Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: July

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of kiddie pools (or a regular swimming pool if no kiddie pool) . Handwritten note on the other side of the photo: "Taking it easy in our back yard at Johnson Air Station , Japan, July 1962." A woman sits in a foldable aluminum webbed chaise lounge chair while her sons play in their kiddie pool. A bamboo fence surrounds the yard, and a Japanese wagasa umbrella provides some protection from the sun. On the right-hand side, the blurred face of a neighbor peers over the fence.

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of food . The remnants of a meal were still on the table when the photographer snapped this picture. The calendar on the wall displays the month of July 1914, and it must have been a hot summer day judging by the sweat glistening on some of the faces. The dealer's notation on the back of this real photo postcard identifies the locale as Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

VINTAGE PHOTOS THEME PARK - UPDATE TO MONTHLY TOPIC (12/13/2020): FREE-FOR-ALL (Uploading to Ipernity isn't currently working, so let's make it easier to find an already-uploaded photo to post. Submit as many vintage photos ON ANY TOPIC as you'd like each week in addition to—or instead of—a photo for the weekly topic. Let's end the year and celebrate the new one by continuing this Free-For-All through January.) A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of in colour . A man and woman dressed in light blue or grey clothes pose in front of their house, which is painted in pastel shades of blue. There's a blue Adirondack chair on the porch, a bicycle on the sidewalk, and a car--barely visible on the right--parked in the driveway.

A fashion (in its day) photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. This is a Kodachrome slide processed by Kodak in July 1963. The image shows two women and a small child posing for a photo among the orderly lawns and houses of a 1960s suburban development. The older woman is dressed up in a patterned dress, necklace, and earrings, while the younger one is wearing a striped cover over her dress. The woman on the left is named Ethel (last name unknown), and she appears in other slides that I purchased along with this one. See, for instance, Ethel's Oil Painting, 1967 .

Swinging and squinting in the bright sunlight. Location unknown.

A fairground or amusement/theme park photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. Or more concisely, a theme park photo for the Theme Park! Santa Claus poses with some of his friends at Santa's Workshop , an amusement park located in North Pole, New York . The group is gathered around an imitation North Pole--the white base of the pole is visible to the left of Santa's boots, and the "North Pole" sign at the top is partially hidden behind Santa's cap. For another Christmas theme park with its own North Pole, see Shivering at the North Pole, Santa's Village, Jefferson, N.H., 1969 .

The woman here is pretending to shiver in the cold as she stands next to the North Pole and igloo at Santa's Village in Jefferson, New Hampshire, during the summer of 1969. This is one of a number of vacation photos I purchased recently (in 2013). For another example from this set, see Home of 1000 Animals, Lake Placid, N.Y., 1969 . For another Christmas theme park with its own North Pole, see Santa's Workshop, North Pole, New York .

"Home of 1000 Animals" was a tourist attraction that was part of the Sterling Alaska Fur and Game Farms, with locations in Lake Placid (as seen here) and Ausable Chasm, New York. According to the sign, there was "No Place on Earth Like This," and many tourists--like the ones here in the car pulling into the parking space--were undoubtedly trapped into stopping. Among the thousand animals inside were St. Nick's Animals , a Santa-themed section where visitors could feed goats, deer, and other animals. This is one of a number of vacation photos I purchased recently (in 2013). For another example from this set, see Shivering at the North Pole, Santa's Village, Jefferson, N.H., 1969 .

A small photo that may show the British R34 airship during its stay in the United States from July 6 to 10, 1919. According to Wikipedia , the R34 was a British rigid airship that "became the first aircraft to make an East-to-West crossing of the Atlantic Ocean on 6 July 1919, and was decommissioned two years later after sustaining damage in adverse weather. . . R34 left Britain on 2 July 1919 and arrived at Mineola, Long Island, United States on 6 July after a flight of 108 hours with virtually no fuel left. . . . This was the first East-West crossing of the Atlantic and was done two weeks after the first transatlantic airplane flight. The return journey to Pulham [a Royal Navy Air Service (RNAS) airship station] in Norfolk [England] was from 10 to 13 July and took 75 hours."

