Snubbers: The Coil That Does The Trick
Category: Travel
Mid-Century Uber
ba·rouche
/bəˈro͞oSH
noun
a four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage with a collapsible hood over the rear half, a seat in front for the driver, and seats facing each other for the passengers, used especially in the 19th century
Hanging With My Peeps 1949
Luckenbach: Population 3
We visited Luckenbach yesterday, and it was FROSTY as all get out. I could see my dang breath in November! All of Luckenbach could fit inside a regular, non-Super Center Walmart, but there were plenty of tourists visiting the gift shop, some much too young to remember the Waylon & Willie song.
Oh, The Ennui Of Driving Through Sequoias
Over 100 years ago, when this image was taken in California, the absence of windshields demanded that the driver (right-sided in this case) wore a duster and goggles as he wound his way through grounds without paved streets. Ladies often wore something similar to this.
That’s quite a bit of work required before jumping in and cranking the engine. This pint-sized pooch seems to think it’s worth it.
Why I Hate Cliffs
I don’t understand people who enjoy cliffs. I don’t get it. I need Wide. Open. Spaces. A place to breathe. This cliff is like a skyscraper all up in your face, forcing you to crane your neck like a tourist in NYC. As Debra Winger said in Urban Cowboy, “For-GIT it!”
The pic is actually the US of A on the left and Mexico on the right. Pretty much looks like there already IS a wall, with that whopping slab of 1500 ft high limestone in Santa Elena Canyon. Nothing about that two-day Rio Grande float those folks are on looks appealing to me in the SLIGHT-est.
Here’s a more modern-day image of the same canyon.
Still looks terrifying and creepy and like all the weight of that limestone is gonna come crumbling, tumbling down upon those fragile little canoes.
Seriously.
Forgit it.
Back To School: Creative Studying Solutions
Preston Tucker, owner of the Tucker Corp, tries to prove to investors that a car can be manufactured with engines in the rear.
This photo was published exactly four days after the company ceased operations of the Tucker 48. Only 51 cars were ever produced. Among other negative publicity, top newspaper columnist Drew Pearson reported that the car was a fraud because it could not go backward and it went “goose-geese” going down the road.
But what horsepower!
Oh, To Be Rich And At Sea
Art Director Mitchell Leisen is holding the plates, but he’s also the host of this July 4th, 1952 Catalina Island outing. He invited friends Cesar Romero, Mona Freeman, Rory Calhoun, and Robert Wagner aboard his boat, Escapade.
Perhaps, like me, you cannot help but think about Robert Wagner and his suspect boat activities, but this was decades prior.
Out on the water, with Mitch at the wheel, he is joined by (among others) Susan Zanuck in the hat, Cesar Romero, and Lita Baron (Mrs. Rory Calhoun).
When Lita later divorced Rory, gossip mags said she accused him of adultery with 78 women, including Betty Grable. In his 1999 obituary, he was quoted as retorting to her charge with, “Heck, she didn’t even include half of them.”
I’m not saying he did it, but I will say he stole a revolver at 13, was sent to jail, and subsequently escaped from said jail. From there, he hot-wired cars, took them for joy rides, and robbed jewelry stores for kicks. For this, he spent three years in prison.
What about you? Have you ever spent the 4th of July on a boat?
Have you ever worn long sleeves on the 4th? I can’t imagine.
Have you ever committed adultery with 78 different partners?
On The Train To Sancti Spíritus
My granddad took this photo out the window of the train he traveled across central Cuba, when he visited the island at the age of 83 in 2003. Like most of Cuba, it looks like a scene from the past, frozen in time.
Sitting At The Foot
A woman sits, perhaps speculating about the three maidens who hurled themselves down into the river below, after hearing word that their lovers were lost in the Crusades.
A fellow WordPress blogger was able to take a more current shot.
It reminds me of the Randy Travis song, “Three Wooden Crosses.” It always hurts my heart to see crosses on the side of the highway. Lives lost, people missed.
Did I Mention Menton?
Yep.
Another lady carrying stuff on her head.
Even in France.
Time To Consider Astroturf
Although the dirt is red, this ain’t Oklahoma. It’s Ndendé, a town and capital of the Dola Department in southern Gabon. Never heard of the country of Gabon? Don’t feel bad; its entire population is currently about 2 million. Compare that to the city of Houston, Texas, which is 2.3 million. And back in 1964, when this shot was taken, the country had less than half a million citizens.
Above, we see John F. Murphy coaching the boy who is about to receive the ball (let’s hope he doesn’t fumble). Murphy was in the Peace Corps and helped to clear playing fields and build schools, so that the kids wouldn’t be stuck under crumbling shanties made of wattle and thatch.
Below, he and others nail siding on to a new school that will protect children from the elements.
Murphy was also a captain in the Marine Corps, and is now a whistleblower lawyer in Hartford, Connecticut. He was known by the townspeople he helped as one of “les blancs qui travaillent” (the white people who work). A bulldozer operator for the Public Works Dept stated, “It is not myself who will see the progress. It is too late for me. But my children will go to school, and they will learn what I have never learned.”
I Don't Get It 