Diggin' Out: New England Blizzard, 1940

Photo credit: Library of Congress Farm Security Administration Office of War Information Collection

Trailer Trad Time Travel: College Radio Days

What did you listen to in college? Back before the days of Pandora and satellite radio, if you wanted indie rock, you had to really search for it. My friends and I were lucky enough to man a radio show for a few hours every week at our little college. The Wattage was minimal. The record selection was whatever albums were catalogued in pigeon holed shelves on the broom closet sized studio wall. This encouraged us to be independent in our music line up and to dig up unusual stuff.

The studio was a crows nest of a thing on the top floor of the student center. This made our radio station very secluded and quiet, even on Saturday nights. It was fun to sneak a beer or two in the studio and peer out of the window into the still darkness of our campus with a favorite tune on.

I wanted to include a lesser known track by the Police in the play list but let's face it, 1980's concert videos featuring 'fashion forward' Sting are pretty hideous. I put in the Clash's Lost In the Supermarket instead. -If Joe Strummer had been lost in a wonderful Harris Teeter, it would have been a happy song! I also had to include some Smiths because it doesn't get much better than Johnny Marr with his red Rickenbacker on lead guitar.

This music mix was probably a little geeky and miles from what was on the FM stations at the time. Here is what a half hour set might have included back in the day:

The English Beat - Tears of a Clown
Big Audio Dynamite  E=MC2
Elvis Costello - Every Day I Write The Book
The Cure - Lost In the Supermarket
Echo & The Bunnymen Do It Clean
The Smiths - What Difference Does It Make?
Marshall Crenshaw Some Day Some Way
REM  The One I Love

-I hope that these oldies satisfy those who have patiently indulged my love of new indie rock music! Let me know if I can add a favorite of yours!

Trailer Trad Collecting: February Finds (repost)

Even in the deadest of months, good junk can be found. Sometimes,very cheaply. I bought the chair below for a dollar.

Yep, I bought this Emeco Navy swivel office chair right. True, the seat is trashed but a new black vinyl repair shouldn't be that hard. These chairs are still HAND MADE in the U.S. out of aluminum and were originally designed during WWII for use on submarines and warships. The unique specs that resulted in these were born from war time requirements for light-weight, fire-resistent furniture. These chairs are on permenant display at the Museum of Modern Art.

I don't know the history of this sign but I thought it was pretty cool. I'd place it from the 1950s and was probably used for a carnival game. -Remember those foul shooting games were you could never sink those foul shots for stuffed animals? This sign told suckers...er..lucky gentlemen to not pass the foul line and not to 'loft,' which I'll guess is when you underhand the toss to make the bucket.

At an estate sale, I came across a few early drafting drawings in a professor's basement drafting studio. It's no secret why NC State's newspaper is called 'The Technician.' For a hundred years, 'State' has graduated generations of scientists, inventors and designers and many remained in the area to work for local companies like IBM or to teach at one of the local colleges. -Really impressive people.

This looks like just an old piece of lead plumbing pipe, right? It's really a nice little piece of early industrial design. Carved of wood in the early 20th Century, it was used as a mold to drop forge iron pipe in foundaries. The back is labeled "garden hose" so it could have been a piece used to make outdoor pipes that flowed into garden hoses. -Which would this quite early, by the looks of it.

Nice old trophies have been snatched up a long time so it's been awhile since I've been able to grab one priced right. It's an early one from the 1920s in its original finish.

(Sorry for the repost. My blogger account got hacked and has been making blogging tough. -TT)

Trailer Trad Time Travel: Trampas New Mexico 1943 (reshown)

Photo credit: Farm Security Administration

Brooklyn Blizzard

Thanks to intrepid correspondent PO Palustris for the great pics!

 

The Yellow Butcher Stripe and A Lesson in Dressin'

This newly acquired 1980s butcher stripe Brooks Brothers dress shirt reminds me of a guy from work and a story he passed on the other day. This guy's an old school South Carolina guy brought up around textile mills, back when men were men and Weejuns were brown. -Not cordovan. Brown. Only brown.
He had on a navy sweater with pink shirt combination on the other day. "Jaunty pink shirt Sir," I said. "Thank you. Back in high school, I would have had on matching pink socks with my brown Weejuns. -I don't have any pink socks," he shrugged. He went on to tell me of this exchange that he had with his wife many, many years ago.

"When I have a yellow shirt on, I wear matching yellow socks", he told her.
"And when I have a pink shirt on, I wear matching pink socks."

His wife was curious. "Well, what socks do you wear you when you have a white shirt on?"
"Easy," he said. "I wear navy socks."

Class dismissed.

Happy Groundhog Day!

I know. It's not a groundhog. It's a gopher. However, it is a little brown, furry rodent, just like a groundhog. And besides, readers should be aware of what a gopher looks like. Why? "Do you know a gopher can DO to a golf course?"