Milton the Cat

Pam’s Pictorama Post: Kim had the excellent suggestion this morning that I might consider each of the cats individually for a post, starting with some of the New Jersey guys (and gals). Peaches was featured in a post (which can be read here) not that long ago so this would be the second of the lucky kits seven to be in the spotlight. (My father’s wonderful cat Red who died not that long after him was featured in a post here.)

*Beau, Gus and Milty waiting for breakfast one morning.*

Milty, as he is generally known, is the most senior, if somewhat titular, head of the New Jersey manor. He is, by our best guestimate, about 21 years old. I’m afraid I don’t have any photos of a young Milty. As you can see, he’s an almost tabby, white with copious tabby spots, a sort of every cat.

*Milty achieving pets on the arm of the chair.*

He came to my mom as a tiny kitten rescued in Newark with a terrible long cut down his back. Because of that, I guess, he came to mom with the moniker of Knifey which she thought was an awful name and hardly described this genial little ball of fluff. He was found and rescued him on Milton Street (Newark Harrison Plaza to be precise it would appear) in Newark and Mom went with Milton as his name, Milty most of the time. Meanwhile, his back injury was so severe that he had to be isolated away from her other cats for a few months while it healed.

My parents were still in the (very large) house I grew up in and Milty had a room upstairs where he spent his first few months. That was a rough and tumble house of more or less five cats at the time, but eventually Milty found, and probably occasionally fought, his way into the milieu.

It was, I believe, not long after my sister Loren died that Milty came to Shrewsbury Drive. It also became a tumultuous time with my folks packing up that house ultimately and leap frogging to a rental before moving into the house I have now. So while a new kitty is always a thing of joy I think things like hurricane Sandy followed by my parents packing up and moving overshadowed his arrival somewhat. He slipped quietly and seamlessly into the life of the Butler household.

*Winsome putting her hat on him on a whim last year.*

Milty was always a pretty easy going guy. Slowly he moved up the ranks of mom’s cats over time and there was a moment where it was just him and two others before mom went on a cat acquisition streak not much more than two years before she died, bringing their number to five.

Of all of the cats, Milty is the friendliest and in fact actually demands to be petted by all comers to the house – sitting by you and reaching out with a tapping paw gently. He has a good memory for the regular visitors who pay attention to him and runs right to them. He does not discriminate by age – he is perfectly willing to let Anaya, Winsome’s granddaughter age 3, have her first, tentative cat pats with him. His fur is amazingly soft and he has gotten fluffier, not less so, with age.

He is a bit of a grump and tyrant these days when it comes to food. If given his way a stream of cans would be opened for him ongoing throughout the day. He has the annoying (for the other cats) habit of eating the first wet bits out of every dish as they are put out – taking the best moist bits off the top. He drinks copious (truly vast) amounts of water daily and is said (by mom) to have tumors in his stomach. In the mornings that I am there he meows loudly and urgently for his breakfast until it is served, he and
Beau eat first there.

Milty is demanding for attention as well and sits on the arm of your chair and gently grabs your arm, just a few gentle claw paws, for pets. Unfortunately, he is not a well behaved lap cat and the claws are in play for starfish paws and he tends to get moved along. He is the top ranked puker in the house and has other occasional accidents, not surprising I guess given his age and other factors.

*Peaches smiling and giving Milty a pat.*

He enjoys a surprisingly good relationship with essentially all of the other cats. (He has no use for the New York cats when they visit but that seems fair. He mixed it up with Blackie on our last visit, marching into the bedroom one morning to see where breakfast was. He also swatted a friend’s dog who wandered into the house with him one evening.) I tend to find an odd combination of cats curled up with Milty. The most surprising is Peaches, our most feral and generally resistant feline. I frequently find her curled up with him while giving me a somewhat defensive look. Gus also likes to sit with (or sometimes on) Milts and Milty never appears bothered. He is the Switzerland of cats.

High jumping was never his thing – the awful long cut on his back perhaps – and he generally stays near to the ground now and rarely gets up higher than a low chair. Aside from that he is surprisingly spry and greets all visitors like the retired mayor of a small town who sits out in a sunny rocking chair on the front porch of the general store or post office. He expects a certain amount of recognition and fealty.

