AN OLD BIRTHDAY PARTY & DIXIE CUPS.......right here in my home town....

Here's a post I've always wanted to do starting off with my 10th birthday photograph.  All the kids will be named....then I'll explain about the post.

 

This was taken in my back yard on my 10th birthday.

Left to right - Meyer Toole, Rick Joseph, with round glasses Randy Lang, with a bit of his head showing is Bobby Evens, the tall guy is Mitch Taddo, in front of him is Nancy Baker, the two little blonde girls in front are Sharon Harrison, and Laura Kellough, the red circled head is yours truly and to my left is Bruce Lees, the taller girl with straight hair is Darryl Wheatley and the far right is Kathryn Coppard.

Now.....as you can see in the next little "photo cutout" of the above photo is Rick Joseph and Randy Lang holding something I circled in yellow.  They are Dixie Cup lids with movie stars on them....so the next thing you should read is the story on the collage below this photo.

The title says Dixie Cup lids were our link to Hollywood....Be sure to click once and twice on all the photos for enlargements.

Here is how the top of the lid looked from Kellough Bros. Dairy (Port Arthur-Fort William), and if you pealed off a little onion skin cover from the inside, it would reveal a movie star photo, and as noted in the collage above, you would bring 10 lids to Kellough's Dairy to receive an official movie star poster.  You could even purchase a viewer to see these lids in 3D.  This was a time when you couldn't go down to your five and dime store and buy a movie star poster....they weren't just around unless you knew someone in the Movie Theatre business here in Fort William and Port Arthur.
The poster would look exactly like the ones below.

 

 

BETTY GRABLE - the beautiful war time gal
with Million Dollar legs!

FRED MACMURRAY - who played the father
in the popular TV series "My Three Sons" in the
1950's

 

The next few photos are of Kellough Brothers Dairy where all this took place!

This is the first Kellough Brother's Dairy building located on the corner of Brunswick and Cummings street in Fort William, Ontario, Canada

This is the dairy where we fed the horses up until the mid 1950's.  They were the last known in-town business to deliver with horse and wagon.  Here the handsome uniformed drivers are showing off their new early 1950's Ford delivery trucks. 

Now....this is the place where we would cash in our Dixie Cup lids for the posters.  It was located on the North/West corner of Victoria Ave and Selkirk street.....kitty corner from my grade school St. Mary's.

 To the left is a typical Kellough Bros. Dairy book or magazine ad for Fort William and Port Arthur Ontario, and to the right is a half pint Kellough Bros bottle from my collection.  The half pint bottles were quite common in the 1950's, as the dairy's would sell white, chocolate and cherry milk in them and were distributed to and sold by corner stores around the Fort William and Port Arthur Ontario area.  Your home distribution with the same silk screen painted bottles were delivered via delivery trucks above in pint and quart bottles.  The bottle were always returned to the dairy for refund and refill.  Finally to the left is a typical milk lid.

This was one of their large refrigerated delivery trucks with a photo taken a bit earlier than the ones in the photo further above.  The truck looks like a Diamond T, but I'm not totally sure.

Finally...this is what the horse drawn delivery wagon looked like from Kellough's Dairy.  The horses were kept and looked after right behind the Kellough building shown in the truck photo above.  I fondly remember going to the dairy after school to feed the horses and of course picking up my movie star poster by handing in 10 Dixie Cup lids....but....I actually have 4 in my collection today that I was glad I didn't cash in.....THOSE WERE THE DAYS.

Hoped you liked the post....Dave