Category: Photography

Into The Valley Of The Mallee

Herald Sun

During WWII, Australia, like many countries, forced citizens to ration supplies. While fuel was rationed, wood was not, so these Australians used all manner of buggy to tote mallee root home. Never heard of mallee root? Well, it’s the rootstock of a mallee tree, of the genus Eucalyptus, which we’ve all heard of, because we picture koalas snug in their branches. And you probably have zero where you live. But Down Under, it was used to burn, like charcoal. Not a pretty sight, but functional.

Four springs ago, a competition was held for biggest mallee root, and this entry from Tooleybuc (a glorious name) was just shy of winning. However, it was more photogenic than the winner, so please enjoy what appears to be a sports bra hanging from its upper root.

https://www.abc.net.au/

But mallee isn’t just for drying skivvies. No indeed. At the mallee root festival in Ouyen, guests witness root tossing competitions. Whoever throws a 9 kilo (nearly 20 lb) stump the furthest, wins. I suppose when they’re done, they can simply set fire to all the mallee and be done with it.

And if you were lucky enough to win the event’s root lotto, you could later enjoy the evening in the honeymoon suite at the Patchewollock Pub. Who knew pubs had suites? Well, this one even has murals.

Their Facebook site reads like another language:

The Dry and Flynn Gurry this Saturday night… Fairy floss and snacks available. Enter paddock next to the pub via Federation Street near the truck stage.”

Pardon me?

I’ll Give You Something To Smile About

In true I Don’t Get It fashion, I know not if these are cheeseheads, pyramid fans, or Delta crowns. I can surmise that tobacco is being shared, but I cannot fathom the reason for such ruffled collars. In any case, I hope these smiles are contagious.

All images from 1937 UT Cactus

People Who Didn’t Get The Johnson & Johnson Vaccine

Portrait of an Era

The Roaring 20s (which seemed exponentially better than these current less-roaring/more rioting ones) offered these ladies the hedonistic pleasure of mounting a punt on the Thames during the Henley Regatta. To this day, if one is seated in The Stewards’ Enclosure, members must abide by a strict dress code of lounge suits for men and dresses or skirts ( with hemlines below the knee) for women. Culottes are specifically cited as unacceptable. This is a regatta, not a hootenanny! Clearly these gals were less about decorum and more about revelry.

To This Day, None Has Brittle Bones

Herald Sun

The children of Rathdowne Street State School in Melbourne had cause to celebrate the phosphorus and protein inherent in whole milk during a 1959 visit to Jim Davison’s dairy farm.

Inspired Cinder Block Art

West Texas State 1969

You cannot tell by the expressions on the faces of these short-haired ladies, but they were truly in the presence of not only higher education, but higher decoration. So much is left to the imagination! Is that a tree on the left? If so, is this a Japanese painting of a willow tree at a stream? Is it prairie grass? Helter skelter? Kilroy was here? Is it simply the crayon chaos of a toddler? No matter. Patty, put more parmesan on the pizza.

These fellows presumably were denied the scrawled ambience of the former picture, but instead had a tableside jukebox. Or its it a phone? I can hardly tell.

Does this booth have a phone as well? Who were folks calling? Maybe in days of yore, before Instagramming your brunch, you called everyone you knew one by one, to describe the way the yolk ran out of the poach as your fork tine punctured it?

All I know is, this little frosh is eating away her cares with a nice serving of dessert! Sometimes it’s sad to be plaid.

Just A Trim

Reminisce: Pics of the Past/pic from Bertha Jacobson

Three-year-old Joyce Bjerk towers high above the ground below in her father Oscar’s barber shop in Karlstad, Minnesota. Pop’s sign above the swanky Maytag washing machine declares a haircut and a shave for a fair price of just two quarters. Joyce seems to be getting the standard kids’ cut of 1934. At least she knows it’s on the house.

When Granddad Threatens To Harness The Power Of The Sun

Nat Geo 9/48

I don’t know anything about machines, so that looks like a cross between one of my mixing bowls (which reminds me, I need to make tuna salad tonight) and a hubcap, next to some cans of motor oil. It is, in fact, a solar-powered steam engine built by noted astrophysicist Dr. Charles G. Abbot. As any fool can see, the reflector focuses the sun’s rays on the boiler tube, which generates steam that drives the tiny engine. No duh.

But Abbot was smarter than the whole lot of us, retiring as both the director of the Smithsonian’s Astrophysical Observatory, as well as the first Smithsonian Secretary not to die in office. Furthermore, it appeared that he might never die out of office, as the bloke who was already 76 in the above image still yet had another quarter century to fiddle around with gadgets. He spent over 40 years developing and maintaining solar monitoring systems as his mission in life. Here you see him (in an almost Chester Conklin mustache) with his silver-disc pyrheliometer, which measured direct beam solar irradiance.

He invented the solar cooker, which was first built at Mount Wilson Observatory, the solar boiler, and held fifteen other patents related to solar energy. At 96, he was still going strong, holding what appears to be an extensive CVS receipt, but is actually a print-out of solar observations.

wikipedia

My observation: it’s hot.

What Eating Feels Like When You Have COVID

Blah. Everything tastes like cardboard, which is to say, almost nothing. The unfortunate thing is that sometimes, you’ll get an inkling of salt or of sour, but without context of other flavors, it’s just a nasty taste on your tongue. So you look like mopey Barbara here, a four-year-old hybrid gibbon, back in September of 1948, when this National Geographic image came out.

You might hate on zoos, but Barbara’s mother decided she wasn’t too keen on her offspring and refused to feed her. So without the keeper to spoon feed her, she would have certainly perished. Like a human, she sucked her thumb and played with a rattle. And I imagine she took that bottle there as well.