Hard to believe that the Coca-Cola Company ever had slow sales. But in the early 1930’s the small soda company found that the winter months were that hardest for sales.
Enter advertising painter Haddon Sundblom, and his version of the St Nicholas people had grown to associate with the Christmas season – In a red suit with white fur trim that just happened to be the companies colors. And what’s Santa’s drink of choice? Why it’s Coca-Cola, of course. He was usually pictured drinking Coke by the fireplace, or, most importantly, leaving bottles of Coke as gifts.
The campaigns worked, and Coca-Cola skyrocketed in popularity.
In a time of black & white movies…it was these colorful illustrations (in magazine adds, billboards, and cardboard in-store stand-ups) that also solidified our modern image of Santa.
Pretty big influence on the kiddos too. Who happened to be the target market for sugar-water in the early part of the century. (Pretty sure that they still are)
It’s an urban myth that the Coca-Cola Company created this red and white Santa figure.
They didn’t, of course.
But they are certainly responsible for how we envision our Santa Claus today.
We’ve been known to hand-make some pretty intricate Holiday cards in the past.
But, I’ve had this particular picture in my “Next Christmas” folder for years now…Looks like perfect inspiration for this year’s Christmas card.
Isn’t he just charming?
John Dunfee is the photographer. I can’t find much about him…. I think this is him.
You know how they say, “People look like their dogs”? – Looks to me like they both need a good brushing.
Anyhoo, great jumping off point for this year’s card.
We have a dog.
We have a wreath.
We enjoy the challenge of getting an un-drugged dog to pose for pictures.
All’s we had to do was paint the white gate section, that I’ve been shooting pictures on for the past year & 1/2, red.
Took a few tries to get the color right…….I prefer my colors straight out of the crayon box…….but we landed on Ralph Lauren Stateroom Red. RL4025
Then we simply threw a scratchy wreath around Harley’s neck, forced her to sit on the freezing garage floor and yelled at her to “Look at Daddy with the camera!” for half an hour.
What could be simpler?
Took about 100 pictures…..no lie.
…4 of which might, actually, be usable. (In most of them she was either moving or looked humiliated)
We settled on this one.
That one floppy ear melts my heart every time I look at her.
Using my rudimentary Photoshop skills;…….. I cropped, lightened the wreath, brightened her face, color enhanced the red and even removed some unpainted boards and a few little blemishes.
Then added a little verbiage……..in my 2 favorite fonts.
Yeah, I think we found the one.
Headed to Vistaprint.com, and ordered us up some Christmas Holiday cards. (Not all our friends are Christians, ya know)
Only took about 5 days to get them into our hands…..
…..and 2 more days to get them addressed and mailed.
Nothing says “Happy Holidays” quite like documenting a humiliated Doberman suffering through a photo session in a cold garage.
On a similar note, I was thumbing through the December issue of Country Living Magazine the other day ……and what do they have on the last page?
(Looks like they did a little Photoshop magic as well – lightened the wreath, made the wall red)
My parents had spent Friday night at an Atlanta Flames hockey game. Pretty common date night for them when I was just a kid.
(I’m guessing that it was more my father’s idea)
Not sure if any of y’all have ever been to a hockey game…….but the action gets pretty brutal. Elbow-to-the-face, blood-on-the-ice, brutal. It’s exhilarating.
Even more exhilarating, ……..my father caught the game puck.
Pretty big accomplishment considering those things don’t often fly into the stands AND they’re fast…….Knock-Your-Teeth-Out speed in fact…..First, and only, hockey puck he’d ever caught. First, and only, opportunity he’s ever had to catch one.
He says that he just reached up, and plucked it right out of the air. Occasionally, in his version of the story, it was about to hit my mother in the face.
As luck would have it, my parents stopped at a brew-house for refreshments after the game….And who should be there? A few of the Atlanta Flames.
No lie.
My father sauntered up to the sweaty/bloody crew, and after a brief introduction, asked them to sign his game puck…….and they did just that.
So what did my dad do with that signed hockey puck? – The puck he caught…..with his bare hands….saving my poor Mother’s life – He left it on the kitchen table so his little boys could gaze upon it first thing in the morning.
We saw it all right….saw that someone had written all over it.
So I washed it off. Took quite a bit of scrubbing with a Brillo, but I got all the permanent sharpie scribbles cleaned off.
That’s no exaggeration. Just miserable. Daytime temps hover just over 100 degrees for about 2 months straight. There’s not much rain too cool it down either. Or wind, or even shady trees to hide under. Everything that was lush and green in the end of May has burned to a dry, brown crisp by early July.
The evenings can bring a little relief when the sun slowly sets and it slips into the 90’s.
