Let's just keep walking today.

I came across this 1958 ad for a shopping center, and wanted to note a few things.

It doesn't exist in its old form anymore. This was built in the heyday of the shopping centers, the post-war 'burb boom, the reconfiguration taht transformed urban areas from coast to coast. It's notable just because it's ours.

Special events. An appearance by Princess Kay of the Milky Way, who'd be passing on her crown in a few months at the Fair when a new maiden of virtue beyond reproach would be annoited, and have her likeness carved in butter.

All the usual stores:

Here's what caught my eye:

It's an archtypical image of the era.

I don't like it.

It's not the eyes-closed-to-indicate-satisfaction, or the heavy line. It's the proportions. Typical of late 50s - early / mid 60s illos. Tiny legs and tiny feet. It was derived from UPA-style animation, I think; could've just been one of those things that someone did and everyone copied. It reminds me of cheap gag greeting cards.

There's something about it that stands in for the cheapening of commercial art. The switch from craft to crap.

It’s 1896.

Hope, Steele County, North Dakota.

News from a distant city:

		Take THAT, Minneapolis. You flounce in here with your money and your big-city airs and want our folks to send away for linens and brushes, when they can keep the money here in Hope. Keep Hope Alive. Say fie - FIE! to the Glass Block.

		Editor, licked

You do wonder what they said. I went to Lidgerwood on Google, and as expected, found no evidence of the newspaper or the hotel.

The Hope House. You know, it’s possible it’s still there. One can only - no, sorry, won't do it.

Checked: no, I can't find it. I have the bad feeling that it burned.

		Hmm.

Why yes: there is a Wikipedia entry.

Rev. Francis Hermann (born c. 1856– after 1896) was an English-born American pastor, murderer and suspected serial killer. After being connected to the murder of two female church-goers in Salt Lake City, Utah, Hermann fled the city and was never seen again. He is also suspected of murdering ex-wives and two of his children.

He was also an embezzler and a heavy drinker. Quite the busy jasper, wasn't he.

Scant bio.

		What we do know: Francis Lynde (1856 – 1930) was an American author. Three of his books were adapted to film. He was born in Lewiston, New York, and wrote adventure novels set in the American West in the early 20th century.

It's all penny-a-word stuff, if that, but it was a story, and people kept up on it. The appearance of the paper meant the story would go on. (And on and on.) You could talk about it over dinner, and discuss what you thought was going to happen. Unless your father was a hard-headed man who had no time for such foolishness, in which case perhaps you talked about it with your friends at school.

Local news of great importance.

		Mr. Wamberg was a mover-and/or-shaker in Hope. A search for the name turns up an eBay listing for a postcard of Hope, published by J. J. Wamberg. Might have been his sole foray into the postcard business. Also, have some Moxie.

If it seems a bit early for Moxie, it's not; the stuff was first concocted in 1876.

Silent Calvin liked it, although I don't know if the endorsement came in the form of a mild nod or a brief thumbs-up.

		Quite the accusation to level in the Local News.

There may have been a licking after that.

There you have it, whatever it was. On to Gas and Oil.