Weirdest thing I'll purge this year

I'm continuing to downsize and this takes up way too much shelf space, so I posted it to my neighborhood's "free stuff" Facebook page with this note: 

Gift cemetery

For my first post on here, I promise this will be the weirdest thing I ever post and then it will be much more normal after that. This is a model cemetery that was clearly someone's art project long ago. Maybe it fits someone's aesthetic or model railroad??? It's about 8.5 inches by 12 inches. Comes with an unattached sheep that is disproportionately sized compared to the cemetery. .... Just want to see if anyone is interested because I'd hate to toss it.

If  there are no takers, I'll at least keep the sheep.

A bookmark to finally begin the year

I've been in a bad rut to start 2026, and the spiraling state of our nation (to put it mildly) in what should be its celebratory 250th anniversary year certainly is a big contributor to that daily depression.

We have to find ways to keep plowing forward and I'm starting Papergreat's 17th calendar year with some short posts about items I've come across during some recent sorting and decluttering of family ephemera. Every January brings a fresh urge to purge stuff for sanity's sake. I hope this year sees more meaningful progress by me in that regard.

This is a greeting card that was designed to be a bookmark, if you detach the front cover of the card. It's stained and there's a tear at the bottom, but I've fixed that with tape and I'm going to put this in my pile of bookmarks and toss the rest of the card, along with the generic cursive message.

The bookmark was produced by Yorkraft and the card is printed with the following explanatory message: "Hand colored Book-Marks (Lese Ziechen), similar to this, with designs derived from religious symbolism, were used to mark the place many old Pennsylvania Dutch Bibles and Hymnals."

For some information about Yorkraft we turn to the York Daily Record and a 2016 Universal York blog post by June Lloyd. The company dates to at least the mid 1940s and manufactured "decorative signs and novelties, including Pennsylvania Dutch trinkets." Lloyd's post cites a 1946 advertisement that states: 

"YORKRAFT Pennsylvania Dutch… Greeting Cards and Gift items, for inspiration, draw upon a rich store of folklore and folk-arts of the Pennsylvania Dutch who have probably contributed more than any other group, to the Early American Folk Arts. Yorkraft has caught the charm and spirit of their decoration and design, their quaint speech and humor and their picturesque dress and customs, which still persist in Pennsylvania and to some extent in other parts of the country settled by Pennsylvania Dutch folks."

There are hundreds of Yorkraft items currently for sale on eBay, some dating to the late 1970s. I'm actually a little surprised that this is the company's first-ever mention on Papergreat. Items range from a set of blank Amish-themed notecards for less than $10 to faux stained-glass display pieces to Pennsylvania Dutch recipe booklets to a 1969 "Make Love Not War" wooden sign that's pretty damn cool and is listed for $329.99.

Sorting out the tiny drawers

The above photo is from nearly 15 years ago (September 14, 2010). It's my cubicle at the York Daily Record, where I had a set of tiny drawers that I used to sort paperclips, thumb tacks and other office supplies. It was very nerdy and mostly unnecessary. How often does one truly need a thumb tack or rubber band in the course of a workweek? 

Eventually, the tiny drawers ended up back home. And over many years and a couple of moves, I stashed very random things into the drawers, stuffing most of them full. 

Last week we did an excavation. Joan, Ashar and I went through the drawers one by one and sorted stuff into five piles: Sell, Trash, Office Supplies, Tuck Away Inside A Book and Keep. Yes, that's a very Papergreat set of categories. What did you expect? 

We came across all sorts of stuff. Just to name a few: Game pieces, sports and movie ticket stubs, Christmas light bulbs, baseball cards, small pencils, stickers, a bar of soap, keys, buttons, a locket of Coby's hair, pins, small photos, bottlecaps, wrappers, keychain trinkets, Dick Clark's autograph, a small piece of candy that I ate, coins, tokens, my wedding ring and much more. It was a lot of fun! Some of the cats even "helped."

And we were getting rid of stuff in multiple ways, so that was great too. There's already a listing on eBay for some of the stuff. Here are some photos:

Sunday evening ramblings

Blargh. Between the national news, the desert heat, the prospect of returning to work in the morning, taking care of the cats and did I mention the national news, my mind is all over the place this afternoon and evening.

I missed my normal window of putting together a coherent blog post this morning, partly because the Phillies-Nationals game started at 8:35 a.m., Arizona time.

I'm behind on posting as it is. I do have a lot of good starter ideas stacking up in Blogger's "Unpublished" queue. It's just time that I need. Don't we all? 

