During the Oklahoma City Holiday season of 1956 I was only 3 years old, but few memories have lasted as long for me as the sight of the B.C.Clark commercial of that year. I remember receiving my little Traveller pedal tractor that Christmas and I remember the B.C. Clark commercial on our old Black & White Emerson television. It was a lantern post with holly and a big bow while the Jingle played in the background. I thought the jingle was one of the Christmas Carols. In 1958 a lot of Christmas Carols were sung on television.
Two years later that little pedal tractor was given away to a local barber. I still remember the sight of him carrying my little tractor by the steering wheel down the long driveway of our house on NW 14th St. I felt I had lost my best friend.
Thirteen years later, the old Emerson television was given away, I had a “real” tractor, and I got my license to drive.
Nineteen years later, I graduated college with a tractor engineer’s degree, and I learned the jingle was not an “official” Christmas Carol.
Twenty-four years later, my wife and I celebrated our first Christmas with Christmas Carols and the jingle playing on her stereo from T. G. & Y.
Forty-Five years later my dear Rhonda surprised me with an identical Traveller pedal tractor for Christmas! She had found a 1956 Christmas picture of me with my first tractor and searched the internet for one that matched. After months of searching she found one on E-bay. As I held the tractor and looked at the picture from 45 years earlier, the B.C.Clark commercial played the jingle on our big SONY Television in the background.
Now, 50 years later, as I look at that old picture, I’m a lot bigger, my family has changed, the homes are different, and the stores where we shopped are gone, but like an old friend, the B.C.Clark Jingle is still there!