Shuffleboard Courts - St. Petersburg, Florida

These postcards show the shuffleboard courts and players in St. Petersburg, Florida. The cards date between 1938 and 1951. St. Petersburg is nicknamed "The Sunshine City," purportedly averaging 360 days of sunshine per year. The city has long been a popular retirement destination, especially for those from colder Northern climates of the United States. The first postcard has the following message written in February, 1948 describing how nice it was in Florida at that time of the year.

Dear Susie,
How are you to-day. Hope you didn't get measles. I can't imagine it as being winter up home; for it is just like summer down here with pretty flowers like you see in this picture. Mr. & Mrs. R came & took us for a drive this A.M. They are fine & this P.M. when I came from having my hair done Mr. & Mrs. L had stopped to see us & had a nice visit with them. Daddy & Mother know them. Wish you could see the pelicans & gulls down here. They are tame. Be good. Love - Grandmother

According to Shuffleboard History, outdoor shuffleboard courts spread across the U. S. after the first one was built at a Daytona Beach, Florida resort in 1913. Previously there was a history of playing shuffleboard on indoor tables and ship decks. Shuffleboard was especially popular in St. Petersburg, Florida where the most elaborate courts were built. There were several shuffleboard clubs there with thousands of members and over 100 courts. The game of shuffleboard was popular up through the 1950s but declined in popularity in the 1960s.

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Leap Year Postcards

Leap Year usually occurs every four years. An extra day, February 29, is added to the calendar during Leap Years to correct for the fact that a year is not exactly 365 days.Traditionally Leap Year was a time when women were allowed to propose marriage to men instead of waiting for men too propose to them.

Most Leap Year postcards were published during the years of the early twentieth century postcard craze for the leap years of 1904, 1908, and 1912. Most of these postcards were comical in nature. The postcard above, from 1904, is the only Leap Year card in my collection. This postcard was signed by Arthur Gill and published by Tuck.

More information and examples of Leap Year postcards:

Vintage Leap Year Postcards

“Get a Hustle On—It’s Leap Year”

Donald McGill postcards that warned men about women proposing

Charles E. Duryea & World's First Real Automobile

This postcard from Reading, Pennsylvania honors Charles E. Duryea, the inventor and builder of America's first gasoline automobile in 1892 in Springfield, Massachusetts. The Duryea automobiles which were manufactured in Reading from 1900 to 1911 climbed Mount Penn in high gear there. Duryea Drive, which ascends Mount Penn in a series of sharp bends, was a testing place for early automobiles and was named for Charles Duryea.

From the back of the card:

Charles E. Duryea in a DURYEA (three cylinder) won First Prize, Automobile Club of N. J., Eagle Rock Hill Climbing Contest, Nov. 5, 1901. This was the FIRST AMERICAN HILL-CLIMB, regularly organized. A similar stock DURYEA freelance in the 1902 New York-Boston Run, ran around everything. Three cylinder DURYEA cars were also manufactured in Coventy, England.

New Main Building - Folwell Hall - University of Minnesota

The new Main Building at the University of Minnesota Campus in Minneapolis was built during 1906-1907 to replace the old Main Building which burned in 1904. The new Main Building was named Folwell Hall in honor of the University's first president William Watts Folwell who served as president from 1869 to 1884. Folwell Hall has recently undergone renovations. Information about the renovation and historical photos can be found on the Folwell Hall Renovation website.

The building's architect was Clarence H. Johnston. Johnston was Minnesota State Architect for thirty years, and designed many buildings on the University of Minnesota campus and other state-owned sites. He also designed many upper class residences in St. Paul. Twin Cities Public Television (tpt) produced a very interesting program Gracious Places: Clarence H. Johnston: Minnesota Architect that can be watched online.

National Postal Museum Stamp - Colorano Silk Card

Colorano Silk Cachets is known mainly for its First Day Cover Envelopes, but in the past Colorano also produced Non-silk Maxi-Cards (1965 - 1971) and Silk Souvenir Cards (1971 - 1996). The card above is a Colorado Silk Souvenir Card. The illustration on the top of the card is printed on silk and is surrounded by a shiny gold embossed border. The card is the same size and weight as a postcard, but it has no printing on the back.

