Rummaging around the basement uncovered a few interesting artifacts.
I was a big AFL fan. This still stands as one of my favorite sports stories of all time:
Joe Frazier Beats Muhammad Ali in 1971 at Madison Square Garden.
Ken Holtzman pitched an historic second no-hit game for the Chicago Cubs in 1971:
Hank Aaron ties Babe Ruth with 714 career home runs:
Here’s a Ford Pinto for $1,919. It was about $1,919 too much:
And finally, a Pall Mall cigarette ad, featuring a cool 1970s dude:
OMG… on so many levels.
1) These newspapers have stayed intact in your basement. Are you living in a desert or vacuum which would preserve them?
2) On the sports pages, I love the “For sports scores between 8:30 am and midnight, call 222-1234.” That was our “Internet.” No area codes. And it even sounds like a made up number, right?
3) On the smokes ad, the tar and nicotine levels were verified by an FTC report. Truth in labeling so people get the tar and nicotine levels they paid for? And appears that was the days before the Surgeon General warnings.
4) The Pinto was “designed to let you do most routine maintenance yourself.” That’s exactly what I want in a car. I’m sure the golfer guy in the illustration was thrilled to do that routine maintenance instead of golf. And it’s stable in gusty winds. But the 25mpg is great. Even sadder that I can remember when the Pinto came out.
Thanks for the trip through the time machine of our lives!
Glad you enjoyed these relics, Heidi. Great observations: studying old newspapers is funny and sometimes very instructive, isn’t it? Those old cigarette ads were some of the most effective ever made.
Thanks for sharing these, Berrmot! I especially love the Pinto ad. Brings back memories of when I test drove a used Pinto for a week in the early ’80s. I think after about the first 15 minutes I realized it wasn’t going to make the cut.