Vacancy
There should be
a poem
here
.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Field Of Yellow
Eye Of The Beholder…
First published by Jean Monday, May 09, 2011
you are not old
who still sees
beauty:
in a smile
older than yours
or a tree that casts
no shade or
a home with peeling paint
or a lone flower in a weedy bed,
in a threadbare quilt of patches,
a day whose only music
is a birdsong or
someone humming
in the kitchen.
I’d Commute In This
Yet Another Day Of Celebration
Yes folks, on this date in 1853, Gail Borden patented his process for creating condensed milk. The product was successful enough that the "Gail Borden Jr., and Company" was founded in Connecticut in 1857. Gail Borden had the same business sense I have but investors saved the company in 1858 and changed the name to the "New York Condensed Milk Company".
Sounds downright "homey", doesn't it?
The company prospered selling condensed milk to the Union Army - samples from 1863 are shown below.
Anyone up to popping a top bottom and sampling the contents?
No? Oh well...
The company started using glass bottles in 1885, evaporated milk in 1892, and changed the name to "Borden's Condensed Milk Company" in 1899, changed again to the "Borden Company" in 1919.
The company reorganized as a holding company in 1929 for Borden's Food Products, Borden's Dairy Products, Borden's Ice Cream and Milk, and Borden's Cheese & Produce.
Borden created the forerunner of Key Lime Pie with its Magic Lemon Cream Pie in 1931.
The company reorganized again as a unified company in 1936, combining the four separate companies, and introduced Elsie the Cow.
Further expansion came about in WWII when the company sold non-dairy creamer, instant coffee, and powdered food.
Yum, yum!
Borden started acquiring smaller companies in the 1950s - Cracker Jack among them - and expanded into inks, fertilizers, and plastics in 1953; they were so successful, the company reorganized again to create a chemical and petroleum division.
It went on another expansion in the 1980s (including the purchase of Meadow Gold), but suffered losses in the early '90s blamed on mismanagement, excessive debt, and too many restructurings (remember the nation-wide craze of mergers and acquisitions of the 1980s?)
The company was bought out in 1995 and shattered into many scattered pieces; the final portion sold to Kraft in 2001. One of the purchasing companies revitalized the name in 2009 but filed for bankruptcy in 2020. The assets were put up for auction, purchased, and continued to operate as "Borden Dairy Company"
The Borden name and Elsie still live on.
Now, isn't that far more than you wanted to know about Borden?
All because I had this photo of old condensed milk cans and found that May 14 is the day Borden filed for his patent.
“Want To Take You Higher”
Tunes For Tuesday – Ultimate Spinach “Mind Flowers”
A sample of some obscure – and some maybe not obscure – tunes from my strange and off-the-wall collection.
Today’s selection: Ultimate Spinach "Mind Flowers" 1971
Let's delve deep into hippiedom, circa 1968. (it won't be the last time ...)
A Boston band marketed as an alternative to the "San Francisco Sound".
"marketed" pretty describes the end of the short-lived hippie era.
"One day, in 1967, I was in my room, tripping on some really pure LSD. I started looking at myself in the mirror and my face was doing funny things. I had a bunch of colored markers I used to draw with. I grabbed a green one and started drawing all these psychedelic designs on my face. When I was done, I looked at myself and said 'Whoa! I am ultimate spinach. Ultimate spinach is me!'"
The band did tour with bands such as "Big Brother & The Holding Co" (Janis Joplin) and the "Youngbloods" and released three albums, each fading away a bit more - the third did not make the charts; but the first is still listed as a "psychedelic classic".
"The Spinach's self-titled debut album is now considered a psychedelic classic, but it's the group's second record, Behold and See, that is perhaps their finest achievement."
This cut is off the second LP, "Behold and See", which was re-released on a heavily edited CD in 1995 but is now available in the original format on vinyl for $25.
"Obviously the hit from this album is “Mind Flowers” by the wasted Ultimate Spinach, a drug bathed band from Boston who came into being in 1967, at the apex of the psychedelic musical experience." Dec 2020
Turn on your lava light and drop a hit.
Continue reading →Missed
Mother’s Day
Yes, I know it's Mother's Day - I'm ignoring it beyond this post; I hope you aren't.
No, she's not alive - it's been a while now.
No, I did not have a "bad" mother nor a bad childhood.
Both her homes are gone, my old home is gone, the town I grew up in is "gone" - buried in suburbia.
It's all a long way away both in distance and time.
It's just another Sunday ...
