25 MORE EXCELLENT ODDITIES FROM WISCONSIN AND WASHINGTON THRIFT STORES!

OH YES, it's that time again when I share with you the strange old crap I find on my thrift excursions! As long as there are people, there will be these things, and as long as there is me, I will keep showing them to you. Click on the photos to enlarge, and please to enjoy!

Surely this children's activity must've coincided with the popular TV appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show of Señor Wences, but honestly. "hours of play and fun?" We weren't THAT bored.

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THE TEN STRANGEST THINGS I USED TO EAT AS A KID

Food, to me, is one of the great pleasures in life. When I really like a food, MAN ON MAN, I like it. I savor, I swoon, I make every last morsel last the longest I can, which invariably leaves me the last at the table, flirting with a creamy Brie or juicy mango slice. So, since I'm a big fan of food, I do remember a lot about the things I liked especially when I was little and growing up in Wisconsin, and I thought I'd share (or confess) some of the weirder things I used to consume, with recipes if you'd like to indulge. Please to enjoy!

1. CANNIBAL SANDWICHES

You need: Cocktail rye bread, raw lean ground beef, sliced raw onion, salt, pepper

This was my favorite treat for years and years, and my dad's favorite. It is also fairly insane, as eating raw beef is a bad idea. Oh, but it was SO GOOD! The key, my mom said, was buying the best fresh custom-ground sirloin and consuming it immediately, and pouring on so much salt and pepper that your blood pressure would explode your vessels.

Do I still eat this?: No. I am not insane. But I sure do miss them.

2. MIRACLE WHIP SANDWICHES

You need: Two slices of Wonder Bread, Miracle Whip Salad Dressing

Slather on the Miracle Whip onto the squooshiest white bread you can find; consume. I liked these because they were fast.

Do I still eat this?: No. I now like fiber and flavor in my bread, and buy actual mayo.

3. "REESE'S CUP" SANDWICHES

You need: 2 slices Wonder Bread, Skippy Chunky peanut butter, Hershey's Chocolate Syrup

We never had candy around the house, so the day I improvised this calorie-fest to approximate a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup I figured I was a straight-up genius. The Hershey's gave it kind of a bitter, processed flavor, but WHO CARES? CANDY SANDWICH!

Do I still eat this?: No. I'd weigh 5000 pounds by now and would be forced to have a reality show.

4. CANNED MAC & CHEESE + COTTAGE CHEESE

You need: 1 can Franco-American Macaroni and Cheese, 1/2 cup cottage cheese

You're lucky I couldn't find a photo of this mixture, because it looks like puke. The choice of this particular canned mac n' cheese was crucial, with its pale yellow fat long noodles, which were unnaturally slippery, in a salty, weird cheesy sauce. The addition of the cottage cheese boosted the salty cheesiness to another level. This was comfort food for me, but it grosses absolutely everyone else out.

Do I still eat this?: About once a year. JUDGE ME, I DON'T CARE!

5. COLD SAUERKRAUT BOWL

You need: leftover cooked refrigerated sauerkraut with caraway seeds

If my mom had cooked pork roast or chops during the week, you can be sure she served sauerkraut with it, and if there were leftovers, they were MINE. This was one of my favorite Saturday day morning cartoon-watching snacks, complete with sauerkraut juice that I'd lap up from the bottom of the bowl. This also grossed out everyone, especially my friends who might be sleeping over. I did not care.

Do I still eat this?: I still love sauerkraut (and caraway seeds are VITAL), but the big cold bowl of it is beyond what I can process in my dotage.

6. FRIZZLEBURGERS

You need: 1 lb. hamburger, 1 medium onion, chopped, several dashes Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, hamburger buns or rye bread

This was my mom's recipe, and one of my dad's favorite lunches. You'd cook the hamburger down into well-done crumbles that resembled tiny carbon rocks, with translucent, extremely-caramelized onions, dashes of Lee & Perrins, and plenty of salt and pepper. Served loose on a bun or rye, it was tasty as heck, ya.

