April 25, 2011 — Rock and Roll While You Stroll

30 years ago there was no iPod, it was all about the Walkman. The mobile music device that seemed to eat a set of batteries each time you played an entire cassette. One had to travel with a horde of batteries plus all those cassettes. Younger generations have no idea how we “suffered” to bring our music alone.

Today I found this article about how you could “Rock and Roll while you stroll” in a 1963 issue of Popular Mechanics. This device made it possible to walk down the street playing your 45’s. It never seems to have caught on. The price back then was $79.95. That is about $570 in 2011 dollars.

March 14, 2011 – Popular Mechanics

I don’t have memories of Popular Mechanics lying around the house. My dad read the New Yorker. We were a family that, when something was seriously broken, you didn’t fix it, you called people. I suppose I always knew the magazine existed, but I never really looked at Popular Mechanics until my thirties.

It was the vintage issues from the 1950’s that I had “discovered.” I have been using bits of Popular Mechanics in artwork ever since. The ads in the magazine are great. They predate the era of late night TV advertising and are pretty funny. You too can have that he-man voice! I love the do-it-yourself projects from an era when people actually did it yourself. I own an old, homemade end table that clearly was made form a plan in a magazine like Popular Mechanics. One of those things I picked up at a garage sale. I no longer use the table; it’s stored away. I need to find a fan of this genre of home furnishings and find a new home for the piece.