Saturday's postcard: Adams County note from 111 years ago

This note was written almost exactly 111 years ago, on St. Patrick Day's (March 17), 1909. It was sent from Fairfield, Pennsylvania, to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Those places are both located in Adams County, Pennsylvania, about eight miles apart.

I am actually surprised that this is the first mention of Fairfield on Papergreat, nearly 3,400 days into the blog. It's a scenic little borough near the Pennsylvania/Maryland border. When I worked at The Gettysburg Times from spring 1993 until the end of 1994, I covered sports at all of the Adams County high schools: Gettysburg, Fairfield, Biglerville (Upper Adams), Littlestown, New Oxford (Conewago Valley), Bermudian Springs and Delone Catholic.

This postcard was sent from Emma in Fairfield to Miss Blanch Culbertson in Gettysburg. The "Fairfield Letter" in the October 10, 1891, edition of the Adams County Independent reports that Miss Blanch Culbertson had left to attend Wilson College in nearby Chambersburg. In February 1915, the Adams County News listed Blanch among those attending a "very enjoyable evening" at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Armor Weikert. By 1936, she was back in Fairfield and at some point had become Mrs. Blanch Culbertson Moore, according to The Gettysburg Times.

And it might just be that her first name was misspelled by friends and newspapers all those decades, because Find A Grave notes that Blanche Culbertson Moore lived from 1873 to 1941 and is buried in Gettysburg. She spent a major portion of her life working at The Peddie School.

Here, based on my best reading of the cursive writing, is what Emma wrote to Blanch/Blanche 111 years ago:

Fairfield
March 17th 1909
My dear Blanch,
Was glad to get your card, sorry to hear your mama was still in bed. Glad Aunt Beckie is staying longer. Jimmy [?] has been having a terrible time with his abcess. It shows signs of opening today for the first. He is looking very pale and badly, can scarcely eat at all. Mattie [?] is still in the office. I am feeling some better. I have engaged a girl by the name of Macklyn [Mackly??], from the mountain. I don't know what kind of a girl she may be, but she will do until I can do better. Much love to Mama and Beckie. Do write every few days.
Aunt Emma

And yes, I lament that we will never know more about the girl from the mountain.

Snapshot & memories: Me & Cyrano

Here's a photograph of my cat Cyrano and I at the house on Oak Crest Lane in Wallingford. This ended up being my senior "casual" portrait in Strath Haven High School's 1989 yearbook, so it was taken no later than Autumn 1988. Cyrano was the second cat our family had during my lifetime, following Buddy.¹ We got him in 1980 when he was a kitten and he lived until 1995 or 1996. Cyrano was part Siamese and was able to deploy quite the piercing yowl. He name, no surprise, came from the fact that his nose was quite prominent on his kitten face when we adopted him. Cyrano was for the most part a shy and skittish cat, though he got more personable as he got older. By 1986, he had lived in four different houses already, so all the changes probably made him a bit wary of life. He also spent a couple of his early years tucked, against his will, under my sister's arm at bedtime, like a ragdoll. My main recollections are that he enjoyed naps and food, which sounds about right for a cat. He also loved olives.

Footnote
1. And I just realized there has never been a photo of Buddy on Papergreat, so I'll have to dig into the snapshot shoebox and rectify that.

Promotional sheet for Deluxe Baseball by Ramtek

This evening we have the front and back of an 8½-by-11 promotional sheet for Deluxe Baseball, an arcade game sold (and/or licensed) by the Ramtek Corporation of Sunnyvale, California, starting in 1976. As you can see, it was marketed as a "new, truly realistic game" that featured curveballs and fastballs, strikeouts, home runs, walks, hits, double plays, errors and a "big stadium." I'm not sure, though, if the realistic features also included stealing signs by banging on a trash can.

The back of the sheet shows the 23-inch playing field, which reminds me a bit of Intellivision's Major League Baseball, which didn't come out until four years later, in 1980. So Deluxe Baseball looked pretty spiffy for 1976!

Deluxe Baseball could be played by one or two players and additional features included repositioning outfielders. As this flyer was a sales pitch (no pun intended) to owners of amusement arcades and similar sites, it stressed that "Ramtek video games are backed by the most responsive service in the industry. When repairs are needed, they're done fast. And new logic boards can be in the air within 24 hours. When it comes to service, Ramtek doesn't play games." The logic boards had only a one-year warranty, though. There's no indication of how much these 210-pound machines cost.

