There’s something really cool about the American jukebox, and I want one. A Wurlitzer. A Seeburg. A Rock-Ola. I don’t care. I simply want to hear those familiar sounds again. 

The coin dropping in the slot. The clicking of the plastic buttons for the chosen letters and numbers. The sound of the 45s dropping. The scratching of the needle as it hit the record. And, of course, the booming sound from those massive speakers. 

And that was just half the experience. The visuals were equally amazing. The bubbles. The waves. The circles of changing color. 

Seeing and hearing jukeboxes for the first time had to be incredible. And although they have roots in the late 1800s, the popularity of jukeboxes truly hit in the 1950s.

For me, it was the 1970s in the Pizza Hut of the small town I grew up in. My childhood friends and I would pedal our bicycles to this popular spot and listen to our favorite songs while we bellied up to the sit-down-style Asteroids video game machine and spent our weekly allowances — one quarter at a time. Yes, we had to pay to listen to music AND pay to play video games. That may seem absurd in today’s world of expecting entertainment for free. Mom thought it was a waste of money, but she never experienced the thrill of hitting 99,999 points with that triangular ship while singing along to “Rock and Roll All Nite” on the jukebox.

Of course, the Fonz also made jukeboxes cool in the “Happy Days” TV shows we all watched. Although pounding our fists on the top of the jukebox and having the song of our choice play didn’t pan out in the same way for my friends and me. We, instead, were escorted out of the restaurant by the manager we only knew as Pizza Hut Dan.    

Call it nostalgia. Call it memories. Call it old school. Call it whatever you want, but call me when you find a good jukebox for sale. I have my quarters ready.

Have a terrific Tuesday, and thanks for reading. 

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital newsletter
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707

We had some icy roads and severely cold weather in central Iowa recently. Fortunately, it was during Christmas break, so schools did not have to cancel classes.

Snow is a concern. Ice is a more serious matter. Fortunately, the road crews got on this forecasted challenge early with brine treatments, which have proven to be life-savers. 

When we lived in Nebraska a few decades ago, the superintendent of the public schools lived down the street from us. On snowy days, he would fire up his Suburban in the wee hours of the morning and pick up the superintendent of the Catholic schools for a trip around the area to determine if they should collectively cancel school for the day. I would often see him drive by as I was blowing snow out of my driveway. On his return, he would give me a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” through his window as a signal on their decision.                                                       

In my many discussions with those two school superintendents, I learned to appreciate the seriousness of school cancelations. They are damned-if-you-do or damned-if-you-don’t decisions. Don’t cancel school, and you risk weather-related accidents or injuries. Cancel school too often, and you hear anger from staff and students who end up with extended school years. With busing being an integral and expected part of education today, the stakes are even higher. 

My now deceased mother, who was born in 1935, told me stories of her youth in the snowy winters on the farms of northern Iowa. 

“School was never canceled,” she said. “If you could make it, you made it. If you couldn’t, you didn’t.” 

Did she miss school because of snow?

“Never,” she said. “Dad made sure we made it to school — one way or another. By truck or by tractor, we were there — always. And so were the teachers.”

Several feet of snow. Gravel roads. Primitive snow plow equipment. No brine treatments. No school buses. And school was in session — always. Right or wrong, we certainly live in a different world today. 

Have a fantastic Friday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707

If your house was like ours over the holidays, you were picking up a lot of wrapping paper. It makes me wonder how much money we all spend on this stuff to put around boxes. The answer, in America alone, is $2.6 billion. That’s a lot of money. And, that’s a lot of paper, much of which cannot be recycled. 

I have written in the past how my dad would use newspaper for gift-wrapping, preferably the Sunday comics section. That makes perfect sense to me. A reader reached out to me to share how his father gave every gift in a brown paper bag. That also makes perfect sense. Paper bags are, after all, the perfect short-term containers with their flat bottoms, sturdy sides and pleats for easy folding. When I was a kid, we used them for book covers, costumes, kites and more. The Unknown Comic even made them popular on “The Gong Show” in the 1970s. 

By 1982, many of America’s largest supermarket chains were switching from paper to plastic bags. By 1985, 75% of U.S. supermarkets were offering plastic bags to their customers. One would assume that costs played into this, but we were also in a time when anything made from paper was blamed for a shortage of trees while plastic seemed like it came straight from Mother Nature’s hands. Now, those plastic bags are seen hanging in the tree branches. Hmmm. 

Margaret Knight, who worked for the Colombia Bag Factory in Springfield, Massachusetts, invented the flat-bottomed paper grocery bag more than 150 years ago. Her job was to fold the paper bags by hand, which was horribly inefficient. This led Margaret to work on designs for a machine that would automate the manufacturing of the paper bags and modify them so they were flat on the bottom. After numerous revisions and lengthy and expensive court battles, Margaret was awarded a patent for her machine in 1871. 

Margaret’s bag offered a wonderful solution for shoppers who were bringing their own containers to stores for transporting groceries home. Folks back then didn’t have the reusable bags that are so popular today, so the paper bags were welcomed, literally, with open arms. 

The design of Margaret’s bag improved over the years, thanks mostly to Charles Stilwell’s design that added pleats to the sides, making folding and stacking easier. It became known as the S.O.S. bag, or “Self-Opening Sack.”

