Dist-o-What?

Before the age of GPS, 

or handheld calculators, 

or cell phones--

there was the 

Dist-O-Map.

If you were taking a trip (car, plane, bus, it didn't really matter)

and you wanted to know exactly how many miles it would be to get from one place to another,

you could grab your large table map, get out your compass (the MATH kind) and do some calculations

to come up with an idea how many miles and how long it might take.

Enter the Dist-O-Map.

Easy to use. Quick

Almost Google like in its simplicity.

Pick a city nearest to you on the map, pick your destination, set up the movable map to the correct arrow positions, and Bob's your Uncle! You've got your info.

Pretty darned useful items, these.

Ah, the days before technology...

Chop Suey anyone?

Every once in a while (hopefully more often as time continues), I find some funky ephemeral items.

Last week, I was in one of my usual haunts - not finding ANYTHING worth looking at, book wise, when I accidentally flipped open a 1960's cookbook.  Tucked inside was this little pamphlet.

Dated 1929, it's from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and is promoting Pork.

There's facts about Pork, followed by 13 recipes (including the infamous Chop Suey - which, unfortumately, was NOT the page I put in my camera).

It's got a bit of wear and has some tearing to the spine ends, but it's neat, all the same. 

And not too many copies around still.

As for the Chop Suey,  there's much debate about when it was invented, where it was invented and how it came about, but in the 1920's it was all the rage- as were things Chinese, etc.

Cool stuff.

I Guess a Month off isn't too bad...

Quick note here to say -- WOW.  I knew I was behind on the blog, but a WHOLE month?

There were plenty of reasons (which I won't get into) but I'm hoping to be back in action on a regular basis now, especially since the rest of the family goes back to school / class starting in staggered fashion next week.

I have had a strange, interesting and quite humbling summer. I'm hoping that fall (even though fall technically doesn't start until late September) turns things around.

Thanks for hanging in there with me.