In some ways I feel bad for Milty as he never quite got to be a singular favorite with a devoted individual tending him. He has been loved but a bit generally by many. We’ve had a few scares with his health and know that at 21 for a cat his time is likely melting away. However, he seems utterly content as the figurative king kitty in the house of Butler.

Trucking

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This photo came to me via the antiques mall in New Jersey, purchased shortly before Christmas this year, among my minor holiday decoration purchases. It is a bit faded and the mat it is attached to is a bit stained and tatty. It caught my eye however and overall it is sort of wonderful.

I brought the photo back to New York where I have been looking at it under a loupe and I have managed to read the very faded and overexposed writing on the side of the truck. I have deduced that this truck was decorated for a company picnic and outing. After cleaning I can just about read the writing on the side of the truck despite it being very over-exposed and faded, Annual Outing and Picnic for Employees Pulaski Trucking Corporation. Sadly, if there was a date I can no longer decode it. (These days I can find a Pulaski Heavy Hauling company in New York – hard to know if this is this company is the ancestor or not.)

This fits neatly into my collection of yard long photos of outings and employee picnics which decorate the walls of the house in New Jersey. (Posts about those can be found here and here.) I will most likely bring it back there to live, although if I could find a spot for it here in New York I would enjoy that too. There is something endlessly appealing about people in their best bib and tucker posing on a special outing. It is in some ways the essence and premise of much of my collection.

*These yard long photos are hard to film (but worth it) so you’ll have to go to the post above to really see it!*

It is a deeply male enterprise and picnic or not, these fellows mostly dressed for the occasion. (I’ll assume the wives and girlfriends and children are nearby but elsewhere.) Understanding that it is a picnic it is surprising that so many are in suits or wearing ties. Some wear hats and others took their off for the photo. There are two men in dark suits on the end, one holds a newspaper in his hands while the other has a black mourning band on his arm and smokes a cigarette.

The fellow on the very end is the jauntiest, leaning on one arm, straw hat and all attitude. Next to him, almost ghost-like due to movement during the exposure, being over-exposed and fading, is a small child in shorts, lumpy high socks (bad idea!) bunching down his legs. He is the only kid to sneak into this otherwise all adult photo.

The Tydol sign, hanging off the side of the garage, indicates that this photo was probably taken in front of the garage. There’s no way to know where this was taken. The three and four story buildings in the background make the setting at least a bit urban, but could easily be small town urban. Although found in NJ there is of course no guarantee that this was taken there and as these were truckers, we assume the fellows in the photo roamed a bit afield.

The photo is evidently glued into a pressed paper decorative mat. It was super grimy and it appears to have become one with the pressed paper mat. The back is cardboard and some torn brown paper, but with a wire that seems serviceable and ready to hang so I will be looking for exactly the right spot to install it.

Photo of My Dad

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: I found this photo in New Jersey while looking for something else over the holidays. I found a cache of photos there of my father and his cousins when they were very young and spending summers in a tiny, bucolic enclave called Cottekill, in Ulster County, New York where the family had a house. Some of those photos showed my grandfather quite young with my dad as a tiny tot and many of the three children at play.

I don’t know why, but somehow I never saw this particular pile of photos. And I am sorry not to have found them to puzzle over with mom while she was still alive. Photos from Dad’s family somehow didn’t make it into the family rotation. Actually my parents mostly kept pictures of their life together in the house and ones from their past dribbled in over time, but were not always examined it seems. Although a cousin brought mom a pile from her side of the family which we were able to examine during the last years of her life.

Dad’s memory, never good, was sort of a Swiss cheese hit or miss before he died and I don’t know how much help he would have been in identifying anything anyway. As interesting as I find those photos of him as a babe or small child, this is a rare shot of my father as a young man and I can’t think of another from this time in his life so I have brought it back to New York with me.

Frankly, it is not a great photo, bad exposure and poorly printed, messy edges with some bit of another photo bleeding into the left side. The composition is not great – the photographer could have fitted dad into the frame better. Presumably it was taken by one of his friends, perhaps also learning the craft of still photography at the time. Dad appears to be noodling around with a piece of film editing equipment. (On subsequent study – is that a press camera seen from the side?) For me my interest is mostly that I don’t have other photos of him from precisely this time. It is undated and there is nothing written on the back – may I just say, neither side of my family ever made notes on their photos.

