For our Saturday afternoon "Intermission," here's an old postcard that was written out, but never stamped or postmarked. Perhaps it was hand-delivered. Perhaps it went into a drawer and was utterly forgotten ... until now.
The front of the card features a photograph of a woman playing a piano while a man sits and listens. They are in a well-furnished and well-decorated room. An odd filter has been applied to the image. It's green at the top and red at the bottom, and neither color does much to enhance the photo. It reminds me of stories I've heard about three-color filters that people could apply to the front of their black-and-white televisions, to make the broadcast appear in "color."1
The postcard was addressed to Mr. R.R. Daire (or possibly R.R. Gaire) of 843 West 34th Street in Baltimore, Maryland. The cursive note on the split-back card states:
"Dear Friend - I rec'd your card was very glad to hear from my soldier boy Lovingly Yours Virgie"
Footnote
1. Tiffanie, writing on her Truly Skrumptious blog in November 2012, discussed the "Instant Color TV Screen." An excerpt:
"It actually sort of worked for scenery, but obviously failed with people, especially close ups of their heads! It was a lot of fun trying though, and we were actually happy to have ours, over plain black and white. Many of you may not believe that, but it’s true, as kids we had a lot of fun with it. The same way kids these days love playing with cell phones to be like adults, we liked to pretend we had a real color TV."
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