October 2, 2018
Bavarian Beer Bacchanalia
In the category of ‘Any Excuse For A Party’ – Oktoberfest is one of the biggies.
It began in 1810 as a celebration of the wedding of Kronprinz Ludwig and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen of Bavaria. According to the Infallible Wikipedia:
“The citizens of Munich were invited to attend the festivities held on the fields in front of the city gates to celebrate the royal event. The fields were named Theresienwiese (‘Theresa’s Meadow’) in honour of the Crown Princess, and have kept that name ever since, although the locals have since abbreviated the name simply to the ‘Wiesn’. Horse races, in the tradition of the 15th-century Scharlachrennen (Scarlet Race at Karlstor), were held on 18 October to honor the newlyweds.”
Apparently the citizens of Munich had such a good time that everyone thought it was a splendid idea to do it again the next year… and the next… and pretty much every year for the next 208 years. Also from the Infallible Wikipedia:
“Oktoberfest is the world’s largest Volksfest (beer festival and travelling funfair). Held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, it is a 16- to 18-day folk festival running from mid or late September to the first weekend in October, with more than six million people from around the world attending the event every year. (snip) The Oktoberfest is an important part of Bavarian culture, having been held since the year 1810. Other cities across the world also hold Oktoberfest celebrations that are modeled after the original Munich event.”
For many years the festival was held during the first half of October but was moved to the last two weeks of September and culminates the first weekend of October. But there is one caveat: if the first weekend ends on either the first or second, then the festival runs until the third.
The beer served at the Munich festival must conform to a standard known as Reinheitsgebot, and it must be brewed within the city limits of Munich in order to be served at the Munich Oktoberfest. The only breweries which can participate are:
- Augustiner-Bräu
- Hacker-Pschorr-Bräu
- Löwenbräu
- Paulaner
- Spatenbräu
- Staatliches Hofbräu-München
For more information and minutiae than you could ever hope to know, be sure to visit the Wikipedia page linked below.
This past weekend, while in Reno visiting our daughter and her boyfriend, the hubby and I agreed to attend a Lake Tahoe version of Oktoberfest. Held in Tahoe City, the event featured beer, of course, as well as food and entertainment. There were about a half dozen breweries present. Since I’m not a beer drinker, I was happy to see Barefoot Wines have a booth. We enjoyed a lovely day along the shores of the lake although it was windy.
There was a live band – the Beer Gardeners – who played 60’s and 70’s music. There were also contests including a wiener toss. The game was exactly like a raw egg toss where partners stand across from each other and toss eggs to each other until the egg drops and breaks and the pair is eliminated from the game.
But instead of eggs, they toss their wiener back and forth. About 12 pairs of wiener tossers participated and each time a wiener was successfully caught, the participants would take a step further apart. The game was won when only one pair was left who hadn’t dropped their wiener. Yes, I’ve just used the word wiener five times. Yes I took photos.
But the main reason for the event was to drink beer. As the internet might tell you “Beer Is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Contrary to popular belief Ben Franklin never said that. It was probably just a marketing ploy for Oktoberfest and another excuse to have a beer.
Such a fun time!
Ford Motor Company’s response to this demographic phenomenon was the introduction of the Pinto, marketed as “The Little Carefree Car” on September 11, 1970. From the Infallible Wikipedia:
“In April 1974, the Center for Auto Safety petitioned the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to recall Ford Pintos to address fuel system design defects after reports from attorneys of three deaths and four serious injuries in rear-end collisions at moderate speeds. The NHTSA found there was not enough evidence to warrant a defect investigation. In August 1977, Dowie’s ‘Pinto Madness’ article was published a series of accusations against Ford, the Pinto and the NHTSA. These included that Ford knew the Pinto was a ‘firetrap,’ and said that Ford did not implement design changes because Ford’s cost-benefit analysis document showed that paying out millions in damages in lawsuits was more profitable than the design changes. The day after the article’s release consumer advocate Ralph Nader and the author of the Mother Jones article held a news conference in Washington DC on the alleged dangers of the Pinto’s design. On the same day, Nader and the Center for Auto Safety re-submitted their petition to the NHTSA.”
It took some digging but I finally found a few photos. I’m particularly amused by this one of ‘my’ guy giving us a little beefcake with the Pinto in the background. Belatedly, I give thanks for that car and how important it was to me at the time. For five years it was my trusty steed, there for me every step of the way.
The line “Where were you in ’62?” is in reference to the movie American Graffiti where then unknown actor Richard Dreyfuss becomes obsessed with finding the blonde who is driving the white Thunderbird. He never does but the already iconic Thunderbird is cemented in legend and, for his character, is what defines his final teenage experience.
