Saturday, May 4, 2013

Sepia Saturday - No Smoking


This week's Sepia Saturday Suggestion


A few yeas ago I compiled a book called Talking Pictures. It was made up of found photographs and the funny stories or captions that they suggested. I had only enough copies printed for family and friends. I wish now that I had a few extras.

Anyway, the "Smoking" theme in today's Sepia Saturday suggestion, has many fine examples in LOST GALLERY. So I decided to include some of those from the book with a Caption or a Story included.

+Pair outside smoke shop

Untitled

This rare photograph of G. P. “Chickadee” Lefingwell lll (pronounced leFINGwell) shows him about to be captured by Agent Harlan Kruhz (no relation) in an elm tree just outside the Dirtpile city limits in either Ohio or Ontario. According to legend “Chickadee” was known to elude his pursuers easily by flying into tree tops and hiding among the leaves.

His downfall, pictured here, was when “Chickadee”, steeped in the false confidence of hundreds of previous escapes, taunted agents from a lower perch. Agent Kruhz, on loan from the Holloway Junior High Jump team had been specially selected and trained for the capture of the elusive G. P. Lefingwell III. While other agents nattily dressed as sunflower seeds distracted the nefarious felon, Kruhz leapt into the tree behind “Chickadee” and put the arm on him thus ending the troublesome but illustrious career. It was now safe again to wear pink at polka parties and Chocolate Chip Cookie challenge events.

That historic day, February 15th 1915 (probably a Saturday or a Tuesday, no one knows for sure) is described prominently and in great detail, in primary school history books. The lengthy notation is credited for a renewed disinterest in the subject of history among students of that era.

After his rapid conviction, Lefingwell was incarcerated at the Indiana Yodeling Institute for Young Individuals. (The ‘I YI YI’…) He was pardoned in 1974 by President Gerald Ford along with some lesser known hardened criminals. “Chickadee” spent his last days working in a kite factory and dreaming of the old days.

Decades later, modern DNA evidence would prove that not only was Lefingwell III innocent of all charges, he was actually not a “Chickadee” at all but just another loon.

Oh, dear.

While chatting with the Swansons at the front door, Jessica discovered her lost shoe. She hoped no one else had noticed.


Beard and a pipe

Bernice definitely didn't get the memo.


Bart Beasley strikes again! 02

Bart Beasley assumes his most threatening pose. Kate (Agent 8) is obviously frightened!

Man with cigar

This is the only known photograph of Roth Wyler, inventor and taxidermist.

Mr. Wyler discovered texting 12 years before the telephone was invented. No one knows how or why.

Learning how to hold a bat.

The batting technique is handed down generation by generation to the oldest child.

"... then you hit them in the other knee."




This is the last known photograph of the notorious Butterfat Gang of Seven who terrorized the dairy industry in the mid 1930’s. Harlan Underln, standing, center, led the gang in raids on milk trucks and neighborhood Rubber Baby Buggy Ice Cream wagons throughout Iowa and County Cork.

The Butterfat Gang of Seven, (actually there were five or so members, but none of them could count) all descended in some way from lineage of the infamous robber, Dennis Moore of the 17th century in England. Highwayman Moore was noted for lupines and doing something completely different.

The method of the Butterfat Gang was simple. They would stand in the road and stop dairy delivery trucks. Eight or nine of the gang members would circle the truck and stand lookout. Three or four other members would then insist the driver sell them what ever stock was carried on the truck. The driver would then be obligated to return to the dairy and restock for the morning deliveries. This certainly confounded dairy owners not to mention the trauma experienced by many cows.

Their last caper was said to be the carefully planned robbery of the 2:40 AM milk train. It went awry when most of the gang members overslept. No one knows how many actually showed up as none of them could actually count. The engineer refused to stop the train anyway.

Throughout their reign of confusion, none of the gang was ever caught. Actually no one ever looked for them either. They all lived well into their fifties and died overweight

Heppel Whitsig, (seated, with cigar) invented the combination creel and picnic basket and went on to a successful retirement in poverty. He never married. His twin brother, Wimpole, (also seated but no cigar) was either the youngest or the oldest in the gang, depending on which account of his birth was accurate. His mother could not seem to recall the event.

The notorious Butterfat Gang

Fred (too tall) Herringbun was not on the Titanic when it tragically struck an iceberg. He married young and his wife dressed him funny.

Gable Snoot, seventh from left in this picture, worked briefly as a store window model for suspenders (or braces). He was spotted there by a Hollywood movie director who went into hiding and was never seen again.

The rest of the gang is pretty much unknown but perhaps someone will recognizes a relative or a neighbor here.

These events rarely get a notation in history books although some say the gang activities accelerated the research leading to the invention of the milking machine.


Oh.

Laura Mercy was a model inlaw.

Two portraits

Rosetta Stone didn't mind having her picture taken but she did resent being called an "Old Polaroid" later.



Four on the road

The Taggart brothers enjoyed calling themselves the Brooklyn Bridge Harmony Quartet, even though they couldn't sing or dance. Spencer Taggart, third from left or right, did play bass but it was second base on the Bone Dry Holler Creek slow pitch, softball team.