*A photo of mom from about a decade later.*

My father did his undergraduate degree at NYU in history and, after a stint in the army during the war in Korea where he was stationed in the Arctic and learned to film maneuvers. He later used the GI bill to get his masters degree in film at Boston University. I wonder if this shows him, plying his new trade, in an apartment somewhere in Boston, although it doesn’t really have the look of a student apartment – drapes on the window and paintings on the wall.

The objects on the table are too indistinct to really see. I believe the paper in front of him is likely the booklet of instructions for the device he is using – that may be a roll of film next to it. He is dressed in a rather natty button down shirt and vest and a watch with a leather band which predates the metal Rolex one I inherited (and wear) and remember him best as wearing.

*Dad in an undated photo on a motorcycle he rode across country.*

Dad always dressed well and he liked clothes and shopping – my mom didn’t so I assume I got my interest in those things from him. (I have written about his mom, Gertrude, before who collected jewelry and was always well dressed. A post devoted to her and my inherited interests can be found here.) The only real surprise is that he never wore a striped shirt in my memory. His closet was a perpetual sea of light blue and white versions of this shirt (pink might occasionally find its way in) which I might inherit to mess around in once the collars and cuffs frayed. It is a bit beyond my imagination to think of him wearing stripes, but evidently they are something he grew out of.

I have a photo I have written about before of dad a few years later, astride a decaying motorcycle he rode across the country. (That popular early post can be found here.) I like this one to help fill in the dots along the timeline of his life and I plan to put it in a frame and bring it to my office. There it will reside next to a much beloved picture of my mom I rescued recently where a young Betty Butler is holding Snoopy, our first cat as a family. Mom and Dad would meet about five or more years after spot on the timeline I assign to this picture.

Unlike some family photos I have unearthed, this one doesn’t really have stand alone quality as a picture to recommend it so thank you for indulging me a bit if you read this to the end.

A Cat Hole

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: As I write today, I continue to try to get past this nasty cold (which Kim is now in the early stages of) which has dogged my holiday this year. In addition, we plan to pack up kit (cat) and caboodle on Saturday and head back to New York. In some odd way therefore, a cat house photo postcard seems like an appropriate post for you all to be reading as we are making our way back on Saturday.

This is an oddball card I ran across right before the holidays and which was delivered to New York before we left for Christmas. I purchased it on eBay which is was posted for sale for just a few sheckles so I was pleased to be the first to claim it. Not to say that I think it has very broad appeal – it could be said to be a card that only I (and a few other cat lovers) might find of interest.

Frankly, it is a bit dirty and tatty – the lower left corner has been torn – and was poorly printed as well, a wide white strip along the left side. For all of that, it is a great composition with the cat house dead center and those vertical trees bringing you eye right to it. There is the big house, back porch in evidence, behind it and a small additional shed that is similar to the house, on the right side. A long pipe chimney comes up from that roof which makes me wonder if it was perhaps a smokehouse. A tree runs up the right side of the card, closing the composition on that side.

This man and woman (proprietor and proprietress?) stand proudly on either side, their hands atop the cat house and his other hand pointing to it. Both look rather pleased with themselves and a dog is in evidence, although the proverbial (housed) cat is not. Some farm equipment is in evidence (pails, some sort of cart and a machine I cannot identify) are scattered about the yard. From the leaflessness of the trees and the coat sported by the woman I assume it is late fall or winter.

It was mailed on December 12, 1912 from Neosho, MO to Elizabeth Hitchcock, East Chatham, Colubmbia Co, New York, Route 1. It says, Helloo Sukey, Say this is a picture of Martha’s dog houses and cat house. I’ve been sick aint well yet, had pnemonia. I about coughed my head off. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to all. from Grandpa.

Where are these dog houses? Do they produce them for sale?

Right up to Grandpa signature I thought it was a woman writing – don’t know why. Well, with the cat house, the coughing cold, Christmas and New Year’s greeting – I think this is spot on for a post-holiday post today. Back to toys tomorrow!

Fleeting

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today I have a post of the cannot be and will not be of items that are not part of the Pictorama collection. It is the tantalizing netherworld of the might have been.

After all, I general troll constantly for one-of-a-kind objects that fit my areas of interest and therefore there is bound to be some loss among the gain and many failed attempts for a variety of reasons.

Sadly, today’s post is inspired by the worst kind of loss which has reminded me that to operate in my world one has to be prepared for a variety of eventualities.

