I Brake For Bears

I thought that it might be fun to share one of my collections with you today.

Postcards: Bears Meet Tourists!



I'm not sure where this fascination comes from but I absolutely love these postcards. Back in the day, many of the well-traveled touristy areas that were populated by bears completely encouraged tourists to go up to the bears and to attract them to their cars. Of course, the bears got used to getting food and would approach cars easily. Not safe for the bears or the tourists, if you ask me.

It's definitely a little sketchy but still, I love the nostalgia factor of these cards. Tourists going to the mountains always hoped and expected to see bears. I have to admit that in all of my mountain trips, I've never seen a bear out roaming around on the road. However, there are many ghastly roadside attractions around here where you can see these poor, beautiful creatures chained up and living on concrete. We're hoping to get those places outlawed one of these days. Maybe that's one of the reasons that I love this genre of postcards. The bears were at least roaming free, making choices whether to accept pimento cheese sandwich scraps or to forage for berries. Whether to whack a tourist or not. Nature as it should be.

Here is the back of the above card:



I love the inclusion of the line No Trouble Yet. I'm not sure if those boys are referring to the lack of bears or if they're anxiously crossing the state line for another reason. I mean who among us hasn't had a reason to rejoice making it over a state line or two? Either/or - I love the idea of putting No Trouble Yet on all of my future postcards.

Here are some of my other favorites from my collection:


This one looks like a sassy waitress at a cook's window.
Carl! The Martins have been waiting on their club sandwiches for twenty minutes!


Look at that wee one hanging on that car!



I especially love the one above. It says on the back: This bear wandered out of the woods on to the highway. Although they seem friendly and harmless, one should not feed or get too close to wild bears.

Ya think?? Don't you just love how the mothers of these kids are standing safely in the background, encouraging the kids to get some nature action? Why, it's not a vacation if someone doesn't get facial reconstruction surgery!

This card veers a little away from the bears and cars collection but is equally as touristy:


Greetings from Tennessee. Feeding Bruin is very dangerous but makes for a pleasant picture in this Dextone Beauty Scene.

Trust me when I say that if that bear weren't taxidermied within an inch of his life, Carol would be drawing back a nub for her game of hide-and-go-seek with Bruin there.

Thanks for touring one of my favorite collections with me. I'm sure it will continue to grow. Since these cards also appeal to vintage car image collectors, the competition means that I don't find them that often - but that makes the hunt even more fun!

Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

Dear Lord! Not Wood!!

As some of you know, I am a lover of knotty pine. Of paneling. Of wood walls. I'm so all about it. Our house is full of it and one of the main reasons that we actually bought this place was because it is still authentic and has the original wood paneling and cabinetry.












Today, I was led to the Apartment Therapy site. Which I usually don't allow to happen because it sometimes just confounds me. There are honestly some great design ideas on there - but sites where people sit around and anonymously (and quite often cruelly) critique the styles of others wear away at my nerves.

It just so happens that today they are talking about wood paneling and oh my gosh, could it actually be coming back in style? You can go here to see.

And have mercy at the comments. Such anger and disappointment that the writer would even so much as bring up the notion of wood paneling! At first, there was just denial:

Hideous knotty pine is not back.

And then disgust:

Ew. No. And I love the rustic look, but wood paneling just looks so dark and busy.


And those who faked injuries:

Oh lord, please pass the eye bleach, will you?

And then a ripple of fear swept in:

Nooooo. No.No.No.No.No.

I just ... It's so ... I mean ...BROWN. It's SO BROWN. I just can't stand any of it. Not a single one of the examples pictured is appealing to me. There is just no way I could get behind leaving any paneling natural in a home where lived. I would be compelled to paint it immediately. The BROWN! my eyes!!

Wow, that person really hates brown. And then a true suspension of disbelief (and suicidal tendencies) took over the comment thread:

I'd be interested to know how many of the people who commented in a positive manner regarding wood paneling, actually live in a wood paneled house...24 hours a day...7 days a week. It's not cool, chic, contemporary or anything but depressing. It sucks the light and color out of everything. I always joke with my husband that one of these days I'm going to tear it down and slit my wrists with the wood shards.





