Happy Good Manners Month

Advice on manners from Betty Hutton.

Tis the First Day of Autumn

The Funnies - Open Season (1900)

Happy accident that I could post this one on the beginning of urban deer hunting season here in Indiana.

Life Magazine, December 20, 1900

Honey Season

September is honey harvesting time and in honor of that fact, here's a little ad from the 1949 issue of Life Magazine. Sioux Bee Honey later changed its name to Sue Bee Honey, purportedly to simplify pronunciation. In spite of the Native American motif of the ad the only connection the brand has with the actual Sioux is that the Sioux Honey Association is located in Sioux City, IA. That's a shame, in my mind I'd envisioned a collective of Native American beekeepers selling their wares and making a name for themselves.

Notice that the honey in the photo looks a lot more like mustard than anything you'd get from a beehive. Maybe it's a plate of honey mustard and biscuits? Maybe that's what you serve with corrugated butter?

Happy Labor Day - Goodbye Summer 2014

Labor Day Crowds, 1938 Indiana State Fair

It's that time again, summer's had its splendid hour and autumn is waiting in the wings with her bright colors and bitter frosts. Kids are back to school and the holidays too far off to worry about. Time for the final cookout of what's considered the "official" grilling season, a cold one on the deck, and maybe a swim before the pools are drained.

The image at the top of this post comes from the 1938 Indiana State Fair, crowds of people strolling (I believe) in front of the Coliseum on a bright sunny day, enjoying the weather while they still could. Having strolled in that same spot, I hear the scene in my head - the distant music of the midway, the sounds of animals in the exhibit barns, the jumbled conversations, and the excitement of children. It's a time machine of the most effective sort, no chance of stepping on the odd butterfly, but all the emotional impact.

To say a final so-long to summertime 2014, I'm going back to 1905 and the master of summertime music, Philip Sousa's In the Good Old Summertime. Take it away, Phil!

Quote for September

But now in September the garden has cooled, and with it my possessiveness.  The sun warms my back instead of beating on my head ... The harvest has dwindled, and I have grown apart from the intense midsummer relationship that brought it on.

~ Robert Finch

Poem for September

September
~ John Updike

The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze.

Apple-Seed John - by Lydia Maria Child

A little John Chapman-inspired poetry from the 1913 book Storytelling Poems.

Happy Banned Books Week

Yesterday marked not only the beginning of fall, but the beginning of Banned Books Week. I'll write a bit more on the subject later in the week, but I wanted to send out the word and invite you to read something...dangerous. Go, my friends, commit a thought crime!

Welcome to Autumn

Ah, the first day of Autumn, it always makes me think of baked beans...

Okay, to be honest it never makes me think of baked beans, but apparently the American Can Company figured, "hey, what's more autumn than beans?" This ad is from the November 1954 issue of Time Magazine and it helps prove that a 50's era photograph can make any food product look disgusting.

Happy Autumnal Exquinox

Today at 8:44 PM the plain of the Earth's equator will pass the center of the sun, making day and night perfect equals. Tomorrow we'll be on the downhill side of the seasonal wheel, heading toward winter's cold sleep.

Enjoy the fruits of your summer's labor and, like the ant, set a portion aside for the lean times ahead and before the day's over, take a moment to savor the seasonal weather.

The Full Corn Moon

The Full Corn Moon or Harvest Moon is aptly named, and if you happen to live in an area where autumn is the time of the harvest you'll understand why. In September the moon hangs fat and low in the sky, lighting the countryside brightly enough that in the days before electric lighting was common it allowed the farmer's work to continue into the evening hours. It's a melancholy moon, kind of a sad farewell to summer's warmth and a harbinger of the frosts and trials to come.

It's probably this inherent sadness that the vaudeville team Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth had in mind when they penned the tune Shine on Harvest Moon for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1908 and the fact many people even know the name of that song says something about its sentiment. I mean, how many other 1908 show tunes can you name? Ruth Etting, dubbed America’s Sweetheart of Song, performed the tune and via the auspices of YouTube here’s a 1931 recording.

And, in case you think I've veered too far off topic, here's The Old Farmer's Almanac's summation of the meaning of the Full Corn Moon.

How Every Quarterback Feels on Sunday...

Came across this image of Johnny Unitas in a 60's issue of Boy's Life. I think he's expressing a sentiment felt by every NFL quarterback on Sunday.

Happy Friday the 13th!

A bit of old literature and philosophy for the unlucky day!

