Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Long time readers know that I am a bit of a sucker for photos of men and cats. While affection for felines was certainly been a requirement of Pictorama paramours predating Mr. Deitch, it still especially pleases me, and even surprises me a bit, when the male of the species scoops up a kitty for a photo like this. (Other photos in this Pictorama sub-genre can be found here, here and here.)

This photo, which is dark and a bit grimy by any standards, hails from a seller in Columbus, Ohio. There is no address or postmark which means it was likely stuck in an envelope. In a strangely light blue ink and carefully neat hand it says, Your Ever Loving & Affectionate Son Fred. XX and below that, Somewhere in Dixie Land. (It was also marked for previous sale at $20 which means someone took a loss as I paid a lot less.)

Of course the recipients, Mom and Dad, knew Fred in the photo but sadly we do not know which of these strapping young fellows he is. I would like to imagine he is the one who grabbed kitty in the middle, unruly hair somehow escaping the camp barber. In some ways it is the patterns of those cans, the tiles and even the door that give this photo a visual interest. (Given our current bunker existence I will admit to eyeing those pyramids of canned goods in a way that pantry envy may not have tapped me previously.)

Our quartet of guys are in casual army issue garb. Somehow it manages to look hot and muggy without specific evidence other than donning shorts and the rolled up sleeves of their shirts. Not sure this was actually KP duty or an adjunct of working in the pantry. Kit, who is hard to see, but I would gamble a guess is a tuxedo, probably lived a pretty high life between treats from the humans and a pleasantly steady high protein diet of mice.

I imagine there is a chance that these fellows left the relative comfort of the humid American South for the more dangerous and decidedly uncomfortable existence of a WWI soldier elsewhere in the world, probably a century ago now, and at a time much more challenging even than our own.