Pam’s Pictorama Post: I purchased this nice bit of Halloween in a group buy several weeks ago which I am just starting to sort out. (Purchased from @missmollystlantiques on Instagram – they flashed by me while I was doing a bunch of stuff and I just grabbed them and was pleased when they showed up in the mail later.) I am just starting to sort these out – Pictorama readers will be treated to more of them in future posts.
Despite what might seem obvious, I don’t collect Halloween items deeply. The paper items make up a small percentage of my black cat collection as storage (I am a poor caretaker for paper in general) and display are issues, but a number of things have come over the transom and this little trove appealed.
In cardboard decorations, I like a nice heavy cardboard like this and of course even better when it is embossed and textured in this way. (The heaviest of these tend to be German, but this has an almost illegible made in the USA on the front.) I would be tempted to actually hang ones like this for Halloween if I had the right opportunity. After all, no reason not to use them, albeit gently. Small pin holes from years of hanging exist and no need for new ones. I would avoid tape. However, somehow sadly apartment life has not lent itself to this.
As Halloween decorations go this one seems somewhat odd. I bought it for the two nice black cats, but as I sit here looking at it I am wondering about the design: stop, go, and detour. Against an orange moon, Halloween lanterns light the way and these two kits are trying to decide which way to go. I guess from scary movies we know that taking the detour is probably going to lead toward all kinds of trouble.
It seems oddly philosophical for a Halloween decoration and yet somewhat appropriate for someone who just inherited a house and five cats in another state and is suddenly facing a detour trying to figure that thing out.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This scene of early comical commercial carnage is brought to us by Diamond Dye which claims to be the simplest strongest fastest and please know that, they have no equal. And of course so easy a child can use them! Additionally the back also boasts news of three new colors Fast Stocking Black, Turkey Redfor Cotton and Brown for Cotton. I guess no one could come up with a nifty name for brown.
Back of card. Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Diamond Dyes do not seem to exist today, nor can I find out much about their illustrious history, but they had a robust advertising life in the earliest days of the 20th century. This somewhat unappealing youngster has dipped both her doll and kitty in the dye. I can’t help but wonder if the message at the bottom was also a double entendre – It’s easy to dye with Diamond Dye. Ahem.
Another popular Diamond Dye card, not in Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Back when I was a tiny tot, in nursery school, and we were living in a small house in northern New Jersey. We had our German Shepard already, Duchess, and a lovely black and white cow-spotty male cat named Snoopy. Snoops was a heavy set, slow moving cat of infinite patience – the one I would routinely dress in doll cloths and play circus cat with. He was not a hugely mischievous cat and in fact this might be the only story of its kind I can think of. He was generally in my words today, a very good kitty.
Mom, who was always industrious about home care and maintenance, had gotten the idea to paint the brick floor of the screened back porch bright red. And yes indeed, when she wasn’t looking, Snoopy made his slow determined kitty walk right across that wet paint and kept going, so not only did we have a cat with bright red paws (at first mom thought they were bleeding), but of course his paw prints after he marched across the kitchen. He remained dignified, quite unconcerned and unfazed by the fuss he ultimately caused. The dog, who was always misbehaving, was probably overjoyed to see the cat in trouble for a change. Clearly mom must have flipped out since I remember the whole seen these many years later. (For some reason it also reminds me a story from the same era when a friend of my sister’s smeared lipstick on one of the walls. Mom had great fortitude it seems and she didn’t kill him. His name was David Mount – no idea why I remember that. I wonder what he grew up to be?)
Nifty dye cabinet – wish it was in my collection!
My own experience with dye is limited to some batiking I did in high school and college. To keep the melted wax in place we used cold water dyes which were far easier and less complicated than these early dyes which would have required boiling water. While I am sure they were state of the art in their day, I think I can understand their disappearance. I can only say I know enough about it to know that I would have probably unintentionally ended up looking like this somewhat malevolent looking child if I had tried to use them.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: When this posts on Saturday I will be making my way to the cemetery to see my mom’s mortal remains off. So I apologize that this will be another brief and Pam-centric post.
As I write it is a dark and damp Thursday morning. Coffee is perking, cats have been fed. I woke at 3:00 and two of the cats strolled into my room and onto my bed to keep me company and fight for my attention. It did distract me from my fretting. Gus had the temerity to chase Beau’s tail!
