Category: History

You Make Me Feel Like Dancin’

Cactus 79

 

Cactus49

 

1943 Arbutus

 

1955 Cactus, Alpha Gamma Delta’s “Flamin’ Mamie”

 

Cactus 49

 

Cactus 78

 

Reveille 60

Perched In A Paneless Pose

LIFE, March 7, 1949

What kind of weirdo takes his wife and 11-year-old daughter into a burnt-out Victorian mansion to stand in windows that have no panes? Gary Cooper, that’s who. Or as LIFE magazine referred to him, “the embodiment of the solid, easy-going, tough-fibered American male.”

It seems he and his family were on vacation in Aspen, Colorado when they spotted said house corpse and decided to enter the spooky remains. These days, of course, that would be trespassing. There would be bars in those windows, preventing any would-be suicidal maniac from perch-pouncing. Or the place simply would have been razed to the ground.

But not for the Coopers, clad in goggles and free of smiles. Not by a longshot.

Here he sits with wife Rocky and daughter Maria in a room with cinder covering the floor. Watch your step!

Twelve years later, the family would take their final vacation to Sun Valley, due to an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread throughout his body.  On April 17, 1961, Cooper watched pal James Stewart accept (on his behalf) an honorary award for lifetime achievement at the Academy Awards. The emotional Stewart said, “Coop, I want you to know I’ll get it to you right away. With it, goes all the friendship and affection and the admiration and deep respect of all of us. We’re very, very proud of you, Coop.” 

In his last public statement on May 4, Cooper said, “I know that what is happening is God’s will. I am not afraid of the future.” He passed on May 13, 1961, six days after his sixtieth birthday.

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Laverne & Shirley, As We’d Always Suspected

1978 Cactus

No, no, it’s not that! It’s two co-eds passing a lifesaver on toothpicks during Halloween of 1977. In fact, all of these images are of college students celebrating Halloween that year. Bless her heart…

It’s the Great Pumpkin!

Double Dracula!

An ape loving his Chiquita Banana.

Reverse border patrol agent.  

Classic clowns. 

Members of Devo with a wooly beast.

And who could forget Tarzan and Jane? 

Shall We Gather At The Cannon

Century of Change

It’s hard to fathom that just over 100 years ago (or “one person ago,” as Netflix comedian Joe Rogan would say) that women dressed like this. The corsets and flowy ankle-length dresses may have felt confining, but those hats must have weighed five pounds in themselves. Such were the times in 1911.

Only 6% of all 17-year-olds finished high school back then, and many women (such as these New York ladies in 1909) spent their days, bent down, making straw hats.

If not for the skills of the hat-makers in millinery shops, gossip columnist Hedda Hopper would never have been able to amass such a collection several decades later.

Century of Change

Overkill, yes?

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