The holidays are strolling along swiftly but steadily--the tree trimmed, the cards sent, the whiskey slushes poured. Ah, the best kind of slush. Certainly far superior to the kind that gets in your shoes. Its sweet boozy vapors emanate like distilled cheer, or what
Yogi Yorgesson might call "
yuletide yollies." (Yeah, I know, I thought his name was "Yorgi" too--go figure!)
As it is a time of sharing, here is the much-coveted Vernon family whiskey slush recipe. Just remember, it's a secret--
don't tell anyone!- Two cups of strong tea (we steep like ten bags of yer basic Lipton, but you can throw a couple orange or Earl Grey or whatever you like in with it)
- Large can frozen lemonade
- Large can OJ with pulp (or Awake or Bright & Early or some such "orange beverage" crap)
- Seven cups of water
- 1 3/4 (that's one-and-three-quarters) cups of sugar
- 2 cups of whiskey, or, what the hell, the whole fudgin' fifth. (Save the good hooch for the snooty sippers and use cheap-ass gutter bourbon--Ten High'll do ya just nice!)
Mix in a large container, like a big plastic bucket with a sealable lid. Freeze for at least a day. Scrape out the ice with a spoon and fill a glass or mug about halfway. Fill the rest with ginger ale (or 7-Up, or Squirt, etc.). Adjust ratio as desired, duh.
For a New Year's Eve party you can try skipping the soda, adding champagne instead. Be warned, however: the combination packs a punch. If you don't pace these quarrelsome quaffables correctly, there is about a 99% chance that you will be dancing naked on a credenza with a lampshade over your genitals around 9:30. If you're one of those types who might choose to add a couple hits of some potent cush, you may as well dial 911 first to report yourself on an imminent disorderly. (Of course, you might just fall asleep. Hard to say.)
Because it's just what I like to do, here's a few pics from the Sears "Wish Book for the 1977 Christmas Season."
You laugh now, but believe me, these guys snagged more pelt in the seventies than the
Ritz Thrift Shop. (Actually, it was the guy on the right who got it secondhand, if my drift is caught.)
I know these folks are only modeling clothes, but sometimes a weird scenario emerges. In this one, the only thing more unsettling than the look on that poor child's face is wondering which parent's idea it was to wear identical jam-jams. (Was it you, Mark Ruffalo, or you, mannequin lady with freaky hand veins?)
This dapper Douche-of-Earl rocked a rib-cuffed cablestitch cardigan like no other. I like to imagine he's dancing to "Car Wash." If you want to see him with bushy eyebrows and a pencil moustache, simply turn him upside down. (Like you weren't thinking about that already!)
Erin may have been Gray
But she brightened
my day!
(Seriously, I'm like Ogden freakin' Nash here.)
Here's a sultry sample from the page that you--if you were me--would have tenderized yourself to if you were a thirteen-or-so-year-old boy when this catalog arrived in your home. (I was eight in '77, and more likely to fixate on the Bionic Video Center, pic forthcoming.) Anyway, to be honest, I'm imposing my current taste onto my younger self. When stashing the WB under my mattress, I'd be just as likely to dog-ear blond cutie Jayne Modean.
She later played (I swear to Johnny H. Christ and the IMDb) "Nurse Hooter" on the ABC series
Trauma Center. She was also an angelic stewardess on
Cheers, a grown-up Michelle on
Full House, and in commercials for Burger King (Star Wars glasses!) and Maybelline Kissin' Stick. In 1990, she married that Coulier guy from
FH and divorced him two years later. (Whoa, she stuck out
two whole years with that guy? Talk about the tortures of the damned!) She's a mere eleven years older than me, so I guess, for a guy of my advanced age, she'd be a cougar.
Here, the budding Lori Loughlin abashedly sports a print apron dress from the "Petticoats and Pantaloons" line. You cover those wrists, young lady!
(More to be added later. You're welcome.)
Another video fragment of Christmas past making the Non-Parader's holiday a smidge fuzzier this year is a DVD found in a cheapo Davey and Goliath collection which features Christmas Lost and Found, the doughy duo's Christmas episode. (If you look at my post of the 1972 Newsday listings, you'll see it aired on three different channels that Christmas Eve morning.) Though I just barely recall it from my youth, I'm glad to report that it holds up nicely, sweet and well-animated, with many scenes unfolding in a cool shade of winter twilight blue. The first line is Davey crankily exclaiming "I hate Christmas!" You gotta love that.
