My dad saved it for 55 years...

One of the strangest things my mom and I ever found among my dad's possessions was something we found in the very first week after he died, and now that it's in the Christmas season I find myself thinking of it again - an Esquire Magazine from December 1959.

My mom seemed to feel in those first few days of grieving that it was very urgent to clear out his office so she could "get things organized". I found this upsetting. I wanted his things to stay just as he'd left them.  But I figured the clearing out frenzy was part of my mom's process, so I didn't try to stop her. I just sat in there with her to make sure she didn't throw anything out that I'd want to keep.    

Then there it was, at the bottom of a pile of stuff on the floor by his desk, under a bundle of tax returns from the 1990s - a dusty volume with a shiny gold cover.  

"Well I don't think we need to keep this" my mom said and tossed it in the recycling bin.  But I couldn't resist digging it out.  It was a enormous - 10 by 13 inches and 382 pages thick - and the cover promised pieces by William Faulker, Thomas Mann, Arthur Miller, Dorothy Parker, and George Bernard Shaw. 

As soon as I started leafing through it I found myself mesmerized, but not by the writing.  It was the Christmas edition, chock full of gift ideas and I couldn't stop staring at the ads.   

The first thing I noticed was how many of the images looked like they'd come from straight out of Mad Men. There was one that looked like Roger Sterling's office, full of men drinking Rye over the course of a business meeting.  And another with a grateful "Girl Friday" that could have been Don Draper's secretary.

Then there was this one - the spitting image of Don Draper himself.

  

The next thing I noticed was the weird way the women were smiling. 

Did women really smile with their mouths open back then? 

Next came an ad from the Cuban Tourist Commission. I recognized the view right away.  It's from the Turquino Room of what was then then Havana Hilton (now the Habana Libre). I noticed only one thing missing - the 24 story Hermanos Ameijeras Hospital which was completed in 1982.  Other than that, not much has changed. 

At first I thought the timing of the ad was funny.  It came out in December of 1959, just before the Cuban revolution was about to triumph in January, so they were inviting people to visit what would soon be a very different place. But then I realized my timing was off.  Fidel Castro took power in January of 1959, not 1960, so when the magazine was printed he'd already been running the country for almost a year.   

The text alludes to the change only peripherally. "Havana has come a long way since Columbus found shelter for his ships in her protected bay...  Now skyscrapers cut through the clouds to herald the new age and a future that promises to far outstrip the past."

I guess at this point Castro's economic strategy still included attracting American tourists? Apparently it took a few years for relations to decline so much the U.S. imposed their travel ban.

  

Given the magazine is from 1959, I wasn't surprised the portrayals of women aren't very feminist. Mostly they're devoted-looking wives or sultry-looking girlfriends, all enraputured by gifts of jewellery, flowers and perfume. 

I was surprised though by the ad below, which proclaims unabashedly that "Men are better than women!" and shows a woman dangling by a rope.  It goes on saying "Indoors, women are useful - even pleasant. But on a mountain they are something of a drag. So don't go hauling them up a cliff just to show off your Drummond Climbing sweaters. No need to. These pullovers look great anywhere." 

What did my father think of this? I like to imagine he disapproved. After all, he married my mother two years later - a chemist who had more education than he did. 

But perhaps these types of portrayals were so prevalent in they didn't even bear noticing, they just blended into the scenery.   

The thing I really don't understand is what the Esquire was doing on the floor of my dad's office. Why did he buy it in the first place? And what possessed him to save it for 55 years?  The father I knew read Macleans and The Economist, not men's fashion magazines. He used to wear suits all the time, even when he was gardening, but he took no notice of his lapel widths and whether they were the latest fashion (there's an article about lapel widths on page 190).  He wore his suits until they were threadbare, much to my mother's chagrin. She always hoped to get him into clothes she considered more "stylish". Over the years she tried buying him jeans and bolo ties and turtlenecks, all to no avail. 

He didn't meet my mother until 1960 though.  Maybe in 1959 he was a different?   

It's also possible he bought it to peruse the gift suggestions. Maybe he wanted to know what the best gift would be for his boss ("Walker's Deluxe 8 year old bourbon comes already wrapped in glittering ribbon and foil, topped with a luxuriant bow" - page 109).  Or what kind of radio to buy for his dad ("The Sony TR 810 is the world's slimmest 8 transistor radio - only one inch thin - and comes complete with battery, earphone, and carrying case, $49.95" - page 290).  Or what kind of coffee maker to buy for his mom ("The Gold electro-plated West Bend Flavo-Matic Percolator brings you the utmost in elegance and makes 6 - 8 cups, $24.95" - page 333). 

Or maybe he was like me - enticed by the promise of fiction by William Faulkner, Thomas Mann and Arthur Miller. And maybe, like me, he kept getting so distracted by the ads he never remembered to read those pieces. Maybe that's why he saved the magazine for so long. Did he keep thinking one day he'd get around to reading it?






UPDATE - December 14
Apparently the open mouthed smile isn't just a thing of the past.  I was waiting at grocery check out yesterday, getting my weekly update on gossip by reading at the covers of the magazines (apparently Angelina Jolie has a new man in her life) when I saw this photo on the cover of Woman's World: