SITTING IN YOUR CABANA listening to your banana...record

You'll need Cabana Banana stickers to be able to purchase this offer. Good luck with that!

Strangely, I can’t find any reference online about this children’s record offer from 1969. Typing “Cabana Banana” brings up lots of pages about furniture. So I’ll simply post this and let you dream about this swell selection of kiddie songs. As to the company that offered it...

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(SOURCE: Sunset, July 1969)

Standard Fruit Company (now Dole Food Company) was established in the United States in 1924 by The Vaccaro Brothers. Its forerunner was started in 1899, when Sicilian immigrants Joseph, Luca and Felix Vaccaro, together with Salvador D'Antoni, began importing bananas to New Orleans from La Ceiba, Honduras. By 1915 the business had grown so large that it bought most of the ice factories in New Orleans, in order to refrigerate its banana ships, leading to its president Joseph Vaccaro becoming known as the "Ice King".

Along with the United Fruit Company, Standard Fruit played a significant role in the governments of Honduras and other Central American countries, which became known as "banana republics" because of the highly favorable treatment the fruit companies were given.

In 1926, the company changed its name from Standard Fruit Company to Standard Fruit & Steamship Company. Between 1964 and 1968, the company was acquired by the Castle & Cooke Corporation, which also acquired James Dole's Hawaiian Pineapple Company (HAPCO) around the same time. In 1991, Castle & Cooke was renamed Dole Food Company. Castle & Cooke Inc, a real estate company, was spun off in 1995 and is now separately listed. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

To read the history of the all powerful banana companies click here. There is a dark side to bananas and I'm not just talking about how fast they go bad.