of modern industrial chemistry.

And you’ll need all the medicine you can get if you develop respiratory problems from the coal dust

In the kitchen gas made from coal may fuel your range. Chances are electricity from coal runs your refrigerator toaster mixer and other appliances. Many food flavorings come from coal!

For the outside of your home coal makes roofing material, fertilizers, and weed killers for lawn. In fact over 200,000 useful products depend on coal and thousands of them are used around the home.

Just careful cooking up some mercury laden fish caught fresh from the lakes near that coal-fired power plant.

Countless Benefits Come from Coal

Vintage ad Bituminous Coal Institute 1945

From lipstick to that smartly tailored frock, the well dressed, well accessorized gal owed it all to coal. American women say-“Thanks for Coal!” Get ready for some real wolf whistles, missy!

Fashions from coal are a bright promise for the near future.

Already we have marvelous nylons- made of coal air and water! Even more amazing fabrics are in development…and of course the manufacture of nearly everything you wear depends on machines which mean steel-which means coal. Electricity generated from coal supplies most industrial power and light,

Practically every stitch you wear owes something to coal!

Nearly all textile dyes are derived from coal. Dozens of chemicals and resins obtained from coal are needed to process or finish fabrics- give them gloss, stiffness, or body- or to make them crease proof, waterproof or shrink proof. From coal comes plastics for dress buttons, ornaments, shoes, heels.

Accessories to match also owed much to coal.

Colors for lipsticks nail polish, scents for perfumes. Plastics for costume jewelry, handbag frames, compacts…all together more than 200,000 useful products depend on coal- and many of them are used to glorify America’s women.

Naturally our fashion plate might not want to hang that frock out to dry especial if she lived in the east or an urban area.

The Down to Earth Facts about Coal

Yes for dependability you can count on coal….to give you black lung. Across Appalachia, coal miners are suffering from the most serious form of the deadly mining disease-black lung in large numbers.

Yes sir, you could count on coal!

Coal may have been “a faithful servant of civilization” or so the ads told us, but this servant also had a dark, dangerous and sooty side that was glossed over in these ads.

Yup, you could count on coal all right…for health problems. Respiratory problems, reduction of life expectancy, hospital admissions, black lung from coal dust, congestive heart failure, chronic bronchitis, asthma attacks, global warming, ecosystem loss and degradation.

The bituminous coal featured in these ads is a type of coal known for releasing the largest amounts of firedamp, a dangerous mixture of gases like methane that can cause underground explosions. Extraction of bituminous coal demands the highest safety procedures involving attentive gas monitoring good ventilation and vigilant site management.

The down to earth facts are coal causes cancer and air pollution.

Capt. Air pollution was severe in many urban areas of the US in the first half of the 20th century in part due to burning of bituminous coal for heat.

Fuels Rush In- Magical Thinking

“There’s magic in coal. Now science has learned to rub a lump of coal the right way too produce a myriad of new and better products ranging from synthetic rubber to sulfa drugs and cosmetics. Vintage ad 1945

“There’s magic in coal,” this 1945 ad proclaims. Perhaps that’s where Trump’s magical thinking comes from. That lifting restrictions  will bring back jobs and give us  “clean coal.”

From the notion of “clean coal”  to bringing back jobs, no amount of rubbing Aladdin’s lamp is going to make this magic come true.

The US coal industry and the jobs that support it have been in decline for decades as a result of environmental concerns, automation in mining, and slowdowns in manufacturing industries that burned coal for power. (L) Vintage illustration coal miners 1948 (R) Coal miners rally for black lung law reform on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in 1975. Picture courtesy Earl Dotter

It’s a false promise. Even if coal production comes back the jobs probably won’t. Like every industry coal invests heavily in automation so that it can do more with fewer people.

It is also an outdated understanding of the role, image and actual competitive position of coal in today’s marketplace.  It won’t suddenly and magically persuade a range of people to use a dirty and comparatively expensive fuel to create electricity when they have other better options.

Coal Puts So Many Good Things Into Your Life

Coal Puts so Many Good Things in Your Life. Other than putting cash in corporate pockets, demolishing a wide array of Obama era policies on global warming is a disaster for the health of Americans and the environment. Air pollution produced by coal combustion act on the respiratory system contributing to serious effects including asthma, lung disease and cancer and adversely affecting development in children. L) X-ray of black lung, (c)  vintage ad 1948 McNally Pittsburg Coal Plants (R) air pollution NYC 1960s

Trump is prioritizing corporate profits over the well-being of people. Burning coal is the single greatest contributor of human-created, climate-altering, civilization-threatening greenhouse gases.

Dismantling the Clean Power Plan endangers families and our planet.

Like many of Trumps broken promises, that’s one thing you can count on.

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Plugged Into the American Dream

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2017. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Turn on a tan, you great big beautiful baby you!”

Summer and tanning is deeply burned into me…literally.

Though I no longer sport the deeply burnished Bain de Soliel St. Tropez tan of my twenties nor the beloved bronze glow of the Johnson’s baby oil tan of my teens, I still belong to that dying breed of unabashed sun worshipers in search of that holy grail – the perfect golden tan.

I grew up “letting the sun do its thing.”

And for good reasons. I’ve been over exposed not only to the sun and its rays but to the oversold benefits of tanning from the time I was a baby.

Once upon a time, in the fairy tale era of Mad Men America a “healthy tan” was not considered an oxymoron. In those pre SPF days our only worry was painful sunburn, but a cooling spritz of Solarcaine put a smile on your face making you good as new, ready to bound on back to the beach.  After all, who wanted to be a Paleface?

A Lifetime of Tanning

In the sunny optimistic world of mid-century America, sun was a health tonic for everyone.

And for baby boomers it was never too early to start a lifetime of tanning.

“For years out our American manufacturers have prevented people from getting products mixed up by identifying them prominently with brand names and trademarks. Under our system of brand names and advertising it’s easy to recognize the brand we want without risk of substitution.” Vintage ad 1948 Brand names Foundation

In fact in the late 1940’s some red, white, and blue American babies were purposely given a good sunburn right from birth. Since suntans were considered harmless some newborns were purposely given a sunburn immediately after birth as a way to identify them.

And no those babies weren’t part of the Nevada Test Site where Atomic blasts spread radiant sunshine throughout the southwest.

Apparently baby’s footprints were no longer sufficient in identification.

For those humane hospitals that refused to use actual branding irons, a quartz sunlamp was used to print baby’s name right on junior’s back. It was all part of good ol’ American branding, as explained in this 1948 ad from Brand Names Foundation:

Back several years ago it was fairly common to read about babies getting mixed up in the hospital.

But not anymore. Now hospitals footprint the infants and some even sunburn the name on juniors back with a quartz lamp- just to make sure that babies go home with the right set of parents.