A photo of crowds, throngs, or hordes (a big bunch of people) for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. Handwritten note on the back of this real photo postcard: "July 1957. Our boat ride around canal in Gothenburg, Sweden. Beautiful day." More than fifty passengers are crowded into this "paddan" canal boat. Paddan means "turtle" in Swedish, and the boats are named for their turtle-like profile (imagine an upside-down turtle shell), which allows them to pass safely underneath the low bridges along the Gothenburg canals.

Handwritten on the back of this photo: "He just has to sample." See also Skip and His Birthday Cake .

Handwritten on the back of this photo: "Skip, 3 years, 1957." See also Skip Just Had to Sample His Birthday Cake .

A Kodachrome slide dated July 1959. After a hard day at the Big Rocks shootout, this diminutive Dale Evans has holstered her gun and is shielding her eyes as she heads toward the sun with Buttermilk (if she had waited until evening, she could have avoided the bright light and followed the conventional Western gunslinger practice of riding off into the sunset ). See also Gunfight at Big Rocks and Holding Down the Fort .

A Kodachrome slide dated July 1959. Still grasping her toy gun, this Dale Evans wannabe--with Buttermilk and Lassie by her side--stands ready to defend Big Rocks against the bad guys. See also Gunfight at Big Rocks and Riding Toward the Sun .

A Kodachrome slide dated July 1959. This little gunfighter is wearing a Dale Evans cowgirl hat as she holds her toy gun and prepares to take aim at the bad guys. Perhaps she's pretending that her toy horse is Buttermilk , Dale's trusty steed on TV's The Roy Rogers Show (1951-57), and her pet collie is Lassie , the canine star of the popular and long-lasting television show (1954-73). See also Holding Down the Fort and Riding Toward the Sun .

For information about Sykes Ranch, see the full version of this photo:

For an enlarged view of the structure , mouse over the image above. I didn't quite know what to make of this snapshot when I purchased it. The photo is dated July 1956 and shows a haphazardly constructed structure of some sort, with discarded tires, odd lengths of wood, and unidentifiable pieces of metal. A strangely shaped homemade bench stands on one side of what looks like an entrance, and a couple of steer skulls stand guard on the other side. I thought that it might be the entrance to a junkyard. A number of handmade signs appear on the structure. One sign warns, "Posted, Keep Out," and right below it is another that says, "Welcome." I spotted yet another sign with a religious message--"Do You Believe in Jesus, Thank You"--and then I noticed a pair of signs that simply say, "Sykes Ranch." Could that be the name of the junkyard? After numerous Google searches, I found a March 3, 2011, blog posting by Vance Lauderdale that described " Stephen Sykes and His 'In-Curiosity' House ." It turns our that the owner of Sykes Ranch was "a remarkable fellow named Stephen Sykes, who constructed an absolutely amazing folk-art house / junk pile / art creation outside Aberdeen, Mississippi, in the 1950s that he called 'In-Curiosity.'" Despite the Sykes Ranch signs in the photo, the structure was referred to as "In-Curiosity" by Sykes or sometimes just "Curiosity" by others, as Lauderdale recounts in his blog posting and in a Very Curious column that he wrote for Memphis Magazine , February 2011. Lauderdale also located an earlier article, " Do It Yourself 'Skyscraper' ," in Ebony magazine, March 1963, pp. 75-78, that described Stephen Sykes as "a 69-year-old bachelor with a driving amibition to rise above his fellow man." Sykes, an African-American veteran of World War I, began building In-Curiosity, which he used as a residence, in the early 1950s on family-owned land located along U.S. Route 45 near Aberdeen, Mississippi. Lauderdale heard that Stephen Sykes passed away sometime in the 1960s, and he assumed that all traces of In-Curiosity vanished when Route 45 was later widened. "But Sykes and his amazing creation," Lauderdale fittingly said, "live on in the memories of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of travelers in this area, and in grainy home movies and snapshots tucked away in boxes and scrapbooks." -------- For additional views of In-Curiosity, photos of Stephen Sykes, and further information regarding the maker and his house, check out Vance Laureldale's writings and the Ebony article: Vance Lauderdale. Very Curious column. Memphis Magazine , February 2011. Vance Lauderdale. " Stephen Sykes and His 'In-Curiosity' House ." Ask Vance , March 3, 2011. " Do It Yourself 'Skyscraper' ." Ebony , March 1963, pp. 75-78.

A Kodachrome slide dated July 1959.