Players gave away color TVs from 1957 show

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

            In cooperation with the commissioner’s office, on April 13, 1957, the NBC-TV network presented a 90-minute “Salute to Baseball” primetime extravaganza—live and in color.

            Hosted by famed film dancer Gene Kelly (who had co-starred with Frank Sinatra in the baseball musical movie Take Me Out to the Ball Game in 1949), the program was intended as a salute to baseball, its players—current and stars of earlier days—fans, and the upcoming season in a variety show format.

            While Kelly received a reported $25,000 for emceeing the show, the 18 current major league stars who appeared on the program received no cash remuneration.

            Each player did, however, receive a 21-inch RCA Victor color TV . . . and each player donated his television to a hospital or other institution, with particular on facilities caring for children.

            In a short item in the April 24 issue of  The Sporting News, New York columnist Dan Daniel listed the players and the recipients of the color TVs.

National League

            Pee Wee Reese, Brooklyn—Children’s Hospital, Louisville, Ky.

            Don Newcombe, Brooklyn—Hospital for Crippled Children, Newark, N.J.

            John Antonelli, New York—Northside Division General Hospital, Rochester, N.Y.

            Robin Roberts, Philadelphia—Home for Incurable, Philadelphia, Pa.

            Ernie Banks, Chicago—Provident Hospital, Chicago, Ill.

            Bob Friend, Pittsburgh—Children’s Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pa.

            Stan Musial, St. Louis—Cardinal Glennon Memorial Hospital, St. Louis, Mo.

            Ed Mathews, Milwaukee—Children’s Hospital, Milwaukee, Wis.

            Ted Kluszewski, Cincinnati—Not yet assigned.

American League

            Mickey Mantle, New York—Lenox Hill Hospital, New York, N.Y.

            Don Larsen, New York—U.S. Naval Hospital, San Diego, Calif.,

Ted Williams, Boston—Children’s Medical Center (Jimmy Fund Building), Boston, Mass.

Eddie Yost, Washington—St. Ann’s Orphanage, Washington, D.C.

George Kell, Baltimore—Methodist Children’s Home, Little Rock, Ark.

Billy Pierce, Chicago—Children’s Unit, William H. Mabury Sanitarium, Northville, Mich.

Harry Simpson, Kansas City—Children’s Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, Mo.

Harvey Kuenn, Detroit—Children’s Hospital, Detroit, Mich.

Herb Score, Cleveland—Parmadale Children’s Village, Cleveland, Ohio.

Fun fact . . . of the 18 players donating a color TV, 13 had appeared in the 1955 Bowman Color TV baseball card set. 

Ballplayers get the best babes: Part 9

Continuing with my periodic presentation of vintage photos amassed over 30+ years in the sportscard publishing world is this selection of photos of baseball players with their wives, fiancees, girlfriends or others. 

This presentation contains some of a large grouping of similarly themed press photos that were collected over the years by my former colleague Tom Mortenson, who was a long-time editor of Sports Collectors Digest.

Pictures of players and their babes were common in decades past. It's not something you see much today.

This group comprises Milwaukee Braves players of the 1950s.

This is Braves' infielder Danny O'Connell with his wife Vera. O'Connell came to the Braves from Pittsburgh in 1954 and was traded to the Giants in 1957 for Red Schoendienst.

He died young, at age 42 in a traffic accident in 1969.

Billy Bruton is shown here with his wife Loretta. She was the daughter of Hall of Fame Negro Leaguer Judy Johnson, who scouted Bruton for the Braves.

Ballplayers often got  the chance to mingle with Hollywood celebrities. This is catcher Del Crandall with Judy Garland.

In this 1958 photo, shortstop Johnny Logan is shown hamming it up in Las Vegas with Ginger Rogers. The AP wirephoto caption described Rogers as "one of the better tennis players among movie folk."

There was no caption with this photo of first baseman Frank Torre helping a roller skater with her wheels.

