July 2014 – Page 3 – I Don't Get It

Like Hardened Alaskans

Silly Does Somber And Serious

The caption tells me this was the staff of the 1955 Ranger. Journalists, I presume. Yearbook staff. But it doesn’t explain why a young Jay Leno looks so somber at the top, or why staff members are holding items on display, while laying hands on each other. Or why the fellow in the glasses looks like former SNL alumnus Andy Samberg doing his best Jerry Lewis impression.

Chitty Chitty Bad Bangs: The Scourge of 1982

You don’t see much of this style these days. Little wispy bangs curled and spiraled like a double helix. Those of you in your 40s may also recall the curse of the add-a-bead necklace back in the day: one was supposed to wear it UNDER the collar, but like Bad Bangs shows us here, it would often pop out from under the collar.

I’m pretty sure this is Pam Dawber during her Mork and Mindy days, but that has not been confirmed. In any event, she is distracting from her two bang pieces with this horizontal stripe (probably boatneck).

This next lady looks pretty self-satisfied, having shoved her curled partial bang off to the side of her forehead, where it will not interfere with activities of daily living.

Each of these lovely ladies can console themselves that they were not donning the Dorothy Hamill cut, so popular in 1976, a full SIX YEARS PRIOR. Poor Paula cannot say the same.

Way to keep the 70s in the 80s, Paula.

Lincoln: Living Large As Zombie With Lovely Baritone

She Blinded Me With Science

Kathleen Doering, Assoc Professor of Entomology 1942

Fun entomology-related fact of the day: The term cuckoo bee is used for a variety of different bee lineages which have evolved the kleptoparasitic (no, not like Winona Ryder) behavior of laying their eggs in the nests of other bees, reminiscent of cuckoo birds. Female cuckoo bees can be easily recognized, as they lack pollen-collecting structures and do not construct their own nests (you mean the males do chores?). They often have reduced body hair, an abnormally thick or heavily-sculptured exoskeleton, and saber-like mandibles (wikipedia).

Try using that in a sentence today: saber-like mandibles.

Faith Under Fire

Early morning service on a coast guard ship in WWII

www.harmoniumhire.codotuk — http://harmoniumhire.co.uk/archive-photo-gallery/

Major William F. Reiss, Chaplain, First Airborne Task Force (FABTF) leads G-2 Staff in prayers before departing for Southern France; picture taken at Voltone Airfield, Italy, 15 August 1944

The Chaplain of the 6th General Hospital (MTO 26 Dec 42 – 15 Sep 45) conducts a Baptism service, French Morocco, September 1943

“On 20th April, 1941, the morning after 150 incendiary bombs had gutted St. Bartholomew’s, East Ham a bride and groom arrived at the wrecked church. They found charred timbers and ravaged walls were all that was left of the church where they were to be married that day.

But Helen Fowler, aged 20 of Caledon Road, East Ham and her Canadian soldier sweetheart, Cpl. Christopher Morrison, aged 21 of the 48th Highlanders stood proudly amid the ruins of the bombed-out church and made their wedding vows, while fireman played their hoses on the wooden beams which were still smouldering.”