Tooling around the internet a bit, I learned:

• The game was created by Howell Ivy. According to Alexander Smith's 2019 book They Create Worlds: The Story of the People and Companies That Shaped the Video Game Industry, Vol. I: 1971-1982, Ivy had been in the Air Force before joining Ramtek as its only game engineer. Ivy first created the ball-and-paddle arcade game Baseball, which was rereleased one year later in a standard arcade cabinet as Deluxe Baseball. Smith notes: "The additional complexity of the game over ball-and-paddle concepts required two circuit boards instead of one, which led to problems during the manufacturing run. The first 1,500 of the roughly 2,000 units proved defective because the wooden housing containing the two boards proved too flimsy to handle the job. Ramtek ended up having to replace the wooden housing with a metal one at considerable cost."
• You can learn more about Howell Ivy in this 2014 interview with Retro Gamer and at this page on the Valley Christian Schools website.
• Writing on The Golden Age Arcade Historian blog, which was published from 2012 to 2016, Keith Smith has a detailed history of Ramtek's ups and downs in which he reports, among many other great details, that the company had sold more than 10,000 arcade games by the end of 1974, for a sales total of $6 million. (That would be about $600 per machine, which gives us a rough estimate of what Deluxe Baseball might have cost arcade owners in 1976.)

Sci-fi book cover: "Star Ways" (aka Kilts in Space?)

• Title: Star Ways
• Cover blurb: "Enjoyable from first to last. Fast-moving and convincing." — Astounding Science-Fiction
• Author: Poul Anderson (1926-2001). One of the titans of the science-fiction genre. He was born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to Danish parents. According to the Nebula Awards website, "Anderson is probably best known for adventure stories in which larger-than-life characters succeed gleefully or fail heroically. His characters were nonetheless thoughtful, often introspective, and well developed. His plot lines frequently involved the application of social and political issues in a speculative manner appropriate to the science fiction genre."

• Cover artist: Ed Emshwiller, according to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. (He's not credited in the book, but his nickname appears within the illustration.) Emshwiller's work was also featured in this 2014 post.
• Publisher: Ace Books (D-568)
• Cover price: 35 cents
• Publication year: 1963 for this edition. Star Ways was first published in 1956 and has many editions.
• Pages: 143
• Format: Paperback
• Dediction: "To the MFS — all of them"
• First sentence: There is a planet beyond the edge of the known, and its name is Rendezvous.
• Wouldn't having a name make it known? Hush up.
• Last sentence: The sky darkened around them and the stars came forth.
• What came fifth? Oh, a wise guy, eh?
• Random sentence from the middle: His black eyebrows lifted courteously.
• I got nothing. Me either.
• Goodreads rating: 3.28 stars (out of 5.0)
• Goodreads review excerpt: In 2014, Ari wrote: "It was one of Anderson's first novels, and the style feels a bit more clipped and the characters a bit shallower than his later work. ... The economics in the novel make no sense. It's hard to imagine interstellar starships selling home made handicrafts."
• Amazon rating: 2.4 stars (out of 5.0) Some of those low ratings appear to have been unfairly assigned due to the quality of the ebook edition the reader purchased.
• Amazon review excerpt: In 2017, Indiana Reviewer wrote: "The book displays an early version of Poul Anderson which includes some quite unrealistic SF elements. That an alien who evolved on another world could pass for a stunningly beautiful woman is unlikely to the extreme, and is a fatal and unrepairable flaw in this novel, for that is a central theme from beginning to end. If the reader can overlook that, the story is quite decent."
• Reddit dunks on the cover: Some excerpts:
  
  • I dig the space kilt! Finally the fellas have to suffer with impractical spacewear!
  • It looks like Emsh took every prop he had in the room for that wardrobe idea.
  • I don't think plaid should be paired with... any of that.

Schoolchildren and the new coronavirus (COVID-19)

Negar Mortazavi, an Iranian-American journalist and commentator for the BBC, MSNBC, The New York Times and other outlets, tweeted out the above image today with the note: "While fighting #Coronavirus in Iran many schools are closed and children are stuck at home. This is competition that asks children to write creative stories on how to overcome the virus while they have time at home."

