Schleicher's Facinations
Kurt Schleicher has always been one of our stalwart classmates. As such, he alerts us often to special events, stories and his facinations with all things nostalgic. We have therefore given him a page on which his facinations can be accumulated for your edification.
Posted on January 9, 2023
These are REALLY Good!!
The day James Dean died...
The Beatles..1968
$7,450 in 1955 is worth $82,842.33 today
$7,900 in 1955 is worth $87,846.23 today
We know this is incorrect each would have $100,000 added if not more.
REMEMBER THESE...
END
Posted on May 21, 2022
Kurt, as like most of us, loved the rockers and rollers of the 50s. Here's a short 3.5-minute video review of those talented rockers:
Rockers.Of.The.Fifties.mp4
Chuck Barry and Jerry Lee Lewis...two of the greatest ever!!!
FIFTIES MUSIC
Some real classics in this video. For those of you not old enough to remember, just enjoy. No nasty words and everyone is well dressed in coat and tie. Notice no mics for the singers, everything was dubbed. Great music from the past - one of the best musical eras of all times!!!!
The MC at the beginning introducing Little Richard, is Alan Freed, the DJ who penned the phrase Rock N' Roll. He was involved in a Payola scandal (receiving money to play certain records ) and was pretty well banned from radio and died at the age of 43 from Alcoholism. Little Richard, real name Richard Penniman, passed last year at the age of 87.
Eddie Cochran was killed in a car crash in Chippenham, England on the way to London. Gene Vincent was injured in the crash, as well as Sharon Sheeley, Eddie's fiancée. She was a songwriter, and she wrote Poor Little Fool for Ricky Nelson.
Don Everly, the last of the Everly Brothers, just passed away this past August 21st.(2021) Their songs Wake Up Little Susie, All I have to Do Is Dream and Bye Bye Love, were written by country & western writers, husband and wife team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant.
Chuck Berry and his famous Duck walk. What a talent he was. He died a few years ago at the age of 90. The music from his song Sweet Little Sixteen, was later covered by The Beach Boys for their song Surfin' USA. Also, his biggest hit was My Ding Aling and that was written years earlier by Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino's good friend and co writer.
Bobby Helms was actually a country singer and is well known for his Xmas song, Jingle Bell Rock. Buddy Holly's real name is Charles Hardin Holley... yes Holley with an E in it. The song he is singing, Oh Boy, on the original has him clearing his throat while singing, and you can hear it.
Fats Domino was 89 when he passed in 2017. He and a man named Dave Bartholomew co wrote many of Fat's hits. Dave was also a record producer and passed in 2018 at the age of 100. Two good ol' New Orleans Boys. Danny & the Juniors had a great hit with their 1957 song At The Hop, and the next year released Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay, and unlike this song, they just kind of faded away!!!!
That leaves only Jerry Lee Lewis left from our era. Jerry is now 86, just turned in Sept. I hope you enjoy this 3 1⁄2 minute video with some of the great music from the days that are long gone by.
Posted on April 4, 2022
Kurt always loved, and still loves, the good old classic cars. He found a couple of videos that he believes you will enjoy as well. Here they are:
The Detroit marketing experts sure knew what the public wanted. Take a look at these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgTSJXwpe9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAA22ANWxEs
Posted on March 31, 2022:
Memories
Here are some that you haven't see for a long time, and some you might not be old enough to know what they are.... See if you can make it through to the end.
Memories.....for real
_._,_._,_ How about beating the carpet out on the clothes line to get the dust and dirt out?… then the new invention of the “ carpet sweeper” ( you walked it back and forth over the carpet, then emptied it outside. only really rich people had wall to wall carpeting. How about the first washing machine? I remember boiling the water, wringing out the clothes, then into the tub with the wash board to scrub the clothes, then wringing them out and back into the tub of really hot water, wringing them out again and carrying them out to the clothesline’… then we got a washing machine that had the adjetator in it and a wringer that you put the clothes through, then back into the washer, but you had hauled out all the soapy water and replaced it with hot water to rinse the clothes, then back through the wringer to get the water out so you could hang them on the line. Gads I’m old……….
