Highway Man

12/05/2023

Cute

Before anyone leaves, you must pay the bellyrub tax

11/29/2023

🤠

11/22/2023

Dallas,Texas😁

11/22/2023

11/22/2023

Cutie

11/04/2023

Joseph Hansom was an accomplished architect, his designs including the Birmingham Town Hall and some of England’s most beautiful churches. But he is best remembered for an invention that changed the way people got around on city streets in the 19th century—something that came to be known as the “Hansom cab.”

Hansom patented his design in 1834 and it quickly overtook the Hackney carriage as the preferred vehicle for hire. Unlike the Hackney, which had four wheels and was pulled by two horses, the Hansom had two wheels and was pulled by only one horse. Because it was smaller (and required less horsepower), the Hansom was more maneuverable, less expensive, and therefore more affordable. The Hansom was designed so that the driver sat behind and above the passenger compartment, communicating with the passengers through a trap door on the top.

A two-wheel horse-drawn vehicle was called a “cabriolet,” which Hansom shortened to “cab” when he introduced his new design. The “Hansom Safety Cab” soon crossed the ocean and became the dominant vehicle for hire in New York City and other American cities. In England the vehicle was commonly called a “Hansom,” but in the U.S. it was called a “cab.” In both countries, the Hansoms featured mechanical devices called “taximeters,” which calculated fares, thus leading them to be called “taxis,” as their motorized descendants are still called today.

Joseph Aloysius Hansom, father of the taxicab, was born in York, England, on October 26, 1803, two hundred twenty years ago today.

11/04/2023

Walt Disney would always offer to drive his ink and paint girls, Kathleen Dollard and Lillian Bounds, home once their work days had ended. Lillian lived closer to the Disney Brothers Studio so, at first, Walt would drop her off first, then Kathleen second. After he started developing feelings for Lillian, he started dropping Kathleen off first, just so he could spend a little more time with the object of his affection. ❤️

One evening, when Walt had walked Lilly to her front door after work wearing the same old clothes he wore a couple times each week, he asked her (I’m paraphrasing), ‘Lilly, if I bought a new suit, would you invite me in to meet your family?’ Lillian was living in Los Angeles with her sister and 7 year old niece. Lilly said she would and asked Walt if he’d like to come in at that moment. Walt declined, saying he needed the new suit to make the right impression. 😁

The next day, Walt went to his brother, Roy (who was in charge of the finances of the studio) and asked to spend $40 of the studio’s money to buy a new suit. ‘What do you need a suit for?’ Roy asked. Walt replied, ‘Maybe I’ll get married in it.’ Walt showed up in that brand new suit a couple nights later and Lillian invited him in to meet her sister Hazel and her 7 year old niece, Marjorie. ❤️🏰

Walt Disney took Lilly on a date to a movie one night in the spring of 1925. After the movie and a drive, he asked Lillian to marry him. Well, what he actually asked her (more paraphrasing) was, ‘Lilly, this old car has seen better days (a Ford runabout). What do you think I should buy next, a new car or an engagement ring?’ Lilly said a ring. A newly successful Walt bought both. 😁

Thank you so much for reading this one! I first posted it in September but it didn’t get much reach…I can’t figure out if it’s because it’s not good or it’s just that no one saw it, so I figured I’d post it again. All of the info comes from Bob Thomas’s biography on Walt, “Walt Disney: An American Original”, and Pat Williams’ “How to Be Like Walt”. 😁 Thank you again for reading and have a wonderful day!! 🙏❤️🙏

11/04/2023

A family going for a drive in one of the first Model T cars about 1909 or 1910.

11/04/2023

Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992)

He was best known today for producing the Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang (later known as The Little Rascals) film comedy series. After an adventurous youth that took him to Alaska, Hal Roach arrived in Hollywood, California in 1912 and began working as an extra in silent films. Upon coming into an inheritance, he began producing short comedies in 1915 with his friend Harold Lloyd, who portrayed a character known as Lonesome Luke. Unable to expand his studios in downtown Los Angeles because of zoning, Roach purchased what became the Hal Roach Studios from Harry Culver in Culver City, California. During the 1920s and 1930s, he employed Lloyd (his top money-maker until his departure in 1923), Will Rogers, Max Davidson, the Our Gang kids, Charley Chase, Harry Langdon, Thelma Todd, ZaSu Pitts, Patsy Kelly and, most famously, Laurel and Hardy. During the 1920s Roach's biggest rival was producer Mack Sennett. In 1925, Roach hired away Sennett's supervising director, F. Richard Jones. Roach released his films through Pathé Exchange until 1927, when he went to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He converted his silent movie studio to sound in late 1928 and began releasing talking shorts in early 1929. In 1931, with the release of the Laurel & Hardy film Pardon Us, Roach began producing occasional full-length features alongside the short product. Short subjects became less profitable and were phased out by 1936, save for Our Gang. From 1937 to 1940, Roach concentrated on producing glossy features, abandoning low comedy almost completely. Most of his new films were either sophisticated farces (like Topper and The Housekeeper's Daughter) or rugged action fare (like Captain Fury and One Million B.C.). Roach's one venture into heavy drama was the acclaimed Of Mice and Men in which actors Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr. played the leading roles. The Laurel and Hardy comedies, once the Roach studio's biggest drawing cards, were now the studio's least important product and were phased out altogether in 1940. Hal Roach, Sr. was called to active military duty in the Signal Corps in June 1942, at age 50, and the studio output he oversaw in uniform was converted from entertainment featurettes to military training films.

The studios were leased to the U.S. Army Air Forces, and the First Motion Picture Unit made 400 training, morale and propaganda films at "Fort Roach". Members of the unit included Ronald W. Reagan and Alan Ladd. After the war the government returned the studio to Roach, with millions of dollars of improvements. In 1955, Roach sold his interests in the production company to his son, Hal Roach, Jr., and retired from active production. Unfortunately, the younger Roach lacked much of his father's business acumen, and soon lost the studio to creditors. It was finally shut down in 1961. Hal Roach died in his home in Bel Air, California, from pneumonia on November 2, 1992, two months short of his 101st birthday. He is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York