Friday Night Feast

August 1, 1975, Appleton Post-Crescent

The Left Guard does the old verse from Omar Khayyam one better- "A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou," with a crazy Friday night feast of the senses.  I'm sure the breaded fish cubes were, ahem, delicious...but perhaps a better name might have helped sell the idea? 

Vacation Pak

August 1, 1972, Appleton Post-Crescent

Back when newspapers still had a larger cachet of relevance, before our internet-driven news cycle nearly drove them out of existence, what could be finer than to have your carrier safely collect all your papers while you vacationed for later consumption?  I'd forgotten about this service until I ran across this ad. 

Mother Nature Causes Havoc

July 28, 1964, Appleton Post-Crescent

As evidenced by the trouble this storm caused the residents of our fair city, man is no match for the forces of nature, especially in the storm-laden months of summer.  On the brighter side, the writer did see some humorous distraction in the light of so much turmoil. 

Menasha Gets Boat

August 1, 1966, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

I would have thought, with being on the Fox and the adjacent Lake Winnebago, Menasha would have had its own "official" boat long before the date of this photo, but perhaps not.  As a boy, I recall seeing the boat on the river and thought it was pretty neat, but then, it might have just arrived, per the caption above.  I would have been 9 years old in '66, so maybe this event is what kicked off my interest in the boat.

What a Difference

September 4, 1965, Appleton Post-Crescent

It's a tad early for this, and maybe kids don't attend St. John's anymore for school, but this photo essay works the whole back-to-school trope. After all is said and done, kids' bikes are a symbol, albeit dated by today's standards. But fifty years ago?  Well sir, you got yourself a slice of normal everyday life, yes you do. 

A Fresh Coat of Paint

July 28, 1962, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

Though a bit grainy due to the storage media, the spirit of the photograph comes through in the end.  (I always wondered how they did this job.  Guess this explains a lot.)  As a boy, I would have been one of the "fascinated passersby."

Smith Park History

July 31, 1965, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

This article is chock full of period details about the origins of Smith Park and a time capsule of what it was like to travel the area around the park in the late 1890's.  It would have been neat to see! 
I apologize for the resolution in the bottom left corner of the newspaper article.  To help, here's the text of those two paragraphs, as best as I can decipher: 

"As the two Menashans create a word picture tour of the Smith Park area in the 1890s, they begin at the corner of Naymut Street and Nicolet Blvd, then known as “The Avenue.”  Opposite this corner, on the Neenah side, the permanent rings for the annual summer circus could be seen.

The tourist probably would either ride in a buggy or walk down a path that was made through the brush, growing wildly on each side of the mud road toward Lake Winnebago. Immediately, he would pass John Schubert’s hay fields extending from Naymut to Cleveland Streets.  The hay was sold to the neighbors for their horses and cows.  Across the Avenue were the Clovis neighborhood pastures and the farm lands of William Strocee(sp?) which included the area from Ninth Street beyond the present Park Drive to the mouth of the Fox River.

At this time, it would be difficult to see the Cleveland Street area since it was overgrown with weeds.  However, the north end of the street contained the homes of Mike Groce, a carpenter and John Schreiner, an employee of the Menasha Wooden Ware."