Waitin' for the Weekend

"The Heat is On #2" by Clint Collide:

If you're pressed for time, just pause the video and arrow forward to the pics you like best.

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Cavalcade of Food: Vintage Kitchen Tools

When I was a teenager, my mom had a kitchen with blue Formica counters and coppertone appliances, similar to the ones above.  The cabinets were knotty pine.  She put yellow gingham curtains in the kitchen window, which I realize now was just the right homey touch; she had a knack for that sort of thing.
See the entire 1957 American Kitchens catalog here.

Your Head Trucker is taking a break from political blogging to clear his head.  It's better for me to tend to our quiet life in this little bungalow instead of repeating all the outrage and uproar of the big world outside, which I can do nothing about.

In this video, Kevin shows and tells us about a wide range of kitchen gadgets, most of which I remember from my mother's and grandmother's kitchens.  The camera work is a bit wobbly, but it's all fascinating if you enjoy cooking.

 

Bonus: Here's an array of useful gadgets from the 1940 Sears catalog, the rest of which you can browse through yourself at Catalogs & Wishbooks, a wonderful website full of more than 300 old catalogs from various mail-order stores.

N.B. - for equivalent prices in today's money, multiply by about 20.  See Measuring Worth for more conversion factors.

Click to enlarge.

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Sunday Drive: Handel, La Rejouissance

Rejoice!  It will do you good.

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That Old House: Sears Lexington

Your Head Trucker often enjoys browsing through old house plan books over at the Internet Archive.  Here's one of my favorite plans:  the Lexington, a lovely colonial offered by Sears and Roebuck from 1927 to 1933.  Even M.P., whose architectural tastes incline to the hobbity, admires the beauty of it.

Sears Lexingtton on the cover of the 1928 Sears Modern Homes catalog.
Click to enlarge.

Sears Lexington, 1929, which was a revision of an earlier model.

Specifications and options for the 1929 model.

Sears Lexington from the 1932 catalog, showing an actual photograph of this model as built.

As everyone knows by now, I suppose, Sears, Wards, and other companies offered pre-cut materials to build houses in the first decades of the 20th century, as well as heating, plumbing, and electrical systems.  Those houses ranged from tiny cottages to almost-mansions, in all the popular styles of the era.

The Lexington was one of the high-end models; to that $4000 price tag for pre-cut lumber and materials (windows, doors, nails, paint, flooring, mouldings, etc.), add about $1500 for all utitilies and necessary options like window screens and asphalt roof shingles, as well as who knows how much for the lot to build it on and the cost of excavating a basement, plus bricks and cement (not supplied by Sears), and carpenter's wages for whatever work you didn't do yourself. 

So the total cost might have been around $8000 - equivalent to  $144,000 today, according to Measuring Worth.  This for a 36 x 26 floor plan, for a total of 1,872 square feet.  And that's just for the house, not including furniture and appliances, nor landscaping nor even a garage for your Pierce-Arrow.

But of course most people bought much less expensive homes.  The whole idea of the pre-cut, "mail-order" houses was to get a low-cost, well-built home that you could put up yourself, or, as many people did, hire a carpenter to erect it.  A great idea in its time, and makes for fascinating reading today.  If you're interested in that sort of thing, check out the Wikipedia article on "kit homes" here.

Bonus:  Thousands of Sears homes are still standing and much loved today by happy homeowners.  Here's a Lexington in Washington, D. C., that occupies its own triangular block.  The plan is reversed from that shown in the catalog, an easy change.  Some owner screened and expanded the side porch, and cleverly added a basement-level garage below.  The house appears to be well kept, but looks rather bleak in a monochrome paint scheme, stripped of its colonial shutters.  Why are modern people so afraid of color?

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More Garden Tips and Nips

This time in Washington state.  That boy does get around.

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World Naked Gardening Day

Rodney is such a tease.

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What We're Watching: Levittown

Mass-production housing for the masses. What a concept.

A couple of early Levittown houses in 2D and 3D view.
Click to enlarge.

What was included in the price of a Levittown home in 1950.

Floor plan of the "Ranch" model, about 800 square feet.  Much more convenient layout,, but the 8-foot kitchenette would bug me, and M.P. would would have fits.

M.P. and I enjoyed watching this touching 2008 film about the first Levittown, featuring some of the original owners reminiscing about the early days of that huge postwar development on Long Island.  Levitt & Sons mass-produced more than 17,000 houses in less than five years, and built an entire town too, complete with schools, churches, stores, playgrounds, and swimming pools. 

We both grew up in postwar neighborhoods ourselves, but they were nothing like this gargantuan, master-planned community.  Quite an achievement - in my book, on a par with the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge.  A dream come true with practical benefits.  Here's a look into the human side of all that.  Enjoy.

 

If you want an in-depth survey of the Levitt empire and its accomplishments, here's a nice long read for you.

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Todd and Rob and the New Canoe

Those Georgia boys are at it again, adding yet more flowers and trees to their mountain garden, and water features too!  They sure have lots of energy.  As we used to, once upon a time . . . 

