Memorial Day

Mary McHugh mourning her fiance Sgt. James Regan, Memorial Day 2007.

Please, no more like these.

Person-of-Mystery

Welcome to Cipher Saturday!  You've found the home of everyone's favorite weekend pastime, where a stylized photo of a somewhat famous person from history is provided here for you to identify.

Additional clues may be found in the cipher below:

RABQ BQ JLR A D AHBJZ,

ESR BJ ABQ JKIH YLS TKJ UBJC

FHRTASM BQ QRBGG LJ IY IBJC.

So, who could I be?  That's the mystery!  Go ahead and take a guess and then go enjoy your day.  Check back tomorrow and I'll reveal the answer.  The first correct post will be declared the winner.

If you'd like to make sure that your guess is correct, enter his name into Google Images and this photo will be found on the first pages of the image results.

Timely News from the Ketchup World

Yesterday, I posted a piece on the historic reason for the counterintuitive shape of ketchup bottles.

If ketchup gets stuck in the bottle, why make the neck so narrow?  Alert reader Ellena from Quebec wrote to me that she saw an article the next day in the German language magazine Der Spiegel about students at MIT who had developed a nano coating that could be applied to bottles (such as ketchup) that they've dubbed LiquiGlide.  It allows the contents to slide effortlessly out of the container.

Although I applaud their efforts, I have to wonder how many of us old bottle types will wind up with a pile of ketchup in our laps when we flip the new coated bottle over and give it a good shake.

Ketchup Bottle: Function Over Form

At some point, most of us have had to deal with ketchup that doesn't come easily out of the bottle.  Some people pound the bottom, others stick a knife up the neck and loosen it up to allow it to flow.

If you've experienced this frustration, you may have wondered why someone designed neck of the bottle that way.

Long ago, ketchup had a runny consistency and manufacturers designed their narrow-necked bottles to try and slow the flow.  Consumers however, preferred thicker ketchups and while the product inside changed, the recognizable bottle shape remained the same.

Heinz Ketchup Bottles from 1880 to 1910

Pricey Photo

With graduation so near, one of my students yesterday was asking about various career possibilities when she brought up the idea of photography.  I gave her some general pointers about how to develop a career plan, but also informed her that due to the weak economy and the increasing availability of good cameras and editing equipment, the photography market is somewhat down in our area.  She then asked, what about selling photographs, "what's the most a photograph has ever sold for?"

That I did not know, so I looked it up and was surprised by the answer I found.  The most expensive photograph ever sold at auction was one titled Rhein II by Andreas Gursky.  Not only was I surprised by how much the photograph fetched, but I was surprised by how bland the image was.

Rhein II by Andreas Gursky

Obviously it is a photo of the Rhine River in Germany, but there are a few more surprising things about the picture.  Gursky photoshopped it to remove the industrial skyline from the background and a dog walker in the foreground.

So, what was the selling price of this photograph?  On November 8, 2011, it sold for $4,300,000!

Not only that, but I was surprised to see that six of the top eight priciest photographs sold since the recession began.  You can see the Wikipedia list HERE.

Person-of-Mystery

You've found the home of everyone's favorite weekend pastime, where a stylized photo of a somewhat famous person from history is provided here for you to identify.

So, who could I be?  That's the mystery!  Go ahead and take a guess and then go enjoy your day.  Check back tomorrow and I'll reveal the answer.  The first correct post will be declared the winner.

If you'd like to make sure that your guess is correct, enter his name into Google Images and this photo will be found on the first pages of the image results.

Person-of-Mystery

Welcome to Cipher Saturday!  You've found the home of everyone's favorite weekend pastime, where a stylized photo of a somewhat famous person from history is provided here for you to identify.

Additional clues may be found in the cipher below:

ABBBBBAAABABBBAAAAABABABBAABAAABBAAABAAA ABBBBAABAABAAAB ABAAAABABB AAABBBABAAAAABAAABAA

So, who could I be?  That's the mystery!  Go ahead and take a guess and then go enjoy your day.  Check back tomorrow and I'll reveal the answer.  The first correct post will be declared the winner.

If you'd like to make sure that your guess is correct, enter his name into Google Images and this photo will be found on the first pages of the image results.

Today, I'm again out of reach, backpacking with the Boy Scouts, so I cannot comment on your guesses, but I hope to be back tomorrow sometime.

