Cool image on Traces of Texas today of the 1913 San Antonio Flood.
Category: Funny
Critter Curls
I’m not saying they did hide varmints in their hair; I’m just saying they could.
Before Olan Mills and Glamour Shots, amateur photographers had to direct their subjects with options and tips like:
- Crane your head to the right, as if you hear screeching from over there, over there.
- Keep your lips together, indicating you are slightly miffed or you smell B.O.
- If you part your hair down the middle, you must stare directly at the camera.
- Pearls. Always pearls.
- Rebels may cock your chins to the left, akin to yoga’s “warrior pose,” which lets your enemies know that you have vanquished them. Wearing the bow signifies future enemies will perish, so don’t even bring it. I’m talking to you, June.
Bedroom Eyes
Please. You know I’m not going to talk about Dharma Bums or On The Road. I didn’t get an English degree for that. And plus, I’m not my 1995 boyfriend, trying desperately to have a deep conversation, so…
This is not to dismiss Jack Kerouac’s writing; if that’s what you want, check out another WP blogger. If it’s shallow and unnecessary judgment you need, you’re in the right place. And this isn’t about his cup of liquor or his pipe or his gingham or his lustful stare. It’s about how he was reincarnated as Nathan Fillion.
With a dash of Mike Rowe.
Well, this shot of a dirty hitchhiker doesn’t look too much Kerouac. I might be wrong. Perhaps I should do some more research, just to be sure.
Research is totally important.
Seriously.
Sorry, straight guys. Go cleanse your palate with some pin-ups.
Boys Win This Round
Oh, ladies, you have not represented well. Not a blessed one of you.
And especially not this girl. 
Glasses and braces are the least of this pack’s worries. I feel a sudden urge to chew Fruit Stripes gum.
Mind you, all these kids were in the SAME 9th grade class (back when 9th grade was in junior high). They had to pass each other in the halls, taking in all the beauty and attractiveness going on.
Next, we have two clearly wasted, polka-dotted, teased ladies (whose hair does not fit in frame), bookending a less-hussier girl, who probably skipped the dances.
In the next trio of girls, Cindy Nolen is the bowheaded gal having the time of her life.
Perhaps she was inspired by yesterday’s birthday girl?
Wooden Pony Peg Gluething
I don’t have a clue what’s going on here.
Hickfang Towers Over Lassies
In today’s 1948 yearbook, I found a picture of this tall drink of water, Karl Hickfang, surrounded by a group of girls called the Lassies Petite. He was their mascot. Ironic.
Upon further investigation, I discovered that he went on to direct a choir. One of his students, Diane Garne, wrote about him in her book, Cinderella’s Daughter and the Secret of Big Bend:
I also found a memorial to his friend, written by Hickfang himself:
During a summer of 1949, I was finishing requirements for a bachelor of Music
degree. I looked forward to my first teaching position as the band director at
Bonham High School, my alma mater. Near the end of August, I learned the
position was not mine and I had to scramble to find another position so close to the
start of the school year.
The teacher placement bureau at the University of Texas informed me of junior
high school band openings at Conroe and Alvin, north and south of Houston. I
found the Conroe position filled. From a phone booth in downtown Houston, I called
the superintendent of schools in Alvin and was told the band director at Alvin High
Schools would be at H &H Music at 1:00 p.m. and that he had the authority to hire me if he chose to do so.
While I waited at H & H Music Co, three gentlemen came in the store…I was introduced to these gentlemen and Mr. Johnstone indicated he knew of me and said there was an opening for a choir director at Woodland Acres Junior High School, in the Galena Park district. To this day, I never believed he knew of me and I told him I anticipated going to Alvin Junior High School as a band director. I learned right then that you don’t say no to this man. He eventually convinced me to take a position at Woodland Acres and became my mentor.
Isn’t it amazing what you can find online? I always wonder what became of the happy, youthful folks in these eras of yore, and it’s good to know some of them live long, fruitful lives. Karl Hickfang passed away four years ago at the age of 83. R.I.P., Mr. Hickfang.
Catch O’ The Day
Market price changes daily.
Just Like We Did In Key Largo
If visiting Key Largo is on your bucket list, go fetch that Sharpie pen and cross it off, because watching this video is just. Like. Being. There. You will have no need of travel; this video will transport you, not only with Bertie Higgins’ smooth soft rock stylings, but with its scrumtrulescent fashion choices (a white blazer a solid TWO YEARS before Don Johnson would affect the style on Miami Vice), rich, dark locks like a swarthier Kenny Rogers (with a dash of Grizzly Adams), and a gold necklace that so intrigues me.
It takes a certain kind of man to wear a gold parrot necklace, and Bertie is that man.
Look at him, propped against a pole, his lion’s mane blowing in the breeze, his face to the sun like he is a jungle king. He takes a drag and exhales his alpha male breath while his lapel laps against his sun-damaged brown skin. Suddenly, he turns and looks seductively at me. ME! (Swoon). I am weak in the knees. He is whispering to me. Is that a pineapple on his shirt? The way he says “watching” blows my mind. It’s like the lyrics are the breeze, soft and sultry upon my grateful ears. How can that lamp pole against which he is leaning possibly support all that rugged manliness? It must be made of steel.
Just prior to the the minute mark, we witness Higgins in profile, as the sun dances on the rippling sea. Glistening. Then he reaches out to his daughter, a cardigan casually draped about her shoulders like she stepped right out of The Official Preppy Handbook, and she flashes her Aquafresh smile.