An Iranian woman named Faezeh also tweeted out the image with a note that Google says translates to: "Get to the kids, the bored kids, the kids who are bombarded with information, the kids who are scared, the kids who want to talk but no one listens to them ... This is one way to relieve stress and anxiety! We have to be careful."

It should go without saying, but kids are the same everywhere on Earth. They have dreams and fears. Questions and inquisitiveness. A great capacity for courage but also a underdeveloped ability to describe how they're really feeling inside. They are extremely perceptive and know when things are off-kilter or out of whack in the World of Adults. So we must understand that part of adult leadership¹ in moments of crisis or anxiety involves making sure we're letting kids know what's going on, and not just setting them aside.

Along those lines, here's another excellent initiative. NPR's Malaka Gharib, the author of I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir, put together a short comic to help teach schoolchildren about this developing news story. She writes: "Kids, this comic is for you. It's based on a radio story that NPR education reporter Cory Turner did. He asked some experts what kids might want to know about the new coronavirus discovered in China." Share it around, especially to teachers you might know. They can never have enough good resources. I think Stephen on Twitter spoke for many when he commended the comic and wrote: "Thank you for this. We’ve been walking the line of trying to make our daughters aware without making them panic."

Here are a few more resources on the same topic, from The Guardian, NBC News, and my employer, LNP|LancasterOnline.

Footnote
1. Speaking of crisis leadership, Smithsonian Magazine published an insightful article in November 2017 headlined: "How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America." Author and activist Amy Siskind recently noted this specific passage: "The most important lesson from 1918 is to tell the truth. Though that idea is incorporated into every preparedness plan I know of, its actual implementation will depend on the character and leadership of the people in charge when a crisis erupts." That seems relevant at this moment in history.

Deploying playing cards to troops to raise cultural awareness

I intended to write this post about six weeks ago, but life comes at you fast. Especially here in 2020.

I've written about playing cards before. They're a ubiquitous subcategory of ephemera — everyone has a deck or three in the house. My great-grandfather had a deck personalized with his initials (which I should write about some day). Single cards might be tucked inside a book, as detailed in this 2012 post and this 2018 post. Some have amusing vintage designs, as I wrote about in 2013.

But some decks of playing cards have much more importance and historical weight. They can convey the values we wish to encourage and reflect.

I originally hoped to bring this up when it was more timely, at the start of the year, because the president of the United States, amid an inflamed moment in the United States' ongoing conflict with Iran, tweeted a seeming threat toward sites of cultural importance to the Iranian people.

The president reiterated his threat the next day, January 5, according to NPR, stating: "They're allowed to kill our people. They're allowed to torture and maim our people. They're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn't work that way."

But it does work that way. That same NPR article notes this: "The targeting of cultural properties by the U.S. is indeed not allowed. The U.S. is a signatory to the 1954 Hague Convention, which requires 'refraining from any act of hostility' directed against cultural property."

And in recent years, the United States miltary has worked to reinforce the importance of leaving cultural sites in foreign countries alone — partly through the use of playing cards. And that brings us to today's ephemera.

In the summer of 2007, the U.S. Defense Department began issuing decks of playing cards to troops. "The cards are training aids designed to help the servicemembers understand the archaeological significance of their deployed locations," wrote Meghan Vittrup of American Forces Press Service.

According to the Fall 2010 "Product Catalog for Cultural Property Protection Planning and Training in the Department of Defense," there were three different decks of cultural awareness playing cards: a combined deck for Iraq and Afghanistan (that's the one I have and am featuring in these photos), one for Egypt, and one specifically for Afghanistan. The catalog indicates that the cards were printed by the U.S. Playing Card Company. Each suit has a theme. Diamonds focused on saving precious artifacts; clubs focused on raising awareness on heritage preservation issues; spades cautioned agianst digging and site destruction; and hearts focused on "winning hearts and minds."

A 2012 article by the German media outlet Deutsche Welle (DW) discussed how archaeologist Dr. Laurie Rush, the Cultural Resources Program Manager at Fort Drum, helped to create the 2007 playing card deck:

"Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, US Marines set up a camp in the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon, with Polish troops following months later. There, the troops inadvertently crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavement and used soil containing artifacts for sandbags.

