I've been doing a little organizing today and came across some issues of Popular Mechanics from the late '50's and early '60's. This cover from December 1962 reminded me of the house at the top of my street. And then I remembered some really cool neighborhoods that my father used to drive us through at Christmas time, at night, and my sister and I would be in the back seat with our pajamas on under our coats because we had to go right to sleep as soon as we got home.
There was one house we used to pass on my mother's short-cut route home from Salem that was completely covered with little painted ornaments not only at Christmas but at Easter, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Thanksgiving, and Halloween, too. As time went by they toned it down to simply shutters that reflected the seasons.
But Bomac had far and away the best Christmas light display of all! Of course they had an advantage over your basic homeowner. Bomac (purchased in 1959 by Stanford University research park-based Varian) was a Route 128-based maker of tubes and components in Beverly, Mass. (I learned this detail from a fascinating Route 128 Timeline.)
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