Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Sunday, April 24. 2016

School

1950s. What is he carrying?


Posted by Bird Dog at 05:00 | Comments (26) | Trackbacks (0)

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Looks like peanuts. Goobers. Tasty legumes.
#1 tennesseered on 2016-04-24 07:12 (Reply)
Ah, BD!
The reason a picture is "worth a thousand words" is because it may take that many to explain it. The peanut guess sounds very plausible. But somehow there's a Midwestern rather than a Southern sensibility to the photo. Wonder how often that pant leg gets caught in the exposed chain. And is the knee torn out of the other leg? All in all it takes me back to those long ago Friday afternoons when I pedaled my rural paper route delivering the Grit. How many readers will remember what THAT is?
#2 Ralph Kinney Bennett on 2016-04-24 07:57 (Reply)
Damn! I used to sell the Grit too at 10 cents each. Best place for sales in a small central Illinois town was in the taverns and saloons on vinegar hill. "Wanna buy a Grit? Just 10 dents" "Damn, kid, I got all the grit I need but here's ten cents." Sold them all in about an hour.
#2.1 Sven Svenson on 2016-04-24 08:26 (Reply)
I sold the Grit in Thomson, GA when I was about 14yo. I forget how many were in the first batch but at least 3/4 of the doors I knocked on bought it.
#2.1.1 oolioo (Link) on 2016-04-24 10:27 (Reply)
Knee not torn out. Something hanging off the handlebars. Can't tell what that is either.
#2.2 Boone24 on 2016-04-24 11:46 (Reply)
Christmas tree lights.
#3 WillB on 2016-04-24 08:05 (Reply)
Christmas lights
#4 Paul hamer on 2016-04-24 08:05 (Reply)
If those are Christmas tree lights that's a rather strange wiring configuration.
#4.1 Sven Svenson on 2016-04-24 08:31 (Reply)
Hes riding an English bike.
#5 bgarrett on 2016-04-24 08:21 (Reply)
Carrying peanuts. Christmas lights? lol wtf

His weird, bagged-up right leg intrigues me the most.
#6 Andrew Simmonds on 2016-04-24 08:46 (Reply)
Rode my bike everywhere. Never ever pegged my pants. Learned to roll em up, or keep one foot farther out on the peg, turned out so the pant didn't get caught in the chain. Rode on city streets till I got to the horse trail which was deep and loose dirt, couldn't ride the bike on that, so I just propped against the fence and walked the rest of the way. Never ever gave thought to the bike being stolen--didn't have to in those days--people didn't steal bikes, or cars, or . . .
#7 Apple Pie on 2016-04-24 09:01 (Reply)
Peanuts. A boy riding his bike to school, Illinois 1946 - Bernard Hoffman.
#8 ron snyder on 2016-04-24 10:04 (Reply)
I say FROM, given the sign faces to our right, the way the boy is going.
#8.1 Sam L. on 2016-04-24 11:26 (Reply)
He doesn't look very happy, so I'll have to go with TO. :)
#8.1.1 ron snyder on 2016-04-24 20:03 (Reply)
What's he's carrying is the shame of knowing his mother didn't care enough about him to make him wear a helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, several hundred square feet of bubble wrap and a rape whistle. Thank goodness we know better now than to allow our children out in such an unsafe manner as this. And shame on you people for seeing this poor child risking death by riding a bicycle with neither seatbelt nor airbag and being so cavalier about it.
#9 Jerryskids on 2016-04-24 12:11 (Reply)
Mom should be riding along side, too. Grounds for a charge of felony child abuse, methinks!

The USA World gone mad! Even the nanny-state Euros don't buy into the helmet fetish. They think it encourages unsafe riding behavior.
#9.1 B48 on 2016-04-24 14:15 (Reply)
I am surprised he survived this experience. Fortunately we have laws these days.
#9.2 Jim on 2016-04-24 17:01 (Reply)
Cast net.
#10 b moe on 2016-04-24 12:25 (Reply)
Pack of Chesterfields in the shirt pocket.
#11 Scott on 2016-04-24 15:02 (Reply)
could be peanuts, or some local wild stuff like trout lily corms I was thinking, can't tell much from the photo.

that's why I'm posting, an iconic photo set by Bernard Hoffman for LIFE magazine from October of 1946 at the Wagner one room schoolhouse in Pecatonica, Illinois. This photo didn't get published in the article, but looking at the photos from that issue, looks like Homer Meiers, as seen in another photo. The title being "One-Room School" October 28, 1946 issue.
#12 glenn on 2016-04-24 15:35 (Reply)
CROWN OF THORNS
#13 ns on 2016-04-24 16:35 (Reply)
I didn't know you could grow peanuts that far north . . .
#14 feeblemind on 2016-04-24 16:36 (Reply)
It does look like peanuts. How do you know the picture wasn't taken in Geoagia? And he looks unhappy because he's trying to peddle on that soft dirt road!
#14.1 MHF on 2016-04-25 07:17 (Reply)
It's here:

A Life mag pic spread on a one room school near Rockford Illinois.

https://books.google.com/books?id=iU0EAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Life+October+28+1946&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjxh-3vn6rMAhVG4WMKHV-rDs4QuwUIHzAA#v=onepage&q=Life%20October%2028%201946&f=false
#14.1.1 feeblemind on 2016-04-25 12:57 (Reply)
the little vermin is fleeing school (look a the direction of the sign), having stripped the christmas tree of its lights.
#15 Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz on 2016-04-24 21:34 (Reply)
baseball glove on handle bars
#16 bobmark on 2016-04-25 17:30 (Reply)

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