Again not tramp steamer but involving merchant seamen of the early 20th century, "Voyage" by Sterling Hayden (yes, THAT Sterling Hayden) is a rip-snortin' account of a merchant voyage, not in a steamer, but in a Cape Horner: a sailing ship made of steel instead of wood. He gets too ambitious and...
For a long time jewels and flowers were favorite names for girls born to Asian immigrant parents, especially the Chinese and filipinos. Violet, Orchid, Pearl, Rose, Sapphire, Ruby, Lily and so on. In the 80s CNN had a news correspondent named Emerald Yeh.
In the 19th century stagecoach drivers were often called Jehus and sometimes even addressed as "Jehu." It's from the Bible verse: "His driving is as the driving of Jehu, son of Nimshi, for he driveth furiously."
In naming customs, from the 17th to 19th centuries, Old Testament names were very common for boys. Think Isaac Newton, Abraham Lincoln, Samuel Adams and so forth. After the beginning of the 20th they dropped off for gentiles except for a few: David, Jonathan, Joseph among some others, but those...
Florence Lowe Barnes, pioneer aviatrix, was known to one and all as Pancho Barnes. She ran a bar for flyers frequented by the test pilots of the 40s and 50s, including the original Mercury astronauts. I have no idea how she got to be called Pancho.
I'd forgotten about those key-wind cans. Sardines used to come in them, too. You broke off the key and peeled a strip of metal to open them. It was easy to cut yourself on the thin metal of the strip or the can itself. That may be a reason why they were abandoned.
There was a B-movie actor named Chick Chandler. In the 50s he costarred in the tv series "Soldiers of Fortune"with John Russell. I know the SF writer Kim Stanley Robinson, who is male. I lived for a while in an area of the southern Appalachians where there was so much repetition of names that...
I'm late to this party and it looks like there's been a lot of interesting entries but hardly any of the pics are still accessible. Could people reload them for those of us who missed them on first try?
The sheriff's whole name was Isham Lafayette Elder. Lafayette was a ppopular name in post-Revolutionary America, for obvious reasons, but in rural America it was often pronounced "La-Fate," hence the shortened form, "Fate."
I've been researching for a book about an incident that took place in 1886 near my ancestral hometown of Kenedy Texas, a massive shootout much bigger than the OK Corral, but now forgotten. One of the principals was named Sykes Butler. The sheriff of Karnes County he murdered was named Fate...
I was in the Army from 1967-1970. When Operation Desert Storm rolled around I was shocked at how young the lieutenants and buck sergeants looked. Now I see pictures from Iraq and Afghanistan and I'm shocked at how young the colonels and master sergeants look.
hen I was a boy there seemed to be a lot of boys named John and Pete. When I visited my California family in Pasadena there was me (John), my uncle Pete and my cousin Pete, across the alley the brothers John and Pete Dorn, next door to them the brothers John and Pete Todd. When moms started...
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