The Confederate Flag and “The Splendid Valor”

            

Although for some time I have been planning a post on the souvenirs of Southern Civil War veterans,  the current controversy over the display of the Confederate battle flag has impelled me to bring an article forward now.  I spent more than two years transcribing into a computer the hand-written diary of a Confederate infantryman who recorded his thoughts every day for the five years of the war, an activity that has given me a new appreciation of that era in our national history.

Of particular interest to me — and illustrated here — are the artifacts that have been left to posterity by the Confederate veterans organizations from their multiple reunions after the war.   An earlier post here [January 2014] provided images of souvenirs issued by the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the Northern Civil War veterans organization.

Unlike the GAR, a national organization formed almost immediately after the conflict, the Southern veterans initially grouped on a fractionalized basis, locally or on a state level.  For years there was no single national organization representing their interests.   This is understandable, given the low morale that must have followed soldiers home after Appomattox and the state-centered nature of the Confederacy.  One of the earliest Southern veteran’s organization, for example, was the Oglethorpe Light Infantry Association in Savannah, Georgia, formed in 1865.  The 1870s and 1880s saw a proliferation of local units throughout the South.

It was not until June 1889, twenty-four years from the end of hostilities, that efforts succeeded to create an all-Dixie organization.   Founded in New Orleans, the United Confederate Veterans (UCV) sought to unify the many separate veterans’ groups scattered across the former Confederate states into one larger regional body.  It succeeded and grew rapidly throughout the 1890s culminating in its 1898 reunion when 1,555 local “encampments” were recorded at its 1898 reunion.  Eventually 160,000 former Confederate soldiers were organized into 1,885 individual camps.

The UCV, devoted to social, charitable and memorial functions, divided itself into two groups based on the division of the Confederate forces into the Army of Virginia and the Army of Tennessee.  Shown above is a souvenir ribbon from a reunion of the latter’s  Louisiana Division held in New Orleans in April of 1895.  Note that it carries prominently the Confederate battle flag, as do other other souvenir items shown here.  The UCV national hymn, “God Save the South!”  similarly featured the battle flag on its cover.

Not all UCV souvenir items, however, were flag oriented.  Shown below are a ceramic jug from the 15th annual reunion of the UCV in June 1905 and a watch fob from a 1910 reunion in Virginia.  By that year, the membership was dwindling as the veterans aged and died.  The last UCV reunion, its 60th, was in 1950 when only one member, the 98-year-old leader, could attend.  A U.S. postage stamp was issued the next year to commemorate the organization.  Note that the stamp has no flag, just an hourglass indicating the passage of time.

While the Confederate flag was conspicuous in much the UCV did, it is instructive to repeat a statement that appeared in the program for its 1907 reunion, held in Richmond, Virginia:  “Here where once sat its Confederate Congress, stands side by side the Stars and Bars of the “Lost Cause” with the Stars and Stripes, which no section has done more to upbuild and uphold than the South.   Everywhere is seen the American flag side by side with the Confederate, and it is this spirit which prevails among the Veterans and which will pervade the reunion.”  Note the souvenir from a 1897 UCV reunion that displays both flags.

Another signal event was the 1913 Gettysburg Reunion, a June-July gathering of 53,407 veterans.  All honorably discharged veterans of both North and South were invited and many responded from both sides.  Despite concerns that there might be conflict between Blue and Gray, a peaceful reunion was reported to have been “marked by events of Union-Confederate camaraderie.”  President Woodrow Wilson gave the July 4 reunion address that summarized the spirit:  “We have found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather, our battles long past, the quarrel forgotten — except that we shall not forget the splendid valor.”

Fast forward to today.  In the present a young man, who in photos wrapped himself in the Confederate flag, murdered nine people in a Charleston church.  Why has the amity shown at the Gettysburg Reunion gone so awry?  The answer lies in the groups that have made it their business to put the Confederate flag in public places, on license plates and in other venues.  As a sign of what?  The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) says it is to elicit Southern pride.  The Southern Poverty Law Center on its website, however, provides a long list of SCV officers at both national and state levels who are, or recently have been, members of what it lists as “hate groups.”  Unfortunately, the haters seem to have captured the flag and made it a symbol of resistance to equal rights.