Meanwhile, for the most part, Margaret’s original bag is quite similar to the brown paper grocery bags still used today, albeit sparingly, in grocery stores — and in packaging a few gifts. That’s a little food for thought for you as you stuff all that wrapping paper in the garbage can this week.

Have a terrific Tuesday, and thanks for reading. 

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital newsletter
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707

Many of you likely received some type of electronics as Christmas gifts. And, you may be wondering what to do with your old stuff. I was sorting through boxes of outdated electronic devices recently. Laptops. Cell phones. iPods. iPads. Cameras. And an incredible assortment of wires. Each time that my wife, our kids or I would purchase new devices, the old ones would go in this box. I hung on to them because, well, I just might need them someday. That day has never come, so now I have to figure out what to do with decades of this stuff. 

I am most intrigued with the cameras. Three decades ago, I published an automotive photo magazine, and I took thousands of pictures of vehicles with a 35mm film camera. The process of how we developed film, made prints and prepared the pages for press is laughable now — and so is the camera. But, I still have it, along with an array of the earliest of digital cameras that we experimented with — and a handful of video cameras, too. Who would have guessed that we would someday carry around phones that have cameras much better than any of these devices, and that we would keep hundreds of images stored on them — and in something we would call “the cloud”?

I also found my fourth generation iPod with the click wheel. It won’t take a charge anymore, but I keep thinking I might find a way to make it work. A bunch of my kids’ iPod Minis are also packed in the box, in a variety of colors and tangled in a mess of wired earbuds.

The laptops are the clunkiest of the items. I remember having my first one — an Apple PowerBook 100 with a 9-inch black-and-white screen and a “trackball pointing device.” That was a $2,500 computer in the early 1990s. I thought I was high tech. The devices I am blowing the dust off now certainly have more features than the PowerBook 100, but they are still useless today — unless you need a really heavy paperweight. Or 10.  

So how do I safely dispose of these things? Some say to soak them in water. Start them on fire. Smash them with a hammer. But, then do what with the remains? The better option is to wipe, remove or shred the hard drives so the data thieves can’t access your social security number, credit cards, bank accounts, and website logins and passwords. Then find a company or organization that offers computer recycling. Or, you can throw them in a box with years of other devices… just in case you need them someday. 

Have a fantastic Friday, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707

I first shared this story locally in the Times Vedette printed edition three years ago, and I published it last year in this digital edition. I am pleased to share it again today. Call it tradition, as that is what this story is all about.

The piece was written in 1977 by Bob Hullihan, a writer for The Des Moines Register. Michael Gartner, who was the editor then, asked Hullihan to write a Christmas story for the newspaper. Hullihan obliged, and it ran in the Register. Years later, when Gartner co-owned The Tribune in Ames, he ran it there as well.

Eighteen years ago, Gartner reached out to me and told me how much he valued traditions. He then asked that I consider running Hullihan’s story in CITYVIEW. I wholeheartedly agreed to it, but I wanted to add a strong visual element, too, so I asked cartoonist Brian Duffy to draw the images for me. He did, and the combination was truly wonderful.

The next year, Gartner reached out and asked if I was planning to run the story again.

“Again? The same story we ran last year?” I replied.

“Yes, it is a great tradition that I think you should continue,” Gartner told me. “But it’s your call,” he said.

I reluctantly ran the story again, ironically missing the underlying message about traditions and the changing of the guard that are prevalent in the story. So I read Hullihan’s Christmas classic again. And again. And again.

Eighteen years have passed, and I have been running that story with artwork from Duffy every year — and I will here, too. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do and can make its reading a tradition for you and your family as well.

Merry Christmas to all of you, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital newsletter
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707

Most of you have likely completed all of your Christmas shopping by now. Since there are only a few more days till Christmas, that’s a good thing. Hopefully, you were able to purchase products and services from the many local merchants in the area. That effort truly does make a difference.

I am amazed at the sincere appreciation I feel each time I buy something from a local business. The reply is not just a robotic thank you, but rather a heartfelt gratefulness for choosing to spend my dollars locally rather than with an online global chain that connects with me only by my credit card number.

With our company being a locally owned business, we also sincerely appreciate when businesses choose to market with us. It helps us invest in our staff, our facilities, our publications and our communities. We know that local businesses have all kinds of advertising options today, and that the out-of-towners swoop in frequently with something bright and shiny and new to sell them. So, with that in mind, I want to say thank you to the local businesses that continue to choose to market their goods and services to each of you through our growing family of publications. 

Loyalty is said to be a thing of the past, but that’s not what we see. We see locally owned business owners and managers who look out for each other, support each other, and buy from each other during good times and bad — and encourage others to do the same. We see smart people who aren’t distracted by the fly-by-night media reps who show up for a few weeks and then disappear, but instead show their support for those who helped them get to where they are. And we see business owners and managers who truly appreciate their customers and their vendors alike, and they don’t hesitate to show it. That’s appreciation. That’s community. That’s loyalty. 

None of us are perfect, and we can all improve, but I want to thank those in the local business community for being here to serve all of us. We appreciate you. And for those of you who still need to some last-minute shopping, our local merchants would be glad to help you out. 

Merry Christmas to all, and thanks for reading.

Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@gctimesnews.com
641-332-2707