Happy New Year!

Well, here comes 2014. Amazing!

These pics are from one of my many strolls in San Francisco. The film is pretty much trashed due to poor handling on my part over the years, but the images are still interesting (at least to me!).

I'm estimating this to be New Year's Eve day, about 1969 or 1970. That was the day people in the financial district of SF threw out all their old calendars (and just about anything else paper!). I decided I wanted to see it, so took the bus over and walked around. I probably took more pictures, but this little strip turned up recently, so here they are!

Sf Muni is very proud of their "fleet" of (two) boat cars from Blackpool, England. My first encounter with a boat car, though, came much earlier. The trolley museum at Rio Vista Junction (now known as the Western Railway Museum) had one in the early '70s.

Marilyn Monroe and the Drones

My dad spent a couple of years in the South Pacific during World War II. He never really elaborated on it, but said he and his crew maintained and flew remote control airplanes used for target practice.

 I never quite understood what that was all about - until I found an almost forgotten roll of black & white negatives. I am in the process of scanning THOUSANDS of old family negatives, and when I scanned these, suddenly the whole thing got a lot clearer.

Then we ran across an internet story with a couple of pictures of a woman assembling these radiodrones during WWII, in a factory in Van Nuys CA. British actor Reginald Denny had started a company making these large scale flying models, and the Army Air Force ordered many for training purposes. One of the women working in the factory was tagged to pose for some photos - the photographer suggested she should do some modelling, which she did. She also bleached her hair, and changed her name - to Marilyn Monroe.

The drones my dad photographed in the South Pacific are the same ones in the Marilyn pictures, and were indeed the first "drones" used in a war-time setting!

How my dad would have LOVED knowing that he had a connection to Marilyn Monroe!

Railway Tunnel - STOP - Keep Out

For many years, this sign was posted at the West Portal entrance to the Twin Peaks streetcar tunnel in San Francisco. It didn't always work - there were many, many times the tunnel was closed due to people driving in and getting stuck on the tracks!

This sign has been dragged around all over the place since I rescued it from a trash pile back in 1973. I'm sure of the exact date, but the glass marble reflectors and the California Automobile Association bug on the bottom make me think probably late 1920s.

There are lots of initials and names carved on the back - are any of them yours?

Post Cards 1

I have quite a few old postcards, scattered here and there! Many years ago I stuck several of them into an old oak display unit from the old 16th Street Southern Pacific station in Oakland CA. The unit was used for various tax tables, some of which were from the '20s and '30s, stuck between two pieces of glass about 6 inches wide, 20 inches tall. After spending about an hour trying to remember how to get them out, I am starting to scan them! Enjoy!

 

The card above was obviously a push for people to get authorization (and money) from Congress for the Panama Pacific Exposition. Needless to say, the campaign was successful, as the card below

is one of the very impressive buildings built for the Exposition (and torn down shortly after).

Panama Pacific International Exhibition, Part 1

This is my grandmother's season ticket to the Panama Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco, 1915.
She was 22 in 1915, with three children, all boys. Her oldest son was born in 1913, my father and his twin brother were born in November of 1915. She told stories of pushing the twins around the fair in their double stroller!

There are no tickets out of this book, but most of the tickets from my grandfather's book were used. Hopefully this post will be followed in the near future with a scan of my grandfather's book, too, along with other items from the PPIE.

Mr. Haney

I always cring when I run into Mr. Haney down at Drucker's store!

It has been a VERY long time (1994, I think, was the last time), but I have done drag a couple of times. The first was Halloween in the Castro in SF in about 1979, again in 1980. Then a couple of times for parties in the '80s, once as Glinda the Good Witch. My biggest complaint about doing drag was that it is hard to find women's shoes in men's sizes! So, mostly joking, I told my sister to always be on the lookout for high heels in size 13!

Well, she did! She recently surprised me with a pair of 4" heels (2" was the highest I could find before!). I have NO idea when or if I will ever wear them, but they are fun!

What the NRA was in the past!

This is a little booklet I've had around for MANY years. I'm not sure exactly when it was published, but it is pre-ZIP code. One thing of interest - it has a section titled "How Old is Old Enough?" Here is the first paragraph:

How old is old enough for your boy or girl to handle firearms? Usually youngster are old enough to start shooting when they have shown a sense of responsibility in other fields. This may be 12, 13, or 14 years of age.

Interesting, especially in light of the recent shooting death of a 2 year old girl by her 5 year old brother. He shot her with the 22 he was given as a Christmas gift.

It seems the NRA used to advocate safe and sane gun handling. Now their only interest seems to be to bow to the gun manufacturers and advocate buying guns - more and more, and more, guns. Guns for everyone. Pink guns for girls, fearsome weapons for young men, guns for every occasion.

I posted this on Facebook on April 18, the anniversary of the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco. This is a scan of a very small photo, taken shortly after the earthquake and fire. It is Jersey Street, in San Francisco's Noe Valley, where my grandmother and all her sons were born.

The strange looking things in the street are makeshift kitchens that most people had to set up, as almost everyone's chimney was damaged. It was a good thing people checked - fires from damaged chimneys were responsible for much of the damage following the earthquake.

My grandmother's family was lucky, though - their chimney was NOT damaged.
My great-grandmother ended up cooking for many of the neighbors.

The picture is very rough, as it was printed on heavily textured paper. I'm hoping that some day I might find the original negative so I can get a better scan!

Old photos!

This is a picture from about 1919. I have hundreds of old negatives, and this was one of the negatives I scanned, then cleaned up in Photoshop. I had never seen the picture (though I later actually found an original print in another box of old photos!).

Left to right are my father, his fraternal twin brother, and their older brother. They were born in San Francisco, and moved to Richmond in 1920.

These pictures are too, too cool!