Aging rookie didn't fall for Thomas' trick

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

            On Oct. 26, I presented the story of a baseball “dirty trick” that cost a player a base hit.

            Here’s the story of an old baseball chestnut that didn’t fool its intended victim.

            In the fifth inning of the first game of an April 21, 1957, Sunday doubleheader at Brooklyn, Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Frank Thomas had reached third on an error, a sacrifice bunt and a fielder’s choice.

            Twenty-eight-year-old rookie Rene Valdes was on the mound in his first major league appearance. Valdes had come on in the third inning after starter Don Newcombe gave up back-to-back-to-back home runs to Thomas, Paul Smith and Dick Groat.

            As he stood on third in the fifth inning with two out, Thomas yelled to Valdes that he wanted to inspect the ball.

            If Valdes had tossed the ball to Thomas, the Pirates base runner would have stepped aside and let it roll to the stands, trotting home for a run.

            Valdes did toss the ball to Thomas . . . but called “time” first. He had seen that trick before while pitching in the minors. Thomas was left stranded at third, though the Pirates went on to win the game 6-3.

Big leaguer married Top 10 stripper

Don Rudolph and his wife, Patti Waggin are shown
in this 1957 photo while Rudolph was pitching
for Louisville.

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

In the mid-1950s a journeyman major leaguer named Don Rudolph attracted more media attention because of his wife than his pitching skills.

During much of the the period that he was bouncing up and down between the big leagues and the minors, Rudolph was married to a stripper whose stage name was Patti Waggin.

Patti Waggin (Mrs. Don Rudolph) in
a 1950s publicity photo.

Writing in The Sporting News of Feb. 27, 1957, Russ Schneider of Cleveland described her as “a burlesque queen with considerable – and well-tailored talent.

 “Miss Waggin has wiggled her 36-23-35 shape through burlesque’s big leagues for three years and was recently included on a list of the top ten strippers in the country.”

Rudolph met his future wife in 1954 when he was playing for Colorado Springs where she was dancing. They were married in 1955. Patti, whose real name was Patricia Artae Hardwick was five years older than Rudolph; her marriage to the ballplayer was her third.

Patti was often billed as “The co-ed with the educated torso.” She got her start in burlesque while a student at Chico State College in California. Her grandmother and mother were both in vaudeville, the former dancing under the name Maude Hillyer, the latter as Dale Adams.

          

Rudolph spent the off-seasons traveling with her as manager, publicity man and what Schneider called “clothes catcher.” Schneider said, “During performances, Rudolph stands in the wings and catches her clothes after she steps out of them on the stage.”

 The writer described Waggin as a “charming brunette who apparently knows baseball as well as bumps and grinds.”

The back of Don Rudolph's 1959 Topps card
makes note of Mrs. Rudolph's profession.

The article included the expected Fifties expressions of the wifely duty to put her husband’s career ahead of her own professional ambitions. “I plan to continue my career indefinitely,” she was quoted, “But Don’s comes first. If I thought I was jeopardizing his chances in the least, I’d quit right away.” She did eventually leave the stage around 1960.

Rudolph won 13 games in his first pro season, at the age of 18 at Jesup (Class D, Georgia State League). Remaining with Jesup in 1951, Rudolph was the winningest pitcher in Organized Baseball with a 28-8 record and 2.91 ERA. He walked only 52 batters in 223 innings, and nine of them were intentional.

With a year out for military service in 1953, Rudolph worked his way up the White Sox' ladder until he made his debut with Chicago in 1957. He had brief stays in the American League in 1957, 1958 and 1959. 

Chicago traded Rudolph to the Cincinnati Reds on May 1, 1959, and although he remained in the Reds' system through the 1961 season, he pitched in only 7.1 innings at the big league level.

The Indians claimed Rudolph in the 1961 Rule 5 draft, but he faced only one batter with the Tribe before being traded to Washington on May 3, 1962.

