Alan Mays' photos with the keyword: drawings

"What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta." Doodled drawing on a scrap of paper found at a store, Mechanicsburg, Pa., May 15, 2015.

"A Happy New Year. Haddocks. Come to your milk now." A Victorian-era New Year calling or greeting card with a hand-drawn sketch. "Come to your milk" seems to have had a specific meaning in the nineteenth century beyond pulling on a calf's tail to try to get it to drink out of a milk bucket. Besides a few hits on the phrase in Google Books, however, I haven't uncovered any source that reveals what that meaning might have been.

"Witches Watch - Oct. 31st, '14. 8:00 p.m. - Masks! 2439 No. Eleventh Street. Admission - 25¢. ea. Guess you know who all!" Handwritten note on the back of the invitation: "George: Let me know if you come and how --singles or doubles! Marg. Hunsicker, 2852 N. Orkney St." A hundred-year-old Halloween party invitation! The flustered jack-o'-lanterns appear to be printed die-cut pumpkin shapes, but I'm not certain whether the witch silhouette was cut by hand or from a die. After using Google to search for the addresses (2439 N. Eleventh Street and 2852 N. Orkney Street), I believe that the location is probably Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I was surprised to discover that I couldn't find any precedent for the term "Witches Watch." I assumed that watching for the appearance of witches would be a common activity--and party theme--during the Halloween season, but the only reference to a similarly named event that I was able to locate came from the Spokane Daily Chronicle , Oct. 21, 1937, p. 3: "'Witches' Watch Halloween Ball. Chewelah, Wash., Oct. 21--(Special.)--Witches and pumpkins of paper decorated the Masonic hall Wednesday night when the Eastern Star held its invitational dance. Refreshments were served." Or perhaps I have it all wrong--maybe the witches are the ones who are doing the watching. Or--on a sillier note--could it refer to a timepiece worn by witches? Any other sightings of "Witches Watch" out there?

An example of postage stamp collage art on a vintage postcard. This clever construction consists of used U.S. postage stamps that have been cut apart and arranged to depict a colonial interior scene that includes a grandfather clock, spinning wheel, writing table with a quill pen and inkwell, chair, fireplace, cat, and two works of art hanging on the wall. Based on the issue dates for the Warren G. Harding stamp (1925) and the Yorktown sesquicentennial stamp (1931), the collage was probably created sometime in the 1930s. Although this postcard was not postally used (there's no message, address, or postmark on the other side), the glaring hole in the middle of the Yorktown stamp suggests that it was hung on the wall at some point. For some interesting articles on stamp collages, see David A. Norris, "Vintage Stamp Collage Postcards," American Philatelist , Jan. 2012, pp. 56-58, and Russ Hahn, "Postage Stamp Collage Art," American Philatelist , Dec. 2012, pp. 1120-32 (to locate copies, Google the article citations). For another example of repurposed stamps, see Easter in Stamps :