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

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Buckwheat Zydeco died of lung and throat cancer early Saturday morning in Lafayette, Louisiana, the town where he was born.

Born Stanley Dural, he learned to play the organ at an early age. It was joining Clifton Chenier's Red Hot Louisiana Band as an organist in 1976 that enabled him to experience the enormous fan appeal of live zydeco music first hand. He took up the accordion in 1978 as a result and after a year's practice formed the Buckwheat Zydeco and Ils Sont Partis Band.

R.I.P. Stanley Dural Jr. - a.k.a. Buckwheat Zydeco (1 November 1947 - 26 September 2016).

I imagine we all loved cereal premiums as kids. I mean what red-blooded kid could resist the lure of the words "Free Inside!"?

The first one I remember coveting and getting in 1958 or so was the baking powder powered submarine. I remember how I excitedly got my mother to fill its fuel tank with baking powder and then watched with wonder after letting it loose in the bathtub!

These days there are only a few cereal premiums I actively collect. The oldest would be my set of 86 comic character pins that were distributed as a premium in Kellogg's Pep cereal in the 1945-47 period.

Then I collect the Disney comic booklets that were included in Cheerios in 1947 such as these Br'er Rabbit ones:

Then the Disney comic booklets that were included in Wheaties in 1950-51:

Since I avidly collected the 1962 Post Cereal Baseball, 1962 Post Cereal and 1963 Post Cereal CFL cards as a kid, I still collect these today:

1962 Post Baseball

1962 Post CFL

1963 Post CFL

I also collect the Flag coins that were distributed within General Mills' cereals in the mid-sixties:

And the Kellogg's Monkees coins from 1967 (not because of any liking for the Monkees but only because I collect all premium coins):

One of these days I'd like to acquire a bunch of Twinkles cereal story boxes because I collected the stories avidly for a few months in 1960-61:

I'd also like to take up collecting the hockey photos that were printed on the back of Chex cereal boxes from 1963-65:

What's put me off collecting these so far is the difficulty of finding really nicely cut cards, plus the preponderance of Maple Leafs and Canadiens in the set with no Rangers or Bruins at all.

Then of course the Nabisco dinosaur figure premiums from the late fifties are tempting:

In the meantime, I have these two books:

The books unfortunately don't necessarily exactly reflect how it was in Canada at the time. Moreover I just don't remember too many of the cereal premiums overall. Because they were in stores for a couple of months and then disappeared, they didn't burn themselves into my memory as strongly as did the comics, magazines, bubble gum cards, premium coins, model kits, etc. that have been the main focus of my collecting efforts to this point. Neither have cereal premiums been as well catalogued as board games or lunch boxes let alone the other collectibles I mentioned.

Legendary Winnipeg Blue Bomber coach Bud Grant's name was added to those of QB Ken Ploen, OL Chris Walby, FB Gerry James, WR Milt Stegall, QB Dieter Brock and HB Leo Lewis.on the Blue Bombers' Ring of Honour at halftime during Friday's game against the Edmonton Eskimos:

Here as well is a video clip of Coach Grant's appearance when his statue was unveiled outside Winnipeg's Investors Group Field in October 2014:

Here are some excerpts from Bud's simply phenomenal career:

1. He had poliomyelitis as a kid. He accordingly took up sports to help strengthen his leg muscles!

2. He lettered in three sports at the University of Minnesota - football, basketball and baseball! Twice he was All Big-Ten in football.

3. He was drafted in the first round by the Philadelphia Eagles in 1950. But he was also drafted in the fourth round by the Minneapolis Lakers though! He chose basketball and played 35 games for the Lakers in the latter part of the 1949-50 season. He stayed with the Lakers for one more season in 1950-51.

4. He then realized he would never achieve much in the NBA. He elected to switch to football and joined the Philadelphia Eagles for the 1951 season. He played defensive end that season leading the Eagles in sacks.

5. He switched to wide receiver for the 1952 season and was second in the NFL in receiving yards with 997! He then thought he merited a healthy salary increase. The Eagles disagreed and told Grant to take it or leave it. He opted to leave it, and instead signed with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers for more money.

6. He played both defensive back and offensive end for the Blue Bombers for the next four seasons. He led the Western Interprovincial Football Union in receiving yardage in 1953 and 1956, pass receptions in 1953, 1954 and 1956, and was named a W.I.F.U. all-star in 1953, 1954 and 1956.

7. He still holds the CFL record for most interceptions in a playoff game with five!

8. In 1957 he was named the head coach of the Blue Bombers at the age of 29! When later asked how long it took his former teammates to realize that he was now the boss, he replied "About five minutes."

9. He coached the Blue Bombers to a Grey Cup berth that very first year in 1957 and then again in 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962 and 1965 with the Blue Bombers emerging triumphant in 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1962. Ironically all six of those Blue Bomber Grey Cup games were against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

10. The custom of Blue Bomber linemen playing games in sub-zero November temperatures with bare arms against their similarly bare armed rivals with the Edmonton Eskimos may have originated during Bud Grant's tenure in the fifties. Simple intimidation "What, you call this cold?" Those were the days when the Western final was a best of three game affair played over the course of eight days. Football players were tough in those days.

11. He was offered the job of head coach of the Minnesota Vikings in 1961. He turned it down at the time, but relented and accepted the position in 1967.

12. He then engineered a rare trade between teams in the separate leagues when he acquired QB Joe Kapp from the British Columbia Lions in exchange for Canadian WR Jim Young. Young would go on to earn the appellate "Dirty Thirty" with the Lions and was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame after retirement.

13. He wouldn't allow heaters along the Viking sidelines during games. He wanted his players to stay focused on winning the game and not warming up by the heaters. When you saw the Vikings standing like ice giants along the sideline in their purple cloaks while the other team huddled miserably by their heaters, it was pretty obvious which team would win the game!

