across a street, waiting for a light, standing at a bus stop. IS YOUR FACE CIRCLED? IF IT IS, CALL THE HERALD EXAMINER AND CLAIM FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!! The streets were full of roving bands of out-of-work contestants, hoping to have their faces circled. My father was no exception. One of his most treasured possessions was a tattered newspaper photo that he carried for years in his wallet, a photo of a crowd snapped on Huron Street that showed, not more than three inches away from the circled face, a smudged figure wearing a straw skimmer, looking the wrong way. He swore it was him. He had invented an involved story to corroborate this, which he told at every company picnic for years.
He was particularly hooked on FIND THE HIDDEN OBJECTS and HOW MANY MISTAKES ARE IN THIS PICTURE? , which consisted of three-legged dogs, ladies with eight fingers, and smokestacks with smoke blowing in three directions. He was much better at this game than the Historical Figures. No one in Hohman had ever even heard of Disraeli,but they sure knew a lot about smokestacks and how many horns a cow had, and whether birds flew upside down or not.
Contest after contest spun off into history. Doggedly my father labored on. Every night the
Chicago American
spread out on the dining-room table, paste pot handy, scissors and ruler, pen and ink, he clipped and glued; struggled and guessed. He was not the only one in that benighted country who pasted a white wig on Theodore Roosevelt and called him John Quincy Adams, or confused Charlemagne with Sitting Bull. But to the faithful and the persevering and to he who waits awards will come. The historic day that my father “won a prize” is still a common topic of conversation in Northern Indiana.
The contest dealt with GREAT FIGURES FROM THE WORLD OF SPORTS . It was sponsored by a soft-drink company that manufactured an artificial orange drink so spectacularly gassy that violent cases of The Bends were common among those who bolted it down too fast. The color of this volatile liquid was a blinding iridescent shimmering, luminous orange that made
real
oranges pale to the color of elderly lemons by comparison. Taste is a difficult thing to describe, but suffice it to say that this beverage, once quaffed, remained forever in the gastronomical memory as unique and galvanic.
All popular non-alcoholic drinks were known in those days by a single generic term—“Pop.” What this company made was called simply “Orange pop.” The company trademark, seen everywhere, was a silk-stockinged lady’s leg,realistically flesh-colored, wearing a black spike-heeled slipper. The knee was crooked slightly and the leg was shown to the middle of the thigh. That was all. No face; no torso; no dress—just a stark, disembodied, provocative leg. The name of this pop was a play on words, involving the lady’s knee. Even today in the windows of dusty, fly-specked Midwestern grocery stores and poolrooms this lady’s leg may yet be seen.
The first week of the contest was ridiculously easy: Babe Ruth, Bill Tilden, Man O’ War, and the Fighting Irish. My Old Man was in his element. He had never been known to read anything
but
the Sport page. His lifetime subscription to the
St. Louis Sporting News
dated back to his teen-age days. His memory and knowledge of the minutia and trivia of the Sporting arenas was deadening. So naturally he whipped through the first seven weeks without once even breathing hard.
Week by week the puzzlers grew more obscure and esoteric. Third-string utility infielders of Second-Division ball clubs, substitute Purdue halfbacks, cauliflower-eared canvas-backed Welterweights, selling platers whose only distinction was a nineteen-length defeat by Man O’War. The Old Man took them all in his stride. Night after night, snorting derisively, cackling victoriously, consulting his voluminous records, he struggled on toward the Semi-Finals.
A week of nervous suspense and a letter bearing the imprint of a lady’s
He was particularly hooked on FIND THE HIDDEN OBJECTS and HOW MANY MISTAKES ARE IN THIS PICTURE? , which consisted of three-legged dogs, ladies with eight fingers, and smokestacks with smoke blowing in three directions. He was much better at this game than the Historical Figures. No one in Hohman had ever even heard of Disraeli,but they sure knew a lot about smokestacks and how many horns a cow had, and whether birds flew upside down or not.
Contest after contest spun off into history. Doggedly my father labored on. Every night the
Chicago American
spread out on the dining-room table, paste pot handy, scissors and ruler, pen and ink, he clipped and glued; struggled and guessed. He was not the only one in that benighted country who pasted a white wig on Theodore Roosevelt and called him John Quincy Adams, or confused Charlemagne with Sitting Bull. But to the faithful and the persevering and to he who waits awards will come. The historic day that my father “won a prize” is still a common topic of conversation in Northern Indiana.
The contest dealt with GREAT FIGURES FROM THE WORLD OF SPORTS . It was sponsored by a soft-drink company that manufactured an artificial orange drink so spectacularly gassy that violent cases of The Bends were common among those who bolted it down too fast. The color of this volatile liquid was a blinding iridescent shimmering, luminous orange that made
real
oranges pale to the color of elderly lemons by comparison. Taste is a difficult thing to describe, but suffice it to say that this beverage, once quaffed, remained forever in the gastronomical memory as unique and galvanic.
All popular non-alcoholic drinks were known in those days by a single generic term—“Pop.” What this company made was called simply “Orange pop.” The company trademark, seen everywhere, was a silk-stockinged lady’s leg,realistically flesh-colored, wearing a black spike-heeled slipper. The knee was crooked slightly and the leg was shown to the middle of the thigh. That was all. No face; no torso; no dress—just a stark, disembodied, provocative leg. The name of this pop was a play on words, involving the lady’s knee. Even today in the windows of dusty, fly-specked Midwestern grocery stores and poolrooms this lady’s leg may yet be seen.
The first week of the contest was ridiculously easy: Babe Ruth, Bill Tilden, Man O’ War, and the Fighting Irish. My Old Man was in his element. He had never been known to read anything
but
the Sport page. His lifetime subscription to the
St. Louis Sporting News
dated back to his teen-age days. His memory and knowledge of the minutia and trivia of the Sporting arenas was deadening. So naturally he whipped through the first seven weeks without once even breathing hard.
Week by week the puzzlers grew more obscure and esoteric. Third-string utility infielders of Second-Division ball clubs, substitute Purdue halfbacks, cauliflower-eared canvas-backed Welterweights, selling platers whose only distinction was a nineteen-length defeat by Man O’War. The Old Man took them all in his stride. Night after night, snorting derisively, cackling victoriously, consulting his voluminous records, he struggled on toward the Semi-Finals.
A week of nervous suspense and a letter bearing the imprint of a lady’s
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