Rudolph played for the Senators until the end of 1964, then ended his pro ball career after two more years in the high minors. As a major league pitcher, Don Rudolph had an 18-32 record with an ERA of 4.00.

He was killed in a traffic accident in 1968. Patti never remarried and died in 1992.

By all accounts, the couple was well-liked in both the burlesque and professional baseball worlds.

Bob Brill, who wrote for us at Sports Collectors Digest years ago, is perhaps Patti's biggest fan. He maintains a website devoted to Patti and Don. You can read a lot more about the couple there at: www.pattiwagin.com . 

Once when he was asked if he wasn’t afraid that his wife’s vocation would provide too much ammunition for opposing bench jockeys, Rudolph merely grinned.

“‘At first it bothered me, but not anymore,’ he said. ‘When it gets too rough, a high hard one under the chin usually shuts them up pretty good.’”

             

'57 Senators led league in four-eyes, baldies

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

            The 1957 Washington Senators set a record for the number of players who wore glasses on the field.

            The five bespectacled Senators were Clint Courtney, Whitey Herzog, Ernie Oravetz, Herb Plews and Dick Hyde.

            You'd never know Plews wore glasses by looking at his 1957-59 Topps cards, though.

He can be found in other images wearing the cheaters, such as the 1959 Jay Publishing Co. Senators picture pack. 

            “We don’t need no trainer on this club,” Courtney said, “we need an eye doctor.

            “And lemme tell you something else—there’s some others that ought to be (wearing glasses).”

            Precisely because he wore glasses, Courtney was one of my favorite players when I was a kid; I was a “four-eyes” myself by the time I went to first grade.

            The Senators were also credited with leading the league in balding ballplayers for 1957.

            Bob Addie, writing in the Washington Post and Times Herald, observed that the Senators “are not very likely to be asked to endorse any hair tonics.”

            He wrote, “Eddie Yost, Herb Plews, Ed Fitz Gerald, Clint Courtney, Dean Stone and Roy Sievers all have locks on the thinning side.”

Washington Senators or Nationals? Depends when

Collectors are occasionally confused by Topps cards of 1955 and 1956 that identify players as "Washington Nationals."

Topps used that nickname on its cards only in those two years. From 1952-1954 and 1957-1971 Topps used the "Senators" sobriquet . . . but before 1957, that was wrong.

Ever since a fan contest in 1905, the official nickname of the Washington American League team was the Nationals. The team had been known as the Senators since 1886 (Statesmen before that), but the 1905 vote never really caught on.

I'm unsure why the team made a renewed drive to emphasize the Nationals nickname in the mid-1950s. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that National Bohemian brand beer was the team's radio-TV sponsor.

Topps was alone in the card world in trying to revive the Nationals nickname. Bowman identified all Washington players as Senators right up until they ceased production in 1955. Red Man also used Senators in its 1952-55 sets. Briggs Meats, which had a lot of Washington players in its regional card sets of 1953-1954 avoided the issue by not using either name.

Because Washington was in the National League when the city reacquired major league baseball in 2005, it was natural that they adopted the Nationals nickname.

Ballplayers get the best babes: Part 8

Continuing with my periodic presentation of vintage photos amassed over 30+ years in the sportscard publishing world is this selection of photos of baseball players with their wives, fiancees, girlfriends or others. 

This presentation contains some of a large grouping of similarly themed press photos that were collected over the years by my former colleague Tom Mortenson, who was a long-time editor of Sports Collectors Digest.

Pictures of players and their babes were common in decades past. It's not something you see much today.

I'll again present the pictures chronologically. 

One of the most famous baseball-Hollywood couples was Leo Durocher and Loraine Day. They  were married in 1947 and divorced in 1960. Day was Durocher's second wife. He was later married and divorced a third time.      

This photo from 1955 shows newlyweds Andy Carey, N.Y. Yankees infielder, and actress Lucy Marlow. The day after they were married on Oct. 6, 1955, the couple joined the Yankees exhibition tour of Hawaii and Japan.

