The Other Side of the Gang

Of course, there's no way of knowing if this picture was taken at the same time and location as the photos on the other side.  Still, Sherry trout fishing near Casper, Wyoming in 1922 is nice to know.  Now for an interesting question.  Casper, Wyoming was built on the site of Fort Caspar.  Who changed the spelling?

The Gang

The Gang may have been having a good time camping in the Rockies, but it wasn't all fun and games.  Take a close look at the second photo, and see that the third man in line is holding a theodolite.  These aren't three friends having a back to nature trip, they're surveyors.  But what were they surveying?  The boundary of a park?  How about the boundary of someone's land?  A new road into the Rockies?  A logging operation or a gold mine?  Hopefully these weren't the last people to enjoy this spot before it got fenced off, dug up, or cut down.

200,000

Sometime during the wee hours of this morning, The New Found Photography went over 200,000 unique page views.  These three photographs started things off.  I found the original glass negatives at an antique store in Washington state.  The seller had picked up hundreds of negatives from an estate sale in Montana, and decided to sell them off individually.  By the time I found these, the collection had been pretty much picked over.  I think it's the  dream of every photo collector to find a secret cache of photos from an unknown, yet talented photographer.  Sadly, with this lot broken up, and sold off,  we'll never know what the complete archive had to offer.

Oh, and I hand printed them back when I was still working in a photo lab.

From Illinois to Iowa

I can't make out too much of the licence plate or the writing on the spare tire cover, but I can make out "ILL" for Illinois.  Written on the back, "Road-side in Iowa."  With the suit case tied to the back bumper, I'm thinking that all American tradition, the road trip.  How long would it have taken this family to drive from coast to coast?  No Interstates when this photo was taken, few paved roads west of the great plains, and a shortage of gas stations in the hinter lands.  My state of California is about to raise it's gas taxes by 12 cents a gallon, with the money going for road repairs.  Hopefully, the once paved roads that have slowly but surely turned into rough, dirt tracks can get repaved.

Foolin' Around

Well, they seem to be having fun, especially the woman on the right.

Derby Dolls

When did roller derby become a hipster favorite?  When I was growing up, oh so many years ago, roller derby was quite popular.  Back then, it was on a banked track, it was both men and women, and it was incredibly violent.  As I got a bit older and realized it was kind of a sick sport, I started calling it blood and dentures.

The Here, There, and Everywhere Collection-The One With Ducks on the Back

Over the years I've expressed my displeasure with antique dealers who cut up photo albums.  On this one, the seller artfully cut out the gardener photo, but sliced part of the duck photo off.   I like ducks.

Click on The Here There and Everywhere Collection in labels to see other photos and get more information on the collection.

The Here, There, and Everywhere Collection-Standing on the Dock of the Lake

Thank you Otis Redding.

Click on The Here There and Everywhere Collection in labels, go back to the very first post in this collection and you'll find a reference to Lake Placid, in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York.  Dotted with lakes, both large and small, the Adirondacks have long been a go to spot for second homes for the rich and near rich of the northeast.  I'll bet these people had money, and lived in New York City.

The Here, There, and Everywhere Collection-Two Men, One Cannon

Another from the occasionally posted Here, There, and Everywhere Collection, something to be clicked on in labels to see other images, and get the low down on the title.  So, two men sitting on what looks like World War 1 era cannon.

Brook Jacoby, All Star

I became a sports fan because of television.  Growing up, fifty miles from downtown Pittsburgh, I watched the Pirates during the summer, the Steelers, Penn State, Pitt, and West Virginia during the fall, the Penguins, during the winter, and then it all started again with spring training.   Now I live in L.A. and if I want to watch the Dodgers, Angels, Clippers, Lakers, Kings or Ducks, I have to buy cable packages.  I can't afford it, and even with football still available for free on open air TV...well, I just can't get really excited about sports anymore.  Will I watch tomorrow's All Star game on TV?  Probably not, and that's kind of sad.  I used to look forward to the game, now I don't.

Brook Jacoby didn't have a Hall of Fame career.  He started out with the Atlanta Braves, had a couple of brief call-ups and only played in 15 games from 1981-83.  Jacoby was with the Cleveland Indians in 1984, did a very brief stint with Oakland in 1991, and was back with Cleveland  in 1992.  He finished his career with the Chunichi Dragons, in Japan, in 1993.  Now he's the hitting coach with the Toronto Blue Jays.  He was an all star in 1986 and 1990.

Anyway, I'm not really into sports cards, but I found this on the street, and I've been saving it for an All Star Game post.

Two Women on Vacation 4

In the previous  post of these two ladies, I wondered if they had traveled to more than one country on their vacation.  Take a look at the top photo and see that they are standing in front of a poster with writing.  I went back to Google translate and neither vytvarne and umeni came up as Bulgarian.  After trying a few different European languages, I got Czech for both words.  Vytvarne came up as artwork, and umeni was art.  So, perhaps Prague in what was then Czechoslovakia.

I suppose I think of eastern bloc nations during the cold war as gray, dull places with nothing beyond concrete apartment buildings and massive government buildings.  But, of course, most eastern European cities survived World War 2 relatively in tact.  Back in 1972, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia must have been nice, and cheap places to visit.

These are the last o photos from this collection.

Two Women on Vacation 3

We had some Bulgarian in the last post.  The first photo in this post has what I think of as dictator art.  We have the worker, possible peasant, and a one legged fellow all capped by a star.  A communist star?  No doubt imagery found throughout eastern block countries during the cold war era.  I wonder, if this was a vacation trip, did these two ladies limit themselves to one country, or did they travel from East Germany to Yugoslavia?