Addition to the Family

My wife's younger sister is adopting a fourth child, a little baby girl from Ethiopia.  Julia and Stefan are over there now and I thought I'd share the photos I received.

Welcome to the family!

A Post Card Curse in Leather

Champagne to my real friends

Real pain to my sham friends

Copyrighted S.N. Co. 1906

Postmarked Haviland, Kansas, March 29, 1907, 9 AM

Miss Jessie Burrows

1153 Uni, Ave

Wichita Kan

+ + + + +

Today, I'm featuring an interesting leather post card from the collection of my great-grandmother, Jessie Burrows.

William Patrick Hitler

If you solved the cipher this last weekend, you would have discovered that the clue told you that this man was the "black sheep of a black family."  Rob, asked "Doesn't that make him the white sheep?"  Well, yes it does.

William Hitler

William Hitler's father was Adolf Hitler's half brother, Alois Hitler, Jr..  Alois had left Germany and traveled to Ireland, where he met Bridget Dowling, William's mother.  Alois and Bridget were married in London in 1910 and settled in Liverpool, England, where William was born in 1911.  Alois abandoned Bridget in 1914 and returned to Germany, where he committed bigamy in 1916 by marrying another woman.

Alois Hitler, Jr. (William Hitler's father)

Bridget raised William in England, but he visited his father in Germany once in 1929 and met his half-brother, Heinz Hitler (Unlike his half-brother, Heinz was a devoted Nazi and served in the German military on the Eastern Front.  He was captured in January of 1942 and tortured for several months before dying in a Moscow prison).  William returned to Germany again in 1933, hoping that his uncle Adolf's rise to power would benefit him.  Adolf helped his nephew get a couple ordinary jobs, but William started threatening his uncle saying that unless he got a better job, he would become vocal with family secrets.  Adolf offered William a high position in the Nazi government if he would renounce his British citizenship.  However, William became nervous and fled the country and back in England became a vocal opponent of his uncle Adolf.

William Hitler with his mother in the USA

William Randolph Hearst brought William and Bridget to the lecture tour in United States where they were when the US entered World War II.  William Hitler petitioned President Roosevelt to allow him to serve in the armed forces.  President Roosevelt granted the request and in 1944, William joined the US Navy and even earned a Purple Heart during his service.

William Hitler joining the US Navy

In 1946, he became a naturalized citizen and to protect his anonymity, changed his name to Patrick Stuart-Houston.  Patrick Stuart-Houston was discharged from the Navy in 1947, married, and settled on Long Island.  Stuart-Houston and his wife had four boys:  Alexander Adolf, Louis, Howard Ronald (died 1989), and Brian William.  Stuart-Houston (né Hitler), died in 1987, after a quiet career in medical laboratory services.

Stuart-Houston Brothers

Person-of-Mystery

Welcome to Cipher Saturday!  You've found the home of everyone's favorite weekend pastime, where a stylized photo of a somewhat famous person from history is provided here for you to identify.

Additional clues may be found in the cipher below:

GSV YOZXP HSVVK LU Z YOZXP UZNROB

So, who could I be?  That's the mystery!  Go ahead and take a guess and then go enjoy your day.  Check back tomorrow and I'll reveal the answer.  The first correct post will be declared the winner.

If you'd like to make sure that your guess is correct, enter his name into Google Images and this photo will be found on the first pages of the image results.

Scrapbooking Memories of a Friend

A few years back, scrapbooking achieved a small revival of sorts.  I say revival, because it was really a pretty common hobby around the turn of the century (late 1800s to early 1900s).  Mark Twain himself was numbered among these many scrapbooking enthusiasts.  And I've always found it interesting what people kept in scrapbooks.  Not the items themselves (e.g., photographs, sketches, newspaper clippings, pressed flowers, bills of sale, programs), as these stay rather consistent, but what they represented to the people who remembered them.  I particularly enjoy reading old obituaries.  Modern obituaries don't often speak to the character of the deceased, but more often to their accomplishments.  Today I am featuring a small letter to the editor placed in a Carrollton, Georgia, newspaper not long after the death of Jacob C. Grow.  It is found in the scrapbook of my great-grandmother Mary Grow Goodner (Jacob's daughter).  Jacob died December 3, 1903, in Gainesville, Texas.

+ + + + +

Rev. J. C. Grow.

