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| Devils Lake Stone Face Postcard |
I also recall Baraboo from the science fiction stories by award-winning author Barry B. Longyear, which were printed in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. He wrote the "Circus World" series of short stories about a space-traveling circus that had a spaceship called "The City of Baraboo".Yes, you've probably never heard of this. Longyear is best known for his award winning story "Enemy Mine", which was adapted into a good movie. The cover of one of Longyear's "Circus World' books appears to the upper left.The postcard is of one of the many Stone Face views to be found on old postcards and photos. The best web site of these is "The Great Stone Face at the Minnesota Museum of the Mississippi" Their front page happens to be another copy of this same Devils Lake postcard.
This particular stone face is like a Spartan or a Trojan. There are several stone faces in Wisconsin.
Below is the back of this postcard. People complain about how bad handwriting is today. But it was pretty bad way back then. Perhaps we had a lot more doctors then? I've seen some atrocious handwriting on 100 year old postcards that made me wonder (for a split second) the preposterous idea that handwriting quality on postcards degrades over time.
Anyone have any idea what this says? "I can get as far as 'Dear Mother: Just finished looking this over and". Maybe it continues with "sure some swell place". Hardly anyone says "Swell" anymore. Later on there are words like "Waiting for" but I can't make out the rest. Does anyone want to look this over and give it a guess as to what was written?
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| 1939 stone face postcard back |
11 comments:
A one cent stamp? There really
WAS a penny postcard at one time!
Yeah, I am not sure when the price went up, but I think the rate was once cent for a very long time.
Why don't you have a blog of your own, BB?
"...and sure some swell place. Waiting for dinner now." That's how I see it, anyway. Very cool cards, dmarks.
Ha! P.J. Grath beat me to it. My guess was the same as P.J.'s.
Sure are swell postcards! =;] I love rocks that look like other things.
I had never heard of Baraboo! I have heard of Barry B. Longyear and read Enemy Mine years and years ago, but have not read his circus stories. At least that I can recall. I am a long time fan of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. They may have fallen out of my silly head.
I'm 99% certain that it reads as follows:
"Just finished looking this over and sure some swell places. Waiting for dinner now. Love, Clarence"
I've been teaching school for 40 years and have become adept at deciphering handwriting.
Addendum:
What I've read as "places" is probably "place."
PJ: Thanks! I think you are right.
Silly: Swell, aren't they? As for Asimov's magazine, "IASFM", I collected and read years of them starting with the first one. The two distinctive authors I remember as starting out with many short stories were Barry B. Longyear and Somtow Sucharitkul (S.P. Somtow).
Longyear wrote the Circus World stories, along with several about a space war between humans and lizard men (the setting of "Enemy Mine"). * Somtow * wrote some Cordwainer Smith imitations and "Mallworld" stories.
AOW: Clarence looks like a good guess! Another old fashioned name, to go with the old fashioned word "Swell"
Love the name Baraboo...and Kalamazoo too!
Before reading comments I had a good look at the handwriting and came up with the same conclusion. Clarence is waiting on his dinner :)
As a foodie, I love anybody waiting for his dinner!
PJ's right... I love "swell", too...words can set the time, can't they.
dmarks...every had a postcard with a really weird sentiment written from someone that you could share with us? Something on an old card you've found? !!
Z: Actually, I share postcards like this often.
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