Thursday, March 01, 2007

His story.


Mug: Generic Chinese-made ceramic mug. Decent shape, both vessel and handle. Kinda' cheap, which is rather typical for a promotional mug (suitable for visitor gifting by a church).

Coffee: Colombian, city roast.

Notes: March is Texas History Month. I will be featuring mugs that reflect this over the next four weeks. This mug is from a series that was done to commemorate the Texas Sesquicentennial in 1986. The mug's rather basic design was actually done by my deceased next-door neighbor, Jim Grant (who also designed the Chili's logo for Brinker).

There were several mugs (or at least four) in the series. I have five mugs, but one is a duplicate. I also have a mock-up proof that I got at a garage sale Jim had a number of years ago. The design incorporates panels from the legendary Texas History Movies cartoon series that ran in newspapers back during the Texas Centennial Celebration (1936). The newspaper strip was reproduced as a booklet by the Magnolia Oil Company (later called Mobil Oil), and given to fifth graders in all Texas elementary schools up through the mid sixties. They were fascinating, if not terribly polite... and certainly not "politically correct" by today's standards (or by any standard of cultural fairness and sensitivity). But they were a great way to teach Texas history.

Today's mug shows the early Spanish and French explorers of Texas: Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado, and LaSalle. More to come.

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