The soldier mentioned in the first paragraph here was from the 17th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment.  Shown right, its battle flag was dominated by the traditional  “Stars and Bars.”  That flag currently resides in a museum in Alexandria Virginia, the city from whence came many of its men.  That is a good and fitting place for the flag — not flying above city hall or the state capitol, nor displayed on license plates, or featured in other contexts that suggest racial bias.  All memorabilia and souvenirs of the Civil War deserve to be in a location like the 17th Virginia battle flag:  A museum.  That is where they can do the most to inspire respectful memory of those who fought and recognition of their “splendid valor.”

Note:  It is just happenstance that this article is being posted on July 4, Independence Day, 102 years after the Gettysburg Reunion that brought together combatants from both the Union and Confederacy military in apparent harmony. 

“Come Drink Beer with Me”: Brewery Song Books

      

Drink beer, drink beer,

Oh come drink beer with me;

I don’t give a damn

For any old man, 

Who won’t drink beer with me

Above is a song sung lustily from the back booths of taverns and bars all over America by college student today and reaching back into the 19th Century.   Drinking beer and singing are like Siamese twins — not joined at the hip, but joined at the lip.  This close identification was understood by many a brewery in vintage times.  Illustrated here are a number of examples of the song books they issued to take advantage of the musical carousing.

The first item, “Drinking Songs for Auld Lang Syne,” is illustrated by a barbershop quartet, all in tuxedos, three of the gents wearing homberg hats.  The notes are flying.  This song book was issued by the Schmidt Brewing Company of St. Paul.  Formerly located at 882 West Seventh Street in that city, it was founded in 1855 and its name changed when Jacob Schmidt, formerly the brewmaster at Hamm’s Brewing Co., took over.  The brewery continued under that name until 1954, staying open during National Prohibition by making “near beer.”

The barbershop quartet motif was echoed the “Songs of Long Ago” issued for Bruck’s Jubilee Beer.  Here the songsters are actually performing in a barbershop while the barbers and patrons look on.   The chaps apparently are serenading with “Sweet Adeline,” that was, we are told, the 1903 Season’s Song Hit.   This book originated from the Bruckmann Cumminsville Brewing Company of Cincinnati.  Bruckmann operated two plants and featured a number of brands in addition to “Brucks.”  They included “Big Ben Ale,” “Aristocrat Cereal Beverage,” “Jubilee Beer,” and “Dixie Beer.”  The company also issued a song book that looked like a foaming mug of its brew.  

The Star Beverage Company of Minster, Ohio, issued two song books, both entitled “Sing the Good Old Times.”  The items advertised the brewery’s “Wood Shoe Lager Beer,”  available, we learn, on draught and bottles.   It is not clear why one shows the beer in the stein with a golden color while the other shows up amber.   The brewery was founded in 1869 by one Frank Lange who ran it until 1882 when the Steinemann brothers bought and directed the plant until it became Star Brewery in 1890.  Under that name it operated until National Prohibition in 1919.  Surviving during America’s “dry period” by producing nonalcoholic beverages, it began making beer again in 1933, finally closing in 1954.

Milwaukee’s Blatz brewery, of which I have written extensively before, created a song book made to resemble a German beer stein, complete with pewter lid.  These were created to carry the identification of particular restaurants and saloons carrying Blatz beer.  The one advertised here was a Cleveland, Ohio, watering hole known as “Braustub’l,”  located on the Lorain Road.  Once the book was opened, Blatz’s ad made its appearance.  This view allows us to read the songs and — goodness me — they are all in German.  Although “O Tannenbaum” hardly seems like an appropriate drinking song, except perhaps at Christmas,  I well recall intoning “A Du Lieber Augustin” and “Du, Du, Leigst Mir Im Hezen” at the Trails Inn Lodge in Milwaukee, with the owner, Mitzi, joining in.

“Everybody Sing!” was the title of the Duquesne Brewery Song book.  It advertised Duquesne Pilsener as “The Finest Beer in Town.”  That town was Pittsburgh where the brewery was a major merchandiser of beer from its founding in 1899 until dissolved in 1972.  Using a wooden barrel as the motif for the song book might have been the idea of Henry Miller who had begun his business career selling furniture.  It is said to be one of the first breweries in America to use refrigerated train cars to transport its beer to customer outside Pittsburgh.  Opening the book reveals the motto “Songs you love to sing, beer you love to drink.”  The index of songs reveals a fairly tepid roster of tunes including “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and “Goodnight Ladies.”  Inclusion of Franklin Roosevelt's theme, “Happy Days Are Here Again” suggests a post-Prohibition origin.  