Do I still eat this?: Yes! And the kids love it, too.

7. BUTTER + PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES

You need: Wonder Bread, Skippy Chunky peanut butter, salted butter

In my house, all sandwiches came with butter. ALL. So I didn't realize this was kinda weird until I was an adult. But, I must say, the addition of the butter to the peanut butter highlights the salt and fat in a most-pleasing way,

Do I still eat this?: No, it seems indulgent. But I remember it with taste fondness.

8. MARASCHINO CHERRY JUICE 

You need: a jar of maraschino cherries

This got me in trouble a lot. We always had a jar of maraschino cherries in the fridge for my dad's cocktails, and we were verboten to eat them, which was awful because they were DELICIOUS. It was all I knew of cherries until I got to be around 10 and had a real cherry, which of course I thought was sour and hideous in comparison to this over-sweetened probably-toxic fruit thing. Anyway, I rationalized that, OK, if I couldn't eat the cherries, I could drink the juice from the jar, right?

Do I still eat this?: That would be really bizarre. No.

9. COLD HOT DOG SANDWICHES

You need: cold cooked hot dogs, sliced into bite-sized circles, butter, 2 slices Wonder Bread

This sandwich was like a more-satisfying version of the classic baloney-on-white sandwich. Yes, the hot dog circles would sometimes fall out of the sandwich as you tried to eat it, but it was a challenge I was up to.

Do I still eat this?: I haven't had one in decades, but would like to revisit it once.

10. ZOTZ

You need: Zotz candy

Zotz! I hope you have experienced Zotz in your lifetime, people. It was created in Italy in the late '60s, and remains my favorite candy because IT IS FUNNY. Food + humor = YES. You start out sucking on the fruity hard candy shell, right? Then you get bored and bite into it. THEN A GIANT SOUR FOAM IS RELEASED AND SLAMS YOUR MOUTH! HA HA! Oh, I love it so. I used to trade hoarded Halloween chocolate for these if my friends had some.

Do I still eat this?: In my 40s, I took the Zotz Challenge on a dare, and stuffed as many Zotz into my mouth as I could and then chewed. The resultant explosion blew out of my mouth while I laughed myself into tears. So, there's your answer.

This lady is trying just one Zot for the first time. HA HA! Strange for some people, is just strange.

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STICKERING IT TO THE MAN: MY WACKY PACKAGES STICKER COLLECTION FROM 1973-74!

In the Fall of 1973, I was newly into 6th Grade at Ashippun (WI.) Elementary School, although back in those groovy days "grade levels" there had sort of been set aside for "units" A, B, and C, grouped loosely by ascending age and ability. We were a mix of farm and town kids, with "town" being the small group of houses surrounding a five tiny saloons, a firehouse, and a post office, no more than 300 people in total. I can remember particularly that year one of the bars was open very early in the morning (Wisconsin, remember) and would sell CANDY to us schoolkids before we got on the schoolbus. Hot dog gum, Kit Kat bars, Boston Baked Beans, Bit O' Honey, Red Hots, Almond Joy and Mounds, candy bracelets...so many tiny joys that rotted our teeth and depleted our school milk money allotments. These were also the days when your parents could send you with a written note to buy cigarettes for them from the same bars, but that's another topic.

If there's anything elementary-age kids love, it's trading and collecting. It could be cool rocks, swizzle sticks (again, Wisconsin), or the above candies. But in 1973, the big kid collecting fad was the return of Wacky Packages. For a nickel a pack, you got some stiff, powdery bubble gum and three stickers, which hilariously spoofed common household products. With American super-consumer culture into its third decade and a heightened zeitgeist of "question authority," we kids weren't buying the hype we saw on TV commercials by now...we'd grown up with all the tricks of advertising. Wacky Packages brilliantly mixed that youthful cynics' eyeview with the zest to collect, as if MAD Magazine got into the trading card business. They made millions off us while making us laugh.

