As *spoon* as Arch comes back from vacation Hepcat will still be Hepcat. 8 8

[Hepcat]

Here are a few pictures from previous years of our Xmas tree:

 

 

 

 

Here's Deuce beside it:

 

 

The tree is a fiber optic one but the motor died last year. We'll probably look to getting the motor repaired since fiber optic trees are no longer offered in stores. We traditionally add multiple strands of seven(!) colour C6 LED lights and decorate it with predominantly silvery or white decorations including lots of little birds. Adding multitudes of silver icicles and swaths of angel hair turns the tree into a scene from a magical wintry wonderland where a riot of colour can be seen breaking through a haze of snow and ice. Unfortunately, The MAN has never been able to capture the effect with the camera.

 

Here from happier times are pictures of our tragically departed beautiful little sister Phoebe with her soul mate Blizzard while he still shone brightly:

 

 

 

Here I am with Blizzard:

 

 

 

 

 

Here's Cowboy with Blizzard:

 

 

 

And here's Blizzard out for a breath of fresh air on the front porch with Deuce:

 

 

 

[Iceman399]

 

 

 

 

you scared the colour right off of him!

[Hepcat]

Here are a couple shots of the outside of our house when both Blizzard and his buddy Frosty on the upper level still shone brightly:

 

 

 

 

 

[Hepcat]

These lights in our bedroom have done yeoman's duty for the past seven Xmas seasons:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hepcat]

Here I am looking over the Xmas gift bags we're giving out to our little four-legged friends in the neighbourhood:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hepcat]

There was a classic New York style candy store on Richmond Street in downtown London, Ontario directly across the street from St. Peter's School where I was obligated by my parents to attend extracurricular language classes between 4:00 and 5:30 Saturday afternoons. Davis Variety was its name. It had the obligatory lunch counter which the fellow worked himself. I was never drawn to get anything at the lunch counter though (not that I would have had the money anyway of course). Unlike the lunch counters at the downtown Metropolitan, Kresge and Woolworths stores, it was pretty spartan and dingy and just didn't appeal to me. Mr. Davis himself was almost a comic book caricature of the old guy working a hot grill and his lunch counter never seemed to have any customers on Saturday afternoons. He probably got the bulk of his business frying up breakfast and lunch for the teachers at St. Peter's. And of course everybody smoked and read newspapers in those days including the teachers and the respective bishops, priests and staff at the adjacent St. Peter's Basilica and St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral.

 

The Davis Variety had most everything else to tempt a young boy with a quarter or two in his pocket though. It was one of the very few stores I knew that stocked Black Cat Bubble Gum which was licorice flavoured and was somehow chewier than Bazooka or even Dubble Bubble. I remember happily chewing on Black Cat and blowing black bubbles for hours!

 

 

I also very clearly remember buying baseball cards at Davis Variety every so often:

 

 

 

The wooden magazine rack was located on the other side of the store from the lunch counter and was thus well situated to sneak a peak at the insides of the titty mags. There would of course have been something wrong with any little boy who wouldn't glance at pictures of bare naked ladies given a chance. In fact, I'm sure that the priests from St. Peter's and St. Paul's, if not the bishops themselves, would have been taking the occasional peak as well.

 

It was at the Davis Variety's magazine rack though where I first encountered Green Lantern 26, 28 and 29 and the excitement I felt seeing those issues for the first time is still seared in my mind to this very day. In fact, I'm sure those comics are the reason why I still remember Davis' so vividly.

 

 

 

 

While St. Peter's and St. Paul's cathedrals are still there, 1979 was the last year for St. Peter's School and the Davis Variety has also been gone for decades. I have a vague recollection of once getting a chocolate milkshake that really wasn't very good at Davis' but sadly I never got to sample a cheeseburger there. You never know what you've got till it's gone.

 

Edited January 17, 2013 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

I've always been a fan of Shari Lewis and her puppet characters with my two favourites being Wing Ding and Charlie Horse. Here are some pictures of Shari and friends:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here she is with Ed Sullivan and Topo Gigio:

 

 

Here are some shots of my Shari Lewis and Friends thermos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here are a couple of photos of my Shari Lewis & Friends Colorforms set:

 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2013 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

Here are a few pictures from previous years of our Xmas tree:

 

 

The tree is a fiber optic one but the motor died last year.

 

The tree is back to full glory! It wasn't the motor that was burned out but just the transformer, and our next door neighbour still had her transformer even though she pitched her tree two years ago. Great luck that!!

 

 

 

[DiceX]

Beautiful comics, Hepcat. I'm in awe.