 

Dr Spock coaxed young babies to join the tan-ables and get the best of the sun including a tan that was rich and flattering. “Direct sunshine contains important ultra violet rays which create Vitamin D right in the skin”, Dr. Spock explained. “There may be other beneficial effects of sunshine which have not yet been discovered.”Of course it would be decades before the other effects of sunshine would be discovered. Vintage Coppertone Girl

Lucky for me my first suntan took place at the beach.

Born in the spring, it was just in time for me to take the beneficial rays of sunshine right away.

The sun’s rays were so darn good for everybody but no more so than babies who needed Sunshine Vitamin D to ward off rickets and develop strong bones and teeth. It is no wonder then that babies were encouraged to take as many sun baths as possible.

And no one – other than Coppertone – was more bullish about the benefits of the sun than Dr Benjamin Spock the baby guru of the boomers. Dr. Spock pointed out: “Direct sunshine contains important ultra violet rays which create Vitamin D right in the skin. There may be other beneficial effects of sunshine which have not yet been discovered.”

The good Dr. coaxed young babies to join the tan-ables and get the best of the sun including a tan that was rich and flattering.

Vintage ad Solarcaine 1958

“The first sun bath should be one minute on back and one on the front,” went the common sense wisdom from Dr. Spock’s  classic tome The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. “If after the sun bath is over the skin shows no redness the time can be increased until the sun bath takes from 40 min to an hour. If the baby gets tanned and if his skin is pleasantly warm, all is well.”

Thanks to all my sun baths taken by open sunny windows, my developing golden tan convinced Mom I was getting all the vitamins I needed.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Sunlamps were perfect for letting baby get their daily doses of ultraviolet rays. Vintage ad detail GE Lamps 1953

For those poor infants born in winter months, early doses of Cod Liver Oil for baby were like spoonfuls of summer sun. During those cold dark winter days an electric sun lamp was often used to give you all the ultraviolet advantages of the sun.

Vintage ad GE Sunlamp 1953

Fortunately for me, grey rainy days posed no problem in getting my daily dose of sun. Mom had wisely purchased a GE electric sunlamp with its glorious ultraviolet rays that promised the same wonderful healthful tan you’d get at the beach and all the beneficial vitamin D a baby could ask for.

Beach Baby

The Sun Set. Vintage illustration from Johnson’s baby oil 1955

Come summer, Mom loved taking me for daily fun-filled hours on sunny Long Island beaches not far from our home.

The best sun, hands down was at the the beach.

Dr Spock encouraged it.  “In summer you can begin exposing the baby’s body to the sun as soon as weather is warm enough and as soon as he weighs 10 pounds. This means he is plump enough so he won’t get chilled when he is partially undressed outdoors.”

So Mom packed up her squealing ten pound roaster decked out in a diaper and we droveto the beach to begin baking. I would snuggle up to Mom on the  plastic covered front seat,  not a seat belt in sight allowing plenty of wiggle room for me, as the warm summer sun beat down through the open car windows giving me a glorious  head start to summer fun.

Let the Sun Do Its Thing

The beaches had the brightest, rawest light of the day, perfect for plenty of vitamin D. Of course common sense told you, and Dr Spock concurred, the best time to take baby out was between 10 and 2pm when the rays were at their strongest, so we could make a whole day of it.

While today’s parents are super vigilant about babies excursion to the beach, packing an assortment of protective gear worthy of a military exercise, a bottle of Johnson’s baby oil was all that stood between me and the suns rays. Vintage ad Johnson’s Baby Oil 1955

The Long Island beaches were filled with other sun-worshiping babies, their eager little bodies, tanned and glorious brown; these were precious hours of health which happily could be carried over to the dark days of winter. I happily joined the other tan-ables.

Squinting into the bright sun, Mom commented to one of the other mothers: “Imagine all the healthful doses of vitamin D those children in Nevada must get from the bright light of the A-Bomb testings! Talk about a sunbath!”

Nothing Stands Between me and the Sun

I loved the beach from the very first start, soothed by the ocean with its endless motion, oddly fearless of its unimaginably frigid dark depth. Without any luck, Mom would try to coax me to crawl and chase the little birds with legs like toothpicks, as they scurried up and down the beach.

But I preferred to just lay there basking in the hot sun.

Decked out in my gleaming white cloth diaper, my tan was well shown off. Even then I knew no tan can look blah when you slip into summer white.

Naturally Mom always took care that I was always well protected in the sun and a coating of Johnson’s Baby Oil was applied liberally and often. Common sense told you the glistening protective oil made you more responsive to the sun’s healthful tanning rays.

Like cooking the perfect standing rib roast, there were instructions for producing the perfectly tender, well done, but not too well done  sun-kissed little baby roaster. The constant flipping from front to back with regular, generous basting of Johnson’s Baby Oil was a tanning technique I perfected in my teens.

Not Just For Babies Any More… Turn on a Tan, Baby  

Not just for babies any more, Johnson’s began marketing their baby oil to teens. “Turn on a tan with Johnson’s. Right, baby? Right baby! Johnson’s baby oil is the same great pure oil your mom used on your skin when you were a mini kid. It has no sunscreens like tanning lotions and creams. So there’s nothing to block out the golden sun. You tan faster and deeper than ever before. And you stay tan longer. Come on. Turn on, you great big beautiful baby you!” Vintage Ad Johnson’s baby oil 1968

Baby oil was the preferred tanning marinade of the boomer well into their teens.

Everyone knew that the same familiar oil that Mom first used on you as a tyke brought you the deepest, darkest tan. It had no sunscreens like tanning lotions and creams, Johnson’s ads boasted, “So there’s nothing to block out the golden sun.”

Nothing stood in the way of you and your tan. Or the suns punishing rays.

Back Yard Grilling

Well Done. Art by Sally Edelstein

For teens in the 1960’s, backyard grilling took on a whole other meaning.

By the time I was a teen in the late 1960’s the suburbs were sizzling as back yard grilling was going on up and down my block. No, not only on Weber Grills but on aluminum lounge chairs occupied by teens  in pursuit of a tan. Slathering on oil to attract the ultra violet rays and speed the intensity of the sun, everyone was California dreaming in quest of the perfect Malibu suntan in their own yards.

Tanning Techniques

Though Johnson’s baby oil was the favorite tanning accelerant some experimented with other household oils. Like every good grill master the kids on my block each had their own basting techniques.

Next door, our paleface neighbor sixteen year old Joel Weismann was always char broiling in his yard in a futile attempt to achieve a golden tan.

Ignoring his fairness, he’d lavishly slather on some oily accelerant, skillfully maneuvering a silver metallic reflector to help make those long summer rays burn deep. Joel had his secret marinade.  He slow roasted, basting in a pool of viscous Fleets Mineral Oil  straight from his father’s medicine chest.

Boldly staring danger right in the face, he’d languish all day on a lawn chair listening to WINS1010 on the radio while his white skin turned the color of a rare steak only coming in when he had achieved a second degree burn.

