Electric vibrating football games. I guess every kid played with one and was as frustrated as I

I remember it well. Christmas 1965. My parents bought me, or rather my father bought me, as he was a rabid football fan, an electric vibrating football game board.  Now for all of you who are of a later vintage will look at this and not have the faintest idea of what it was. I understand that as they have been extinct for more than a generation.

But it was a real high tech super game to have in 1965. Cause it used electric power which was cool. It had action, which was cool. Also it was something everyone wanted to see. It was a different age and it was simpler age. We would not complain about this or that as is the style today. Today kids would not even give this kind of game a look. As it is not tied to a computer. Well in 1965, computers were the things of Sci-Fi movies and TV shows

But to be honest, this game was pretty useless.  It contained two teams of players. You needed to put all the decals on each player which took a long time. Set up the kicker so he could kick. Then each player had a weighted bottom so they would stay upright and move a little.  How did they move? There was a little vibrator under the board and you set up the players, turned on the vibrator, and watched the play.

Well, the end result was the players went all over the board and seemed to just go often in circles. Often they would get together and kind of dance. There was no controls to move the players outside of the vibration.

Within a few days there would be little interest in trying to make the game work and you just let the the players wander around or do dances around the board. After that you would see what else would vibrate and try that on the board. In a short while it would go to the island of unwanted toys.

I think I played with mine 3 or 4 times and then gave up on football and tried vibrating coins and little plastic statues and dinosaurs.  I am sure a lot of them were sold in the 1950's through the 1970's and most I am sure met an equal fate.  Another thing you could do is have the kicker kick the ball over the goal post.  Sadly the football was about the size of a large piece of rice and would get lost.  Just like my interest in this game shortly after and I was far more interested again in Rock 'em sock 'em robots.

An afternoon in Fremont,Ohio at the Rutherford B Hayes home and Presidential Center. Also in the midst of a Civil War reenactor gathering. Oct 2012.

While on a journey in a U-haul truck helping my friend move to Chicago. Which was a story in itself. We had a chance to stop at several interesting places on the way. We spent the night in Fremont, Ohio.  That morning after Breakfast decided to check out the Rutherford B Hayes home and library. It is a lovely place and the grounds are great too. The house has been lovingly cared for and the collections in the Museum are really quite amazing as well. So it just happened that on this weekend we were traveling, there was a Civil War reenactors gathering. So we wandered around and stepped back in time for a short while.  We took some pictures and thought I would share a little for you here.

At the entrance to the Hayes home.

The cannons were set. The weather was nice and all the people were very sweet. I went to the Museum and saw many of the Hayes artifacts. Jason was the one who took all the pictures. I was also able to buy a book that was removed from the old Hayes Library. So it was nice to bring a little piece of history home.

The camp and shops

Some folks really got into it as this couple did.

This fellow explained the various items used by a Civil War soldier.

Various parts of the camp. There was historical reasons for this as President Hayes used to have reunions of soldiers of his company meet on the lawns of his home.

I am here at the graves of Rutherford and Lucy Hayes. Also some of their children are buried here as well. The Hayes were re-buried here in 1915 around the time of the opening of the Hayes Museum here. One odd factor of the re-burial was that Mrs.Hayes's wedding ring fell out from a hole in the bottom of her casket. It was collected and put on display in the museum. 

Shopping for Victorian clothes

A group of Civil War reenactors hanging around the back door of the Hayes home.

Some Civil War songs being played and sung by the reenactors.

There was a large amount of people at this event. It was really nice and had a nice old time feel to it. It was nice to locals here really getting into their history. I find that this is not always the case when we get to the east coast.

This is how we left them all..Playing a concert on the front porch of the Hayes home. It was a lovely time. 

Invest in the Confederate States of America.. 1861 Bond due to mature on July 1, 1865

Well if there was still a country on July 1, 1865 that would have been good for the holder of this original bond. But now is a wonderful relic of 150 years ago.

A Confederate States of America five dollar bill from 1863

This is an original 5 dollar Confederate note that has been cancelled. Meaning it was paid by the government. It is interesting if you read some things written onto the bill. Enlarge this and read some of the writing on top. Most unique is the statement talking of 2 years of a treaty of peace between the North and South.    This bill was good I gather till July of 1865.  By July of 65 there was no more Confederate States of America.

The Booth Bedroom at the Players Club in New York City.

It has been my pleasure to go to the Players Club several times since the 1990's. It is a place that has always reeked of history. Pictures have sadly gone and pictures have been changed here and there. But one thing has not changed much is the suite that belonged to the founder and owner of the building, the great Shakespearean actor, Edwin Booth.

Booth gave the townhouse to the Players Club in 1888, with the understanding he would live there the rest of  his life. Sadly that would not be too long. He would die on June 7, 1893 at the age of 59.

 His had been a hard life in many ways. His first wife died young, his brother assassinated the President of the United States, his second wife went mad, and the life of an actor in the 19th century was not an easy one.

By 1892 Booth was rather frail and weak and spent a good deal of time in his room. At times joining the members of the Players in conversation til late in the evening. As a tribute to him , his room has been left as he left it.

