© Superbian 2010

In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone. The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister was two.

Their Dad had never been much more than a presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their beds. He did manage to leave $15 a week to buy groceries.

Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing about it. I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on my best homemade dress. I loaded them into the rusty old 51 Chevy and drove off to find a job.

The seven of us went to every factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck. The kids stayed crammed into the car and tried to be quiet while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.

The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck stop. It was called the Big Wheel.

An old lady named Granny owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning. She paid 65 cents an hour and I could start that night. I raced home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good arrangement to her, so we made a deal.

That night when the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers we all thanked God for finding Mommy a job. And so I started at the Big Wheel.

When I got home in the mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one dollar of my tip money–fully half of what I averaged every night.

As the weeks went by, heating bills added a strain to my meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air on the way to work and again every morning before I could go home.

One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires. Had angels taken up residence in Indiana?

I wondered.

I made a deal with the local service station. In exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than it did for him to do the tires.

I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn’t enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they would be too far gone to repair.

On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in the Big Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim, and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home before the sun came up.

When it was time for me to go home at seven o’clock on Christmas morning I hurried to the car. I was hoping the kids wouldn’t wake up before I managed to get home and get the presents from the basement and place them under the tree. (We had cut down a small cedar tree by the side of the road down by the dump.)

It was still dark and I couldn’t see much, but there appeared to be some dark shadows in the car-or was that just a trick of the night? Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to tell what.

When I reached the car I peered warily into one of the side windows. Then my jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered Chevy was filled full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes. I quickly opened the driver’s side door, scrambled inside and kneeled in the front facing the back seat.

Reaching back, I pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was whole case of little blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the other boxes: There was candy and nuts and bananas and bags of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy trucks and one beautiful little doll.

As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little ones that precious morning.  Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.

Check out the newest installment  of  “Joe’s Weekly Ani-Rants.”

In this very special Christmas episode, Joe defends the city of Philadelphia for throwing snowballs at Santa Claus. (Click the link below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCPcVUpXAIM

I Remember My Big Wheel

I thought my green big wheel was really cool and loved riding it around. I still remember the wind blowing through my pig tails and the sound of the hard plastic wheels rolling on the pavement… life was good

I remember when fine dining meant a cheeseburger & a fry guy. We rarely ate out, but when it was time for a Happy Meal it was like the world stopped for just a moment. The smells, the tastes, sights, the toy surprise, the playground… it’s still so vivid in my memory to this day. It’s sad that now, fast food doesn’t have the same effect as before, but I will admit that I still order the kids meal from time to time just to check out the toy surprise

I was reading the news the other day, as i do every day, and this one article on the BBC about an ex-F1 designer who received funding and designed an electric car. Here is the full link. Now all this sounds good to me. I’m all for green technologies but come on, a few million dollars and that’s what they came up with ? Seriously…

No wonder none of these prototypes ever get deployed full scale

If you look at the image, you will notice that indeed the guys is having fun driving. However what they forgot is that this is in England ! Where they have crappy weather 500 days a year ! Ok i’m exaggerating but you know what i mean. People need some kind of roof on their car, some cool looking curves, ummm perhaps a paint job and umm why not some kind of windshield so you don’t have to wash your face off insects every time you drive it.

On the other hand, I know this is just a prototype in its early stages, but come on, if you’re going to present something at least make it look cool ! Perhaps then you will get even more people interested… more funds…better products ?

They spent 9 million pounds ( 15 million USD)  building that thing… sad —>

I would definitely choose my old big wheel over that rolling metal box.  At least it cost me, well my parents,  30$,  CO2 footprint o f zero and gets me places quickly. Not to mention I could spin the heck out of the wheel ! yay

Only disadvantage is that have outgrown it

- jam

Congratulations to the Game Boy (introduced in 1989 by Nintendo), the Big Wheel (introduced by Marx Toys back in 1969) and the timeless, age-old, Ball, which were all inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame in upstate New York and now join the 41 previously enshrined toys.

With all the buzz about the newly added toys to the National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, New York announced yesterday, November 5, 2009, I thought it might be of interest to many of you around the country to check out some of the many wonderful toy museums closer to where you live, so you can revisit with your kids or grandkids, some of the toys you grew up with. Below you will find a list of several of them with links provided (where possible) to their websites.

* Check out my previous post about the National Toy Hall of Fame at this LINK

Additional related posts to visit on this site:

• Tribute To Toys: Toy Museums Around The USA

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Flashbacks, courtesy of awhile spent exploring the Kruger Street Toy & Train Museum last Saturday during JediCon WV:

When I was five years old and we lived in the house my parents bought when we first moved to Canton, there was a kid named Danny who lived in the yellow-bricked house next door. He was a year or two older than me and had a Big Wheel which looked pretty much exactly like the one up there on the shelf. Though I don’t remember this, my mom recalls that Danny charged me to ride it.

