I Miss the Old Days

31 Black and White Photos Capture Everyday Life of Los Alamitos Teenagers, California in the Early 1970s

PaperBack

Charles Willeford, Understudy for Love, Novel Library, 1961

First It Was the Thin Mints Melee

Man Stabs Customer After Getting Wrong Drink At Starbucks

Things I See in Alvin, Texas

Alligators in the atrium where I bank.

The Three Stooges at the Texas Centennial (1936)

Lifted from the Traces of Texas Facebook page.

Forgotten Hits: June 19th

Forgotten Hits: June 19th: For the third time this year, a record returns to the #1 spot as "Groovin'" by The Young Rascals displaces Aretha Franklin's hit "Respect" to reclaim the throne four weeks after they last vacated it.

Lots more info and a chart included.

Bring Back My Brain!

Brain of One of Italy's Most Revered Saints Found in a Teapot

10 Times Dad Knew Best In Calvin And Hobbes

10 Times Dad Knew Best In Calvin And Hobbes

Put Your Deerstalker On

Gardner Museum Offers $10 Million for Information About 1990 Heist

Song of the Day

LINDA RONSTADT ~ We Need A Lot More Of Jesus ~ - YouTube:

50 Unique Independent Bookstores You Need to Visit in Every US State

50 Unique Independent Bookstores You Need to Visit in Every US State

Today's Vintage Ad

Mighty Oaks from Little Acorns Grow

The acorn from which this bur oak tree grew was planted about 1952 in the yard of our house.  The house is gone, but the tree is still there.  The acorn came from a tree in my grandmother's yard.

PaperBack

Kenneth Robeson, Doc Savage Omnibus #7 (The Men Vanished, Five Fathoms Dead, The Terrible Stork, Danger Lies East), Bantam, 1988

21 Books That Changed Science Fiction And Fantasy Forever

21 Books That Changed Science Fiction And Fantasy Forever

I Found a Penny in the Walmart Parking Lot Last Week

Gigantic Aztec Temple Unearthed in Mexico City: It was built in tribute to the wind god

How 9 Countries Celebrate Father's Day

How 9 Countries Celebrate Father's Day

Forgotten Hits: June 18th

Forgotten Hits: June 18th: Ravi Shankar (the only artist to get paid for their performance), a return appearance by Big Brother and the Holding Company, Buffalo Springfield (who are joined on stage by David Crosby of The Byrds), The Who, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Scott McKenzie and The Mamas and the Papas perform at The Monterey Pop Festival during its final day.  Hendrix mesmerizes the entire crowd with his first US appearance with The Jimi Hendrix Experience.  (Monkees Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork, who were in the audience that day, were so impressed they asked Jimi to join them on their summer tour as the opening act … incredibly, Jimi's manager said yes … and we all know how well THAT turned out!)  

Lots of photos and nostalgia today.

Joseph Kanon: By the Book

Joseph Kanon: By the Book: The author of “Defectors” says that he likes to cook, but likes to read cookbooks even more. “And the best cookbooks have really distinctive voices. I never met Marcella Hazan, but I feel I have.”

Happy Father's Day!

Father's Day in the United States: Father's Day in the United States is on the third Sunday of June. It celebrates the contribution that fathers and father figures make for their children's lives. Its origins may lie in a memorial service held for a large group of men, many of them fathers, who were killed in a mining accident in Monongah, West Virginia in 1907.  

the photo on the left is of my father on the beach in Port Aransas, Texas, sometime in the late 1950s.  He seldom took a vacation, and when he did, it was always a short one.  I wish he'd taken more and longer ones because he had fun on the ones he took.  I believe he felt that he had to be present for his job and business to run smoothly.  Maybe he was right, but he deserved more vacations.