Patriot Day 1945

A Date with a Rocket 88

This ad with its great ride-the-rocket graphic and “Make a date with a Rocket 8” tag-line comes from the May 1950 issue of Life Magazine, making it for Oldsmobile’s first generation Rocket. The 88 was introduced by Olds just one year before this ad ran and it featured the straight-8 engine made famous by the 1988 Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise move, Rain Man. The 88 became a staple of NASCAR for its power to weight ratio.

Happy Oktoberfest!

A Reassembled Oktoberfest Snapshot from the September 1955 issue of Time Magazine

Happy Oktoberfest! Well, at least here in the Midwest.

Traditionally Oktoberfest (or Wiesn as it’s known in Germany) is held in Munich and runs from late September to the first weekend in October. At its heart, Oktoberfest is a fair but it started its long history as a wedding reception for Prince Ludwig and his bride Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. On that auspicious day in 1810, the citizens of Munich were invited to attend a celebration in the fields outside the Munich city gates. There was drinking, food, and horse racing and over the centuries Oktoberfest grew to become the celebration it is today.

So raise a stein of extra-strong beer and strike up the band, there’s a polka to dance and sausages with sauerkraut to eat tonight!

Sports - NFL Predictions

For those of us who are fans of American football, something like a holiday is about to happen. Preseason has concluded, the bugs supposedly have been worked out and strategies have been established, and now the real thing can begin. The game can really begin, there will be winners and losers, drama and foregone conclusions, and the so-called experts will opinionate and in the end be wrong.

Take heart fans of teams that aren't located on a coast or in a pre-approved championship city. I did a quick search of Super Bowl predictions, and sites as diverse as ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and About.com failed to make a single accurate pick of the Super Bowl champion. 

Year	Predicted	Actual	Result
2003	New York Giants Over Kansas City Chiefs	Tampa Bay Buccaneers Over Oakland Raiders	WRONG
2004	Seattle Seahawks Over Indianapolis Colts	New England Patriots Over Carolina Panthers	WRONG
2005	Pittsburgh Steelers Over Seattle Seahawks	New England Patriots Over Philadelphia Eagles	WRONG
2006	Indianapolis Colts Over Seattle Seahawks	Pittsburgh Steelers Over Seattle Seahawks	WRONG
2007	New England Patriots Over New Orleans Saints	Indianapolis Colts Over Chicago Bears	WRONG
2008	Philadelphia Eagles Over San Diego Chargers	New York Giants Over New England Patriots	WRONG
2009	Pittsburgh Steelers Over Philadelphia Eagles	Pittsburgh Steelers Over Arizona Cardinals	WRONG
2010	New England Patriots Over New Orleans Saints	New Orleans Saints Over Indianapolis Colts	WRONG
2011	Atlanta Falcons Over San Diego Chargers	Green Bay Packers Over Pittsburgh Steelers	WRONG
2012	Green Bay Packers Over Denver Broncos	New York Giants Over New England Patriots	WRONG

So, regardless of who proclaims themselves an expert and how “complex” their prediction model, in the end it’s all just a guess and one that’s more often informed by fandom than facts.

Happy Labor Day, America. Welcome to the end of another long summer, albeit one that failed to reach the scorching high temperatures of 2012 here in the upper Midwest. Labor Day always has been one of those mystery observances, important only for the fact that its passing means the great wheel of the year has began its final revolution and autumn isn't far away. In my youth, back in the days before year-round schools and making up snow days, Labor Day meant one last camping trip before returning to the drudgery of school. In reality, though, Labor Day is a holiday celebrating, well, organized labor. According to the US Department of Labor website:

“[Labor Day] constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.”

The origins of the observance are debatable, but New York’s Central Labor Union celebrated the first Labor Day on September 5, 1882 and by 1884 the first Monday in September had been designated as the official “workingman’s holiday”. The first official recognition of Labor Day came in the form of local and state ordinances with Oregon the first state to ratify a Labor Day bill on February 12, 1887 and on June 28 of that same year Congress passed an act making the first Monday of September a national holiday.

In the years since its inception, the meaning of Labor Day has transformed. Today being pro-union is out of vogue and if you polled people on the street, most probably would connect the Labor Day holiday with the end of summer instead of the triumph of unions. Humanity easily forgets its past and each generation tends to take what the previous one fought to achieve for granted. In our modern era we assume certain worker’s rights will be respected, that we’ll get a handful of holidays a year, and that we’ll be paid for our work, but it wasn't always that way.

So, to bring it back to reality, here’s a little ditty from Van and Schenck that says it perfectly - the rich get rich and the poor get laid off…