Headed out to run errands after the cartoon ended. It was such a beautiful day, I thought I'd walk to Collingswood. It was too nice to rush! It remains slightly humid, but nothing to the degree of yesterday. The heat was now a far more normal for early July lower 80's, the sun was out, the sky was a perfect clear blue, and the wind felt wonderful. Those big green leaves at Newton Lake Park made wonderful shade as I passed by sparkling green water.
First stop of the day was PNC Bank to get money. There was already one person using the outside ATM, and as it was 12:30, I thought it might get busier. I went inside and used the ATM there instead. There was no line, and I was in and out.
There isn't a whole lot open in Collingswood on a Monday, but I did get to peek around Occasionette. The gift shop now has pizza cookbooks, colorful marble chopping blocks, and Collingswood and Philadelphia-themed gift items out. They're fun to look at, but expensive to buy, so I browsed and moved on.
Stopped at a very busy GrooveGround Coffee Shop for a much-needed drink. They had fruit-flavored iced tea for summer advertised on a sandwich board outside. I tried their watermelon green iced tea and a blueberry scone. Oh yum. The iced tea was wonderful, cool and tart without being too sweet. The scone was likewise a little crumbly and not too sweet, either. It was even dusted with flour on the bottom. They do carry a limited assortment of records, but I saw nothing interesting, and they were already so busy with people chatting and working on laptops that I moved on after I finished.
Innergroove isn't open on Mondays, but Collingswood Music is. I waited for a minute while the owner talked to someone before he opened the doors. Took almost an hour browsing, but I finally came up with these records:
The Beatles - Rubber Soul
Spike Jones - The Best of Spike Jones
The Ralph Sutton Quartet - Jazz at the Olympics (More specifically, the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics, as all of the songs are winter-themed.)
The Who - Face Dances
Soundtrack from La Bamba
Went across the street to WaWa to get something to drink for the walk home. Tried their Green Pineapple smoothie. Yum! Green tea, pineapple, and mango. Sweet, but very refreshing.
Speaking of the Olympics, I had lunch while watching Laff-a-Lympics. They started off in "India" with a tiger hunt that went spectacularly off the rails. Shaggy was too chicken to help Captain Caveman look for anything scarier than a cold, while Daisy Mayhem's attempt to pose as a tiger for the Dalton Brothers just ended with them not getting anything. Snooper and Blabber ended up being the winners by default. The Great Fondoo did manage to get his magic working well enough to win the elephant race, though. Speed Buggy naturally trounced the competition at sand sailing in "Israel," while Yogi had the least trouble keeping his boat together in the Reed race, winning the whole show for his team.
Took the laundry downstairs, then did some job searching and added records to that inventory. Tried looking at some record organizing apps, but in the end, I just returned to making a list. One of the reasons I'm doing this is to figure out when I bought some of these. In addition to still having many of the 65 records Bruce gave me from his first wife Kaye's collection in 2006, I've been buying records from yard sales, thrift shops, and the many music and media stores in Philadelphia and South Jersey ever since. Some of my CDs go back to when I got my first player in high school, around 1995-1996.
Listened to records while I worked. Rubber Soul was the only Beatles album I didn't have in one form or another. I didn't realize until I got home that this was the US Capitol version, which is missing several tracks. I have the missing tracks elsewhere anyway, and it's still hard to argue with some of the Beatles' best songs, including "Think For Yourself," "Michelle," and "In My Life."
My love of Motown dates to the Saturday nights I spent listening to the oldies show on my local rock station in the 80's and early 90's. I would tie a ribbon around my waist and another around my head and pretend I was in the 60's or early 70's, when the songs by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles and Martha and the Vandellas were new. Probably the two most famous Vandellas songs on their Greatest Hits album are "Love Is Like a Heat Wave" and "Dancing In the Street." Favorites on the Miracles' Greatest Hits Vol. 2 include "Going To a Go-Go," "The Tracks of My Tears," "I Second That Emotion," and "More Love."
Finally broke for dinner and Match Game Syndicated at 7:30. Marcia Wallace began the episode by insisting Gene spray her dress to keep it from clinging to her. Brett, Charles, and David Doyle were more than happy to toss out quips about what that dress had to cling to.
Finished the night on YouTube after I finally remembered to bring the laundry upstairs with episodes of my all-time favorite game shows. I've watched game shows for as long as I can remember. Mom loves them too and would often watch them with us when we were little. She told me she watched the original Password and Jeopardy with her grandparents in the 60's and 70's. That's very likely how the revived Jeopardy and nighttime Wheel of Fortune became an after-dinner ritual for my family in the late 80's and early 90's. We'd even make a game out of guessing the Pennsylvania Lottery numbers on Channel 6 before Jeopardy started. We very likely saw the episodes listed here when they first ran.
I resumed watching Fortune and Jeopardy when I was in college, alternating the latter with the late 90's Hollywood Squares during commercials. Whoopi Goldberg led a who's who of wacky comedians, TV personalities, character actors, and comedy writers through delightfully goofy bluffs. Tom Bergeron played off her so well, it was disappointing when she finally left. This episode from 1999 is in honor of Martin Mull, the musician, host, and comedian who passed away over the weekend.
Name That Tune was another show I watched in syndication, in this case on USA Network. I've always loved music, so this one was right up my alley. It was a lot of fun to watch contestants try to guess the Golden Medley and dare each other to name that tune in one note! Loved watching Press Your Luck - and all of those wacky Whammies - on USA too.
In the late 80's and early 90's, the Ray Combs Family Feud and The Price Is Right were virtually synonymous with each other. They ran one after the other on CBS, and I never missed them when I was home sick or on a summer day when it was too rainy for the beach. I'm pretty sure I watched the syndicated Feud before dinner, too. The two shows were among those that helped me through a very rough time in my life. The episodes I have here are emblematic of the ones I watched and enjoyed as a child, with the Price episode being especially funny. (Check out the huge guy lifting Bob Barker in the air!)
Though I'm most familiar with the syndicated $100,000 Pyramid, I know I watched The New $25,000 Pyramid on CBS in the early-mid 80's, too. It was fun to watch the celebrities help their contestants guess a subject! Richard Kline nearly beats Billy Crystal's still-existing Winner's Circle record here.
Of course, I also watched game shows made for kids. We saw one favorite of mine, Double Dare, last week. Fun House was another. Kind of the same deal as Double Dare, with no daring and a race on wacky vehicles before the big bonus stunt course. I actually preferred the run through the Fun House to the difficult Double Dare Obstacle Course. All but the very slowest kids were guaranteed to come out with at least one cool prize or a lot of cash, as they do here.
Even now, I'm still running across shows I either don't remember well, or never heard of before the last few years. I very vaguely remember seeing the syndicated Match Game in the early 80's. I certainly don't remember it being the funniest, craziest, most delightful game show I'd ever seen in my life. Mom says she watched Password Plus and Super Password when we were really little, but I don't remember Plus at all, and once again only vaguely recall Super. And I definitely don't remember how challenging and fun to play along with they are!
Play along and revive a few memories of your own with some of my all-time favorite games! (And I enjoyed this so much, I will definitely be doing another all-time favorites marathon later in the summer.)
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