What the freak? Suddenly I realize this is not his daughter. This is not my beautiful house! This is his love interest. This big-banged thing, barely past adolescence? She’s the Bacall to his Bogie? Are you kidding me? And then it hits me.
Lauren Bacall was only 19 when she met Humphrey Bogart, 25 disgusting years her senior. Now it all makes sense. They are just like Bogie and Bacall. The truthiness of the song overwhelms me.
Bertie and Courtney Cox’s little sister (let’s call her Ainsley) jaunt up a hill, as he holds steadfastly to his jacket at his shoulder like a mack daddy. Uh-oh. Slow down. There is no chemistry here. How awkwardly they embrace. Like he’s her uncle. And then I see–it wasn’t pineapples on his blouse. It was never pineapples. It’s starfish or poinsettias or some Hawaiian flower that’s not indigenous to my native land, but whatever–I feel deceived. Manipulated. Betrayed.
Soon, they are on a boat together, gazing into each other’s eyes, assessing each other’s caterpillar Brooke Shields’ eyebrows, and giggling. He’s not so bad after all, she thinks. He has a boat. Preppies love boats. He’s wearing another non-pineapple Hawaiian shirt, this time in navy. First it was the innocence of white, but now it’s navy, a harbinger of the thunderstorm brewing not so far away. Can this love last?
At 1:49, suddenly they are traveling down a palm tree-lined boulevard, presumably in a convertible. But where is the driver? Are they on a float in a parade? Are they in Key Largo or Santa Monica? Bertie does his “shrug and cock the head to the side” move to emote his romantical feelings, and she looks away like she doesn’t exactly understand English, like an Italian exchange student, silently cursing herself for not buying Rosetta Stone, or like she just saw an ugly dress in the window of Macy’s and has to turn away before she vomits.
But Bertie soldiers on. He makes more Bogart classic movie references: “Please say you will play it again” (Play it again, Sam), which is lost on her, as she is just out of her Saturday morning cartoon phase. And yet, something attracts her.
At the 2:27 mark, Ainsley moves her teeth to her bottom lip to make the “F” sound. She’s considering forsaking all the feathered-hair frat boys at college and actually getting it on with this dude who is like totally her dad’s age. Gag me. And yet…that gold necklace…is so…reflective of light. And I can nearly smell the Sex Panther wafting off his virile body.
As the song nears the end, he croons, “Here’s lookin’ at you, Kid,” which makes sense because it was only a year ago that she was a kid. But wait. Bogie didn’t even say that line to Bacall in the movie, Key Largo. He said it to Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. Is he cheating on her? Is this his subtle hint?
The video ends with the couple walking along the shoreline at dusk. I sense the sun has also set on their relationship. As much as she likes his boat, she’s begun to spy little grey hairs in his beard, and he’s been complaining of arthritis in his knuckles. After all, he was born in the middle of WWII. She cannot fathom a life of administering Geritol each morning and separating his white blazers from his colors in the laundry.
But the best evidence are the lyrics themselves. “We had it all.” Had. Past tense. And like Bacall, she will move on to other men and star in a new “late late show.” Yes, it’s bittersweet. But was she really enough woman for all that man? I think not.
Faceracker
You’re never too young to hustle.
Not Enough Marcias
Another day, another dorm, another opportunity to ask, “Why?” This here is a shot of the ladies of the dorm labelled simply as “2-A” in the 1973 Indiana University annual. I’m not sure what catches the eye first: the look of ennui and apathy from Heavy-Lidded Ladyfingers in the front row, or her barefoot buddy holding a bottle of Vermont Maple Syrup on her knee. Or is it not maple syrup? Yes, I skipped vested turtleneck woman.
Then we have the skipper, whose eyes are shut, holding some sort of stuffed animal, a girl with a violin, a girl with a tennis racket, a girl with a GOLDFISH BOWL and a shirt that reads “Jesus” where the Pepsi logo should be. We make our way back with the wallflower, the trio of alcoholics, your nobody (she called today), the one in the unfortunate circus pants, the two Jan Bradies (prone to suffering from the Jan Brady Effect), and the girl in the classic mannequin head with a shag hairdo on a platter pose. It never gets old. Speaking of the two Jans, chances were high that one of these girls was actually named Janet or Janice, which ranked high during their birth year.
But the top five names were:
- Mary
- Linda
- Deborah
- Patricia
- Susan
Still, who wouldn’t want to be a Marcia (other than Gloria Steinem, who turns 80 today)?
/
Hat Association Games
Today I will use my new 1973 Indiana University yearbook to play an installment of Hat Association Game. Here goes.
When I see this:
I think of Miss Mary J Blige:
And this corduroy-clad kiddo:
When I see this:
I think of afghan throws and crocheted potholders.
When I see this:
I think several things at the same time, but one of them is, “Is he really wearing a floral velvet newsboy cap with a tassle ball on top? That takes juevos.” I believe that Lance Gross proves that hat style can evolve for the better.
And lastly, when I see this:
I think of playing poker in what is clearly not a shower cap, but then I am distracted by the chipmunk cheeks of his friend, and I think of Tito Jackson.
And then I think of Tito Jackson in an oversized newsboy cap.
And Tito Jackson in a brown derby.
Which reminds me of the restaurant, the Brown Derby.
Which makes me hungry. So I’m going to head to the kitchen and fry up some free-range eggs. And I know just the hat to wear!
Dog Overwhelmed By Stench Of Krishna Crazy; Refuses To Chew Shoe
I Don't Get It 