"After learning of the damage, Rush volunteered her services. 'It immediately occurred to me that a better educated force would not have made those kinds of mistakes,' she said.

"In a creative effort to inform, Rush and her colleagues designed ordinary playing cards with a special purpose: Each card contains a fact about cultural heritage in Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt.

"Deployed forces from the US and other countries can pass the idle hours playing poker and looking at photos of ancient minarets in Iraq, the Bamian Buddhas in Afghanistan and inscribed bricks and tablets. They shuffle, deal and read the messages on the cards, which indicate, for example, that they should stop digging if they find ancient artifacts and turn to local elders for archeological information.

"'Without question, the five of hearts is my favorite,' said Rush, while flipping through the cards. 'The caption is "protecting archeologist sites helps preserve them for future generations." It's an image of a soldier holding hands with a tiny Iraqi child ... and it's clear this soldier and this child have a very positive relationship.'

"One sergeant told Rush that through these simple cards he was able to learn about Iraq's cultural heritage, a subject that he later used to forge stronger bonds with the locals. Rush's cards spurred another soldier to sound the alert that digging was taking place at a Mesopotamian city site east of Baghdad. The site was saved."

A 2014 article by Jennifer Dimas of Colorado State University noted that interest in the Heritage Resource Preservation playing cards was further spurred by the 2014 George Clooney film Monuments Men (even if the movie itself got middling reviews). "Written at the top of each card are the words 'ROE First,' which reminds the soldiers that the military's Rules of Engagement should precede all other considerations," Dimas wrote.

Indeed, the Rules of Engagement should supercede any unlawful orders, even from those in the highest levels of the military chain of command. The aforementioned NPR article notes that "the Department of Defense's Law of War manual mentions cultural property 625 times, repeatedly citing the Hague Convention" and that "the U.S. military educates its soldiers about their responsibilities not to target or destroy cultural property."

Asked about the president's threat in January to "HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD" against "Iranian culture" targets, it was heartening to see the response of the United States' top defense officials. Again according to NPR, Defense Secretary Mark Esper indicated that U.S. forces wouldn't carry out Trump's threat, saying, "We will follow the laws of armed conflict." And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, "We'll behave lawfully. We'll behave inside the system. We always have, and we always will."

Vintage postcard: Mother and bear cubs in Montana

Here's the last of a short series of postcards featuring old bear-themed postcards. (To see the rest, go here.) At this point, I'm very much just wishing people would leave the nice bears alone. Maybe they can be the next to inherit the planet.

The printed caption on the back of this postcard is:

MOTHER AND BEAR CUBS on Logan Pass Highway,
in Glacier National Park, Montana.
Color photo by D.J. Schmidt
The postcard was "published and copyrighted" by Glacier Studio in Browning, Montana. It is a Mirro-Krome card by H.S. Crocker Co. of San Francisco, California.

This card was postmarked in the summer of 1963 in East Glacier Park, Montana. It was sent to a Miss Weaver in [I think] Leola, Pennsylvania. (The entirety of the address is Leola, Pa., Route 1. I don't know how those postal workers did it back in the old days.)

The cursive message states:

"Saturday night out for a boat ride and two beautiful big bears, walking along the path, and people on the beach.
Cold [?] 50° early a.m.
Aunt Mamie [?]"

Roundup of some Winter 2020 Postcrossing connections

Up first, here are a handful of the wonderful Postcrossing postcards from across the globe I've received in my mailbox this winter...

Above: This card is from Margriet in the Netherlands, who lives in a house surrounded by chickens and geese. She writes: "'Wereld' means world. I choose this card for you because of the last sentence in your profile. Would it not be wonderfull? But, I fear it will be just a dream. All the best."

Above: This card in from Kaisy in South Korea, who, instead of writing a message, covered the back of the card in beautiful washi tape. I believe the location show on the card is Bossam Village, which was a filming location for two influential 1980s Korean films — Mulberry and The Surrogate Womb.

Above: This card features Turku Castle in Finland. The note on the back is from Marja-Leena, who writes: "Good morning from warm south Finland. We visited last Oct. with 5 grandchildren Turku castle. It was amazing place from 1200's. I never visited PC-meetup, but this year I will do that with my grandchild, Maija, 13 y.o. I wish you nice days."

