Reminisce Extra

there’s no time like family time

Share moments of lasting joy with this charming keepsake collection of memories from the readers of Reminisce. NOSTALGIA Stories about backyard games, beloved pets, road trips and holiday celebrations highlight the special bonds of family. PHOTO ALBUM Hundreds of reader snapshots form a tender and intimate portrait of life at home. POP CULTURE Colorful vintage ads in every chapter bring the past alive in all its fun—and kitschy—glory. ORDER TODAY : reminisce.com/FAMILY IN THE NEXT ISSUE REMINISCE • Christmas Keepsakes • The Princess Phone • Holidays in the Tropics…

new title, same variety

Jackie Gleason began hosting Cavalcade of Stars in 1950, where his talent for live vaudeville-style TV programs shone. In 1952, with Gleason still hosting, CBS renamed the program The Jackie Gleason Show. Stars such as Frankie Avalon and Doris Day had guest spots and Gleason himself portrayed recurring characters: millionaire Reginald Van Gleason III, Joe the Bartender and Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden. The show’s short “The Honeymooners” sketches, with the blowhard Kramden and his scrappy wife, Alice (Audrey Meadows), grew into a half-hour spinoff series, above. It ran for one season, ending in 1956, then Gleason tried other show formats before reverting to the reliable lineup of sketches and chorus girl routines with Jackie Gleason: American Scene Magazine in 1962. Gleason’s variety show got a final retitling in 1966, The Jackie Gleason Show,…

in the middle of the great kanto quake

Officials in Japan settled on the fishing village of Yokohama, 20 miles southwest of Tokyo, as the best place to open the country to international trade in the 19th century. Industry in the area developed rapidly, drawing many foreigners. Among the sizable Western population were my grandparents, Elmer and Charlotte Blum, and their children. Like many foreign residents, they lived in Yokohama on a hillside neighborhood called the Bluff. Elmer was an engineer in Tokyo at Shibaura Works—likely a precursor to Toshiba—on Sept. 1, 1923, when the earthquake named for the Kanto plain struck. Charlotte was home with Betty, 6, and Jack, my father, 5. The death toll from the quake and resulting fires and tsunami exceeded 140,000. Elmer wrote this letter from the safety of Kobe, Japan. Dear Bob, You have undoubtedly heard…

bean counting

6 The number of ingredients in the first test recipe: mushroom soup, green beans, celery salt, soy sauce, french-fried onions and water, according to Dorcas Reilly’s original recipe card, below. After tastings, testers used pepper instead of celery salt and milk later replaced water. 1/4CUP The amount of frenchfried onions added to the sauce after the first experiment. Food historian Laura Shapiro told NPR the casserole’s french-fried onions are “the reason people like it decade after decade.” Reilly clearly had an instinct for how special they were, for despite complaints from her team about “too many onions,” she upped the amount to 1/3 cup, with the rest scattered on top. The modern recipe calls for stirring in 2/3 cup onions. 20MILLION The estimated number of households that serve green bean casserole on Thanksgiving every year,…