A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2016 TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS here on Hotrods and Jalopies.  2015 was a very busy hectic year for our family with travel, health issues, the passing of my father and the illness of my step mom.  We hope that our New Year 2016 and yours brings us all health, happiness, peace and safety.  SPEND TIME WITH THOSE YOU LOVE.
I will leave some links here to past New Year posts on this blog page for you to enjoy again.  Thank you for watching and following as we come up to completing our 7th year on the internet with many more great stories and photos to come. CLICK ON EACH OF THESE LINKS THEN RETURN...
 Happy New Year 2011
Happy New Year 2012
Happy New Year 2013
Happy New Year 2014
Happy New Year 2015
  In 2009 and 2010 we only had a one picture New Year post.  Hope you enjoy our past years posts.

And if you're out driving tonight DON'T MIX 'EM...........

BE SAFE.....

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2015 to all our Blogger and Facebook friends.....

2015 Merry Christmas Post #3 ... My FB Caption Winner plus Christmas & Winter Tidbits from Near and Far.....

Merry Christmas post #3.  We had a little contest on my facebook page where we added the photo art below and asked friends to caption it.  The impartial judges were my wife and my grand-daughter shown here in a festive spirit.  The facebook acknowledgement and the winning caption are shown below.  All the captions were all very funny and clever, and the judges said that it was very difficult to pick the winner....but as promised....here it is.
Tony Heinicke won and it is all posted here.  Thanks to everyone who participated, and Merry Christmas.  (What made this one win was the use of the word recreation instead of resuscitation).       Great stuff Tony!!
Be sure to scroll down, click on all the photos here to enlarge them and enjoy a fairly lengthy Christmas post #3.

Look, Mommy fainted....Santa is giving her mouth
to mouth "recreation".

The Judges...

Here's another tongue in cheek Hot Rods and Jalopies phantom magazine cover.  I thoroughly enjoy doing these and the email response has been great.  As the Dr. Scholl's foot-happy ad shows here....you all must have Christmas Shopping feet by now....

One of my all time favourite photos in my archives is this one taken in the late 1960's and near the end of the fabulous downtown Fort William shopping days on the old Victoria Ave strip.  I never get tired of seeing this photo taken on the corner of May and Victoria ave.

The next few photos are not local but they convey the Christmas and winter feeling and could have been taken "anywhere in North America". Included in this picture is a 1955 Ford in the foreground followed by a 1953 Chevy Belair, followed by a '51 Chevrolet.  They are all likely sitting in "Hensler's Bar and Grill". Also in those days it didn't much matter what side of the street you parked on.

The three cars....well...former cars with snowmobile type conversion kits from the 1930s are as follows.  Left to right are a 1928 Chevrolet landau coupe, a 1928/29 Ford Model "A" roadster pickup, and finally a 1930/31 Ford Model "A" closed car (sedan).  A very nice photo from theoldmotor.com.

This is your typical used car salesman at Howard Ford working just prior to the Christmas holidays, trying to get the last few cars sold before the freezing cold winter ahead.

Come out to your Dominion Tire Warehouse in the late 1930s on Park Street in Port Arthur Ont. to get your Dodge radiator protected with Shell products supplied by them......note.... It says "No Charge".

A very wintry seasonal theatre picture which again could have been taken anywhere in North America, but was actually taken the evening of the huge Blizzard in New York City from December 1947. 

In the picture are many marquis famous names from 1947....look at the photo then scroll down for related photos and stories.

Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led an innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was active as an educator.  Thanks to Wikipedia.

June Christy (November 20, 1925 – June 21, 1990), born Shirley Luster, was an American singer, known for her work in the cool jazz genre and for her silky smooth vocals. Her success as a singer began with The Stan Kenton Orchestra. She pursued a solo career from 1954 and is best known for her debut album Something Cool. After her death, she was hailed as "one of the finest and most neglected singers of her time."  Another Wikipedia thank you.

