Cole Porter

Enjoyed looking at some road maps from the Fifties and Sixties last week. I got a kick out of the Skelly and Sinclair maps. We didn't buy gas at the Skelly station when I was a kid, but we did go to Jerry's Sinclair on the northeast corner at 48th and Randolph. As kids, we lusted after the Sinclair inflatable Dino dinosaurs displayed in the window.

The movie "De Lovely" has renewed interest in the music of Cole Porter. That was the music I grew up with. I would lounge on the wall-to-wall carpet near the hi-fi trying to memorize the witty lyrics. On Sunday evenings, very late, like eight o'clock, I think, after Ed Sullivan, we would watch the "Dinah Shore Show". Of course my younger siblings would already be asleep in crib or bassinet. This was Big Girl Time! This was time for Skyline Dairy Swiss Almond Ice Cream.

So, to get back on track, I bought a cd of authentic Cole Porter recordings last week. It included Dinah Shore singing, "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To". I really only remembered her singing, "See the USA in your Chevrolet!," and twirling about in a satin gown in front of a car the size of Delaware. I was little. I was pretty sure Dinah Shore was somewhere in the kitchen strumming on an old banjo.

During a big blizzard in about 1965, my dad had to get back to Eastridge from downtown Lincoln. He was able to inch the pea-green '54 Chevy to somewhere near 40th and J Street before it got stuck. He left the car, and headed out on foot wading through the over-the-knee drifted snow. He trekked through the Tabitha Home area and over to Jerry's Sinclair.

Meanwhile, back at the Strauss House Eastridge ranch, we were playing Chutes and Ladders and working jigsaw puzzles on folding card tables in the living room. We were very worried about Daddy, lost out there on the Siberian tundra! Remember the first time you watched "Dr. Zhivago"? It was a thrilling moment when we caught sight of an Abdominal Snowman slowly making its way from Cotner Blvd. through the poplar and pine trees into our backyard. Daddy was home! Our hero! Our frosty daddy, just as brave as those Friendship Seven astronauts we watched on the only tv* at Eastridge Elementary!

By the way, I am so old I remember Gas Wars and 21 cents a gallon gas. Usually the guy who pumped our gas also offered us free steak knives, or tropical-hued thermal tumblers, mugs, and pitchers.

*Yes, Eastridge School had a tv. For all NASA space launches the students would gather in the library to sit on the floor and watch. Some other day I will share my favorite memories of early educational television