I cut up a watermelon which has been sitting since before mom passed. A friend had brought it by for her. It’s more watermelon than I can eat so I will share it with friends to take home to their kids. After cooking for large numbers of people it is mostly just me now and the food production and consumption is amping way down except when folks stop by to check on me.
Long Branch Poultry Farm, since 1939.
The various machinations of the week have taken me to some locales that I haven’t visited in decades and occasionally requiring amazing feats of memory as I take on the role of navigator for the folks kind enough to drive me on my various rounds.
For example near the funeral home was an ancient poultry farm where my parents used to stop for eggs on our way to or from my grandmother’s house. The friend who was driving me stopped to look at the plants that are now sold outside and the childhood memories flooded back. I probably have not stood in that driveway since I was 12 years old.
Another night someone took me out to dinner at Bahr’s Landing, a waterside seafood restaurant of my childhood. My last trip there was with my sister for my birthday, the year before she died, but it was a family favorite for special occasions as a kid and my late teens and early twenties saw many a late night at the outdoor clam shack for a late night snack and a beer. A week of This is Your Life style fascination.
Extraordinary clouds over the water at Bahr’s Landing restaurant.
Some days have seemed long and others zipped by. Uniformly the nights and early mornings (mom’s best time in recent years) have been difficult. The house itself seems to be in a gentle form of revolt starting with a series of roof leaks (which left me facing a very young man who attempted to sell me a new roof, but instead agreed to just overcharge me for what desperately needed to be done to stop the immediate water incursion) and followed by water in the basement as the result of a broken drainpipe.
A farm stop in Holmdel where geraniums were procured.
My bouts of manic energy have gone into cleaning and the redistribution of things no longer needed. It has also resulted in some gardening which seems to calm me down. Some of those efforts shown on the deck above, a new favorite spot.
After I get through tomorrow on Sunday I will head back to Manhattan and to the office on Monday. The shell will be thoroughly broken and back into the world I go.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: It is a morning of heavy mist to drizzle here in Monmouth County and like the day I am weeping on and off as mom died early yesterday morning. It is challenging my desire to go out for a run. (A violent stomach virus wiped me out for running starting last week and between mom and the weather I have not yet been able to return.) A half eaten yogurt in the fridge or a favorite purple pillow can send me boo hooing again.
Undated Halloween photo of Mom, Dad, me and Loren.
I have written about the time I have spent here in New Jersey caring for mom and the special space and time the bubble of her care created here. (A few of those posts can be found here and here.) However, in recent weeks she began to deteriorate at an alarming rate. She was determined that she would not leave the house so at times we struggled with limited options to relieve her trouble breathing and discomfort. I watched as her caregivers employed feats of engineering with pillows to maximize her comfort and ability to breathe. In the end we accomplished the feat of keeping her here and yet reasonably comfortable.
The boy cats are assembled on mom’s chair this morning.
We could not have wished for her to linger and suffer longer, but we were reluctant to let go nonetheless. I may write more about all of it at a future time but for now I am left wandering an empty house (if one can have five cats and call it lonely) after hosting a myriad of care givers, various house tradesmen and friends.
Me, Edward and a very young mom.
The reality of a house after living my entire adult life in one room, most recently spending all day and night in it with Kim and the cats throughout the pandemic. Although a small Cape Cod, I wander rooms now which seem too many and very quiet despite cats and televisions left on. I am used to either the bustle of our tiny apartment or nurses tucked into corners and recliner chairs here. I am comforted by the site of the flowers recently placed in planters on the deck and have moved my computer from the upstairs office to the kitchen where the cats are gathered on my mother’s chair. I think my friend had that in mind when she encouraged me to plant them recently.
Beau was mom’s most special friend and he is guarding me and the chair now.
So today I am just writing because I know my consistent (and wonderful) readers know I never miss a post and I did yesterday. I had been up since midnight the prior night and exhaustion permeated a day that was busy by necessity. Today I hope to start gathering my wits and thoughts and organizing the next chapter here.
