Saturday Morning, January 11, 2025
Long Ago and Far Away
He reached out and stroked the camel's neck. Almost there my friend. Almost. The desert caravan pushed forward, hidden by night, cradled by starlight. In several hours Orion would slip below the western horizon and the eastern sky would announce the new day's predawn glow. Just enough time to reach the Mahkfia oasis, he thought.
Sheet tin weather vane. Leo rising, exactly like his other eleven counterpart zodiac signs, bookmarking the Great Year, defining each civilization on our planet. 33" W. 20" H.
Group of Pawnee Chiefs and Warriors stereoscopic card. Published by Wm. Jackson (1843-1942), Omaha, Nebraska. From his Photographs of Indians series, ca. 1880
Nestled in among inhospitable terrain, the oasis offered safety and rest. The lure of water and food was a welcome respite, but his favorite part was the characters he met. Lawmen. Royals. Spice traders. Adventurers. Charlatans. Confidence men. Stevedores. Always a camel salesman or two, and the couriers, the untouchables who slid silently across the sand carrying diplomatic papers and money. Everyone knew everyone else's business. This, a community. The air filled with foreign languages but never did this difference hinder communication. Everyone had a place at the table, a story to tell. All were welcome, home away from home.
We Are the World
What defines a community? A distant oasis 4,000 years ago? Yes. Most certainly. A microcosm. It is eternal. Groups of people gathered together with an underlying fraternal theme. Let and let live. Combined, it is a force never to deny. Daily life is improved, anything and everything is achievable.
Yokosuka Japanese Brides' School. During the Korean War, many GI's visited Japan for R & R. Naturally, the young Americans and Japanese girls were attracted to one another. Marriages soon followed. The American Red Cross, anticipating cultural differences, organized Bride Schools to educate the girls before their first step into America. This Graduation Program is dated 1 November 1956. Wartime marriages are common. The defeated country has a deficit in males and an abundance in females. A mathematical certainty.
For this to exist, there must be commerce, the ability to function with one another, to earn a living. Without such a thread, the fabric would unravel. Look at this spot. People on-the-road find solace in a remote oasis. A watering hole, the nucleus. No one muddies the water, it never enters one's mind, so sustenance thrives. Networking. Trading. Bartering. Everyone understands this structure. Whether an oasis, or something much larger, if everyone honors the system, all benefit. To echo a cliché: All boats rise with the tide. On the sea or on the sand.
Stereoscopic card - - Franklin Institute Novelties Exhibition, September 15 to October 21, 1885. Short-lived, the exhibition was a failure. The building sat at the corner of 33rd and Market Streets adjacent to the PRR station. The latter was built for transportation to the Centennial Exhibition.
On the Sunny Side of the Street
Meet Bill Levitt and Benjamin Fairless. Mid-twentieth century entrepreneurs who transformed our Bucks County landscape into a modern-sized oasis. Post World War II, these men co-joined to create a most fantastic project imaginable. Benjamin led US Steel's quest to build a steel plant along the Delaware River. The project was immense, requiring thousands of workers to achieve the dream. Concurrently, Bill Levitt, who conceived the concept of mass-produced housing, turned farmer's fields into suburbia, aka, Levittown. Houses. Streets. Churches. Schools. Fire companies. Shopping centers, even bowling alleys. A perfect balance. Symbiotic. Commerce the catalyst. Community the happenstance. The ingredients were perfect.
Hand-made Japanese doll by our wartime bride. Her work carries the traditions and customs of her world. Another inhabitant of the Mahkfia oasis. Beside her sits a Shamisen. 18" H.
Selection of Japanese doll crafting books.
A post war boom thrust this nation forward. The dividends are difficult to calculate. Higher levels of education. The advancement of modern conveniences. These are the people who drove the auto business, built our universities, even landed a man on the moon. Strange though, as thousands of years have passed, Orion keeps his watch over us, rising and setting in the night sky. Whether parked in a 1957 Chevy convertible at the drivein, or trekking across a star-soaked desert landscape 4,000 years ago, the formula for human success never varies.
Midday at the Oasis
So, all we need is a basis for commerce and a group of people with a common interest to assemble. Sounds quite familiar. But our world is guided by the sun's path, rising by 7 AM and setting by 5 PM. In between, anything and everything happens. Trading. Bartering. Bidding. No camel trading, well, perhaps a little. Adventures in the human experience unparallel. Comfort in consistency. Here, in our Buckingham oasis.
Doors open at 8 AM. Auction starts at 9 AM. PA AU 1265L [bb]