Two houses down a chubby Susan Cornblau would be slow roasting like a plump chicken on a rotisserie, expertly turning and flipping for even browning. A true sun aficionado her technique was top secret- she got the extra plus of polyunsaturates by liberally applying a coating of Wesson oil.

Everything may have been better with Blue Bonnet on it, but for tanning, according to Susan,  Wesson couldn’t be beat.

“Turn on a tan with Johnson’s baby oil,” Ali McGraw coos in this late 1960’s ad.  “Its summer baby. The pale romantic heroine is out. The tan romantic heroine is in. Be one, a bronze and beautiful one, by turning on a tan with Johnson’s baby oil. It makes those long summer rays tan deep. And the deeper the tan the longer it’ll last after summer is gone.  Just smooth it on and let the sun do its thing. Turn on a tan, baby. And you’ll turn on your hero.”

But nothing could turn on a tan like Johnson’s baby oil.

In the yard directly behind ours, with the sounds of WMCA wafting over the wisteria, fourteen year old Trudy Goldblum would inevitably win the tanning contest, grilled to a turn in her itsy- bitsy- teeny- weeny –yellow- polka- dot bikini. For that char broiled look so popular with the teens, nothing seared in the juices like Johnson’s baby oil.  She was the tanning envy of the block.

Tan line for tan line you couldn’t match a Johnson’s baby oil tan.

A Love Affair With the Sun

Tropical tanning oils from exotic locales appeared in the 1970’s promising the best way to capture a sensuous man was with a sensuous tan.

By the early 1970’s tropical oils appeared on the tanning market crowding out Johnson’s baby oil. With their exotic blends of coconut and almond oil, they guaranteed to give you that island tan.

Whether from Hawaii or Tahiti, tanning oil offered zero protection but plenty of promises. Tahitian Dark Tanning Oil “gives the sun carte blanche to cover you with the deepest darkest island tan you could get” while, Baine de Soliel  beckoned you to “have a love affair with the sun.”

It was, sigh,  love at first sight. And once that golden bronze island tan was achieved, love would follow.

But first loves are hard to forget.

Johnson’s baby oil lingered in memory and practice, its primal appeal felt as deeply and long-lasting  as the sun damage you would eventually get.

For that genuine Island tan, Mother clearly knew best – Johnson’s baby oil gave you the best Island tan. Even if it was only from Long Island.

Turn on your tan, baby.

Copyright (©) 20017 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Flu season sends chills through me. Literally

As the U.S. finds itself in the worst flu epidemic in years, I am chillingly reminded of flu epidemics past. Scary tales  of the devastating  flu epidemic of 1918 that haunted me through my childhood when member of my own grandmother’s well-to-do family were struck down and perished in the prime of their life come racing back.

Closer to home was the winter of 1957 when the Asiatic Flu terrorized the nation, and my own family.

A Chilly Cold War Winter

1957 was a gloomy winter; as bitter cold as Frost Bite Falls, and everyone was coming down with some ailment.

Despite all my Mothers  precautions  by early February she started sending out distress signals. Knocked out with the all too familiar quartet of body aches, fever, sniffles and cough, our germ proof house had been invaded; Mom got the flu.

As obsessed as my father was with the Cold War, my mother was equally concerned about the war on colds.

To each end they were constantly on alert for unseen, unknown, camouflaged enemies ready to insinuate themselves into our safe environment.

I was always told the best way to avoid contagious diseases, was to avoid any and all contact with anyone coughing or sneezing in your immediate perimeter. Like a heat seeking missile, a careless sneeze, or an explosive cough could shoot troublesome germs in your direction at a mile a minute speed.

Choose One from Column A  and One From Column B

Always convinced it was the sub gum chow mein that was the culprit for her cold, Mom was sure she had seen the waiter at Chung King Gardens, sneeze into her food. Dad, on the other hand, was sure the guilty party was to be found at Ming’s Chinese Laundry where Mom dropped off his shirts every week. Ming’s wife always seemed to have a hacking cough, as she sprayed his Van Heusen shirts with heavy starch.

Whatever the origin, that February Mom came down not with a cold but  with a nasty case of the Asiatic Flu that was spreading through the country.

Everyone was panicking- yet another invisible invader that could attack without warning. Like a Soviet Satellite, it was traveling around the world at alarming speed.

The flu was on the march, and health authorities everywhere were girding for battle against an epidemic. While the government was working like mad to get a vaccine available, that pesky little devil of a virus snuck into Moms bloodstream when no one was looking.

Just as an opportunist, Fidel Castro had recently emerged triumphant out of the groundswell of discontent in Cuba, so a run-down Mom had been susceptible to catch a virus. “Like the Communists in Cuba,” Dad grumbled derisively, “the flu had infiltrated the United States and established a beachhead in our very own home.”

According to Dad, the Castro menace was not imaginary.

That a bearded, bombastic young man on a small island could so menace an entire hemisphere seems almost inconceivable. But panicked Americans were convinced charismatic Castro and his Communist confederates were aiming to undermine the influence of the US and break its ties through Latin America.

We had to keep Castro’s poison from spreading any deeper.  Much like President Eisenhower, who wanted to rid our Western Hemisphere of the red rash just ninety miles from Florida, Mom wanted to halt further aggression of the flu on Western Park Drive.

The flu had brutally taken over much of the eastern seaboard this winter and like the insurgent Communists, posed a grave threat to the free healthy members of our house. Both situations required a corrective.

Asiatic Flu

 Asiatic flu was a new and highly infectious form of influenza which had originated in Red China.

Dad was certain this latest epidemic was true germ warfare, certain that Chairman Mao had something to do with the virus’s Great Leap Forward.

Previously, the Chinese had bitterly accused congenial, fair-minded Americans, of secretly using germ warfare during the Korean conflict, and now Dad was sure they were retaliating. The Chinese themselves were on the march towards massive power.

“The Red Army had a bloody record of aggression in Korea and Quemoy,” Dad griped, “and now their damn Commie Virus had invaded us.”

Fowl Play

Once Mom’s fever rose above 101, the cold war got hot.

Just as our government had devised “Operation Mongoose,” a plan to overthrow Castro’s regime, together my parents adopted a course of  preemptive and covert action that they hoped would work. The flu had penetrated through our fortifications, and a can-do-decisive Dad had a battle plan of his own: Operation Chicken Soup.

Jewish Penicillin

His Mission:  intercept and render the flu inoperable.

Dad quickly mobilized and called for reinforcements.  Acute care services were  brought in immediately.

On the right flank was family physician Dr. Epstein, a proponent of biological and chemical warfare. He was at a disadvantage in utilizing the new flu vaccine, knowing, sadly, it was too late to be effective. Imposing a containment policy for Mom, he ordered enforced bed rest, plenty of liquids and Bayer aspirin.

