Saturday, January 25, 2025

Saturday's postcard: Tuning out the world in November 1962

This postcard was sent from Chicago to York, Pennsylvania, and postmarked on November 9, 1962. The Plastichrome card highlights the George Williams College Camp in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, with the caption stating "Toboganning is one of the most popular of the winter sports at George Williams College Camp on beautiful Lake Geneva."

The cursive note on the back of the card states:
"This is a beautiful and peaceful spot. I haven't read a newspaper nor heard a radio nor seen TV since Monday. See you Sunday."
Getting away from the world, especially in stressful times, is a privilege that not everyone has. But it's not hard to see why someone might have wanted a break at this particular moment. For context, this was just days after the conclusion of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when fears of imminent global nuclear war were at their absolute peak.

Other news in early November 1962 included space race and nuclear testing machinations between the United States and Soviet Union, unrest in the Middle East, the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, and the death of Eleanor Roosevelt. 

But, mostly, you can understand why someone might have wanted a vacation from the news in early November 1962, following the unfathomable tension of those 13 days in October.

Here's hoping we don't have a similar showdown with ... checks notes ... Denmark or Panama later this year.
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Friday, January 24, 2025

Postcard: Addison, Pennsylvania, a chicken, a mystery and french pickles

Here's a postcard of modest West Main Street in Addison, Pennsylvania, that's postmarked September 1913. I first wrote about Addison in 2020, and I think I have at least one more old postcard of the tiny borough somewhere. Maybe I'll get to that one in 2030, but (way) sooner would be nice! I do love old Pennsylvania postcards. Especially those that were mailed.

Zooming in a bit on West Main Street, it appears that the traffic consists of a man and a chicken. 
This postcard was mailed to Miss Mary J. Augustine of Stauffer, Pennsylvania. Or is it Stouffer? This one is a mystery, because I'm not seeing Stauffer/Stouffer on any list of historical Pennsylvania place names or unincorporated communities. The closest I could initially guess is that it's Stoufferstown, in Franklin County, which is named after Abraham Stouffer. But that didn't seem like a great fit. So I did a little more sleuthing.

Mary J. Augustine appears to have lived in Addison at some point, before moving away to the mystery location. This postcard was sent to Mary in care of William Bliss. I found the following in the digitized text of the November 10, 1904, edition of the Mount Pleasant Journal: "A broken front axle compelled William Bliss, of near Stauffer, to leave his buggy on South Church street Saturday evening." The Mount Pleasant Journal was a publication in Westmoreland County. So Stauffer's somewhere in that county, though it's no longer a place anyone refers to by that name, it seems.

The cursive message on the card states:
Read your card was glad to hear you was better [Can't deciper] still alright I canned more tomatoes today have 27 qt now have beans nearly all picked & french pickles made have not hear from Dr. today [Can't decipher]
According to Wikipedia, "Cornichons, or baby pickles, are tart French pickles made from gherkins pickled in vinegar and tarragon." So that's a thing I learned today.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Snoopy (a Peanuts book)


Snoopy is one of the very first books I remember having on my childhood bedroom bookshelf. It was this book, though not this exact copy. This is a replacement copy I picked up after having nostalgia pangs and realizing I should never have divested myself of the original copy. 

I had this book at least as early as 1978, when we were living in Clayton, New Jersey. It's very possible I got the original copy at a book fair or from one of those classroom order forms. That would make sense, given that this was a Weekly Reader Books publication.

Snoopy was first published in 1958. It must have remained quite popular and gone through many printings over the years and decades. This Holt, Reinhart and Winston/Weekly Reader Books edition doesn't have a specific publication date on the copyright page, but there's a 10-digit ISBN listed. I believe that means this hardcover edition must have been published in 1970 or thereafter. 

As the cover portends, this book is devoted solely to four-panel Peanuts cartoons from the 1950s that feature Snoopy, Charlie Brown's beloved dog.

Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts launched as a newspaper comic strip in 1950, so the iconic characters were still in their formative stages during that first decade. And some hadn't even arrived yet.

As Ewomack notes in a 2018 review on Amazon, in this book we get to see "Snoopy thinking, running, needing a toe clipping, doing tricks, rolling his empty water dish, chasing snowflakes, stealing blankets, frolicking, dancing on pianos, running from weeds, calling children 'idiots,' doing imitations, avoiding worms on the sidewalk, sitting on croquet poles, confusing leaves for potato chips and bumping into things. Snoopy represented a form of comic liberation for readers. He often did whatever he wanted to and pretty much always got away with it. He also provided a canine perspective on human activity, a skewed lens through which we could evaluate our own often silly behavior."

The readers and Snoopy also get to witness a pretty amazing moment, if you're familiar with Charlie Brown's fortunes kicking the football. Lucy had already established herself as Charlie Brown's football-holding nemesis in the early 1950s, so maybe Charlie Brown should have just stuck with Schroeder.
As a copy editor, the thing I'm most appreciative about with regard to Snoopy is the "I Before E Except After C" song from the 1969 Peanuts film A Boy Named Charlie Brown. That has helped me with many spelling double-checks over the years. 

Peanuts is a Linus-comfort-blanket of a comic strip for many Boomers and members of Generation X, such as myself. It would be nice to have a digital-free weekend getaway to a cabin in the woods and take along one of those hefty The Complete Peanuts hardcovers, perhaps encompassing the strips of the early or mid 1960s.

But for now I'm just fine with my little Snoopy hardcover.
Fiona Fluffington is bored by Snoopy. This week I learned that she really likes grated parmesan on her food. 
Her other names are IceBear and Mademoiselle Fifi (taken from the Simone Simon film).

Monday, January 20, 2025

January 20, 2025