Pam’s Pictorama.com: even by my standards this is a pretty goofy photo. Extremely faded at the bottom left it says, Barker School and on the other sidebarely legible, May 31, 1928. Written on the back in pencil is Woodland, Maine and Halloween Costumes – which clearly they are not since we know it was taken in May.
Even in my wildest imagination I can’t figure out what kind of school play might have given birth to these costumes – from the strange dark masked characters which look like Zuni dancers, to the weird scarecrow type figure the jolly bunny and a sad little turtle boy thrown into the mix. A pretty dark fairy tale.
This card was never used and my sense is that the writing on the back is a later addition although in two different hands so maybe added at different times. It is a bit bleached out so I have increased the contrast a bit with some computer magic. Even with that it is hard to figure out what the heck is going on here.
There is a small figure in the middle with what appears to be a parasol, also dressed in black that looks a bit cat like. My feeling though is that it is some sort of spring planting festival with the scarecrow and bunny – somehow the figures in black are reminding me of corn? The figure in the lower left is a complete mystery – no idea what he or she is about although a happy looking character.
Below I share a more or less contemporaneous photo (via a photo postcard) of the Barker School. I cannot seem to confirm if it exists today or not. It may have been renamed.
Not in Pams-Pictorama.com Collection.
I would have loved to have been in school plays like this and perhaps that is part of the appeal of such photos for me. I was always up for dressing up and putting on a show. Combined with this lovely day in Maine in May seems almost irresitable.
PS – I am feeling better today. Tummy winced at my morning coffee, but definitely better.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is going to be a very short and sweet nod to Pictorama. This past week saw me zip in from staying with Mom in NJ to 48 continuous hours of Gala prep and execution – a concert and dinner for almost 600 people.
This was followed by the trip back to NJ and, drum roll please, more than 24 hours (and counting) of a vile stomach virus. I don’t think I have had a stomach virus like this in decades and I have been unable to peel myself off the bed here for more than 10-15 minutes at a time. However tea and toast tasted really amazing earlier as my first food since Thursday and I think recovery is in sight.
Second Line from Gala this week.
Therefore, I share a few small cat advertising cards that arrived in the mail in NY earlier this week. This is a tribute to the NJ cats who have decided to rally around me in illness and play nurse even though they normally largely ignore me. Beauregard in particular, has been very attentive and I think Gus is just following him around – much to his chagrin.
Gus to the right and Beau on the left.
These cards came as part of a lot from the Midwest. The Mile-End Spool Cotton Thread sports a little girl with a very large hat and a cat that is reminding me of Gussy a little bit. You can decide for yourself on that. She looks a bit sad in addition to be quite furbelowed. The other card is just a scrap and I am not sure what they were pushing. The kitty (all set for food) and little girl seem somber for advertising. On the back it says Schaefer 217 Cass Avenue, St. Louis.
Pams-Pictorama.com collection.
Lastly, the Standard Java Record injects more energy into the post. This smiling girl and tabby are advertising the Best Coffee in the World. It makes me regret I was not up for my morning cup of joe today and went instead for a cup of tea and honey.
If I had known I was going to be bed bound I would have probably stayed in Manhattan – although Kim should probably be just as glad I didn’t as I sure would have kept him up all night. Nonetheless, seems like we are coming out the other side and it is a sunny pretty day here. I am feeling stronger and will try to get up and around a bit today and a higher energy post tomorrow.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: These are strange days for me as spring arrives in New Jersey this year. I am here for a stay of indeterminate length during what appears to be my mother’s lingering last illness. I have written before about the sense of being in a liminal space – between two periods in my life that in many ways will define the before and the after. That sense has only increased recently as I perch on the threshold of this personal sized seismic shift.
Helleborus is an early bloomer which deer are not fond of so it is all the talk of gardeners here right now.
I miss my daily life in Manhattan: my husband, my cats, my bed (we have an unbelievably hard mattress), and I miss actually sitting down with my co-workers daily. Still, it is human nature to make things as pleasant as possible where we are and I have done this by largely by dint of cooking and running. (I have written about that previously in posts that can be found here and here.) Earlier this week a friend dropped flats of pansies off for me saying it was nice to do do something for the future and today I added planting to the list.
My simple potting assignment, complete on the deck for all to admire.