By keeping their careers separate  - he stayed away from the studio, she stayed away from the ballpark -- they were able to remain married for nearly 20 years before divorcing.

This photo of Cleveland Indians pitcher Herb Score and his wife Nancy was taken in the summer of 1957. The press caption says the couple was giving the OK sign after learning that Score wouldn't lose the vision in his eye as the result of being hit by a line drive.

In the early 1960s, Denny McLain married Sharon Boudreau, daughter of then-Cubs announcer Lou Boudreau. The couple is shown here at Boudreau's induction into the Hall of Fame on July 27, 1970.

She divorced him when he was sent to prison for the second time in 1996. They were remarried after his release in 2003.

Polio scare exposed needle-shy Yankees

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

In the 1950s, before anybody had ever heard of AIDS or bird flu, the health threat that struck the greatest fear into the hearts of Americans was polio.

And with good cause. By the late 1940s, epidemics of polio had become an annual scourge in the U.S., peaking in 1952 when 57,628 cases were reported in the U.S. Having migrated from a prevalence among infants, more teens and young adults were being stricken. That was doubly bad, because death or paralysis were more likely when polio was contracted by that age group.

Of the 57,628 new polio victims in 1952, 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis. (As late as 1977 in the U.S., 254,000 polio survivors were living with paralysis brought on by the disease.)

On April 12, 1955, Dr. Jonas Salk of the University of Pittsburgh announced that a vaccine had been created to prevent polio infection. The course of immunization required three shots. Following the initial injection, follow-up vaccinations were given at six weeks and six months.

With most of its players in the most at-risk age range for severe complications, the N.Y. Yankees (and other teams) offered the polio shots at spring training in 1957. 

A writer following the team reported that Andy Carey and Billy Martin declined the shots. Whether they were needle-shy or just feeling lucky was not reported.

While I don't recall any major league ballplayers having been diagnosed with polio, it is certainly possible that there were victims among professional baseball ranks. 

'50s Indians fan mail figures found

I found a short mention in a 1957 issue of the The Sporting News that quantified the volume of fan mail received by the Cleveland Indians circa 1957.

Noreen Schmidt was a secretary for the team. She told TSN that during the season 500 letters were received from fans each week.

On an annual basis, she handled 12,000 requests for individual player photos.

Ballplayers get the bast babes: Part 7

Continuing with my periodic presentation of vintage photos amassed over 30+ years in the sportscard publishing world is this selection of photos of baseball players with their wives, fiancees, girlfriends or others. 

This presentation contains some of a large grouping of similarly themed press photos that were collected over the years by my former colleague Tom Mortenson, who was a long-time editor of Sports Collectors Digest.

Pictures of players and their babes were common in decades past. It's not something you see much today.

I'll again present the pictures chronologically. 

Though undated, this photo was likely taken in the late 1940s. It shows Ted Kluszewski with his wife, the former Eleanor Guckel. They were married prior to the 1946 season. Mrs. Klu was a former softball pitcher. She was 5'2", Klu was a foot taller.

Yogi Berra married Carmen Short on Jan. 26, 1949, and the couple is still married today, 63 years later. The photo is undated.

Willie and wife, Part 1. This 1956 photo shows Willie Mays with his first wife, Marguerite or Margherite Wendell Chapman. Willie was her third husband. She had been married to Ink Spots lead singer Bill Kenny and to a doctor in Detroit.

It was reported that Mays gave her an engagement ring that featured the largest diamond from the Hickcock Award belt that he was given as 1955's Athlete of the Year. They were married on Valentine's Day in 1956.

The couple divorced in 1963.

Willie and wife, Part 2. This 1973 photo shows Mays with his second wife, the former Mae Louise Allen, whom he married in 1971.

Hard luck for Ferrarese to start May, 1956

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

Orioles 27-year-old rookie left-hander Don Ferrarese suffered some hard luck to start the month of May, 1956.

