1979's "Zed and the Monsters"

• Title: Zed and the Monsters
• Author: Margaret Cecile "Peggy" Parish (1927-1988), best known as the originating author of the much-loved Amelia Bedelia series
• Artist: Paul Galdone (1907-1986)
• Publication date: 1979
• Publisher: Doubleday & Company ("a presentation of Weekly Reader Children's Book Club")
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 60
• Of note: This is, oddly, one of the lesser-recognized works by both Parish and Galdone, as it's not listed on either of their Wikipedia pages, as of this writing. It's fondly remembered by some who were children in that era, though.
• First four sentences: "A long time ago, there lived a boy named Zed. Zed was clever, really clever. But he was lazy, really lazy. Zed only worked when his pockets empty, plumb empty."
• Last three sentences: "Zed walked faster. His rocking chair was waiting for him. And Zed was in a hurry to keep it company."
• Random sentence from the middle: "The monster caught a gloppy handful of noodles."
• Assessment: The book seems like modern retelling of the tales from Scandinavian folklore (some featuring Ashlad) in which clever boys use their wits to defeat gigantic, incredibly stupid trolls.
• Goodreads rating: 4.67 stars (out of 5)
• Goodreads review: In 2016, Joseph wrote: "I checked this book out at the school library 6 straight times in 2nd grade until the teacher put a stop to it. Checked it out again in 3rd grade because new teacher."
• Amazon rating: 5 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review: In 2014, Dinkus wrote: "This was a favorite of my children. They loved this book as children and now that they have little ones of their own, I was able to buy 2 copies and put them under the tree. Of all the gifts they received this Christmas, I think my daughters were most excited to receive this book. I used funny voices when I read to them as children — and they plan to do the same with their own." (Doing voices is definitely one of the best parts of reading to kids. I would use all sorts of different voices when reading Ruth Manning-Sanders stories to Ashar at bedtime. I would also, while we were on driving trips, make up stories featuring Star Wars characters, leprechauns and other amusingly-voiced characters. Sometimes the high jinks involved things like Darth Vader having to juggle babysitting a half-dozen cats.)

Snapshot & memories: Family outfits of 1972

This four-generations photo was taken on Sept. 16, 1972, which makes me — the short blond dude on the right — 21 months old. I look very much in need of a nap, which is usually the case these days, too.

It's that era's typical line-the-family-up-on-the-lawn Kodak snapshot. The location is the house on Oak Crest Lane in Wallingford, at which I would come to reside about 13 years later. Mowing that lawn became my job. The septic vent (far left) was a little lower in the ground by the mid-1980s, so we put a bucket over it to keep from inadvertently running it over with the mower.

From left are:

• My great-grandfather, Howard Horsey Adams (1892-1985), who is enjoying an adult beverage
• My great-grandmother, Greta Miriam Chandler Adams (1894-1988)
• My grandmother, Helen Chandler Adams Ingham (1919-2003)
• My mom, Mary Margaret Ingham Otto (1948-2017)

It's humbling when you consider that the combined lifetimes of the folks in this photo span everything from the Spanish-American War to World War I to the 1918 influenza pandemic to the Great Depression to the creation and dissolution of the Soviet Union to World War II and straight on through to the moon landing, personal computers, iPhones, the first Black U.S. president, the Trump era and COVID-19. This group has seen a combined (counts on one hand) two Philadelphia Phillies world championships.

The cats of Papergreat join the Barbie movie meme fun

I'm a sucker for a fun and easy-to-use meme-making tool. So I joined the fun this past week and made these movie posters with the Barbie Selfie Generator that's an ingenious part of the marketing for Greta Gerwig's upcoming film.

Enjoy!

Sunday's postcard: Bethlehem bridge

Here's a quick postcard from the shoebox on a Sunday morning as I'm setting up, hopefully, for a day of spring cleaning, sorting, pruning, list-making and simplifying. Oh, and catching up on correspondence. I'm so behind on everything. Also, there are a lot of cats here.

Feature on this creased, undated card is the "New Broad Street Bridge" of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The bridge was built in 1909 and I believe it's still in use today. When it opened 114 years ago, it replaced an iron-and-wood bridge that had dated to 1871.