 

 

[Hepcat]

A certain day in early August 1963 was key to instilling a lifelong interest in comics within me. I had set aside any comic buying for nearly a year because my heart was broken when my older sister had convinced my mother to throw out my small stack of comics the previous fall because they were surely going to corrupt me for life. (My sister was of course correct. They did.) On a visit to Ken's Variety on Wharncliffe Road, however, I checked out the spinner rack and saw these comics in all their shiny glory:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I mean how could I resist? Within the next five weeks or so, these comics hit the newstand at Les' Variety which was just a block away on Wortley Road:

 

 

 

 

 

Well that was it, game, set and match. And now here I am today, still a huge comic fan!

 

Edited March 4, 2013 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

Here I am admiring my Don Post Fu Manchu mask:

 

 

 

Here's Deuce posing with it:

 

 

 

 

And here's a picture of The MAN wearing it:

 

 

[thirdgreenham]

Okay, I think I have to read this whole thread now. Did I know you were from London, Ontario?

[Hepcat]

Yes you did. We interfaced previously in the War comics thread, and I dropped in at your store in London some eighteen months ago when you'd taken the weekend off to attend a comicon in the States.

 

 

[Hepcat]

The Topps You'll Die Laughing cards are a very early collectibles related memory of mine. I recall marvelling at these in the schoolyard in the fall of 1959 when I was in second grade. The Jack Davis artwork gracing the cards was just so right!

 

 

 

 

 

I didn't have any of these You'll Die Laughing myself though because I can't recall seeing any for sale at the half dozen or so variety stores in my general neighbourhood I frequented in those days. It could have been that the controversial subject matter for the time caused most store owners to pass up on them, but any store owner who agreed to take on a box quickly sold every pack so they weren't there on display for long. Nonetheless, it was these You'll Die Laughing cards that put me firmly on the path to becoming a monster kid.

 

As a result, when the Leaf Spook Stories cards hit store shelves late in 1961 or early in 1962, I was primed and ready! I collected them energetically and within a matter of weeks put together a set:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hepcat]

Mmmmmmm, cake!

 

 

 

 

 

(thumbs u

[thirdgreenham]

Yes you did. We interfaced previously in the War comics thread, and I dropped in at your store in London some eighteen months ago when you'd taken the weekend off to attend a comicon in the States.

 

 

We'll have to interface some time again real soon. (thumbs u

[Hepcat]

The cake was so good that I asked The MAN to buy another one for us:

 

 

Here I am with Deuce (red collar) and Ace (green collar):

 

 

 

Cowboy liked this blue one even more than the previous one:

 

 

 

[Hepcat]

I've been a fan of the Uncle Remus characters since the Uncle Remus and His Tales of Brer Rabbit newspaper strip that ran Saturdays in the London Free Press until sometime in the late sixties served as my introduction to these characters when I was a kid:

 

 

The strip actually began on 14 October 1945 and ran in various newspapers until 31 December 1972. Paul Murry was the initial penciller on the strip but handled the job only until 14 July 1946 at which point he went to work for Western Printing. He was the artist of record for the first Dell comic mag based on Song of the South and also worked on the General Mills Brer Rabbit premium booklets. Murry was succeeded by D ick Moores on the newspaper strip. By the time I encountered it the strip was being pencilled by Riley Thomson (1951-59), under whom Brer Rabbit acquired a less cutesy and more rascally look evident in the example above. Bill Wright (1959-62), Chuck Fuson (1962) and John Ushler (1962-1972) followed on the strip.

 

I have dozens of copies of the strip in my collection. I also have several of the Golden Press picture books which my buddy Cowboy is looking over here in these pictures:

 

 

 

 

In addition I have several records and cassettes featuring Brer Rabbit:

 

 

 

 

 

And here are my Brer Rabbit comics:

 

 

 

 

Best of all is this custom stained glass window featuring Brer Fox and Flower from Bambi in the door beside my model cabinet leading from my collectibles room to the upstairs balcony:

 

 

 

This is the original image on which the stained glass window is based:

 

 

And hanging on the opposite wall from the stained glass window is the original art for the 1972 rerelease of the "Song of the South" movie poster which I acquired through a Hake's auction about five years ago:

 

 

Edited March 23, 2013 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

My neighbour from across the street is the star drummer of Tennessee Voodoo Coupe which was playing the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Car Show last weekend. He brought this very cool T-shirt back for me:

 

 

 

 

 

Cowboy of course wants to borrow it!

 

 

[bababooey]

My neighbour from across the street is the star drummer of Tennessee Voodoo Coupe which was playing the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Car Show last weekend. He brought this very cool T-shirt back for me:

That is a nice gesture considering all the poop you probably leave in their garden.