I apparently paid in the only currency I had: Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars.

Before Danny could totally clean out my tire-shaped Mattel Hot Wheels carrying case, though, mom and dad got me a Big Wheel of my own.

Mine looked different, though – it was red, not orange, and had a plastic brake lever instead of a metal one with a plastic handle. The back wheels were wider, too, and the front wheel – the BIG one – was black and yellow instead of black and silver.

It takes very little effort, even now, to remember what it felt like riding it; the smooth, molded plastic handgrips against my palms; the way the texture of a road or sidewalk transmitted itself through the seat and the wheel and the handlebars while I pedaled; the thrill of pulling up hard on the brake and turning at the same time to do a spin-out.

When it was brand-new, we went to visit my grandma, across the state in Upper Sandusky, and I was allowed to bring it along. There was a parade or something downtown, and I was riding on the sidewalk when my family ran into someone they knew – and their two sons had Big Wheels, too! These guys were pretending that fire shot from their back wheels, which I thought was fun and cool, and when I said, “Yeah, mine too!” one of them looked at my  newer, red-not-orange, fat-rear-tired ride with disdain, and said something to the effect of “Not from yours: Your wheels are weird.” And then they rode off. (Seriously – what a dick, right?)

When I was six, we moved to a new neighborhood, a dead-end street surrounded by trees and fields out in what my parents called “the boondocks.” My new neighbor, Rick, had a Big Wheel of his own, and even though we both knew how to ride bikes, these were the years when we really put our Big Wheels through their paces: plywood-and-cinderblock ramps; demolition derbies; endless races around a tight oval in our driveway.

Eventually, we were too big to squeeze into the Big Wheels sitting down. No problem: We took off the seats and drove them by standing on the back and pushing with one foot, and man, could you get those things flying. Soooo much faster than pedaling, and easier to jump away from when the inevitable flip or collision came your way.

Our Big Wheels mirrored each other in their decay. Busted brake handles; splits in the bases that caused the point just forward of the seat to scrape the ground; and the bane of practically every Big Wheel I ever saw, the one spot on the front tire that wore itself flat and made for an increasingly prominent “thump” with every rotation.

The last time I remember playing with my Big Wheel, Rick and I had tied it to the back of my bicycle with about twenty feet of rope. It was hard as hell for the person doing the pulling to get started, but once the bike was moving down the street, it took just a few slight flicks of the handlebars to send the Big Wheel rider on a massive crack-the-whip sweep, winging back and forth until the trip ended in a cloud of dust and gravel and someone rolling down the road howling in glee.

That’s what I saw sitting up there on the shelf in an old building in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Author, artist, and all-round bon vivant, Joe Oesterle, regales viewers week in and week with 60 plus seconds of pure animated mirth and merriment. Joe’s Weekly Ani-Rants and more.

Joe Learns Political Correctness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzAbmHZfGNc

Joe Can’t Find a Job

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-03g4HaFd0

Joe Goes to a Street Fair

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yts0HonSd3I

Joe Grieves a Friend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M358ncKKmGM

The Balloon Boy Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrYRquNyZxU

Joe’s Friend, Scott Hennelly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkPnvhlwWC4

Joe’s Santa Rant

Joe’s Weekly Ani-Rants; “Joe’s Santa Rant.”

When I was a little kid I always  loved big wheels. But what I wanted even more was The Green Machine!!! I remember all the cool kids had ‘em and while I was riding around on my big wheel the other kids were doing circles around me in their Green Machines!! For some reason I was never able to get one. I think they were a little more pricey at the time or maybe it was because of how many cool ass dangerous moves you could pull off on one these puppies that made my parents fear this amazing vehicle! Anyway I ran across the commercial for it and the envious memories flooded back into my mind. Well now that I am older who’s to say you won’t see me finally cruisin’ the streets on my own Green Machine?!

Each year two toys are selected for induction into the Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. Toys are nominated for the Hall of Fame based on the following criteria:

• Icon-status (the toy is widely recognized, respected, and remembered)
• Longevity (the toy is more than a passing fad and has enjoyed popularity over multiple generations)
• Discovery (the toy fosters learning, creativity, or discovery through play)
• Innovation (the toy profoundly changed play or toy design)

The nominees for the Class of 2009 have been announced. Cast your vote to see which two nominees will join the 41 previous inductees. We’ll compare our results when the museum will announce the winners on November 5th.

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Dude raced this in the main race, what you can’t see is him passed out to the right in exhaustion.
こんなかわいい自転車で、ちゃんとレースしてました。すごい！

I had so much fun doing this one. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed posting it. xoxo

POP Goes PERFECTION!

Trolls

Pogs & Slammers!

