Mom and Pop MOTOR COURTS

These vintage post cards most likely date from the mid-1940s to mid-50s. Back when you could stay at simple little Motor Courts. Remember those places with the little garages attached to each room? Or even separate little cottages? Usually there was a lawn somewhere around the office where you could go and sit on a warm summer night. And those metal chairs that sort of bounced with the seashell inspired back, various colors, but usually white metal for the curved base. Hot as all-get-out midday. Long before swimming pools were included with your stay.

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Most of these places are gone or so run down that communities want to condemn them. Sometimes I see them in nearly abandoned towns with weeds growing everywhere. Ghost motels. I'm glad I've got memories of when you got a bed and a bathroom, a Gideon Bible, maybe some stationary and a post card. That was it. No air conditioning. You hoped the heat worked in the winter.

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And oh my the signs. The lovely neon signs. Surprisingly I have not found any books, old or new, about the old signs. It's a shame because now so many of them are gone or in disrepair that it would be difficult to to even put together a book.

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Can neon possibly look better than on a rainy night when the flashing reflects off a wet highway, beckoning you to stop. My favorite signs were of the Mexican fellow sleeping next to a cactus with the neon "Z...Z...Z..." floating above him. And every town seemed to have a Flamingo Motel. Now it's all corporate and boring. I know, I'm old, but I miss the creativity that existed. It's all just too tiresome now.

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One more ephemera book I highly recommend is See the USA: The Art of the American Travel Brochure by John Margolies and Eric Baker.

A trip back in time to the romance of travel. Another book that I can sit and look at over and over again and always find something new each time. Good and bad design, beautiful and mediocre illustrations. You'll find all of them interesting if you love ephemera. And who knows, you might just decide to start a collection of your own.

The following pages from the book See the USA are all copyrighted ©2000 John Margolies.

HOLLYWOOD, once upon a time

For 8 years my zip code was Hollywood. My post office was in Hollywood and was always an interesting place to visit. The last few years I lived in Los Angeles my mail carrier was kind enough to deliver my vacation hold mail instead of making me go to the post office. By that time there were far too many certifiable crazy people on the streets that I simply avoided Hollywood at all costs. Let's just say Reagan opened the doors of the institutions and when the people got out they were given a bus ticket. When asked where they wanted to go they said "Hollywood." Suddenly the lovely Armenian community was inundated with people who followed you down the street yelling.

These images of Hollywood are from another time. I don't know the date this was published, but I imagine it might have been bought by my mother when she took a trip across country in the early 40s with some girlfriends for a visit to Hollywood years before she met my dad.

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This is one of those flip-down multiple image post card folders, published by the Longshaw Card Company. I have not included all the images. My favorite is the one of Warner Brothers, my old neighborhood. I lived right behind Warners and Universal Studios back lot. I used to walk by Warners every morning on my walk through Toluca Lake. My apartment complex was at the base of the mountain behind the studio and was recently in the news as the place actor Corey Haimes died. It was strange to turn on the news and see the complex on my screen. "Home!" was my first thought.

I haven't been to my old neighborhood for many years and the last time I drove through it was unrecognizable. It was all very corporate with high rises everywhere. Small apartment buildings and little office buildings were gone. At least the Smoke House restaurant is still there, just out of view on the card. It's a Hollywood institution even if it was in the "valley."

Whatever you think of Hollywood it's still just a place where people live and work. It's a fun place to live when you're young, but not a place where I wanted to grow old.

SNICKER OR RIP-SNORT, it's still barely funny

Do they still make post cards like these? I call them "snicker" cards because really about the best I can do when seeing them is snicker. I worry about people who find them thigh slapping tears running down their face funny. Nope. The best I can do is snicker or, if it catches me in the right moment, perhaps a light rip-snort.

The printing of these is sort of strange. The first says it's from the "Western Publishing & Novelty Co." located in Los Angeles. The second is from the "Asheville Post Card Company" located in Asheville, N.C. Drawn by the same person? I don't know. The lettering certainly looks the same, but that was probably put on later. Neither could be considered particularly good art. The face of the woman on the first card is incredibly bad, not that the back end on the other looks much better.

What I find most confusing is how similar the cards are and yet by different companies. But then we get down to the little almost insignificant logo. Each card has a different logo, but each features the letter "M". The first logo indicates the card was printed by the Metropolitan Lithograph Company that was located in Everett, Massachusetts. Is the second card also by them with a different logo which also featured an "M"?

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then who the heck was copying? Which "ass" card came first? And why were "ass" cards popular? Okay, sorry if I offended by referring to them as "ass" cards, but "donkey" or "burro" would have made the punch lines fall flat...on their ummmmmm...keister.

Oh no, I suppose this is a category. I will need to collect more. Then again, maybe not. Two is enough.