Tag: Happy Ending
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The ice industry, part 5/5
Summing up: The ice trade journals from the ’20s show an industry starting to grasp its decline, and responding in predictable ways. We need better salesmanship, we need to work harder, we need to organize better. By 1933 the decline was heard in radio comedy. An episode of Mirth Parade (not online now) has an…
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Sputnik’s birthday, with a difference
Polistra and friends have been saluting Sputnik’s birthday for many years. This year, for the very first time, we have to salute NASA as well. Until last week NASA served no purpose at all. USA was pretending to compete against Russia’s superior education system and superior work system. We lost the pissing contest forever when…
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Legacies
EnidBuzz posted a ‘memory’ picture of two ladies dressed up in silly style, riding banana bikes to work. Both worked at Sears, and they were doing the annual Crazy Day in 1968. Commenters had positive memories of the ladies and Sears. This one wins: I worked at Sears back in 1976 and knew Lucille, she…
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Ready when needed
It’s always a pleasant surprise when a needed bit of memory pops up after LONG storage. I’m already grumpy from loss of sleep due to the psychopathic thunderstorms last night. Random yellow and red blobs on radar, sometimes missing, sometimes fading, sometimes suddenly growing, and ALWAYS coming from unexpected directions. Every time you think Okay,…
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Interurbans lasted longer
Spending the afternoon in another Enid history FB page. One of the aerial photos seems to show the Big Horn that I wrote about a few years ago. Most of the pics are purely local and personal interest. This one is interesting in a broader historical sense. It shows a two-car train at the Frisco…
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Instant sale
For ten years I’d been walking and watching one vacant apartment building in the neighborhood. The renovation process was LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG at the start and fast at the finish. Five years of occasional activity, followed by five months of real work. They rented the apts on 11/25/21. Then they immediately started building two new houses across…
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Salty genes
This is a WONDERFUL story. A British church found an 1897 letter stuck between parts of a pew while remodeling. The letter sounded like a last-moment plea for salvation by a hopeless boy. He signed his name W. Elliott, so historians were able to trace the rest of the story. Elliott was orphaned when his…
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Cancelling is hardly new
Among the scattered preserves of OTR is one 1954 Mutual news broadcast by Frank Edwards, at KFWB in Los Angeles. Edwards made a point of NOT insulting the audience. He was clearly trying to tell the truth as he saw it, and understood that normal people are also capable of seeing the truth. In discussing…
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When industries submerge
This British Youtuber covers some of the same old tech areas that I cover, with the same general attitude. He doesn’t go as far back in time, but he goes much deeper than I do. In this clip he tells about the mysterious re-emergence of tape cassettes in recent years. How did they get underway…
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The 10-year flip
I started daily walks in Dec 2011, always centered on one place in the neighborhood. My intention was to ‘pray’ the old building into better shape. It took exactly ten years. I’ve been tracking it in the blog at important change points…. = = = = = Some of the notes, sorted by date: Dec…
Polistra's Mill 