On the left flank my grandmother Nana Sadie, who would be deployed from Manhattan the next day at 0:800. A  decorated Veteran of the Flu Epidemic of 1918 she was armed to battle the enemy the best way she knew how, arriving loaded down with shopping bags filled with cans of disinfectants and a cache of secret ingredients for her chicken soup.

Despite the fact that mid-century doctors were at the pinnacle of authority figures, my grandmother had an inherent mistrust of Doctors, being of the opinion that most of them were just a step above witch doctors.

This distrust stemmed from her childhood and her own mother. Great Grandma might say “he’s a good doctor may we never need him! You know doctors, for every one thing they tell you, there are two things hidden under the tongue.” Jewish mothers may have wanted their own sons to become doctors, but didn’t want one visiting their house.

 Ever the trooper, Mom hated being barricaded in her bedroom. Even doped up on Nyquil, she found staying in bed demoralizing, and a dereliction of duty. She had been decommissioned from household operational services and now Nana Sadie would be deputized as chief cook and bottle washer.

Dad barked orders at all of us: Were we doing all we could in combating  infectious germs. Or were we complacent, while the insurgents try to seize power.

It was all out war.

Tomorrow PT II

Copyright (©) 2018 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Just like today, in the cold winter of 1957 the war against the flu raged. The dreaded Asiatic Flu that was spreading through the country, hit my own mother hard.

The flu was on the march and health authorities everywhere were girding for battle against an epidemic.

With my mother bed ridden and out of commission, my harried father called for reinforcements enlisting the help of my grandmother Nana Sadie who would be deployed to the Long Island suburbs from Manhattan. A decorated veteran of the Flu Epidemic of 1918, she was armed to battle the enemy the best way she knew how arriving loaded down with shopping bags filled with cans of disinfectants and a cache of secret ingredients for her chicken soup.

Air Defense

 Immediately upon landing the following morning, my Nana wasted no time. She would take the offensive with the pre-emptive striking power of Lysol, Lestoil and Listerine, to immobilize and incapacitate any rogue germs.

Boots on the ground, mink hat still on her head, Nana Sadie had us all gargling with Listerine. The first line of infiltration was the throat. You had to strike at throat infections before the germs got a foothold.

The warning signal – a tickle in the throat- nature’s way of saying “Look Out- Danger Ahead: the bacteria is getting the upper hand! The throat is an open door for infection laying out a welcome mat for all kinds of germs” Listerine ads cautioned ominously.

The next engagement was a full frontal attack on dirt. Every counter, every surface in the house was scoured and sanitized.

Operation: Air Borne.  

 Nana was certain the air was filled with dust and germs which could then be inhaled. The menacing fact about this potent flu virus was that when scattered by an infected sneeze, or a soiled hanky, it could continue to live in household dust and infect the whole family with the flu even six weeks later!

With knowledge gained from the 1918 Influenza epidemic  Nana explained, “spittle contains many little disease germs and when the spittle dries these little germs are set free, caught by the wind and begin to fly about.”

Therefore, reinforcements of Kleenex were constantly being supplied to the front lines.

Tucked into her sleeve, or balled up in her pocket, Nana never went anywhere without a tissue at the ready, her first line of defense against deadly germs.

To her, the invention of Kleenex was a modern miracle of science, rivaling sulfa drugs and penicillin in saving mankind. With the simple toss of a disposable Kleenex into a waste basket, you were wiping out thousands of dangerous enemies, and saving countless lives.

When the miracle that was Kleenex first appeared, even the box itself was proclaimed a marvel of ingenuity, and modern design, “….. cleverly made to hand out automatically through a narrow slit, two tissues at a time ( the correct number for a treatment).”

 1918 Flu Epidemic

As a veteran of the first and worst flu epidemic ever, old fears and suspicion born of that war had scarred Nana Sadie for life. An otherwise healthy brother and sister both in their early twenties had perished in the epidemic.

The public, in 1918 was petrified of the Flu.

It was a panicky time, when everyone and everything became suspect of contamination mirroring the Red Scare which had reached near hysteria that very year. Provoked by a fear that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent – a revolution that would destroy the American Way of Life, ordinary people became suspect of being Anarchists and Communists.

So it was with the Influenza, when even everyday items such as handkerchiefs came under scrutiny and attack.

Those lovely embroidered, heirloom hankies that every proper lady, gentleman and well brought up child always carried- might well be aiding and abetting unseen armies of influenza germs, rendering your dainty, lace trimmed hanky as dangerous as any incendiary device. Carelessness on your part and suddenly your monogrammed handkerchief, harboring germs, could be turned into a weapon of bio-terrorism threatening you and your terror-stricken neighbors with the dread menace of infection.

Fear ran so deep that handkerchiefs were stigmatized as dangerous transmitters of the flu, and people frantically resorted to using pieces of linen in their stead, which were then subsequently burned.

Although hankies eventually came back into favor, and Nana, like my mother, always carried an ironed and neatly folded hanky in her pocketbook, she would never dream of blowing her nose in one. Dabbing an eye at a three hanky movie maybe, but generally handkerchiefs were rendered inoperable.

And if health wasn’t an incentive, vanity was. Kleenex promised the flapper it would  keep her girlish figure. “Now I’m streamlined,’ boasted one young modern. “Carrying four or five hankies in my pocket during colds made my figure bumpy in the wrong places! Now I carry Kleenex and I’m in good shape again!”

Air Control

As head of tactical air control, Nana deployed the aerosol Lysol to fumigate the house of any biological agent, followed by the immediate opening up all the windows to let in plenty of frigid fresh air.

Sunshine and fresh air were the best deterrents to all illness Nana informed us.

Sick people she was convinced, needed air support, the more fresh air they get, the quicker they were likely to heal.

But only if you avoided drafts at all costs.

How you could  distinguish between blasts of healthful, fresh Arctic air and dangerous drafts was beyond me. And don’t even think of raising the thermostat. Overheated homes were a recruitment center for pneumonia and TB.

Nana had definite ideas how the body worked and how it could be healed.

The open windows theory, heavily promoted in previous decades, went that people who breathe the same stale air over and over run the risk of catching some dreadful disease, for along with the air, the lungs blow out tiny germs of sickness. These are too small to be seen and if there were plenty of fresh air in the room, they would rise up to the ceiling, float out the windows, be caught by the wind and carried high in the air where the hot sun would soon kill them.

If these germs can’t get out of the room they are apt to be drawn into the lungs of any person who isn’t well and there they are sure to grow and make that person very ill.

Her other strategy was a series of incendiary attacks. She would fight fire with fire.

Any remedy that made you perspire was good. You couldn’t possibly get well “until you worked up a good shvitz”, she believed, so a vaporizer was stationed next to Mom’s head, so hot it made the wallpaper perspire. Great puffs of mushrooming steam clouded the room so Mom couldn’t even be seen through the haze.

Fowl Ball

Jewish Penicillin

By themselves, these methods did not seem sufficient.

We were poised to unleash a powerful weapon to win the cold war- Jewish Penicillin.

