153 Value of 1835 book?

What is the value of an 1835 book?

I have said in previous blogs that I might be a trifle obsessive compulsive.

Maybe that is why I volunteer to help with the books at the Rotary Rummage Sale--the ultimate mess to put in order!

I am no longer a Rotarian, but it is for a good cause. This year's beneficiary is Blue Ridge Hospice.

Each year a bunch of books comes in on a different topic. Last year there was a good-sized collection of mushroom books. This year there are about 35 books on woodworking.

Then there are people who must believe any book is valuable, regardless of condition or maybe they just dump everything into a box. We receive wet, mildewed books, dog-chewed books, and other disgusting printed works. They go right to recycling! 

I picked up one old book, thinking it might have some value. I opened it to check the title page and nearly choked--it reeked of cigarette smoke! More recycling. I won't sell anything that I don't want to touch!

There is much sorting to be done so buyers can easily find what they want.

I am not a book collector or dealer who paws through donations looking for gems among the standard novels and nonfiction, but some titles do seem a little unusual.

One thing that jumps out is sets such as the Old West and Durant's Story of Civilization. Sometimes they have value especially if the set is complete. However, on sites such as Amazon.com and Abebooks.com, you will also see single volumes selling. The single book price is a good place to start on valuing the collection. 

I try to find books that described as being in similar condition as I search online. Then I price so a dealer can double or triple their profit.

Will anyone buy 43 Nancy Drew books?

I must have searched about 20 of the woodworking titles to find a few that could sell for more than $1. But then I searched a large paperback that had an attractive cover. It sells online for $56 in a similar condition. I priced it for $20.

Here are a few more teasers of what is coming in the rummage sale books:

Classics, some with special pricing.

Many great children's books

Neil Diamond is Forever sells for $38 on Amazon, $10.

There are also many audio-visual items for adults and children--DVDs. CDs. books on tape, and VCRs. Someone bought all the VCRs last year.

I wonder what will sell this year.

Oh, yes. The 1835 title. It sells for $1.98 online! Not everything old is valuable.

Book-savvy Trish         

152 Whence SABF?

Whence Cometh the Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival®?

For the past 91 years, each spring, the valley – indeed, much of the Del Mar VA area – look to Winchester and the Apple Blossom Festival. The 10-day festival period celebrates the beauty and agrarian past of the region – particularly and obviously the apple industry. The Festival is also a focal point of civic pride.

It has certainly not hurt that the “bloom” - as it known locally - is one of the top 10 festivals in the county. It has been written up in Fodor’s travel guides, National Geographic, Southern Living, among many others, and is a travel destination for MARS (a mid-Atlantic travel agency) and other bus tour groups.

The festival also unites citizens in volunteerism. From August to July some 2000 folks participate in shaping the events for the yearly event that covers the last week of April with the parades always the first weekend in May.

Many years of the bloom have had themes. For this year it was “Welcome Home.” As I think back over some 60 years of watching or participating in this monumental creation, I wonder where the years have gone. This is where and how I met many of my friends. Apple Blossom volunteers are a family!

Readers, I think you will find the beginning history fascinating. How did a city and surrounding county with a 1920 population of few than 20,000 bring this festival to fruition? 

1924 was a banner year in Winchester! The first festival. The George Washington Hotel opened. The Empire Theatre (later the Capital) at 111 N Cameron Street was showing both stage shows and moving pictures. On what is the walking mall in today’s historic district there was a wide street with 2-way traffic and parking on both sides. A knitting mill opened on North Kent. Grace Lutheran Church built its Sunday school addition. A Brethren (now United

Methodist) Church was built on North Braddock Street, the Winchester Country Club (golf club) had just opened, and John Handley High School held its first graduation (the building began in 1922). 

Yes, a banner year for our area and for most of the country. 1923-24 was boom time--growth in industry and agriculture; new technologies in these industries along with new consumer demands and spending. People could buy on credit! And a Model T cost only $300. “Newly developed innovations like radios, phonographs, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, and refrigerators emerged on the market during this period. These new items were expensive, but consumer-purchasing innovations such as store credit and installment plans made them available to a larger segment of the population. (AP History Unit from the Khan Academy, Google search May 14, 2018)

Picture the Shenandoah Valley in 1924--picture nearly 1200 citizens from up and down the valley gathered in Harrisonburg, VA in January. The goal was to advertise the beauty and economic resources on what is now the I-81 corridor. Created that day was Shenandoah Valley Incorporated. The first president of this new venture said each area in the Valley needed to do more to attract tourism and commerce. He asked the Winchester delegation if it would be possible for Winchester to stage a festival to celebrate the apple industry as Winchester’s contribution. Mayor W.W. Glass, along with the rest of the delegation, reportedly replied with no hesitation: “We are 100 percent behind the idea of the festival.”