The bridge was built by Cramp & Company of Philadelphia. According to HistoricBridges.org, which features a 2019 photo of the bridge from ground level, it cross the Monocacy Creek and is 431 feet long, with five main spans.

The postcard was published by the Leighton & Valentine Co. of New York City. It was mailed to John J. Andrew of Plymouth, Pennsylvania. The message is in pencil and cursive. Here's what I think it states:

Dear Brother [?]

I am sending my best Regard too [sic] you and we are getting along fine. I got board with george my Brother on tuesday night 20 dollars a month and wash clothes too in slavish people. answer soon John.

"Slavish people" must refer to Slovak Americans, many of whom settled in Pennsylvania. The address provided for John is 528 Selfridge Street in Bethlehem. According to Zillow, the house that's currently there was built in 1923. This card has no date, no readable postmark and the stamp has been removed, so I have to idea if it was mailed before or after 1923.

Swords & sandwich flags of the 1970s

I saw this ridiculous reminder of the 1970s on eBay and it spurred a nostalgic and fun conversation with Wendyvee of RoadsideWonders.

Nevco's Sandwich Flags are just that — little flags to place on sandwiches at gatherings so that people will know what's what. Because otherwise how would the people of that era have known the difference between a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and a turkey sandwich?

These Nevco flags allow sandwiches to be marked as turkey, shrimp, ham, olive & egg, sausage, jelly, bologna, salmon, cheese or bacon, lettuce & tomato.

Think how many picnics and baby showers were saved by these flags!

Imagine your Aunt Ethel buying these at the A&P!

Wendyvee said, "My paternal grandmother would have been over the moon with these." Her grandmother also deployed both those toothpicks with the colorful plastic at the end (I learned they're called "frill picks") and those little plastic swords around the house. "Not on special occasions or anything ... just with a regular lunch or nighttime snack," Wendyvee added. "When I was little, I thought that this meant they were rich."

I have two recollections regarding the little plastic swords. First, I'd stash them away, thinking I could use them with my Star Wars figures. Turn Han Solo into a pirate or something.

Second, we got them when the family went to the Wagon Wheel in Montoursville, Pennsylvania. As I wrote in a 2018 post: "Our family went there often when we were living on Willow Street. Sometimes we'd have dinner there. I would get a Howdy Doody to drink and Adriane would get a Shirley Temple; they were both the same thing — 7 Up with grenadine, I believe. What I remember most are the arcade games and the jukebox. After we ate, Mom and Dad would hang out with friends at the bar and give my sister and I a supply of quarters for the small game room."

The Howdy Doody/Shirley Temple would come with a maraschino cherry pierced through by a plastic sword. 

On this topic, Wendyvee said, "I remember being on vacation at the shore when I was little. Even though I liked Shirley Temples better, I used to ask for a Roy Rogers just so that my drink wasn't the same as my sister's drink."

Wait, I asked, are these alcohol-free "cocktails" for kids different? First, I turned to Wikipedia. 

Roy Rogers: Cola, grenadine and a maraschino cherry. It's the boys' version of a Shirley Temple. It's possible that Rogers himself didn't drink alcohol, and so this was his drink of choice at business meetings.

Shirley Temple: Ginger ale or lemon-lime soda with grenadine and a maraschino cherry. Alternately called a Kiddie Cocktail.

I'm not, however, finding any references online to Howdy Doody being used as a Kiddie Cocktail name. Did anyone else get this in the 1960s, 1970s or early 1980s? Maybe it was only a regional thing, but I can't be the only one who ordered this as a kid. If so, at least it's recorded here for posterity. Let the historians of obscure history rejoice. Stick a Nevco flag that says "WEIRD" in this post.

1974 Scholastic book: "Captain Ecology, Pollution-Fighter"

This Scholastic book by Tom Eaton, Captain Ecology, Pollution-Fighter (TK2651 of 1974), sought to use humor to help instill compassion and concern for the environment in schoolchildren who were too young to tackle Silent Spring. 

