Democracy In Action

I found this sign outside Government Center in Boston. I assume there was some kind of protest and this was left over. I've been to tons of protests, and the one thing that unites them all is that in the end people leave their signs all over the place.

Anyway, it really is Ted Kennedy's public office number. The most unusual thing about this sign is what's on the back:


At first glance it's an ordinary memo sent home with kids at school... but it's from 1975. I mean, I re-use paper, but as much of a pack-rat as I am, I don't even have school memos from recently, much less from 33 years ago!

Don't Worry, Be Sucky!

I hope Tim was flattered knowing that someone used up the special smiley-face tape for the label machine just to let him know how much he sucks.

I also hope Tim is flattered to know that his suckitude label is the very first thing I've scanned with my brand new scanner!

!!!!!!!!!!

I have a bunch of stuff to post on here, but my scanner is on strike. Alas.

"Issac Hayes"

I got 2 dollar bills today, both of which had "Issac Hayes" written on them in pencil. I don't think it was Mr. Hayes himself who wrote them, since he spelled his name wrong! Maybe these bills are a special denomination, one that is worth its weight in Chocolate Salty Balls!

Mystery postcard

My grandfather died a few months ago, and I went with my mother to help clean out the house. My grandmother (she died 20 years ago) was an antique collector/dealer, as well as a notorious pack rat. I found this stash of postcards in the house, most from the 1920s, though some were as old as 1906 and some as recent as 1967. They all were must have been from the same place-- they are mostly addressed to Margaret Burnette, her daughter Florence Burnette (later Hawes) and Louis Hawes, Florence's future husband. They all lived at 19 Birch Crescent in Rochester, which is now inhabited by a yoga instructor. I don't know why I find this all so fascinating.

Anyway, This postcard is from June 6, 1910, before Florence and Louis were married. It features obvious poor spelling. Was it a joke? I mean, the spelling is seriously atrocious! , and it's written to Florence's mother on a postcard, no less!

here it is for your perusal:




"Deer Mrs. Burnet:__,
I don't like to micks up in uther peeples afares, but I tho't I ought to tell you that I saw that Mr. Hawes with anuther girl won nite at a show. May be you no it all reddy but I thot mayve Florence wouldnt like it & would jilt him fer mee if I tolt you. I have all ways been troo to every girl I went with & would be troo to hur. Pleese let me no rite away. _______"

Bus system yay!

This apartment has "lower utilities than Coventry" AND it's only $600 for a one-bedroom. Where is this place? I want to move in! With rents like that, "Cherry Creek" obviously isn't anywhere near where I found this, in Porter Square. This place is located on a bus line ("yay!") and apparently includes refreshments? Also has a medicine cabinet. Rock on.

YMCA directions

I had no idea there was a YMCA in downtown Boston. Whoa, looking at their website, they have a pool and everything. Rock on!

Unfortunately, 14 Beacon St. is the Congregational Library, not the YMCA. Maybe the writer of this glaringly yellow sticky note was simple listening to the Village People?

Call Higgins

If you were to diagram my brain, it would probably look a lot like this note. It has everything-- telephone numbers, random scribbles, to-do things, appointments, the works. The thing that sets this rather untidy note apart are the descriptions of the people whose phone numbers are on here. For example, Marie Claire has "short gray hair" and "glasses" (underlined).




Another person is 5'11" and has a short, blond girlfriend who's 5'6". On what planet are either 5'11" and 5'6" (for a girl) short? The writer of this note must be 7 feet tall.

Blowhard

This is a flash card of some sort. What kind of class/seminar/training session would require one to know the word "blowhard."? Is it an SAT Vocabulary word? I don't think I've ever used the word "blowhard" in my life. Perhaps I should start. Also, I always thought the lined side of the index card was the *back*. Perhaps I've been getting it wrong all these years.

BABY

This is one of those things you get in thematic packets especially for enhancing scrapbooks. To scrapbookers, there's nothing creepy about an empty pair of blue pajamas wearing a bib. However, to me, I thought it was vaguely unsettling to find this carefully stuck to a fence post on my way to work. I like how the bib says BABY, in case there was some doubt as to who should be wearing it.

