Nostalgic for a Cherubic Prince, a King's Hidee Ho and the Strumpet with a Trumpet

I have a bit of a nostalgic streak. Growing older certainly exacerbates it, but it’s always been there. I remember being obsessed with ‘50s day as a 6^th grader. My passion for baseball has always been rooted in its history. In grade school I would check out the Bible-sized baseball encyclopedia from the library and study nicknames of 19^th century players. I suppose if you’re not old enough to have experienced the event first hand which you have fondness and interest in, it’s more about history than nostalgia. And I do have a great interest in both.

In the last week alone Tweets about 17 nostalgic topics in five general areas piqued my interest in yesteryear and found a way into my Twitter timeline:

GENERAL SPORTS

• Doug Russell shared his memories of Legendary Wisconsin sportscaster Jim Irwin on Twitter.  Irwin passed away at age 77 last week.  While he was a long time WTMJ sportscaster, did play by play for the Milwaukee Bucks and Wisconsin football and basketball, it was his 30 years calling Green Bay Packers games that identified him as one of the best in state history.  His 20 year pairing with Max McGee was the most beloved ever by fans in Wisconsin.
  
  

• Prince Fielder’s expected departure to an unexpected destination uncovered more nostalgia via a video and a photo of young Prince with his dad, former Detroit Tigers slugger Cecil Fielder. The cherubic boy starred as a young and already filled out Prince in a McDonald’s commercial looking as if he’s had his share of Happy Meals. Then there’s a photo of “little” Prince with his dad in Tigers gear at the 1993 All-Star Game. The two are in the Oriole Park at Camden Yards locker room next to the locker of former Brewer great Paul Molitor. The transaction made me curious if a father and son tandem ever led the same team in home runs. Cecil led the Tigers in 1990, 91, 92, 94 and 95. Elias Sports Bureau’s Peter Hirdt let me know via Twitter that Barry and Bobby Bonds are the only father and son to have accomplished this feat.  They did it with the San Francisco Giants. Miguel Cabrera may delay Prince and his dad joining this elite club for a year or two, but with a nine year contract, it’s only a matter of time until Prince and Cecil Fielder become the second father and son ever to lead the same major league team in home runs.
  
  

• Twitter gave me my first look at the Chicago White Sox throw back uniforms for this season. The Sox will be wearing red pinstripe replicas of their 1972 uniforms for all home Saunday games this season. Looking like Bill Melton, Dick Allen, Bee Bee Richard and Goose Gossage may help fans be distracted from the fact that the Tigers will likely have more talent over the next nine seasons.
  
  

• The trip to the attic uncovered my old Rolodex with hundreds of business cards including current Chicago Bears President Ted Phillips, sportscaster Chet Coppock and controversial former President of the Liberian Football Association Edwin Snowe, Jr.

SOCCER

• A Twitter mention of J-League pro soccer team Shimizu S-Pulse brought back memories from 1996 when I took my Minnesota Thunder soccer team to Japan to play an exhibition game against S-Pulse. We were the first US pro soccer team to play a J-League team. It also sent me to the attic looking for information about the trip.  I couldn’t find the article I was looking for, but I did find a 1997 Thunder VHS tape called "The World's Game...Minnesota's Team", a 1995 Thunder yearbook and roster card and a Bud Light can featuring Thunder player Tim Foster doing a bicycle kick.
  
  

• Like an old barber shop, my favorite soccer pub, The Highbury, had a stack of vintage Playboy magazines on the bar on Friday when I stopped in to see my Fulham Cottagers take on Everton in a fifth round FA Cup match. The one that caught my eye was a 1985 issue with infamous trumpet aficionado Roxanne Pulitzer on the cover…with her trumpet.
  
  

• Yes, Milwaukee nearly became the home of the NASL Jacksonville Tea Men soccer team in 1982. My old friend, soccer broadcaster Kenn Tomasch dug up an old Milwaukee Journal article by current Business Journal publisher Mark Sabljak and shared it with me on Twitter. This was the closest Milwaukee ever came to 1st division pro soccer.  The local investors passed on the Tea Men who ended up staying in Jacksonville, but leaving the NASL for the minor American Soccer League.

MUSIC

• The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s Cue section previewed a nostalgia show featuring Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly tribute artists. The headline in the print version, written by veteran critic Tina Maples provided a second hidden nostalgic tribute. Tina’s headline was "Shurilla, Van Thiel fill black holes in rock". Only close observers of Milwaukee’s rock scene would pick up on the reference to Mark Shurilla’s band The Black Holes. My favorite Black Holes song is their musical tribute to Milwaukee Braves Hall of Fame pitcher Warren Spahn. It’s one of the best sports songs ever…along with Les Brown’s 1941 hit “Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio”.
  
