A MYSTERIOUS THREESOME under lockdown

Hello fellow lockdown-ers. Not a real word, but I'm entitled to make up any word I want while locked in my house.

I doubt anyone will find this post for a long time because, for all intents and purposes, this site has been dead. Nothing going on. I've thought about it, but I just couldn't commit. I haven't even been going to flea markets, estate sales, or antique stores for several years. I knew I shouldn't spend the money so why tempt myself.

However, recently on the way home from Costco I did make a brief stop at a small warehouse/estate sale. I scoured the premises in search of photos and found a few winners which I scored for less than two bucks. When I walked up with a bunch of photobooth shots that were rubber banded together the seller said, "Oh, I don't want to count those. How about a dollar for the lot?" Fine will me. Fifteen shots for a buck. Now that's a bargain.

Now a normal person would look at this photo and see a happy couple having their picture taken by a friend. I, of course, am not normal. I see problems. The smiling wife. The worried husband. The other woman coming between them as a dark shadow. Who thinks there was something going on?

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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 9 available at Amazon.

The ARTIST WITHIN

As per this week's Sepia Saturday prompt, and a celebration of women as the world sees women gathering in great numbers to have their voices be heard today—and every day—I give you a lone photographer from long ago.

This image is partially why I started this blog.

I purchased a photo album at an estate sale in 2008. I arrived at the sale quite late and figured I was out of luck. But there on the edge of a coffee table was an old intact photo album of a journey two fellas took across country around 1913. It included a typed diary and lots of photos. Nothing spectacular about the album, especially at the $50 asking price. But then I saw this photo, very tiny near the back. It had nothing to do with the travel diary and was amongst a few photos that had been added long after the trip was over. I had to have this photo. As some inanimate objects do, it spoke to me.

I chose this photo to be the image that represents my identity for Tattered and Lost. It is even the cover shot for my first book. Over the years I have begun seeing myself as that woman on the beach with her skirt hiked up into breeches, the waves rolling in around her feet, the people farther down the beach watching the horizon. I would have been that woman had I lived back then. And so now she is me.

She is viewing the world through her lens. I like to think she took this photo, but have no proof of that.

The reality is that someone was taking a photo of her when she was taking this photo. That photo we will never see. I like to think these women took these poses, feeling free enough to be themselves, because they felt safe with who was taking the shot.

It's a good day to celebrate women. We are not lesser than, we are equal to no matter what anyone believes. And we're not going back.
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Tattered and Lost volumes 1 to 8 available at Amazon.

Lost AT SEA

The prompt for Sepia Saturday this week had me immediately thinking of this snapshot: Robinson Crusoe, lost at sea, saltwater no matter where you look.

If you've ever been to sea on something other than the behemoths that cruise today you'll know that feeling of watching the sea, watching the sky, watching the sea, watching the sky…. You'll also recognize the stance the fellow has taken. Just looking at this has me reaching for the saltine crackers.


Click on image to see it larger.
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New book NOW available on Amazon.
Tattered and Lost: Forgotten Dolls

This one is for those who love dolls!

Snapshots from the last 100+ years of children and adults with dolls. Okay, there are a couple of dogs too.

Perfect stocking stuffer for the doll collector on your list!

Remembering MINNIE PEARL'S HAT

The prompt for this weeks Sepia Saturday is hats. The ladies in Alan's image are very stylish wearing delicate hats on their tenderly upswept hair. Would I have an image to compliment Alan's? Of course I do.

I give you two unknown ladies in what can only be described as Minnie Pearl style hats. You be the judge.


Click on image to see it larger.

Don't know Minnie Pearl? Well, I'm sorry you missed her. She was a firecracker!

Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon (October 25, 1912 – March 4, 1996), known professionally as Minnie Pearl, was an American country comedienne who appeared at the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years (from 1940 to 1991) and on the television show Hee Haw from 1969 to 1991.

Sarah Colley was born in Centerville, in Hickman County, Tennessee, about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Nashville. She was the youngest of the five daughters of a prosperous lumberman in Centerville. She graduated from Ward-Belmont College (now Belmont University), at the time Nashville's most prestigious school for young ladies, where her major was theater studies and dance was a particular interest. After graduation she taught dance for several years

Her first professional theatrical job was with the Wayne P. Sewell Production Company, a touring theater company based in Atlanta, for which she produced and directed plays and musicals for local organizations in small towns throughout the southeastern United States.

