The little people at the ALOHA PHOENIX RESORT

Do you ever click on the “Next Blog” label at the top of Blogger blogs? Google seems to think that by analyzing where you’ve come from they’ll be able to recommend where you’d like to go next. I can say with 100% certainty that not once have they guided me to something I would remotely be interested in. In fact, they send me to sites that are always far removed from who I am and what my interests are. In short, I’m not someone who can be easily compartmentalized using data mining. I know they’d like to believe we are all anxiously awaiting their guidance, but we’re not. That said…

Do you ever visit Google’s Blogs of Note? Again, rarely is their choice something which interests me, but at least I know that the choice that shows up on the screen has more to do with the person(s) choosing the blogs than it does with any data they’ve collected from my net searches. Occasionally they do come up with something that I find interesting that might hold my attention for longer than 30 seconds. They got my attention with the February 29th choice, Little People. It’s a site I’ll be back to visit to see what new photos have been posted of the little people underfoot we never notice. Well, my best friend and I did have little people living outside her apartment in Waikiki that we were fond of, but the story is way too long and odd.

This pointless ramble is to say that the little people at the Little People site made me think about all the little people you see in commercial post cards for hotels/motels, etc. Models stuck in some position in which they hopefully add human dimension to what would otherwise be a cold sterile shot of generic architecture. And so…I give you the little people at the Aloha Phoenix Resort in 1976.

From what I'm finding online this resort no longer exists. At one time it was apparently known as Samoan Village Motor Hotel back in the day when Tiki was all the rage. Tiki gods run very deep in my childhood so I do miss the days of Tiki.

Click on either image to see it larger.

This card was produced by Petley. To see a few other Petley cards click "Petley" below in the labels.

If I had not seen the Little People site I’d have never done this post. Don’t hold it against them.

WISH YOU WERE Here

Raise your hand if you send post cards while on vacation. Okay, raise your hand if friends send you post cards. Nah, me either. I think these days it's just as likely that somone will get out a cell phone and take a picture of themself in front of Mt. Rushmore. There are still post cards to buy, but the variety is pretty slim. What I do find are photographs of locations and animals that are far more high end than the old days. Very commercial shots like you'd find at a stock agency. I hope post cards don't die out, but they'll never be popular the way they once were.

So, do you send a humorous card or one showing people having fun at whatever location you're visting?

Click on any of the images below to see them larger.

This final card is from the Petley Studios. I did a post earlier this year called "Got MILK?" that featured a card from Petley and a brief bio. Bob Petley is supposedly the man credited for inventing the jackalope.

Got MILK?

Click on image to see it larger...then explain to me why you would.

Card was originally mailed from Yuma to San Diego April 15, 1977.

I'm sorry, but "Got Milk?" was the first thing that crossed my mind. Actually, that's not true. The first thing was "Oh geez. Why?" It's one of those old postcards that used to be popular at tourist stops. You'd buy it to send home as a joke instead of a nice colorful shot of nature. The joke postcard that would get passed around. A few guffaws would be heard.

This card was published by the Petley Studios which was located in Phoenix, Arizona. The company was owned by Bob Petley, often credited as the creator of the infamous jackalope, a card that can still be found in various forms being sold around the country.

The following is Bob Petley's obituary in 2006:

Obituary: Bob Petley created Arizona jackalope

Postcard photographer's works still sold

Bob Petley's life was postcards.

Millions of people around the world saw Arizona for the first time across Petley's cards: Monument Valley, the red rocks of Sedona and fiery desert sunsets.

That is why so many people moved to Arizona, joked one of his admirers at Petley's funeral last week. After falling and breaking his hip, Petley's health declined and he died at 93 in Scottsdale.

Armchair travelers during the mid-20th century and beyond witnessed Southwestern beauty through Petley's eyes.

Petley began snapping his picture-perfect cards by trolling the state with his camera and a station wagon in 1945, eventually favoring a Lincoln Continental.

For decades, his office was the road. He was a one-man tourism office, snapping the state and hawking his Petley Postcards to souvenir shops along the way.

He chronicled Arizona's landscape for decades. Even after he sold his postcard business, he couldn't let go of the camera and his sense of humor.

Arizona wasn't all sunsets for Petley.

He seemed to have a knack for an innocent kitschy sort of creativity.

Petley invented the Arizona jackalope.

Even though the jackalope was fairly common to humorous postcards, Petley engineered his version with an Arizona twist.

After spotting a stuffed rabbit that had been topped with antlers in a souvenir shop, the postcard man put together his own jackalope. He bought a jackrabbit from a taxidermist, topped the rabbit with a pair of antlers and plopped it on top of one of the Papago Buttes.

Voila! With Petley's darkroom magic, the hare with horns looked as if the beast was ready to swallow the desert whole.

Petley sold his postcard business in 1984 to Bruce Finchum.

Finchum, owner of Smith-Southwestern Inc., sells souvenirs and postcards. At least a half dozen of his cards are Petley's.

With e-mail, postcards are a harder sell, Finchum says.

"There's still reason to buy jackalopes," he said. "It's the uniqueness, the novelty of it."

Finchum sells more of Petley's jackalope postcards than any other card; last year he sold 38,000 jackalope cards.

"It just looks real. There's people that swear it's real," he said. "But it's not."

TRIVIA

Even though Bob Petley did not invent the rabbit with antlers, he created one that was decidedly Arizona.

There's a reason the card is still a bestseller.

The card's staying power is its kitsch.

So it doesn't hurt to know a little jackalope trivia.

Douglas, Wyo., claims to be the "jackalope capital of America" because two brothers, both taxidermists, went hunting in the 1930s and pitched a rabbit into their taxidermy shop. The rabbit landed next to a pair of antlers.

The brothers mounted the rabbit-antler combination. Over the years, the two sold tens of thousands of mounted jackalopes.

Other names for the jackalope are an Aunt Benny, horny bunny and anteabbit.

Jackalopes showed up on postcards beginning in the 1930s.

Still, European naturalists illustrated horned hares in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. These works were most likely inspired by papillomavirus-infected rabbits: rabbits with antlerlike tumors on their heads.

Former President Reagan hung a rabbit head with antlers on a wall at his California ranch.

In the animated TV series "Jackie Chan Adventures," a football team's mascot was a rabbit with fake horns. (Source: Tucson Citizen)

If you're a postcard collector there's a good chance you've got one or two jackalopes packed away. You ultimately can't get away from them. It's to the point where I imagine there are a lot of people who are convinced the fabled animal exists. Well, it does, doesn't it? I've seen pictures!