After a long season of winter inactivity, M.P. in the last couple of weeks has gotten back into yardwork and gardening with vigor.  The bright spring sunshine has helped his mood quite a bit.  He says, "I feel happier now - but I hurt all over!"  That's retirement life.

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Sunday Drive: Begin the Beguine

Artie Shaw is the best, and this Cole Porter tune made his career in the big band era. It's been a favorite of your Head Trucker's for many years, but this is the first time I've seen this live performance. Enjoy.

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Waitin' for the Weekend

"Eye Candy Is Dandy #1" by Clint Collide:

Tip:  If you're pressed for time, just pause the video and arrow through the pics.  But I got dibs on Steve Kelso.

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Two Guys, Same Song

1.  Bruce Springsteen in Manchester, England, yesterday:

Text via JMG:

In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration. Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experiment to rise with us, raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring!

The last check, the last check on power after the checks and balances of government have failed are the people, you and me. It’s in the union of people around a common set of values now that’s all that stands between a democracy and authoritarianism. So at the end of the day, all we’ve got is each other.

There’s some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now. In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.

In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now. In my country, they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers.

They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that led to a more just and plural society. They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They are defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands.

They are removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now.

A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government. They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American.

The America l’ve sung to you about for 50 years is real and regardless of its faults is a great country with a great people. So we’ll survive this moment. Now, I have hope, because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, "In this world, there isn’t as much humanity as one would like, but there’s enough." Let’s pray.

2.  Pete Buttigieg in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, yesterday:

Despite the great beard and awesome stache,  no one would accuse Pete of being a rocker - but he was definitely on the same page as Springsteen:

Guys like these are our last hope.  We need more like them.

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Chicken Coop Tour!

M.P. tipped me to this video by a couple of guys down in Austin who are real handymen.  Rodney takes us on a tour of their custom-made chicken coop and run, all very well built.  What really aroused my, um, interest is Rodney's cut-off shorts that always seem about to slide right off his slim, supple body.   If they lived closer, I'd offer to lend a hand and help him out.  Boy howdy!

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Garden Tips and Nips

Gardeners like this are hard to find.

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Sunday Drive: Claire de Lune

As performed exquisitely by Adrien de la Salle, a Frenchman living in Montreal:

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Message from a French Friend

French Senator Claude Malhuret tells it like it is in French, with English subtitles:

I'm impressed with how well he knows all the details of what's going on in the United States - and sees through all the bullshit.  But I suppose our self-destruction is obvious to the whole world.

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The Kings' Speeches - 1945 and 2025

Grandfather King George VI spoke by radio to all his peoples across the Empire at 9 p.m. on May 8, 1945, V-E Day:

Exactly eighty years later to the minute, grandson King Charles III spoke to a crowd of his people on Horse Guards Parade in London to commemorate the day: 

 

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Habemus Papam

What a surprise:  Leo XIV, the first American pope.

God cares for us, God loves all of us, and evil will not prevail! We are all in God's hands. Therefore, without fear, united hand in hand with God and among ourselves, let us move forward.

--from Pope Leo's speech today

Pope Leo XIV was proclaimed today from the balcony of St. Peter's Basillica as the new Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.  A native of Chicago, he has served as Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, and speaks English, Spanish, and Italian.  He was made a cardinal by the late Pope Francis in 2023.

Yesterday, I blogged about the dark forces that seem to be engulfing the whole world.  Perhaps Pope Leo will be one of the leaders of a countervailing force of light and peace.  Perhaps, with his diverse personal and pastoral background, he is the right man for these times.  Let us hope so.

Wikipedia article: Pope Leo XIV 

Pope Leo's first speech (in Italian, with English subtitles), ending wtih the traditional papal blessing urbi et orbi:

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Boozy Carrot Cake

Vaughn Vreeland of the New York Times

Ya know, fellas, sometimes you just run out of steam.  I've been posting a lot here for the last 100 days and more, but yesterday I realized I just don't want to write about the horror anymore.  The stupidity, the craziness, and the absurdity are still growing, and going from bad to worse to beyond godawful - and it's breaking my heart.  

We are living through a great turning point in the history of the world.  The sunlit world of peace, prosperity, and progress - on the whole and in the main, despite all its flaws and failures - that our fathers fought for is disintegrating before our eyes.  Instead, hateful right-wing dictatorships are arising all around the world, hand in hand with fundamentalist religion, willful ignorance, arbitrary cruelty, and the worship of Mammon.  Liberty has dropped her lamp, and Justice her scales.

The human race, led by fools, frauds, and fanatics, seems to be in a race to the bottom, sinking back to a lower level of civilization that we thought we had left far behind us.  And worse is to come, perhaps.  I fear that the 21st century will make the 20th look like a Sunday-school picnic.

No one should take my words as a counsel of despair, but rather as an urgent warning.  In any case, I can't do anything about it, and right now I need to come up for air and clear my head.  So I'm taking a break from nausea, disgust, and political blogging - for how long, who knows.