Chicken soup, clear, sparkling, golden-colored, was Nana’s secret weapon. Antihistamine, decongestant, expectorant all in one, the golden broth would blast the virus to smithereens, the accompanying Matzo balls, delivering the 1-2 punch.

Copyright (©) 2018 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

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Remembrances of  Flu Epidemics Past

For some, the sweet perfume of lilacs drifting through open screened windows evoke spring. For me springtime can be conjured up with the toxic smell of mothballs.

These past many months as I have been sadly consumed with closing down my childhood home of 63 years, sorting and sifting through the detritus of mine and my  parents lives, the lingering smell of mothballs past has become my own personal Proustian madeleine.

I Love the Smell of Naphthalene in the Morning…

By the time of the first tulips sprouting from the soil, white crystalline mothballs would appear like magic dotting the interior landscape of my home as my mother launched her garment battle plan for the Great Spring Migration of shifting seasonal clothes to their appropriate closets.

Gathering great heaps of clothing from countless dresser drawers, cabinets and closets Mom would begin the annual seasonal schlepping of apparel from one location in the house to another.

Winter woolens were susceptible to the ravages of moths. Vintage Fashion pages from 1958 catalogue

This was all done as part of the mid-century-housewife – approved preparedness program against the onslaught of vicious perpetrators out to destroy the family wardrobe.

Winter woolens would survive…if you prepared. By late spring insatiable moths were on the prowl greedily licking their lips in anticipation of feasting on your cashmeres, woolens, and tweeds.

Separate But Equal

Unlike in my own current clothes closet that is a “closet for all seasons,” mid-century clothing hewed to strict rules and exacting locations in my parents’ house.

The recent Brown vs. Board of education ruling regarding separate but equal was disregarded when it came to apparel. God forbid a summertime Liberty of London cotton floral skirt would co mingle with a Pringle cashmere sweater set in the very same closet at the very same time.

Not in my mother’s house.

With military precision, summer’s white shoes and handbags were taken out of storage and the march of the winter woolens would begin their descent into the bowels of the damp basement for captivity in our cellar clothes closet.

Cold War Cold Storage

Basement Fallout Shelter Life Magazine Sept. 15, 1961

As the cold war was heating up at the dawn of the 1960’s I pleaded with my parents the practicality of building a fallout shelter in our basement. To my eternal disappointment, a large clothes closet was built in its stead, the safety of a scratchy Woolrich woolen sweater from ravenous moths clearly more valuable than my own from a nuclear holocaust.

Mom Bugs Out

While others stayed up at night worrying about a Russian attack my mother was a bundle of nerves when it came to bugs.

Spring was opening of the offensive against insects who as scientists were telling us “are the real foes and future nemesis of man.” Insects were the bane of Moms existence…pesky flies that contaminated food and brought filth into the house, legions of ants tracking who knows what onto her Clorox clean counters.

But it was the destruction and cruelty of moths and their larvae that could decimate an entire family’s winter wardrobe in the dark of night that sent shivers down her spine.  Hungry moths thrived and grew bloated on your Fair Isle sweater or fur collared princess coat. Blankets and draperies didn’t fare any better

Like any smart housewife, Mom knew she had only herself to blame for the holes in Dad’s worsted wool suit and took protection of the family household seriously.

Containment Policy

First line of defense in her campaign was the containment of the garments.

Containment policy was not just a cold war policy but the rule of thumb for clothing too. Once in lock down the clothes were hermetically sealed in large plastic hanging quilted garment bags of celadon green and pink.

But containment alone was not sufficient deterrent for these sneaky plotters. You needed the annihilating  power of mothballs.

Luckily science had come to m’ lady’s rescue with a powerful offensive – a lethal insect and pest repellent guaranteed to save a family’s precious wardrobe.

No longer did the lady of the house have to rely on old fashioned cedar chests in the war against bugs. No more checking for seams and folds for larvae and eggs. The deadly combination of Naphthalene and para dichlorobenzene which vaporize at room temperature packed a one two punch with the toxic fumes killing clothes moths, their eggs and larvae.

Smelling like camphor, these powerful chemicals designed to kill moths were conveniently sold in solid form such as moth balls, flakes, cakes and crystals.

Naphthalene is highly flammable and  para dichlorobenzene is now a known carcinogen. “You could trust it,” the ads promised, “to protect your blankets, draperies, and clothes.”

You just couldn’t trust it with your health.

Blissfully unaware, for decades Mom littered the basement closet floor with moth balls and little orange “No Moth” tin canisters  hung merrily from the ceiling like Xmas stockings.  Those pesky insects didn’t stand a chance.

All The Proof You Need

As a young bride Mom swore by Larvex which was a moth proofing product sprayed directly on the clothes themselves and was a favorite with modern housewives. Moths, the ads claimed would rather starve to death than ingest the toxin.

Completely odorless and stainless the chemical spraying lasted a year. The results were equally as long lasting on humans.

Guaranteed as safe as DDT, the active ingredient in Larvex was Diethyl Diphenyl Dichloroethane.  DDD is closely related chemically and is similar in properties to DDT which was eventually found to be a human carcinogen.

The product left a long lasting residual toxicity that starved the moths and continued to kill for a full year. For people, the effects could be felt decades later with respiratory problems and cancer.

Take No Chances- Di Chloricide

A favorite crystal form of the insecticide from Mom’s youth and still very popular when she ran a home of her own was Di chloricide. Made by pharmaceutical giant Merck, it not only killed moths but prevented mold and mildew. For a damp basement like ours it was a blessing.

Di Chloricide was a boon to housewives like my grandmother in the late 1930’s when it first appeared. Nana Sadie could be free from worry over moth damage when she put away her winter clothes. In the top of each garment bag my grandmother placed a small cheesecloth bag filled with Di chloricide crystals (the cheesecloth bag came with every can) and she could rest assure her garments would be safe until she needed them.

M’lady apparently didn’t need to know the harmful ingredients.

It’s the modern way to protect your clothes- and it doesn’t leave a “moth ball odor.” The carcinogens acted odorlessly . Vintage ad Di-chloricide 1935

My grandmother was impressed as the product came with a ringing endorsement not only from the head housekeeper at the Waldorf Astoria but with the seal of approval from smart Fifth Avenue furriers.

Yes Di chloricide is death to moths, but it’s very easy and pleasant to use,” the copy reads in this 1935 ad. Di chloricide crystals give off a penetrating vapor that kills flying moth and moth worms. Just sprinkle among the garments in your trunk the vapor works through all the folds, seams, and linings.”

The vapors also worked thru the lining of your throat and esophagus.

The active ingredient Dichlorobenzene is a carcinogen that affects the respiratory system and breathing and repeated exposure can damage nervous system, cause trembling, and damage lungs, liver, and kidneys.

“Ask your druggist for Di chloricide today,” the ad implored the reader.

