1950s – Page 13 – I Don't Get It

Snoopy Was A Carnivore Who Probably Ate Horses

Painting done not by Norman Rockwell, but Douglass Crockwell. Seriously.

Ah, yes. In the years before talk of puppy mills and Pit Bulls & Parolees, folks would go to the Pet Shop and actually procure puppies there, not just on the days when the Humane Society pimped strays on Saturdays. Can’t you just smell their little puppy breath and the softness of their puppy heads? This is part of a 1956 ad for Friskies.

Now, I’ve had plenty of dogs in my day, and they all liked meat. Carrots, no. Cabbage, wouldn’t touch it. Celery, forget it. But chicken and beef and pork? Yes. Basically any of the Chipotle proteins, dogs like. Now in case you didn’t skim the ad up top, it says Friskies contains “lean red horse meat.” Yum! Giddyup! So we can safely assume those beagle puppies were into horsemeat. It makes me wonder about Jemima. Jemima was the beagle we lost last year to cancer, and she looked nothing like Snoopy, who is also purportedly a beagle. Even this Pinterest image shows you that Snoopy and beagles have hardly anything in common. But I bet they’d both eat horse meat.

And turkey.

And bacon and eggs.

Maybe, just maybe, they’d both like watermelon for dessert, like this happy beagle.

But then it’s strictly back to horse meat.

Mi Amor

On What Would Have Been Her 110th Birthday

the ever controversial Bette Davis (giphy.com)

No Room For Milk

BTW, this artwork was done by Dick Sargent, the prolific Saturday Evening Post illustrator, not to be confused with the second actor to portray Darrin Stephens on the ABC’s fantasy comedy Bewitched.

Pretty Sure That Was A Red Light, Stan

In the spring of 1958, LIFE photographer Russell Halford took a series of photos of Los Angeles motorists.

Some were irritated.

Some were happy to offer a light.

And some were dangerously mid-beauty routine.

I don’t think it’s going to help.

As an aside, note the nub shown through her window. That’s how we used to lock car doors. You could push them up and down.

Truman Strolling Down French Riviera

Five years after he’d left the White House, Truman (not visibly flanked by any Secret Service) took a monthlong Mediterranean tour. Here, he walks through the alleys of St. Paul de Vence. Behind him are his traveling companions, Mr. and Mrs. Sam Rosenman.

Other vacations were less formal, like this trip to Key West, Florida in November of 1951. The man holding up swimming trunks is General Harry H. Vaughan.

Doesn’t he look happy as a clam in the Key West “chow line” for lunch?

http://www.trumanlittlewhitehouse.com March 8, 1951

Nothing slowed old Harry down.

President Truman didn’t pass until the day after Christmas of 1972 at the age of 88. His wife, Bess, outlived him by another decade, making her the oldest living First Lady to date.

Here they are with daughter Margaret in the lounge of the American President Lines’ President Cleveland, April 28, 1953, before sailing for San Francisco and home after a one-month Hawaiian vacation.

Aloha!

Baked Alaska To Celebrate

I have so many questions about this image. Some simple assumptions would be that this couple is celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. And by the lettering to the right of the cake, I’ll assume the wife is named Cora. But why is she wearing a dress and pearls, when he is wearing a robe and boutonnière? Is that a cake or just a heap of whipped cream? Is it melting? And what is that brick before the cake? Surely it’s not napkins.

People Are Strange: 1950

Grandpa wasn’t the only one smoking. And evidently, supermodel Christy Turlington was there.

I can’t even explain what’s going on up there.

They laughed at knobby knees.

They said “How” and sat next to teepees before cultural appropriation was offensive.

They looked like Gomez from “The Addams Family.”

They did chores.

And they wore these boss golf shirts.

This Guy

Today, I have three new Antique Mall photographs of indeterminate origin–no dates, no locations, no nada. But how could I pass up this guy with his Gomer Pyle eagerness? And, oh, how he is bookended! Evidently, they offered secret trial silicone lip injections in the 60s…

In the upper left reflection, you’d swear he was the living LBJ himself!

I can’t hazard a guess as to what this second image is, although I doubt it was a Communist Party or Black Panther meeting. Nicely crossed hands and legs on the taller one.

And this last one, I bought just for the lass on the left. Such chutzpah to don white glasses! What a Kanye move! Don’t you suppose the two in the middle are related, whatwith their hopeful eyebrows?

Biding Our Time

This blog has offered up many a mid-century sorority pic–and today, we add to the pile. Excuse the descreening effect of the above image; I’m certain she did not have inordinately grand goose bumps on her forearms. (Or perhaps that’s why she looks so shocked! Poor Chicken-Arms Chelsea…)

These next ladies have fabulous forearms. One seems to be asking if she can get a what-what while she decorates.

The lucky four-eyed gal in the middle seems to be the object of engagement. Perhaps the other ladies should get in shape to snag a man, too! Bend your knees and touch your toes!