This Winchester delegation held meetings on April 14 and on April 22, of business, civic and professional citizens. Fascinating, old-fashioned news articles cite admonitions to orchardists to “bring your blossoms to town” and the women of the various churches were given instructions of how they would be in charge of souvenirs. There was a call for cars and drivers as trains from Baltimore and Harrisonburg were bringing visitors to take orchard tours as well as see the parade. It was not can we, but we will! Apparently there much enthusiasm--the newspaper does not say otherwise.

W.A. Ryan (known locally as Dad Ryan of the Winchester Gas Co) was appointed Director General. The Episcopal minister closed the meeting with a benediction (which is still a part of the queen’s coronation these 91 years later): “the bounties of nature are the gifts of God.” (Winchester Independent newspapers, various 1924 articles, January through May, which can be found in the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives of the Handley Regional Library.) 

Incredibly in only 11 days after that second April meeting, school officials were ready to hold a program at the fairgrounds of music and dance; and Berryville students erected and danced around a maypole. A parade formed on Cameron St (where it still forms) marched to Piccadilly, down Loudoun, over Cork to Washington Street and out Fairmont Avenue, circling an oval at the Fair Grounds where a grandstand had been erected.

30,000 people had shown up to see bands, firefighting units, floats, decorated vehicles, horses, and apple industry equipment. The parade lasted 45 minutes.

The first queen was crowned with a coronet of apple blossoms in a very traditional British coronation ceremony. Young ballerinas performed an interpretive dance for her.

From this simple dance was born the Pageant--which the older folks of Winchester still remember so fondly. It was a spectacle. Winchester School Superintendent Garland Quarles wrote and directed these pageants with the help of his faculty. Every child participated!! Yes, really!

Most costumes were made from crepe paper and every teacher (and every mother) was expected to help. There exists a letter in the Festival archives from the school to teachers alerting them to when the crepe paper manufacturers would be in town to receive their orders. 

Dances were learned in the gym as the winter/spring physical education activity and then moved out on the steps and esplanade of Handley High School as the festival approached. Each year from 1931 to 1981, Quarles had a theme: history, nursery rhymes, dances in pink and green, an apple blossom wedding, the gold ball dance are remembered examples. 

I did not even try to calculate how many children were in the Pageant or in the Parades or both over 50 years of Quarles tenure. Thousands, certainly! [And I wonder with SOL tests, and state requirements as they exist now, could we even consider demanding this participation today?] 

And, oh, and the first festival ended with a fireworks display! This is still a happy tradition after the Firefighters' Parade.

The request of January 1924 was fulfilled the first weekend in May 1924. Press coverage was from D.C., Baltimore, and other east coast cities. I find this early local history both fascinating and poignant--and a little scary that decisions were made without much citizen input. But it worked. It was another time, but the same place. Whether or not you are from somewhere near Winchester, we all have our bits and pieces of what made us, our lore, and our traditions.
I’m looking forward to year 100! 

Savvy Glenne            

P.S. apple blossoms have 5 petals (dogwood 4); the blossoms are pink as buds and turn white as they open. (www.hunker.com 2/4/2010)

151 #metoo

                                 

Say it ain’t so—is the expression that comes to mind as each day as we are bombarded with another sexual offender, abuser, or downright pervert.

Daily we hear more and more cases of blatant, subtle, overt, or sneaky cases of women or sometimes children being subjected to unwanted attention, touches, groping, and more.

The latest offender as I write this blog is another big name in TV. I am in shock and total disgust as I hear and read more about the allegations. What must have been going through the minds of these young women who endured these type of advances for various reasons and were ignored or rebuked when they reported it.


By the time this blog is published, it is hard to tell how many more will be added to the hall of shame. Powerful people have a definite advantage when they control desirable employment that can be used to defile and intimidate women as well as men. But this should never be the case!

from Wikipedia

I don’t think any of us can deny what we have endured throughout our lives is similar to what we are hearing. These examples actually trigger in us the disgust that we felt when it happened and the reaction we stifled or handled in our own unique ways.

