It's Snowing in Texas

Dated, "MAR 57" Written on the back, "Lita In front of Car Port. Amarillo, Tex." Who says global warming isn't real?

Tussy Cream Deodorant

Oh that strange, disembodied face staring out from the top picture. A bit of advertising , of course, but with all the reflections, a bit weird. Tussy Cream Deodorant has been manufactured since 1925, and according to it's manufacturer's web site, Suite-K.com., it's available in dollar stores everywhere. Stamped on the back of the top picture, "APR 28, 1951" If the regular price for a jar of Tussy was $1.00 in 1951, and it's for sale in dollar stores today, that means that the price hasn't changed in 61 years. Now that's a bargain!

Very Cool Sun Glasses

In the beginning there were flight goggles. (See yesterday's post.) When airplanes changed form open cockpits to enclosed flight decks, pilots no longer needed goggles, but they did need sun glasses. The first aviators were made from lenses removed from no longer needed goggles, wrapped in wire. I wonder if this young man is looking for airplanes in the sky.

Head In the Clouds

Feet in the snow. Do kids still admire pilots? I doubt it. There was something very romantic about earlier ages of aviation. Goggles, open cockpits, barnstorming, and of course, Lindbergh soloing the Atlantic when that was a good way to get killed. I was born in 1955, and we still looked up to the World War 2 fighter pilot when I was a kid.

The German American Collection, It All Ends in Smithtown

Written on the back, "1956 Mr & Mrs B.C. Oakside Rd. Smithtown." Is this a bit of a let down for the last image of the collection? Yes and no. To recap, a dealer had purchased a large collection of photos at an estate sale, sold some of the best images separately, and then bundled the reminder into groups, put them up on EBay, and this was the only lot that I won. The huge gaps make it impossible to build a true narrative. Still, we can know that this collection had plenty of images from both the United States and Germany. What we can't know is how the two came together. Did a German branch of a family send photos to their American cousins? Was there a move from Germany between the wars or after World War 2, followed by marriage into an American family? In any case, somehow or another, some branch of this family ended up in a post war suburb on Long Island. The good life dreamed of by so many, recorded with this one, very faded color photograph. Click on German American in the labels section to bring the whole lot up. Good, bad, and indifferent images, but worth it.

The German American Collection, The Album 16

This is it for the album, and only one more image from the entire collection to go. As already noted, the front cover of the album is missing and it's impossible to tell, with it's pages bound together with a ribbon, if any pages have been removed. Still, this page does seem like a good ending to me. Germany had just gone through a devastating war, for which it was partly responsible, as well as a period of hyperinflation. Between war deaths, a world wide Spanish flu pandemic which killed even more people, and a collapsed economy, there wasn't much to inspire happiness, but somehow or another, there was fun to be had. Germany, in the twenties, had one of the richest cultural movements in history. The Bauhaus, German expressionism, theater, song, and an incredibly rich cinema. And just a decade or so after these photos were taken, it would all be gone as the madness of Nazism took over. And after that another world war. It's very probable that at lest some of the people in these photos died in the slaughter.

The German American Collection, The Album 15

Business partners who enjoy a good walk in the woods? As good an explanation as any.