First, a description of the car. It’s a 1964 1/2. White with a black convertible rag top. Red leather seats. Pretty much every teenager’s dream as the coolest car. I know it was mine.
Then, behind me, blue and red lights come on. My heart pounds. Oh crap.
For more information, here’s the Wikipedia link to the Mustang and, for those who have never seen American Graffiti, it’s a classic movie worth the time it takes to watch.
The safety pin was an especially great invention for mothers everywhere to keep the baby’s diaper pinned without stabbing the child. Making a large pin with a cute animal as the protective head has been a popular adaptation for decades.
When Punk Rock became a thing in the late 70’s and early 80’s the practice of using a safety pin as a decorative piercing became popular with the musicians and their followers.
The name Barbara was, at the time, a very popular name. It first hit the top ten names list in 1927 and remained there until 1958, a whopping 31 years. If you expand a bit, the name was a top 20 name for a total of 38 years. Whether one can blame Barbara’s free fall from popularity on the Barbie Doll is debatable. Having the most famous fashion doll in the world bear that name no doubt made more than a few parents reconsider it as a good choice for their daughter. After all, who would want to name their child after a doll? Another factor is that names, particularly girl’s names, tend to be popular for a period of time then are not used for decades.
Little girls everywhere loved Barbie. What wasn’t to like? She was pretty, had a great wardrobe, and was the perfect size for small hands. But there was something missing. That something arrived in mid-March 1961: Ken.
I got my first Barbie Doll for Christmas 1961. Her wardrobe consisted of a bathing suit, a short gold dress, a black evening gown (Solo in the Spotlight!) and a wedding dress. Based on how those clothes ‘survived’ the years I must have played with that doll a lot. The wedding dress, particularly, is mostly a rag but I still have it.
The closest I ever got to having a Ken was when I played the game “Barbie, Queen of the Prom.” In that game you had to navigate the board to collect a prom dress, appropriate accessories and, most important, a date. There were four choices: Ken, Allan, Tom and Poindexter. No one ever wanted Poindexter. Probably because he looked like he was about twelve. By the time I was playing that game, it was the mid-1960’s and Ken’s military crew cut was going out of style. No, the desirable date for Queen of the Prom was Allan, a freckled face red head with a winning smile.
It’s one of the most grueling races in the world and participants encounter blizzards, white out conditions and temperatures, with wind chills as low as -131 degrees.
What I determined in the five days I spent there with my two best friends from high school, Cindy and Daphne, were the following:
I am forever grateful to my two friends for the once in a lifetime event. It was, as the name of the business stated, Just Short of Magic. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the temperature was 10 degrees.
Although the adventure was only a couple of hours it was, as their business name proclaimed, just short of magic. I relished the rush of cold air, the way the sled flew over the snow, the cacophony of the barking dogs, and the sparkle of the white snow.
A good editor is the key to making sure whatever is written reads right and, well, doesn’t make ridiculous mistakes. In late February 1997 an American Family Publisher’s Sweepstakes entry was received by the Bushnell Assembly of God Church. It began thus:
If I had any doubt that my GPS truly was God my disbelief was dispelled about a year and half ago. I was on my way back from Yakima and was driving up I-82 towards Ellensburg. I glanced over at the GPS but what I saw left no doubt that some higher power was in charge. Instead of an elevation of about 2700 feet as expected “God” let me know I was at over… 50,000 feet! As Doc Brown says in Back To The Future “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need… roads!” Although the photo I snapped was a bit fuzzy, you can clearly see the elevation and God’s instruction that I am to continue to the alley. What alley, I never did find out. This craziness continued until Thorp when, apparently, I was no longer flying and once again on solid pavement.
The year was 1976 and Olympic fever was in full force that February. There was one person, particularly, everyone was talking about. From her cute, bobbed haircut to her signature skating move, girls everywhere wanted to look like her and boys wanted to date her.
Another Olympic fact, Peggy Fleming was the only US athlete to win a gold medal in the 1968 Olympics. The skating program had been decimated seven years earlier when a fatal plane crash on February 15, 1961, claimed the lives of the entire US skating team and coaches who were en-route to Belgium for an international competition. Also from the infallible Wikipedia:
The moment you draw a Chance card that says “Take A Walk On The Boardwalk” probably one of two things happen:
“According to an advertisement placed in The Christian Science Monitor, Charles Todd of Philadelphia recalled the day in 1932 when his childhood friend, Esther Jones, and her husband Charles Darrow came to their house for dinner. After the meal, the Todd’s introduced Darrow to The Landlord’s Game, which they then played several times together. At that point the game was entirely new to Darrow, and he asked the Todd’s for a written set of the rules. After that night, Darrow went on to utilize this by distributing the game himself as Monopoly – an act for which the Todd’s refused to speak to Darrow ever again.
barbaradevore.com 