Mr. Editor:–Will you please give me just a short space in which to say something of my old friend and schoolmate, Rev. Jacob C. Grow, who departed this life a short while ago.  Jacob Grow was one of the best men I ever know or that anyone else ever knew.  He was a noble, upright, Christian gentleman, as near faultless as a human could be.  He was raised by as saintly a mother as ever lived in our county.  I never will forget that on one occasion I heard a gentleman telling Mrs. Grow of her sons' Christian conduct during the war, how nobly and religiously he overcame temptation, of how it made the old mother rejoice to hear of her son's loyalty to his God.  There are but few of us left in Carrollton to day who knew and remember Mr. Grow, but those few will testify to his unswerving Christian man-hood.  A good man is gone from our country.  A great and shining light for the Master's cause has been extinguished.  I wish we had many more men like him.

A FRIEND.

Eyeglass Part Trivia

A funny thing happened today in class.  While I was teaching a student exclaimed, "Oh no, I've broken my... my... Hey, Mr. Maas, what's this part on eyeglasses called?"  He was pointing to the long part that goes above the ears and comes off the frame around the lens.

So I looked it up.  It's called a "temple."  Makes sense I suppose.  And now you know too.

Banking by Mail

I know the trend for sometime now has been for people to do their banking online.  I think most people enjoy the convenience of having their bank come to them and it definitely saves the increasingly expensive cost of postage.  Back in 1916, William H. Coltharp of Vernal, Utah, found a unique way of using the mail to bringing banking to the town and save money in the process.

Bank of Vernal

In the 1910s, Vernal, Utah, had a population of a little over 800, but was keeping an eye toward future growth as the county seat.  A fine town like Vernal needed an upscale brick bank to express its cosmopolitan outlook, but the nearest brick works was in Salt Lake City over 170 miles away.  Shipping the bricks would cost over four times the purchase price.

Parcel Post Wagon, c. 1914

It was then that Coltharp hit on a novel idea.  The United States Mail had in 1913 begun domestic parcel post service.  To encourage people to use the service, rates were kept rather low.  Coltharp did the math and realized that he could mail the bricks from Salt Lake City cheaper than having them delivered by wagon, so he had the Salt Lake Pressed Brick Company bundle the bricks into packages of about 50 pounds (to stay within parcel post weight limits).  The company would mail about 40 crates (or one ton) of the packages a day.

Salt Lake Pressed Brick Company

To get the crates to Vernal, the US Mail sent the bricks to Mack, Colorado, via the Denver and Rio Grande RR, then by narrow gauge Uintah RR to Watson, Utah, and finally by freight wagon to Vernal.  Each of the 80,000 bricks traveled over 400 miles across tough terrain, including steep mountain roads, at a final cost of about seven cents per brick!

Freight Wagon Arriving in Vernal, Utah

Postmasters along the route expressed their frustration with the volume of weighty crates and the US Mail quickly realized that if Coltharp's scheme caught on, it would hopelessly clog their transportation systems and strain their mailmen.  So in response, Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, allowed the remaining bricks be sent to Vernal, but issued a new regulation allowing only 200 pounds per sender each day and stated, "it is not the intent of the United States Postal Service that buildings be shipped through the mail."

"The Parcel Post Bank" Today

The bank was completed the next year and was nicknamed "The Parcel Post Bank" by locals.  The building still exists and still serves as a bank at 3 West Main Street in Vernal.

Camp-o-ree

As I mentioned this Saturday, I'm off to Boy Scout Camp-o-ree, so no Person-of-Mystery today.  I'll be back next week.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Photographic Memories

I'm apologize for the lack of posts.  I've been rather busy getting ready for a Boy Scout Camporee, and I'm afraid I'll already tell you, there will be no Person-of-Mystery game tomorrow, but I thought I'd share something with you that made me smile.  A friend recently asked me to locate a photo I took several years ago, which had me thumbing through the digital photo albums on my computer.  I found myself looking at old photos of my boys and here's one I particularly enjoyed.

This was our youngest son, Jonathan, when he was just a little nugget.  He's now ten and I'm sure he'd be embarrassed if he knew I was posting this photo.  We had taken all the kids to a berry farm where you pick your own and weigh them afterwards.  Heading down the rows for a bit, we turned around to find that Jonathan was picking the berries off the plants, placing them in his basket and immediately taking them out of the basket and popping them in his mouth.  What a cutie!  I miss those days.

Have a swell weekend and I'll see you on Monday.