Even as far away as Los Angeles, the beer and singing tradition impelled the Eastside Brewery to issue a song book that featured beer songs in the repertory of Carl Ledel’s Tirolier & Bayern Orchestra, aka the “Alpine Troubadours.” Shown here front and back, the cover gives us two lyrics, one in German, the other in   English.    I remain puzzled by the motto at the top of the publication:  “Put Eastside Inside - For the Gesundheit.”  Is it implied that their beer can induce sneezing?  Eastside Brewery owes its origins to a Bavarian immigrant and veteran brewmaster named George Zobelein who bought an existing Los Angeles brewery and began making a range of beers from light pilsners and dark hocks, all under the Eastside label.  When purchased by Pabst the brand was retired after 1962.

Speaking of that Milwaukee brewery, the final song book is entitled “Pabst Blue Ribbon Stein Songs,” and shows a shapely woman holding a stein with the background of a red checked table cloth, just like those featured at the “Forstkeller,” the Pabst-owned German restaurant and bar immediately adjacent to the brewery complex in downtown Milwaukee.  It was at the Forstkeller too that beer and song mingled in a way to gladden the heart and remain fixed in memory.  This song book is definitely post-Prohibition, dating from about 1933.

It seems only fitting to end this tribute to singing, drinking and brewery song books by quoting another favorite of the bierstube crowd:

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit

Sweet Memories: Candy and Gum of an Earlier Time

No better way exists to evoke memories of the small pleasures of bygone days than the vintage artifacts that featured them.  My remembrances of the candy and gum enjoyed in my young days six or seven decades ago are spurred by seeing their advertising paperweights and other items.   Shown here are ten such, all of them conjuring up thoughts from the 1940s and 1950s.

World War II broke out when I was five years old and severely constrained the variety of candy that was available to a young sweet tooth.   As I recall, sugar was rationed with much of the supply going to the troops at home and abroad.  One confection still readily available was marshmallows.  Those treats had been introduced by a Milwaukee candy company in 1917, with packaging that recommending roasting them over an open fire.  With the war restricting travel, many activities were neighborhood based, including evenings around a campfire with marshmallows.  My preference was to let them burn until the entire outside was charred and then to eat the whole blackened mess with the soupy insides.  Yum!

Another candy that seems to have been around during the War was licorice, sold in the form of chewy ropes or tubes.  They could be purchased in those days for about two cents a rope and gave many a moment of pleasure as your teeth snapped off a chunk and the process of mastication ensued.   The flavor is an extract of the roots of the licorice plant and not to everyone’s taste.  In those wartime days, however, any candy to be had was eagerly consumed.

Represented here, not by a paperweight, but by an early 20th Century metal container is another favorite of mine — Tootsie Roll.  Tootsie Rolls, however, encountered a different kind of rationing.  My father was a dentist and determined to exclude cavities from the teeth of my brother and me.   Although this candy had been around since 1898, he objected to it because it had a tendency to stick to the teeth and the sugar to linger in the mouth.  The buying public was not concerned.  Today Tootsie Rolls are consumed worldwide and enjoy global favor.  According to the company, 64 million rolls are made daily.

Dad had considerably less objection to Cracker Jacks, possibly because of his own “sweet tooth” and love of popcorn.  Shown here on two vintage paperweights, this confection originated with a German immigrant named Frederick Rueckheim who ran a popcorn stand in Chicago beginning in 1871.  In 1896 his brother, Louis, discovered a method to separate the kernels of molasses coated popcorn during the manufacturing process.  As each batch was tossed in a drum similar to a cement mixer, a small amount of vegetable oil was added that helped prevent the contents from sticking together in chunks.

Inside each Cracker Jack box were two additional items:  a peanut or two and a prize.  The presence of the nuts meant little, but the prize was a big deal.   As I recall, before World War II, they frequently were made of metal.   During the war, with metal going for military purposes, the prizes disappointingly were made of paper.   After the war plastic made its appearance in the Cracker Jack box.   Whatever the prize, it was always a kick to pour out the candied kernels to look for what else the box might hold.

Life Savers were another favorite.  As shown on the weight here, for many years the round candy with the hole in the middle sold for five cents — a nickel.  The price was usually within reach of a kid with kind of any enterprise.   All it took was returning three soft drink bottles back to the store to afford a roll, with a penny left over.   The package of candy, with discipline, could last a long time.  The story of Life Savers reaches back to 1912 when Clarence Crane of Garrettsville, Ohio, invented the sweet stuff in 1912 as a “summer candy” that could withstand heat better than chocolate.   After registering the trademark, Crane sold the rights to Edward Noble for $2,900.  Noble grew Life Savers into a national brand.  He is said to have encouraged sales at cash registers of restaurants and stores, suggesting that change include five cents.  Noble’s strategy frequently was successful on me.

