Help needed: Who is GARV?

I recently acquired this pretty fine pencil drawing of an old flintlock pistol. The original piece of artwork is signed GARV.

Now, I know there is an artist of adult material named Garv; there is an Indian movie named Garv; there is a webiste devoted to mixed martial arts called Garv, and there is a Garv-Inn -- among almost a million hits devoted to the word Garv.

But I cannot track down the person who created this wonderful drawing, which is one of several similar subjects. This illustration, poorly mounted with low quality matboard, came out of a defunct printing shop in the Sacramento, Calif., area.

If anyone out there knows who this "Garv" is, I would appreciate a return comment.

And Still More 19th Century Autographs

March 3, 2009 –
Here are some more autographs. These are from a little autograph book owned by David P. Flory of Hygiene and Boulder, Colo., dated 1884, and in which he writes this introduction:
To My Friends
My album is a garden spot
Where all my friends may sow
Where thorns and nettles flourish not
But flowers alone may grow
With smiles for sunshine, tears for showers
I’ll water, watch and guard these flowers.
Your friend, D. P. Flory
Hygiene, Colo.

Here are the entries, many of them with a scolding theme and that he better get his act together as his three sisters pen words of encouragement. It would seem David might have been a troubled lad. After his move to California, however, things seem to improve. I personally favor the final entry, written by his daughter. Read on:

Dave:
Be satisfied with your self and surroundings, for the present;
but at the same time, try to understand and gain a high standard.
Your friend and school-mate, Bertha Goss
Longmont., Colo. Oct. 28, 1884
* * *
To D. P. Flory
Day by day we are ??(shaping)??? the influences which will presently be our rules. We are choosing our habits, our associates, our homes. Weigh carefully all your undertakings and choose the best.
Your well wisher, Miss Nellie Goss
Pella, Colo, Oct. 28, 1884
* * *
When you get old and cannot see, put on your specks and think of me.
S. F. Fesler
* * *
Remember me as a friend.
Yours truly, W. D. Goss
Pella, Colo, Oct. 27, 1884
* * *

David
I dip my pen into the ink
And grasp your album tight;
But for my life I cannot think
One single word to write.
Your sister,
Lottie Flory,
Tujunga, Calif. August. 19, 1886
* * *
Of all the earthly goods, the best is a good life.
Your friend, Norton
* * *
Friend David
Remember thy Creator
In the days of thy youth.
Mrs. S. S. Farnocht, Longmont, Colo.
* * *
Always have courage to say "No" where tempted to do wrong.
Yours truly, Jennie Montgomery,
Longmont, Colo. Oct. 18, 1884
* * *
May your path be strewn with roses fair
and flowery to the end;
And when your body in death repose,
May your Maker be your friend.
Your cousin, H. M. Flory,
Brock Neb., Oct. 5, 1884
* * *
Dear Brother
If you wish success in life,
make perseverance your bosom friend,
experience your wise counsel,
caution your older brother
and hope your guardian genius.
Your affectionate sister, Lizzie Flory
San Fernando, Cal. Jan 12, 1885
* * *
Dear Brother
When you get far out in California,
Do not forget that you have friends and relations in Colo. who will remember you though far away.
Remember me as your loving sister, Hollie
* * *
To Dave
Ah! Lips with the curl impatient
Ah! How with the shade of scorn,
"Twere cruel fate
Were the night too late
To undo the work of the morn
Your friend, Mollie Montgomery
Longmont, Oct. 17, 1884
* * *
Dear friend
Your virtues ever shine like peaches on a punkin vine
Your friend, W. D. Perkins
Oct. 26th, 1884
* * *
Friend David
Do with heart and mind thy work and sweet will be the rest
Value time and do not shrink but do thy best
Doing this thou shall be blest.
Your schoolmate, Lizzie Wreese
Springtown, Colo., Oct. 25th, 1884
* * *
Friend Dave
May you live long and happy
May your enemies be few
May your friends be as many as the sparkling drops of dew.
Yours truly
Freta Trobaugh, Tujunga, Cal, June 10th 1888

Then she adds this ditty – a very early version of texting abbreviations:
Y y u r
Y y u b
I c u r y y 4 me
Can you read it?
* * *
Friend Dave
We may write our names in albums
We may trace them in the sand
We may chisel them in marble
With a firm and skillful hand.

But these pages soon are sullied,
Soon each page will fade away.
Every monument will crumble
Like all earthly hopes decay

But my friend there is an album
Full of leaves of sunny white
Where no names are tarnished
But forever pure and bright

In the book of life, "Gold’s Album,"
May your name be penned with care
And may all who here have penciled
Have their names recorded there
Your friend, Freta
San Fernando, Cal., August 31, 1890
* * *
Dear Friend
To blossom in the grove,

To bloom around the cot (cottage)
Please cultivate that little plant

they call Forget-me-not.
Your schoolmate, Addie Smith
Springtown, Colo., Oct. 27, 1884
* * *
Dear Daddy
To each is given a bag of coals
A shapeless mass, and a book of rules,
And each must make, ere life has flown,
A stumbling block or a stepping stone.
Your daughter, Betty

* * *

To my reader: Many more 19th and early 20th century autographs have appeared in this blog; you can read them in 11/20/07 and 03/03/08.

