Thursday, December 7, 2017

My Thimble: WCCO/CBS 1939 (Franken Resigns)

I found this thimble in a $3.99 grab-bag at Goodwill. I didn't want any of the other things, so I gave the rest back.
The thimble is imprinted with the date 1939 and the call letters of a still-broadcasting Minneapolis radio station, WCCO, an affliate of CBS since 1922.

What?!?! 
Wow--I just clicked on WCCO's site and see Minnesota Senator Al Franken is resigning, though he says he is not guilty. Well, even if that's true, good for him for falling on his sword––since indubitably guilty parties who have no sense of honor or compassion will not.

But... shouldn't there be some due process for handling this flood of cases of and accusations of sexual abuse? I mean, why should someone like Franken resign while others of egregious behavior blithely carry on????
Franken said, “I of all people am aware that there is some irony that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape that his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party”.



Uh, anyway, I thought the thimble was a commemorative––maybe from 1989? But no, I looked it up: it is an aluminum advertising thimble, super common in the 1930s & '40s (like cardboard needle books too). Ones without dates go for around five bucks.

Amazingly, I found this blip, online (THANK YOU INTERNET): "Thimbles for All", in Broadcasting Magazine, September 15, 1939, reporting the WCCO radio booth gave away 30,000 such thimbles during the 1939 Minnesota State Fair–– at the same time Nazi Germany was beginning its invasion of Poland...
I was going to save this historic thimble, but then I thought--why not get the pleasure of using it? That's what it was intended for.
So I am.


I never used metal thimbles before--they felt so awkward--but I realized they work a lot better than a naked finger for pushing needles through thick seams on stuffed animals.

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