Mouse Trap

Original Cruisin USA! (A Shakey’s Fave) FYI–I had hawaii on lock!

WHAC-A-MOLE

BIG WHEEL

Power Wheels Barbie Jeep

Skip it!

Polly Pocket

Giga Pet, Nano & Tamagotchi’s

(lots of photo cred to Retroland and Children of the Nineties)

Lange war es ruhig um meinen Firmenscooter… doch jetzt gibt es wieder etwas zu berichten. Lagerraum wird auch in RL immer teurer – und so wurde zur Refinanzierung meines Parkplatzes kurzerhand eine Parkuhr montiert. Gott sei Dank hat mein RL Avi sofort gemerkt, dass der Zeitregler defekt ist. Man muss nicht stündlich hinrennen und Geld nachwerfen. Trotzdem wird der Spaß langsam ganz schön teuer. Vielleicht sollte ich doch was für die Umwelt tun und wieder mehr zu Fuß gehen

Meine "private" Parkuhr *grummel

The current issue of ID (International Design) magazine has an article in which famous designers describe their favorite toy. Most picked items from their childhood.  The write-ups are priceless.   Who knew that Paul Budnitz (Kidrobot founder) rode his Big Wheel until he was so big that he had to have his dad nail a  plywood extension on the seat area?  Or that Michael Bierut was into Matchbox cars?  And John Maeda, author of “The Laws of Simplcity”  and president of RISD, somewhat predictably picked Naef Toys.

A typically beautiful and uber-simple luxury wooden toy, by Naef

This got me pondering my own favorite toy:  Jumbo Cardboard Blocks.

I first met these Jumbo Cardboard Blocks  in Kindergarten.  I was four, and like most of the kids in my neighborhood, I hadn’t been to preschool.  It was a brave new world. I loved those blocks and I simply couldn’t believe our classroom had so many of them.  Oh, the possibilities!  I passed many happy hours making cities and castles and school rooms, where I tripped in and out of the “doors” directing imaginary citizenry.  It was great, absorbing fun.   But the real reason these blocks are my childhood favorite is they created a shining moment of childhood.  It was the day my teacher “Mrs. Affleck” singled me out.

I was surprised to recently learn that  a fellow student hated Mrs. Affleck.  I thought she was a dream, with a melodious voice, an old-fashioned (even then) brown bob, and a colorful array of slim, friendly-looking shirt-dresses.

On the big day, I’d had one of my usual free time sessions with the blocks.  Nothing unusual, yet Mrs. Affleck called the class over and said,

Children, just look at the wonderful creation Julie Knittel (my maiden name) and Roy Stufflebean made!  They worked so nicely together.  What a great job!

That was literally the first time I realized I could do a “job.”  And that someone might notice.  And that I could get credit for it.  And it was good to “work” on a team.  The rest is history, I guess.  (But I still wonder what happened to Roy Stufflebean.)

So…I am asking what childhood toys might be the favorite for other people.  No slightly sappy psychological dramas (like mine)  need be attached.  Sometimes Play-doh is just Play-doh.  But it’s still great.

Click more.

I’ll just send you over to their site for the rest of the photos.
Click here.

THE NEW AND IMPROVE BIG WHEEL

This weird thing is a 1.2kW electric motor powered, carbon fiber foldable bike called the YikeBike. It’s real, unfolds in 15 seconds, and aims to solve the eternal problem of urban mobility, and probably become Woz’s favorite new toy.

ROUND AND ROUND YOU GO...

Folded, the YikeBike only takes 6 x 23.6 x 23.6 inches (150 x 600 x 600 millimeters) and weighs 22 pounds (10 kilograms), so it can be easily carried around. And while its pneumatic wheels may follow an old high wheeler configuration, according to the manufacturer, this thing is designed to be easy to maneuver, and it’s equipped with electronic brakes with built-in anti-skid system.

CHECK OUT VIDEO

Via Gizmodo

Fall is in the air and school is back in session. I’ve been daydreaming about my time at Indiana University and craving a visit to Bloomington like crazy. I have wonderful memories of my college days, and southern Indiana is absolutely gorgeous when the leaves start to turn.

