Very Individual, Very Nostalgic, Very OT

[V. Kmetz]

I was a latch-key only-child who had my own room from when I was 3; and either through divorcing parents' ignorance or liberal treatment, I soon was able to impose my own tastes in that room.  In childhood through early teen years. that meant collecting many pieces of kitsch decor, posters, signs, lava lamps, carnival prizes and, most dearly... pennants.

I tell you honestly that I have lived in 13 residences in the 50 years and I have had some version of this same childhood room in each of those dwellings...whether that was a one room apartment or a full-sized home. For the last 21 years, this has been my "office," wherein those pennants (among other accumulum) are on display.  (not all of them... there's several in a steamer trunk I haven't opened in 7 years)... let me show you the best two walls...in three pics

I'll start in the NE corner: On top, you can see one of the first I collected, from the NYGiants 2nd game in the Yale Bowl, Oct 14 1973... on the door hanging vertically is from the 1977 OTimers Day at the Stadium (Mantle and Dimaggio used to make appearances then) the 1979 bought-1978 World Series team famous for the Bucky Dent HR earlier in October...the Sixers pennant from their championship in 83 and as a random choice Milford Jai Alai - WHO has a Jai-Ali and has two thumbs?... This Guy! Then shifting to the right, you see a DisneyWorld from February 1972, a few months after its opening, plus a classic Burlingame State Park which was part of a Miscquamicut summer week we'd often take with my mother's family in the 70s...if you scroll right or go to the next...
IMG_2996 by Fog Foggington, on Flickr
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[/size]As you move over fully to the East:  You can see both the oldest (the little Bronx Zoo from 1970) and a most historically sentimental from the World Trade Center in 1974 (when the observation deck finally opened in the North Tower/Windows on the World)...a beautiful pennant is that Yankees one from the first year of the refurbished stadium in 1976.  Also graphically interesting are the Chincoteague Island pennat from August 1973 and that unusual Florida pennant from the same Feb 72 trip which brought the WDWorld. An Empire State Building and several (imo) beautiful sew-on patches also hang...
[/size]IMG_2998 by Fog Foggington, on Flickr
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[/size]I feel you are sufficiently bored, so I'll spare the rest of the Antiques Roadshow Tour that is this room (and the better part of my house!)
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[Jeff Schley]

Interesting time capsule and something out of a 1970's movie set.  When did the series of beer patches in the NE corner come into being or were your parents that liberal?

[V. Kmetz]

Interesting time capsule and something out of a 1970's movie set.  When did the series of beer patches in the NE corner come into being or were your parents that liberal?

My fascination with those started with Cub Scout/Boy Scout patches...then I liked the iconography...then I was old enough to come along to tag sales and flea markets and the older hole in the wall warehouse "dollar stores."  I would never consider my mother or father liberal, but distracted; and to the extent that my usually-good conduct bought me tolerance...I had free reign.


Parents thought much less of "environmental corruption" in the form of such things as beer logos and such (my re-married mother and stepdad used to bring me back loads of Playboy Club crap from his sales awards, including a tee shirt with a massive sized familiar Bunny logo on it, which I wore proudly to 6th grade...Lolz)...


I've mentioned it before, but as late as 1983, they had chewing tobacco promotions for "fans 14 and older"...on Bobby Murcer Day... they gave out the newly-launched Skoal Bandits to all such fans.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Fascinating collection of stuff. In the first picture I would change the Giants and the Yankee pennants. Yankees always finished on top of the Giants in the series when I was a kid in NY in the fifties.

[Peter Pallotta]

The beautiful Yankee Pennant (from 1976) also marks the first time I was in New York, and hence my first time in the new Yankee Stadium, watching the game from along the 3rd base line a few rows up.  I vividly remember the Bronx, and the drive there, and the graffiti on the subway cars and the kids playing in the water gushing from open fire hydrants (it was a very hot July) -- and also, near my relatives in Bay Ridge Brooklyn, the Disco 2000 where they filmed Saturday Night Fever (that came out in, I think '77).
Amazing what a collection -- even someone else's -- can bring to mind. 

[Kalen Braley]

VK,

With the quarantine and all with my wife and daughter, I've been subjected to far more HGTV fixer upper and hometown than I'd like to admit.  Looks like your office could use one of them about right now! 

P.S.  The posters on the ceiling are a nice touch!

[Marty Bonnar]

What ON EARTH is a British Leyland logo doing in there!!??
 

[V. Kmetz]

I think I picked that up in 1989 or 1990 at a Sanford Florida flea market...


always loved the logo, the stately elan of the name...and by the time I got it, it was a rare thing for a defunct company


perfect for the junk man like me

[Colin Macqueen]

Nice catch Marty!
In Oz one of my best mates, in Sydney in the early seventies, was the Public Relations officer for Leyland Australia. Leyland Australia produced the Leyland P76 which won accolades because it had a 6 (8?)-cylinder lightweight (aluminium based?) engine but other than that was an unmitigated disaster and much maligned! My mate had to try to justify its existence. He was good at his job but not that good.  At the end of the day the vast majority of the sales were made to the Highway Patrol police arm in an attempt to shore up sales. They could move mind! I'm sorry VK but "elan" was not a word ever associated with the Aussie attempt!
Cheers Colin

[V. Kmetz]

But before the unwinding dissolution, the Leyland "brand" was one of the UK's oldest...and much better associated with Jaguar, etc...

[Marty Bonnar]

We had a large BL (formerly BMC) truck plant near us (in Bathgate) when I was growing up. My dad and various relatives worked there through the 70s. He was also one of our Boy Scout Troop leaders. So, when BL wanted to have a ‘float’ at our local ‘Galadays’ (Big Scottish tradition), we were asked to provide the ‘manpower’. This is the press photo of us in action. I’m front left - obscuring the lad at the back with my flag!!!




Happy days. I’d be about ten or eleven, I’d guess so right around 1970ish. Big interest around the Apollo programme!
F.

[V. Kmetz]

That is incredible... what charm of simpler times. It recalls how the influence of Space Age was so palpable then and now disposable.

[Jeff Schley]

I shudder to think what your closets look like