You’ll be seeing him years later for all the health problems you might develop.

Post Script – Moth Proof Memories

As the years went on the basement clothes closet was not sufficient to contain all my parents’ clothes, which is perplexing given that neither of my parents were clothes horses.

My parents had clothes literally hanging from the basement rafters, garment bags hanging on steel beams and any horizontal support,  bulging with clothes from seasons and years past precariously dangling from old copper pipes on the precipice of bursting.

Growing up when there were two growing children living in the house, clothes seemed to be well contained in their owners appropriate closets, but once my brother and I moved out, it was a clothes lollapalooza as my parents attire encroached on our now empty closets and ran amuck in the basement.

In full transparency, some of these garment bags hanging from rafters contained my clothes from the 1970’ through the 1980’s when I lived in smaller apartments and thus never enough close space.

I deposited my clothes in suburbia and never looked back. Until now.

Now it is a tangle of hot pants and Huck-a-Poo shirts, wrap dresses from Dianne Von Furstenberg and lace punk dresses from Betsy Johnson. They would reside there out of sight and out of mind for the far off day when I would eventually retrieve them.

That day has come as I am emptying out the house. The residual smell of mothballs still permeate the basement. Like the memories it brings up,  the toxic vapors stay with me long after I have left. So does the wheezing cough I have after every visit.

Along with the tears.

Copyright (©) 20018 Sally Edelstein Envisioning the American Dream All Rights Reserved

Like clockwork, Labor Day once signaled the changing of the guard at least as far as mid cenetury shoes were concerned. The Tuesday after Labor Day one would be hard pressed to find the sight of white shoes in my mothers closet. By the end of the first Monday in September, along with her white wardrobe and wicker bags, white shoes had been neatly packed in thier proper shoe box to go into hibernation for the long dull winter until they woud be summoned for their Memorial Day appearance.

It also signaled that the countdown had begun for the end of summer and the new school term.

Across the country , crisp black and white marbled composition notebooks were hastily purchased, and last-minute yellow Dixon number 2 lead pencils skillfully sharpened. But most important of all were the purchase of new school shoes.

Back to School Shoes

In September of 1960  I would be heading to kindergardent  and to prepare for the big school launch, a visit to the shoe store was in order, as summers canvas Keds, were sorrowfully replaced with sturdy, sensible school shoes.

Getting my brother Andyand myself  to trade in our shoe of champions  for a pair of Elementary School approved Oxfords was no easy feat.

Getting that extra care to help childrens growing feet was oh-so-important. It was none too soon for my feet to start getting the protection they would need.

And lucky for me our local shoe store no longer had to rely on the old-fashioned 6 point fitting plan, but could take advantage of the miracle of the x-ray fluoroscope.

That’s Shoe Biz

(L) Vintage ad Poll Parrot Shoes for children (R) Vintage ad Red Goose Children’s shoes 1950s

All week-long radio commercials were competing for attention on the airwaves as all the shoe stores were offering Labor Day sales and new school term incentives.

Because the number  of US small fry kept rocketing upward at a phenomenal clip it was a business bonanza with shoe dealers competing for the right to dress your youngsters feet. From rockabye babies to cookie jar raiders to little ladies in pig tails, each company promised  form-pampering shoes for your child that would outperform any other.

Vintage ads Childrens Shoes (L) Poll Parrot (R) Weather -Bird Shoes

Vintage ads Children’s shoes (L) Jumping Jacks 1957 (R) Robin Hood 1958

Pol Parrot Shoes squawked  “Pol Parrot the name you ought to buy to make your feet run faster, as fast as I can fly,” while Weather-Bird Shoes promised that only their shoe “would keep kiddies feet protected in any weather.”

Red Goose Shoes claimed they were built for action fun and looks, while Jumping Jack Shoes  targeted  Mothers pocket books  assuring that their  shoes would “keep your moppets well shod and still keep you solvent.”

Buster Brown Fun

But only Buster Brown at Henleys Shoe Store could boast of that futuristic apparatus -the fluoroscope, to x-ray your feet.

The radio announcement  blaring between WNEW’s Klavin and Finch was all the incentive Mom needed:

 “Every parent will want to hear this important news!

“Now at last you can be certain that your child’s foot health is not being jeopardized by improperly fitting shoes.”

“Henleys Shoe store on Hempstead Turnpike  in Franklin Square is now featuring the new ADRIAN Special Fluoroscopic Show Fitting machine that gives you visual proof in  a second that your children’s shoes fit. The ADRIAN Special shoe fitting machine has been awarded the famous Parents Magazine Seal of Commendation…a symbol of safety and quality to millions of parents all over America.”

“If your children need new shoes, don’t buy their shoes blindly. “

“Come in today, let us show you the new, scientific method of shoe fitting that careful parents prefer.”

“Henley’s Shoe Store invites all of you to visit us today for an interesting demonstration. We know that once you buy shoes that are scientifically fitted you will shop at Henley’s s all of the time.”

Fit Right In

Staring at the big plastic Buster Brown lighted dealers sign we stepped in to the crowded, stuffy store.

Once in the store, crowds oohed and ahhed as children of all ages toddled and walked down the blue carpeted runway with its picture of a winking Buster Brown and Tige. Working the runway in new sporty saddles, hard-working Oxfords and the hands down beauty-shiny mary janes, kids preened and twirled for their mothers.

Vintage Schoolbook illustration “Stories About Linda and Lee” 1959

While the shoe salesman measured my feet, my trigger-happy, have-gun-will -travel brother  Andy was off shooting down a rogue pair of Oxfords  with his cosmic atomic ray gun. The plastic gun shot powerful electronic colors beams on the tall wall of floor to ceiling shoe boxes.

I sat on  Mom’s lap and curled my toes when the shoe salesman measured my feet. His pudgy fingers with thickened yellow nails had nicotine stains between the first and second fingers of his left hand. Skillfully  he placed my foot in the classic Braverman metal shoe measuring device.

Vintage Shoe Fitting Card

Even this once scientific breakthrough 25 years earlier was now old-fashioned.

The salesman looked and sounded remarkably like Andy Devine, the gentle giant, a rotund, high-pitched gravelly voice host, who coincidently hosted a show sponsored by who else…. Buster Brown.

I half expected him to utter the words “Froggy plunk your magic twanger” and green Froggy would appear in a puff of smoke interrupting the sales pitch with his trademark “Hiya kids Hiya Hiya”  in a low raspy voice sinister croak

Ready For My Close up

The importance of the proper fit

Gently, he placed my foot in the fluoroscope- x-ray machine, a big box that looked like an old radio floor model. My tootsies were ready to have their  picture taken.

His well-practiced “Here’s looking at you kid” guaranteed to elicit a giggle from Mom. With the seriousness of a doctor and the expertise of a scientist his foot side manner created just the right blend of scientific know how and showmanship.

