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Having a Rocky Time

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Stick of rock, Blackpool rock or Brighton rock – the British love their rock candy and since they loved Felix in the 1920’s it was natural that these would go together. Given the survival rate of these cards from various seaside resorts across Great Britain I would say it was a popular marketing concept at the time. I have been eyeing variations of this card for quite awhile when I took matters in hand recently and purchased this version, complete with this nicely pointy Felix, sporting his toothy grin, and which I would hazard a guess was not produced with the knowledge of nor with access to the talent of the Pat Sullivan Studio. To drive the rock candy and beach resort points home, Felix is stepping on these water colored rocks along this beach-y shore. I love the proportion of the roll of rock candy to Felix, slung cavalierly over his shoulder like a workman with a 2×4. There is something compactly compelling about his four point design.

The card was produced (exclusively) Celesque Published by The Photochrom London, Tunbridge Wells. It was sent by Doris on the evening of August 17, 1926 from a place called Redcar, a seaside resort in North Yorkshire, England. Doris writes, complete with swirling curls and luxuriously crossed “t’s” – Having a jolly time at Redcar. Will write later from Easton. Nellie Spot & I are going for a stroll along the beach. About E & CS are…the last bit is illegible and squeezed into the bottom. It is signed (Doris) – I do not know what the parens are for. It is addressed to Miss Mary Dixon, School House, Fontburn, Ewesley, Maspeth Northumberland.

Evidently the hard rock candy in questions is made from boiled sugar in mint flavors (I was disappointed – I thought it might come in fruit flavors or perhaps even be peppery) typically has a pattern inside like the swirl shown here. My teeth hurt just thinking about it, and I immediately see a vision of my dentist sharpening the tools of his trade when I contemplate consuming it. Meanwhile, the talented candy folks have even perfected the art of writing on the inside and I offer the illustration from the Wikipedia site below. The candy is still made in numerous forms today, and for the truly curious, there are opportunities to see the process on Youtube. I skipped those videos, I admit, although I duly note that evidently the pieces of candy can be as much as six feet long before cutting and Felix would appear to be carrying a chunk about three or four feet long here for his part. All in a day’s work for Felix.

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The Other Pam Butler

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: It’s another personal post today. Full disclaimer – it is quite long winded, but an interesting yarn I think. I am editing it and finishing it on the a bus with the Jazz at Lincoln Center band, brutally early on this Saturday morning. I smell of hotel soap, a constant olfactory reminder that I am far from home.

It is snowing hard in Atlanta and our flights are canceled, so we are on an eight hour odyssey by bus to Chapel Hill for our final gig of the season. It is the last stop on a brutal two week tour for these guys, but more about that another time.

Meanwhile, my recent travel has brought another tale to mind which I typed up on the Arkansas leg of my trip a few days ago. Several years ago, I guess maybe eight or more, I was coming home exhausted from an international flight, standing in the neverending line, snaking the through JFK passport control and arrivals terminal. There is always some sort of insult to injury of having to stand in in that damn line when arriving to your own country, although admittedly some smug satisfaction that you aren’t in the much slower line for non-US passport holders.

I was a worse flyer then than now, not that I like it any better, but experience and more business travel has forced me into coping better and planning ahead to find ways to make long flights a bit less awful. On that occasion however, I was frowsy from lack of sleep, tousled in crumb festooned clothes, all the worse for being the last of what had been worn in rotation throughout my trip.

Anyway, it was the middle of the night or the early morning which felt like the middle of the night, or whatever further disorienting thing happens to you when the time difference kicks in to come back east. I handed my passport to the stern looking person behind the desk and much to my shock and displeasure he pulled me aside and marched me to what appeared to be the Immigration holding room. I was told to sit and wait, which I did for quite awhile.

The officials sat behind high desks with plexi (bullet proof?) glass separating us from them. When my name was finally called they interviewed me with a series of questions, off a computer screen which evidently contained my information. They seemed to know a lot about me and were in seeing if I could confirm it. After telling them who my husband was, my date of birth, the color of my eyes and some other pertinent facts, they returned my passport to me in what seemed to be a reluctant way and dismissed me.

