Ooh, la la, ladies! Somebody just upped the charm bracelet game! Look how beautifully it lays (or is it lies?) against the skin. What’s not a lie is how it will subliminally encourage you to eat protein each time it scrapes against the keyboard as you type.
It compliments any outfit you have in shades of peanut shell or Baptist red brick. It’s nutty, all right.
During this time of Easter and resurrection, it’s important to remember that Mr. Peanut did NOT in fact die for good, but was (as the Super Bowl commercial revealed) reborn by the tears of the Kool-Aid Man (oh, yeah!) in a much less spiritual or legitimate manner.
As my husband testified on stage in church last Sunday, we are cheap, cheap, cheap. I haven’t purchased a book at retail price in over a decade, maybe two. Everything I read is from Half-Price Books, and only the clearance section, from $1 to $3. That is how I came upon this:
This blue book from 1954 has been sitting on my shelf for a few years now, waiting for the perfect moment that never comes. I don’t know why I thought this topic would have interested me in the least; I’m certainly not ever going to READ it. Perhaps I thought it would have cool pictures.
It did.
Like this pseudo-Scarlet getting into crinolines in 1865.
London Stereoscopic Co.
I’ve always felt I was born too late, but this picture makes me glad I was born post-antebellum. You couldn’t even hold hands with an orangutan, much less a suitor, in that dress.
The author contends that the Victorian age ended in 1914, but all of these images were taken much earlier than that. Below is the building of “The Great Eastern,” which seems as though it’s lacking a noun, launched on 1/31/1858.
Very Victorian, no? Jackets and ties and Abe Lincoln hats, although this is a proper British book.
With proper tea-time being had.
1850
And proper use of the sewing machine. The dress seems a bit much for such labor.
Lo and behold, lodged between the pages, I stumbled upon a receipt from 1955, a year after it was published. I found it ironic that Professor Wolff ponied up $3.64, whilst I, 65 years later, ponied up only $3.24.
Am I being cheeky, like this 1890 can-can Parisian dancer?
Perhaps I should motor on.
J.A. Koosen and H.J. Lawson in a Lutzmann, 1895
This last image is from 1860, entitled “Romance on a Stile.” FYI, a stile is an arrangement of steps that allows people to climb over a fence or wall. I don’t see that being done here. I can almost hear her saying, “No, no, Nanette,” or “No, no, Nigel,” as it were. The only British stile I’m aware of is singer Harry Styles, but that’s a horse of a different color.
And in Victorian times, there was no color. At least not in the photos.
Perusing the pages of ancient yearbooks, I have seen many a Sadie Hawkins dance. But this 1946 event from North Texas State University takes the cake! What an eye for detail these kids had.
“… it’s that damned old rodeo,” sang Garth Brooks. And while he was singing abut it, Lisa Eisner was attending rodeos and snapping shots across the country. In her 2000 book, Rodeo Girl, we see glimpses of rodeo life, to which many folks are never privy.
However, I think most of us are familiar with this body language.
90s kicker fashion was hard to accept. Those uncomfortable buttoned tops that barely made it to your belly button, and the Rocky Mountain jeans that absolutely did.
Pair it with perms and vertical stripes, and you’re in like Flynn.
Back in 1978, this was seen as a clever tee, cute enough to make it into the yearbook. High schools would undoubtedly send this minor home in today’s #metoo era.
Even teachers were allowed to petition for partners.
You can’t wear that these days either. Turkeys would be offended.
This one would pass muster, despite its inaccuracy.
At least this one tells the truth.
This next shirt pairs beautifully with his thick, manly ‘stache.
Maybe the safest course to take is to simply don some school spirit (and a Dorothy Hamill haircut for his and hers).
I Don't Get It 