I’ve mentioned once or twice that my father worked for the Monon Railroad in the late ’50’s. He was the Assistant to the President, which Mom said meant that he wrote a lot of speeches. I’ve heard that they ran an ad campaign that featured a conductor saying "All Aboard!" If you looked at the picture, the guy’s fly was open…
One of my brothers got mononucleosis back when he was in grammar school. I think it was in 1966, because Dad was still alive. My aunt had just started college and would come over in the afternoons to tutor him so he wouldn’t fall too far behind (I think he was out of school for a month or more). Mono (the short name) is called "the kissing disease" because it spreads through saliva, but I don’t think that’s how he got it. More likely, he and a couple of his friends were sharing a bottle of pop, which meant he’d get the bottle, wipe off the neck with his hand to get rid of any germs, and drink some, then pass it on to the next guy. Jim Pankow from the band Chicago got it one year, and wrote a song called "Mongonucleosis," I thin because it sounded like something jazz conga player Mongo Santamaria would play. Here’s Leonid & Friends, who sound more like Chicago than Chicago does…
If you see an old record that says "MONO" on it, it means that the record is monaural, which comes from the Latin for "one ear." Back in the days before stereo radio, record companies would frequently mix a recording down such that it could be played on a phonograph (or radio) with one speaker. If you listened to it on a stereo, you’d get the same sound out of both speakers. I listen to a lot of music iun bed, for which I have a small Bluetooth speaker, which does essentially the same thing. Or at least it seems to…
Linda hosts Stream of Consciousness Saturday every week. Now a word about Winston cigarettes. Winston tastes good like a cigarette should!
The Sound of One Hand Typing 
Cool stream-of-consciousness post and wow, your dad was quite a mover and shaker! It almost ties into one of my posts today (about ‘The City of New Orleans’) because although I didn’t live near Indiana, I remember seeing pix of the Monon in railroad books and magazines and I even had an HO model Monon locomotive (in that black and gold paint scheme) for the layout that never quite got built.
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Dad was more of a glorified secretary, according to Mom. Those were the days when men worked as secretaries… Still, Chicago was the railroad center of the US back then, when the railroads carried passengers as well as freight. I used to see ads for the Santa Fe’s “Super Chief” all the time. That was the one that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles, and you’d get a lot of celebrities coming through from New York. Never saw any, but it was kind cool knowing they were passing through…
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Liked your smoking ads clip. I have a collection of print cigarette commercials from the 1950’s, all endorsed by movie stars or recording artists, waxing lyrical about how soothing and chic it was to light up, health warnings were non-existent, and hey if Charlton Heston, Bob Mitchum, and Marlene Dietrich enjoyed a smoke, then no problem!
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Not to mention John Wayne. Ronald Reagan did a lot for Chesterfields, and “I Love Lucy” was sponsored by Phillip Morris, although Lucy smoked Chesterfields (as did Mom). The cigarette ads will continue, after which maybe I’ll do beer ads or dangerous toy ads…
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Remember your Father singing – ” Up and down the Monon everything is fine ’cause that rootin, tootin’ Monon it’s a Hoosier line.” I think that’s right.
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The jingle plays at the end of the video!
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I got Mono and probably from necking..oh well. It was not nice to get that’s for sure. That little Doc. on the train was quite interesting and makes me wish train travel came back…maybe there wouldn’t be so many cars and pollution in the air then. That is another great song by this superb band. I wonder how they are doing re: the war with the Ukraine
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Brilliant post I have heard you mention that your brother had mononucleosis before we call it Glandular fever.
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so funny about the ad campaign!
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