Category: History

Coffee And Saltines: Civil War-Style

shorpy.com
shorpy.com

It never ceases to amaze me how low-res and dark a Kodak picture from 1985 can be, and yet this image from a wet plate glass negative by James F. Gibson is clear as a bell. Isn’t it amazing to see this group of fellows at Camp Winfield Scott, near Yorktown, Virginia in May of 1862? It’s from the collection of the Peninsular Campaign, May-August 1862.

This is the full image, but I really enjoy zooming in on the details to get a better understanding of life over 150 years ago.

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The sober faces, the wayward hairs, the buttons on their shirts, the metal cup that seems like it would conduct the heat and be hard to handle–so interesting!

coffeebreak

17th Marquis De Portago

LIFE 4-9-56
LIFE 4-9-56

God only knows what Alfonso de Portago was doing while his wife (at left) looked on, and racecar driver Eugenio Castellotti looked down. Perhaps it should have been prayer.

Also known as Alfonso Antonio Vicente Eduardo Angel Blas Francisco de Borja Cabeza de Vaca y Leighton, the 17th Marquis of Portago took up racecar driving as a hobby in his mid-20s. Considered by other drivers as “a flashy upstart and a self-centered phenomenon,” he was nonetheless signed by Ferrari for its racing division in the winter of ’56.

Portago, who had crashed a plane on a cow for a $500 bet, commented, “I won’t die in an accident. I’ll die of old age or be executed in some gross miscarriage of justice.”

Um, nope. That’s not what happened.

All I had to do was flip to this pic in the LIFE article and predict this guy with a habit of “brushing close to death” wouldn’t last long.

life040956-019

Do you see what I mean? Cocky.

Driver Castelloti (shown in the first image) was killed in a race the following March, only months after the picture was taken. But the Marquis? Well, he and co-driver Edmund Nelson blew a tire on Portago’s Ferrari 335 S, causing it to spin into the crowd lining the highway during the 1957 Mille Miglia. Nine spectators were killed, among them five children. Nelson and Portago’s bodies were badly disfigured beneath the flipped Ferrari.  Both were killed instantly.

Sounds like the James Dean quote that was wrongly attributed to him. “Live fast, die young and have a good-looking corpse!” was actually said by actor John Derek in the 1949 film Knock On Any Door. Perhaps living fast is not a good motto.

http://andreadekker.com/
http://andreadekker.com/

Dad’s Lofty Pipe Dream

LIFE 4-9-56
LIFE 4-9-56

Another perfect ad for I Don’t Get It.  Where is Dad looking? Why is his family made into a pyramid? Isn’t Mom unstable? Who needs that much fuchsia fabric?

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Those Extra Holiday Pounds

LIFE 4-9-1956
LIFE 4-9-1956

Mom and the kids are throwing shade at Daddy again. And who could blame them? Dad must be up to 150 lbs at this point. I’d give my right pinky finger to hit that number.

Fact is, before there was a “Mony, Mony” song by Tommy James and the Shondells (if you’re a Boomer) or Billy Idol (if you’re Gen X), MONY meant Mutual of New York.

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Myself, I’d never heard of such a thing. The only mutual I know is Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, starring Marlin Perkins.

perkins