bighappyfunhouse

I have really been enjoying keeping up with the found photo blog bighappyfunhouse

Part of the enjoyment of it is the one word titles that blogger Ron Slattery comes up with. Here are a few of my favorites from the last month:

Together



Pleased



Distracted

To a Regular Fella

An adorable and friendly vintage birthday card that I gave to the mister for his birthday last week. You can find a post and a recipe about the birthday celebration here.

To a Regular Fella -
"Hi There!"
A friendly "Howdy-do!"
With "Cheerio" and
"Best of Luck"
And "Happy Days" to YOU!

breezy

It has been a warm and sunny weekend here in Portland. I have been mostly inside, working around the house, which had been neglected for too long. I was out today for a while, in the garden and it was so very lovely outside. In honor of a warm weekend I thought I would share these beach photos with you.

I can't decide if this is the same group of friends. The photos are on different paper, so it makes me think, if they are the same group, that these were photos from two different people's cameras. The first one has the date on the back July 19, 1938.


I was interested in the magazine that the young woman is reading. I looked it up and Breezy Stories was a pulp fiction magazine known for some racy covers. The thing is, though, is that that cover is not racy. This makes me think that the photo is not from the late 30's , however, the bathing suits look like the 1930's. So, it is a small mystery.

the future was then

I was on vacation last week and now it is back to business as usual. I took a couple day trips and also went to Seattle for a few days. I had never been to the city of Seattle and it was nice to see it. I feel way more familiar with it now since I drove around and around so very much.

I went to the Space Needle and was very pleased to be right in the front, my face pressed against the glass of the glass elevator as we went up 520 feet. I love glass elevators. I also went to the Science Fiction Museum which was very cool. So, in honor of these futuristic things I wanted to show you one of my favorite futuristic postcards.

I give you the

State Capitol Bank
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

This beautiful and unusual modernistic designed bank, located at 3900 No. Lincoln Boulevard, is called the "Bank of the Future". It is equipped with a floating air lobby from the main floor and a cashier to customer TV drive-in banking window.

It looks like the bank still exists. Here is another blogger who found the postcard and took a little road trip to see it. Awesome.

Who We Were : a book review

This weekend I finally got a chance to really spend some time with the book, Who We Were, which is compiled by at least one person behind the website Square America.

I actually won this on the blog Retro Thing. I enter blog giveaways all the time and I never win. I was really happy that this was the one I won.

This book is really great. There are some very unique photos in here and the editors did a great job of writing for them and presenting them. I like the way the book was organized. Often there was information about the photo taken from the person who took it or was in it. So, you got to hear their comments many years later.

I also liked how they didn't give you too much info so that the photo is most of the page. I like having lots of space around the image.

I was rather absorbed in this book for hours. Since the creators are in the Chicago area, many of the images are from Chicago and other towns nearby. That would be especially neat for someone from that area, but it in no way made it less fascinating to me.

My only complaint about the book is that there wasn't enough of it. Although it is a hefty book, I felt like there wasn't enough of the color film years. I think the most recent photo was in 1971 or something. Where were all the 70's and 80's images? What about Polaroids?

Perhaps they are saving that for another book. That would be something to look forward to.