I'm Back!

Well as the title says, I’m Back!

After more than a three year absence from the blogosphere. I am returning and re firing up the engines on “The Oldie!” In the next few days I will be redesigning the page layout and letting you know what I’ve been up to in the past three years.

In the next couple of days I will post a four part review on the new Dion two CD set, “The Complete Laurie Singles.” This set has been re mastered in GLORIOUS MONO, and I mean GLORIOUS MONO! So what the blog for the review.

I also have many YouTube videos to share as well, plus a lot of other things about Baseball Cards, Lionel Trains and a few real trains, Rock & Roll, and even Chevrolet and a few other goodies too.

Our Record Players

I was talking the other day about the record players we had back in the day. My buddy reminded me that record companies made record players under their name. What more likely happened is a few companies made the players and put more familiar names on the outside of the outfit. Even Lionel made record players in the early 60's. Here's a picture of an RCA 45 only record player from the 50's. The guts of the machine look very much like the Decca record player my family had. Of course, after a while we had to put a bottle opener on the tone arm in order to play the records without scratching them. Sure wish I still had the old Decca.

Decca also made guitars back in the 50's.

Oh..........Happy Anniversary!

Or, where's Barney Rubble and the Bedrock 5 so they can sing.

I was just sitting at the old ‘puter, listening to some tunes on the Media Player while my wonderful wife was watching Rachel Ray, and it hit me like a fast running Lionel train. It was on this date, December 31, 1996, when Adrienne said, lets get hooked up to the Internet. And so we did.

Back then we had a 386 computer with a whopping 40 megabyte hard drive. That’s right I said 40 megabytes. I think we paid some outlandish amount of money for that hard drive. We loaded the AOL start-up disc into the 3 ½ inch floppy drive (remember those things) and signed on at a lighting fast 9600 baud speed. The rest is history.

The very first web site I went to was the Lionel Trains web page. I had the URL from a Lionel catalog from 1986. I think it took two weeks for the web page to load up back then. Talk about your coffee break. A day or two later, I established my own E-mail
and Delwoodjef was born.

It was a few weeks later when I put out a requests somewhere on AOL for information on a DooWop message board. I got an E-mail from a guy named DooWopPop; he directed me to the DooWop Diner on the AOL Message Boards and the insanity grew from there.

My reputation as a master of misspelling grew and grew; I believe I crowned myself with the label, “The Butcher of Spelling.” A short time after that I got the name “The DooWop PostMan.” I can’t tell you how many people thought I worked for the Post Office. Wish I did.

I remember when I had my old web site and I did a “Vocal Group Gallery” page that took four weeks and six pots of coffee to load up on that old computer; even the next system I got crawled along with that 56K modem.

12 years later, we all speed around the Internet at lightning fast rates. The old web site is long gone, although I still have the individual pages on discs. I would recreate it but I was chastised by a web designer for poor design techniques. Back in 1998, it was bright colors and flashy graphics for me. Today I’m proud to be a part of the blogesphere, sharing what I know about this great music of the 50’s and 60’s, some thoughts on baseball cards, a lot about Lionel Trains, and anything else I feel like talking about.

I’d already reacquainted myself with several old friends through this blog. So it looks initially to be a good thing. As I said earlier, I’m looking forward to 2009 and some things I’ve wanted to do on the Internet for a long time.

So, please stand by.

Here's some more Lionel Trains commercials for you on this Christmas eve. These two spots are from 1962.



Enjoy!

All I Want for Christmas is Trains.

Now that I know this YouTube thing works, get a look at this old Lionel Trains commercial.



Chug chug chew chew Ho Ho Ho!

Christmas Is on Track pt 3

The story behind these pictures deserves to be told. My daughter, Deanna, has a friend, Alan, who she went to high school with. She came home a few years ago and told me that Alan's dad had a train layout in his basement. Well, it took me two years to get to visit that layout. Here's a few pictures I took there last year. Lots of Lionel trains and a working colvert loader and unloader originally issued back in 1957.



Hope you enjoy the trains.

Christmas Is on Track pt 2

Well it seems I have a request for more Christmas trains. I love trains and I love requests.

Here's a couple from our living room, including Christmas greetings from Dr. Pepper!

These two are from my friend Dan in Overland MO. He has an outstanding Christmas display in his front yard which includes a wonderful garden railroad that runs out from his basement and around the front yard. What a train show.

Christmas Is on Track

It’s cold here in St. Louis. So I thought I’d share a couple of pictures of the train under the tree.

It sure is good to see the old War Bonnet all lit up and ready to roll again.

More Books Pt 5

The other book I’d like to mention here is my big coffee table book, Topps Baseball Cards, the Complete Picture Collection. I paid a lot of money for this book back in 1986 when I saw it on the old FNN SCORE cable network. This book is much like the Lionel Trains Catalog Archive. It has pictures of every Topps Baseball Card from 1951 through 1985. All of those cards from the late 50’s and 60’s that I once had are shown in this book. It’s another wonderful walk through memory lane for me.

I have more books that I plan to share with you as we go along. I also appreciate any feedback that you all have. I'm trying to lay the groundwork for future topics of interest.

A Must Have

Recently I received a gift from my wife that ranks at the top of my list of must have reference guides. It’s the Lionel Catalog Archive 1945-1969. This gem of a CD ROM chronicles Lionel Train Catalogs from their celebrated “post war” era.

When I was young, it was a ritual for me every November, to go to Johnson’s Electric Trains on Chippewa in South St. Louis, and get my copy of the current Lionel Trains catalog. It would not be until I was a grown man that I would learn how these works of art were referred to as “wish lists.” I would peruse each catalog and marvel at the great trains Lionel was offering for the Holiday season. For many years, I managed to hang on to each year’s catalogs. Then, along came those teenage years when I would discard those fond memories of my youth.

The Lionel Catalog Archive allows me to recapture those fond memories; and I didn’t have to pay as much for the CD ROM as I would have to get good copies of each year’s catalog. It’s another trip down memory lane for me. Thanks to John Holtmann of HSL right here in St. Louis, for all your hard work on this project. If you love Lionel Trains as I do, this is a must have. You can check it out at http://www.hslinc.com/.

Way to go John.