Captain Ecology takes on the topics like people tossing garbage from their cars, wasteful consumption, giant corporations, vehicle exhaust, smog, pollution-spewing factories, solar power and single-use packaging. He even takes jabs at the mindlessness of television, including the barrage of commercials urging kids to consume, consume, consume. Heady but important stuff for kids in elementary and middle school.

Tom Eaton, who died in 2016 at age 76, was best known for the comics and illustrations he provided for Boys' Life magazine for three decades, starting in 1984, including “The Wacky Adventures of Pedro,” “Dink and Duff” and “Webelos Woody.”

Boys' Life art director Joe Connolly said Eaton “never missed a deadline or made excuses. He is one of the most important contributors the magazine ever had.”

After Captain Ecology but before Boys' Life, Eaton did a comic strip called "Oliver Cool," which is highlighted in this 2021 post on the Who's Out There? blog.

In a 2005 review of Captain Ecology, Pollution-Fighter on Amazon, Andre writes: "I have fond memories of this book. It was in my classroom at Moultrie Middle School near Charleston SC in 1977 when I was in 7th grade and I read it frequently. It was a tough school filled with bullies at the time and this book brought me some needed relief. Basically, it's the somewhat comical adventures of a cartoon crime fighter who tries to protect the environment. Pretty amusing, as our man is often more well intentioned than successful. But near the end, the book takes a serious turn as our man closes by brooding about the fate of the planet. Worth a read for your kids and for you to have a discussion with them about when they're finished. If you like this, I would also recommend Tom Eaton's Book of Marvels that was also in my classroom at the time and that I enjoyed so much that I ordered it again 25 years later. Tom Eaton was a pretty underrated cartoonist who brightened up a pretty dark time in my life."

It's inspiring to see all the ways Eaton entertaining, encouraged and educated young people over the many years of his cartooning career.

Meanwhile, Captain Ecology wouldn't be happy this March 20 news. (Nor should any of us be.)

SARAH KAPLAN

THE WASHINGTON POST

"The world is likely to pass a dangerous temperature threshold within the next 10 years, pushing the planet past the point of catastrophic warming — unless nations drastically transform their economies and immediately transition away from fossil fuels, according to one of the most definitive reports ever published about climate change.

"The report released Monday from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that the world is likely to surpass its most ambitious climate target — limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures — by the early 2030s.

"Beyond that threshold, scientists have found, climate disasters will become so extreme that people will not be able to adapt. Basic components of the Earth system will be fundamentally, irrevocably altered. Heat waves, famines and infectious diseases could claim millions of additional lives by century’s end."

Big Boi's special dinner plate

Can a plastic dinner plate be ephemera? One of my arbitrary rules for ephemera is that it counts as ephemera if you can fit it in a 9x12 manila envelope. So, at 8 inches wide, I think the plate pictured above would count. It's ephemera. So I'll write about it.

Let me backtrack a bit. This morning's post got me thinking about the evolution I've gone through during the pandemic. During the first year or so, especially when we were living in Pennsylvania, I was very focused on observing and feeding the wildlife in our backyard: the birds, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits and night-time raccoon invaders. We spent a lot of money on peanuts.

Once we moved to Arizona, though, things changed. Now I have officially become Crazy Cat Dad. We have some semi-feral cats roaming our neighborhood, and once we became aware of them, they quickly became aware that I'm a sucker who will give them food in an attempt to help and befriend them.

So that's mostly why, as I write this, there are 19 cats inside my house.

In my defense, five of them are houseguests who are here temporarily from Washington state.

So my true level of Crazy Cat Dad is that I take care of 14 indoor cats. That's a much more reasonable number, right?

On the other hand, I'm currently feeding a total of 25 cats:

Indoor permanent residents (14): Banjo, Titan, Monkey, Orange (Mommy), Toffee, Panda, Bandit, Smoky, Spice, Autumn, Nebula, Bounds (Osmond Portifoy), Socks and Dusty.

Indoor houseguests (5): Pengin, Phantom, LP, Ice Bear and PT.

Outdoor tomcats (4): Big Boi, Creamsicle, Fjord Nubbins, Doppler (Ratto).