I was so proud of my collection that I peeled them off and made a mini-album out of a piece of cardboard and clear plastic, stapled together. I recently found it in a box of dusty school papers and art that had been stored for decades, and my smile, 42 years later, was wide. I did a little research and confirmed that they all belong to the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6 series of Wacky Packages releases, going from the fall of '73 to the spring of '74. The glue is failing to hold, but they still look pretty good!

The next year I was off to junior high in the "city" (of about 7000 people), and the fad had faded. But good satire never dies, and I thought I'd share these with you. Click on the images to enlarge!

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15 CURIOUS ITEMS FROM WISCONSIN THRIFT AND ANTIQUE STORES!

I do apologize for the lack of posts here recently, but I've been in Wisconsin on our annual summer vacation having entirely a lot of fun eating cheese and such. However, I did fit in a few vintage shopping trips, and as always have found some choice items to share with you. Please to enjoy, you betcha!

I strongly considered buying this and giving it to a sworn enemy or myself. Gobble, gobble, one of us!

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MISS TWELVE'S PHOTOS OF RURAL CENTRAL WISCONSIN

Hello from our annual family visit to Wisconsin! It's a lovely June here, and we are chillin' in the wooded wonderland with my mom right now. For this post, I am sharing some pretty and peaceful photographs from daughter Miss Twelve that she took during a drive through the country. Click on the photos to enlarge (spot the deer and wild turkeys!) and as always, please to enjoy.

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19 MORE ODDBALL ITEMS FROM WISCONSIN AND WASHINGTON THRIFT STORES!

I have been asked more than once -- perhaps maybe even up to three times possibly -- the question, "How do you find such funny/weird/unusual/terrifying things at the thrift stores you go to?" I always answer, "Honey/Baby/Sweetie/Your Honor, they find me." Please to enjoy this lot of losers!

Decomposing Dora will haunt us both, forever.

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27 MORE WEIRD RECORDS FROM WISCONSIN THRIFT STORES!

Oh ya hey, I'm tote-ly back in Seattle now, but I got more stuff to share with you from my Wis-CAHN-sin visit, eh? Ta-day it's gonna be more ahhd-ball recurds frahm da St. Vinny's and da Goodwill! I even bought a few but I ain't gonna tell ya which ones! Ennyway, please to enjoy!

What in the hell does this '80s-style dancing robot/ant have to do with Big Band music??

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20 ODD ITEMS FROM WISCONSIN THRIFT STORES!

I'm here in Wisconsin on my annual family vacation, and of course I must keep up with my thrift store visits, eh? Ja! Here are a few weirdo things that caught my eye. Please to enjoy!

The expression on the smaller doll perhaps reflects some poignant angst over the larger doll's looming puberty.

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NOVEMBER, 1963

The life of a young child is shaped by the comfort of routines -- the growing understanding that when the sun comes up each morning you will be greeted with your mother's kind smile and a warm breakfast, you will play, eat, rest, rock in a chair, pet the dog play, eat again, read a book with your father and, as it becomes dark, you return again to your bed to sleep. The early routines of care and nourishment build trust and attachment, and all of our relationships to follow will be based upon these days, one way or another.

A profound disruption in routine has the power to make a lasting impact on a child, and this was the case for what may be the earliest memory I have. On this day, and perhaps for a day or so later, our house was oddly still and quiet, save for the television news remaining on day and night -- again, very unusual, as both my parents insisted that the TV be turned off if no one was in the room watching a program in order to "save electricity." The light coming into the house was minimal, typical for an early winter's day in Wisconsin, but the grayness seemed darker somehow. I cannot remember any lamps turned on at all.