Ray Novak was the cachet maker responsible for Colorano cachets. The name "Colorano" is a combination of letters from the words color, Ray, and Novak. You can read more about Ray Novak and his first day covers here. The name "Colorano" and the printing process were sold to Paul Schmid in 1995, and Colorano Silk first day covers are still being produced on envelopes.

The stamp on this card is one of the four designs in a se-tenant block issued to commemorate the opening of the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum in 1993. The designs of the four stamps in the National Postal Museum Issue feature historical moments in U.S. postal history that give a sense of traveling through time. This stamp has a Civil War soldier, Concord stagecoach, and pony express rider representing the 19th century.

The stamp representing the 18th century features Benjamin Franklin (an early American printer, postmaster and statesmen), a printing press, mail rider, and Independence Hall. The stamp representing the twentieth century features airmail pilot Charles Lindbergh, a railway mail car, a 1931 Model A Ford mail truck, and JN-4H "Jenny" bi-plane stamp. The fourth stamp features the art of letter writing, using memorable words from a California gold rush letter, four prized U.S stamps, an undated postmark, and a barcode representing contemporary mail processing technology.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog

Sand In My Shoes

The above postcard was published by Curt Teich, ca. 1946. I like the overall design and the nicely dressed woman emptying the sand from her shoe, but I don't care much for the verse and the way the background figures look like they are just stuck on there. The children in the foreground don't look like they belong there either. And, what woman would want to walk through the sand in high heels? Nevertheless, this card must have been popular. A revised version (below) was published in 1950. In my opinion, that one is not an improvement!

My favorite version of "Sand In My Shoes" is the one below, which was published by Tichnor ©1951. That one has a more amusing verse and cuter pictures and is not limited to Florida. The children and the scenery look more like my early experiences on the beach.

One of my early childhood memories is of losing my shoes on the beach. Actually, it was my mother's fault. She left them on the edge of the beach, and they weren't there when it was time for us to leave. The pictures of me and my shoes below may show the same shoes and same beach. I remember that the shoes I lost were red and of the same style.

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Seeing Double

SEEING DOUBLE.
BUBBLE, BUBBLE.
SOUNDS LIKE TROUBLE.
LOOKS LIKE TROUBLE.
DOUBLE TROUBLE.

Theme Thursday for February 23, 2012

"DOUBLE"

Wondering About George

The legend is that George Washington cut the cherry tree with his new hatchet. When questioned about it by his father, he was said to have replied: "I can't tell a lie, Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet."

I wonder what the cherry tree legend makes children wonder about today. I doubt that today's children would be likely to wonder about spanking. Spanking used to be considered a good way to discipline a child. Attitudes have changed since this postcard was published. Now spanking is discussed as "corporal punishment in the home," and it has been outlawed in many countries. Spanking is still allowed in the United States, but it is a lot less common than it was in the past.

The Norse Grill, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York

The Norse Grill was a restaurant at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Park Avenue at 50th Street, New York City. The restaurant was decorated in the Scandinavian manner. This was an informal restaurant for ladies and gentlemen, open all day from breakfast through dinner.

A black and white view shown here is described as follows:

This Scandinavian-style restaurant featured massive columns of limestone supporting heavy carved wooden beams. The walls are paneled in chestnut. The huge mural/map indicates the golf clubs, tennis clubs, yacht clubs and polo fields in the metropolitan area.

This postcard view is based on E.E. Anthony's rendering of the Norse Grill ©1939. A series of lithographic prints of this restaurant and others at the Waldorf-Astoria by E.E. Anthony is shown here.

Smorgasbord Sundays (SS)
restaurant and food postcards

Cinerama Postcards

I remember going to see Cinerama with my Girl Scout troop in the 1950s. I don't remember which movie I saw, but the memory motivated me to collect these postcards many years later.

The first Cinerama movie, This is Cinerama, was released in 1952. The original Cinerama system involved shooting with three synchronized 35mm cameras sharing a single shutter. Each camera photographed one third of the picture shooting in a crisscross pattern, the right camera shooting the left part of the image, the left camera shooting the right part of the image and the center camera shooting straight ahead. The single shutter in front of the three lenses assured simultaneous exposure on each of the films. The three cameras were set at 48 degrees to each other and photographed an image that was three times as wide as a standard film and covered 146 degrees of arc, close to the human field of vision, including peripheral vision.