Untitled

Murrine wouldn’t let Carlton go to the park and play dominoes with the boys but she did consent to dress up in his other suit and play just three games with him. She enhanced the ruse a bit by pasting her false eyelashes on her face to represent a mustache and goatee.

Carlton was moderately happy with that but lost miserably to her and refused to play the third game.

That evening they went to visit her mother which was much more fun for both of them.

That night, Carlton resumed digging the hole in the cellar.

Smile when ya say that.

Leeland hoped for a career as a Hollywood Cowboy but the screen name of Johnny Mack Beige didn't stick.


That did it.

Adele had quite enough of Cecil's remarks. The party was over.

In the end, Cecil learned the proper etiquette for handling an RSVP and a few important things regarding cravat selection. All were treated and released from Naugatuck General, except Verna, who was held overnight for observation by an interested intern.

Cecil never spoke of the incident to anyone but for many years would wear only bow ties.

(He has a cigar in his left hand.)

You found us!

Okay, now it's your turn to run and hide. We'll find you!

No, no, not like last time. We just forgot. We'll really look this time.

Really.




Have guitar

There are three pipes, seven cigarettes and eight cigars in these pictures. (One more cigarette in the suggestion picture.)
There are smoking advertisements and a No Smoking sign.

I don't have a favorite in this batch but I do have a comment.

No smoking.

This week's Sepia Saturday Suggestion


The most popular photographs most popular, Family Group, An album of the most requested photographs in the Lost Gallery.

Area 51 and a Half Area 51 and a Half You are probably not authorized to see these.

Don't take my picture! Oh! You DID didn't you! completely unaware of the photographer This is a collection of photographs that disappear on the way home from the photo processing shop.

And don't miss
Cabinet Card Gallery
One Man's Treasure
Penny Tales
Square America
Tattered and Lost
Vernacular Photography
The best
FOUND PHOTOGRAPH
sites on the web.
And for postcards try
THE DAILY POSTCARD.

All images are the property of Lost Gallery and the author. Permission must be granted for their use.
All rights reserved.

THE KIDS Lesson one. It is always a mystery how a photograph of any of these precious children could end up lost or abandoned. Here are a few. You will probably say "Ooh..." at least once.

Dee and the Business School Dee and the Business School
The beautiful Dee. A curious story; What do you see?

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?
Neiffel and Helvetica Typehigh

"What are they doing?"

20 comments:

  1. Roth Wyler was always a bit of a personal hero of mine......

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Tony. Not only was he praised as the primary pioneer in the practice and procedure for the permanently perplexed, he was the first patient.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Third from left in the Butterfat Gang photo could be my great uncle Percy who left his home and wife to buy a pack of cigarettes and was never seen again. Striking resemblance and he was gaining weight near the end....

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, the Miss Rosetta Stone, that's wild indeed! This was fun and I can only imagine that book was really interesting too, you'll have to try and remake it!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I guess no smoking in bed would be my favourite.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks Helen Bauch McHargue. At Last an ancestral connection! You are brave. I think many people see someone in the Butterfat Gang who is related somehow to their families but are too embarrassed to point it out.

    Thanks Karen S. Yes, I have been thinking of digging out the book and rehashing it.

    Thanks Bob Scotney. I think that’s my favorite too.

    ReplyDelete
  7. With regard to Roth Wyler: Why? Well so that he wouldn't have to take his cigar out of his mouth to communicate, of course.

    Bart Beasley says: "You don't have to inhale."

    ReplyDelete
  8. Completely mad! Great photos.

    ReplyDelete
  9. A great collection of pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks Brett Payne. Of course! That's it! The cigar!

    Who knows the depth of Bart Beasley's evil?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks Alex Daw. It's a fun collection.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks Sharon. I've been collecting a long time.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Too too funny. Leland was my favorite, a too hip cowboy.

    SO just how do you keep all these images catalogued? Each could have a dozen or more tagnames.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Thanks Mike Brubaker. Some subjects are pretty easy if I have already done a similar category page on it before. If not, a tag search on Flickr will usually turn up a few. If all else fails a quick scan of the icons of a set or a quick slide show of some of the Flickr sets will turn up something. That might take an hour or so. And the memory still works sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  15. These made my day! I love all of them. They all made me laugh.

    Do indeed put together a book. Give Create Space a try. The paper quality is not coated as you'd get from Blurb, but their prices are much better. And frankly I was quite pleased with their work.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Thanks Tattered And Lost. I am glad to provide a laugh or two.

    And thanks very much for the tip! I'll give it a look!

    ReplyDelete
  17. I like the "NOo smoking in bed" inbed sgn.

    ReplyDelete
  18. More than just a laugh or two. Some serious squinty eye guffaws. And then I passed the url along to a friend who also laughed.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Thanks diane b. I think I like that one too.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thanks Tattered and Lost. I am glad you had a good laugh. Makes my day!

    ReplyDelete

Stuff

Blog Archive

Followers