In our crazy world of documents, random searches and whatnot I was peevish, but didn’t think a huge amount about it. I fly domestically fairly often, but overseas less frequently. Around that time the Met started sending me abroad a bit more often though. I found myself in Germany probably not much more than a year later. Once again lined up at JFK, handing over my passport and, yep, you guessed it. Back to the immigration room. I began to see a pattern, always on international flights never domestic, and never on the way out of the country, but invariably on the way home. The trips to the room were generally faster than the first time. I would sit there with my copy of Vogue or the trashy novel I had bought on the plane surrounded by unfortunate compatriots who had their own woes in this arena. The officers appeared to take my passport, look at it, look at their computer, look at me and hand it back to me.

Somewhere around the third time, after an especially exhausting flight home from Italy, I found myself almost in tears with frustration and, without thinking through the consequences, I blurted out to the agent who took my passport and took me out of line, “Why does this keep happening to me?!” To my surprise, he said he didn’t know, but if I asked in the folks in the room they may be willing to tell me.

So, I asked. Much to my surprise, they told me that a woman with my exact name and birth day, had been missing for a period of time and they were looking for her. Now, it remains utterly curious to me why if they were looking for this other Pam Butler they didn’t flag my departure from the country. Instead they seemed to care I was re-entering the US. I told my mom the whole tale of woe and she began Googling.

According to Betty, it turns out that this other Pam Butler had worked for the government and had gone missing awhile ago. And, perhaps most significantly, she was black. Clearly this meant that as soon as they got to the point of looking at pictures they realized I was indeed not the Pamela Butler they were looking for.

I was intrigued – was she a spy who had left the country? What nefarious things was this Pam Butler up to – in our shared name? I grew to expect and plan around the inconvenience. Recently, considering TSA Pre I decided to ask one of the agents upon my return from Shanghai if they thought it would make a difference if I got pre-approval. They said no. Meanwhile, they revealed that now Pam Butler was also wanted for breaking the law. She was now associated with fraud of some kind.

Needless to say I was not pleased about this Pam Butler turn of events. When the agent told me about this he was handing back my passport. For some reason he took what appeared to be a parting shot at me, “How tall are you?” he asked. “5’9” I replied, without thinking (I mean – I am!) and he paused and looked at the passport and then smiled at me in what seemed to be a suspicious way, but all he said, “ Ah yes, you are quite tall.”

It was only a couple of months later, when a close friend on the west coast emailed me a link to a newspaper article. Much to my shock, someone had just confessed to killing the other Pam Butler, a number of years ago. She had actually been a straight arrow, a few years years younger than me, she had worked for the EPA, lived in Washington DC. In the photo she looked smart and nice. Evidently she was on a date with the man who killed her. Met him online. Her parents have been searching for her for years and at least the confession seems to have given them some closure. I assume, without knowing, that the man who killed her also sold her identity which lead to the criminal complaints of fraud I heard about.

It is hard to describe how I felt reading about her death. Without realizing it, she had become a part of my life, a sort of travel doppelganger whose path I crossed upon my return from each and every international trip. There’s something very strange about reading about someone with your name and date of birth being murdered. I feel awful for her family and sad for her.

I have wondered if her death will resolve my international travel woes with Immigration. I am cynical enough to doubt that the wires in our systems will uncross so easily. Her memory may be with me for a lot longer. Or maybe not. Now I will think of her with sadness instead of a bit of a thrill of international intrigue and mystery.

Postscript: Snow continues to stop and start here as we drive through South Carolina. We made a second breakfast stop at Cracker Barrel where I ate pancakes AND a biscuit. (No dieting on the road – I have been eating like I am studying for finals in college.) Three or more hours to go. Will try to nap again. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Some Snow!

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Brrrr! This is the kind of snow you somehow imagine when you are a kid, but never really experience – at least most of us won’t anyway, global warming notwithstanding. I think every kid who has built a snow fort has dreamed of something as grand and massive as this. Bigger even than the igloo I always imagined building, but evidently quite secure since our four formidable ladies perch safely atop.

