Vintage – Page 69 – I Don't Get It

Paw-Paw & Me

Why Paint The Town Red When You Can Paint Your Home Pink?

Even more cliche than those drugstore Father’s Day cards referencing golf and ale consumption and handyman tools, are the ones that show Dad taking a paint roller to his bird’s egg blue brick house and painting it Pepto-Bismol pink.

Okay, so he’s actually painting a pink house blue. That makes more sense. Perhaps Mom just painted it pink a month ago for Mother’s Day, and now it’s HIS day and his color. He gets eleven months of blue, but she only gets four weeks of pink. That’s not fair.

But, really, what’s wrong with the pink? Pink houses were so coveted in the 80s, in fact, that John Cougar Mellencamp even wrote a song about it.

Here he is in the video, excitedly pumping up the cheerleader and sweat-domed, sleeveless buddy whom he had recruited to paint the basic white clapboard house behind him. All hail pink houses! And really, ain’t that America, for you and me?

The ad continues with way more paragraphs than necessary, as was the way back in the day, when people weren’t reading posts on phones and had plenty of time to sit and read a short-story-length ad on paint.

And what mid-century dad didn’t appreciate a can of SPRED Glide-On, not to be confused with Astroglide? Glidden also made a latex wall paint called SPRED Satin, for even fancier fathers.

So maybe Dad didn’t want a pink house for good reason. What do you think? A palace fit for a king? Not even for a vacation house? Sometimes less is more.

Dad Can’t Wait To Open His Father’s Day Card

Put More Sugar In Lisa

This ad from my May 19, 1967 LIFE blows my mind. (scroll down for larger type)

It literally says, “Make sure you get sugar every day. People need what sugar’s got.” People don’t need more sugar. I’ve got plenty of sugar in me. I’ll tell you what I need: Lisa’s life. Lisa’s got it made. Trust fund much? I don’t see anything here about clocking in and working for the man.

Now THERE’S a metaphor!

No Hoodlums Here

That look on his face on the far left…

September 9th, 1936

Rare is the time that an antique mall image has a date on the back, like this one of these two stylish ladies did. In addition, it was also printed with “Alton E Bowers Photo Service.” A little world wide web research shows that Mr. Bowers opened his first photo studio 101 years ago in Reading, Pennsylvania. He retired 40 years later in 1956. When Vince Bellman took over the business at Bowers’ retirement, he modernized the printing process and expanded.

Per www.readingeagle.com,

Alton grew his business by picking up film orders to develop from drugstores and process in his studio. He served as a military photographer in World War I and would join Orville Wright in a crude biplane to snap photos high above Reading.

Lori [Bellman’s daughter] said that when Alton Bowers began his photography business 100 years ago, he had an amateur finishing service, which was not something that was readily available. Most of his business was portraiture and quick photofinishing.

Because of the weight and bulk of the camera equipment, portraits came from the studio, Lori said. She explained that the development of the compact and lightweight Brownie camera changed people’s ability to get photo prints, “and everything started being amateur and home-accessible.”

In 1977, Alton E Bowers Photography Studio was the first in the country to open a one hour photo lab. Who knew this one picture would lead to such historical information?

AustinAntMall005

I Can’t Wait To Die So I Can Haunt This House

Victorian era peeps rarely looked happy to be alive. Maybe it was the ten minutes each morning spent lacing up boots or corsets or angling their hats just so. Maybe it was the frustration of pier and beam homes on those windy cold winter’s nights, wishing they had concrete foundations. The only information written on the picture was that Agnes is the girl on the left, and Lois is the girl on the right. Lois is the only one who seems to be enjoying the day, possibly because swings. No swings = stern.

She Loves Me Like A Rock

How’s this for the mother and child reunion? What joy radiates from both of their faces. You can see why I couldn’t pass this snapshot up.

With Mother’s Day coming up, I thought I’d share a few pics of mothers and their children. She looks tickled to death that her son was granted a furlough to visit her.

This next mom lacks the enthusiasm of the others, but perhaps the corset has got her muscles too tightened to smile.

And lastly, we have a much more recent pic that looks to be from the 60s. If you ask me, it looks like Shirley Temple Black and a Kewpie doll.

Am I right or Amarillo?

Spread Your Wings And Stay Put

Pictures like this keep my blog title accurate. I don’t get this at all. Southern Methodist University students dressed to the nines behind a wide-winged pelican (statue, I presume). Campus isn’t near the beach; it’s in Dallas, and the mascot is a mustang. What does it all mean?

Deeper into the yearbook, bobbed flapper hair was all the rage.

Ain’t she a catch?

The inner yearbook cover offered this interesting map, with lines radiating from the university campus. Note the lyrics to “She’ll be coming ’round the mountain when she comes,” the first printed version of which had only just appeared in Carl Sandburg‘s The American Songbag five years prior.