Braman's Wanderings

Fall normally means high school football and tonight I am thinking of an old program that was in one of my Grandma’s Scrapbooks.

I really love the color of some of the old programs and advertisements of the 60’s.

When I went to school many of the programs were colorless and were simply rosters copied onto blank paper.

The home team in the program was the Hamburg Wildcats of Hamburg, Iowa. Can you guess who the main sponsor of the program is?

I easily gave it away as you probably couldn’t miss the “Call for Coke” in big red letters. The opponent for the tilt on the gridiron was the Rock Port Bluejays, of Rock Port, Missouri.

These schools may sound like they are far away from each other, but they are only about 20 miles apart.

I really like the Coca Cola ad on the inside of the program. I can just imagine a mother enjoying a Coke in the stands while cheering her son on as he is playing.

I was able to easily figure out the year that this program was used. The first clue was that it was tucked inside a 1962 scrapbook. However, it may have fallen out of another scrapbook, so I also dated it in another way.

I know two of the players who were in the program for the Hamburg Wildcats. I simply looked at what year they were in school. This was indeed from 1962.

I also like the line of symbols across the bottom of the program. It was helpful to know what the referees hand signals meant. They didn’t have wireless microphones to let the crowd know what the call was.

This also brings back memories of uncles who used to officiate different sports.

The back of the program was reserved for the local sponsors.

Iowa State Bank of Hamburg, Iowa

Hamburg Clothing Co.

Stoner Drug Co.

Did you notice that the phone number for Stoner Drug is 23?

Do you remember dialing only two numbers to make a phone call? I remember only having to dial only four numbers for a local call when I was in school in Kansas.

Steven