Alan Mays' photos

Perry County Sesquicentennial Parade, photo taken at the intersection of West Main and Apple Streets, New Bloomfield, Pa., 1970. For other photos from this parade, see:

The chart on the right-hand side provides details for a "Bible Plan of Salvation."

This "Paul Winchell" trading card is no. 18 in a series of 36 "Television & Radio Stars of N.B.C." cards published in 1952 The description on the back of the card identifies ventriloquist Paul Winchell as the star of the Paul Winchell-Jerry Mahoney Show on NBC-TV (the show ran from 1950 to 1954) . Winchell's puppet (also called a ventriloquist's dummy or ventriloquial figure) was named Jerry Mahoney, and the back of the trading card explains, "Jerry, the sassier half of Winchell, is one of the most valuable puppets in the world. He is insured for $10,000. Winchell lives in New York with his wife and small daughter, who accepts Jerry as a living member of the family." Paul Winchell died in 2005, but his puppets--Jerry Mahoney and another one named Knucklehead Smiff--live on in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution.

"Pain's Last Days of Pompeii, Island Park, Harrisburg, Pa. Commencing July 4th, and every Tuesday and Saturday following, except July 5th. Last performance, August 5th." This trade card advertised a "pyrodrama," an elaborate outdoor theatrical spectacle with fireworks, that was based on Edward Bulwer-Lytton's historical novel, The Last Days of Pompeii (1834), and depicted the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii in AD 79. James Pain brought Last Days to Harrisburg, Pa., in 1890, and also produced it at Coney Island and Atlantic City in other years. For more information about Pain's pyrodrama, see the Pompeian Entertainments page of the J. Paul Getty's Museum's The Last Days of Pompeii exhibition.

Just discovered red-eye's Photo Booth group!

The men of the Marion Hose and Steam Fire Engine Company, No. 10, of Reading, Pennsylvania, sponsored a trip, probably as a fundraiser, to Springfield, Massachusetts, where they dined on beef and turkey at the Hotel Gilmore on October 7, 1909. This keepsake menu for the meal was printed in portrait orientation over a postcard of The Connecticut River at Springfield, Mass., Mt. Tom in the Distance, 1909 (see below for the original landscape version). Hotel Gilmore, A. E. Smith, mgr., Springfield, Mass. Marion Hose and Steam Fire Engine Co. No. 10 of Reading, Pennsylvania. Dinner. Consommé Printiniere. Baked bluefish, parsley sauce. Catsup, pickles, Worcestershire sauce, horseradish. Fillet of beef larded, mushroom sauce. Roast young turkey, giblet sauce. Lettuce-celery salad. Mashed potatoes. Mashed turnips. Green peas. Rice pudding. Pies: apple, mince, peach. Coffee, milk, tea. October 7, 1909. Allied Printing Trades Council, Union Label, Springfield.

"The Connecticut at Springfield, Mass., Mt. Tom in the Distance." For additional information about this postcard, which was overprinted with a menu, see Marion Hose and Steam Fire Engine Company No. 10, Menu, Reading, Pa., 1909 (below).

"The 'Standard,' our name is our motto. 2000 turns in a minute, clear the track! Standard Rotary Shuttle. Compliments of the Standard Sewing Machine Co., Cleveland, O. The Standard Rotary Shuttle Sewing Machine, the lightest, quietest, swiftest running machine in the world. ________, agent. Johns & Co. Lith., Cleveland, O." In the illustration on this nineteenth-century advertising trade card, the winner of the bike race is riding a high-wheel bicycle--or " penny-farthing "--that was somehow constructed using a giant version of one of the Standard Sewing Machine Company's rotary shuttles as one of the wheels. The cyclist following the winner wasn't using a rotary-shuttle wheel, so it's not surprising that he is falling flat on his face. The obvious superiority of the winner's equipment hasn't been lost on the three immaculately dressed women and the young girl, all of whom have been watching the race. They're all staring intently at the winning cyclist, and one woman even appears to be waving her handkerchief at him. I suspect that all of the women and perhaps even the girl went out and purchased a Standard rotary shuttle sewing machine as soon as the race was over.

"The Lititz Express." Printed on the back of this postcard: "Souvenir, July 4, 1907. Power demonstration on Express Printing Company's float." Evidently, the Lititz Express , a newspaper published until the 1930s in Lititz, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, printed this punning illustration with a press on board its Fourth of July parade float in 1907. I've heard of souvenir printings "on the ice" for frost fairs when the River Thames in London froze over in past centuries, and I have some menus and other items that were printed aboard ships during cruises, but I can't recall seeing anything else printed during a parade. Has anyone else encountered any other examples of printing on ice, parade float, ship, train, plane, automobile, or in any other unique circumstances?

Here we see a happy group of tourists innocently posing for an amusing souvenir photo. While fifteen men, women, and children look on from their seats on the wagon, two women and a man hoist the apparatus at the front and foolishly pretend to pull the vehicle. Little did they know that their frivolous action would cause a ghostly tendril of energy--apparently invisible to the naked eye--to sweep in and engulf the unwitting souls there on the wagon, leaving them oblivious to their fate. Or maybe it's just a light leak. (A light leaks photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. Take a look at A Light from Above and Lost in the Mists of Time for more leaks.)

"Whissel's for quality." See also:

See also:

See also:

Note the Space Shuttle playground toy next to the telephone pole at left. See also:

Space Shuttle playground toy at Whissel's. See also:

"This card good for one free ice cream cone, Scooperman Ice Cream Parlor, 185 N. Second St., Highspire, Pa. 17034. One card per visit. Expires: Nov. 30, 1985." Alas, Scooperman closed many years ago!