Naturally my brother Andy was fascinated by the fluoroscope – it was not unlike something that Captain Video, that technological genius, had invented like the Opticon Scillometer a long-range x-ray machine to see through walls.

Placing my foot inside the box I could see all the bones of my foot glowing white in a hazy green foot.

My future in footwear captured forever.

Copyright (©) 2018 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

Once upon a time, a deep dark tan was the gold standard of a successful summer run.

When it came to getting a gold medal for the best bronze I was always a winner.

In full disclosure, I am still one of those throwbacks who still sports a tan no matter how out of fashion it may be.

I came from a generation where backyard grilling meant more than barbecuing a steak. The suburbs were always sizzling with teenagers char broiling in their yards in an attempt to achieve a golden California tan.

Lavishly slathering on some oily accelerant like baby oil, skillfully maneuvering a silver metallic reflector to help make those long summer rays burn deep, I would marinate all day in baby oil, expertly turning and flipping for even browning. With skills that eluded me in home ec classes, I would slow roast all day only going inside once I was grilled to a turn in my itsy bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka dot bikini.

So it was with some hesitation that I decided it was time for this burnished body get a to a once-over by a dermatologist for any possible skin cancer. I was the mature and healthy thing to do.

Given the fact that in 6o some years I had never been looked at by a dermatologist, I had resigned myself she was bound to find something suspicious and I’d have a biopsy. Or two. Or more. Friends I had spoken to said they almost routinely get some kind of biopsy taken at an appointment like this.

I walked into the office rather sheepishly since I am currently sporting an end of summer  deep dark tan. It felt like going to an AA meeting drunk. Her walls were decorated with posters and prints from the American Cancer Society saying things like “Having a tan was natures way of saying you have skin cancer” etc.

Eyes downcast, I prepared myself to be admonished.

Well, you could have knocked me over with a tube of Bain de Solie when she said everything was normal and there was nothing disturbing. I was fine. Relieved, of course, I credit my good fortune to my long line of good sun worshiping genes. Both grandmothers loved the beach, spent their final years living there and I am sure my great grandparents were out sunning in Minsk when they weren’t being chased by the Russian Cossacks.

As a disclaimer, this is not an endorsement for freewheeling tanning. Skin cancer is serious and one must take precautions. My days of baby oil are long gone, a good sunscreen has taken its place. But nothing takes the place of a day in the sun. Or a healthy tan at the end of a good summer.

Copyright (©) 2018 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved

I came late to the game watching Handmaid’s Tale, having only recently begun binging it. A totalitarian society that strips away a woman’s physical autonomy and reproductive rights in the former United States originally seemed too darkly dystopian for my tastes.

But now it feels as if the storylines are no longer confined to HULU- it is streaming free in real life in real time on CNN and ABC, The N.Y. Times and the Daily Beast. A 12-year-old girl raped by her uncle must bear the child to term- “Hallelujah,  Praise God” – or face prison time. Or a doctor who performs an abortion on a rape victim could receive 99 years imprisonment, longer than the actual rapist’s sentence.

How can this be in 2018? Who knew this cautionary tale would be the gospel for Alabama senators, now the latest state to morph into Gideon.

This is more than a warning shot. Trump’s America is waging a war on women and they won’t quit until Roe v Wade is overturned.

Do we really want our daughters to return to a time when access to safe and effective birth control was difficult, those good old days when abortion was risky and a crime? Those are the facts facing women in Alabama and Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio. With more to follow.

It is time to look back again at the realities of illegal abortion pre-Roe v Wade.

Controlling Women’s Bodies Risky Business

If some right-wing, white male Republicans have their way, every day in Alabama will be Throwback Thursday.

Other than in the retro world of Republicans who seem nostalgic for those pre-Roe V Wade days, there is nothing warm or fuzzy about a time when abortion was criminalized.

Since Republicans enjoy peddling falsehoods as facts, it only makes sense to present the facts through fiction.

Life Before Roe V Wade – The Good Old Days?

“There was a great nothingness…and then the flash of a terrible word….Abortion!” Vintage photo from “True Romance Magazine”

Once upon a time, women paid a steep price for illegal procedures.

The story of Jinx Malone is a cautionary tale.

It was 1953. The pill that would revolutionize birth control was 7 years in the future, and it would be a long 20 years before Roe v Wade would make abortion legal.

Poor Jinx was in a jam.

She faced a problem that many women faced. This wide-eyed single gal found herself pregnant with a heap o’ worries.

What could she do? With an unwanted pregnancy and few resources, the perky 20-year-old was left high and dry when her beau wouldn’t marry her. Dreamy Dick so suave and handsome was also a first-rate heel.

Jinx couldn’t bear to tell her family so terrified and ashamed, she turned to her trusted family physician.

The doctor did not smile. Instead he looked sharply at Jinx. She was young and pretty but  looked defeated.

Doc Roberts wisely suggested she find a man to marry, if not the father then any man would do.

Without the possibility of a ring on her finger, the doc directed her to a discreet out-of-state home for the unwed mother where Jinx  could have her baby and put it up for adoption. It was a wrenching decision.

Termination was out of the question –  it was illegal.

Besides which, abortions were scary things.

When Abortion was a Crime

The criminal racket of illegal abortionists kept the cops busy. Vintage true crime photos from “Headquarters Detective” Magazine

There were no shortage of cautionary tales and lurid exposes regularly published in magazines and newspapers condemning the flourishing criminal racket of abortionists. Stuff straight out of the police blotters with enough lurid grisly details to place fear in the hearts of any misguided women.

Just the Facts Mam’

Doc Roberts emphasized  the dangers of a criminal abortion something “no nice girl should ever consider.” With his medical expertise he explained “that it is simpler and less risky to deliver a baby by Caesarian operation than to perform a therapeutic abortion (which was the medical name for an abortion which is medically necessary to save a woman’s life and was legally permissible.) And in a criminal abortion, the risk is infinitely graver!”

“The criminal abortionist,” he continued, “does not have the time or interest in his patients welfare to study her records. He simply enters with his curelle and scrapes around till he finds the embryo. This might lead to a perforation through the uterine wall or the intestines might be damaged, accidents which leave the unlucky victim with a 50/50 chance.”

Vintage photo illustration “True Love and Romance ” Magazine

She agonized over the alternatives.

Helpful friends suggested knitting needles, rubber tubes and caustic drinks like potassium permanganatea that could end a pregnancy but more than likely cause bleeding and burns.

Desperate and demoralized, she drank paregoric, threw herself against her walls but stopped short of the coat hanger trick, all to no avail.

She ran out of options.

Finally in her despair she turned to her gal pal Madge. Worldly and wise in the way of men,  Madge discreetly gave her the address of a criminalist abortionist. Tucking it into her purse Jinx blushed deeply, hopefully no one would uncover this secret that could ruin her.

“It’s easy, hon!” reassured the other girl. “There’s nothing to it. Why I’ve had it done three times!” she boasted.

