Those sets had to have been bought for special occasions . To get one, you had to contact Kaywoodie. Each one has a silent, hidden story behind it. Wasn’t that a happy day, when they took delivery of a $2,500 set of pipes?
During 1960 the hog market went up to World War Two levels, or higher.
My conservative father lost $7,000 as his share of a three man joint venture where the market crashed just before the fat hogs were ready to ship to Springfield for auction. When he died in 1971 his credit life paid off the still unpaid balance.
But yesterday my wife and I were at an elderly friend’s home we stopped by to wish a happy new year. He’s a greater story teller than I’ll ever be. His home is sort of a shrine to his girl friend who played in a movie with Kim Novak in the fifties.
I noticed a glorious Frigidaire Flair range in his kitchen and asked for the story.
In 1960 he was away at college in Montana but his father hit the top of the market selling hogs.
His younger brother and his mother drove a hundred miles to Vandalia and she picked out a full line of the best Frigidaire appliances for their home. The men came from Vandalia and set them all up. He might have some of the manuals, somewhere.
The dishwasher, washer and dryer are long gone, the refrigerator is still in a barn, the freezer is in the basement, and this indescribably luxurious Flair range is still in service, the top of the line with all options. Samantha used one in “Bewiched”, and there’s sort of a Flair range cult today.
The lights and the clock and all gadgets still work, after 63 years. They came with special pots and pans, as part of the set, and those are in the storage cabinet below.
Somewhere, far off, I could almost hear the choir sing “The Old Rugged Cross” as he told of how happy he was to come home for Christmas 1960 and his Mama show him all those new appliances, a few years before his younger brother was drafted and went to Vietnam.
He came home, but he wasn’t ever quite the same afterwards, had to go to the Veteran’s Hospital a lot.
The construction workers whistled at his Mama, which bothered him but she didn’t mind, she was used to it.
Xxxxx
So I'll cherish the old rugged cross (rugged cross)
Till my trophies at last I lay down
I will cling to the old rugged cross
And exchange it some day for a crown