While I have been around a lot of gardening as an observer, I have in fact never gardened. I suppose this is not surprising given that I have lived my entire adult life in Manhattan without so much as a fire escape. Kim has a green thumb and under his casual attention plants do seem to thrive in our bright living room window. Still, if my ability to keep houseplants alive was anyway indicative of my ability say, to care for pets or people it would be a not-green thumbs down I am afraid.
However, in her day my mother was a superb gardener. One of my earliest memories is of a huge rock garden in the back of our house in North Jersey and watching her work in it, our cat and dog sniffing around. I must have been just three or four.
When I was a tad older we had moved to the shore and I can remember my mother coaxing vegetables and flowers out of the sandy and salty soil, and fighting a freakishly high water table. I had a child’s joy over the immensity of sunflowers which towered over us and tomato plants which delighted me . Laawn never interested mom and hers was nominal. (Dad traveled for work and never really had anything to do with the yard. Mom did it all.) She was and is all about plants and trees.
Didn’t buy these sporty petunias with the stripes but was very tempted – I was very entertained by them.
In the house subsequent to that one, but still on the waterfront the garden was somewhat more elaborate with herbs, strawberry and grapevines. Bunnies and squirrels helped themselves liberally to those edibles as well as dandelions and other delectables .
So earlier this week the same friend took me to Lowe’s where I assembled a cache of potting soil, a spade, some clippers and a lone adolescent tomato plant – Jersey tomatoes being a summer delicacy for this Jersey girl. Shop Rite (as big as several city blocks) produced a length of lightweight hose. The Dollar Tree provided some lightweight garden gloves. It seems I was ready to plant some pansies.
Someone brought these by for mom and I am greatly enamored of the daffodils with the apricot centers!
Luckily this project was pretty low stakes as said pansies were already in bloom and just pleading for soil and water, a straightforward assignment for the rookie me. However, the pots I thought I would use proved too small and too deep. Luckily rooting around in the basement coughed up some appropriate vessels. The nozzle on the new hose proved unexpectedly challenging I am somewhat embarrassed to admit, but we came to an agreement without my getting entirely soaked.
Somehow, all the plants found their way to pots, fit appropriately and were watered – which was good because the promised rain never showed. Mom was pleased with my efforts on behalf of the yard and a rakish stake with a whirligig red bird stuck in the tomato plant container for a finishing touch.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: This great photo postcard appealed to the latent cowgirl in me. I know very little about these things so I don’t know if this nice fringed outfit is real or costume – even her nifty boots have fringe. She wears it with aplomb and a good bit of attitude, riding crop in hand. Undeniably she is an indoor cowgirl here on a living room carpet and in front of a curtained window. Her kerchief and hat are both at jaunty angles.
While I have never been on horseback (nor have I ever resided on a farm, let alone a ranch) I had an early enthusiasm for a fantasy version of them as evidenced by my being an early and avid adopter of the Jane West toys.
There was something endlessly satisfying about the sturdy plastic, jointed limbs. She had a cowgirl outfit molded to her body and heavy rubbery accessories. She was made to stand with some authority (unlike my beloved Barbies who of course had feet designed for perpetual, fashionable high heels) and somehow the fact that she was cast entirely in blue plastic did not detract from her appearance. Jane had a wonderful palomino horse which she could sit astride on.
Since I am not in NYC I cannot show my own example of Jane West, but instead this more complete one along with her horse!
In my otherwise Barbie-oriented childhood it is a bit hard in retrospect to know what the cowgirl thing was about. Unlike Barbie’s adventures (my Barbie was named for Jo in Little Women and she was a globe trotting journalist), I do not remember the play I dreamed up for her.
Notably Jane did not need a cowboy equivalent of Ken, at least mine did not. In my world she stood on her own and didn’t even deign to date GI Joe – my Barbie’s fallback companion. I believe she is a head taller than both.
My mother was horse-y as a young woman. I am not sure how she started riding, but I know that not coming from a wealthy family she worked mucking stalls along with her childhood friend Jackie so they were able to ride. I gather Mom was mad about horses until one day while they were riding her friend was badly thrown onto a fence. Luckily for her the fence was old and just gave under her otherwise he back would have been broken. It left mom skittish about riding and although my older sister had a few desultory riding lessons I never had the chance to even start.