To start with I have this wonderful Felix photo postcard for my collection and the sad inspiration for this post. Those longstanding readers know that these singular photo postcards of people posing with giant Felix dolls are the foundation of the photo side of my collection. I have not really assembled them to do a count but I own many and pretty much approach the situation as that these are must haves when they become available. Occasionally I lose one to a bid too low, but generally not for a healthy lack of trying. If you are going to wrestle it away from me you are going pay some serious money.

This card was not lost to another bidder, but saddest of all was won, paid for and now has gone missing in the mail! Searches have been completed and I even had a phone call from my mail woman. They can only confirm that it was delivered to the address of my high rise building – although they did go to the other buildings in the area to check. It has just disappeared. It was insured but because the post office says they delivered it the insurance won’t pay. I am out both the money but most importantly the card which is irreplaceable. It is a mystery. I share it here In Memoriam.

Up next is another whole and different category – the items I did not buy because they turned out to be reproductions. The language on some of these posts can be very hard to decipher – and occasionally all the way to deceptive. I am not actually saying that this one was deceptive however and I realized that this rather fascinating photo was a copy and did not purchase it. Somehow it remained in my watched folder of eBay to share with you today. That furry Felix costume is really weirdly memorable and he has the saddest Felix face! One should not ignore the charm of the donkey clad fellow on the other side. Hotsy totsy! I do wonder what the heck kind of vaudeville or other act this commemorated.

This nice Tuck card with a Louis Wain design was one of several offered by a Canadian seller. I admit to causing my own downfall as I was trying to purchase a group of them and got muddled. I made an offer which she turned down and then much later she ultimately made an offer, but I had my mind in other things (sadly I do actually have a job and try to get some work done Monday through Friday) and I missed that chance. Once I had myself together to circle back she has gone out of town with all on hiatus and I don’t know if it will ever happen now.

These cards do sell high and I appreciate that she bought them for her own collection and paid a lot – she just got me in a confused and busy moment. In the recent Louis Wain bio (Catland – review post is here) the author discusses how from the beginning Christmas or holiday illustrations and cards helped to make up the backbone of Wain’s annual income. His illustration of these cards were at the height of his career if I remember correctly. Meanwhile, I have several from the Felix collection and that post can be found here. Maybe more to come on these if she and I can sync up our communication.

This photo above has been kicking around in my watched folder for ages. As you can see, it bares the seller’s mark. They have named a ridiculous amount of money for it. While I understand that this is some sort of strategy I am not interested in engaging in a negotiation where someone is starting several hundred dollars more than I am willing to pay. This photo interests me, but not enough to engage in that dialogue. (It is still available for anyone who wishes to engage in the process!) I share the back as well. It is a press photo from February 28, 1931 of students from the Mardi Gras parade in the Latin Quarter of Paris looking into the Luxembourg Gardens.

And sometimes I am just outbid. I try to be philosophical about that. If you are going to participate in auctions it will indeed happen. My father always gave me the advice his own mother gave him which is, figure out your maximum and stick to it. Gertie Butler was a true veteran of live auctions in her day – yes, I really do come by this interest naturally. She furnished an entire home with antiques this way. I often think of how much she would have loved eBay, although perhaps she liked the activity of going in person as well.

Anyway, above is an example of a card that just went too high. Sometimes things go way high and at least there is comfort in that as I know I never would have paid that much. Other times, as in the case of this cat card, they go just beyond your top bid. I try to reassure myself that it isn’t likely that if I had gone just a tiny bit higher that it would be mine – after all, the person was likely to have gone higher too. It is just an illusion that you could have had it for a dollar more, probably not true.

This card has a lovely tuxie sitting on a sort of dressing table tray among potions, brushes and combs in order to admire the kitty in the mirror. I can’t tell if he understands that it is his image in the mirror or if he is among the type who thinks this fellow might be invading his turf – something about his expression makes me think the latter.

*A never ran for Pictorama but very fun nevertheless.*

I end today with a I will never own it because I didn’t bid on it item. This little gem of a wind-up ice cream seller from a Milestone Auction recently which I thought was super charming, but a bit outside my area of collecting. As it happens, many people must have agreed and it sold for a pretty rarified price. However, it passes through the Pictorama portals at least as a guest appearance as well.