Vic Damone (born Vito Rocco Farinola; June 12, 1928) is an American singer, songwriter, actor, radio and television presenter and entertainer, of Italian descent, best known for his song's, including number #1 hit You're Breaking my Heart and My Heart Cries for You (number #4) and On the Street Where You Live (Number #4 ) from My Fair Lady.  Wikipedia...

On the Theatre Marquis this film was playing as well "Where There's Life" with Bob Hope, Signe Hasso and William Bendix.  It was a 1947 film about "The American son of an Eastern European monarch wounded in an assassination attempt becomes a target for a terrorist organization".  Geez...sounds like something that could easily fit into a "today" story.

In the large B&W photo above you can see the ad for the "FADA" radio...and here's one to see up close.  These old Bakelite radios demand huge dollars in today's antique market.

Two typical winter photographs...the first from the same storm mentioned above...the December 1947 New York City blizzard.  It's funny how they make a big deal about 15-20 inch snowstorms when we here in Canada experience this quite often and sluff it off as "just being winter".  I'm not too sure where the 1940 Ford trucks and snowblower are, but it was a very typical scene in our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario.

Christmas Comic Books were always found in my Christmas morning stocking when I was a kid...some of them below, especially the super hero ones.  Some are worth thousands of dollars in the comic book market today.  Click on both of these collages to have a better look.  Do you have any still lying around in your attic??

Seeing a huge model railroad layout in a store window or inside was another typical pre Christmas sales pitch.  Here in Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario, the layouts would have been seen in Chapples Basement, Bryan's Limited on Victoria Ave., Eatons in Fort William and Port Arthur, and many other larger department stores.

Kresge's (later to become K-Mart) and F. W. Woolworth were places your parents(or Santa) would purchase Christmas presents.  The word "TOYLAND" or just waiting for the Simpson's Sears or Eaton's Christmas catalogs would excite any kid to start writing his letter to Santa.

"Galaxy" was an odd Science Fiction magazine of the day.  I don't think I ever purchased this as a kid, however this cover in 1960 was already showing signs of the times when Santa may actually be out of business due to to high tech computer generated Santa Robots.

....and finally....we mustn't forget the popular, important and very significant Christmas Cookie.....as in the day, without a wood cook stove at your disposal....you would have to rely on the local Kam Power Generating Plant at Kakabeka Falls to power up your new General Electric range and oven....then lovingly bake them and leave them out with a glass of Dairybest milk for Santa Claus......Oh for the day.  Merry Christmas, thanks for watching...check back with us often, and use us for research.  Dave and family at HR&J..... 

2015 Christmas post #2 - A New Tongue-in-cheek HR&J Magazine Cover & 50's & 60's Rickard's Family Christmas Photos in our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario

This post starts with one more tongue-in-cheek Hot Rods and Jalopies Christmas Magazine cover.....Enjoy!  This is a large post so scroll down, click on all the pictures to enlarge and enjoy this second Christmas post for 2015.

It goes without saying that I have a ton of fun doing these blog pages, especially around Christmas time, because of course Christmas brings back more memories to most people than any time of the year.
For the past couple of years HR&J has featured my friend Roger Rickards and his brother Bob's photos as I believe their father took more pictures each Christmas back in the 50's and 60's than anyone else I've known...including our own family....so on we go with one more year of Roger and Bob's Christmas presents.  I enjoy analyzing all the photos in detail and it is amazing when you enlarge photos, you see things that you never knew existed or even thought of.
So here we go....

The first Christmas year here is 1955....
Roger is peeking out from behind the Christmas tree just waiting for his baby brother to look away for a second so he could knock the blocks down.

 As I said before...strange things pop up when you analyze photos too much.....back on the sofa behind Bob and Roger is a real strange little character....a gnome?  An elf?  A clown?  ....something spooky anyway, but no more spookier than this little Santa doll I found searching for a color photo of that other little spooky character.  The little Santa looks very apprehensive, definitely has a baby's face, but white eyebrows, beard and mustache?......What the hell is that???   .... Something from Christmas PAST !!