When my brothers and I were kids, the summer evenings were when my family would head into town for ice cream. My mother would pile all of us into her car, and with the windows rolled down (because that was always more fun than air conditioning) she’d take us to the downtown Dairy-ette for ice cream. The Dairy-ette was a hold-over from the 1960’s and actually not far from the Piggly Wiggly. Yepp, my town actually had a Piggly Wiggly. They’re both long-gone now. The Dairy-ette had a long lunch counter inside, and a drive-thru, but we always parked and walked to the outside window to order. My brothers and I would choose one of our favorites; Home-made Vanilla, Bubble Gum, Mint Chocolate Chip or Cookies and Cream…..then plop down on one of the picnic tables in front to lap at our cones and listen to the cicadas sing at each other.
…..and just like that, the Texas summer wasn’t so miserable anymore.
The Dairy-ette served Blue Bell Ice Cream.
Sign behind the cash register said it was the only ice cream they had ever served.
Blue Bell Creameries, named after the wildflower that flourishes along Texas highways, was founded in the small Texas town of Brenham in 1907. With the cream sourced from local dairy farmers, they started producing ice cream but only sold it locally until the 1960’s when the company expanded distribution to include Houston, Austin and, eventually, Dallas. The Blue Bell Company has been slow to expand, and they’re just fine with that. In fact, it wasn’t until 1989 that Oklahoma residents even had access to the creamy goodness.
When I went to Texas Tech in the late 80’s, Lubbock was one of those towns without Blue Bell Ice Cream. Good thing I came home for the summers.
Blue Bell truck drivers stock the store freezers themselves, an almost unheard of practice anymore outside of beer and soda, to assure their product is presented in the perfect way.
Blue Bell is the only major ice cream company to still produce a true half-gallon size.
President Bush had Blue Bell ice cream shipped to Camp David.
Blue Bell commercials usually featured happy cows and milk maids singing harmonies together, “Blue Bell’s the best ice cream in the country.” In fact, they would often cast non-actors in the adds. To audition for these commercials, Texans would make videos of themselves singing the theme song and mail them in to the company. Take a look-see for yourselves, these are just regular people:
Just makes you wanna move to Brenham, Texas. Don’t it?
Well, don’t just yet.
Last spring Blue Bell held a complete recall of all of it’s products – over 8 million gallons – when 5 people contracted listeriosis believed to have come from infected ice cream. The company laid off 37% of their workers, keeping the remaining workers just to assist in the recall/clean-up……and at tremendous wage cuts.
I was pretty certain that it was the end of Blue Bell Ice Cream.
But last summer, Sid Bass, a prominent Texan oil tycoon (seriously), loaned the Blue Bell Company $125 million to reorganize and restart production…..
One Hundred Twenty Five Million……for ice cream.
I’m not 100% positive about this,
but I think Sid Bass used to go to the Dairy-ette too.
Christopher Lee, Vincent Price, and Peter Cushing;
The trio combined made over 400 movies – most in the horror genre.
Each of these 3 genuinely charming character actors brought their own flavor to their roles;
Price played the sinister, revengeful villain….in movies like The Fly, The House of Wax, and Theater of Blood….although, I like him best as the kindly old inventor in Edward Scissorhands. His voice-over work was used by Alice Cooper and Michael Jackson on his song Thriller. He even recorded his own remake of The Monster Mash.
Cushing was the icy, menacing figure portraying Victor Frankenstein, Van Helsing, and Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars. (Because his costume boots hurt his feet, George Lucas allowed him to film the movie in his slippers.)
Lee, always the deadly charmer, played Dracula (in 9 films, no less), Rasputin, Frankenstein’s monster, and even the Mummy. Lee also contributed his talents to Star Wars movies, as Count Dooku, and the Lord of the Rings as the wizard Saruman.
Although the 3 were great friends, and almost share the exact birthday – Price and Lee were born May 27, Cushing; May 26 – It’s hard to believe that they only made one movie together; The House of the Long Shadow.
The Bat Pack may be gone from this earth now, but the screen legacy of these brilliant actors will continue to chill…….
Still riding the Crazy Mouse at the State Fair of Texas. (My second favorite State Fair tradition)
We always buy the picture….The one they take just as the car is about to drop.
Sometimes we ride it alone;
Sometimes a friend or 2 will join us; like the Pecks…
Or our friend, Leslie…..
Or even my brother Ben,
But this year…..
…..the carney insisted on shoving a lonely little boy in between us,
Don’t think he enjoyed it as much as we did.
(Interesting way to see how much weight we have each gained/lost over the years……I’m down about 25 pounds, and Jamie has lost just over 50. Zoom up to the fourth and fifth pictures. It doesn’t look like anyone else would fit in that cart with us)
THE CAVENDER DIARY 