The Anklometer

Advertisers know what they're doing. Even the ones who we didn't patronize left their jingles in our heads. Our minds were full of audio-scars. Rinso-White...Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer (to drum beats)...Lovely to Look At (was it Camay...or Palmolive?) ... L.A.V.A. (soap) ... L.S./M.F.T. (tobacco) ... and one for Thrivo (a dog food) sung by the Moylan sisters, little girls my age.

Jingles and product slogans were very much part of radio. If we heard "Blue Coal" we were reminded of "The Shadow." Ovaltine, of Little Orphan Annie: Cheerioats (and later, Cheerios), of the Lone Ranger. General Mills announced a new cereal and we were seduced by little kix kits.

"...Twice as much for a nickel, too. Pepsi Cola is the drink for you." There's a selling point.

Prizes lured little customers to shelves where they conned their mothers away from gruel, healthy stuff like oatmeal and Wheatina and from All-Bran. We had radio heroes and if they advertised liver we'd sure get a taste for it. No lie.

We tuned in our radios in the afternoons to Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy, and followed extraordinary adventures, make believe stuff read by characters into microphones. But we didn't know that. We lived on our imaginations and the narrator took us away into jungles and forests and places that would scare the brave and we sweated out the daily fifteen minute episodes that pitted Jack the All American, and Terry and the Pirates, and Orphan Annie (a girl) and Dick Tracy, and Sergeant Preston of the Mounties and his dog King against people we would never want to be...or know.

The singers announced their cereal that looked like Corn Flakes but wasn't. "They're whole wheat...the best breakfast food in the land." They prefaced that part of the lyrical boast with "Have you tried Wheaties?" The song was categorized as "a jingle" but to us it was a motet, a paean of sorts and its praise was legitimate because Jack Armstrong was its patron. It's like "By Appointment to the King" (or the Queen these days). "Have you tried Wheaties...the best breakfast food in the land."

Wheaties, and Jack the All American boy, collaborated to give the kids in his radio army the opportunity to own a pedometer. Jack's announcer advised us to "stay tuned." He didn't need to say that because we stayed tuned for the next hero, Sergeant Preston. Subliminal advertising works. The pedometer, not available anywhere else on the planet, could be mine or yours for 15 cents and two boxtops of Wheaties (no bottoms, please) sent to a Box in Battlecreek, Michigan and in a couple of weeks the pedometer would arrive.

The decoder rings and detective badges and autographed pictures were okay but inferior stuff with limited uses.

What are they compared to a pedometer? The announcer had educated us to a new word, pedometer, and to its awesome capability. For 15 cents and two boxtops it could, and would, be ours. Wheaties replaced Rice Krispies or Corn Flakes when Jack Armstrong's followers went to grocery stores with their moms. I, like the others, knew that if she went alone, Wheaties might be overlooked and the offer might expire before I could send off my application.

The pedometer was a device that was strapped to an ankle (left or right) and would, by calibration, measure distances walked. In the morning Jack Armstrong's gang would strap on their pedometers and march off to school or on better days tramp off on a hike. At journeys end they could give an accurate account of how far they had gone.

Kids usually didn't get mail except at birthday time. The mailman came twice a day. His sack was filled with penny post cards, three cent letters and subscriptions to National Geographic, Colliers, Better Homes and Gardens, Popular Mechanics and other heavy periodicals. Dogs barked at and sometimes bit mail carriers with such regularity that great commissions were appointed to chase down the reason for these attacks. Two schools emerged. One observed that the uniform aggravated dogs. The other rejected that and lay the cause of aggression on the pouch that mailmen carried. My source says that 81% of dog bites in the world are inflicted upon mail-carriers, but it doesn't specify what irritates the animals means. It's still argued between uniforms and sacks but might not be either of the above.

My pedometer arrived in reasonable time. My dog, Leeboy, would have liked to eat the mailman, his bag and my pedometer. My parents were wise. The dog was usually put in the backyard at mail delivery time and he could eye the garbage man and kids running in the alley. The fence saved them all. I unwrapped my treasure and strapped it on my ankle and gave it a test run. Like an automobile odometer its numbers moved with distance travelled. I looked at the numbers that replaced the zeroes so I reckoned the pedometer worked.

The next day I synchronized things and set out for school, six blocks away. Numbers clicked on ;the device strapped to my ankle. I noted the distance when I got to school. It was eleven point three miles. I was glad that I had my Wheaties that morning.

INTRODUCTION TO GEOGRAPHY

QUIZ

1. In 1937 the most widely distributed map of a particular country could be bought in:
1. gas stations
2. grocery stores
3. public libraries
4. map stores
2. The boundaries of that country were altered in:
1. 1929
2. 1937
3. 1949
4. 1957
3. The boundaries of that country were changed because of:
1. a war
2. a secession
3. a geographic error
4. an integration of another territory
4. On world maps that country was usually colored:
1. green
2. pink
3. yellow
4. purple
5. The head of state in that country was:
1. a president
2. an emperor
3. a prime minister
4. a king
6. Purchasers of these maps usually kept them in:
1. bedrooms
2. kitchens
3. parlors
4. home libraries
7. Purchasers of these maps usually bought them for:
1. no reason associated with cartography
2. display in the home
3. occasional reference
4. entertainment
8. Name the country.
9. What was the reason for the distribution of the map?