Roy at the Piano

Well, that's what is says on the card and I'm going with it.  Is it just me, or does this guy look like Derek Jeter?

How Green Are We

Expressed as  grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per passenger kilometer traveled (What ever that means) a bicycle's carbon footprint is rated at 21, an electric bike, 22, a bus 101, and an automobile 271.  So, get out the bike, get it all tuned up, put on the helmet (If so inclined.) and shave those legs (If so inclined) and hit the road.  Figures from the European Cyclists Union.

Eva, Frank, and Frances Engle

Without a date or location, it's impossible to dig up any information on a name like Engle.  It's just not rare enough.  What's interesting is that little Frances is bigger than her mother, but is still dressed as an infant.  Common practice when this picture was taken, or just a very weird family?  Maybe Frances was a very, very big girl.

Lunatics

Allright, we've a got a couple of medical types, and seven other men in some sort of uniform.  They might be soldiers, convicts or staff.  I like to think they're lunatics at an asylum.  I've had a few of those in my family.

Nurses and Nazis

Well, there is a certain amount of guess work on this one, so if anyone wants to make a correction, feel free to leave a comment.

This photo was printed on Agfa Lupex paper, manufactured with an identifying logo, in Germany, from 1935 through the end of the war.  With it's German origins, I decided to start a search of web sites, looking for images of German uniforms, from the period.  And did those Germans love their uniforms!  It seems that everyone from school children to politicians were in some sort of outfit with brass buttons, epaulets and braid.  My best guess is that the two men in this image are wearing SS uniforms.  The man with the soup spoon, the general field uniform of the Waffen-SS, and the other man in the Waffen -SS uniform of the protection squad.  Since the SS had it's own hospitals, it would make sense that these two men, even though they would be from different units, would be at the same place, hanging out with the pretty nurses.

The SS was formed in 1920 as the saal-schutz, as hall protection.  Basically, they protected speakers from attack at party meetings, and beat the crap out of any hecklers that might show up.   Under the command of Heinrich Himmler from 1929-1945, the organization became the Schutzstaffel, the protection squad or defence corps,  providing security for party meetings and personnel.. During the war, the SS fielded military divisions, fighting along side the regular army, but not under it's command.  And of course, the SS had responsibility for carrying out the final solution.  For those who don't know what that means, the final solution was the  elimination of Jews and other threats to race purity.  It's quite possible that the two men in this photograph are war criminals, a nice phrase for genocidal mass murderer.

The famous black uniform with the death's head logo, often seen in movies, was the uniform of the Allgemeine-SS, the political arm of the group.  The SS, unlike the SA, and the regular military, took an oath of allegiance to Hitler, rather than to the German state.  A sorry example of humanity.

The Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise, then, women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.  Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.  We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.  It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."  Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great an earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.  Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the human family can live in peace, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God.

In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of woman without limit of nationality May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And at the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions,

The great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe, today, is best remembered as the lyricist of The Battle Hymn of the Republic.  Howe, an abolitionist, after the Civil War, embraced the women's suffrage movement and pacifism.  In 1870 in reaction to the carnage of the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, she suggested that June second should be commemorated as an international Mother's Day.  But not, as a day to honor motherhood but as a day when the mothers of the world would gather together and work for an end to war.  She also wrote The Mother's Day Proclamation to publicize her movement.  The modern version of Mother's Day, was proposed by Anna Jarvis in 1908.

The Apprentice

No, not the TV show hosted by America's first narcissist, Donald Trump.

When I was in junior high, the entire seventh grade class (There was only about forty of us.) were forced on  buses for a field trip to Lenape Tech.  Lenape was a county run, trades high school.  The morning sessions were devoted to all the usual classes, math, history, English, while the afternoons were devoted to learning a trade.  I remember that we were divided by sex.  The boys were shown the auto shop, welding, television repair lab, while the girls were taken to the beauty and cooking classes.  I don't know what would have happened if one of the boys had asked about being a hair dresser or one of the girls had wanted to take a run at a welding career.  Oh, how things have changed.

Before trade schools, there were apprenticeships.   Young boys (mostly) would be sent off to learn a trade from a master craftsman.  In exchange for a decade or so of free labor, the young man would be taught cabinet making, or watch repair, or some other useful profession.  Anyone who has ever read Dickens would know that apprenticeships were also offered for business careers.   Keeping those books balanced isn't easy, and in a world where almost no one went to college, a job that didn't involve manual labor, like accounting, was learned by doing.

This is a fairly old picture. But how old?  Is this young man taking a shop class or has he begun his working life as an apprentice?  One thing is for sure.  He's not a recent college grad, working for free as an intern, so that some business can avoid adding an extra pay check to the books.  No wonder recent grads can't find paid employment when so  many of them are willing to work for nothing.  My rant of the day...internships are a scam!