Since this is a food blog, after all, it seems a perfect opportunity to pay tribute to some of my favorite I.U.-related eating experiences. In no particular order, here we go:

Big Wheel. Let’s all take a moment and pay homage, shall we? My mom was actually born and raised in Bloomington and my grandparents lived there for a long time, so I have plenty of childhood memories of B-ton trips from as long back as I can remember. Big Wheel was a presence even back then in the 1970s. Situated on north College Ave., Big Wheel was one of the first restaurants you’d see when you entered town from the north. Landmarked by, what else, a big neon wheel, it was hard to miss. This place was seriously old-school – big, roomy vinyl booths and a menu full of traditional down-homey breakfast-lunch-dinner favorites. Country-fried steaks, chicken and noodles, pie, you get the idea…It was sort of like a Denny’s or IHOP, but locally owned and operated, which automatically makes it better. Waffle House couldn’t hold a candle to Big Wheel, even though it did dish up a very respectable biscuits and sausage gravy…

While I attended I.U., Big Wheel became the sight of many a late-night study session and dinners with my Varsity Villas roommates. Rumor has it, Big Wheel was one of Bob Knight’s favorite places to hold meetings with various administrators and pals, but I never saw him there. I was heartbroken when the Big Wheel finally closed its doors. It’s since been torn down and replaced with a prefab Steak ‘n Shake, last I checked. Sniffle, sniffle.

Pizza Express breadsticks. After rolling in from Kilroy’s or Hooligans at 3 a.m., nothing soaks up all the booze better than a order of Pizza Express breadsticks and cheese sauce, delivered hot and steamy right to your door. Except maybe…

Kilroy’s 25-cent nachos. Kilroy’s was the first bar I legally entered at midnight the day I turned 21. Way back then (we’re talking early 1990s here), Kilroy’s featured a serve-yourself nacho bar. For one slim quarter, you got a basket of chips and as many toppings as you could scoop on – salsa, cheese and sour cream. I shudder to think how many of those baskets I consumed, along with a cold Coors Light or one of those crazy banana-strawberry daquiris they used to serve.

IU Memorial Union, Sugar and Spice, Special K bars. I believe Sugar and Spice is still there, but wouldn’t bet my life on it. It’s just a tiny little busy snack/coffee counter nestled in a corner of the Union, but if you hit the line at just the right time, you could snag a Special K bar to eat on the way to your next class. Think Rice Krispie treat, but made with Special K and peanut butter instead, flatter, chewier and way more gooey. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about one.

Loaf and Ladle, Nutty Bird sandwich. Another casualty of urban development, the Loaf and Ladle is no more, but back in the day, it served fantastic soup-and-sandwich lunches from its cozy little perch on the northeast corner of the town square. The Nutty Bird was a tasty turkey sandwich with cream cheese, sunflower seeds and sprouts, as I recall. With a cup of the soup of the day, it was darn near the perfect lunch.

Village Deli. I can’t remember the specifics exactly, but they used to serve some sort of breakfast monstrosity that pretty much threw in everything you’d ever want to eat in the morning. It started with a layer of breakfast potatoes topped with scrambled eggs, sausage gravy and cheese on top. Maybe I just imagined it during one hungover visit after a particularly long bender at Jakes…

Mother Bear’s Pizza. What is there to say? Except it’s fabulous.

Mustard’s bears mentioning for its do-it-yourself burger bar, as does the meatball sandwich at Macri’s Deli and the lasagna from Grisanti’s. I know there are other dishes and locales I’m forgetting. Please forgive me, it’s been (gulp) 20 years since I was stomping around those grounds.

Would love to hear from other IU alums about your favorite Bloomington food memories. And in the meantime, Indiana, oh Indiana… we’re all for you!

Watercolor of an antique high wheel bicycle.  Circa 1885.  The print is for sale at my shop.

Wenn man schon bei einem großen deutschen Hersteller von Sport- und Freizeitartikeln arbeitet und seinen Mac im Service-Lager stehen hat, was liegt da näher, als sich einen eigenen Firmenscooter zuzulegen. Das hat sich mein RL-Avi Jutta auch gedacht.  Natürlich nur, um die eigene Arbeitszeit effektiver zu gestalten und sie nicht durch lange Fußmärsche zum Nachbarlager zu verschwenden *unschuldiglächel. Aber – wohin mit dem Ding, wenn man nicht gerade durch die Gänge saust? Jutta hat hin und her überlegt und dann fluchs eine ungenutze Ecke mit einem Parkplatzschild versehen… und los ging es!

Wenige Minuten nachdem das Schild hing, hat schon einer von Juttas netten Kollegen (und die halten dicht… angeblich war es KEINER – nee – is klar) die genau Parkfläche mit Kreppband abgeklebt – wunderbar – so ist das Terrain abgesteckt (dachten Jutta und ich noch in unserem jugendlichen Leichtsinn). Aber – weit gefehlt, wie wir am nächsten Morgen feststellen mussten. Genau an der Stelle meines Parkplatzes wurde nämlich mir nichts dir nichts über Nacht eine Tagesbaustelle errichtet und Jutta hatte ein Knöllchen.

Lustig? Na, ihr werdet noch mehr zu  Lachen kriegen – die Geschichte geht nämlich weiter. Aber ihr wisst ja: Heute ist nicht aller Tage – die Geschichte geht weiter – keine Frage *g

TBC