Above: And this card, featuring an image from Kiki's Delivery Service, is from high school student Melone in China, who writes: "Sorry about this terrible writing. [Note from me: It's actually excellent.] My pen is not working well. The front is one of my favorite cartoon movies directed by Toru Hara, who made lots of wonderful movies. Though made 30 years ago, it's just so perfect. I especially enjoy the colour-using, typical Toru Hara. So beautiful." [There might be a translation issue. The director, as we would term of it, of Kiki's Delivery Service was the famed Hayao Miyazaki. Toru Hara is listed as Studio Ghibli's lead producer for Kiki's Delivery Service, and it certainly could be that he's responsible for much of the film's vision.]

Unfortunately, the Postcrossing connection with China has been temporarily limited. Postcrossing sent out this message on Feb. 18:

"I’m sure you’ve all heard about the 2019-nCoV (aka Coronavirus) outbreak in China, since it has been all over the news for the past month. A lot of you have been contacting us with questions about this situation, so we thought a quick post was in order to clarify a couple of points.

"First of all, there is no risk of contagion via postcards or mail. Here’s an official response to the question from the World Health Organization:

"Q: Is it safe to receive a letter or a package from China?

"A: Yes, it is safe. People receiving packages from China are not at risk of contracting 2019-nCoV. From previous analysis, we know coronaviruses do not survive long on objects, such as letters or packages.

"This situation has had a heavy impact in the postal world though, with many postal operators having stopped accepting mail to China due to cancelled flights and widespread delays. For this reason, Postcrossing has temporarily stopped giving out Chinese addresses. We will continue monitoring the situation, and when things return to normal, the algorithm will resume giving out Chinese addresses for everyone to send postcards to.

"Doing this really saddens us, as we realize this is a difficult period in which Chinese postcrossers most need support. So we hope everyone will join us in the comments below, sending the Chinese Postcrossing community and their families some encouraging thoughts and good wishes. 中国加油!"

* * *
Thanks from abroad

And here's a new batch of emailed thank-you messages from fellow Postcrossing enthusiasts:

Kim from Australia wrote: "Thank you for the fabulous postcard. I really enjoyed reading your message. If only more people in the world would live and let live. I wish you and your family peace and happiness."

Ibrahim from Turkey wrote: "Thank you for the beautiful card and nice wishes for 2020. I also thank you for the stamps. They are beautiful. Wish you a great year!"

Ania from Poland wrote: "Hello Chris, it has been a great pleasure to receive your postcard! I immediately liked you. I think all the technology ruined human relationships and made our smartphones more important than our relatives. Technology has a lot of good sides but the truth is people lost touch with one another. I hope it will change in the future, people will come back more to nature as opposition to omnipresent technology and billion pieces of information bombing us each day. Our brains are not used to this kind of life. that is why I spend a lot of time surrounded just by nature. The coming weekend I will be cross country skiing in Jakuszyce — a beautiful place in Poland for all who love snow, nature and sport. Thanks a lot for a sentence in Polish — I appreciate your effort. I hope that U.S. will be better and better. I was against Trump but now I see that many things he did are very good for the country! And he is not the president to grab money. He is rich enough."

Julia from Russia wrote: "Thanks for the nice card and warm wishes. I really appreciate that you took the time to tell about the York Fair and even write some words in my language. Peace and Happy Postcrossing!"

Joao from Portugal wrote: "Thanks for the interesting postcard and beautiful stamps! Being a journalist in current times is really difficult, especially if serious journalism is the aim. It is increasingly difficult to find objective, non-biased, informative news and to distinguish between false and true facts. I follow USA news and it is a disgrace how certain people get elected to such important positions. However, in a more optimistic note, I believe that, if there is a country whose democratic institutions can survive and reverse that situation, that country is USA. I have a daughter and a son and I am quite worried about the climate problem. I believe that the international community is failing to acknowledge the real dimension and urgency of the problem and are doing almost nothing that really matters. I wish you and the whole family all the best."

Anastasiia from Ukraine wrote: "Thank you so much for your really cute, beautiful postcard. I like it so much! A lot if thanks for Ukrainian text. I was impressed and pleased by it! And your story about folk tradition, I will definitely learned more about Belsnickel. Happy postcrossing!"

Anita from Germany wrote: "A cat on a llama? The coolest card I've ever received, thank you!"