  

• Last Tuesday I watched the first hour of the Biography Channel’s “Saturday Night Fever: The Inside Story". I found it pretty interesting. Learned plenty of new information about the blockbuster disco hit film Saturday Night Fever, including details of local mafia shaking down the crew to allow filming in the Long Island neighborhood. I switched halfway through - not because it wasn’t compelling, but because President Obama’s State of the Union address started and my desire to learn about the future exceeded my desire to learn about the past.
  
  

• Twitter is often my first source of important and well…less important news of the day such as the announcement last week that ABBA is going to release its first new music in 18 Years. After 30 years without performing, the Swedish '70s super pop group will include a previously unreleased track, "From a Twinkling Star to a Passing Angel” on April 23!
  
  

• A Tweet I sent yesterday about my April, 1976 brush with greatness at a Philadelphia restaurant with Sweden’s King Carl Gustaf XVI led to a musical retort by Associated Press sports writer Chris Jenkins. I sat a table next to King Carl while he was in the US for the Bicentennial. Chris’ Tweet quoted Cab Calloway’s hit Minnie the Moocher: “She had a dream about the King of Sweden. He gave her things that she was needin’ #Hideehideehideeho”.

TV AND FILM

• Twitter is an interesting social forum that allows friends to connect with friends and strangers nearby and around the world by “following” or subscribing to their messages or Tweets. It also allows everyday folks to connect and communicate directly with celebrities. I had two such brushes with greatness this week. On Wednesday morning Cheers actor John Ratzenberger followed me, joining a short list of celebrities among my 2,400 or so followers including the great comic actress Ruth Buzzi and “the Legendary Steve Rossi”. Ratzenberger is the only actor to supply his voice to all Pixar films to date. He is more famous, however, as the know-it-all mailman Cliff Clavin in Cheers. On Saturday I received a ReTweet from comic actor Fred Willard. My Tweet that Willard forwarded to his 41, 058 followers mentioned his interview that morning on NPR that morning with his friend and Fernwood 2 Night co-star Martin Mull. 
  
  

• A week of nostalgia wouldn’t be complete without taking in a silent movie.  On Wednesday, my wife and I saw The Artist, which has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture. It won three Golden Globes including deservedly best original score. The dog, played dramatically by Uggie, a skateboarding Jack Russell, stole the show. Uggie received two nominations in the First Annual Golden Collar Awards. Though Hugo director Martin Scorsese scoffs at that and has launched a write-in campaign for Blackie, the canine star of Hugo. The French-made film one is one of my favorites from the last year.
  
  

• Fox 6 President and General Manager Chuck Steinmetz responded to my blog last week about the preemption of the Arsenal vs. Manchester United match with infomercials. He explained that they are required to program educational programming during certain time slots and moving the prescheduled programs would have been complicated. He did say that in the future they hoped to be able to broadcast the soccer games live by moving them to their retro digital sister station 6.2. Channel 6.2 is branded “Antenna TV” by Fox 6 and is channel 986 on Time Warner Cable. Antenna TV shows classic movies and television reruns. The list of great nostalgic television series shown on this channel is remarkable and includes The Flying Nun, Leave it to Beaver, Hazel, Dragnet, Adam 12, Gidget and The Monkees. The entire lineup is wonderfully nostalgic, so it is with some trepidation that I have to advocate for the preemption of The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin and Here Come the Brides, but all in the name of soccer progress!

FOOD & BEVERAGES

• Breakfast cereal from our youth can be very nostalgic. Captain Crunch, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs, Count Chocula, Quisp and Quake were all favorites in my house as a kid.  Quake and Quisp were launched by Quaker Oats in 1965 and had commercials produced by Jay Ward of Bullwinkle fame.  Quake disappeared after about five years, but Quisp has come and gone several times.  It is back now and available at several area stores including Woodman’s.
  
  

• I don’t care much for sushi…and I care even less for Hello Kitty – though a friend of mine is obsessed with the 1970s era fictional Japanese character.  And she’s not alone. More than a billion dollars of Hello Kitty merchandise has been sold for the Japanese company Sanrio. While Hello Kitty is aimed at pre-adolescent girls, many adults are also hooked on the character including the sushi chef who painstakingly created a remarkable piece of edible Hello Kitty. Thank God for Twitter, else I never would have seen this!
  
  

•  The Chicago Fire MLS team recently signed Quaker Oats as its jersey sponsor.  Quaker is an old line Chicago business that is trying to update its image by connecting to a young team and sport.  While visiting my mother I found a famous classic cylinder of Quaker Oats Corn Meal in the back of her fridge.  Quaker Oats is more than 130 years old and introduced its familiar round package in 1915.
  
  

• The Pabst Blue Ribbon Twitter account sent along a picture of PBR’s olive drab can from World War II, which was sold only to the military.
  
  

Living in the past can be a nice escape from the troubles of today, and as Winston Churchill said:  “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Doomed...or if history is as pleasant as nostalgia, perhaps blessed.