The people talking on the television were very serious, and some were crying, and it didn't stop. There were no cartoons, no reruns of Ben Casey, no soap operas. Something very bad had happened to make so many grown-ups that sad. My mother and father and brother were so quiet. I padded around the house on my own -- not unusual -- but I felt worried and confused by what I was seeing and hearing. The same name kept coming up over and over again on the television, along with a face I had seen before.

If everyone else was sad, I thought, then I should be sad, too, and cried by myself in front of the TV, silently, until my mother scooped me up and carried me to the black rocking chair, where she wiped my tears and we rocked back and forth until the room was completely dark.

It was November 22, 1963, and I was 19 months old.

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BIZARRE LAWN DECORATIONS FROM KMART!

Ahhh! I forgot I had these pictures on my phone from our last trip to Wisconsin, when we went to Kmart in search of cheap beach toys. We did find floaties and towels and swim goggles, but more importantly, we found these very damn peculiar outdoor ornamentations. We marveled at them long enough to be disturbed, confused, delighted, and late to the beach. Please to enjoy!

I...OK, right away, I am at a loss for words. I don't understand. It's a Watermelon Bird. Who would want this? What does it SAY? Is this cute? If this were a real bird, it's entire front half would be chopped off and it would be DEAD.

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TRICK OR TREAT FOR UNICEF, 1973

Growing up in Wisconsin, I found nothing to celebrate about the Fall. The season to me only meant that the lush, warm, and all-too-short days of summer would come to an abrupt end, the dreary routine of school would begin, and as soon as the leaves turned from autumnal reds and golds to crackly dull brown, the harshness of months of ice and snow and bitter cold would begin. In the Fall of 1973, I was 11 years old -- the age my daughter is now -- and lived in a minuscule farm community of about 300 people. My family had moved there two years prior -- "A temporary move," claimed my father -- and we didn't get out until another 8 years had slowly passed. When you believe that you have no reason to invest in a place, no reason to make connections because you might be leaving "soon," you isolate yourself, and wait.

The sole good thing about Fall, of course, was Halloween, and all the fun of dressing in costume and trying to get as much candy from the neighbors as you could. At 11, I was nearly out of the game. In this tiny town, trick-or-treating past age 12 was considered a total faux pas, and adults wouldn't hesitate to tell teens looking for a spare handful of mini chocolate bars to buzz off. Since we lived in a ranch house "in town" (as opposed to living on a farm "outside of town") the candy opportunities were excellent. You could stop by every single house there was if you wanted to, on foot, so you did, carrying a pillow case or garbage bag to hold the sweet loot.

But before dark settled, there was another task at hand on Halloween: "Trick Or Treat For UNICEF." I can still hear the sing-songy cadence of it..."Trick or Treat for U-NI-CEFFFF..."

From Wikipedia:

Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF is a fund-raising program for children sponsored by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Started on Halloween 1950  as a local event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, the program historically involves the distribution of small orange boxes by schools to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small change donations from the houses they visit. Millions of children in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, and Hong Kong participate in Halloween-related fund-raising events for Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF, and the program has raised over US $188 million worldwide.

Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF was invented by Mary Emma Allison, the wife of Presbyterian minister Clyde Allison. In 1949, the Allisons were living in Bridesburg, a neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. When Mrs.Allison saw a UNICEF booth collecting funds to send powdered milk to undernourished children around the world, she thought of getting children to collect donations for UNICEF instead of candy. Rev. Clyde Allison introduced the concept to local Presbyterian churches. On Halloween 1950, the Allisons recruited their own children and their community's to go door-to-door collecting nickels and dimes in decorated milk cartons to aid children in post-World War II Europe. They collected a total of $17 and donated all of it to UNICEF.  