Bubblegum was around for a long time, produced by Frank H. Fleer in 1885 through his Fleer Corporation.  Called Blibber-Blubber, it was inferior to regular chewing gum.  It was not until 1928 that Fleer improved the formula to produce the first commercially successful bubblegum, giving it the pink color with which it traditionally is associated.  I was too young to chew before World War II and it was unavailable during the conflict itself, re-emerging only after 1945.  What a revelation!   My friends and I could not get enough of the stuff.  We also collected the cartoons that wrapped the pink chunks.  Many had corny jokes but some could even be quite sophisticated.  For years I kept one that featured the painter Picasso.  

Fast forward from the 1940s to the 1950s and Necco Wafers.  Those candies date back to 1847 when Oliver Chase, an English immigrant, invented a lozenge cutting machine to produce the wafers.   The name “Necco” was added in 1912.  The wafers got their boost during the war after the U.S. favored it as appropriate for consumption by troops overseas.  Returning servicemen became customers and spread the word.  I became addicted about 1955, buying a tube of assorted flavors almost every day before embarking on an hour-long bus trip home from high school.  

 About the same time, my taste in chewing gum changed and I became fond of the flavor of Beechnut Gum.  The Beechnut firm was founded by Bartlett Arkell in 1891 in Canajoharie, New York. It manufactured numerous items, including bacon, ham, peanut butter, coffee, strained foods, chopped foods, soups, candy and — importantly for me  — chewing gum.  Just when Beechnut Gum was first marketed is not clear, but its appearance pre-dated a 1931 paperweight that featured an “autogyro,”  an early form of helicopter.

A final memorable candy requires another movement in time, to my late 50’s college days in Milwaukee.  On many occasions going to and from the campus, my route took me past the Ambrosia Chocolate factory, founded by Otto J. Schoenleber in that city in 1894.  The company was named “Ambrosia” to characterize chocolate as “food of the gods.”  The aromas coming from the plant were indeed heavenly and I did all I could to imbibe of them fully.   The experience would lift my whole day.  Under new ownership since 1964,  Ambrosia in Milwaukee got a new plant in 1992 and today is the largest supplier of private label chocolate baking chips in America.

Although this illustrated romp through the candy and gum of yore is meant as a personal memory trip via vintage artifacts, further observations seem appropriate.  First, note that each of these confections is “home grown,” that is, invented right here in America.  Although some of the inventors were immigrants, possibly bring insights to candy-making from their homelands, all these products were “Born in the U.S.A.”   Second, without exception, all are still being sold today, having survived the Great Depression, World War II, succeeding crises and economic turndowns.  In fact, many candies such as Tootsie Roll, Cracker Jack, and Life Savers have achieved a global market, proving that the world has a sweet tooth.

Milwaukee and its Breweries Poking Fun at Beer

As readers of this blog know, I spent a greater part of two decades in Milwaukee and think of it as my home town of cherished memory. I still remember when it was the undisputed brewing capitol of America, “Beer Town USA.”  Although the largely German heritage population took their beer seriously, they could poke fun at themselves, as evidenced by the vintage postcards shown here.

One of my favorites is a card that announces “Touring in Milwaukee,” that shows a mustached gent driving a primitive automobile who is sitting on a crate of beer bottles and whose engine is a beer barrel.   A malt house and a brewery are shown in the distance.  It is particularly notable for its attention to other Milwaukee favorites including cheese (specifically here, limburger), frankfurters, sauerkraut and pretzels.  Those epitomize the town we know and love.

The breweries often issued their own comic cards.  The Miller Brewery, to my mind, was the most creative, poking fun at both Milwaukeeans and their beer.  “The Water Wagon in Milwaukee” is humorous in virtually every aspect, showing a group of townsfolk's riding a barrel of High Life beer while drinking from steins and goblets being filled by a man standing on the back of the vehicle next to a spigot.  As in the earlier postcard, the dachshund is the canine of choice, shown here as the source of locomotion.

The recently invented airplane was another theme for a comic Miller card, with a quaint little driver steering the flying machine quaffing a Miller beer while cruising over the Miller Brewing Company.   Note that the propellers are made of sausages as are the landing struts.  The theme here is “The High Life in Milwaukee.”

