Monday, January 01, 2007

Cracker Dog

:: cracker dog ::

I'm pretty sure the cracker dog (foreground) in the above picture is from Germany.

My grandparents on my mother's side favored a popular option for retired people back then: fun in the sun in a prefab or mobile home, with money saved from a big mortgage on trips to a then still America-friendly post-WWII Europe. They came home with all kinds of cuckoo clocks, walking sticks, stories, and slides of Kodak moments.

That was a bravely positive working class futurism I think, to reconnect with war torn Europe as adventuresome ocean liner passengers, eager to mix with those Marshall Plan dollars, to help the roses rise, while meanwhile, on the home front, pioneering a somewhat spacey, new and replicable lifestyle, around shuffleboard, square dancing, golf carts and tourism.

[ True, no air-deliverable Dymaxion Dwelling Machines materialized, like Bucky wanted, seein' as all the good helicopters were needed for service in Vietnam. ]

Not a bad outcome for a career linotype operator plus spouse, empty nesters on quasi-fixed incomes. Has any subsequent generation proved bolder or more successful, at making its dreams for a civilian utopia come true?