The MG Midget: Small, Sporty and Nimble

My friend Rick recently sent me several advertising postcards like this one of various MG automobiles. He remembered that I owned one once and of the cards he sent this one most closely resembled the car I drove in the mid 1970's. Mine was orange and was a great car because at the time it got an unheard of fuel economy. I loved my MG despite the fact it was continually going out of tune. It handled corners like a pouncing cat. I liked that it was so different than any car on the road and that people at stop lights would look down from their enormous American made autos -- in what I call the Big Steel Era -- and point and laugh. Many times in the summer with their windows rolled down I would hear, "Is that a real car?" I had a number of pat answers ready. One was, "Why no, it's a toy but I couldn't part with it since childhood." Another was, "Absolutely, it's the car of the future." I like to think I was ahead of my time driving my MG Midget. Though the cars were taken out of  production in 1979, they did point to an era of smaller and more economical cars that many of us Americans began to buy in the latter half of the 20th-century.  

Yippie, share the serendipidy

After six out of seven days of record lows (-35 to -41), the air warmed to -18 today. I thought this post card expressed my elation. It felt nice to walk outside again. Instead of the smoggy smell of city air under a high pressure inversion, walking outside today you could smell clean winter air again. It reminded me to of winters in my home state of Michigan which seem tame and mild compared to the  brutal cold and dark of Interior Alaska.

The postcard above advertises the Share Experience Photo Contest sponsored by the National Park Foundation. For you shutter bugs who want to enter the contest follow this link. Photographers are to submit their favorite view from the nation's public lands.

The Postcards Cafe

Shame on my for neglecting my blog. I like to post weekly but life happens.

My friends Kim and Dennis returned from Kauai, Hawaii, from a much needed vacation and they were so taken with the island they could not stop talking about it and reading about it. They vowed to return. I'll give them a year or two but I bet they will be back. From their descriptions, Kauai sounds like the Garden of Eden, complete with wild food on the vine and the kind of warm temperatures riding moist ocean currents most Alaskan's only dream about.

My friends sent me a beautiful wood postcard (see my blog post here) from the island but waited until Christmas to give me this card which any self-respecting postcard collector would die for. This is so much like Kim and Dennis always giving what is most valuable. Thanks guys.

The Postcards Cafe specializes in seafood and gourmet natural cuisine. The postcard image is from a painting signed by Lauren Paskal, 1996. The cafe's contact information is P.O. Box 778 Hanalei, Hawaii 96714. Phone 808-826-1191.

Eskimo Whale Feast

This postcard was free. My favorite kind. It is an advertisement for Alaskan artist Claire Fejes' book, People of the Noatak, published by Volcano Press. The cover illustration shown here is called "Eskimo Whale Feast."

Just remember whale meat is very good the first time cooked but never eat whale meat twice cooked -- yuck.