Democrat Nomination

The Democrat nomination is a one-way ticket on the Toonerville trolley.

Funny Papers

I guess I'm on a nostalgia trip of late. This time, it is comic strips that have vanished from the Sunday funny papers ... which are also almost gone:

Katzenjammer Kids

Dick Tracy

Little Orphan Annie

Popeye

Gasoline Alley

The Phantom

Toonerville Trolley

Li'l Abner

Dondi

Archie

Blondie

Mark Trail

Calvin and Hobbes

Nostalgia

Nostalgia -- An arcane word that is used to evoke one's salad days

Horn & Hardart -- An early attempt to automate the ordering process in the food service industry

Fletcher's Castoria -- A childhood laxative that tasted just like rootbeer

Answering machines -- "Please leave a message ... beep!"

Shoe x-ray -- A machine in front of most shoe stores where kids could see their toes inside their shoes

Cap guns and water pistols -- Gun toys, mostly for boys, that "killed" imaginary injuns and soaked pesky girls

Carnival sideshows -- Bearded ladies, geeks, hoochy koochy girls, human pincushions and sword swallowers

Steel roller skates -- Skate boards and in-line skates have generally supplanted old-fashioned steel roller skates

Dad's Old Fashioner Root Beer -- I seem to remember Mom's and ever Junior's versions too

Land-line telephones -- I still have one (non-cordless) for when the power goes out

3 cent postage stamp -- The cost of first-class postage for many years

Brooklyn Dodgers -- Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson, Carl Farillo, PeeWee Reese, Duke Snider, Don Newcombe

Gum-ball machines -- If your penny produced a speckled gum ball, you got a nickel

Sears Roebuck catalogue -- Toilet paper adorned with bra and girdle ads

Toonerville Trolley -- Bucolic wisdom offered up weekly in the Sunday "funny papers"

City chicken -- Ground veal formed around a Popsicle stick and fried to look like a chicken leg (back when veal was cheaper than chicken)

Lash LaRue -- An oater (western B-movie) hero who used a whip more often than his six-shooter

Single-gender restrooms -- Old fashioned modesty