Category Archives: Photos

Migrants, 1936

Posted on by The Old Wolf

August 1936. “Family between Dallas and Austin. The people have left their home and connections in South Texas, and hope to reach the Arkansas Delta for work in the cotton fields. Penniless people. No food and three gallons of gas in the tank. The father is trying to repair a tire. Three children. Father says, ‘It’s tough but life’s tough anyway you take it.'” Medium-format nitrate negative by Dorothea Lange for the Resettlement Administration.

Found at Shorpy

Working at the Dairy

Posted on by The Old Wolf

About 20 minutes south of my home is a 5,000-head dairy ranch owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Today several of us went down this morning to volunteer a morning’s work, as members from local congregations do on a regular basis throughout the year.

I had never been to this particular outfit; our task for the day involved covering up a mountain of silage, and cleaning up excess tires on other mountains. Here are a few photos of the event.

7:45 AM: Heading off to work. More joined us at the work site, and some folks brought their kids along, who had a great time and also contributed to the best of their ability.

Sunrise over Elberta AG

Pulling plastic over the silage. This was a fresh mountain of corn – it had just rained, the silage was wet, and had begun to ferment; the smell was very pleasant.

Looking East over other mountains of silage – some corn, some chopped cornstalks, others unknown.

Some of the hills had too many tires on them; they only need two rows of casings along the edges. Our second task for the day involved pulling off the extras, stacking them up in the aisles, and getting them into large front-loaders which took them away for storage.

Heavy work; most of the tires were full of water. Another detail headed over to a field that was scattered with tires over about an acre, and worked to get them all piled up into a central location.

At around 10:00 they brought us chocolate and cookies-n-cream milk from BYU’s creamery, which was a nice pick-me-up, and one family had brought doughnuts for the crew. Welcomed! I was about out of energy.

We did good work today – but I can’t remember having been quite so exhausted in a long time. I’m not as young as I was 40 years ago…

The Old Wolf has spoken.

New York: Fraunce’s Tavern, 1900

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Click for full-size image. Found at Shorpy.

“Fraunce’s Tavern, Broad and Pearl Streets.” The building, which figured in the Revolutionary War, is said to be Manhattan’s oldest. [1] There are so many things to see in New York – this one probably never even got onto my radar during the 18 years I lived there.

This picture was taken the year my grandfather emigrated to New York from Italy.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

[1] Apparently this building, however, is not the original one that Washington knew, that having been destroyed in a fire with only one wall left standing. It has been rebuilt and remodeled several times – see the Wikipedia article.