In his first major league start on May 5 he struck out 13 Cleveland batters but Jim Hegan’s ninth inning double gave the Indians a 2-1 win.

A week later he beat the Yankees 1-0 for his first major league victory, but missed out on a no-hitter when Andy Carey, batting eighth, led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a hard chop off home plate. While Ferrarese backed up toward second and waited – and waited and waited – for the ball to come down, Carey had crossed first base. Ferrarese then allowed a hit to Hank Bauer, but closed out the Yankees and beat Bob Turley.

Across the river that afternoon, Carl Erskine was pitching a no-hitter for Brooklyn, beating the Giants 3-0.

Hank Sauer. My. Shortest. Blog. Ever.

Uncommon commons: In more than 30 years in sportscards publishing I have thrown hundreds of notes into files about the players – usually non-star players – who made up the majority of the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid. Today, I keep adding to those files as I peruse microfilms of The Sporting News from the 1880s through the 1960s. I found these tidbits brought some life to the player pictures on those cards. I figure that if I enjoyed them, you might too.

I'd never heard this baseball nickname before. Long-time (1941-59) National League slugging outfielder Hank Sauer was called "Pontiac." Wonder why?

Ballplayers' babes: Eddie Mathews

Continuing with my periodical presentation of vintage photos amassed over 30+ years in the sportscard publishing world is this selection of photos of baseball players with their wives, fiancees, girlfriends or others. 

I presented groupings of similar photos almost exactly a year ago, in my blog of 9/9/11, and other groupings on Sept. 10, Oct. 2,  6, 16 and 28 of this year. This presentation contains some of a large grouping of similarly themed press photos that were collected over the years by former colleague Tom Mortenson, who was a long-time editor of Sports Collectors Digest.

All of the photos this time are of Eddie Mathews and the women in his life. Mort had  more than a passing acquaintance with Mathews, and so was able to offer a bit of insight on some of the photos. 

 One of the first women to be publicly linked to Eddie Mathews was actress Terry Moore. This photo of the couple canoodling is believed to have been taken after the end of Mathews' rookie season with the Boston Braves in 1952.  That was the year Moore filmed Come Back Little Sheba, for which she received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress.

Moore lived with billionaire Howard Hughes in the 1940s and claimed to have been married to him in 1949. While she could produce no evidence of such a marriage, Hughes' estate settled with her in 1984. That same year she posed in the August issue of Playboy at the age of 55.
In 1951, she married former Army All-American halfback Glenn Davis. Moore was the cover girl for the July 6, 1953, issue of Life magazine, tabbed as "Hollywood's Sexy Tomboy."

This is a photo, circa 1955, of Mathews with his first wife, Virjean Lauby, greeting a couple of neighborhood boys at their suburban Milwaukee home. She was from Marshfield, Wis., where her father was a doctor at the famed Marshfied Clinic. 

The couple was married in a civil ceremony in 1954. They divorced in 1970. According to Mort, at the 1955 All-Star Game in Milwaukee, Stan Musial gave Mathews an autographed bat. He stored the bat, and several of his own, in the attic of their home. When he and Virjean divorced he went to retrieve the bats and she refused to hand them over. He said he didn't care about his own bats, "She can stick them where the sun don't shine," he is reported to have said, "But she wouldn't let me have that damn Stan Musial bat. That's the only one I wanted."

Mathews was married briefly to his second wife, Sue Ann, in 1972. She's shown at center in this photo with Mathews' children by his first marriage, Stephanie (then 15), Eddie Jr. (17) and John (12). Eddie's mother Eloise is at right.

Because he was young, handsome and by the standards of the day, rich, Mathews attracted lots of attention from adoring females. This undated photo (1963-65 according to the uniform) shows a group of high school girls presenting Mathews with a cake at County Stadium. 

It's probably not a birthday cake, notes Mortenson, because Mathews' birthday was Oct. 13.