As a teenager a good friend gave me an excellent vintage Annie Oakley jacket of the softest butterscotch colored suede which she found in her attic. As a very little girls she and her mom had had matching jackets! It was much beloved by me and I wore it until it literally fell to pieces. This was perhaps my best personal cowgirl moment. It was as close as I was to come. (During the pandemic I also read all of the volumes of the Ranch Girls series. A post that touches on them can be found here.)
I came across a Jane West doll several years ago and snatched her up for my toy collection. It felt good to have Jane in the house again and she lives on my shelf, ever ready for some cowgirl action.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: I recently wrote a post about how I was cooking a lot here in New Jersey during this long spring of my mom’s illness. (That post can be found here.) My mom never cooked in this kitchen and basic cooking implements needed to be purchased once I wanted to do more than make coffee. (I purchased a good coffee pot, a stovetop percolating coffee pot first thing.) So, a slow process of knives here, a colander there, a skillet. I cook for as many as four or five people at a time so there has also been food buying – with food buying I have needed to purchase basic spices and herbs. This New Jersey enclave is robustly supplied with a variety of discount stores – Dollar Tree, Home Goods, Job Lots, Marshalls. (There is a Shop Rite the size of several city blocks. Land of wonders.)
A too small blue for the front. Will hold herbs on the back deck instead.
The blue ceramic pots first caught my eye at a local farmer’s market turned gourmet store called Sickles. In a number of shapes and sizes the glowing blue glaze caught my eye, but endless expenses helping my mom out discouraged me from high end planters. Still, I started seeing them appear on front porches on my runs in the morning. There was no doubt, beautiful blue pots were following me.
Blue pots from a run – they were starting to follow me.
One day, while hunting down a cookie sheet in Home Goods for roasted vegetables, I was greeted by a pile of these wonderful blue pots and for a tiny fraction of the price. No two were alike so I chose two and brought them home only to realize that one is too small for that job. On my next trip I bought another larger one and placed it with the other, on each side of the front steps.
The one with bees!
Later I added a yellow one to contrast with the blues. The smaller blue pot and another yellow one (with bees on it) will go on the back porch. The woman at the register during the first purchase spontaneously offered, “Great deal! You’ll never get them for that price at Sickles!” Which made me laugh – small town indeed.
The other side of the front door sports a yellow pot too.
It is too early to plant in them, but I am already thinking red flowers like geraniums would be cheerful and a nice contrast. The ones for the back deck will likely be planted with herbs to further aide in cooking – although I am looking forward to a container or two of tomatoes too. All will have to be hardy to survive the times when I am not here during the hot summer and the nibbling bunnies, groundhogs, deer and the like.
Under the watchful eye of my mom from the house, the yard has gone from neglected and bereft to beautiful with the help of a long time gardener, a fellow named Mike. With his help I gave my mother a weeping cherry tree and a magnolia tree a few years ago as I saw so many lovely ones here in the spring. This is the first year they look like more than brave little sticks. Mom’s enjoyment of the yard is limited to photos and videos of it but not at all less for that and hopefully my few additions will make her happy too.
Pam’s Pictorama Post: It’s a food post today, This childhood photo of me at an early birthday party of mine – maybe fifth grade? I am the birthday girl in light blue and to one side of me are twins, Beverly and Beth Bruckmann, the girl standing I believe was named Lisa. I don’t think I can confirm many others – I believe it is my sister Loren’s head we see in the upper left and just below her may have been a neighbor, Sally Jacques. The blonde girl wearing the party hat might be her sister Karen – their other sister Buffy was my bestie at the time but not shown here. Sorry other blond girl seated next to me, I cannot remember even a hint of your name.
This was taken on a wonderful four seasons porch/room my parents added onto the back of this tiny Cape Cod house. It had slate floors and windows all around with a river view. It was the very favorite and most used room in the house except for in the dead of winter or very stormy days when it tended to be chilly.
As evidenced here, pizza has long been a ubiquitous Butler family food and we are selective about it! About a week ago my mom, who can rarely be coaxed into a few mouthfuls of solid food these days, surprised us by consuming a slice fresh out of the box. You can’t take the Italian out of the girl I say.