Here is Bob again by himself this time but there are other interesting things on the carpet under the Christmas tree...... a couple of Marx toy trucks, very popular heavy duty toys in the 1950s and also a toy bus.  I can't actually figure out what is in the back of one of those trucks.  Scroll down for a few Internet photos of what those trucks would have looked like.

Similar large toy blocks.

This next photo moves ahead to 1959, where Roger and Bob are playing post Christmas in their basement with all the boy toys they received from Santa Claus....... This is another great photo full of toys any kid would have given his eye tooth for to receive from Santa for being extremely good boys all year........ Roger and Robert(Bob) must have been sooooo good they actually have halo's over their heads....:-))

An Internet find below shows the detail of the "Superior Service Station" from someone's personal collection today.  You can also see this Marx toy RR stop signal on the layout above....the train is definitely a Lionel Steam train.  You should be able to find the items below on the boy's layout.

Every Kid must have had one of these at one time or another.

In this photo above you can find one of these
very popular toys of the era.

Another family basement item in
the winter...

This nice 1960 picture at the Rickards' family home of Robert(Bob) with his mom one year later than the above one.  There are a ton of great items in this photo which are also shown individually below....see if you can find them before you scroll down....

The Hot Rod Kit was even motorized....I had one of these too.

The Girder & Panel Bridge & Turnpike kit shown here was very popular as I also had one of these, but no picture proof...LOL.

The best part about this paint set shown in the photo above is that it was only .98 cents for ALL the paints....not $3.49 each like they are today.......

Their pet dog Panda, like the pets we all have today are so much part of the family life that they can't be left out at Christmas...Here are a couple of ads showing what Panda got from Santa....

Bob here....same 1960 Christmas day as above playing with this Tonka trucks and is loading his truck with the steam shovel........Just close your eyes and you guys can remember doing the same thing....and couldn't wait 'til spring to get these supertoys outside to play with in the dirt.

A similar Steam Shovel...

A similar Tonka Pickup truck as above....

Here's the boys playing with their Girder and Panel set.....A blow up of the photo below shows what I believe to be a 1959 Pontiac promotional or model toy car. Roger thinks it may be an Edsel.

Many of the promotional toys before styrene plastic came into being were made from celluloid, which over time distorted the roof lines etc as shown in the photo to the right

Going back a bit to 1957 in this nice under the tree photo, Roger and Bob are playing with their toys....Roger sure liked the old cowboy pistols and Bob sure liked the toy trucks.  You can see Roger's bullets for his pistol on the carpet and Bob's red "Structo" toy car hauler in the foreground.

Moving way ahead to 1963....wow you guys grow up fast....Roger and Bob are opening up their new HO scale train set which was made by the very popular model car/plane manufacturer Revell.

REVELL HO scale Electric Trains.............

Here is one last in the house Christmas at the Rickards' jumping ahead to 1965.  

It's obvious that Roger is old enough here to work on real cars....His dad was very smart to get him a creeper so Roger could do the oil change on his dad's car.  

There is a Crazy Clock game on the floor (similar to the Mouse Trap game I remember)....and on top of it looks like a tool box, but can't quite make it out.

Also in the photo is a Daoust Skates box, and a pair of ski's leaning against the wall.

In those days, if you had steel edges on your skis...you were a pro....these items seen below.

 Here you can see the screwed on first generation steel edge skis....as a beginner I couldn't believe the better control I had with my first steel edge skis.

This is the last of Roger's and Bob's photos this year.  This one  goes back to around Christmas in 1955.  Roger has his pistol in hand and a pair of binoculars around his neck getting reading for the hunt.... :-))  I love Bob's snowsuit...It reminds me of Ralphie's brother's winter outfit in the film "The Christmas Story".

Their car was what looks to be a 1952 Austin A40 Somerset...a newer photo of a similar car in colour is shown below.

At this time I would like to thank Roger for letting me have fun with his family photos...they make for such a great story line.  Be sure and look back to last Christmas and the Christmases before to see more of this if you haven't already.

 Thanks for watching, hope you enjoyed this....HAVE A VERY SPECIAL HOLIDAY CHRISTMAS TIME...........