Now add in a little indignation and parental dissing:

No. Absolutely not. There is no excuse for this. Please stop the insanity.

No. Wrong. just wrong. my parents bought a house with this fugly wood paneling in '86. It wasnt cute then. Its not cute now.

Not ever in MY house, thanks very much. Kill this "trend" now, before it spreads!

I love how that last one compares wood paneling to a horrible, communicable disease. Then you have the elitists:

There's wood paneling from the 50's that's rich and real. Think gorgeous built-in studies in uber-wealthy homes. Then there's that notched crap from the late sixties and seventies that makes you want to cry -- hardly better than gussied up plywood and ubiquitous in that era -- even in expensive houses. One is Katherine Hepburn, the other is Happy Days.



I also love the comments where the people can't even fathom that some of us might actually live in houses with real wood paneling. Why, aren't we compelled to sleep in our cars and not even come inside at night? Do we keep the drapes drawn so that nobody will know our dirty little paneled secrets? Surely we don't actually live in our houses without spiraling into deep, dark depression! Picture The Snake Pit with Olivia de Havilland but instead of an insane asylum, put in it's place a knotty pine den. Chilling.

It's not cool, chic, contemporary or anything but depressing. It sucks the light and color out of everything. And I'd bet my last dime not a blessed one of the positive comments come from anyone who is forced to live in such wicked oppression.



Then you have the ones who blame pop culture:


Here we go... just because Mad Men is back, we'll have to suffer that crap again...

I bet this is one of the same people who buys up every vintage thing they can find and then tries to resell them online for ridiculous prices with the keywords "Mad Men" as if vintage items did not exist nor were they loved before Mad Men ever aired.

Then you have those who have to go into some kind of make-believe world to cope:

Ugh, there is nothing I hate more than wood paneling. I can live with any other aspect, but I just cannot do the paneling. I have to paint it and treat it like it's sheetrock and just do the best I can to ignore it.



And finally, there is the commenter who's having some pretty major angst filled childhood flashbacks:

It depresses me, disgusts me, fills me with dread. Nearly every negative childhood memory I have involves some place with wood paneled walls. Ick, ick, ick. HATE it.



I'm not sure that I've ever seen so many thoroughly disgusted comments in one place on a design blog. I firmly believe that some of these comments wouldn't be filled with so much bile if the people who made them weren't covering up their secret love for wood paneling. Just sayin'.

We have a saying in the South which goes "Bit dog hollers". That means that the one who barks the first and loudest is probably the one that we should be looking at. I'm talkin' to you, person who asked for eye wash!

And mark my words...one day soon, the tide will shift. Sure, it will take some huge event like Zooey Deschanel saying that she loves wood paneling. Or Etsy sellers hawking knotty pine mustaches on sticks. But it will happen.

Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

Wabbit Wednesday

Since Easter is ramping up, I thought I'd share some of the ranch rabbit collection with you from now until then. Thus Wabbit Wednesday - which will allow you to see cute bunnies without having to read any of my prattling on. Wordless Wabbit Wednesdays. Whee!











Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha

There She Blows!

Mister Kitsch just returned from a trip to New Orleans and he came up to me and said, "I brought you a surprise! Close your eyes!" I did and he put the above guy in my hands.

Me: Aww! I love it! Thanks!

Him: You're welcome. I thought you might like him.

Me: You drank an enormous alcoholic drink, didn't you?

Him: What? How did you know that?

Me: Oh, I've been around the block...let me tell you.

Him: It was really cool. The drink is called a "Shark Attack". There is a tiny mermaid in the drink and the waitress comes out with this guy full of Grenadine and when she puts it in the drink, it looks like blood. She yells "Shark Attack!"

Me: She knows that this is a whale though, right?

Him: What's that?

Me: It's not a shark. It's a whale. Does she know that?

Him: Um, I don't? know?

Me: If she were really thinking about it, she'd call it a "Whale Attack".

Him: You know, yes. Yes, I imagine so.


It was then that I realized that I'm a big ole buzz-kill.


Until next time,
x's and o's,
Eartha