Only FOUR-AND-A-HALF DAYS

Leave San Francisco aboard ship and in 4-1/2 days you'd be coming around the bend of Diamond Head towards the harbor in Honolulu. I've said before it was a wonderful way to travel and an incredible place for two little girls to play. Running up and down the passageways, by the gift shop, across the wooden decks, out to the fantail to eat lunch. Glorious time. 

(Source: Paradise of the Pacific 1960, No. 11, Vol. 71)  Click on image to see it larger.

Once you arrived on the island that was not your last encounter with the ships. As military families you always had friends coming and going so you often went back down to the Aloha Tower to see ships arrive or set sail. This meant you got to be part of the big party that took place on the docks. A small Hawaiian band would play, there were dancers, and best of all there were streamers. Those onboard would stand at the railing looking down on us and fling long streamers from the ship to the dock. Thousands of different colored tendrils were soon stretching across the expanse. My friend and I loved grabbing as many streamers as we could to make into a huge pile of paper to hide in. There was also always a man with a wide broom sweeping the paper into large piles making our "job" a lot easier. It was all giggles, colors, and noise. Grand times.

Here is someone's home movie of the Lurline as it arrives in Honolulu.

And this, though it has really dreadful music, also shows the fun of sailing on a Matson Liner. Why they chose this music, well who knows what they were thinking, It's an old travel film made back on the Mainland far away from the land of strumming ukuleles. Personally I don't remember any "race horses" when we were onboard, but I might be wrong. I think by the late 50s they'd done away with that. This was just a film to be shown to potential travelers. We weren't given a choice so we never saw any travel films. We were told "You're going to Hawaii." Well actually my father was given a choice. It was Oahu or Kodiak, Alaska. My mother said "NO!" to Alaska. Good thing.

WHIP YOURSELF into a miracle

Again, from the 1937 Better Homes and Gardens.

It really is funny to look at vintage women's magazines. Rarely are women identified as anything other than their husband's name. We don't know their first name, just his. It's like a stamp of ownership. Complete loss of identity. 

Anyway...Mrs. Fred Wolff seems to be putting together a buffet luncheon for her friends, hoping for compliments. So while she puts salad in the mouths of her guests Kraft-Phenix Cheese Corporation put "It's this dressing," says Ms. Wolff, "that gives vegetable salad the right dash!" into Mrs. Wolff's mouth. 

No information is given as to who Mrs. Wolff is or why they chose her for the ad. Was she important in society? Did she win a contest to be in the ad? Did they just grab the wife of one of the ad guys at the agency because she looked "normal" and comforting to the readers? Unless there are relatives who see this and rush to respond I guess we'll never know. Mrs. Fred Wolff, here's to you and Miracle Whip.

What really attracted  me to the ad is the illustration. It's lovely. Not what you often get in vintage magazines, 4 color photos of food that look like they've long since been forgotten in the back of the fridge. This is a really nice watercolor. No information is given about the illustrator, which is a shame. It's really lovely.

And I guess we can now pencil in Thursdays on NBC for the Kraft Music Hall Program. So that's Thursdays with Kraft on NBC and Saturday night's Alka-Seltzer Barn Dance on NBC. I'll keep looking through this magazine to see how we can fill out the rest of our week.

And speaking of hideous looking food in 4 color, I'd highly recommend the very funny book The Gallery of Regrettable Food by James Lileks. He has captured all the stomach churning photos that were common in women's magazines and recipe books from long ago. Okay, not that long because I remember some of these from my childhood. People call it retro, we called it dinner. I've put a link to this book on the left side of the page.