It is indeed unfortunate that there is no indication of where or exactly when this was taken and I can’t help but wonder. It is a photo postcard and there is nothing on the back. The clothes lead us to realize this was probably no later than the teens, a full century ago, the women above in full length dresses, thick warm black stockings on all. There are coats of the heaviest wools with trims and bits of fur. I am not positive, but this image may be populated entirely by women. There’s one figure, on the bottom, second from the right, which may be a young boy, but I cannot see well enough to declare.

I assume that the tunnel through was perhaps of necessity – a path through this extraordinary snow drift – but maybe it was also for fun. I do wonder how someone even managed to make that tunnel though – and where did the excess snow, no small amount, go? Is it just off camera?

As I write this we are commencing the earliest days of winter after a notably mild fall here in the Northeast. (And I for one am heading for Florida for work as I write this – I will be searching the closet for something to wear in 80 degree weather later this week.) The other morning, up very early, I was surprised to see about 20 minutes of hard, fluffy snow – the first of the season, to my knowledge anyway. It didn’t stick. Our extraordinary and notable weather events have been more of the hurricane nature this fall. However, one never knows with winter and weather. Perhaps this will be the year of a big one and we too will make strange burrows and pathways under fifteen and twenty foot drifts here in Central Park.

Trophies

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Pam’s Pictorama Post: Fair warning, you Pictorama readers who have followed these posts for a bit know that occasionally I fall out of my self-designated lane of discussing toys, photos, early Felix and black cat items, and instead head down a tributary which is another which is purely personal. That’s what we have today. I wrote this a few days after Thanksgiving, although I am sending it from Arkansas where I have been on business this week. I am posting it as we start the inevitable countdown to Christmas and New Year holidays. All around, it is a time when family is at the front of mind and this post has been scratching at my brain for awhile.

Some of you who follow me on other social media have been privy to bits about of my parents selling the house I grew up in New Jersey, moving first to a house they rented (briefly) and finally into an adorable, little house in a town adjacent to the area I grew up in. As someone who tends to put emotional currency in objects that exercise was especially difficult at times. Many items were lost or damaged making me crazy – although I guess others were found or discovered too. Ultimately, I focused on just a few items and attempted to ensure those survived the tousle of moving. Among the items were my sister Loren’s (oddly fragile) rugby trophies from her undergraduate years at Princeton. My sister, who died in 2003, had her share of awards – she was a PhD in mathematics and had a pile of academics achievements, some of which are memorialized in plaques and certificates that decorated the walls of my parent’s house. Perhaps some of those were more important to her than these which resided in her old bedroom at my parent’s house, on display on the dresser there but these are what I held onto.

Loren played rugby during her undergraduate years at Princeton. Very athletic all her life, she was full of restless energy and it was often said among us in the family that if she didn’t do at least two different work-outs a day she would drive you nuts – swimming and biking, running and lifting, tennis and so on. My mother says that from the time Loren was old enough to get herself out of bed she would roam the house at night, a reality my mother evidently learned to put up with early on or she never would have slept again herself. An older Loren would practice her violin way into the night each evening and we all became accustomed to being lulled to sleep that way. (I on the other hand was the family sleep champion and evidently slept through the night the first day my mother brought me home from the hospital – prompting her to wake in a panic thinking I must have died, or so the story goes.)

Captain of her cross country team in high school and involved in as many sports and teams as the schedule of each season would allow, rugby was new to Loren when she arrived at Princeton, but she took to it quickly. If I knew how she landed on rugby, I don’t remember now. Her academic schedule was very rigorous though and perhaps the schedule was one that suited her.

I believe that it was during my senior year in high school, her sophomore year, that I visited her and spent the weekend. I went to my first and only rugby game – and loved it! It was fast paced, bloody and muddy as I remember it. Loren was a good size and very muscular, but her co-captains and some of the women from the other team dwarfed her much to my surprise. She held her own on the field though and I cheered her on in scrums. There was robust drinking by both teams after the game, which I believe Princeton won. As for me, I got an advance taste of collegiate life. I was under no illusion that I would or could follow her to Princeton. I was never as academically gifted as she, but nonetheless the visit gave me a taste of anticipation for college life as I applied to schools and mapped my own future.