And They Landed Safely

In my never-ending search for interesting paper, I came across this Boeing advertisement in a 1945 National Geographic. I was -- and am -- astounded as to the amount of damage this B-17 took over Germany in World War II.
A bit of Internet search took me to a very interesting site (www.daves'warbirds) in which the survival accounts of many B-17 are reported and shown.
The site says:
"The B-17 "All American" (414th Squadron, 97the Battle Group) flown by Lieutenant Kenneth R. Bragg, its tail section almost severed by a collision with an enemy fighter, flew 90 minutes back to its home base, landed safely and broke in two after landing.
SOURCE: Flying Forts by Martin Caiden."
The website offers a couple additional photos of the plane after landing.
The advertisement adds a little color:
"This slashed-in-two Flying Fortress theoretically should not fly. There had been stiff fighter opposition. In the melee, a Messerschmitt, crazily out of control, crashed into it.
"The German plane was destroyed upon impact. The Fortress's fuselage was ripped diagonally from top to bottom. Control surfaces were carried away. The tail gunner, suddenly imperiled in his wabbling section, crawled forward onto the narrow floor structure that held the parts together. And the Fortress flew steadily -- back to her base for a perfect landing."

I Just Don't Know What to Say . . .

Here's a 1954 advertisement for Old Gold cigarettes. It would appear that 55 years ago there was no political correctness when it came to poodles.

And a little bit of lousy re-touching makes this poodle appear to be smiling -- just really happy to be inhaling that tobacco smoke! And little Fifi there appears somewhat tentative. Or maybe this pair is just having a smoke after a little bit of, uh, well, you know. Woof, woof.

So, try as I might, the picture cries out for a proper caption -- can anyone out there help? My other reader would be grateful.

Mystery Object: Bottle In A Broom

One of the things that make collecting so much fun is finding a thing, an object, a thingamabob, a gizmo that just can't be identified. Try as I might, I have not found one these things on the internet and none of the antique collectors with whom I come in contact has ever seen anything like it.

"It" is a whisk broom wrapped around a half-pint size bottle.

Now I can imagine all sort of uses:

The valet who dusts off your clothing and then has access to a quick nip, all the while keeping it secret.

The housewife who brushes up the dinner table and then decides on a short snort -- you know, something to take the edge off.

The old man cleaning out the car on a Saturday morning needs a little fortification -- but not so's the neighbors will know.

Maybe hooch and secrecy are not involved -- but then why keep the bottle under wraps?

It is obviously a manufactured item, with fine tight stitching around the straws, a nicely made cork stopper - but nary a name tag anywhere

What does my reader think?

Help me, please

Who Says There Is No Santa Claus?

In a message dated 12/24/2008 10:52:58 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, ENovak@ascentmedia.com writes:

> Santa and Science
> 1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are
> 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified,
> and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not
> completely rule out flying reindeer, which only Santa has
> ever seen.
>
> 2) There are 2 billion children in the world (persons under
> 18). But since Santa doesn't (appear to) handle
> Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist children, that reduces
> the workload by 85% of the total-- leaving 378 million
> according to the Population Reference Bureau. At an
> average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household,
> that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there is at
> least one good child per house.
>
> 3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to
> the different time zones and the rotation of the earth,
> assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical).
> This works out to 822.6 visits per second.
> This is to say that for each Christian household with good
> children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of
> the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stocking,
> distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat
> whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get
> back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.
>
> 4) Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are
> evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we
> know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we
> will accept), we are now talking about
> 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million
> miles, not counting stops to do what most of us do at least
> once every 31 hours, plus feeding, etc. That means that
> Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000
> times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the
> fastest man-made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe,
> moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second. A conventional
> reindeer can run, at tops
> 25-30 miles per hour.
>
> 5) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting
> element. Assuming each child gets nothing more then a
> medium sized LEGO set (2 lbs.), the sleigh is carrying
> 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably
> described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer
> can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting the
> "flying reindeer" can pull TEN TIMES that normal
> amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine--we
> need 214,200 reindeer. This increased the payload--not
> even counting the weight of the sleigh--to 353,430 tons.
> Again for comparison, this is four times the weight of the
> HMS Queen Elizabeth.
>
> 6) Three hundred and fifty-three thousand tons travelling
> at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance.
> This will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as
> spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere.
> The lead pair will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy
> per second, each. In short, they will burst into flames
> almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them,
> and creating a deafening sonic boom in their wake. The
> entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26
> thousandths of a second. Santa meanwhile, will be subject
> to centrifugal forces of 17,500.06 times greater than
> gravity. A 250 lb. Santa (which seems ludicrously slim)
> would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by a
> 4,315,015 pound force.
>
> In conclusion, if Santa ever DID deliver presents on
> Christmas eve, he's now dead.

Now, I don't know who ENovak is and all those mathematical calculations are well and good -- but his conclusion is sideways. Santa Claus would not be dead. How else to explain the miracles that have occurred around the world on this day? Santa Claus could be dead from all that exertion? C'mon Virginia, of course Santa Claus would be alive and well and asking for more. There's a little bit of Santa Claus living in all of us. And that's how this miraculous delivery job gets done. Ask any of the billion of Santa's adult elves who have stayed up half the night wrestling with packages that say "some assembly required." It's obvious to the most casual observer. Ask any five-year-old.
Santa Claus dead? I think not. He's just real tired.

Illustration Courtesy: Webweaver's Free Clip Art