Miller Beer issued a card that clearly was aimed at a caricature of the beer-drinking resident of Milwaukee — a gent with a large “beer belly“ and a distinct German accent  drinking from a bottle of Miller High Life and intoning “How Is Dot for High Life Beer.”  Ish dot making fun of the drinking local drinking public?  Yah, dot ish! 

Schlitz beer usually took a more sophisticated approach to its humorous trade cards, featuring spoofs of Shakespeare’s plays.  Above right is a faux scene from Hamlet, Act One, Scene One.  Here Hamlet is in despair because of the death of his father and the quick marriage of his mother to the new king, his uncle (the murderer).  In the play itself the king utters most of the words on the card — except he and the queen are not holding foaming steins of beer, nor does he admonish Hamlet to try a Schlitz.

Shakespeare also is lampooned in a second Schlitz card.  The card depicts a scene from Richard III when Richard has been defeated in a pivotal battle and has been thrown from his steed.  As the Bard wrote it, he cries:  “My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse.”  In the Schlitz version, the king thinks that a glass of beer will do just as well as horse.  One interesting touch is that the Schlitz logo has been attached to the shield of the spearman at top left.

The next Schlitz card is something of a mystery, obviously meant for a Milwaukee audience and carrying local connotations.  It may be referencing the Eagles Club, a national fraternal organization that was very active in Milwaukee, perhaps hailing a national Eagles  convention.  A male figure at lower right is carrying the key to the city.  He is identified as Mayor Becker.  Elected at 29 in 1906, Sheldon Becker was known as the “Boy Mayor of Milwaukee.”  A Republican, he did not grow old in the job, defeated two years later by a Democrat and never ran again.  Thus, the card can be dated 1906-1908.

Joining Miller and Schlitz in promoting humor in advertising, Pabst tended toward more elegant settings for many of its trade cards.  There is implicit humor in a young woman dressed in what looks like a ball gown and pumps wielding a feather duster as if she is the cleaning lady.  The caption reads:  “A little talk over the wires with…”  When opened it appears she is phoning a local beer "stube" that carries a variety of Pabst products.

But Pabst could downright folksy sometimes, as exemplified by this “Greeting from Milwaukee” postcard.   Mimicking the familiar football cheer of the time, it depicted a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon being opened by a waiter for a customer.  As the cap is being lifted, a “Z-i-s” sound is heard.  Then as the carbon monoxide gas explodes out, a “Boom.”  Finally as the gent quaff the brew, a satisfied “Ah.”

The fourth member of the Milwaukee “Big Four” breweries of the time, Blatz, generally was more serious in its advertising.  I have been able to find only one Blatz card in the humor genre and that may have originated from a saloon in St. Paul, called the Corner Buffet.  The card, dated 1905, shows a row of the proverbial bald-headed men watching a burlesque chorus line.  A patron has thrown a bouquet of roses on stage with note, “meet me.”  The message is that kicking about the weather won’t help  but drinking beer from “world famous Blatz Brewery” would help some.

There they are:  Ten examples of how Milwaukee and its brewers could make fun of the city, its citizens, and Milwaukee beers. While engaged in serious competitive merchandising efforts, they also had concluded that smiles sold suds. 

          

That Weird and Wonderful Bottle Maker — Michael Grafton

 

When I see an artisan that truly stands above the crowd in the imagination which he or she brings to the craft, it warrants attention for this blog.  When that individual makes bottles — in this case decanters — and identifies some of them with booze, it can’t be resisted.   That’s what happened when I happened on a ceramic piece by Michael Grafton, an artisan living in Panama City, Florida, where he creates, as his website puts it, “unique sculptural works of art.”  

The particular jug/decanter that got me going is shown above.  It is called the “Chainsaw Whiskey Jug” and appealed to me enormously because of the disembodied hands that are poised to operate this formidable looking tool.  Grafton, as he does frequently, has written his own commentary on this item:   “You might want to be careful drinking from this whiskey jug.   It was not made for those frilly, mellow - wimpy, mild - sweet on the lips - goes down smoothly - properly aged - and bring a smile to your face whiskey blends.    This jug is for that freshly made - 150 proof - rot your gut - put hair on your chest -  burn all the way down - tear you up inside - white lightning moonshine whiskey that you will never forget, until the next morning.  It also works well as chainsaw fuel.   Enjoy.”