So a few months ago, out of everything I took out of my parent’s house and secured the safety of, I took these two rugby trophies to a friend’s house for the duration of the move. I have yet to install them in the room now designated for Kim and I when we visit, but when I do it will feel more like a second home to me too I think.

 

Buddies

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post:  One of the things I love about this photo is how someone has set the cat up on the chair, making the cat, dog and little boy all the same height. The dog looks vaguely protective, the cat wise and knowing. The child connects all three by having his hands on the back of the dog and draped over the cat. If it wasn’t for the old fashioned dress of the child this photo could be from any time, but the white night shirt style shirt and some sort of black stockings put it at the earliest part of the last century. It appears it might be early fall. There seem to be leaves on the ground, but it is warm enough for the little boy to be happily outside without a coat. While it appears to have been posed (the covered chair, comfortable for the kitty) I feel like the natural kinship between the three is shown. The card was never sent and there is nothing written on it to tell us who these three might be.

This photo, a photo postcard, illustrates a philosophy of mine that all children should have a cat and dog when they are small, because they can make the very best friends. They listen to and keep all your secrets, generally have more patience than anyone for your small child games and ramblings. I remember telling ours all sorts of things and having great times with them. As the younger of two children, the dog and the cat were generally willing playmates when no one else was interested in me. Their patience wasn’t infinite, but in retrospect it was fairly extensive. Frankly, I cannot imagine our kitties today, Cookie and Blackie, having nearly that much patience, but perhaps the fact that back then all of us started out little together made the difference. The dog was a puppy and the cat a kitten, when I was still a toddler myself so we grew up together. There are photos of little me carrying our cat Snoppy around, vaguely annoyed, like a rag doll. My mother, who was not always a fan of the dog, knew nevertheless, that she could be depended on to protect us and would also submit willingly to our attentions.

In a fit of enthusiasm, I will occasionally whisk Cookie or, more likely Blackie, up into a stronghold of ear rubs and kisses which they barely permit before squirming away, appalled. I haven’t tried telling them any secrets lately either, but Cookie is very devoted to Kim and frankly I suspect she’d spill the beans. Then again, maybe you have to be a small child to trust cats as well as to have them trust you?

 

 

January 23, 1934

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I purchased these in a recent trend toward purchasing groups of photos from albums, or like these, of the same subjects. Unlike some cases recently when multiple photos arrived, I did know that I was buying all three photos – they were sold together. I purchased them from someone in Des Moines, but hard to say if that’s where these hail from or not. Each is neatly stamped on the back, FINISHED WITH CARE JAN 23 1934 THE WHITE HOUSE Radio Photograph Shop. They show no signs of having been in an album.

I suspect that the largest photo might be the three generations of men, grandfather, father and two boys – with their Mickey toys. The men look fairly stern for this sort of light hearted portrait turned toy display. Both are wearing glasses and the older of them is not only in a three piece suit and tie, but actually has a watch chain and fob. Neither smile here. Meanwhile, these Mickey dolls, upon close examination, have telltale Steiff buttons in their ears and they appear to be in fairly pristine condition, despite clearly also being beloved.  In the small, torn photo, the older, brown haired boy points out that their shirts, decorated with tiny anchors, also sports a cheery Mickey on the sailor style tie. Although they do not smile in the photo with the older men, the boys are grinning and quite pleased with themselves and their toys in the other photos.

