Saturday's postcard of a long-ago motel in North Miami

Motel Rotunda — or is it Rotunda Motel, as printed on the back? — looks like it would have been a swell stopping spot for weary travelers. Perhaps for a family that had just spent a long day driving south, south and further south down the length of Florida, toward the tip. Or an exhausted door-to-door Bible salesman.

As this postcard, snapped by photographer Dick Deutsch and published by Pan American Publishing Corp., details, the motel was centrally located to area attractions, had color TV and featured a "delightful" recreation room. 

I can't find much about the motel's history, though. And it's long gone, like so many other roadside motels that once dotted America. Postcards are about all we have to document its history, and that it even once existed. Without these images, the structure might fade entirely from memory and history, like David Hemmings at the end of Blow-Up.

The caption on a different postcard indicates that the motel was completed in December 1950 and that other amenities touted included tile showers and bath, and free ice cubes in the sitting lounge. The owner at that point was an M. Lanzalotti. And a Florida archives postcard has Jesse N. Koehler as owner and manager.

Today, a peek at Google Maps finds that the former location of Motel Rotunda is an intersection with six or seven lanes of traffic in all directions. Businesses there include Walgreens, Five Below, Denny's, Jivana Nails & Spa, a BP gas station, Vitamin Shoppe and LA Fitness. They will all be ephemeral, too.

Is Motel Rotunda too long gone for anyone to have memories of working there or staying there overnight? It would be great to know more and record it for posterity.

Snapshots at the start of 2025

Tiny book: "Instantaneous Personal Magnetism Debunked"

Happy New Year! Big Boi welcomes 2025 with this tiny book. It's so small he could probably open it with his paws and read it himself while lounging on the couch. But, like me, he'd probably fall asleep after a page and a half.

The staplebound Instantaneous Personal Magnetism Debunked is 3½ inches by 5 inches and 32 pages. It is one of the hundreds of millions of pocket-sized Little Blue Books published between 1919 and 1978 by the Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company. This one, No. 1395, indicates that it was edited by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (1889-1951) himself. (Side note: I've been planning a Haldeman-Julius post since Papergreat's launch, and one of his books can be seen in the lower right of the photo in this blog's very first post. I still plan to get to it someday.)

Instantaneous Personal Magnetism Debunked, by Ben Moore, was copyrighted in 1929. It's an essay that dissects and debunks a popular book of the time: Instantaneous Personal Magnetism, which was written by Albert Webster Edgerly (1852-1926) under the pseudonym Edmund Shaftesbury and published by Ralston University Press. Outside of his "self-help" books, Edgerly advocated some truly horrifying ideas that I will not repeat here.

It's nice to see that Edgerly/Shaftesbury was debunked and ridiculed by some of his contemporaries. Here are some passages from Moore's little book:

• "To an unmagnetic personality such as my own the inducement was irresistible. I signed the coupon in the corner of the page, and in due time received the volume."
• "The new light which is shed by the author on many of the hitherto perplexing problems of psychology, biology, physics and other sciences, is little less than amazing. For example, it has long been erroneously thought that to be devoured by a wild animal is a process causing more or less discomfort to the devouree. This idea is disspelled by Shaftesbury in a few well-chosen words: 'Life dies most happily and most easily in the clutches of other life. The bird that must end its days in the slow process of old age suffers many a month of torture waiting for the end; but in the jaws of the cat or the fangs of the snake it finds a pleasurable release from the agonies of living; an enjoyment that is participated in by the victim as much as by the devourer.'"
• "The extraordinary faculty of Shaftesbury for assembling accurate statistics is indicated by the following note on divorce: 'Where two persons are drawn to each other by the power of magnetism, they never separate, and there has never been a divorce in any such case.'"

Moore's debunking essay is one of several wedged into this small booklet. The others, on the same general topic of charlatans and shady sales techniques, are by Cloyd Hampton Valentine, Marc T. Greene and Ballard Brown. This passage by Valentine remains painfully relevant a century later: "Yes, there is no doubt at all that Americans, on the whole, are a trustful folk, not readily regarding with suspicion any person or thing, surprisingly prone to believe what they are told, if the telling carries the least degree of conviction, and to believe what they read, too, if only the subject is set forth in large type an in sufficiently forceful language."

***

With this post, Papergreat has now published posts in 16 consecutive calendar years.

I resolve not to support AI "art" again after this apocalyptic post

Admitting up front that this post is hypocritical, my resolution for 2025 is to cease all use and support of AI-created "art" in 2025 and, overall, to greatly reduce my reliance on AI. Illustrations created by AI lead to the loss of human creativity; constitute the theft of intellectual property; financially harm human artists; accommodate the spread of misinformation and propaganda; and are a massive drain on the power grid, contributing to environmental harm and global heating. 

AI sucks. Of course, a lot of things suck right now. And these AI images generated while I was selfishly messing around earlier this year pretty much sum up the state of things headed into 2025.

Rest in peace, President James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr.

This is my only postcard of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who died today at age 100. The postcard was published by Coral-Lee¹ and the caption on the back states:

"President and Mrs. Carter "take the wheel" of the U.S.S. Eisenhower during the president's inspection of the U.S. naval vessel. In the early 1950's Jimmy Carter served in the Navy and has often proudly related his experiences. Winston-Salem, N.C., March, 1978"

The man behind President Carter, I'm 99% sure, is Vice Admiral William E. Ramsey (1931-2018), who was the first commanding officer of the Eisenhower, a nuclear-powered Nimitz class aircraft carrier.