Comfort in Cats

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: Just coming off the Louis Wain Catland bio (I posted about that last week and it can be found here) I am self-consciously thoughtful suddenly about how the public sentiment about cats has shifted over the past 100+ years since humans just started finding their sea legs with them as domestic beloveds.

It wasn’t long after the Victorian period that cats were taken up in popular advertising at the dawn of the 20th century. This grinning black kit with the yellow bow was the longstanding spokes-cat for the Black Cat Hosiery company and was so popular for decades that the advertising items from it remain in high demand and often is quite pricey today. (This bit of an ad with thanks to Sandi Outland, via @curiositiesantique who sent it several months back – the the sea, my desk has spit it up from the depths for today’s consideration and helped inspire this post.)

I have written about the company on other occasions so if you want more info on the company you can find it in a post here – and more here. The above ad is from a July, 1907 McCalls magazine and other ads on the page are for, most fascinatingly, H&H Pneumatic Bust Forms (yes, like stuffing your bra – no one will know) and Modene hair removal for face, neck and arms – it cannot fail! Our black cat was in good company.

So in a mere few decades cats began to morph into the area they would command for many decades to come. However, I think it is fair to say that with the part of our lives that are now lived online some of us have taken our interest in cats to a much more highly developed level.

*A photo of a young Betty Butler, holding our cat Snoopy back in the 1960’s from a Mother’s Day post this year.*

Speaking for myself, my interest in cats began as a small child. Pictorama readers know that I have written numerous times about my childhood cat friends, Snoopy, a white cat with black cow spots with whom I shared many important childish conversations. But there was also Pumpkin who came to me as a tiny kitten ball of orange fluff and grew into an enormous faded-orange tabby who followed me around with dog-like devotion. As I got older my cat Winkie, a tiny tortie polydactyl with huge toed front paws like mitts, was my particular confidant. As a young adult Otto Dix (Miss Otto Dix), a tuxie from a corn farm in New Jersey, became my constant companion and closest friend, a very special cat especially smart cat who I still miss to this day.

However, until relatively recent years, my love and interest in cats (other than what I collect of course) was limited largely to those I knew – mostly my own or those of my mother. I suppose it started even before the pandemic, but certainly during those long days and nights that following cats online became a habit. First there was Maru the Japanese cat (to be precise, a Scottish Straight cat who lives in Japan) who can’t resist box and likes to get into boxes, some that are way too small for him. There was the somewhat neurotic French cat, Henri, a long haired tuxie who has Existential angst. The French also brought us cats playing Paddy Cake which never fails to make me laugh and for some reason is only funny to me in the French – there is an English version.

Still, those were occasional and one-off entertainment. I believe for me that cats as a form of online entertainment and escapism was born of the darkest period of the pandemic, fueled by late nights of waking up and worrying about work. Unable to sleep, I would read Judy Bolton novels (the first in a lot of early series books I read and I wrote about Judy Bolton here) and take a spin through Instagram, sometimes buying the odd item, but also entering the world of cats online and sometimes following even their most daily routines.

I’m probably skipping ahead a bit but Sadie and Dottie (@sadieanddottie), a tuxie and a white kit with cow spots, and who appear to live in Queens, brightened many a dark day when I realized a new post or story had been posted. These largely consist of these two cats growing up, but mostly doing cat stuff like watching birds and napping. Yes, I can watch my own cats do that (although Deitch Studio is situated a little high for birds out the window) and I do, but it turns out I like to watch other cats do it too.

*A screen grab of this little video of Sadie.*

With almost 14,000 viewers cat mom Lauren Grummel and cat dad Chas Reynolds, Jr. appear to have their hands full supplying frequent doses of their kitties going through their daily paces. A favorite post is an imaginative one of Sadie (the tux) sailing away on a boat at night in search of parents who will give her more treats instead of telling her she’s had enough. (Find it here.)

There is @Fatfink (aka Devlin Thompson) who I first got to know on Facebook, but now is an Instagram constant. His record of the comings and goings of his small menagerie of four cats, (these days Clawford, Kookie, Mr. Biscuits and Miss Rupert), which includes some recent rescues and things like his daily fight over his dinner with them or other such tidbits, are interspersed with an aligned interest in comics – but it is really over the kits that we bond. He sends me great cat videos too which I often find first thing in the morning and cheer my day.