Being toy sensitive, I suspect that the reason these photos were taken was due to the (probably) new Mickey Mouse toys and matching outfits. It was the motivation to take out the camera and snap the photos. (Oddly, it also means that they have ended up, still together, in my collection today. This is always something that gives me a bit of pause.) Those of us born in the middle of the 20th century have variations on such pictures – us and grandparents and parents, aunts and uncles, taken at family picnics and other such occasions. Typically posed and somewhat formal with the older generation. I think of one of me and my sister, probably about ages five and seven respectively, with my grandmother, (my father’s mother) taken in a sunny backyard garden – theirs I assume although I do not really remember their yard and we never played in it. My grandparents were busy people who owned a thriving dry goods business they ran together and I cannot imagine either of them spending a spare moment on a garden, nor were they the kind of people who would have paid someone to care for it. A great aunt also lived with them, so perhaps she was the gardener. I must think to ask.

This morning I received a Thanksgiving family photo from a friend on the west coast. Theirs was a large multi-generational holiday meal and whipping out the iPhone for a photo these days has made it so easy – as was dropping it into an email to me. As for me, my own family has dwindled in size for celebrations and we were only five for Thanksgiving this year. However, while enjoying a glass of champagne along with pre-meal cheese and crackers, I snapped the photo below of my dad, napping with the cats in the sun. While I tend to natter on about how we never print the many photos we take now and therefore they will be lost to future generations, I admit it is nice to be able to sneak a photo memory like this. Therefor today I am grateful for the stealth and ease of my phone camera. While it has meant the end of businesses like the Radio Photograph Shop which made sure photos were finished with care back in 1934, mine is a photo that would not have happened back then.

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There’s Gladness in Remembrance

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Kicking off the advanced Christmas season here at Pictorama this week with this recent purchase. This card caught my attention with its sheer oddity. I cannot exactly imagine how someone might have come up with the combination of a smoking cigarette, Christmas and cats on a postcard greeting. It makes me think that the designer was very tired and was desperate for ideas, or perhaps smoking something him or herself. Or maybe it was truly an example of these are some of my favorite things, like the song says.

Several of the cats seem to be escaping out of their surreal smoke rings, although that big, annoyed looking Persian is curled up on his or hers like a pillow. All fluffy Persian variations (or is it Maine Coon?) I can’t quite decide if four of these cats are the same cat or just similar markings. These are some serious looking kitties, especially the one without stripes at the bottom. It is obvious, but I might add, there’s nothing of the celebratory or festive about them – these aren’t some darling kittens – these are some frowning cats.

Meanwhile, then there is the burning cigarette and the matches, artfully falling from their match safe. More than anything about this card, which was never sent and without writing on the back, the match safe dates it for me to the early part of the 20th century. Books of matches were in high fashion by the 1940’s. (I have written about match safes in my collection on two occasions, Safety Match and Match safe – Ya Gotta Make Calls.

For my own part, I have never been a cigarette smoker, not even when I was a teenager. I have smoked maybe three in my life – I never saw the point in it; although I certainly understand that there are people who feel otherwise. Clearly this represents a time when smoking was both comforting and to some degree festive. My ambivalence about it does not extend to how good it looks in early films – it does indeed look sophisticated and cosmopolitan.

The sprig of holly is the sole festive Christmas touch. With Hearty Christmas Greetings…There’s gladness in remembrance it declares. Gladness in remembrance touches on the coming New Year – auld lang syne – out with the old year and in with the new. One can only wonder why this card was tucked away and kept pristinely for all these years except to say Christmas cards seem to be kept, although those are usually ones sent by someone. Perhaps, like me, the photo just entertained someone who found and hung onto it.

I have always been a conscientious writer and saver of cards of all kinds, even before my cat card collecting days commenced. As Pictorama readers and others know, Kim and I have been producing a holiday card together since we first started dating and it is time to start work on the one for this year. I admit to the possibility of some influence from this card as Kim and I begin to contemplate our card design for this year, but we will have to have to wait and see what comes of it. Keep an eye on Pictorama for an eventual preview reveal, but know that we are considering it as we partake of our Thanksgiving dinner later this week.

Brought to you by…

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Sometimes I believe I manage to score certain postcards because they are hard to actually see on eBay. Then I realize, alas, that maybe I am the only person who actually thinks this is incredibly cool! Nonetheless, for that handful of you who share my aesthetic ecstasy over smiling black cat advertising, I present this gem today. I have announced my deep affection for the fine advertisings of Black Cat Hosiery in a prior recent post, Time Out for Our Sponsor, and also Black Cat Town. Pictorama readers know that this company adopted the grinning black kitty as their visual moniker.