In 1977, Mathews was married for a third time, to Elizabeth Busch-Burke. She was the daughter of August Busch, Jr., owner of the Anheuser-Busch brewery. The couple also divorced.

Mathews was married a fourth time, to Judy, who was at his side when he died in 2001.

More memories of long-lost food and drink

A couple of days ago I began a nostalgic look back at food and drink memories that are, for all practical purposes, lost to me. I suppose if I spent enough money, some of these tastes could be had again, but would the reality be as good as the memory?

Last time I looked back at some food and drink memories of my childhood. I'll start this time with a treat from my teen years.

Other than a couple of paper routes at age 12-14, my first real job was at McDonald's. When I was 15 and a freshman, my older brother "got me in" (that was the phraseology back then) at the McDonald's restaurant in Fond du Lac, Wis., where he was killing time between his high school graduation and being drafted into the Army.

I could write a book at my time under the Golden Arches, and for many years I thought I would. Unlike most of my contemporaries, I was a long-term employee at Mickey Dee's, working there from 1965-70. I was there when McDonald's was strictly a drive-in, in the days before inside seating. I was there when the orange bowl and root beer barrel stood atop the counter. I was there when the Big Mac was introduced. I was there when women were first allowed to work at McDonald's.

Much of the time during the years I worked at McDonald's, at least at our store, employees were allowed, within reasonable limits, free lunch or dinner while working. As you can imagine, with the rather limited menu at that time, I looked for ways to vary my mealtime selections.

Honestly, more than 40 years later I no longer remember whether I invented the "cannibal burger" or was introduced to it by another employee. But it is on my list of once-favorite foods that I'll never be able to enjoy again.

Some years later, I learned that my cannibal burger was known in classier circles as steak tartare.

I began my creation by mashing together two of the standard 1/10 pound hamburger patties and sprinkling it liberally with dehydrated onion flakes. This was placed into the special bun steamer that we used to soften the buns for Filet-O-Fish.

The burger was steamed just long enough to get the fat flowing and the onions plumped back up. Then a bun was steamed and the burger placed thereon with a slice of cheese top and bottom. The sandwich was topped with the handmade tartar sauce that we made back then, and heavily salted and peppered. With a large root beer and an order of the fries that I was so expert in making, it was a meal that I would happily partake of today instead of the finest filet mignon.

Given the highly publicized salmonella and e. coli incidents of recent years, I don't guess I'll be seeing steak tartare on a menu any more.

Surprisingly, another of the taste treats that I recall so longingly came from a chain restaurant. After a night of drinking at area minor bars, my friends and I often found ourselves after midnight at Lum's, again in Fond du Lac.

My order never varied; two hot dogs and a schooner of beer. But these were not your average hot dogs or beer.

Lum's prepared their hot dogs by steaming them in beer and serving them on a steam roll. Sauerkraut was optional, and I never optioned for it. The beer was Schlitz dark. I don't believe I ever saw Schlitz dark anywhere else. It was foamy and had the body color of root beer, but it didn't have the heaviness or burnt malt taste of Guiness Stout or any other dark beer I've had since.

The Lum's chain, which would probably be characterized today as casual family dining, seems to have failed or faded away in the 1980s.

I left home the day after Christmas in 1972, to begin my journalism career on a small town weekly newspaper in Wautoma, Wis. In the year and a half that I roamed Waushara County as a reporter, failed ad salesman and paper delivery guy, I encountered two gustatory delights that stand out even four decades later. A steady diet of these would have killed me by now, but I'd give jump at the chance to enjoy them again.

Both meals were encountered in country taverns (remember those?).

The first was french fried lobster at a small tavern on the outskirts of Wautoma. I don't remember the name anymore; it was Pine Tree or Pine Cone or something. But, oh, I remember the lobster that I enjoyed there many a Friday night. Both my wife and I rate it as the best meal we've ever eaten.