Here's an excerpt from the remarks President Carter made on March 17, 1978, upon visiting the Eisenhower: "As President of the United States and as Commander in Chief, I've had a chance today to be reassured that our Nation is strong, that that strength is being used to preserve peace around the world, and that the destiny of our country rests on the shoulders of strong men like yourselves, who exemplify superb service and courage in one of the great ships of the greatest navy in the greatest country on Earth."

Carter, by the way, is the only president to have earned the Submarine Warfare insignia, known as the "Dolphins" badge.

He and his wife Rosalynn (who died in November 2023) lived modestly after his one-term presidency ended in January 1981. As The Washington Post notes: "Mr. Carter declined the corporate board memberships and lucrative speaking engagements that have made other ex-presidents tens of millions of dollars. He said in the 2018 interview that he didn’t want to 'capitalize financially on being in the White House.'² ... For decades, the Carters spent a week a year building homes with Habitat for Humanity, the Georgia-based nonprofit organization that constructs housing for low-income people. Wearing their own tool belts, they helped build or renovate about 4,300 homes in 14 countries."

That's a damn fine legacy.

Carter is the first president I remember. He took office in early 1977, when I was 6 years old, and I recall lots of conversation about how interesting it was that a kid (the Carters' daughter Amy) lived in the White House. Once 1980 rolled around, I was well aware of the Iran hostage crisis and the intense news coverage, which included a running counter of the total days the hostages had been held. But I certainly didn't grasp the politics behind the situation.

It wasn't until many years later that I had a deeper understanding of Carter's legacy, of his successes and mistakes, and how his loss in the 1980 presidential election greatly shaped the world we live in today. 

Footnotes

1. Coral-Lee was the nickname and business name of Coralie Sparre, a teacher and avid postcard collector who got into postcard publishing when she retired. As this 2021 article by Bill Burton on Postcard History notes: "She decided that there was a need for postcards that documented the contemporary world. Her first project was a series of cards on the Presidential administration of Jimmy Carter, who had just been elected. Her first project became a 12-card set, but by the time President Carter left office she had published 72 cards. She assembled all of them into an album that she personally presented to Carter in late January 1981 in the Oval Office."

2. Ahem.

Merry Christmas 2025. Here's another yule log.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! Here's another illustration of the gathering of the yule log, following the one I posted earlier this month. I think it's interesting that this one features three women, one of whom is decidedly not helping with the efforts. 

This is an undated trifold Christmas card that has "All kind thoughts and wishes sincere For a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" printed inside. No manufacturer is listed. It just states "MADE IN U.S.A." I'm guessing it's from the 1920s or 1930s.

If you have a hankering to browse a lot of Christmas ephemera today while drinking eggnog and celebrating Yuletide, this is the most up-to-date directory I have of all of Papergreat's ephemera posts.

And here's Nebula with today's card.

One orange cat to beam up, Scotty

Merry Christmas Eve from Bandit, who likes to stand 

right in front of the Christmas laser lights. 

He's not helping with the perception that orange male cats have a few loose bulbs in their string of lights, 

if you know what I mean.

Historic Montoursville church is closing its doors

Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, is the subject of this undated, never-used postcard from my collection that was published by Merrimack Picture Post Card Co., of North Springfield, Vermont.

I'm posting it because I read on Facebook over the weekend that the church is closing its doors on Christmas Eve (tomorrow night).

Our family connection to the church is slight. We attended services there for a very short period in the early 1970s when living on Mulberry Street. But the tiny church on Loyalsock Avenue is iconic, perhaps the most beautiful one in Montoursville. Although it can be hard to spot because it's so small and tucked away on a mostly residential street, it's always been a landmark for me when driving back through town on infrequent visits.

Steve Bagwell, who is Montoursville's mayor but also an avid historian and talented photographer, posted this message on Facebook, along with a number of beautiful photos of the church's interior:

"The Church of Our Saviour has been celebrating Christmas services since 1870. That would make this year the 155th time and it will be the last. The church is a special place, it looks very much like it would have shortly after the Civil War. The last Christmas celebration will be on Christmas eve at 7:00."

According to the Society of Architectural Historians, the church was designed by the Rev. John Henry Hopkins Jr. That website notes: "Boldly articulated framing members and long vertical boards, an elongated bell-cote, and a sharply peaked vestibule give the small church a tall and imposing presence on a crowded residential street. The church's small size dictated its nave plan."

An online PDF from earlier this year states: "RESOLVED, that the dissolution of the parish of Church of Our Saviour, Montoursville, Pennsylvania, as approved by a vote of at least 2/3 of the parish members and as recommended by The Rt. Rev. Audrey C. Scanlan and Canon Chad Linder, Canon for Finance and Operations, and, subject to confirmation by resolution of this 154th Convention, be and is hereby approved."

I'm not sure how it might happen, but we can only hope that the building is preserved and maintained for its great historic value, even if it will no longer serve its function as a church.

UPDATE: Bagwell posted some additional beautiful photos of the church's exterior.