If You're Not Slender...

                                               
So, I just started a new part-time job at Lane Bryant. It's a nice store, and the history nerd in me loves the idea of working for a company that has been around since the early 1900's. Not many companies last that long. Even Sears is on the decline now.

I've always been a big girl, and the term "plus-size" has been in my shopping dictionary, but I'm guessing that  the euphemism hasn't been around that long. According to the 1923 ad above, "stout" was used to market to us big and beautiful ladies. I honestly like the word. It might not be so feminine, but it gives off an air of power and confidence. "Plus-size" sounds like you are calling people abnormal. "There are normal sizes, and then there are plus-sizes."

At least it's better than chubby! I lol'ed at the ad on the bottom. Chubbies? Really? Who thought that was a good idea? Now that's just insulting! Hahaha.! Not sure on the date, but it looks around 1950-early1960-ish.

Same Here

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much."   -- Mother Teresa

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

To A Mouse

Robert Burns

Small, sleek, cowering, timorous beast,
O, what a panic is in your breast!
You need not start away so hasty
With hurrying scamper!
I would be loath to run and chase you,
With murdering plough-staff.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
And justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
And fellow mortal!

I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal;
What then? Poor beast, you must live!
An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves
Is a small request;
I will get a blessing with what is left,
And never miss it.

Your small house, too, in ruin!
It's feeble walls the winds are scattering!
And nothing now, to build a new one,
Of coarse grass green!
And bleak December's winds coming,
Both bitter and keen!

You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,
And weary winter coming fast,
And cozy here, beneath the blast,
You thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel plough past
Out through your cell.

That small bit heap of leaves and stubble,
Has cost you many a weary nibble!
Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,
Without house or holding,
To endure the winter's sleety dribble,
And hoar-frost cold.

But Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

Still you are blest, compared with me!
The present only touches you:
But oh! I backward cast my eye,
On prospects dreary!
And forward, though I cannot see,
I guess and fear!

I really like this poem, especially the last two stanzas. 

OMG, Bottled Water!

And here I thought bottled water was just a recent gimmick, but while perusing through one of my favorite blogs (http://oldadvertising.tumblr.com/), I found this gem from 1910. It should not be that surprising considering how crappy drinking water was back then.

I was just watching How the States Got Their Shapes on the History Channel, and they had this segment of the history of Poland Spring. Coincidentally,I was drinking a bottle of Poland Spring water, and for the first time noticed the "since 1845" on the label. So bottled water has a much longer history than I thought.

I'm a City Girl Myself...

Nature

O Nature! I do not aspire
To be the highest in thy choir, -

To be a meteor in thy sky,

Or comet that may range on high;

Only a zephyr that may blow

Among the reeds by the river low;

Give me thy most privy place

Where to run my airy race.

In some withdrawn, unpublic mead

Let me sigh upon a reed,

Or in the woods, with leafy din,

Whisper the still evening in:

Some still work give me to do, -

Only - be it near to you!

For I'd rather be thy child
And pupil, in the forest wild,

Than be the king of men elsewhere,

And most sovereign slave of care;

To have one moment of thy dawn,

Than share the city's year forlorn.

One of my favorite poems by Thoreau. I've been looking for Thoreau quotes to post on the North Fork Audubon Society's Facebook page to promote their hosting of "Beyond Spheres" -- a fine art photography tour of nature based on the principles of Henry David Thoreau, using the camera technology of the time. Pretty cool. 

Anyway, just some random musing.

Copy-writing --- Literature's pop art

This has to be one of my favorite pieces of vintage advertising. If you are truly a lover of advertising, you can appreciate the copy here. "Coca-Cola... a grateful invigorant without reactionary lassitude." What a fancy way of saying it gives you energy without the crash. My how times have changed.

Now they tell us to be clear and concise, because people don't care to read. Maybe this is proof that TV does really make us more stupidder (stupider or stupidder?? Studpider would be stu-pEYE-der, right? so it has to be stupidder for the short "i"...hmmmm?).[EDIT: Nevermind, it is "stupider." I looked it up. But really, I would argue for the double "d."]



This ad is dated June 1906. I got it from www.vintage123.com, a nice source of vintage ads (although it seems like they haven't updated in a long time).

From Calogero to Charles

America is a country of immigrants, and unless your people are 100 percent aboriginal to North America, at least one of your ascendants are from elsewhere.  I've always been fascinated with my family's ties to the old country. One set of great-grandparents is from Italy, or Sicily to be more exact. They went through the whole Ellis Island thing and eventually lived in Little Italy for a little while. When I see the parts of The Godfather: Part II  when Don Vito came as a little boy to America through Ellis Island from Sicily, I just can't help but think that is what my great-grandparents experienced. 

Above is the naturalization papers form my great-grandpa Charlie in 1922. 

I wonder if they still use "in the year of our Lord..." in new docs?