One of the inspirations for doing what I do is Mike and Frank from American Pickers, driving around in there van looking for “rusty gold”. I am not looking stuff to buy, but I am always looking for interesting things along the way that I can photograph. I always try to take back roads when I can, and traveling from Chesaning to Oakley, I saw this old semi trailer. I could make out a logo, but not to well, but it defiantly caught my eye since I especially like old advertising signs and murals. When I got home and looked closer at the photograph, I realized it was a Rainbo Bread trailer. It looks like it has been converted to something else since it has a smoke stack out the side, but the original logo was still visible.

It was fascinating to find it, since my dad used to work at the bread factory in Saginaw a long time ago.  I remember going on a tour there when I was younger, and getting some freshly baked bread at the end of the tour. I tried to find the history of Rainbo Bread online but I could not find anything, the internet seems as empty as the building that was once home the bakery on Holland and Remington in Saginaw’s East Side.

I remember we always had Rainbo bread as a kid, and a lot of the stuff we bought was made locally and you knew where and how it was made. Now I go to the store and who knows where the stuff comes from, China I mostly. Maybe that is why I like the old advertising signs, and Frank and Mike buy a lot of them for their store.

There were lager corporations when I was a kid, but they had local factories since it was a little more difficult to ship, now anything can be shipped anywhere, and made who knows where. I guess that is why I prefer to go to locally owned and operated business.

When they call off school my kids get a phone call, email and text, or you can go on several different web sites to find out instantly if school has been canceled. When I was a kid, I had to sit by the radio and listen for my schools name to be announced in a long list of schools. I went to Carrollton Public Schools and it was a small district without any bussing so we were about the last school to close, and I would have to listen to the radio DJ read thru a list of a hundred schools waiting to hear if it was added to the end. There were no computers back then, so the list was not alphabetized, it was in whatever random order the schools submitted there closings. I remember on snow days waking up early just to listen to the radio and to see if school was closed and by the time I heard those glorious words “Carrollton Public Schools are closed” I was awake for an hour or two and now way to exited to go back to sleep. My brothers and I were out early playing in the freshly fallen snow. I think the best snow days were the ones that were never anticipated and mom would let us sleep in and then tell us school was canceled. It’s strange that we have so much information and instant access about what the weather is doing. I remember the days of  Chuck Waters forecasting the weather with a map on a wall and some magnetic snowflakes and clouds. I hope wherever you are you are enjoying your “snow day”