A Christmas Tradition

February 18, 1978, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

Well, this is a bit late, coming so long after the Christmas season, but its Winter, so we can live with it.  This village looks so much like the one my Mom put up every year in our own dining room.  It may not have been as extensive and certainly never got the press this one did, but it was a cherished memory for all the years I lived in that house.  The trees and the church in the right photo look just like the ones she had, and of course, the display grew yearly.  She'd put old coffee cans to make hills under a white sheet and sprinkle fake snow around to give it an authentic look.  I marveled at her ingenuity and I was always thrilled when the village made its appearance because this one act signaled, for me, the start of the Christmas season.

Blue Coal

February 7, 1939, Menasha Record

Here are some ads to help drive away the thoughts of the wintry wind chill this season. Long underwear, I understand, but I got a education over the coal ad.  I was taken by the phrase "blue coal," and learned it was a trademarked brand of anthracite coal which was actually dyed blue by the manufacturer.  Anthracite was the "Cadillac" of coal and cost two to three times the price of regular or bituminous coal.  It is harder and doesn't stain the hands when rubbed.  That fact alone tells me that we weren't using this fancy coal when we still had the coal burning furnace growing up in my house!  That stuff was so dirty and nasty. 

Koslo Speaks

 

January 10, 1949, Menasha Record 

My Dad always talked fondly about Dave Koslo.  In later years, he worked with my Dad at Banta's.  This was in an era when most major leaguers had jobs outside of baseball in the off season and in later life.  The big contracts were pretty much non-existent except for the DiMaggios, Mantles, and Musials of the baseball world.  This came the season after Koslo had the best ERA in the National League.  From the sounds of it, he was a great ambassador for the game of baseball. 

Expansion

November 3, 1969, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

This is the last in a series of articles we've reviewed that cover the Great Depression's effects on the Twin Cities.  Most of it applies to Neenah, but in the interests of completeness, I offer it here.

Cleanup to Come

January 27, 1978, Neenah-Menasha Daily Northwestern

The blizzard that Menasha felt in late January 1978 wasn't as bad as it could have been.  This was the famed "Blizzard of '78" that dropped enough snow in the Great Lakes area to the east of Wisconsin and Northeastern states to make 27 foot snowdrifts.  Still, as the picture above indicates, we had enough with the 42 mph winds and the five inches of snow we did get.

A Downtown Hospital?

January 8, 1940, The Daily News-Times

My attention was taken by the item in the midst of the "20 years Ago" section about the rumored sale of the Hotel Landgraf property for use as a hospital.  As regular readers of this blog know, this hotel was succeeded by the Brin Building and Theater in 1928.  My mind reels at the thought of a hospital at the intersection of Main Street and Tayco.  How might things have changed for the city's fortunes if they'd had a medical facility at that location?  What would that have done to traffic patterns?  What about the surrounding retail and residential space?  And I wonder who this mysterious "Menasha man" was.  One can play the "what if" game indefinitely, but it does make one wonder.

The House of Good Tastes

January 31, 1967, Twin City News-Record

We first featured this establishment almost three years ago:  https://menashabook.blogspot.com/2016/04/4th-and-racine.html in a different incarnation.  In that post, hovering around the 1960 time frame, it was known as Dave's Penguin Palace.  I think I had my first "fast food" hamburger from this place as a kid and I remember it pretty distinctly for some reason, as it was a summer night and my parents sent my brother to get a bag of burgers and fries.  It was the first time I can remember not having to sit at the kitchen or dining room table to eat.  We just sat on the sun porch and ate.  I know you're supposed to remember where you were when the important stuff happened- sitting in the first grade classroom when President Kennedy was shot, or watching TV on that same sun porch six years later when man first walked on the moon.  So I guess this was important to me.  Funny how the mind works.  Some old songs from the sixties conjure up memories, too, but this ad did the trick.