Thanks to ace HTML, and CSS ninja and web consultant Danny Thorogood most of what we lost in the hard drive glitch has been recovered. The bad news is comments from January-November 2011 remain lost. If you find a comment missing it was not due to any editorial decision but due to the crash. The …
Monthly Archive: January 2012
Jan 30
Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescription, quack medicine
Wrap a little psudo-science and empty promises around a bottle of pungent tasting snake oil and you have the makings of a fortune. The late 19th and early 20th century was a Libertarian utopia. This was the golden age of quack medicine unadulterated, unregulated, unfettered free enterprise, buyer beware. Women who ingested the product may …
Jan 28
Japanese internment resolutions, Baywood Park gets electricity-World War II week by week
The United States had been fighting for seven weeks and the news was bad everywhere in the Pacific and in much of Europe and Africa. The plain facts were that America was woefully under-prepared and losing. In a misguided attempt to focus rage, governments from the local to national level were lashing out at the …
Jan 26
Ink blot personality quiz from 1941
Here is a personality quiz from November 3, 1941. This was a canned feature page probably generated for the then Telegram-Tribune by the features service, NEA. Instructions: • Write down the letter describing the ink blot. You can answer more than one letter. • Total the numbers of each letter chosen. • If you have …
Jan 24
Grumpy old men in Los Osos, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Odd Couple II
According to IMDB it is the second most popular movie filmed in Los Osos. As usual the curse of San Luis Obispo County was on this movie. It is my contention that movies filmed in the region end up being mediocre though “Sideways” would be my one exception. The top ranked IMDB Los Osos movie? …
Jan 23
Horse drawn chemical truck, San Luis Obispo firefighters in 1906
A little over 100 years ago the pride and joy of the fire department was the horse drawn wagon. This would be state of the art firefighting in San Luis Obispo until 1916 when petrol would replace equine power. This photo was made a year after one of the worst fires in history struck downtown, …
Jan 21
Carole Lombard dies in plane crash, World War II week by week
Carole Lombard had been bumped from her Transcontinental & Western Air flight. The Hollywood star was among those who lost their seats in Albuquerque, New Mexico when a group of military pilots and crew asserted their wartime travel priority. Lombard was a popular and witty actress and she argued that her war bond tour, raising …
Jan 20
Santa Margarita crime wave
It would not take much to return Santa Margarita to the 1960s. Only in the last year or two has the building with the Royal Crown billboard been torn down. This photo was made by Michael Raphael to accompany a story about a mini-crime wave in town. Published May 29, 1969 the story outlined how …
Jan 17
How dry I am, Salinas Reservoir dehydrated
“And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.” — John Steinbeck, East of Eden According to meteorologist John Lindsey, barring rainfall late this month, we are on track for …
Jan 16
Biplane over Pismo Beach, California aviation before baggage fees
A yellow biplane is a regular sight today off the coast of Pismo Beach but the coast’s aviation dates back over 100 years earlier. This picture postcard from the files of the Tribune has scrawled on the back in pencil instructions for publication – “2 col” and a few scant words of caption information. “Landed …
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