Humoresque Rag

One of my students entered class today whistling a tune.  I recognized it, so I asked if they liked Dvorak.  They seemed confused.  I told them they were whistling one of Dvorak's Humoresques and I asked where they had heard the tune.  They replied, "I dunno, probably TV."

Antonin Dvorak

As we had time, I did a quick search and pulled up the number on YouTube.

After they heard it, they remarked that it was nice, but that it sounded both happy and sad.  I agree, for such a playful tune, there is a little melancholy in the middle.  When I was searching for Dvorak's music, I noticed a version that also said, "ragtime piano version."  I was intrigued, so I saved the clip for after work and was delightfully surprised by Mark Chang's interpretation, so I thought I'd share it with you too.

What a happy way to end the day!

Charles Boles (aka Black Bart), the Gentleman Bandit

Congratulations to Brian, who once again, proved his Person-of-Mystery prowess by successfully identifying Charles Boles, better known as the notorious stagecoach robber "Black Bart."

"Black Bart" Charley Boles

I'm not the kind of guy to typically root for the outlaw.  I know there are not too many real-life Robin Hood types, only stealing from the richest of the rich and fewer still who can pull it off with style and good humor, but I suppose Charles Boles may come closest.

Boles, born in England and brought to America at two years of age, was raised on a farm in Upstate New York.  In 1849, Charley and two brothers came to California to work the gold fields, but returned after a somewhat unsuccessful year.  In 1854, he married a Mary Johnson, had several children, and farmed near Decatur, Illinois.  During the Civil War, Boles enlisted with the 116th Illinois Infantry, was promoted to First Sergeant and even breveted a First Lieutenant.

The quiet life held little appeal to Boles and after the war, he was back in the mining camps of Idaho and Montana and writing home to his wife.  In an 1871 letter, he mentioned how upset he was with some employees of the Wells Fargo Company.  Then the letters stopped and his wife assumed he had died.

Charles Boles

On July 26, 1875, Boles pulled off his first of 28 stagecoach robberies in Calaveras County, California.  Boles was dressed in a long coat and armed with a shotgun.  A flour sack with cut eye holes covered his head and he wore his bowler hat over the flower sack.  What made him different was his courteous manners during each of his robberies.  He would issue his demands with pleasantries and without profanity.  "Please throw down the box," he would request.  Boles was scared of horses, so he was always on foot and in several of the robberies he would pretend as though there were accomplices hiding in the surrounding brush to support him.

He gained his name during the fifth robbery, when Boles left the following note in the empty strong box:

I've labored long and hard for bred

For honor and for riches

But on my corns too long yove tred

You fine-haired sons of b*****s.

Black Bart, 1877

The next robbery included another note:

Here I lay me down to Sleep

To wait the coming morrow

Perhaps Success perhaps defeat

And everlasting Sorrow

Let come what will I'll try it on

My condition can't be worse

And if there's money in the Box

'Tis munny in my purse.

Black Bart, the P o 8

Boles only left those two notes, in which each line was written in a different handwriting style and the first poem containing the only known profanity (perhaps to throw detectives off) but it was enough to cement Boles reputation as "Black Bart."

Black Bart Wanted Poster

During his life of crime, Boles never fired a shot, and he was always mannerly with both stage drivers and passengers.  At one robbery, without being asked, a terrified woman tossed her purse at "Black Bart."  He immediately returned it, tipped his derby, and said, "Thank you, madam, I do not wish your money.  In that respect I honor only the good office of Wells Fargo."

Charles Boles, living well off of Wells Fargo

After making off with thousands of dollars, Boles luck finally came to an end on November 3, 1883.  Boles stopped the stage as usual, but found the strong box bolted to the floor of the passenger compartment, taking him longer to remove the box.  Also unknown to the bandit, one of the passengers left a the stage a short while before to shoot some game and upon returning and finding the stage being plundered, fired several shots at Boles, and hitting him once in the hand.  The slightly wounded Boles fled the scene, but in his haste he left some personal affects including field glasses, a razor and belt, three shirt cuffs, and a handkerchief with the laundry mark, "F.X.O.7."