A friend on the west coast started supplying me with both funny and moving video snippets of cats during the difficult period of caring for my mother although she continues to send them since I like them so much. These videos, many from The Dodo are chock-a-block full of cats paired with a myriad of other odd animals as friends (deer, dogs, cows) or doing un-catlike activities like motorcycle riding or boating. It is especially lovely and a real kindness as she herself isn’t especially fond of cats so she seeks them out just for me.

Most recently I have fallen hard for team Penny and Felix on Instagram. Penny (@pennythegingercat) is a somewhat sardonic and absolutely adorable orange tabby female (yes, a rarity) and Felix (@felixthepalegingercat) her younger brother, a lean and lanky light orange fellow. (Penny alone has upwards of 650,000 followers!)

The antics of these two (two accounts means twice the fun) include but are not limited to: Felix’s impatience over getting his breakfast in the morning, Penny’s preference of Dad over Mom, Penny sleeping as a face down loaf and the like. These have cheered me endlessly over the past year. Highlights have included Penny entering the Olympics this year as a gold medal winning cat loaf champion and I credit the duo for having invented the term skippity pap (or at least made it enter my personal lexicon) – which is accompanied by a sort of whoosh-smack sound effect that is especially satisfying. It is among the few accounts I turn my sound on for routinely.

The dynamic cat duo’s mom and dad (mom is the voice over for the most part) do a brilliant job of editing, voice over – they are top pros at it and I bless them daily for these inventive missives that come over my transom, brightening all days. Quite simply I cannot recommend them enough for a cat dopamine daily dose.

*Four out of the NJ Five here – Gus missing.*

*Blackie and Cookie peevishly sharing the bed with each other and of course Kim recently.*

I have written before about social media and my belief that if content is carefully chosen and tended it can be a rabbit hole of blissful escapism. During the brutal hustle and full-on assault of our shifting political world I have found myself diving deeply into this somewhat alternate universe of cats. As the mother of the NYC duo Cookie and Blackie, and the Jersey Five (Beau, Milty, Gus, Peaches and Stormy) and the head of fundraising for a major emergency animal hospital – you’d think I would get enough daily dose of the kitty world, but simply, no – quite simply, I prefer even more.

I started subscribing to a daily newspaper in high school and have more or less read one daily every since, butI lately find my ability to read above the fold reduced to a nervous skittering across headlines as I head down the page to stories about things like a research study on puppy kindergarten – the super socializing of puppies to see if they make better service animals (NYT and can be found here). So today I pay tribute to those folks online who may not inform my politics, nor deliver my news, but who are vital community which cheers my daily existence.

Hot Popcorn

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: It’s a crisp fall weekend here in New York City. Tomorrow will, in part, be devoted to a Halloween Howl dog parade over at Carl Schurz park. I will stop by the animal hospital’s table and visit my colleagues handing out animal care info. Costumed cuties will likely abound so keep a weather eye out for pics on Instagram.

Meanwhile, today’s photo is one of those odd one off purchases for me. Saw it, liked it and followed my nose to purchasing it. I can imagine this being a much loved family photo of this proud family business owner of yore.

It came to me via the Midwest (dealer of all things vintage @missmollystlantiques), but there are no identifiers as to location. Emanelo Fine Cigars are boasted and Camels proudly in large letters below it. The sign that reads Pharmacy is decidedly less prominent, at least for the purposes of this photo.

Clearly the pharmacy was also where you went for your cigars and cigarettes and there is a sign for something called Penetro, which a quick bit of research tells me was a medicated rub. Sort of like Vicks I assume. (That from my childhood – does it still exist? I haven’t heard of anyone using it for years.) There is a tiny advertisement for Kodak also on the far left.

Our fellow, I assume proprietor, stands proudly in front of the establishment and with this splendid popcorn machine which is labeled Hot Popcorn. This is not a photo postcard, but a photo and it shows evidence of having been glued into an album at one point. The Deco border dates it back to the early years of the 20th century, but for decade it is a bit timeless and hard to nail down.

Pictorama readers know that I have restaurants on one side of my family tree and a dry goods store on the other. I would love to have a photo like this of either establishment, but in some ways especially Butler Dry Goods which I retain a very dim memory of having been in. It is more a memory of light and smell and space than of the specifics of the interior.

I inherited a large number of photos which I am going through in New Jersey. I don’t know where they all were because there are many I never saw before. Of course now with mom gone I have largely lost my ability to have the family members identified.