Grafton seems somewhat obsessed with whiskey.  Shown above are three jug/decanters all made to resemble the well-recognized label of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey.  Each of them carries its own dubious message.  The one at left, labeled Kool-Aid Jammer conjures up images of James Jones and the mass suicide at Jonestown in Guiana years ago.  The second, “Howling Wolf,” and its “wild nights” motto has me thinking of Lon Chaney Jr. running around as the Wolf Man when the moon is shining just right.    The third is a bit enigmatic.  My fancy is that “Old Yeller” of movie fame has wandered upon a rural still, lapped up some of the “dew,” and gotten sick.

Less whimsical and more to the point is the bottle above that he has christened “Toxic Moonshine Whiskey Bottle.”  He explained:  “The first cup or so of moonshine in a batch is where the impurities (such as the poisonous methanol alcohol) gather. Responsible distillers will toss this away, ensuring a relatively safe product for their customers. However, there are plenty of unscrupulous people in the business. Some moonshiners have been known to include bizarre ingredients to add to their product’s potency, including manure and embalming fluid. To make matters worse, the stuff is usually made in the middle of the woods in less than sterile conditions, the sweet mash drawing all manner of insects and rodents.”

Grafton’s “Toad Whiskey Jug” has a similar moonshine theme.  He postulates the following about its origins:  “Occasionally moonshiners will leave a few jugs of a particularly good batch of whiskey hidden deep in the woods for a full year to let the moonshine age. This brings out a complex bouquet of flavors and tertiary aromas that the high end moonshine connoisseurs will pay top dollar for. But that's only if the forest critters don't get to it first.”

The artist may have come by his clearly deep knowledge of moonshine by his Southern origins.  According to a biography he was getting an degree in architecture at Louisiana Tech, he was hired at the Odell Pottery in Lafayette, Louisiana.   Learning from its found and a master ceramicist, Peter Martin, he stayed seven years there before moving to Panama City where, with a partner, he designed, managed and handled the finances for the highly successful Round Tree Pottery.  In 2009 he started his own art-pottery company. 

Another persistent images for Grafton are undersea scenes — or more likely, undersea nightmares.  Living as he does in a town with a lengthy sand beach on the Gulf of Mexico, ocean-going activities are familiar occupations for him.  My favorite among these bottles is centered on a face of a very wary snorkeler looking at the array of fish and one crab who seems to be blocking his air tube.  All the fish appear to have extraordinary dental appendages.

It is likely that they are smaller, but no less nasty, relatives of a fish ceramic that Grafton dubs “Monster Fish Face Jug.”  He says of it: “You know those peaceful Summer days when you are at the lake, sitting on the dock, reading a good book and dangling your toes in the water. This monster fish loves those kinds of days.”  I am reminded of those Wisconsin “old wives tales” about muskies nipping off toes from feet dangling off docks “up North.”

As proven above, sea creatures other than toothy fish can be a hazard to mankind, as evidence by the Grafton bottle above.  One observer of his ceramics has suggested that the artist offers the viewer an opportunity to get “emotionally involved” with the people he sculpts, but it is up to the viewer to create the back story.  Referencing this double decanter, the observer asked:  “What is going on between this dude and the octopus on his face?”   Whatever it is, the “dude” is unhappy.

A third area of Grafton whimsey are pun-like send ups of familiar terms, legends and sayings.  The decanter above, named “Fish Tank,” employs one of Grafton’s monster fish that has been transformed into a formidable weapon of war.  It bristles with multiple guns and combat ready figures.  In looking over this highly complex ceramic, my favorite touch is the ladder that climbs up the side of the white neck of the jug.

A less threatening vehicle is the artist’s rendition of the fable of the tortoise and the hare.  In this case the rabbit is sitting confidently astride the turtle that is equipped with wheels and what appears to be a explosive propulsion force.   Yet from the position of both contestants on the sculpture, it appears that the turtle would once again cross the finish line first — by a nose.

The final example of Grafton’s fantastic imagination is a marvelous send-up of the feminist mantra:  “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”   This fish — evidently a male fish — not only needs but actually has a bicycle and seems to be thoroughly enjoying the experience.   Clearly this is a “must have item” for every male chauvinist on your Christmas list.  

Note:  Michael Grafton has a webpage on “blogspot,” the same free weblog publishing site that hosts “Bottles, Booze and Back Stories.”  The “graftonpottery@blogspot.com is his web address. The site contains dozens of pictures of his creations for sale.  Grafton also accepts custom orders.  When the “Chainsaw Whiskey Jug” recently came up for auction on eBay, it sold for $280 — a very reasonable price, it seems to me, for a truly unique bottle.