When you push down one of Mickey’s ears, his red tongue emerges for a child to place a penny on.
At the Park Avenue Art and Antiques show last year, these authors encountered a very attractive eight-inch-high tin litho Mickey Mouse bank manufactured in 1931 by the German company Tip, to be sold in Great Britain and American markets. The Christmas season is the biggest one for toy manufacturers and the many toys featur-ing Mickey and Minnie Mouse and their friends found under the tree on Christmas mornings by children in the Depression ‘30s, and during the World War II years and after, are eagerly sought by collectors who have de-veloped a new appreciation for these artful, themed objects. A British Mickey Mouse gas mask in one of the boxes, a relic worn by English children to protect them from German poison gas during World War II, gazed ominously out into the room. Presented in well-lit glass-front display boxes built directly in the walls, they were a sight to behold for children and adults alike. What was unique and signif-icant about the exhibit was that Disney merchandise that originally had been sold in Bamberger’s and other department stores during the Depression- the dolls, games, toys, books, watches, clocks, radios, figurines, Christmas tree lights and ornaments - were now being exhibited almost as if they were art. Many years later, in 1973, John and I took the path train to Newark’s Bamberger’s to see the “Mouseum” put together by our friend, Mel Birnkrant, the world’s premier Mickey Mouse collector.
These were often served up to her ladies club members in the dining room for the monthly card games.Īt last, Christmastime arrived, with Santa Claus at the helm, and I would accompany my mother to help with her shopping in down-town Newark, most often at Bamberger’s and Hahn’s department stores, S. And she baked goodies that to my mind were the best ever. Also in the cellar, Olga stocked the cupboards with home-made peach jams, preserves, and apple sauce. Ludwig made and drank beer in the cellar and also maintained a Victory Garden to help put more food on the table. Now and then, though I couldn’t eat them, pigeons and rabbits raised in the backyard were served. in Elizabeth, Olga back to canning and cooking (more often than not) pork roast with sauerkraut.
But my German immigrant parents went straight back to work - Ludwig to the Singer Sewing Ma-chine Co. Wasn’t a giant Mickey Mouse balloon featured in the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade? Yes, he was. We all knew that Christmastime followed gobble-gobble turkey time. He was called Big Bobby and I was called, much to my annoyance, Little Bobby. Sometimes, my Uncle Freddy, who owned a diner in Newark, was there with my cousin Bobby. In atten-dance were my brother Walter (12 years older), my sister Evelyn (15 years older), me, and, of course, my mother, who prepared, entirely from scratch, the imposing, majestic turkey with all the trimming, gravy, cranberry sauce, vegetables, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. Growing up in the 1940s in the New Jersey town of Irvington, the Thanksgiving feast was always presided over by my father.
0 kommentar(er)
