Pumps' Perplexities

In these days of the declining Miss America pageant, it only fair
to mention a beauty competition that ended some 40 years or
so ago with no fanfare at all.....It just stopped...Fini....

During the 1940's and 1950' New York City saw the
prominence of three large breweries.....Ballantine, Ruppert and
Schaefer....Ruppert manufactured a popular beer known as
Rheingold.....In order to maintain market share, once a year
there would be the popular voting for a Miss Rheingold......

Pictures of the contestants were seen inside subway cars,
outside on busses and in newspaper advertisements.....
When you went to your local bar, delicatessen or small grocer
there it was....A cardboard easel display, voting ballot
(small coupons) and ballot box.....

Then the displays disappeared, ballots were counted and
newspaper ads announced the winner.....I still suspect that
a Miss Rheingold got more votes than a city mayor....

As time would have it, the beer market changed, Burt and
Harry Piels became a cartoon and the lovely ladies were
never seen again.......Pumps