
I have not yet been able to determine if the Florida trains of the 1930s were truly orange and green or whether the colorist was taking liberties.
I have not yet been able to determine if the Florida trains of the 1930s were truly orange and green or whether the colorist was taking liberties.
I was not able to learn the significance of the word blockade on this card – search for “cotton blockade” and you either find Civil War references or links to this 1909 postcard.
The message on the back reads:
Dear Dick:
How is the old boy now? And how’s that old fusser G. Talbot? I’ve been switched around so much lately that I hardly know where I’m at. I just finished a trip in So. Tex. and now make a jump across La. into Arkansas. I have been shifted from boll weevil work and now am working on rice insect investigations with headquarters at Crowley La. I like this work better than b.w. for you are thrown in with a more progressive and intelligent set of farmers. I met Hemenway of Northampton in Beaumont last Monday. Say Dick would a list of the addresses of our class members inconvenience you too much. Let me know the news if there is any. I haven’t heard a word from anybody for ages. Best regards to you and G.T. from “Ich bin”.
Touring orange groves by train, on foot, or by automobile used to be a very popular attraction, judging by the number of postcards on the subject. I have been visiting my in-laws in Florida for over 25 years now and the idea has never come up once, evidence, I think, of how we have lost connection with where our food comes from.
In recent years, this has been the site of the Railway to the Moon Steampunk Festival. I recently had to explain the term steampunk to a neighbor who thought I might have been talking about steamer trunks. Steamer trunks are pretty steampunk, agreed. Postcards, no so much. I think this crowd would prefer telegrams. On the whole, I don’t think I did a great job of explaining it. I might have to go to their 2021 event and attend the Steampunk 101 lecture.
In Italiano:
Di recente, questo è stato il sito del festival Ferrovia diretta alla Luna Steampunk. Negli ultimi tempi ho dovuto spiegare il termine steampunk a un vicino che ha pensato che forse volevo dire baule (il gioco di parole non funziona in italiano). I bauli sono steampunk, è vero. Le cartoline, non tanto. Penso che questo gruppo preferirebbero i telegrammi. In fondo, non penso che ho fatto una buona spiegazione. Magari devo andare alla festa nel 2021 e partecipare alla lettura pubblica “Steampunk 101”
(Lo steampunk è un genere della letteratura di fantascienza. Le storie possono svolgersi nel passato oppure nel futuro, ma la tecnologia è solo prima circa del 1930 (gli aeroplani e
la radio esistono, ma non i computer e la televisione o qualcosa di digitale e il carburante è il carbone). Qualche esempio classico sarebbero l’opere di H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, le storie diSherlock Holmes, Il dottor Jekyll e Mr. Hyde).