After I left Wautoma for Iola, I never again got to enjoy that french fried lobster. I kick myself now that I didn't make the one-hour drive every Friday night until the bar closed.

I've had plenty of lobster in the intervening years. I've even had some sort lobster-cake sandwich at a McDonald's in Maine. I've had french fried lobster twice since 1974. It wasn't the same. Those latter day lobster meals featured frozen shredded lobster or some other form of macerated lobster meat. The fried lobster in Wautoma was lobster chunks. They were served drenched in melted butter and washed down with mugs of cold beer.

I'm sure that there are lots of places that serve similar french fried lobster chunks . . . I just haven't found them.

Just a couple of years ago I drove down to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to attend a coin show and promote the candidacy of my former boss, Cliff Mishler, in his successful run for president of the American Numismatic Association.

Driving back to Iola on a Sunday afternoon, I purposely took the back roads so I could drive through Waushara County and stop at a country tavern that I had frequented in 1973-74 in the township of Dakota.

When I lived and worked near Wautoma, the bar, which sat on a muddy creek, on Wednesdays used to serve turtle soup and french fried turtle. I used to stop there at noon and each visit had to make the painful decision as to whether to order the soup or the fried turtle.

Like the lobster, the fried turtle was in large chunks and drowned in melted butter. The soup also featured large pieces of turtle meat, in a thick, very rich, reddish-brown stock. I've never seen either of those items offered anywhere else, though I'm sure they can be found on a menu somewhere.

The bar was still there, at least in an expanded, updated form, but there was no turtle or turtle soup to be had.

The final item on my list of long-lost favorites would be the easiest to once again enjoy. All it would take is a plane ticket to England.

I made my first and only trip overseas in 1990. It was a bonus of sorts for having engendered and expanded the very profitable sportscard division of Krause Publications. At the time Sports Collectors Digest, the Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards and the related periodicals and books were an $18 million a year arm of the company, generating about half of the company's income.

While in England I first encountered what is known there simply as "beer". British bitter beer is dark and served cool, not cold, in pints -- imperial pints at that.

Maybe it was the ambiance of a Kensington hotel bar, or small-town pubs, but that beer haunts me more than 20 years later. I've had a few bitters since. Once in downtown Ottawa and a couple of times at the now-gone British Bulldog Pub in Las Vegas, but it hard to find in the U.S. I understand it doesn't travel well.

Still, if this style of beer has been made in England for centuries, there's no reason some of the microbrew restaurants that have sprung up all over America can't be making it. I try to patronize those places whenever I find them, but they never have a true bitter.

There you have the nostalgic musings of an old man. As I said in the first installment, I'm sure my longings for these specific foods and drinks are more about mourning lost youth and kicking myself for not making the most of opportunities -- food and drink and otherwise -- that were right in front of me.

Food, drink I really miss

One of the inevitabilities of getting old is that you spend more time looking into the past than into the future.

Last night I got to thinking about some of the foods and drinks that I enjoyed in the past, but that I may never have again until the day that sweet chariot swings low to take me home.

I realize the cravings for these victuals is really a lament for my lost youth.

This train of thought left the station when I saw some mention on television of Halloween cookies. That got me to thinking of Everix Bakery Cookies.

I'm sure if I tried enough bakery sugar cookies, eventually I'd find one that replicated the taste of this childhood favorite.

While I'm sure my mother did her share of baking, nothing stands out in my memory like Everix cookies.

Everix was a family bakery in my home town of Fond du Lac, Wis. The building was a long, narrow brick structure, with its glass entry doors on a diagonal where the front corner met. The shop portion was also long and narrow, with glass display cases down one side and across the back.

The holiday cookies were always in the back case, strategically placed on a shelf about child-eye level. The cookies were large, at least in relation to the size of my hand back then. They were probably a standard sugar cookie recipe, but it was the frosting that gave them their special taste. It was thin, hard and colorful.