Posted on March 31, 2022:
LOST VOCABULARY:
Mergatroyd? Do you remember that word? Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognize the word, Mergatroyd? "Heavens to Mergatroyd!"
The other day a not so elderly (I say 75) lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy; and he looked at her quizzically and said, "What the heck is a Jalopy?" He had never heard of the word jalopy! She knew she was old ... But not that old.
Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory after you read this and chuckle.
About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included: Don't touch that dial; Carbon copy; You sound like a broken record; and Hung out to dry.
Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We'd put on our best bib and tucker , to straighten up and fly right.
Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumping Jehoshaphat! Holy Moley!
We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley ; and even a regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!
Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A.; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, and pedal pushers.
Oh, my aching back! Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.
We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" Or, "This is a fine kettle of fish!" We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent, as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.
Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We blink, and they're gone.
Where have all those great phrases gone?
Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it. Hey! It's your nickel. Don't forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper
Well, Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any wooden nickels. Wake up and smell the roses
It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills.
This can be disturbing stuff! (Carter's Little Liver Pills are gone too!)
Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth.
See ya later, alligator! Okidoki.
You'll notice they left out "Monkey Business"!!!
WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FABULOUS 50'S . NO ONE WILL EVER HAVE THAT OPPORTUNITY AGAIN … WE WERE GIVEN ONE OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS: LIVING IN THE PEACEFUL AND COMFORTABLE TIMES, CREATED FOR US BY THE "GREATEST GENERATION!"
Posted on April 20, 2021:
Interesting story about Pfizer and the Development of the Covid Vaccine
It is a very touching and true story of how the son of Holocaust survivors ended up contributing so much to society and in turn to the German people as well.
Over 80 years ago, in Greece, sixty thousand Jews lived peacefully in Thessaloniki. It was a valued and vibrant community. Most of these Jews worked in the port. So much so that the port of Thessaloniki was even closed on Saturday, Shabbat. Great emeritus rabbis also lived and studied there. Everyone rubbed shoulders and appreciated each other. But on September 2, 1939, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, it is on this great community that the Nazi terror will suddenly rise. On April 6, 1941, Hitler invaded Greece in order to secure its southern front before launching the famous Operation Barbarossa and its great offensive against Russia. Of the 60,000 Jews in Thessaloniki, around 50,000 will be exterminated at the Birkenau concentration camp, in record time! The massacre of the Jews of Greece was brief but intense. Very few will have the chance to make it. But among the survivors there was a family known as Bourla. And after the war, in 1961, a son was born into this miraculous family in the camps. His parents called him Israel – Abraham. He grew up and studied veterinary medicine in Greece. A brilliant student, Abraham will get his doctorate in reproductive biotechnology at the veterinary school of Aristotle University in Salonika. At the age of 34, he decided to move to the United States. He changes his first name Abraham, to Albert. Albert was integrated into the medical industry. He progressed quickly and joined a pharmaceutical company where he became “Head manager.” Abraham (Albert) rose through the ranks and got his appointment as CEO of this company in 2019. Throughout the year Albert decides to direct the efforts of the company to try to find a vaccine against a new virus (Covid) which has just struck the world. He expends great financial and technological efforts to achieve his goal. A year later the WHO (World Health Organization) validates his company to produce the long-awaited vaccine ... His vaccine will be distributed in several countries including Germany, which counts thousands of dead from the pandemic. Ironically, this vaccine which will save the lives of millions of people around the world including many Germans, was led and pushed by a little Jew from Thessaloniki, son of Holocaust survivors from whom most of his people were exterminated by Nazi Germany. And that is why Israel became the first country to receive the vaccine. In memory of his grandparents and his parents, who gave birth to Israel-Abraham Bourla, known today as Albert Bourla: CEO of Pfizer...