Make Your Own Fallout Shelter

Who needs duct tape and plastic sheeting? Check out this Flick set that includes a scan of a brochure from the Kelsey-Hayes Company, Detroit, MI for their pre-fabricated fallout shelters, circa 1963.

Some of those designs don't exactly look sturdy, but I find it hard to believe that the good people at the Kelsey-Hayes Company would try and profit from the fears of average Americans. Certainly something like that couldn't happen today, thank goodness.

Dick Cheney: The Formative Years?

There have been a few posts lately on Boing Boing about whether certain cartoons may have shaped the world view of our Vice President. Look and decide for yourself.

I'm a Schlitznik!

How about a schlitztogether? Man, I love that thing! I found a cool new blog, Finkbuilt, that isn't MCM per se, but still has a lot of MCM elements, such as how to build a Modern Coffee Table. Now, as much as I'd love to try this, I know it would look like something Homer Simpson built. I'll just buy my MCM furniture at estate sales and keep all my appendages unsevered.

Stuff I Found At An Estate Sale

I like old cookbooks. People used to eat gross stuff. I want to know how they cook it.

Recipes courtesy of Parade Magazine and the Star-Telegram. Lots of peas. And odd things like aspic and salmon mousse. WTF?


Isn't GE wonderful?


This is my new dream kitchen.


Let's Cook Meat! I bought a crown roast at Roy Pope Grocery once. All the old money Fort Worth muckity-mucks shop there.


Mmmmm. Donuts.

The Boombox Has Come A Long Way

Thank God for iPod, eh?

Album Cover: Afternoon in Amsterdam

I go to a lot of estate sales in my voracious quest for cool MCM artifacts. I found this album at a North Dallas sale a few years ago. I thought it was kind of kooky. Why would someone have an album of Dutch caliope music? Who would want that? Well, me for one.

Anyway, a curious thing happened. After I bought it, I started noticing this album at many of the estate sales I went to over the next six months. I must have seen it 10 times. Evidently, Dutch caliope music was pretty popular in Dallas in the 50s and 60s.

Another similar episode happened two weeks ago in Fort Worth. I went to back-to-back estate sales in Ridgmar, and at both sales is this Winston Churchill Ezra Brooks bottle commemorating the Iron Curtain speech. I've never seen the thing before in my life, then I see it twice inside of a half hour.

That's estate saling. Sometimes you follow things, sometimes things follow you.