Al Peffley

The end of World War II. Eye Candy for old men, Bill?  That 1967 Pontiac Firebird you showed reportedly sold for over $49K at a fairly recent auction!

When women were not men. Maybe Reard was inspired by nose art painted on U.S. bombers that liberated France? We lost a lot of heroic bomber crews over France...

Ken Becker

To promote the bikini, inventor Louis Reard made a "land yacht" based on a 1937 Packard and followed the 1948 Tour de France using the yacht's rear deck as a stage for modeling the bikini.

Bill Engelhardt

By any measure, Ken, a true visionary. 

Al Peffley

Reard was an Automotive Engineer that inherited a lingerie business from his mother. Reard took Jacques Heim's bathing suit idea and made it more revealing for midriff skin tanning. Heim introduced his version in May, 1946, and Reard introduced his string bikini in July, and then patented it almost immediately to protect his modified bathing suit product idea. Reard was better at marketing to sun tanning women than Heim. Reard's "model" was a strip club dancer in Paris.

Virginia Wolfe (Scheffer)

Well, gentlemen, you guys are a wealth of information, especially bikinis!  HaHa

Al Peffley

I was deployed with my Naval Air VP Squadron  to NAS Rota Spain in the early 1970's. I had a lady friend from Highline who performed after graduation at a bar at SEATAC to pay her monthly bills. She asked me to buy her a string bikini in Spain and send it back to her. I found one in Sevilla and sent it to her. She was a single mother with two kids. I was surprised to see her at the bar after an airtrip, but she was so gracious and polite, so I granted her wish. A very beautiful gal, both inside and out... Our friendship was strictly casual with no highly personal relationship tone. A lovely person who looked really great in a string bikini. Sailors like bars when on leave. I stayed out of trouble when on leave.

Bill Engelhardt

Saturday Hero. 

Linda Pompeo (Worden)

Wonderful memories.....Saturday shows... black and white tv...fighting over who got to pick the show...  The good guys always won....Roy Rogers could shoot the gun out of the hand of the bad guys...blood and gore not part of the program....  Those were the days!!!

Al Peffley

Songbird I was a surplus Army Air Cessna T-50 (AKA UC-78 "Bobcat", or "Bamboo Bomber") with a wooden and tube metal fuselage frame and fabric canvas airfoil (wing and tail) surface skins. The Songbird III in the photo on the postcard was the last Cessna 310B (all metal) airplane used for episodes until the show filming ended. Cessna also provided a mockup fuselage that was used in the filming, and use of one of their test pilots for flying scene shoots. NBC, ABC, and eventually CBS (Saturday reruns), offered 72 episodes in four seasons on TV released from April, 1952 through March, 1959. Nabisco owned the original series, so they were more than just a product sponser. I remember getting a toy Cessna plane as a promo prize in a box of their cerial. I never was a fan of the radio show, TV show or the early comic books. Cowboy bush pilot fantasy...

Bill Engelhardt

Saturday TV (Portland) in 1956, but Seattle listings were about the same. 

Bob Nicholson

The saddest part of that is that I'm old enough to remember most of them.

Bill Engelhardt

We're not getting older, Bob... we're "seasoning." 

Bob Nicholson

I'm still truck'n, Bill. A little slower. But, I'm still truk'n.

Al Peffley

Real journalism is mostly dead. It is becoming more difficult to find an honest reporter following world events. Living in the past does not satisfy my interest in what's happening now in the world, let alone our own nation. I am tired of "filtered" news to the sheeple. The digital fake news matrix has been going on for decades.

I fully understand about being slower now. It is frustrating for me to not be able to do the things that I had no trouble accomplishing just five years ago. Finding a reliable young person to do the tasks I can no longer do is a challange where we live.

Getting old is the pits, but many of us are still truckin'. I met Genaral Flynn at a rally a few years ago and he asked me what I thought was important to me, and after I told him I finished with "...just Keep on Truckin', Mike'! I realized that I had used a phrase that dated myself because he comes from the early Millenial Generation, not ours. Robert Crumb was the artist that made the phrase and cartoon famous in the late sixties. Crumb later regretted creating a hippies movement spokesperson image with his unique, big foot characters in early 1900's style cartoons...

Bill Engelhardt

July 9, 1949 -- Dedication ceremony of the new passenger terminal and administration building at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. 

Gregg Wilson

I remember this opening very well. The fighters of two aircraft carriers flew over the airport. I remember the bent wings on the fighters.

Al Peffley

Gregg,

Was this the type of carrrier fighter  [see link below] that you saw in 1949? It is a Vought F4U-D [9]. The Navy also flew them during the Korean War.

My last boss at LTV Aerospace was a "Black Sheep" alumni F4U Navy pilot who flew with Pappy Boyington's VMF 214 Squadron during WWII (Boyington was a UW Engineering alumni.) I built a plastic model of a F4U that I thought was so cool looking in the 1950's. Vought built those planes in Connecticut, not far from where my brother lived and worked. I have visited the former Vought assembly plant site. I never did a carrier takeoff or landing in Navy VP airplanes.... You must have been 4 or 5 years old at the SEATAC opening ceremony?

Our website won't allow me to upload a F4U public domain photo, even with this public domain URL link listed! [After Tuesday, even the calender says WTF.]

Cheers!- Al

https://ww2-history.fandom.com/wiki/Vought_F4U_Corsair

Gregg Wilson

My Dad was a captain with Northwest Airlines, so I was always looking at planes in the sky. The planes over the SeaTac terminal looked to be black, but were probably Navy Blue. My Dad took me under the terminal in what was a tunnel. Pretty exciting.

Bill Engelhardt

Connie Francis passed away this past week, and it spurred a memory. 

Thursday, April 29, 1965

Frosty Fowler was on the air atop the Space Needle. It was a Connie Francis record that was on the turntable a few minutes before 8:30 a.m., when a 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck the Puget Sound area.
In later years, Frosty couldn't remember which song it was, and there are no recordings of the broadcast. But record lists and release dates suggest it may have been Forget Domani.

Some of you may recall that Frosty was the guest speaker at our Class of '64 Senior Luncheon at the Burien Elks. He judged the Miss Burien Pageant the following week.

Bob Nicholson

Al Peffley

George Brower helped me get a part-time kitchen job at the Space Needle sometime in 1965. I was a freshman at the U Dub and working two part-time jobs. I don't remember Fowler's radio booth, but I do remember the earthquake and a few aftershocks that swayed the Needle's structure noticeably. I was glad that I did not work the day shift on that day ( LOL). "Frosty" apparently passed in 2019 at the age of 96. Here is the interesting 2019 article that Bill pulled his photo of Frosty from:

https://mynorthwest.com/local/frosty-fowler-space-needle-earthquake/1349937

Thanks! Nice photo, Bob...

Bill Engelhardt

KING Radio had the Space Needle setup till July 1966, at which time KIRO took up residence. Here's a pic of Ray Court holding court with guest Bill Cosby in 1963. 

Linda Pompeo (Worden)

Larry Hoven passed away April 7th.

His wife Nancy, contacted me to let the class know.  She tried to leave messages with the site manager, but for some reason, said she was unable to get any response.

Bill Engelhardt

Very thoughtful of you to take the lead on the news about Larry. 
Thanks.

Al Peffley

Sorry to hear about Larry's passing. He sounds like he had some health issues (like many of us). I pray that his family will be able to handle the future without his loving presence, especially with all of those grand children who, I am sure will miss grampa dearly. God Bless You and give you comfort in the coming days, Nancy.

Sincerely,

Al and Bonnie