  I have gone to that room a few times and always was interested and never thought of taking a few pictures, but this last time I went on the 10th of January 2013 I did. So I thought I would share a bit of New York history from one of the jewels of old New York, The Player's Club. This year will mark 125th year of the Players and the 120th anniversary of Booth's death.

The Bed Booth would die in on June 7, 1893. By his bed is a photograph of his brother. The only photo in the club of his brother, John Wilkes Booth. below his picture is that of his 2nd wife who went mad shortly after their marriage.  A very sad corner of pictures.

By the bed are his slippers

One of his cabinets has pipes and trinkets. He loved smoking pipes and cigars

Some pictures on the wall, a bust of Shakespeare and a rubbing from the curse on Shakespeare's grave.

Books and theatrical props and pieces including a real skull signed by Booth.  Here in the center of all of this is a Portrait of his 1st wife Mary, who was the love of his life. She died after giving birth to their daughter.

The wall decoration here is from his funeral. Before it is Booth's day bed.

Has the Titanic finally sunk from our imaginations? What will be the new great disaster?

This last year marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.  I have grown up with the ship, had the chance to meet two survivors of the disaster, and have had a eager interest in all things about it.

But, I think I have had enough of the Titanic for a while.

It was Titanic overload last year. So many programs, Titanic in 3D, books, lectures and new museums. I think the Titanic went out of our collective interest with a bang.

 Now after a century I would guess it is time to let her rest. All are gone who sailed on her or saw her above the water. Now as we go to the 101st year of the Titanic, it will be a slow fade from the collective interest of the world.

 While she will always have her die hearts, the Titanic has now finally slipped into history's storage file and will not be the top contender of disasters anymore.

 What I see in the near future are the new Organisations that will deal with the 9-11 tragedy. Which I think in 20 years or so will start to take on more and more followers. There will be survivors who will speak and as time goes on when the last fireman, police officer, office worker, or child passes away it will be important news.

I can foresee a meeting on September 11, 2081, where a few survivors from 9-11 tell their stories for the millionth time.  All those who were born 50 years after the event, will thrill to hear them again and again. These survivors will take on a mythical status, just like the Titanic survivors a century earlier.

The Titanic had her century and of course we will still hear from her now and then. But in the 21st century the new focus will be on 9-11. Which will be looked at as the first major disaster of its kind that so shocked the world and brought it to it's collective knees.

Just like the Titanic...

Was Lincoln gay?

Today there are attempts to claim many things for many people. There have been great men and woman who have changed the course of the world who were gay. There are others who some want to be. I have a hard time with making Lincoln gay.

 His letters to Josh Speed were very warm tender and confiding (the only letters existing like that). Speed and Lincoln were very close and had a very close bond. But to state that this makes him gay is just a little beyond my understanding. They shared a bed for 2 years. Well, in those days who didn't?

 If we call sharing beds a criteria for being gay. I will have to make a list so long it would boggle the mind.

 We have had a gay president already and also a gay vice president. We have a few who dabbled here and there. JFK for instance was one who enjoyed watching sex acts take place on either sex. No one will ever know all of the truth about him, but many old timers in the gay areas of Provincetown, Mass. remember him.

  But this is outside of what we are talking about.  I really doubt Lincoln was gay.  I feel he was often more Asexual than anything else.  Sadly, much of what makes Lincoln, Lincoln does not exist anymore. Just about every letter he wrote to Mary his wife is gone. Robert Lincoln was on a campaign to make sure that he cleansed the image of his father.  Mary Lincoln talked about the passionate letters her husband wrote her and how she was keeping the somewhat yellowed papers. She kept them till Robert Lincoln got them and removed them from our understandings forever. I guess Robert Lincoln could not get his hands on the Speed letters. Although one can imagine that he would have wanted too.

The Lincoln we know today is like a slice of Swiss cheese. We have the slice, but there are many holes in it.

So in closing Lincoln can be whatever we want to make him into. Cause we know so little about his personality, likes, desires, wants, and dreams.  He kept no diaries, had no really close friends, confided in no one (save for a short time with Speed), was secretive in much of his political, social, and private life. But this being so I have my doubts.   I only think in the window of history it is not really our place to make someone this or that. Because we then are not stating facts, we are just speculating.

Some have even said Hitler was gay. There are some similarities between Lincoln and Hitler. Both were ego manics, both rarely confided in others, had no really close friends, both were very sure of themselves, willing to start a war to follow their beliefs. But I cannot say Hitler was gay anymore than Lincoln.

You have to base history on facts..... not just what some people want history to be.

Let's get drunk and truck....Lil Johnson and her Chicago swingers.

Here is a recording you rarely ever see. That is the recordings of Lil Johnson. She was a African American jazz singer who had much of her start in Chicago and started making records. Her records were always jazzy and always really naughty for the time.  Her records that came out in the mid 1930's like this were not big sellers and today few people know or ever heard of her.  But here is a rare example of one of her very suggestive and really jazzy and fun recordings called "Let's get drunk and truck"  Of course we all know what it implies...In the 1930's you could never say that or even hardly suggest it. But she did.  No one knows when she was born or died... But it looks like she had a trucking good time making these records.