 In 1953, the United States Committee for UNICEF started actively promoting the program. By the 1960s, the concept had expanded throughout the United States, with small orange collection boxes distributed to millions of trick-or-treaters.When UNICEF won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson said in his congratulatory letter: "Your UNICEF Trick or Treat Day has helped turn a holiday too often marred by youthful vandalism into a program of basic training in world citizenship." In 1967, Johnson declared Halloween, October 31, to be 'UNICEF Day' in the United States; by 1969, 3.5 million American children were trick-or-treating for donations.Children (and adults) in the U.S. have collected more than US $170 million for Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF.

1970s  Trick or Treat for UNICEF Commercial with Sanmy Davis, Jr.



Like regular trick-or-treating with candy, getting those coins in the little orange boxes was a highly-competitive event with the kids. We'd get the boxes at school, and the child who brought in the most money won some sort of prize while looking like a kind-hearted hero, helping all those poor kids in the Third World and such. Truth be told, plenty if not most of the families in my town in 1973 didn't have too much change to spare at all, including my own, but with the excitement of competition and the holiday, that was pretty well forgotten.

I didn't hesitate to set out with my orange UNICEF box and a big, broad smile as soon as I got off the afternoon school bus, for I knew that all the kids would be doing the same. If you didn't get to a house first with your pitch and someone else did, you'd likely get turned away -- nicely at first ("Oh, I'm sorry, hon, I just gave to Gary there...you want a Tootsie Pop?") and then not-so-nicely ("Don't you kids coordinate this at school? I can't give out money to all of you!") with a definite closing of the front door. I wanted to win the prize and be the UNICEF hero, so I knew that I should go alone, and move fast. I wanted to feel that orange box grow heavy with nickels and dimes and maybe even quarters, and to go home and spread it all out on my bed, counting up the shiny tokens to glorious public recognition.

It was a typical late fall day, already unpretty with the leaves dropped and dead, dull grey skies, and a cruel brisk wind. I borrowed some of my mother's warm driving gloves and took my Panasonic transistor radio along for company. It's like the radio knew I was bummed out about fall, because so many of the pop hits sang to me about sadness, loss, and loneliness: "Photograph," "Half-Breed," "Paper Roses," "Angie," "Midnight Train To Georgia." The WOKY DJs pattered away, regardless of the lyrical content.

My first house was a neighbor that we had only just nodded and waved to, an elderly widow with permed white hair, round and stout and grandmotherly. I was a little nervous as I rang her doorbell as we rarely saw her, and her curtains were always closed. I could hear movement in the house. It seemed to take forever for her to come to the door. I could hear other kids running, shouting "TRICK OR TREAT FOR U-NI-CEFFF!" Come on, lady! Come on!

She answered the door with a smile. She was using a walker, and propped the door open with a corner of it.

"Trick or treat for U-NI-CEFFF!" I sing-songed brightly, giving a winning grin paired with the most sincere eyes I could muster.

"Oh! Yes! It's that time again already! Yes, of course! Won't you come in a minute? I will see what I have in my purse."

Awwww, no, I thought, I don't wanna go in! There's no time! She had already turned towards the interior, leaving me little choice but to enter, closing the door behind me.

As I followed her into the kitchen, my nose wrinkled at the "old" smell throughout the house -- that combination of the musty dust from too many old things and too little fresh air. But I could see that she had already prepared a pumpkin-shaped plastic bowl filled with little bags of candy corn, and that everything was very neat and orderly, if a bit dark. Clomp-ca-clomp-ca-clomp, went the walker, and she began to ask me questions. Lots and lots and lots of questions, about school and my dog and my parents and the weather, in that way that is both terribly sweet and utterly excruciating for children. I was raised to be polite to my elders, and could not bring myself to utter the terse, brusque replies that would get me out the door faster and onto the next house. I couldn't do it, but felt like I had a thousand ants crawling on me, I wanted to bolt so badly. Before I knew it, she had me sitting at her kitchen table and put a plate of oatmeal cookies and a glass of milk in front of me.

"It's so nice of you to stop by. I'm glad to meet the new neighbors!"

