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.
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| Every Kid must have had one of these at one time or another. |
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| In this photo above you can find one of these very popular toys of the era. |
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| 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.
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| A similar Steam Shovel... |
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| 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.
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| 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...........
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