Jinx gulped at the cost. $200 was this file clerks entire months salary. But there was no other choice.

Dial A For Abortion

Back in her apartment Jinx sat a card table and carefully added up the row of figures on the yellow sheet of paper in front of her.

Rent, food, clothes, car fare, magazines and cigarettes. No matter how she juggled ’em the figures always added up to more than her weekly paycheck from the agency where she was a file clerk. Caring for a baby was impossible.  She frowned and tapped the pencil against her teeth.

Dial A for Abortion. Image from Western Electric Ad 1949

Nervously she unfolded the crumpled paper with the number scribbled on it , picked up her phone and made the call.

Risky Business

Now Jinks was waiting in a shabby darkened office. Two or three other women also waited, their eyes cast downward looking through tattered old magazines, or  staring at the grimy floor in silence, nervously smoking

The fee had been paid up front – five $50 dollar bills, more than she earned in a month.

The receptionist dressed in a nurses uniform found out by skillful questioning how much money Jinx had in her purse charging a higher sum than Jinx had expected.

Abortion rings were often organized as a business. The abortionist splits his proceeds with a contact man or business manager who got a fee for every woman he sends in. Druggists also received a fee for recommending women keeping a stream of patients moving quickly.

Jinx thought she was lucky to find a real doctor willing to perform the procedure.

Or so he claimed he was.

Tales of back alley abortions gave her the shivers. Unlike so many poor girls at least she wasn’t blindfolded and taken to a dingy apartment where a kitchen table lay in wait.

When Jinx was finally called into the operating room, she had not been especially frightened despite the sordid condition of the room. After all, hadn’t she been assured by Madge how safe it was, how easy? She wriggled out of her girdle and lay on the table.

If only she had read just one more of the articles warning a nice girl of the dangers that lay ahead, Jinx might have known that the surgeon’s mask worn by the abortionist served a double purpose. It gave him a professional appearance and it concealed his face so that she could not identify him if he were ever called to trial.

Jinx winced in pain.

The discomfort of the operation was unexpected. Little did she know the criminal abortionist uses only a light whiff of chloroform or often nothing.

Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry

The operation was soon over. The nurse helped Jinx off the table. She was permitted to lie down on a narrow cot. After 20 minutes the nurse brought in her hat and coat.

“Can’t I rest a little longer?” Jinx asked pleadingly.

The nurse would not permit it. The lone cot was needed by another women. And Jinx who should have rested with good nursing care for several days had to get up and find a taxi home.

Getting the woman out of his office as soon as possible was the “doctors”  priority. He is constantly afraid that she may die. If this happens he will deny that he performed the operation and won’t have to worry about being betrayed by any evidence of anesthetics.

How Lucky Can You Get?

In spite of these circumstances, Jinx’s abortion was successful.

Our Jinx was one lucky lady, luckier than most for she did not bleed to death.

All that happened to our gal Jinx was that she developed septicemia or blood poisoning caused by the good doctors  unclean instruments. Along with her monthly salary, she paid for her abortion with weeks of serious illness and months of semi invalidism.

Nobody knows how many girls like Jinx there were. According to one 1950’s article that exposed the abortion industry: “Some experts think half a million criminal abortions are perfumed each year. Others think it’s a million…A John Hopkins gynecologist believes that 1 out of every 50 women pays for a criminal abortion with her life.”

But Wait There’s More

But the story told is still not completely told for the tragic effects of illegal abortion may not develop until a long time later.

Girls like Jinx’s friend Madge who boasted of her 3 successful abortions would not find out for years the price they have to pay.

Sterility was not uncommon. According to reports presented at a conference at the N.Y. Academy of Medicine in the 1950s, over 50,000 women become sterile every year as a result of criminal abortions.

Dangerous  Alternatives

And there were other dangerous forms other than abortion to rid yourself of pregnancy.

Drugs taken by mouth were sometimes recommended by dishonest druggists. Some of these drugs contained phosphorous which could be fatal. Others contained lead.

If they were strong enough to cause an abortion then they were  nearly always poisonous. If they did not actually cause death they will would wreck the health of any woman rash enough to take it.

Pastes and fluids injected into the uterus also took a grim death toll.

Trust Your Friendly Neighborhood Druggist

One girl Jinx knew asked her neighborhood druggist for the address of a criminal abortionist.

He told her that for $10 he could sell her something “just as good and twice as safe.” The tube of paste he sold her was labeled with an impressive medical name and with it came directions for injecting it into the uterus.

The girl used the paste according to directions and waited for the results. Next day she was admitted into a major N.Y. hospital coughing a blood stained fluid and suffering from severe shock.

Vintage photo ” Daring Detective” Magazine

High Cost

The toll the nations abortion laws took on women’s health before Roe v Wade were substantial.

Although that has changed, stricter abortion laws could herald the return to a system in which safe abortion was available to some Americans but out of reach of many in need. Poorer women and their families are always  disproportionately impacted.

In 2019, women are having abortions. Don’t we want to make sure they have a safe place to have one?

Good health care and control over ones body is a woman’s birthright.

And that’s no fiction.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Flu season always sends chills through me. Literally.

This season a pandemic of panic is sweeping the nation and the globe. Coronavirus fear has gone viral spreading faster than the virus itself. Social media and cable news are promoting the hysteria, stoking genuine fears while our own President offers mind-boggling misinformation.

As we brace ourselves for the coronavirus and the likely possibility of a pandemic, I am chillingly reminded of health epidemics past. Frightening tales of the devastating flu epidemic of 1918 when members of my own grandmother’s well-to-do family were struck down, haunted me through my childhood. These tragic stories are now racing to the surface. An otherwise healthy brother and sister both in their early twenties had perished in the epidemic at the prime of their life.

A veteran of the first and worst flu epidemic ever, my grandmother’s fears and suspicion born of that war, were easily transmitted to me.

No One is Safe

Growing up the world loomed large with the prospect of invasion on all fronts.

Invaders undetected often disguised. The world of germs, nuclear bombs, communists and sexual predators all merged together and became muddled. It was a vague unrelenting fear. Something could arrive from beyond the horizon before you ever knew what hit you. Unseen germs infiltrating my bloodstream, subversive communists invading my country unseen radioactivity from unseen bombs and of course the most subversive of all unseen touches from trusted relative family.

It was the arbitrariness of any of them that was terrifying. It was if the whole order of the universe had been violated.

The young man pictured on the bicycle would be dead within months of the day this photograph was taken.

This young man would never reach 25 let alone middle-aged. I would never get a chance to meet my Great Uncle Henry ( for whom my dear late cousin Henry was named ).

In this picture which hangs in my home, my uncle remains forever young and vital and filled with promise. It is a daily reminder of how precarious and quickly an epidemic can arise. It does not discriminate between the young and the old, rich or the poor.

And it is not a hoax!

opyright (©) 2020 Sally Edelstein All Rights Reserved