In today’s card, they seem to be executing an advertising campaign which was the early 20th century version of stadium advertising – although this would be in some sort of theater. My guess is a vaudeville theater and these folks seem to be peering over a box seat balcony or loge of sorts. Oddly, a sad looking vase of flowers is perched in the lower right. It is a hoot that the words of this sign appear to be made up of actual socks and hose – if you look carefully tags punctuate the letters. They have pasted up a bunch of their great black cat signage of various sizes – it is very homemade, if charming, indeed. Lastly, I do wonder – a theater where they were selling socks and hose somewhere? Were they supplying the can-can dancers with their run resistant stockings in early product placement?

In a neat script on the back a little ditty carefully penned reads as follows: This picture isn’t very good/But “By the By,” perchance I should/In justice to the artist add/The subject to were pretty bad. There’s evidence that it spent time in a photo album, but was never mailed. I am not sure why, but I feel like it was written by the man in the middle of the group. I put on my photographer’s hat for a moment, and also opine that in all fairness the light had to have been quite low, inside a theater, for taking a photo with the equipment of the day. (A tip ‘o the hat to Kim for darkening this before I presented it.) Therefore, this jolly group should probably be pleased with the results they managed to achieve. For my part, I am of course, quite glad that the photographer did not sacrifice any of this splendid sign in his or her attempt to record the night out enjoyed by these folks.

By way of enticement and illustration, I offer a full color photo of my small Black Cat Hosiery advertising, featured in Time Out for Our Sponsor as mentioned above.

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Featured in Pams-Pictorama.com post, Time Out From Our Sponsor.

 

Esther and Houtas

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Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: A recent delving into and wading through old cat photos online has produced some unusual purchases in the form of mostly snap shots. I assumed that was what I was purchasing when I acquired this, but much to my surprise, although it had been pasted into an album, the black photo album paper has torn away on the back to reveal that this was indeed a photo postcard. It was never mailed and written in a neat inked hand on the back is, Esther & Houtas sitting on the wood pile. Ground is covered with snow. I went to the trouble of looking up the name Houtas. I do believe that is her name (it is neatly written) and was able to find some nodding acquaintance to it on the internet. I assume it refers to one of these girls – who I further assume are sisters – as opposed to that nice gray kitty one is holding.

This photo has a timeless quality, and it isn’t until we look closely at those wooly tights and button boots that we realize how old it probably is. Those matching, layered wool dresses and heavy tights look a bit itchy when we consider them seriously, but were probably just the thing for that cold day – no need for overcoats. These girls seem a bit mismatched as sisters, but my own sister and I did not look more alike than this – she of very curly hair and I of very straight.

I have no idea where this card is from or where it was taken, but this spare snowy landscape could stand in for my childhood in New Jersey. This big woodpile is more substantial than the one we generally had out back, although during the course of my childhood we always kept a sizable pile of logs. Much of the cord wood was purchased each fall, although some of it came from limbs that had been trimmed off of our own trees, or as the sad result of a tree that had reached the end of its life and had to be cut down. My mother was always very responsible about the trees and their well being. They were tended to by professionals no less than annually. I personally would have been reluctant to play on the woodpile however, as it was the likely home of mice and even the occasional water rat who wanted a pied-à-terre on dry land. Perhaps for that very reason it was something of a favorite spot for the cats. Although as I remember, some form of wild catnip also grew in the gravel driveway near the woodpile and our enormous cat Pumpkin used to go into rolls of ecstasy over it in the spring. That would have added to the appeal.