*          *          *          *          *

In this mortal life, we have to take the bitter with the sweet, and we should certainly enjoy the sweet parts while we can.  It just so happens that a certain foodist in New York has got a sweet shade of orange for you to try - oh, Mary, don't ask!

We both love carrot cake, but I don't care for raisins.  M.P., however, thinks it would be super.

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V-E Day 80th Anniversary in London

Hello, what's this?  I thought it would be on the actual anniversary, May 8th, but they are up to big doings in London today, which will continue through Thursday.  Here's the live feed from Sky News: 

(Note that London time is 5 hours ahead of New York, 6 hours ahead of Texas time.)

The pageantry began with a reading of part of Churchill's 1945 speech to the crowds gathered in Whitehall:

My dear friends, this is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole. We were the first, in this ancient island, to draw the sword against tyranny. After a while we were left all alone against the most tremendous military power that has been seen. We were all alone for a whole year.

There we stood, alone. Did anyone want to give in? [The crowd shouted “No.”] Were we down-hearted? [“No!”] The lights went out and the bombs came down. But every man, woman and child in the country had no thought of quitting the struggle. London can take it. So we came back after long months from the jaws of death, out of the mouth of hell, while all the world wondered. 

When shall the reputation and faith of this generation of English men and women fail? I say that in the long years to come not only will the people of this island but of the world, wherever the bird of freedom chirps in human hearts, look back to what we’ve done and they will say “do not despair, do not yield to violence and tyranny, march straightforward and die if need be -- unconquered.”

More scenes from England, then and now, including a different speech that Mr. Churchill recorded for the newsreels:

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Sunday Drive: In the Garden

The old familiar hymn, often heard at funerals in the South because - "it was Mama's/Daddy's favorite." Alan Jackson has just the right warm, rich baritone for it.

Hymology Archive provides a well-researched essay on the origin of the hymn.

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Jewel of Jazz: Beegie Adair

When M.P. and I are enjoying our Sunday dinners, or any other time we want soothing sounds, we often listen to Mantovani and the like on Pandora or YouTube.  Lately, a lot of soft jazz recordings by pianist Beegie Adair have been showing up in my YT feed, and I finally got around to looking up this woman I never heard of before. (Country boy here is not a fan of amorphous pure jazz per se, but I can enjoy the "easy listening" variety based on old standards.)

Come to find out, Adair was something of a star of the Nashville music scene, where she began her career as a session musician in 1961, and over the years played on recordings by many famous singers, country-western or not.  Wikipedia says she recorded over 100 albums in her lifetime, 35 of them with her Beegie Adair Trio, consisting of herself, bassist Roger Spencer, and percussionist Chris Brown.  She was also an adjunct professor of jazz studies in the school of music at Vanderbilt, one of the most prestigious private universities in the South.  Her late husband was an associate professor of music there.

Adair died in January 2022, leaving a huge legacy of wonderful recordings for us and future generations to enjoy.  Here's a sample.

"Fly Me to the Moon":

"Someone to Watch over Me":

"Make the World Go Away":

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Waitin' for the Weekend

Just mute the sound and watch the men:

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"White People, Y'all Should Be Embarrassed"

Wanda Sykes provides the comedy relief we've been needing this week.

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Cavalcade of Food: Skillet Roast Chicken

Remembering the sidewalk cafes of Paris, Kevin shows us how to do poulet roti in a skillet, so easy and so tasty:

Your Head Trucker says it's a good thing Kevin removed the fat from those chicken thighs, or the pan would have been overflowing in the oven, and made one hell of a mess.  And you'd probably spill some of that hot fat on the floor, getting it out of the oven.  

A deep skillet like this one would be a better choice.  We have one and use it for all kinds of things in and atop the stove - it's like a dutch oven with a skillet handle.  Super convenient.  Weight, 10 lbs.  No, I don't get a kickback from the Lodge company, I'm just telling you.

And either way you go, if you don't want to eat burnt chicken skin, you could cover the pan with a lid for the first 15-20 minutes, then uncover it for the rest of the time.

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The Next Pope

I guess the College of Cardinals can all pack up and go home now.  Via Joe.My.God.:

Click to enlarge.

Tomorrow Graham will say he was just kidding; but this boot-licking, two-faced chameleon wasn't kidding ten years ago when Trump started his campaign. Take a listen to just one of many videos of Graham from that time, denouncing Trump in no uncertain terms, staring with jackass:

Update, 5/3/25:

The Tyrant's hubris knows no bounds.  Just one week after he put himself front and center at the funeral of Pope Francis, whose life of humble service and compassion for the poor was admired by all the world, the arrogant Narcissist-in-Chief has posted a picture of himself in full papal regalia - on the official White House account.  I'm not reproducing it on ny blog, but you can see it for yourself over on Joe.My.God.

All I can say is, God is not mocked.  See the book of Proverbs, chapter 16:

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

 Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.

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