A Wells Fargo Detective, James B. Hume, who ironically looked much like Boles, was placed on the case and one of his agents, Harry Morse, traced the laundry mark to Biggs California Laundry on Stevenson Street in San Francisco where Morse was informed that it belonged to a Charles Bolton, renting Room 40 at the Webb House, 37 Second Street.  Hume confirmed that Bolton had been away on business at the time of each of the robberies and had him arrested.  A search of Bolton's room revealed an identical handkerchief to the one recovered at the robbery and a Bible bearing his real name in the flyleaf, "Charles E. Boles."  Hume's report described Bolton as "A person of great endurance.  Exhibited genuine wit under the most trying circumstances.  Extremely proper and polite in behavior, eschews profanity."

Detective James B. Hume

At first, Boles denied he was the individual, but after intensive questioning, the 5' 8" 54 year old with blue eyes confessed to the single robbery in which he was wounded.  He waived his right to a jury trial and was given six years at San Quentin State Penitentiary.  With good behavior, Boles was out in a little more than four years.  Reporters at his release, asked him if he was going to go back to robbery.  "No, gentlemen, I'm through with crime," was Boles' reply.  Another reporter asked him if he would write more poetry.  Boles laughed and said, "Now didn't you hear me say that I'm through with crime?"

Boles never returned home to his wife who was now living in Hannibal, Missouri, but wrote to her and complained of being constantly followed by Wells Fargo Agents.  The last time he was seen was at the Palace Hotel in Visalia, California, on February 28, 1888.  He checked in, but then disappeared forever.

Person-of-Mystery

Welcome to Cipher Saturday!  You've found the home of everyone's favorite weekend pastime, where a stylized photo of a somewhat famous person from history is provided for you to identify.

Additional clues may be found in the cipher below:

WHBBRE KE WZHBN

GREK KI VHAAZHB

SARZB WGZVRB H ZHBN

CLN OHNG EGTYR H ZY OHAAHB

HI EZAPGHR ZHBN ZEYRQ

GR CRWN QRZA OHNG YR

AHFRAT BKN GZEYRQ

HAA ARZVR GHY CR

So, who could I be?  That's the mystery!  Go ahead and take a guess and then go enjoy your day.  Check back tomorrow and I'll reveal the answer.  The first correct post will be declared the winner.

If you'd like to make sure that your guess is correct, enter his name into Wikipedia and this photo in its original form will be the first image.

Does the Moustache Make the Man?

Earlier this week, I wrote about the tragic life of Eleanore Dumont.  Old West beauty, turned gambler and Madame.  I received an e-mail reply from one reader who seemed to think that her facial hair was the greatest tragedy of her life.  The letter got me thinking.  How sad that facial hair for a woman can be considered such a tragedy, while in many cases facial hair is the defining characteristic for a man.  Today I am forced to think about Adolf Hitler.  You see, as a school teacher this is one of my least favorite days of the year.  For the last several years, the number four-twenty has been increasingly used by potheads as a badge of honor and today is April 20 (4/20).  Another sad coincidence is that it is also anniversary of Hitler's birth (a fact that my students somehow also know is associated with 4/20).  While searching for photos of Eleanore Dumont, I came across this curious photo of Hitler, photoshopped to remove his moustache:

The evil dictator without his characteristic moustache by Lyonlamb

When I tried to find the original photo, I noticed that there were plenty of other online images where famously hairy people (e.g., Salvador Dali, Albert Einstein, etc.) had their whiskers removed to provide a different perspective.  Some of them even looked a little like other people.  For example, Groucho Marx looked a little more like Bob Saget.

Graucho Marx without his moustache

As a younger man, I would watch Tom Selleck in the TV show, Magnum, P.I.  Plenty of people I knew even started growing moustaches to imitate his manly appearance.

Selleck as Magnum, P.I.

When he shaved his moustache, I think it took fans a long time to adjust to his new look.

Facial hair can be co iconic that when you see a photo of a famously whiskered man without his moustache it seems strange.  A case in point would be this photo of clean shaven Clark Gable below:

Not exactly the dashing (and mustachioed) Rhett Butler we all associate him with.

Maybe I'm off though and it's all one big trick of the mind.  The German hat manufacturer ran the following ad claiming that head attire trumped the moustache:

Hut Weber Advertisement

Chaplin duly considered, I'm afraid that Hitler killed the toothbrush moustache for all time.  I know in more recent years, Robert Mugabe tried to bring it back in vogue, but as Mugabe is another pathetic dictator, I'm afraid he's just going to reinforce the stereotype.

Robert Mugabe, not the facial hair trend setter he might imagine