Christmas was like, totally rad, bro!

Though he has the baggy pants and sweatshirt, and his hat is barely holding onto his head, you can see in his awkward stance and semi-smirk that he knows how tough it is to look gangsta while standing in front of a Santa Claus made out of wooden boxes. This apparently wasn't a high priority photo-- it was taken 12/26/04, but not developed until 02/02/05! Found on the sidewalk near Park St. Station.

3 Norm

This is a sticky note haphazardly folded in half. I've tried to speculate on what is "really short" as opposed to "norm," but I can't even think of anything entertaining enough to write here!

Ruby Reeboks

These are quite possibly the awesomest shoes ever made. I found them on trash day near my house on the way to the train. There was a silver shoe exactly like these, but I could only find one. These shoes look unworn. How could someone throw them away? They are awesome! They would have even been awesome in 1987! They are a little too long for me, but they otherwise fit quite nicely. I love them!

Special Pass

I found this note stuck to a bench near South Station. It's at the place where you get the shuttle bus to take you to the concerts being held at the Fleet Pavilion or Bank of America Pavilion, or whatever they're calling that tent thing with overpriced beer now. Perhaps the bearers of this Special Pass weren't able to get backstage since they left this behind!

Passport girl

I hope this girl isn't trying to leave the country soon, because she dropped her passport picture in the box of Snickers bars where I work. I saw a girl that I thought was her the next day, but she hadn't lost any passport pictures, and looked kind of confused and creeped out that I would mention such a thing. Oh well.

Cookies for Luke

I don't know why I'm fascinated by people's grocery lists. Maybe because you find contradictions like this-- rice milk (eeww!) & tofu, along with chicken fingers and sausage.

To my sister Edy

I found this picture on the ground when I was in Jr. high school; it was one of the first random things I saved back in the fledgling stages of my compulsive collecting crap days. Back then, this school picture, with its faux-venetian blind background was pleasantly tacky. Now, having withstood the test of time even worse than the cheesy cloudy sky backdrop that all my school pics had (the default no-frills one), it looks really funny. poor Mary's sweater (which undoubtedly came almost down to her knees as was the style back then) looks like an ancient relic. Ah, the school school-picture experience memories come flooding back-- the carefully placed hand on face, the vacant smile that one only contorts their face into for pictures of this nature... I Recently dug out of a box of random crap I found, the best part of this picture is the note on the back of the picture, which is signed "from LOVE Mary." I didn't know either Edy or Mary; I assume they went to different schools from me.

The Monkees Go Mod

OK, this isn't exactly a salvage; I actually paid 10 cents for this at a garage sale, but I like it for the same weird, voyeuristic reasons.

Let me introduce a little slice of cultural history in paperback form:



What makes this book awesome is the former owner's apparent dislike of Peter Tork. I mean, it's not funny that he or she didn't like Peter; he was always my favorite. It's funny how thorough he or she was at defacing Peter's picture and even his name thoroughout the pages.

Let's start with angrily scratched X's on the cover:


Open the book and it is filled with crossed out pictures of Mr. Tork, ranging from a lazy "Peter kinda stinks"




to full-on PETER TORK ATE MY BABY!!!


Note how Peter's name is also crossed out on his chair. This person's hatred of the man who wrote the closing theme to the Monkees TV show spared nothing, including Peter's own biography pages:





Oddly, the book owner has circled the word "Chicago." Chicago. What could it mean? Is the book's owner (I'm sick of writing "the book's former owner" all the time, so from here on, I will refer to him or her as Spanky.) from Chicago? Does Spanky like to listen to the band Chicago? Did he or she take a really nice vacaion there once? Alas, we shall never have more insight into Spanky's psyche.

We do, know, however, that Spanky doesn't approve of smoking, as evidenced by this annotation of Davy Jones:


Here's a close-up of that lightly-pencilled in X:



This small declaration of anti-smoking is nothing compared to the streams of snot, horns and moustaches that poor Peter got in ballpoint pen. The defacing of Peter's images were done with such vigor that the pages were dented 3 pages later.