14. When many players took to celebrating TDs with outlandish antics in the end zone in the late seventies, Viking players did not. When a reporter asked Bud whether there was a team rule prohibiting such celebrations, his reply was "No, there's no such rule. They just better not."

15. Bud Grant didn't like to see players fidgeting during the national anthem. He thought that standing respectfully at attention would earn not just the respect of the fans but also of the players on the other team. He accordingly had giant defensive end and former National Guardsmen Carl Eller lead his Viking teammates in national anthem practices.

16. The player Bud Grant considered to be the best he ever coached in either league was Leo Lewis who played halfback for the Blue Bombers between the years 1955 and 1966. Leo had rushed for 8861 yards with a remarkable average of 6.6 yards per carry. You can therefore imagine Bud's astonishment in 1981 when he was told that a fellow named Leo Lewis had walked into the Vikings' training camp asking for a tryout. The applicant was the son of the Leo Lewis that Bud had coached in Winnipeg. Leo Lewis III not only made the roster that year but played for the Vikings as a wide receiver and punt returner until 1991.

17. Bud Grant had a fear of flying. His Blue Bombers (and of course Vikings) always flew to their games though. "The players sleep more restfully in a hotel than they do on a train. I don't matter." was his explanation. 'Nuff said.

Here are some scans of CFL cards from my collection featuring Bud Grant:

1954 Blue Ribbon

1963 CFL Coins

1964 Nalley's CFL Coins

While the seed of my lifelong love of comics was planted a year earlier when I saw a copy of Adventures of the Fly on the local drugstore's magazine stand, it was in 1962 that it really took root. That was the year that I discovered both the Green Lantern and Justice League of America titles. I'm not sure how those two titles as well as the The Flash had escaped my notice prior to that, but I'll just say that my interest in comics really burgeoned after discovering those DC titles.

Here in alphabetical order from my comics published in 1962 are my fifteen favourite DC covers:

Here are some photos of the lunch box that heralded the start of my lunch box collecting about eight years ago:

Great stuff Hep, loving it all !!!

And no end in sight either!

Besides comics, I've dabbled with non-Sports cards, coins, and paper currency. For a while I was an avid collector of vinyl, especially 45's, with emphasis on the picture sleeves. Also sheet music from 60's. I once talked to Borock about the possibility of CGC grading sheet music but he said it was too small a niche and would not be worth it. Now, it seems like they slab a lot of different things. Whenever I went off on these collecting tangents I always came back to comics, obviously what I enjoy best. I admire the broad stroke of your collecting scope. I see it as you are collecting a time period, as opposed to any one one genre. For me, whenever I expanded my collecting scope, the biggest challenge was storage space. How do you handle that challenge ?

Now that you're adults, have you ever talked to your sister about throwing out your comics and wrecking your models? Has she ever apologized?

For me, whenever I expanded my collecting scope, the biggest challenge was storage space. How do you handle that challenge ?

It's a real challenge, particularly since I like having my model kits, board games, lunch boxes and other toy items nicely displayed. I'm at the point where I'm running out of display space which may put a damper on future acquisitions on my part.

Now that you're adults, have you ever talked to your sister about throwing out your comics and wrecking your models? Has she ever apologized?

Well she was trying to clean dust off the model kits so I'm willing to give her a pass in that regard.

With respect to throwing my comics away, she just sighs and puts it down to sibling rivalry. She's still bewildered by my love of comics and other kids' stuff though and has stated in years past that I should "get rid of them". I've given her very angry snarls in response of course and she's refrained from saying anything to me about my collectibles for years now.

The WOMAN however is supportive of all my interests and often helps out in some ways.

Yay! A day celebrating my own kind:

National Black Cat Day 2016

Here are pictures of a few more of my Aurora model kits:

My Don Post Fu Manchu mask:

Here's Styx(? - 2015 RIP) admiring it:

And here's Deuce(? - 2015 RIP) posing with it:

And here it is in use!

I got some highlights put in for a hot date tonight. How do I look?

 

 

I love your thread. I used to keep my cards in notebooks but they took so much room, so now I put them in those big huge boxes that I can put thousands of cards, and stack them on top of each other in a small amount of space. (for some reason the wrong picture is showing up)

I used to keep my cards in notebooks but they took so much room, so now I put them in those big huge boxes that I can put thousands of cards, and stack them on top of each other in a small amount of space.

Do you mean that you went from storing your cards in three ring binders such as these:

To storing them in card boxes such as these?

Exactly. Although the boxes I got are a little bigger, I think they have one more row. I can store my entire collection in 2 of those boxes. You can buy dividers that extend above the cards about a half inch, so I write the name of the set and have them all stored by group, then alphabetically. I have 3 groups, Star Trek, Star Wars and everything else. Everything else has all my comic cards but also movie cards like Black Hole and ET. I don't collect sports cards (except for special players, my favs, like Fran Tarkenton and Walt Frazier). Before the internet I used to subscribe to the Wrapper and buy cards that way.

I wanted to ask about your models -- don't you ever have the urge to build them? For a while I collected unopened Lego Star Wars and Harry Potter sets. Then the urge got to strong and I had to open them and build them. Now I display them on top of my long boxes.

Is there a cooler name in professional sports than Coco Crisp?

Before the internet I used to subscribe to the Wrapper and buy cards that way.

What?! I still subscribe to The Wrapper! Not only is it a great magazine to which I've occasionally contributed an article, but Les Davis can use whatever support he can get.

I wanted to ask about your models -- don't you ever have the urge to build them?

No, never. Why build and thus destroy a valuable collectible when one can always build a repro/reissue if so compelled? Moreover my kit building/painting skills are no better than a thirteen year old kid's anyway so what's the point?