Android vs. iPhone 1970
Category: History
Happening At The Hoedown
Have A Drink On Me
It’s Now Or Never, Elvis
This Diamond Ring Doesn’t Shine For Me Anymore
Forget pawn shops. These two freshly-divorced women threw caution (and jewelry) to the wind in observance of the Reno, Nevada custom of tossing their rings into the Truckee River. What I don’t get is why they wouldn’t want to sell them since it was 1932, amidst the Great Depression. At least get enough to buy a celebratory whiskey! And why were they wearing Hawaiian leis in the middle of the dessert? And what did their husbands do to warrant such a dismissal of vows?
In 2013, The Huffington Post shared this image, with Nevada still #5 in a list of Top Ten Divorce Capitals.
Any of these hotspots look familiar?
This House Possessed
Actually, This House Possessed was a 1981 made-for-TV Parker Stevenson movie that gave me the willies in my formidable years. But it wasn’t nearly as scary as this shot of men being chased by a house. I bet they could give Usain Bolt a run for his money in the 100 meter dash.
When we think hurricane, we probably think of Katrina, but 1998’s Hurricane Georges was no picnic for folks in Key West. The 90-mph winds tore through homes on Houseboat Row.
Nowadays, Houseboat Row looks like this:
Is that winky face tempting fate? Is he squinting into the sun? Or did a seagull just make bad-bad on him?
Kicking Back With A Cold One 1948
A Laugh A Minute
1953 Hillcrest Country Club
Comedians Groucho Marx, George Jessel, Milton Berle, Eddie Cantor (air-stabbing his pal), and Buddy Lester met daily for lunch.
Ripped At Sixty
Actor-comedian Joe E. Brown gets toweled off by wife Kathryn at his Brentwood home in 1951. She doesn’t seem to mind his toned 60-year-old physique. The two were married 55 years until his death in 1973.
He was one of the most popular American comedians in the 1930s and 1940s, with successful films like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Earthworm Tractors, and Alibi Ike. In his later career Brown starred in Some Like It Hot (1959), as Osgood Fielding III, in which he utters the famous punchline, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”
Doesn’t he look like the happiest camper ever? 
Can you tell who the woman is here with him? I’d recognize her anywhere.
When It Rains
WPA (Works Progress Administration) workers load a truck with flood debris in Louisville, KY in 1937. It sure looks a muddy mess, but since we haven’t seen a drop of rain since May, I’d take a muddy mess right now.
The Touch, The Feel Of Cotton
Most of the yearbooks I collect have ads in the back. Rarely are they interesting beyond the typeset or logos of the times, but this 1955 Lion’s Lair yearbook shows student at the places of business.
These students tried out the wheelbarrow at Allandale Hardware & Variety.
This Piggly Wiggly image gives insight to mid-century grocery stores before big chains like Wal-Mart and Target served our grocery needs.
Butter Krust was the best bread around; we used to cover our textbooks with Butter Krust advertising sheets.
Isn’t this last one fun? I like how they spell Bubba as “Buba.”
Enough Already
Okay, okay, I get it. The war is over. Japan has just surrendered, and folks in Washington DC are understandably celebrating with copious amounts of PDA. But tone it down, folks. Save it for the bedroom. I’m turning into an old fuddy-duddy, aren’t I?
I Don't Get It 