What did Peter Tork ever do to Spanky? What?!?!?

James P. Walsh

Sear God? Sean God? I'm not sure what this sticky note says. There are a lot of James P. walshes out there, including an economist who wrote several books, a couple of lawyers, someone who directed a short film in 1998... I'm not sure what this note was about. Alas. We probably shall never know.

Roadkill

I found this skunk in the road outside the Avon, MA Newbury Comics. Both of this poor skunk's eyes have been ripped out. Aside from that, though, he's in pretty good shape. He smells much better than your average roadkill skunk! I like the way he sassily has his hands on his hips, as if to say, "Car, oh no you di'nt just run over me! Oh no YOU DID NOT!"

gbfb.org

This attractive button is advertising the Greater Boston Food Bank.

I found it on the ground near Park Street Station in Boston. Park Street is one of the major stations in Boston for both visitors and locals alike, so I always find the most dropped items there.

Yellow Box = 016, 354

Most of the fun of picking up other peoples' lists is trying to decipher what they mean. Grocery lists are generally fairly straightforward, but to-do lists and whatever this is are usually more of a puzzle.

I can't read this person's handwriting too well, and I can't begin to guess what this is about. I thought maybe it was a list of books in a library to find, but the numbers don't correspond to the Library of Congress cataloging system. If it were the Dewey Decimal system, there are too many numbers...

Whatever this person needed to do, it looks like he or she did it all, judging by the X's. Good job!

the dreaded FAFSA

I don't envy this person's life one bit. Filling out the FAFSA (a financial aid application for college; you have to fill one out every year) is one thing I'm glad I will never have to do again as long as I live.

This poor soul has job classwork to do (correct papers, finish grades), his or her own schoolwork (research, outline) and still find time to pay rent and pay off a student account. Ah, the life of a budding academic.

Found in Kenmore Square a few weeks ago

Re-Enter Long Island

Jermaine C. can re-enter Long Island now. Well, I hope he still can even though he seems to have lost his paper. Found on the Common, Boston.

Hi, My Name Is...

I found this sticker on the ground near Park St. Station-- it was folded in half, so I scanned both sides and put them together. It's written in black marker on a name tag-sized sticker --perhaps someone is known as the "Bi Polar Express!"

After Treatment

This person's life doesn't sound like it's going too smoothly -- he or she has to fill out an accident report, but only "after treatment."

Red Sox vs. Detroit Tigers

It wasn't long after May 16th that I found this ticket... it seems remarkably beaten up and crappified for only being a couple of days old. but then, looking at the Red Sox website, the May 16th game was postponed until the next day-- maybe the ticketholder was standing in the rain waiting for the game. I found this near Government Center in Boston.

I recomend this book to people who like fantasie

This looks like a pretty cool book. I may just read it! I found this report on my way to the train a few months ago.

Grandpa, put down that chainsaw!

I found 2 contact sheets and one family photograph perched on top of a trash pile outside a photo developing place in Government Center a couple of months ago. the photos don't seem like anything extraordinary on first glance, but once you start really looking at them and realizing you have absolutely no context for them whatsoever, they get a little more interesting.

For example:
It looks like the dad and the groom are about to make out. The mom is obviously not paying attention, but doing a good job of pretending, and the woman fiddling with her necklace just looks bored.

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I enlarged some of the pics from the contact sheets, to see what they were. i thought perhaps I'd find pictures of a murder, Blow-Up style. No such luck. However, I did find that grandpa wields a pretty mean chainsaw!

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No Christmas would be complete without a disembodied hand holding some lightbulbs! -->

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<-- this baby is not impressed with the situation, but the Volvo in the background is pretty swank.

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<-- Uncle Bob was slightly drunk when he took this crooked picture.

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I'm glad someone thought to take a picture of the apple magnet on the refrigerator! I'm not sure what the thing in the middle is, but it looks important. -->

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<-- Grandpa is the king of his wood.