Anyway, here's a miscellaneous collection of stuff that's been on my radar and won't be in a separate post:

1. I made a cryptic reference to Orson Welles last Sunday, but I no longer have the energy or desire to do that as a separate post. I was going to write about how Ash and I watched the ridiculous 1981 "documentary" (it really shouldn't be called that) The Man Who Saw Tomorrow, in which narrator Welles shares the prophecies of Nostradamus, as badly interpreted by Erika Cheetham. 

Skip it and watch F for Fake if you're looking for something involving Welles pulling one over on the public. I stand by what I wrote about The Man Who Saw Tomorrow in 2018: "The supernatural-seeming angle and the fiery, horrifying visions of the future offered by the film ... preyed on both Cold War fears of nuclear annihilation and racist anti-Arab sentiment. It cast "The Middle East" as some strange land from which a devilish villain would start the gears of World War III into motion in the 1990s." That is not an endorsement.

Further reading: Reddit and Jedadiah Leland on the Through the Shattered Lens website.

2. RIP, Terence Stamp. My official favorite movies of his are The Limey, Spirits of the Dead and Superman II. But my secret favorite movie of his is the absolutely bonkers Modesty Blaise (1966), where he saves the world alongside Monica Vitti. 

3. Want to help a New York City bookstore, spread the availability of books and contribute in a small way to the ideas of social justice? There's a summer book drive for Bluestockings Cooperative, a bookstore located at 116 Suffolk Street in New York. They're seeking new and gently used books on the topics of race, gender, sexuality, class, socialism, anarchism and more. The book drive continues through Sept. 1. For me, it was a very positive way to chip away, once again, at Resimplify Me and clear some shelf space. Here's the poster. 

4. Speaking of books, this amazing dust jacket cover showed up in my BlueSky feed recently. Adventures with Phantoms, by British ghost hunter Robert Thurston Hopkins (1884-1958), was published in 1946. I hadn't heard of this one before, so I'll have to keep my eyes peeled. It would look dandy alongside the likes of Haunted England and A Ghost Hunter's Game Book.

5. That's all for now, folks.

"That belongs in a museum"

I've been trying, on and off, for more than a decade to find a new home for this behemoth Emergency Resource Management Plan. Joan and I acquired it in a bulk lot of used books circa 2010.

As I wrote 13 years ago on this blog:

In 1967, two years after the end of his second (nonconsecutive) term as Delaware's governor and less than five years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Elbert Nostrand Carvel received this 2½-inch-thick, six-pound blue binder from the state's Office of Emergency Planning. It begins with a letter indicating: "The State of Delaware has developed a plan for the assessment and management of its resources in the event of an emergency caused by a nuclear attack on this country." 

There are tabbed sections on Construction and Housing; Economic Stabilization; Food; Health and Water; Industrial Production; Manpower; Petroleum, Gas and Solid Fuels; Transportation; and Electric Power.

I'm dubious about how helpful all of this planning would have been following a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. And now it's just a relic. A six-pound doorstop that encapsulates a moment of state-level planning during the Cold War. A monument to the folly of believing there would be survivability in armageddon.

But an important monument. It's history, and I think it's crucial that it be preserved. So I hauled it from house to house during two different moves. We had it in our Dover Antique Mall vending space at one point, but there were no takers. And I've listed it online several times without getting any bites. Finally, I gave it another go on eBay — and there was a taker.

It's going to a museum!

This is the greatest possible outcome. The historic blue behemoth now belongs to the National Museum of Civil Defense, located at Randolph Air Force Base in central Texas. 

The nonprofit museum was formed in 2020 and, in the short time since then, according to its website, it "has grown into an organization with the largest known Collection of related artifacts and archival materials. The NMCD connects with the public through online and social media presence, related conferences, oral history interviews, and artifact preservation." The museum does not have a permanent brick-and-mortar location yet, but is planning toward that end. In the meantime, interested researchers can make arrangements to view the collection.

This is how those who operate the museum describe U.S. civil defense history:

"Civil Defense is defined as 'plans or activities organized by civilians and civilian authorities for the protection of civilian population and property in times of such disasters or emergencies as war or floods.' The United States has had some form of a Civil Defense program since the formation of the Office of Civilian Defense in 1941. Since then, the focus, size, scope, and visibility of the program has ebbed and flowed with the changing geopolitical tides.  Tied to developments in strategic nuclear weapons, missiles, and even spy satellites ​— it endured name changes to 'Civil Preparedness' and later 'Emergency Management.' Throughout this time, thousands of men and women (both paid employees and volunteers) at the federal, state, and local government dedicated themselves to the goal of protecting the public against catastrophe.