Many of these photos are from my dad’s family and I’m not sure how many she would have known as these were long before her time too. Dad never knew. He seemed to remain somewhat willfully ignorant about his family history and passed almost no stories on. Mom held what tales we had, as told to her by Dad’s mother. I have a few cousins who might find them of interest and I should scan some for them. I imagine I will share the best of the pictures with you all too as future posts.

Peaches

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: Today is an oddball post – I wish to introduce you all to Peaches, the second youngest, female cat of the New Jersey tribe of five. She’s also one of the meanest cats I have ever met. Perhaps considering her story she has some snark coming to her. I will let you decide.

Most readers know that in April of ’23 I inherited a house and five cats from my mother. At her behest, the cats continue to reside here where someone cares for them and the house when I am not here, as Deitch Studio in Manhattan is still our home base. This presents some logistical problems, but fewer than I might have expected when my mother first presented this request, as it became clear that her time was limited.

*Shown here with Hobo, our outdoor visitor. They look so much alike! Seems impossible that they are related – Hobo lives too many miles away. But still…*

For some background, my mother had briefly whittled her cat family down to something manageable a few years ago when she adopted, first, an all black kitten (Beauregard or Beau) from an agency in Newark, but then followed in rapid succession by two who came to the backdoor (Gus and Stormy) and Peaches whose story I am going to tell today. After the acquisition of Stormy (the youngest) I did request that she stop acquiring cats as it was clear that these were indeed going to end up being my cats.

*Our holiday card featuring the whole family (including Hobo) for a quick cat reference.*

Unlike the others who, as outlined above, either came through the front door via adoption or showed up repeatedly and starving at the back, Peaches was acquired sight unseen. My mother loved to tell the Peaches acquisition story.

*Prized spot in our bedroom.* *Forbidden territory when the NYC cats are here.*

At that time, now about three years ago, my mom had a cousin living with her. They had both grown up in a nearby town called Long Branch and her cousin inherited a house there, but lived with mom for a few years. Word was, back near her house in Long Branch, a friend heard a cat meowing over several days and had called Animal Control to find out what was going on and get the cat.

Seems somehow this cat had gotten away from the mother and the litter and was trapped in a basement after falling down a hole. Poor little thing was starving and crying.

My mom knew that it was likely that a feral kitten would ultimately be put down as unadoptable. She called Animal Control in Long Branch as soon as the cat was picked up and told them not to put her down and that she would take it.

I guess the guy said, Lady, you don’t want this cat! It is the meanest cat we’ve ever had to catch. So wild we had to use a broom handle to move the carrier with her in it! And of course mom said she didn’t care and wanted the cat.

*She very much enjoys watching the activity on the deck where chipmonks and other critters have been known to roam. Recently I found what I think were groundhog muddy tracks across it so quite a show.*

She arrived and was christened Peaches for the woman who had heard her and called Animal Control originally. She entered our house at the time as the youngest and only female cat of the house. To my knowledge no one has ever actually touched Peaches since she came to Oxford Avenue. She hid at first and then slowly assimilated to the extent that she would hang with the pack of cats but keep a wide birth (six or more feet) from any human.

*Left to her own devices (which she largely is) she seems quite content.*

Over the past several years she has thawed slightly. She now willingly sit in the same room as us, sometimes quite close. When I am feeding them she will come right up to me but if I try to touch her or get too close where she is curled up she will hiss, spit and growl. On this trip however, she “accidentally” jumped up on the arm of my chair and stared me in the eye for several long moments before panic set in and she flew back off. I was as stunned as she was.

She has one outstanding cat friendship in the house, with Milty, our most senior cat. I will occasionally find them sleeping together. She’ll go over and gently groom him once in a while. It seems like an unlikely pairing, but I am pleased she has a compatriot among the cats.

*This just the other day. Happy Peaches.*

There have been days this summer when I have caught her rolling and stretching happily. I think she is a contented cat in general, even if her interactions with the human population are limited. I used to joke with my mother that in ten years when Peaches was happily installed on my lap being petted we would look back and remember how we couldn’t get near her. I am less sure of that future, but she’s one of the Butler family cats now to stay.

B. C. Gregory Elementary School, 1922

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: This item came my way via a rather splendid if small used bookstore in San Diego called Blustocking Books. I was just about to check out when this photo caught my eye. I added it to the purchase pile having given it only a passing look.

