Foghorn Finds America

This is a photo of the ladies that worked at the Buick plant in Flint, Michigan in the middle 1940's. My mom is the 4th one from the right and my aunt LaVerne is the second from the left. They were the office staff, not the gals that worked on the lines obviously. We lived in Flint from 1944 when we left Chicago until 1950 when Ivan went to work for the Port Authority. We lived in Jersey near Fort Lee and he worked as a maintenance guy on the George Washington bridge and he made around $4000. dollars a year, not bad in those days. I bet they make like $70,000 dollars now. Im getting ahead of myself.

Mom and aunt Laverne started working at Buick when Lavernes husband Eddie died in France. I only met him once at the wedding and they were really young. he was drafted and died about 2 months after he got there. She was younger then mom by 6 years but they never told their ages so I never knew how old they really were until mom died in 1981. She was 62. So Laverne was 21 and mom was 27 in this picture.

Ivan worked at the Chevy plant as a welder which he really didn't know how to do but they hired him anyways. He was in his 3os and had a bad leg so they didn't draft him. He used to kid about it but I know it made him angry. His family was Polish and he wanted a piece of Nazi butt to kick for sure but he never got to. When Eddie died, he didn't talk for a week he was so mad.

Tomorrow I'll post on Ivan

Today, May 30, is the birthday of the great Mel Blanc. He would been 98 today. Besides cartoon voices, he did radio shows. I remember him from kidhood as the sound of Jack Benny's Maxwell sputtering and wheezing and coughing and as Jacks violin Teacher Professor LeBlanc. But who can forget "Train leaving on track 5 for Anaheim, Azuza and Cuc amonga". He was the mailman on Burns and Allen and the barber on Gildersleeve. Mel died in 1989 from Heart disease.

His most famous stuff was anamation voices though. He was Bugs, Tweety, Porky, Sylvester, Barney Rubble, Mr. Spacely. For me, the best and most important voice he ever did was, of course, Foghorn Leghorn.
Foghorn Leghorn and Henry Chickenhawk. That's All Folks!

These were opened tho the pack looks closed. We used to open them from the bottom sos not to break the seal. We figured it made them more valuable. I resealed the pack bottom years ago when I learned they were worth big $$$. Besides this is an all ages blog and the front is sexy enough.

I was about 14 I think when my cousin Norman came back from the Phillipines. It was 1947 or so. He was in the Navy during and after the war until Korea and he had all kinds of Vargas navy girl pinups. The cards were cool. He gave them to Ivan for souvenirs and I sneaked them out and kept them. I always felt bad about that. And then one time in the early 60's Ivan told me he knew I took them. he was laughing and said he would been surprised if I didn't take them. I wanted to give them back and he said what the hell would he do with them?

So 45 years later after stealing them almost 60 years ago, here they are for all to see, just not the faces. Hee.Hee.

I was looking through my oodles and oodles of junk and newspaper clips and stuff this weekend. It was about 60 degrees today in Toronto and clear, not windy. So I took a bunch of stuff out to work on on the deck. I found this picture from when I was a kid. I think I was 10 in 1943 and we lived in Chigago with my uncle Ivan. He wasnt really my uncle but after dad died, well you get it, right?

I got this pic from a radio station promotion. They would do live radio shows with bands and singers in the big ballrooms and Uncle Ivan took me when he took my mom to the old Liberty Ballroom and she had been there that day and they had pictures left. Uncle Ivan got a un-autographed one but I liked it anyway.They called her Frances Smith or Frances Fox when she sang with the big bands. They changed her name in the 1940s sometime just after she married Roy Rogers her 4th husband. Yep its Dale Evans. This was like a holy picture in my house when she was inthe cowboy movies. Like the kids say now she was a hottie.

Thanks to the guys and gals at A Passing Inevitable for giving me my blogging start. Thanks Leo for the invite. I'll be back to comment and maybe post sometimes. But I decided to started one of my own here. foghornguy.blogspot.com . I'll post some old snaps and stories and new ones as they come to me. I'll link them other fellers when I figure out how to do that. Happy Trails. Foghorn Leghorn