As part of her work with the Sewell company, she made brief appearances at civic organizations to promote the group's shows. She developed her Minnie Pearl routine during this period. While producing an amateur musical comedy in Baileyton, Alabama, she met a mountain woman whose style and talk became the basis for "Cousin Minnie Pearl". Her first stage performance as Minnie Pearl was in 1939 in Aiken, South Carolina. The following year, executives from Nashville radio station WSM-AM saw her perform at a bankers' convention in Centerville and gave her an opportunity to appear on the Grand Ole Opry on November 30, 1940. The success of her debut on the show began an association with the Grand Ole Opry that continued for more than 50 years.

Pearl's comedy was gentle satire of rural Southern culture, often called "hillbilly" culture. Pearl always dressed in styleless "down home" dresses and wore a hat with a price tag hanging from it, displaying the price of $1.98. Her catch phrase was "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E! I'm jes' so proud to be here!" delivered in a loud holler. After she became an established star, her audiences usually shouted "How-w-w-DEE-E-E-E!" back. Pearl's humor was often self-deprecating, and involved her unsuccessful attempts at attracting the attention of "a feller" and, particularly in later years, her age. She also told monologues involving her comical 'ne'er-do-well' relatives, notably "Uncle Nabob" and "Brother", who was simultaneously both slow-witted and wise. She usually closed her monologues with the exit line, "I love you so much it hurts!" She also sang comic novelty songs.

Pearl's comic material derived heavily from her hometown of Centerville, which in her act she called Grinder's Switch. Grinder's Switch is a community just outside of Centerville that consisted of little more than a railroad switch. Those who knew her recognized that the characters were largely based on real residents of Centerville. So much traffic resulted from fans and tourists looking for Grinder's Switch that the Hickman County Highway Department eventually changed the designation on the "Grinder's Switch" road sign to "Hickman Springs Road." (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

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New book NOW available on Amazon.
Tattered and Lost: Forgotten Dolls

This one is for those who love dolls!

Snapshots from the last 100+ years of children and adults with dolls. Okay, there are a couple of dogs too.

Perfect stocking stuffer for the doll collector on your list!

GENE DICKINSON was almost too beautiful

This photo has been in the bin at the antique store for years. I'm not sure why I've always put it back after looking at this incredibly beautiful face, but obviously I'm not alone. Why didn't anyone take this fellow home? He's stunning. If he walked into an agents office they'd sign him before he opened his mouth. Perhaps it's that he's almost too perfect.


Click on image to see it larger.

Was life easy for him because of his looks? Was he born into wealth? Or was he able to use his looks to meet his aspirations? Was he a kind man or a cruel man?

If he was doted upon, charmed everyone, succeeded in life, how would the people who were jealous of him react to finding his photo has been rejected by others; that his face, out of context to his life, can be easily ignored.

His name is Gene Dickinson, and that is most likely all we will ever know.

UPDATE: IntenseGuy has provided the following which might be information about Gene's life:

I think this is Eugene E. Dickerson -

His find a grave memorial is here:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7692906

He was born July 1864 in Michigan and Hattie and settled in Woodstock, McHenry County, Illinois (as of 1900) and had several sons and daughters.
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MS44-TGJ

They moved west and were in Tulare County, California by 1910.

He is listed as a "House Painter". (Doesn't that kill the romance?) and he and his wife Hattie lived in Kaweah, Tulare, California for several years before moving to Pasadena by 1930.

When you CAN'T SEE THE FOREST for the man

I don't find pristine tintypes. I find tintypes that are bent, and jagged, and scuffed. But somehow the rosy cheeks always manage to come through the turmoil of 100+ years. This particular image has more damage than you can imagine. Right through the horizontal middle it's severely bent. I'm actually surprised it scanned as nicely as it did.

So would you call the scratches patina? In this case patina brings down the photos value which means it's cheap enough for me to buy.

My imaginings say this fellow had this shot taken in San Francisco and that he was of Italian descent. The truth is, I have no idea. He could be a pool hustler from Poughkeepsie. Or perhaps he was in a tour group of famous faces and his job was to pretend to be Bat Masterson. Heck, almost all guys back then seem to have looked like Bat Masterson. That's the problem with these old images. Everyone looks like a cardboard cut-out.

So I give you "Cardboard Cut-Out of Man With Trees."

TATTERED AND LOST in pink

Another excellent example of why I call this site Tattered and Lost. So much of what I buy are items most people would ignore. They're badly damaged with surface wear, but somehow they've survived.


Click on image to see it larger. 

I have no information about this vintage tintype, but who could pass up these little girls? This one would actually be a nice image to restore...as if I need another project.