Washing Is The Worst
Category: History
Easter Crucifix Hairdos Offer Form Over Function
I know what you’re thinking.
#extra
In fairness, these Aborigines were all gussied up for the corroborree (lively social gathering), where they had plans to perform a “wild duck dance” wearing said grass and feather head ornaments.
They don’t look too thrilled about the pending festivities. Personally, I wouldn’t chance the neck pain or misalignment of the spine that such weight could cause. And that’s why I don’t get invited to corroborrees.
Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition
Among my granddad’s things is this gloriously colorful 24 x 18 map. My guess is that Gramps mailed his request to General Foods, as Grape-Nuts was one of the foods Byrd took on his journey.
Per curtiswrightmaps.com,
It depicts Antarctica from a polar perspective, with the tip of South America visible at the very top of the image. Large areas are labeled as unexplored, inaccessible, or “claimed.” Inset maps of Byrd’s route south and the area near his camp are provided to the audience as a helpful aid. As explained in the decorative title cartouche, Byrd’s second expedition was the first to feature live two way radio broadcasts. A radio station sponsored by CBS was set up on the base camp ship and relayed weekly updates to New York via Buenos Aires.
Below, you can see the copyright of 1934. One wonders if, at age 14, Gramps ever put this on his wall. It does not appear so. Or has it simply sat inside this envelope for 86 years, going from house to house each time he moved, packed away in a box and never tossed away?
Proper Pawmenship
Among my granddad’s endless child-of-the-Depression-era keepsakes (honestly, I should start a blog just called THAT, since it could last into the next century), was this signed (pawmenship, not penmanship) image of Rin Tin Tin himself. Does he look focused or forlorn? They really should have posed him looking up. In any event, he died the next year in 1932. Other RTT’s succeeded him, but he was the legit and only German Shepherd rescued from a World War I battlefield.
Far be it for Ken–L-Ration not to send advertising and pimp their products to young kids (like my gramps) who sent off for them. After all, it’s what Rin Tin Tin ate.
What A Girl Wants, What A Girl Needs
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.
Bless Their Howdy Doody Hearts
Freckled marionette Howdy Doody was kind of a big deal at the onset of the 50s, so it was no surprise that LIFE magazine hosted a lookalike contest. 
Wondering what galluses were? A pair of suspenders. Nobody says that now.
Poor kids. Surely George Ford grew into those ears. I imagine he never lived this article down. Pity.
The winner was five year old Billy Oltmann (Old Man at this point). Cute as a button in his bandana and western wear!
Time to celebrate his big win with Hostess Twinkies!
Better Campaign Tactics Than Spending Half A Billion Dollars
Speech Defects Class: No Shirt, No Shoes, Whatever
Now Is The Time To Get Sized For Your Easter Chapeau
Other options include:
and even a colorful understated hat for the menfolks
Next On My To-Do List For Never
I may have conquered using apps on a smart phone or removing jams from testy copy machines, but the technology of yore frightens me. I don’t get it now, and I certainly wouldn’t have gotten in back in 1955, at the University of Colorado.
Nope. Too many wires.
Next up: isotopes. Haven’t talked about proton/neutron stuff since high school, and I’m not gonna start now.
She is clearly steering a cardboard ship, but I know not what the men do.
Too many black holes and knobs in the cube. It doesn’t even fit in my pocket.
Get a load of this jet engine compressor! I’d rather feed a porcupine.
And this last one takes the cake, with “nurse aids performing the pleasant task of hairbrushing for a paralytic.” Pleasant? That looks like a nightmare. 
Rapture, take me now.
Keeping The American Dream Within Reach
A Visit To The Victorian
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.
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.
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.
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.
I Don't Get It 