Cinerama films were projected from three projection booths arranged in the same crisscross pattern as the cameras. They projected onto a deeply curved screen, the outer thirds of which were made of over 1100 strips of material mounted on "louvers" like a vertical venetian blind, to prevent light projected to each end of the screen from reflecting to the opposite end and washing out the image.

The second Cinerama film was Cinerama Holiday, released in 1955.

Seven Wonders of the World was released in 1956.

Search for Paradise was released in 1957.

South Seas Adventure was released in 1958.

How the West Was Won was released in 1962. I have postcards of two scenes from this film (The Buffalo Stampede and Shooting the Rapids). Several other scenes from How the West Was Won were also published on postcards (The Great Train Robbery, The Battle of Shiloh, and The Wagon Train Attack).

These films used the original three-strip Cinerama process. Rising costs of making three-camera widescreen films caused Cinerama to stop making such films in their original form shortly after the first release of How the West Was Won. Later Cinerama films were made with a system using a single camera and 70mm prints.

Originally existing theaters were adapted to show Cinerama films. This is a list of "exclusive Cinerama theatres" from the back of the first postcard, circa 1955.

Cinema Treasures blog has a series of retrospectives on Cinerama, Remembering Cinerama, listing 48 locations.

In 1961 and 1962 the non-profit Cooper Foundation of Lincoln, Nebraska, designed and built three near-identical circular "super-Cinerama" theaters in Denver, Colorado; St. Louis Park, Minnesota (a Minneapolis suburb); and Omaha, Nebraska. The last postcard is from the St. Louis Park (Minneapolis) Cooper Theatre.

Source: Wikipedia
More about Cinerama: American WideScreen Museum

Watch the trailer for classic 3 panel Cinerama movie, This is Cinerama.

Watch How The West Was Won Trailer, with "the greatest cast of stars ever together in one motion picture."

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Valentine Bubbles

This postcard is a little late for Valentine's Day, but I couldn't resist posting it for Theme Thursday: Bubbles. I had already scanned this card to use in my Little Sweethearts Vintage Valentine Postcards video.

All Aboard the Valentine Express

These little sweethearts and their friends invite you to watch their Valentine video Little Sweethearts on Vintage Valentine Postcards. The postcards in this video were all made by the George C. Whitney company (1866-1942), one of the earliest Valentine manufacturing companies.

Forget-me-not Valentines

Forget-me-nots symbolize true love and remembrance. Many vintage Valentine postcards include forget-me-nots, either alone or in combination with other flowers.

Valentine & Love Stamp

The Valentine postcard above show a little girl at a post office stamps window. She says she is good at waiting, but she would have had to wait about 50 years to buy a Love stamp from the United States Postal Service. This postcard was made by Whitney and is one of the cards that I included in the Little Sweethearts Vintage Valentine Postcards video I made today.

The United States issued its first Love stamp in 1973. The postcard below shows the second U.S. Love stamp, issued in 1982. This is an oversize postcard from a set issued by USPS for the 25th Anniversary of Love stamps in 1998. This stamp used flowers as the elements of the letters in LOVE. The letter "L" is formed by the miniature red poppy; the "O" by painted daisies and "Johnny-jump-ups" (miniature pansies); the "V" by the cornflower or bachelor's button; and the "E" by coral bells.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps at Viridian's Postcard Blog

An Old Sweetheart of Mine - James Whitcomb Riley

The picture above shows the book An Old Sweetheart of Mine by James Whitcomb Riley (source: customer picture from Amazon.com) .

James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) was the most popular American poet of his time, and An Old Sweetheart of Mine was one of his most popular poems. A version of this poem was included in Riley's fourth book Pipes o' Pan at Zekesbury which he finished in 1888 and Riley Love Lyrics (1899). The text here is a longer version which was published in its own book titled An Old Sweetheart of Mine in 1902, with illustrations by Howard Chandler Christy. This book is available online from both Project Gutenberg and Google Books.

The black and white illustrations included here are by Howard Chandler Christy. The color illustrations are postcards illustrated by Cobb Shinn, who is mainly known as a postcard artist. Both Riley and Shinn were Indiana residents.

