Christmas, Old School

Armour Blvd., Kansas City, Christmas Eve, 1957 

Grandmother and me, just whipped after a long, festive evening opening presents at her apartment with Uncle Bob and Aunt Iola. We always went to her place for Christmas, and one of my best memories is of watching her old black and white console television set, as NORAD tracked an unidentified flying object as it travelled around the world from an origin north of Canada. I seem to remember the RCAF helping with the radar reconaissance. Good ol' Canada.

And l'il bro' and I loved the Hamm's beer commercials, with a bear doing all sorts of goofy, slapstick stuff as other adorable woodland creatures had a laugh at his expense.

"From the Land of Sky Blue Waters," the Hamm's jingle, could have been a Christmas Carol, for all we knew. Ah, good times...