​"Today, Civil Defense is often seen in the public eye as a curiosity — generally associated with the early Cold War. Too often, the prevailing historical perspective on Civil Defense is less than a superficial footnote. It is the utmost goal of our organization to preserve this history in a way that reflects the dignity and urgency of the program, and the people who created and dedicated their lives to it. The Museum believes that there are many stories remaining to be told."

And now the story of Delaware's state-level emergency planning in the late 1960s can be told with more detail, too. I'm thrilled to have helped in a tiny way to make this possible. 

Before "Collector's Luck" heads out the door ...

As part of the Resimplify Me pruning, 1919's Collector's Luck, by Alice Van Leer Carrick (1875-1961) is among the stuff headed out the door tomorrow.

But it's a pretty nifty 106-year-old volume, with a lot of character, so I thought I'd highlight it with some photos for posterity.

The book's subtitle tells you all you need to know about what's inside: "A Repository of Pleasant and Profitable Discourses Descriptive of the Household Furniture of Ornaments of Olden Time."

The book has had numerous homes over the years. A blacked-out bookplate on the inside front cover indicates it was part of the reference library at the Baltimore Museum of Art. 

Many many pages of the book have a performating stamp indicating that it was part of the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. I have no idea why there was a need to damage so many pages in this way. A red stamp on the title page indicates that it was withdrawn from Enoch Pratt at some point.

The last page and the inside back cover feature Enoch Pratt's due-date label and the circulation card pocket. Many people checked this book out, with due-date stamps spanning 1934 to 1938. 

Without further ado, here are some photos...

And here is Mademoiselle Fifi (IceBear), who turned 3 today, along with her sister Pete.

Travel diary downsizing stress

As family members passed away, I came into possession of the world travel diaries of:

• My great-grandmother: Greta Miriam Chandler Adams (1894-1988)
• My grandmother: Helen Chandler Adams Ingham (1919-2003)
• Mom: Mary Margaret Ingham Otto (1948-2017)

They've been taking up a fair amount of space in a drawer. But I really must continue downsizing, and what am I supposed to do with them? It's kind of overwhelming and stressful, to be honest. (And, yes, I know this is a First World Problem.)

A big issue is that much of Greta's and Helen's handwriting is nearly indecipherable to me. And that's saying a lot, because I've prided myself on deciphering the old cursive handwriting on many postcards and other pieces of ephemera over the years for Papergreat. I could probably decipher most of it eventually, but I'm not sure if it's worth the work, and I'm not exactly swimming in time. This may be unfair, but 90% of it is along the lines of "Seas were calm today," "Had lunch with a nice couple from Topeka" and "Walked around the city and bought a pair of shoes." Going through pages and pages and pages of that is not how I envision my days. On the other hand, though, it's family history.

I'm going to try my best to sort through them, keep just a handful, and put the rest on eBay as a bulk lot. If the diaries can make someone else happy and I have less STUFF in drawers and closets and boxes, I think that's a win-win. 

In the meantime, here are some photos from the sorting ...

In the end, I went with about a 50-50 split, with half of the travel diaries going onto eBay (below, left) and the others going back in the drawer for now (below, right). I'm OK with that as progress. I'm keeping all of Mom's and among the others I'm keeping is a travel diary Greta kept in the summer of 1915, when she was just 21 and had much better handwriting. That will be well worth reading, I think.

Madeline Brandeis revisited

I had almost forgotten that I wrote about some of Madeline Brandeis' books ten years ago. I guess that's par for the course for my brain, which has been turned to oatmeal by current events, these days.

I thought I had just this week learned that the children's author was also a director, taking the helm of 1918's silent fairy tale film The Star Prince. But I guess I had known that, too, as I wrote in 2015: "In her amazing and too-short life, she was also a pioneer filmmaker. You can read about those efforts at the Women Film Pioneers Project." You can also read about Brandeis' The Star Prince in this review from one of my favorite film bloggers, Movies Silently. That review notes: "The story is heavily influenced by fairy tales and there are bad aspects to that as well as good. Equating beauty with goodness is not such a great lesson, nor is making the main villain a dwarf. I think Brandeis’s heart was in the right place but some of the decisions do not exactly work."

Anyway, I was reading up (refreshing my memory) about Brandeis because I'm selling some of her books on eBay as part of Resimplify Me. It's a small collection that includes volumes from her Children of All Lands and Children of America series for younger readers. Hopefully they will make nice additions to someone's collection.