An Old Sweetheart Of Mine

by James Whitcomb Riley

The ordered intermingling of the real and the dream,—
The mill above the river, and the mist above the stream;
The life of ceaseless labor, brave with song and cheery call—
The radiant skies of evening, with its rainbow o'er us all.

An Old Sweetheart of Mine!—Is this her presence here with me,
Or but a vain creation of a lover's memory?
A fair, illusive vision that would vanish into air
Dared I even touch the silence with the whisper of a prayer?

Nay, let me then believe in all the blended false and true—
The semblance of the old love and the substance of the new,—
The then of changeless sunny days— the now of shower and shine—
But Love forever smiling,— as that old sweetheart of mine.

This ever-restful sense of home, though shouts ring in the hall.—
The easy-chair—the old bookshelves and prints along the wall;
The rare Habanas in their box, or gaunt churchwarden-stem
That often wags, above the jar, derisively at them.

As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known
So I turn the leaves of fancy till, in shadowy design,
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,
As I turn it low to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,
And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke
Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.

'Tis a fragrant retrospection -- for the loving thoughts that start
Into being are like perfume from the blossom of the heart;
And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine --
When my truant fancy wanders with that old sweetheart of mine.

Though I hear, beneath my study, like a fluttering of wings,
The voices of my children, and the mother as she sings,
I feel no twinge of conscience to deny me any theme
When Care has cast her anchor in the harbor of a dream.

In fact, to speak in earnest, I believe it adds a charm
To spice the good a trifle with a little dust of harm --
For I find an extra flavor in Memory's mellow wine
That makes me drink the deeper to that old sweetheart of mine.

O Childhood-days enchanted! O the magic of the Spring!—
With all green boughs to blossom white, and all bluebirds to sing!
When all the air, to toss and quaff, made life a jubilee
And changed the children's song and laugh to shrieks of ecstasy.

With eyes half closed in clouds that ooze from lips that taste, as well,
The peppermint and cinnamon, I hear the old School-bell,
And from "Recess" romp in again from "Blackman's" broken line,
To—smile, behind my "lesson", at that old sweetheart of mine.

A face of lily-beauty, with a form of airy grace,
Floats out of my tobacco as the genii from the vase;
And I thrill beneath the glances of a pair of azure eyes
As glowing as the summer and as tender as the skies.

I can see the pink sunbonnet and the little checkered dress
She wore when first I kissed her and she answered the caress
With the written declaration that, "as surely as the vine
Grew round the stump," she loved me -- that old sweet heart of mine.

Again I make her presents, in a really helpless way,—
The big "Rhode Island Greening"— (I was hungry too, that day!)—
But I follow her from Spelling, with her hand behind her—so—
And I slip the apple in it— and the Teacher doesn't know!

I give my treasures to her—all,— my pencil—blue-and-red;—
And, if little girls played marbles, mine should all be hers, instead!—
But she gave me her photograph, and printed "Ever Thine"
Across the back—in blue-and-red— that old sweetheart of mine!

And again I feel the pressure of her slender little hand,
As we used to talk together of the future we had planned --
When I should be a poet, and with nothing else to do
But write the tender verses that she set the music to:

When we should live together in a cozy little cot
Hid in a nest of roses, with a fairy garden-spot,
Where the vines were ever fruited, and the weather ever fine,
And the birds were ever singing for that old sweetheart of mine:

When I should be her lover forever and a day,
And she my faithful sweetheart till the golden hair was gray;
And we should be so happy that when either's lips were dumb
They would not smile in Heaven till the other's kiss had come.

But, ah! my dream is broken by a step upon the stair,
And the door is softly opened, and -- my wife is standing there;
Yet with eagerness and rapture all my visions I resign
To greet the living presence of that old sweetheart of mine.

I included the next postcard because it has a portrait of James Whitcomb Riley. The verse is from a different poem, Song Of Long Ago.

The James Whitcomb Riley residence in Indianapolis, shown on this old postcard, is now a National Historic Landmark and museum.

An Old Sweetheart of Mine is one of the unpublished James Whitcomb Riley Recordings at the Indianapolis Marion County Public Library of the the poet reading his work. This recording was made by the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1912. To listen to the recording, click here.

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