We're Off to Hawaii!

Well, you might not be off to Hawaii, but I am.  Don't feel bad though. The architect who steals my covers is staying home too to slave away at work and rake up autumn leaves.

I am actually taking work with me,  but I expect that most of my time will be spent with handsome Hawaiian men ferrying me about in outrigger canoes and lovely native maidens decorating me with leis. O.K., maybe not, but I intend to enjoy sunshine and warm weather in any case. During the next week, I'll post a number of vintage Hawaiian cards and photos.

Here are the backs of the cards in the same order.

Patriotism Gone-A-Fowl

Here's a patriotic booklet from 1917.

This looks pretty serious. So, what do you suppose the booklet urges you to do to help the war effort? The back cover provides a clue.

That's right, we're going to load up that cannon and pelt the enemy with chicken eggs. We'll win for sure! But there's more to it than that. You have to read all of the important instructions provided by Pratt Food Co, which did not believe in short slogans or cut-to-the-chase marketing approaches.

I am going to post all of them for you chicken lovers. Other folks may want to go watch TV now.

 

Streetcar Sunday - Edinburgh, Scotland

In many ways, Edinburgh's tram system was similar to systems in other cities. The city started out with horse-drawn cars in 1871. But then, instead of switching to electric overhead wires, they switched to a cable-drawn system. There were other cities around the world that did this, but few had them for very long. It wasn't until the 1922 that the cable system in Edinburgh was switched over to an electric traction system. Here are several pictures from the James Valentine views that I introduced last week. You can see the line between the tracks, indicating the location of the cable (and later the electric traction.)

I wish we could see the trams more clearly, but we can certainly see that they're double deck and open on the top. Another striking feature in this photo is the North British Station Hotel with the gardens in front. Yes, there's a railway station under those gardens (Waverley Station.)  It's such an elegant design approach. Here's another view looking out from the hotel.

The Hotel is now known as the Balmoral Hotel. According to Wikipedia, JK Rowling finished the last book in her Harry Potter series at the hotel. She lost her deposit and was sent a bill,  because she commemorated the occasion by writing in black marker pen on a marble bust of Hermes in her room: "JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11th Jan 2007".

Anyway, back to the trams. The Edinburgh electric trams continued to operate until they were replaced with buses in 1956. Fast forward to 2007, when work began on bringing trams back to Edinburgh with a system that would link Leith with Edinburgh City and the airport. The project was scheduled for completion in 2011, but has been plagued by problems including delays and cost overruns. The snarled traffic and loss of revenue to local businesses has made the project fairly unpopular even among former supporters.  For more information on current happenings surrounding the Edinburgh tram system, visit Trams Stop Here!

And here's another view from this series showing a tram in Edinburgh.