Outdoor female who had kittens a few days ago (1): Mamacita (Mommycita).

Outdoor female who is going to give birth any day (1): Cirque de Soleil.

That's 25, right?? It gets more complicated by the day. I don't know where Mamacita's kittens are, which makes me sad. But she stops by most nights for short visits and I try to give her priority feeding because she's nursing. She really loves cheese.

I am really, really, really hoping that Cirque has her kittens here in the yard, so I can help and protect all of them. (And eventually get them adopted out, so the feral community doesn't continue to multiply any more than it already has.) We might try to trap her, but (1) we're already dealing with a lot of cats, (2) recent trapping attempts have gone badly (for me).

So that brings us back to Big Boi, who we've known since around January 2022. He's the King Tomcat of this territory. He is a large boy. Big Boi and Orange are the parents of Toffee, Panda, Bandit, Smoky, Spice, Autumn, Nebula, Bounds, Socks, Dusty, Pengin & Phantom. Big Boi is also likely the father of Creamsicle, Fjord Nubbins, Cirque de Soleil and possibly even Doppler, who is now among the younger males trying to usurp him. 

Big Boi, once the toughest dude on the block, has taken a beating in a lot of fights lately and is starting to show his age. So I try to give him special treatment. For awhile, the sides of his head were so raw that he had trouble eating out of the plastic bowls we put outside. And that's where the plate comes in. It's much easier for him to eat from a plate than a bowl. So, rather than use one of our good plates, I got a special one for him through Shutterfly. It has a picture of him that was taken last year, when he had two good ears and far fewer scars.

He just sits by the door when he's hungry. I'll take his special plate outside, show it to him and talk nicely while dishing out the food. Then he comes over and eats happily from it. 

Yes, this plate would fit in an envelope, but I hope I don't have cause to put it into one for a long, long time.

Ephemeral reminder of what we've been through

I spotted this on a sidewalk in Chandler, Arizona, yesterday and snapped its picture for posterity. We obviously will have no lack of somber reminders in the coming decades of what the COVID-19 pandemic, which is now more than three years old, has wrought. It's had one of the most devastating impacts in American history. (And, to be clear, the pandemic is not "over" until its end is declared by the World Health Organization, something that is tentatively expected to happen later this year.)

One of the small things we'll remember are these "keep your distance" circles that were ubiquitous in grocery stores, public spaces, checkout lines, etc. The circles themselves will fade, peel away and vanish over time. Photographs and memories will remind us of them. 

Twitter, if Elon Musk doesn't complete its destruction, offers a fascinating repository of the psychogeography of COVID-19, especially on the hashtag #covidstreetarchive. It is filled with vernacular photos of signs, graffiti, displays in front of homes and businesses, empty streets and buildings, discarded masks and gloves, and more. (I'm sure there are other similar hashtags.)

Papergreat pandemic posts, from oldest to newest

• Schoolchildren and the new coronavirus (COVID-19), March 2, 2020
• Junk mail in the time of COVID-19
• Many words about "The Stand" strung together
• Yup, still thinking about "The Stand"
• Postcrossing, postcards and the pandemic
• Mystery Polaroid of two dogs
• Topical postmark from the UK
• The joy of "Bookcase Credibility"
• The kindness of others
• Great links: Homemade maps describing life during COVID-19
• Real Heroes Wear Masks (that cover the mouth and nose)!
• Oh, that's what a mourning dove sounds like
• Snapshot of COVID-19 headlines
• Catching up with Postcrossing (Summer 2020)
• Postcrossing roundup, Part 1 (Late Summer/Autumn 2020)
• Postcrossing roundup: Late autumn/early winter
• A new generation for Castle Amber ... and for Dungeons & Dragons
• Headlines during Week 76, August 21, 2021

In curating these, I was fairly stunned to discover that, before today, my last post to mention COVID-19 was on August 21, 2021, and my last post to use the word "pandemic" was on September 13, 2021. Of course, I took a long break from blogging and have only had about 120 posts since autumn 2021. But I think it's still curious and notable that I've not used those words in posts.