Meet The Swinger

The blog subject title doesn’t refer to some playboy type. It’s a tagline from a popular product from my youth. I can still recall the little jingle . . .

Meet the Swinger, Swinger
Poloroid Swinger, Swinger
Meet the Swinger, Swinger
Poloroid Swinger
Swing it up. It says “Yes” . . .um, actually that’s all I recall.

If you’re a member of my generation, you get it.

So the picture here was taken BY me with MY Swinger camera. Mmmmmmm, about 40 years ago. That’s the neighborhood gang. My older brother, the enforcer, is top row on the left, my sister is middle row right and my youngest bro’ is bottom left. My mother included this picture with the bunch sent to me for my birthday.

It was a fun bunch: kickball, baseball, ice skating at the fairgrounds, football, freeze tag, capture the flag, bike riding, jigsaw puzzles, collecting chestnuts, trading baseball cards, badminton, and just exploring the neighborhood.

Our idea of video entertainment, besides the Saturday morning cartoons, was going to the Sunday matinee at the local theatre. That was cool too because they often showed scary films like The Skull and The Vulture. It was during the showing of The Vulture that one of the local kids (not pictured) shouted out what I still believe to be the wittiest remark ever directed at the big screen.

It happened when this character in the movie stepped out at night onto the veranda. He lit a cigarette and checked his watch. Without warning, two huge talons dropped from above, grabbed the man at the shoulders and carried him off. Cut to the next day and the camera zooms in on a bloody, mangled arm dangling off an ocean cliff.

We know it’s the victim who was carried off the balcony because the arm still bears the same watch the man was checking the previous night. So this kid a couple seats down from me shouts out, “And his Timex watch is till ticking.” The theatre erupted in laughter.

If you’re a member of my generation, you get it.