Halloween 2024 -- October 31, 2024

Scariest Vintage Halloween Ads

Happy Halloween, everyone. 

This undated Coca-Cola ad features a smiling pumpkin.

Halloween Carnival -- October 30, 2024

San Francisco Examiner, 31-October-1924

Halloween is coming.

This looks like fun. The Chutes was a popular San Francisco amusement park. In 1902 the park was located at Ocean Beach in the Richmond District. 

Halloween Frolic Dansant -- October 29, 2024

San Francisco Examiner, 31-October-1924

Halloween is coming.

This frolic at San Franciscan's Mandarin Cafe looks like fun. "Dansant" means "dancing."

I Voted -- October 28, 2024

I went to the gym at Saint Peter's church and submitted my absentee ballot. 

Open the Great Highway - NO on K -- October 28, 2024

If I still lived in San Francisco, I would vote no on Proposition K. Closing the Great Highway on weekends is inconvenient for a lot of people who need to cross the Sunset District and don't want to get stuck in traffic on Nineteenth Avenue or have to navigate from Sunset to Chain of Lakes Drive via Lincoln. If they closed it permanently, it would make a bigger mess. People could walk on the path or Ocean Beach. If the Great Highway had closed while I was caregiving for my mother and my uncle, I would have had a nervous breakdown.

Would YOU Put the Lights Out for Lights Out? -- October 27, 2024

Winona Daily Times, 17-February-1947

Halloween is coming.

Yesterday I wrote a bit about Arch Oboler's radio horror show Lights Out:

The Pneumatic Rolling-Sphere Carrier Delusion: Turn Your Lights Out -- October 26, 2024

I later came across this item, which I like. It advertised an episode starring Boris Karloff.

"Would YOU Put the Lights Out for Lights Out?" 

Turn Your Lights Out -- October 26, 2024

Oakland Tribune, 02-February-1972

Halloween is coming.

When I was a kid, Gene Nelson on KSFO played old radio shows at 10 pm on weeknights. I would be in bed by ten so I could listen every night unless the Giants' game ran late. I had to keep the radio's volume turned down very low because my dad was a light sleeper. 

Nelson often played episodes of great horror shows. Arch Oboler's Lights Out was hard to come by, but it had many wonderful stories including "The Chicken Heart" and "The Dark." 

When I took public speaking in high school, I reenacted Bill Cosby's routine about "The Chicken Heart." 

On this night, Nelson also played an episode of The Inner Sanctum, which was not as much fun as Lights Out, but which had one of the best openings of any radio show.

My wife and I both miss Dinner Jazz on KJAZ.

New Cat #122 -- October 25, 2024

Halloween is coming.

I took the photo on 20-October-2024.

Comic Book -- Tales From the Crypt -- October 23, 2024

mutoscope.listal.com

Halloween is coming. 

EC was famous for its horror comics, The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear and Tales From the Crypt. This fellow is suffering from claustrophobia or something. 

Pulp -- Terror Tales -- October 22, 2024

coverbrowser.com

Halloween is coming.

Let's review this cover of Terror Tales:

-- Weird lettering in title, Check.

-- scary person behind that curtain, ... Check.

-- hand holding knife, ... Check.

-- which is dripping with blood,...   Check.

-- and scantily clad woman. Check.

This should work.

Peace is Possible -- October 7, 2024

afsc.org

A year after Hamas invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip, murdering about 325 people and kidnapping about 240, Israel is still attacking Gaza. Israel has just sent ground troops into southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah which has been firing rockets and missiles into northern Israel. More than 40,000 Gazans have died. Most of them had nothing to do with Hamas. This has to stop.

Feast of Saint Francis, 2024 -- October 4, 2024

Today is the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. I took the photo at Saint Veronica's parish in South San Francisco on 24-February-2019.

"Lord make me an instrument of your peace;

Where there is hatred let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

"O divine master grant that I may

Not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life."

