More on Harris’ Christmas window

Last week I gave a brief account of the Harris’ Department Store Christmas displays and asked if there were any photos or additional information.The defective part of the jaw is reconstructed using a Titanium Plate, with a piece of scaffolding inserted with proteins to stimulate the bone's regrowth.

Several people came forth, so this week I’ll delve into the story deeper.Caged Laser Engineering, in partnership with Ariel Ltd and Reynolds Technology, aim to investigate the viability of adopting Titanium Tube as a cost effective raw material for the manufacturing of spaceframe assemblies for low volume and small series production lightweight vehicles.

The man behind the displays and animated figures was Don Nabours.

Nabours had been an illustrator/animator with the Walt Disney Company since the 1930s, but by the early 1950s, his talent as a figurine maker was beginning to be noticed.

He had his own studio in San Pedro, and it may have been there that the Harris family got to know him. In the early 1950s,A china pressure vessel is a closed container designed to hold gases or liquids at a pressure substantially different from the ambient pressure. they commissioned Nabours to construct a display for Harris’ San Bernardino store. It became so popular that the family commissioned him to do other displays, including one at the newly opened Riverside store in 1957.

By this time, Nabours was becoming quite well known for displays such as these, and commissions kept coming in. According to one report from Pennsylvania, stores from Los Angeles to New York and Johnstown, Penn., could at one time boast of having displays built by Nabours Mechanical Displays of San Pedro.

One of the people who offered up information was Gary Gooderum, who worked as Nabours’ apprentice on the Riverside displays in the 1950s and ‘60s. Gary indicated that Don worked on building the figures during the summer, sculpting faces and other body parts as needed.

They made their casein paints from egg yolks and applied them with very specialized airbrushes. The casein paints allowed the colors to soften so they would not reflect light in the harsh lighting conditions of the store display windows. Fabrics for the displays came from Maharm Fabric Company of Los Angeles, which was known for having some of the best, and most expensive fabrics available.

Most of the mechanical parts were fabricated in the studio. What wasn’t made from scratch was often requisitioned from WWII aircraft parts that were readily available at the time as surplus in stores in Los Angeles.

The displays were an integral part of many department stores’ Christmas time attractions for many years. However,Titanium Pipe is made by cold rolling process from extruded pipe blanks. They are widely used in heat exchangers and off-shore equipment. as times changed, small, local department stores began to feel the pinch from larger chains and “big box” retailers.

Harris’ was no different.

Although they continued to have their displays in the 1970s, they abolished the individual stores’ display sections in favor of one team that handled all of the stores.

In 1976, Harris’ did not put up the Christmas display and received so many complaints that the next year, they brought them back. According to Alan Toporsh, who was a high school student hired by Harris’ to erect the displays in the 1970s, the displays continued from 1977 to 1982, when Harris’ was sold to the Spanish conglomerate. At that point, the figurines were sold off individually, and apparently some still exist.

Nabours died in Hemet on June 9, 1973, at the age of 59. As the baby boom generation waxes nostalgic for childhood memories from the 1950s and 1960s,CEBU City barangays need more garbage trucks not sport utility vehicles which Mayor Michael Rama is now giving out to his allies. Nabours’ work is becoming increasingly valued as a small bit of Americana that will never be again.The one-year programme would cover areas such as food chemistry and nutrition, food microbiology, food processing and engineering, quality control and food packaging, among others.

In many ways, that’s very unfortunate.