Since my discovery of a clutch of yard long photos I am keeping a collector’s weather eye out for group photos like this and especially from the early decades of the 20th Century. I have a theoretical parameter of beach related or New Jersey related images, however rules are made to be broken, right? However, when I went to look for B.C. Gregory elementary school you can imagine my surprise that the first and most persistent results are for my mother’s hometown here in New Jersey, Long Branch. I can’t help but wonder if I went all the way to California to find a photograph of a local Jersey grade school. perhaps even one that my mother went to, although this one well before her grade school days.

The landscape gives us no definitive clues, the long fir tree and scant foliage could belong to either coast. The children’s clothes provide no indication either.

Youngest children in front and the oldest in the back looking a bit older than the sort of eighth grade or so that elementary schools generally age out at. While not in uniform, the have clearly been requested to dress within some guidelines with their white shirts, mostly dark ties on the fellows, a smattering of suits. The girls are largely in white blouses, but right in the center are two girls in plaid dresses, on atop of the other.

*Detail of the kids in back holding up the school sign.*

As is always the case and especially with a longer exposure in the day, there are a few blurred heads of those who could not sit still. The banner with the year is front and center by some of our youngest participants and the school name is on a banner at the back held up two young gentleman who do not look like they enjoy their assignment.

While we are all familiar with school photos of this kind it is interesting that this was such a small school – the entire elementary school is shown here and in my day would have maybe been a single grade. I am wondering if in this very house I have some of my dutiful class photos. I know I have several years of grammar school somewhere. (Those did not turn up before posting sadly, another day to see me in my grade school days.)

Perhaps it is the longish exposure (or just school!), but this is not a group where many are attempting to smile. The third row from the front is the most smiling I see. It has that charmed moment in time quality. Those in front anticipating moving up the steps further each year, those at the top ready to move on to high school and beyond.

Hello Dearie

Posted by Pam's Pictorama

Pam’s Pictorama Post: I am running late today for this post, my second from New Jersey this summer. The neglected garden needed my attention while it was still cool enough to work out here. It was a small start, but I am also tired from my first week as a commuter and getting over a bad head cold last weekend. However, it should also be noted that today is the first day of six since we got here where it has not been a torrential downpour either. Let the garden enjoyment (and work) begin!

Nevertheless, I have this little treasure which arrived at Deitch Studio shortly before our departure last weekend. While the aged quality of this photo makes it less than perfect, it was an irresistible image to add to the Pictorama collection.

The concept of the perfect Felix costume has long stoked my imagination and I believe informed Kim’s Alias the Cat. (That book – one of the best ever! – for purchase can be found here.) While I search to acquire the perfect mask photos of Felix costumes can also satisfy. I just posted about another and it is unusual because I don’t really have that many in my collection. (A post about that recent acquisition, shown above, can be found here.)

Early in my collecting I found an interesting clutch of early photos of folks donning Felix costumes. Tiny snapshots of people in masks or full costume. Oddly, I didn’t acquire them together either which is sort of fascinating. That post from the early days of Pictorama can be found here.

Today’s photo is a tintype and as to be expected that means the writing on Felix’s chest is reversed. Hard to know if Felix was an adult with these two small bunny attired kids. More likely an older child. While it is definitely an off-model mask it was commercially made, as were the bunny outfits the other children sport.

*One from a series of photos from the post mentioned above.*

I have no explanation for the staff or cane held, but the older of the two rabbit kids. If I had to guess (and it would be a guess) I would say the older of those two is a girl. I have no idea at all about the younger. They are outside and a careful look shows a woman behind them and some buildings, or more likely pictures of buildings, behind her. There are other indistinct people and things, however the picture grows wavy there and they are unreadable.

I was surprised to be reminded that this photo actually came from Louisiana, not Great Britain. The holder strikes me as oh so British and of course it’s most recent home before mine was not necessarily its place of origin. I believe that virtually all of the Felix tintypes I have of this sort have come from either England or Australia. Having said that, most of them are people posing with large Felix dolls and this is just kids in costume.

I have yet to decide how the Pictorma library will stretch in the Jersey digs and have yet to start to hang things, although some of the yard long photos are on display. I mostly leave the items here that have ended up here, but I hope for the leisure to make some determinations about decoration. More to come when I figure that out. For now it has gotten too hot for the garden and there are numerous cats requesting pets.

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