Harvey Kurtzman 100 -- October 3, 2024

coverbrowser.com

Cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman was born 100 years ago today, on 02-October-1924. He was the creator and first editor of Mad Magazine. 

October 2024 Version of the Cable Car Home Page -- October 1, 2024

I just put the October 2024 version of my Cable Car Home Page on the server:

http://www.cable-car-guy.com/

It includes some new items:

1. Picture of the Month: This portion of an ad for the Kelley Steiger and Company clothing store at Dodge and Fourteenth Steets, says that "Parties from out of town will find it convenient to take the Dodge Street line of cable cars, which run directly by our store, stopping at the post office." (source: Omaha Daily Bee, 08-January-1888).
2. On the Other Cities page: A ten year update about the Cable Tramway Company of Omaha, including several contemporary newspaper items
3. On the More Muni Photos page: Muni's 2024 Heritage Weekend
4. Added News item about Powell Street cars turning back because of a police action at the Powell Street station

Ten years ago this month (October 2014):

1. Picture of the Month: New Orleans Canal Street streetcar 2018 outbound at Royal Street in July, 2014.
2. On the Miscellany page: General Beauregard's Cable Car, a new article about an experimental line in New Orleans. Includes lots of photos of streetcars and other items of interest from my recent visit to the Crescent City
3. On the Who page and the News: The passing of economist and cable car historian George W Hilton
4. On the Horse Car Home Page: We visited History Park at Kelley Park in San Jose and saw Central Railroad 7, an 1863 San Francisco horse car built in New York by John Stephenson and shipped around the Horn.

Twenty years ago this month (October 2004):

1. Picture of the Month: The header of a Rider Alert card issued during the 2002 Powell/Market Turntable Replacement. The other side was in English. The Bay/Taylor turntable is being replaced this month.
2. Added the October installment of Val Lupiz's quarterly column, Tales From the Grip
3. Thanks to information from Rich Fill, updated the article about the Park Hill Incline, a funicular in Yonkers.
4. Migrated one item from the Cable Car Museum site:
   • Added "The Wire Rope Street Railways of San Francisco, California," an 1881 article by Andrew Hallidie from the Scientific American Supplement, collected by Val Lupiz, with an introduction by Walter Rice.
5. On the page about the 2002 Powell/Market Street Turntable Replacement page: Scans of a rider alert card in English and Chinese. Also a News item about the current Bay/Taylor turntable replacement.
6. Added News and Bibliography items about some outages that occurred in September
7. Added more Chronology items

In January 2024 I started on a long overdue process of cleaning things up on my site. I started with the development pages. Actually, I guess I started the year before with making most thumbnails 200 pixels instead of 100.

Coming in October 2024: On the Cable Car Businesses page: More items about businesses named after cable cars

The Cable Car Home Page now has a Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/CableCarHomePage/

The Cable Car Home Page also has an Instagram page:
https://www.instagram.com/cable_car_guy/

Joe Thompson
The Cable Car Home Page (updated 01-October-2024)
http://www.cable-car-guy.com/
San Francisco Bay Ferryboats (updated 31-July-2024)
http://www.cable-car-guy.com/ferry/
Park Trains and Tourist Trains (updated 29-February-2024)
http://www.cable-car-guy.com/ptrain/
The Pneumatic Rolling-Sphere Carrier Delusion (updated spasmodically)
http://cablecarguy.blogspot.com
The Big V Riot Squad (updated obsessively)
http://bigvriotsquad.blogspot.com/

Jimmy Carter 100 -- October 1, 2024

Happy 100th birthday to former President Jimmy Carter. He is the first US President to reach that age. I voted for him in 1980. His basic decency caused him to make some mistakes as president, but he has been our greatest ex-president. He has acted as an actual Christian. He has helped to create peace agreements. The Carter Center promotes human rights. He has worked steadily for Habitat for Humanity.  He taught Sunday School until recently. I'll bet he was good at it. 

I am praying for President Carter to get his wish; he wants to live long enough to vote for Kamala Harris.