Many examples in my own life have surfaced as I hear more and more situations revealed. I guess I had hidden them way back in my memory, but they have been unleashed.

A teacher at our high school could surround you in a way you couldn’t escape when you asked a question during a lab. The answer to this predicament--don’t ever ask him a question. He was also handicapped which was shocking that he could maneuver like that.

Another example was when I served as a guide for high school college night, an older man, representing a Methodist school, wanted to hug tightly and embrace his young, high school helpers. The answer to this was to keep a safe distance and move away before he could land his arms for a disgusting embrace.

I never mentioned these events to anyone. There seemed to be an unspoken code that other girls knew too, but we handled it the best we could.

Other instances took place as I entered into adulthood and reactions were different. The man who exposed himself and continued to masturbate on the subway several seats away stopped when the train arrived out of the tunnel amidst bright sunlight. He exited as if nothing had happened in the least bit unusual. My friend and I shielded our young daughters from the grotesque image and were shocked that nothing stopped this horrid display. There was no one to report it to at the subway station so that made it even more disgusting.

The man who sat by my young daughter and friend in a movie theater found out how fast mothers could swoop down and move them away from his leering before anything happened. This was reported, but it is amazing how fast these predators disappear.

As I re-entered the workforce after taking a break when my children were born, I handled a situation of unwanted advances very differently than I had in high school. When a co-worker touched my buttocks as I stood in front of him in a line, I turned around, took my fist and punched this assailant in the ribs without any hesitation.

I was angry not only for the violation of my body but also because he ran before I could finish my thrashing. This took place in front of many others so that made it really shocking, but at least I wasn’t alone with this degenerate in a compromising situation. One friend who saw it was in total shock and couldn’t believe what she had witnessed.

Believe me, I didn’t stay quiet this time. As we age, I guess we realize we don’t have to put up with the unwanted touches, advances, or other ways of being degraded. We certainly did nothing to warrant this type of attention.

Hopefully, these recent revelations on the national scene will change the culture and make those guilty behave and those that were defiled speak up loud and clear.

Shout it out and don’t let anyone take your dreams and aspirations away or keep you from continuing what you set out to do. Jail sentences and loss of jobs will hopefully be a deterrent for these despicable creatures.

(This is a more serious blog than we usually write, but I felt it is a women’s issue that cannot be ignored.)

Frankly Frances                                      

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

150 Jingles/earworms

More Earworms--Old-Time Jingles

Happy 150th blog! 

In our 19th blog, I discussed earworms, those pesky tunes that stick in your head. Recently I heard a tune or a phrase that reminded me of ad jingles from long ago. Once I dredged up one, more followed. 

I bet everyone remembers different ones! Spoiler Alert: for some of these you have to be pretty old! How many of these can you sing?

The one that started me off was the Hamm's Beer commercial. Do you remember, "Brewed in the land of sky blue water. Refreshing Hamm's Beer."

I have found all the jingles online. Here is Hamm's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o83xxWCel8g

"Try Ajax, the foaming cleanser. Clean pots and pans just like a whiz."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuyG3kIgxtk

Once I went down memory lane, it was the Rice Krispies three-part harmony, "Snap, Crackle, Pop, Rice Krispies," that was the most insidious earworm:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6TIsxTdrCU

I have quizzed a few people about what jingle they remember best, and Dinah Shore was the favorite of my small survey: "See the USA in your Chevrolet!"

I vividly remember that big smacking kiss she threw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYX1ewPJrFU

I mentioned watching sports with my dad in one of my blogs. That is probably where Hamm's came from and I know Brylcream was from fight nights. I could not imagine putting my hands in greasy hair. "Brylcream, a little dab will do you. Use more only if you dare. Brylcream, the girls will all pursue you. They love to put their fingers in your hair!"

I bet there were no focus groups to choose the name of this product!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYX1ewPJrFUbrylcream

When you watch this commercial, you realize how much the art of special effects has changed:

"Let Hertz put you in the driver's seat."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M30XXrrK3lY&start_radio=1&list=RDM30XXrrK3lY

"You'll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOhfGezdcXU

Those are on my hit parade of old ad jingles. What ones have stuck with you?

Trish