As part of putting that listing together, I came across these neat old inscriptions in a few of the Brandeis books, which I'll share here for posterity...

Above: Inscription inside The Little Dutch Tulip Girls

Above: Inscription inside Little Rose of the Mesa.

Above: Inscription inside Little John of New England.

Saturday's postcards: 2 cards stashed away more than a decade ago

It's been a quiet (though windy) Saturday. After taking care of all the cat chores — including feeding community ferals Mamacita, Creamsicle and MeowMix — this morning, I spent some more time pruning circa 2012-2014 time capsules, finishing with a satisfyingly heavy bag bound for the trash can. 

During the pruning, I came across a handful of postcards, including these two. The first features a black bear (photographed by Hälle Flygare). More than a decade ago, I put stamps on it but then had some sort of false start on the Postcrossing card I intended to send. So now I have available a bear postcard featuring Jimi Hendrix and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus stamps (both issued in 2014). Thanks to the nature of USPS forever stamps, the postage is still correct for sending an international postcard! 

The other postcard is a blank "Silveresque" card published by Valentine's. Edinburgh Castle has appeared on Papergreat before, but not this particular card. Now it has once again been liberated from an envelope and can be mailed to someone, to cheer up their day.

Revisiting 2016 (Part 3)

OK, it's time to conclude cleaning out the time capsule marked "Calendar Year 2016." Here's the final collection of running observations and snapshots from this eclectic collection of everyday ephemera dating to the last full year of the Obama administration...

1. We were involved in the York County 4-H Alpaca Club, so I reckon that one of its associated events is how I came across this delightful and ridiculous flyer for a "Galactic Genetic Gathering of Alpacas" in Iowa. 

2. I kept so many yellow receipts from the York Emporium, and I will continue to hold onto them. They're great for tucking away inside books.

3.  An empty wrapper for key lime Creamy Coconut Patties from Anastasia Confections.  

4. A menu for Masa Bistro, one of our favorite York-area restaurants back in the day.

5. There was a little blank notebook in the time capsule with the note "Log the stories you find in this box." I guess I'm blogging as my way of logging. I'll use the notebook to document something else.  

6. On the back of this business card, I wrote "Funniest card I picked up on drive to FL." (I was on a road trip to visit Dad.)

7. A movie ticket stub for Star Trek Beyond, the last movie I watched in a theater with Mom.

8. A printout from the website I Waited 96 Years! ... The website still exists and includes this message as of today: "In the weeks before the 2016 election, this website featured 186 women, ages 96 to 105, who were eager to elect Hillary Clinton. These women were born before the 19th Amendment and were, for the first time, voting for a woman for president of the United States. ... Then, in 2020, we followed up with a few of the (now) centenarians when the female presidential candidates suspended their campaigns. And in 2024, we gathered reflections from one inspiring 106-year-old. At this critical and challenging moment, our nation needs these women’s voices and wisdom more than ever."  

9. A copy of LNP | LancasterOnline's Trending section that leads with an article about Little Free Libraries. The article is still online.

10. A printout of an email sent to me with the subject line "The Troubles," in which one of my former Penn State University journalism professors, discussing the Penn State child sex abuse scandal, tells me "You make incisive comments on Twitter. Keep up the good work."

Speaking of Twitter...

11. ...Not all of my comments were incisive, although the sentiment about Philip Seymour Hoffman still stands.

Also speaking of Twitter...

12. ... This is pretty darn funny. I had mentioned 2016's Pokémon Go phenomenon in Part 1. This also marks the first appearance of a Bulbasaur on Papergreat.

13. A brochure for the Long's Park Summer Music Series in Lancaster.

14. An editorial cartoon, relevant then and now, that I printed and saved.  

15. A Powerball ticket that wasn't a winner. Jackpot was $142 million.

16. A business card for Too Many Books in Roanoke, Virginia. On the back, I wrote "This store had a big friendly black poodle. And some books." The bookstore is still in business. Last August, a Yelp reviewer wrote: "Talk about charming! The store is two floors and has a lovely collection of history/non-fiction upstairs and fiction downstairs. ... I found several names/titles that were new to me and felt like I was prowling around my Pop-pop's basement the whole time. Magical!"

17. Finally, there's a sealed envelope inside the box. A time capsule within a time capsule. "Random old photos of unknown, unrelated folks," the front of the envelope states. I don't have the energy right now, so look for exploration of this one in a future post, maybe.