Author Archives: rand

Oreo’s 100th Anniversary

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And, yes, I have one of these.

"This container is a replica of the original store tin that was sold on March 6, 1912 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Oreo biscuits became an instant success and now are the best selling cookies in the world."

I have eaten many Oreos.

And enjoy Hoboken’s history.

The Button Shirt

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Wow, the place here looks like a tornado hit it. We set up the Kirby Museum “convention table” at Maxwell’s this past weekend for the Hoboken Artists Studio Tour. Great time all around, especially being able to lunch with family at Hoboken’s Pilsnerhaus Biergarten. After having brought everything back home, I just had to take a stab at some real, bold expelling and reorganizing of objects.

This effort lead me to reduce the number of shoes in my closet. A long time coming, and now done, eyeball reports an almost 50% reduction of shoe volume. Wow.

But what’s in this plastic “Casey’s” bag on the bottom of the closet with the shoes? Buttons?

Uh, no.

It’s my button shirt.

A Golden Grahams “Have a Golden Day” t-shirt, a gift from my maternal Grandmother, Florence (she’s featured in an earlier blog entry), who loved Golden Grahams cereal, and, I suppose, saved up enough proofs-of-purchase, or whatever, to obtain this shirt for her grandson. I have a memory of a phone conversation with her asking me if I would like the shirt.

I remember I’d had a random collection of buttons back in the late ’80s, and one day my friend Alice G. mentioned that our pal Charlie C. had a t-shirt on which he put all his buttons. Not a bad idea, I thought. Soon after that, I had this shirt hanging on the inside of one of my closet doors at 1105 Washington St. I added to it regularly.

Two apartments and almost twenty years later, here it is.

Highlights:

  • Pornographic Betty Boop button purchased during an early visit to Greenwich Village in a shop on W 3rd St. near Village Comics. O boy!
  • Welcome to Macy’s – I worked at the Macy’s in Roosevelt Field during the spring and summer of 1981.
  • Beat Colgate buttons bought in Syracuse, which I wore on my graduation gown when receiving my diploma. The President laughed when we shook hands.
  • Two Ira Karasick for Mayor buttons (1993)
  • “Thank You For Shopping At Modell’s” – Modell’s is mentioned in an earlier entry and comments. Ken, could this have been yours?
  • “It’s Coming, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers” – I was just talking about this button with my cousin Kathy yesterday at the Pilsnerhaus.
  • Hudson County Juror
  • San Diego Comic Con 1992 Press badge with “Mondo 2000” and “Boing Boing” typed above my name. Thanks to Andrew Mayer and Jack Kirby.
  • Howard the Duck For President. “Get Down America!”

I could go on. Click on the image to see more details. I would love to hear from you.

1986 – The Energy People Revisit Hoboken

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From 1986, an article about Hoboken written by Don Singleton and published by PSE&G in their quarterly house organ “The Energy People.”

Scanned from a copy of the magazine Mark Singleton had in his file cabinet of wonders.

Big thanks to Don for his OK to offer it here!

Download (PDF, 847KB)

December 1972 – The day Spider-man failed

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Based on the cover date, I assume that sometime in December 1972 I went with my mom to what is now known as the Merrick “Bank Plaza” Post Office. It’s quite possible that she was sending our Christmas cards, or buying stamps for them. As she parked, I asked if I could go to Merrick Stationery, a half block away.

I wanted to buy a comic book.

I’d never bought a comic book before.

I’d bought Mad Magazines at various newsstands around town, Peanuts paperbacks at Modell’s (mentioned in my Ed’s Glass Works entry from Sept 2010), but never a comic book. I did own some comic books that I didn’t buy, and weren’t bought for me, either. (A subject for another entry.) I’d casually read some comic books at Camp Trexler, the barber shop, and at friends’ houses.

So there I was, part of the incoming 7th grade at Brookside Junior High; I’d probably been watching the Spider-man TV cartoon for years.

I’m gonna buy a comic book!

Merrick Stationery had a nice display for their comic books, to my mind. Right inside the door a six foot long, multi-shelf magazine rack with the books lined up front with maybe only a half inch of their spine showing. No real full covers shown. No rickety, squeaky spinner rack, but somehow it was fine. It was neat and organized. I still like how it was done, considering the comic books were just cheap, pulp entertainment, not collectors’ items. It was easy to find the comic book you wanted.

I bought the Spider-man comic book, and went to the car.

Took the comic book home.

It didn’t excite me.

I was not hooked.

I didn’t buy another comic book for a few months, and only did so because I wanted to be able to participate in the lending at Camp Trexler.

Years later, I learned that the story, “The Deadly Designs of the Disruptor!” in Amazing Spider-man 117, was part one of a two part re-working of a story from 1968.

It was part one of a two part story, and I wasn’t interested in reading part two.

The day Spider-man failed.