There were yellow egg shapes at Easter, red hearts at Valentine's, orange bats at Halloween, orange and brown turkeys at Thanksgiving and green trees at Christmas. The bakery probably offered the same cookies year-round without the fancy shapes and colors, but as I remember it, Everix cookies were only a holiday treat at our house. Or, on even rarer occasions, a perk while accompanying Mom on her errands.

My memory of what happened to Everix is foggier than my recollection of the taste of those cookies. I seem to recall that by the mid- to late-1960s, the family had expanded the enterprise to one or two other locations around town, perhaps also into some of the supermarkets that drove the mom-and-pop neighborhood groceries out of business in that era.

I do know that by the time I was a sophomore in high school, and occasionally walked past the bakery on my way to or home from school either the store was closed or had changed hands and I don't recall ever stopping in for cookies.

Another childhood favorite that seems lost to me forever is Post Oat Flakes.

We were not a bacon and eggs or pancakes for breakfast family. I don't know if it was a financial necessity, or just the time crunch of getting Dad off to work for 7 a.m., and five or six kids off to two or three different schools at varying times, but we were cold cereal kids.

In the early Fifties, I was partial to Sugar Pops, Rice Krinkles, Sugar Crisp and the like. Most of those cereals are still on the shelves today, though the word "sugar" has been replaced in the brand name.

In 1959, Post came along with Oat Flakes. I recall them as sweeter than Wheaties or Kellogg's Corn Flakes, and a spoonful of sugar on top made them even better. Another quality that I found appealing about Oat Flakes, but which was certainly never part of their advertising, is that they got soggy in milk very quickly. It's just a personal quirk, I prefer my breakfast flakes limp, rather than crunchy.

Of course when Post cereal began putting panels of baseball cards and football cards on the backs of its boxes in 1961, I became immediately brand-exclusive. Even though I had reached the age when going to the grocery store with Mom was a socially marginal activity, I did so every chance I got so that I could examine the boxes for Milwaukee Braves or other cards I didn't have.

I don't know when Post first stopped producing the original Oat Flakes, or when I stopped eating them. I probably stopped when the card-backs ended, and by the time I was in high school, I had switched to Quaker Puffed Rice.

Twenty years later, I learned that because of the relative unpopularity of Oat Flakes among kids, the cards that were exclusive to that brand were among the scarcer of the Post cereal issues. Unfortunately, by then I had long since gotten rid of most of my childhood collection.

Oat Flakes made a brief comeback in its original form, if I recall correctly, in the early 1970s. I enjoyed them once again, but wish I'd have stocked up while they were on the shelves. I see by google-searching that Post revived its oat flake cereal again in the late 1980s with the name Fortified Oat Flakes. I never tried those. I have, however, on occasion, tried other brands of oat flakes that caught my eye in the cereal aisle, but none of them ever measured up my memories of the original.



As it now looks like this nostalgia trip is going to take longer than I originally anticipated, I've decided to break it into several entries.

I'll close this chapter with a reminiscence of a favorite brand of pop. During my childhood, there was a brand of soda called Howdy's. I'd guess they were a state-specific or Midwest regional company. I recall they made orange soda and root beer; probably a few others.

It is Howdy's root beer that I remember with such fondness. I'd describe it now as crisper and sweeter than Dad's or A&W.

I'm sure Howdy's was sold all over town, but my specific memory is of buying a bottle on many early mornings from the vending machine outside Moses Hardware store in my neighborhood while on my paper route. It provided the necessary sugar rush to get me through my Milwaukee Sentinel deliveries so I could get to school on time. 

Looking back, I'd guess that I gave up Howdy's root beer about the time Dr. Pepper began to make an impact as far north as Wisconsin. I regret that now; maybe if I hadn't made the switch I could more clearly remember the taste of Howdy's root beer.

I've read on the internet that Howdy's was bought up by 7-Up. Whenever I see a story on TV about that store in Los Angeles that carries hundreds of obscure brands of pop, I always wonder if I get a Howdy's root beer there.