The house I grew up in had two enormous fireplaces although we generally only used the one downstairs in what we called the family room. If I ever buy a house a working fireplace will be a must. (I have met New Yorkers lucky enough to have functioning fireplaces in their apartments, but I am not the sort of person who lucks into outdoor space, fireplaces or rent controlled New York apartments. It think it is a skill you are born with, like the ability to hold your breath underwater for a long time or whistle well and on key.) I am endlessly fascinated by fireplaces and will do what I can to migrate to them at restaurants or bars this time of the year. I will settle for gas fires, although there’s nothing like real wood, with the smell, popping of sap, steaming of moisture and the sighing and rolling of disintegrating logs. Oh such bad news for the unsuspecting insects and spiders who took up residence in those logs!

My parents recently moved to a much smaller house, on a cute little patch of property one town over from where I grew up. The house does have a small fireplace, which works at least in theory. These days my mom and dad are too elderly to mess with a fire, even with fake, store bought logs. However, I just promised them the Christmas gift of an electric space heater that looks like a fireplace to ease the drafts in their new house. If I like it maybe I will find room for one here in our tiny New York abode as well.

 

Altar of the Black Kitty

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Pam’s  Pictorama Photo Post:  It was Kim who first said it looked like this little girl was worshiping at the altar of the kitty. I bought it as soon as I spied that lovely black cat and fluffy tail. Lucky girl, quite a birthday gift that would be! Just a few highlights have been touched up with color by hand. There is something of the altar of the Virgin Mary about it, as she looks deeply into the eyes of the toy cat, some religion I could get behind.

This card is British and on the back is, To dear little Joie from Gran with lots of love hoping she will have a happy Birth Day. X ++++, written in a spidery, hard-to-read grandmotherly scrawl. As far as I can tell, it is addressed to Miss Joyce Lucton (?), 2 Glenbroke Place, Upper… Street, Bristol. The postmark is faint, but it appears to be from 5:45 AM, December 1, 1906. The edges of the card are embossed with a fancy flower design that is hard to see in the photo. It probably won’t surprise Pictorama readers that I still enjoy sending and receiving actual cards – although the birthday postcard is something one doesn’t much see these days.

It is well understood that as children we anticipate our birthday all year – not only for the day of cake and toys (although that is very good and I still like that) – but because when you are young of course the idea of being a year older is great too. We want to  be grown up. Somewhere in our twenties the tide seems to turn and a sense of, if not actual dread, ambivalence sets in. My mother would say, beats the alternative (or as an older friend said recently in response to my birthday greetings that her birthday was better than the dirt nap), but we stop being celebratory at a minimum. Suddenly, older is bad.

For me, oddly enough, my twenty-first birthday was the first where I found myself, alone in London on a year abroad, at loose ends and feeling less than celebratory. I decided to rally, went to a high-end hair dresser and cut my hair very short for the first time, followed by a to a vintage clothing store. There I purchased a vintage dress and jacket, a lovely teapot, a strange silver pin of the Sphinx, and an art deco necklace. (I still have the pin and the necklace and somewhere the jacket. The teapot chipped badly in a move a number of years ago, and the dress given to a friend.) A friend rescued me in the evening and took me to a dinner of Greek food. I called my mother when I got home (very late and a bit tipsy) and I remember the operator asking me if I knew what time it was in the United States! Very British. I have called my mother every year on my birthday though, and I am pleased to say she didn’t mind in the least.

A number of years later, in a fit of latter adult birthday ambivalence, I took the matter in hand and declared February my birthday month. I gathered around me a cohort of Aquarian friends, and decided I would celebrate with each of them separately. Like me, they had long-suffered birthdays that were jammed in or around (or in one case on) Valentine’s Day. We had that, and living here on the east coast, snow in common. While over time that group has mostly dwindled (although the unofficial club did take on a new member last year) with out-of-state moves, and in one case sadly with a quite elderly member, death, I have to say it has wrought some of the very nicest memories. Despite increasingly busy schedules time is set aside to spend with each of those people and has resulted in some lovely memories. Sometimes, these days, the date gets pushed to March – sometimes well beyond – but it always happens. More than a decade ago, one friend’s daughter was born, prematurely, on the day we were scheduled for dinner – and that in the midst of a snow storm to boot! February 2018 birthday dinners and lunches are already being considered and scheduled – other Aquarians feel free to raise your hand.