3 replies to this topic

[Dave Crevie]

When I was a kid, this cartoon appeared each fall just around Halloween, in the Sunday Chicago Tribune magazine. I always looked forward to seeing it. It always made me wonder just what it was like in my area of the state 100 years before. These days, it brings back those memories of that child, full of the great possibilities that lay before him.

 

 

P.S. You can enlarge the page if you are finding the small print hard to read. Click on the three dots in the upper right hand corner, find "zoom" in the task box, and click on "+" until you can read the print. When you are done, you can click on the "-" until the box reads "100 %" again. 

[Phil Hackett]

That could never run in today's papers or internet.

[Dave Crevie]

Certainly not without a lot of editing. The language needs a lot of "cleaning up", but the history hasn't changed. I was amazed to find out that a native-American village existed only about a mile from my house. It lasted, in it's final iteration of shotgun shacks, until 1920 when it was cleared out by the city. When I was a toddler there was a clear view to Salt Creek, which had already been rerouted twice to the East (closer to my home) to accamodate a larger sewerage treatment plant. On cool fall evenings, when the water of the creek was warmer than the air tempurature, there was a mist that hung in that area much like in the cartoon. Our pre-teen imaginations ran rampant, and we swore we saw ghosts in that mist.    

[Dave Crevie]

The Sunday color funny pages were always a highpoint of my weekend. Laying on the front room floor after church, and pouring over those comic strips had a way of brightening the day. And at Christmas time they were especially mesmerizing. One of my favorites was Pogo, ruling his forest with soft hints of what was really happening in the political world. 

 

Every year Pogo and his forest mates would embark on a little journey of caroling through the woods. They made up their own carols, the most famous was Boston Charlie. And each year they would add more verses, decided upon by a very Congressional, but non-sensical, type debate. 

 

I don't know how many of you remember the funnies of the past. I would guess quite a few. Here's a taste to jar your memories.

 

 

Here are the lyrics in their final form, sung to "Deck The Halls".