Wild Postcards

“Visit our new Bake Shop which has become the favorite center for fresh baked bread, pies and rolls to visitors and local folks. Open year round.”

In this detail (left), a bakery worker applies shellac for that just-baked shine.

On the right, we see Margaret Thatcher walk a trainee through the proper procedure for putting on a condom.

“Visit our new Bake Shop which has become the favorite center for fresh baked bread, pies and rolls to visitors and local folks. Open year round.”   In this detail (left), a bakery worker applies shellac for that just-baked shine. On the right, we see Margaret Thatcher walk a trainee through the proper procedure for [...]

This may look like a real photo postcard, but it’s actually a black-and-white photochrome postcard with a deckled edge. It was published by Dexter Press of Pearl River, New York.

Owens-Illinois was a key place in my family’s history. This from the obituary of my grandmother, Mildred Cossaboon, who passed away on 27 March 2008:

She was the daughter of the late Philip Nelson Smith and the late Charlotte Blanch (nee Arison) Smith. Born in Flatwoods, Fayette County, Pa., on June 30, 1923, she attended grade school in Franklin Township, Pa., and graduated from Dunbar High School, in 1942. Mrs. Cossaboon came, as did many others, to work at the Owens-Illinois Glass Company, in 1943.

It was there that she met my grandfather, a glassblower, and the rest is history.

Her cousin, John Hodinka (“Sonny”), also came to work there after his service with the 82nd Airborne Division. He’s a great man who is very proud of his service (and rightfully so), and would love to jump out of a perfectly good airplane even today.

Not surprisingly, he’s enamored with the Band of Brothers miniseries. He told me that he was watching the interviews and that one of the members of Easy Company was talking about how he went to work for Owens-Illinois in Bridgeton. (That man was Carwood Lipton, played in the movie by Donnie Wahlberg.) Sonny told me with surprise, “I worked with that son-of-a-bitch for five years and he never said a word.”

This may look like a real photo postcard, but it’s actually a black-and-white photochrome postcard with a deckled edge. It was published by Dexter Press of Pearl River, New York. Owens-Illinois was a key place in my family’s history. This from the obituary of my grandmother, Mildred Cossaboon, who passed away on 27 March 2008: [...]