Mom told a story recently I had never heard before about how as a small girl she was sent down the block from her grandparent’s apartment (and bar on a main drag in the small town of Long Branch) where she could get a very own pizza for lunch from one of the nearby merchants. They were expecting her and would seat her with her pie by the kitchen door. She said she was very pleased with herself and the arrangement and that in retrospect the couple who owned the establishment must have gotten a big kick out of her and her love of their pizza.
This fellow out in front of Red Bank Pizza – hmmm. They do say delivery here, perhaps I was wrong?
In the course of my childhood pizza was most frequently delivered in a thin cardboard box from the likes of places called Red Bank Pizza or Danny’s. It was delivered by a high school or college student, almost always male. It had thin crust and toppings were limited to the most traditional – pepperoni or sausage (before we all became vegetarians), maybe mushroom or peppers. It was, quite frankly, heavenly and a great treat made no less great by how very often we ate it. (Mom did love a night off from cooking.)
In high school I reached some sort of pinnacle of summer jobs making sub sandwiches and warming slices for Aniello’s Pizza. He made an exceptionally good pie with the only disadvantage being that he did not deliver so it lacked in convenience. While I worked there the rule was waitresses could eat as much pizza as you wanted, but in theory had to pay for sandwiches. No need to tell me twice. I happily lived on pizza that summer and even that did not dim my affection for it.
Somewhere along the line my father made a discovery, a place called The Brothers Pizza in Red Bank. Like some of the other top notch establishments they eschewed delivery. My Dad liked to go there with my brother Edward (hey Ed) on the weekend and I would tag along sometimes. I was known to introduce it to a boyfriend or two as well. I must run in that direction this weekend and see if it is still there. I usually stop a block or two short of making it over there, preferring not to cross an especially busy street or two. (Update, I just googled it and it still exists and they deliver – can you say pizza this weekend?)
Brother’s Pizza, Red Bank.
In college we ate a fair amount of bad pizza from Dominoes – a disgrace really. Having grown up with a surfeit of really good pizza I barely knew such things existed. New London, Connecticut was not as well endowed with good pizza and you take what you can get in college and adjust your expectations accordingly. However, sometimes we would drive to a Greek owned pizzeria downtown (which sadly also did not deliver) and eat a memorable moussaka pizza – the only time in my life I have had that.
As you know, life eventually took me to New York City which is an odd and ambitious assortment of pizza. Within a few blocks you can have excellent traditional pies, chains like Dominoes, reasonable slices to go, homemade and gourmet. It is a pizza Mecca in some ways. It took me time and taste testing before I settled on Arturo’s on York Avenue and 85th Street as my pizza joint of choice. It is a street corner take out and delivery hole in the wall that makes a fine pie. I am partial to a well done mushroom, although olives tempt me too. Kim has graciously given up on peppers to fall into line with my mushroom preference. Arturo’s was very loyal to Yorkville during the pandemic and I gave them a shout out at the time in a post that can be found here. When they too close at for a month or so due to illness I really did begin to think things looked bleak indeed.
This comparable but smaller fellow graces Arturo’s Pizza on East 85th Street.
We walk up the, block to Arturo’s to fetch our own pizza – Kim eschews delivery and of course he is right, what is it to walk up the block. It is usually a nice walk as well and on pleasant evenings hanging out on the corner and waiting for our pie, watching folks get bright colored snow cones is good too. We take our pizza home in the more popular hard cardboard box which has mostly replaced the flimsy cardboard one. It has a graphic on it of a street scene in an imaginary Italy which has morphed a bit over time. Kim speculates that they hired someone very inexperienced to draw it and they have improved over time. I am sorry I don’t have a photo of it!
I was sad to realize that most of my childhood pizza places are gone – some as recently as during the pandemic it seems. My mom had scooped out a place called Gianni’s that delivers and is a credible pie. They also do a grandma’s deep dish. (I’ve eaten deep dish pizza in Chicago twice and I’m not sure I will ever eat anything else in Chicago if left up to my own devices.) If I do treat us to a Brother’s Pizza this weekend I will post it as a follow up on Instagram. It is sounding pretty good to me.
Pam's Pictorama 