Awwwww, man. I weakly smiled and nodded, nodded and smiled, and ate a cookie with one ungloved hand and drank some milk, my radio sitting silent on the Formica table, eyes darting around for a clock. She kept talking and talking and I just couldn't figure my way out. I didn't even know if she remembered why I came to the door, until the doorbell rang again.

"Oh! Oh, yes! UNICEF! Halloween! Ha ha ha! Excuse me, please!"

As she clomped to the front door, I shoved the last bit of cookie in my mouth, put my glove on, grabbed my radio and my orange box, and followed her, hoping I could exit with some kind of grace. To my horror, I saw it was almost dark outside. Almost out of time! UNICEF collections strictly stopped at nighttime.

"TRICK OR TREAT FOR U-NI-CEFFFF!"

Aw, dang! It was Carl, who was a year younger than me, and a head taller. He was my sworn enemy ever since he had teased me on the bus, I had turned around and scratched his face up like a wildcat, and he slugged me in the stomach hard enough to take my breath away. I thought I came out better because while I caught my breath in a few minutes, he had to go to school for a week with a messed-up face. Anyway, he was just as determined to win the UNICEF collection prize, and especially to beat me doing it.

"Oh, yes! Lovely! You two wait here one moment!" the old lady told us. "I know my purse is here somewhere!"

I heard my mom bang our screen door, going outside to give our dog Sam his dinner, cheap dry kibble with a gravy made from hot water and bacon drippings. Carl grinned evilly at me and shook his collection box, heavy with coins.

"This is my third box, and you're gonna lose," he whispered at me.

"Who cares? You probably stole it all, Stupid," I spat back.

After another eternity, clomp-ca-clomp-ca-clomp, she returned with a small light blue plastic coin purse, embossed with the name of the only bank in town in gold lettering.

"Here you go!" she exclaimed.

Plonk plonk, two nickels into Carl's box. Plonk plonk, two nickels into mine.

"ThankyougoodbyehappyHalloween!" Carl blurted, and ran off to the next house, wisely avoiding mine.

Two nickels. I have two lousy nickels! Aw, man.

"Marianne! Dinner's ready!" shouted my mom, seeing me there from our house, carrying Sam's now-empty bowl in her hands.

Aw, nooooooo! I can't show up at school with TEN CENTS!!! But as the streetlights snapped on, Trick or Treat for UNICEF 1973 was over, and there was pot roast to eat, and real trick-or-treating to prepare for. I had to go home.

"I enjoyed our visit, Marianne. Please come by again! Bring these to your family...you can leave the plate at the door later. I just put my candy bowl on the porch for the children tonight; I can't stay up so late these days!" Our elderly neighbor handed me the plate with the rest of the cookies on it, smiling, and I thanked her.

I snapped the radio on, balanced the UNICEF box on top of the cookies, told Sam he was a good boy, and walked into my own warm, bright kitchen that smelled so wonderful.

"How did you do? Did you get lots of donations?" asked my mom as she brought plates to our own Formica table.

"No. I ended up getting stuck the whole time at Mrs. Johnson's house! She just wanted to talk! She sent these cookies for us, though."

"Oh, how nice! I will bake a batch for her later and you can drop them off."

I took the gloves off, sat down at the table, picked up my orange box, and rattled the two lonely coins inside. Rattle rattle rattle. My mom stopped for a moment.

"That was the right thing to do. Thank you."

I looked at her, all flushed from cooking, strands of hair loose around her face, and she was smiling at me. I smiled back, and rattled the box again, in time to "Space Race."

Billy Preston, "Space Race"

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TWENTY-FOUR WEIRD RECORD COVERS FROM PORTAGE (WI.) THRIFT STORES!

One last post in this series of thrift/antiques store strangeness from my annual Wisconsin visit...Badger State, you have not let me down! Here are a few more oddball records -- please to enjoy!

Apparently God also gave them his n' hers eyeliner.

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