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JGPX-1702 The Drake Family​

Feb. 1942. Weslaco, Texas. Fiddler Nathan Drake, Jasper "Sleepy" Drake and big brother Weldon Drake​

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Bessie Love (1898-1986) was an American actress who was popular in the silent film era. She began her career in 1915 and rose to fame in the 1920s, appearing in numerous films, including "The King of Kings" (1927) and "The Broadway Melody" (1929), for which she won a special honorary Academy Award. She continued acting in talkies but her popularity waned, and she eventually moved to England, where she worked in film and television until her death. Despite her decline in fame, Love remains a beloved figure of the silent era, known for her charming on-screen presence.

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Willie Reginald Bray, a British eccentric, was born in 1879 in Forest Hill, London.

So what's the story here?

After purchasing and studying the regulations of a Post Office Guide, he decided to test the rules and regulations to their limits. He sent unwrapped items through the post, attaching address labels to items such as a turnip, onions, a bowler hat, a bicycle pump, shirt cuffs, a frying pan, seaweed, a clothes brush, an old slipper, a half-smoked cigar, and even a rabbit's skull. He then posted his dog, an Irish Terrier.

He challenged the Royal Mail in other ways too. One decree aimed at Post Office staff stated that "letters must be delivered as addressed." This prompted Willie Reginald Bray to post letters with addresses written backward. He addressed one letter to "The proprietor of the most remarkable hotel in the world on the road between Santa Cruz and Santa Jose, California." On a picture postcard showing 'Old Man of Hoy', on the Orkney Islands, the address was written as, "To a resident nearest to this rock." Other addresses were written in rhyme.

He eventually had himself delivered. This photo shows Willie Reginald Bray being delivered by registered post to his bewildered father.

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'Old Man of Hoy', (Rock) on the Orkney Islands

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New York circa 1934. "Margaret Bourke-White with her camera atop a stainless steel eagle projecting from the sixty-first floor of the Chrysler Building, overlooking Manhattan and the Hudson River." Gelatin silver print from a photograph by Bourke-White's darkroom assistant Oscar Graubner. Her backdrop is Rockefeller Center's RCA Building, completed in 1933.


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RadishRose said:
New York circa 1934. "Margaret Bourke-White with her camera atop a stainless steel eagle projecting from the sixty-first floor of the Chrysler Building, overlooking Manhattan and the Hudson River." Gelatin silver print from a photograph by Bourke-White's darkroom assistant Oscar Graubner. Her backdrop is Rockefeller Center's RCA Building, completed in 1933.


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No way would I do that.
 
Imagine a baseball player so eccentric that he would dash off the field mid-game to chase fire trucks. Welcome to the life of Rube Waddell, an early 1900s baseball legend whose antics are as fascinating as his athletic prowess.

Waddell's unpredictable nature made him a magnet for chaos. Opposing fans discovered his love for puppies and began bringing them to games, knowing he couldn't resist abandoning the pitcher's mound to play with the adorable distractions.

Lee Allen, a renowned sportswriter, once chronicled Waddell's 1903 season, which reads more like a Hollywood script than a sports biography. Waddell started the year sleeping in a Camden firehouse and ended it tending bar in Wheeling. In between, he won 22 games for the Philadelphia Athletics, starred in a melodrama where he improvised his lines, got married and separated, saved a woman from drowning, accidentally shot a friend, and even got bitten by a lion.

His quirks didn't end there. In 1905, his roommate and catcher, Ossee Schreckengost, demanded a clause in Waddell's contract to prevent him from eating crackers in bed—a deal-breaker born out of sharing the same bed during road trips. That same year, Waddell injured himself trying to destroy a straw hat, costing him a World Series appearance. Despite this, he clinched a Triple Crown in pitching and would have claimed the Cy Young award, had it existed, over the legendary Cy Young himself.

Waddell's life, marked by brilliance and absurdity, ended at just 37 years old due to tuberculosis, fittingly on April Fool’s Day, 1914.


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MarkinPhx said:
Imagine a baseball player so eccentric that he would dash off the field mid-game to chase fire trucks. Welcome to the life of Rube Waddell, an early 1900s baseball legend whose antics are as fascinating as his athletic prowess.

Waddell's unpredictable nature made him a magnet for chaos. Opposing fans discovered his love for puppies and began bringing them to games, knowing he couldn't resist abandoning the pitcher's mound to play with the adorable distractions.

Lee Allen, a renowned sportswriter, once chronicled Waddell's 1903 season, which reads more like a Hollywood script than a sports biography. Waddell started the year sleeping in a Camden firehouse and ended it tending bar in Wheeling. In between, he won 22 games for the Philadelphia Athletics, starred in a melodrama where he improvised his lines, got married and separated, saved a woman from drowning, accidentally shot a friend, and even got bitten by a lion.

His quirks didn't end there. In 1905, his roommate and catcher, Ossee Schreckengost, demanded a clause in Waddell's contract to prevent him from eating crackers in bed—a deal-breaker born out of sharing the same bed during road trips. That same year, Waddell injured himself trying to destroy a straw hat, costing him a World Series appearance. Despite this, he clinched a Triple Crown in pitching and would have claimed the Cy Young award, had it existed, over the legendary Cy Young himself.

Waddell's life, marked by brilliance and absurdity, ended at just 37 years old due to tuberculosis, fittingly on April Fool’s Day, 1914.


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He certainly was a unique individual. It seems he lived his short life to the fullest.
 
MarkinPhx said:
Imagine a baseball player so eccentric that he would dash off the field mid-game to chase fire trucks. Welcome to the life of Rube Waddell, an early 1900s baseball legend whose antics are as fascinating as his athletic prowess.

Waddell's unpredictable nature made him a magnet for chaos. Opposing fans discovered his love for puppies and began bringing them to games, knowing he couldn't resist abandoning the pitcher's mound to play with the adorable distractions.

Lee Allen, a renowned sportswriter, once chronicled Waddell's 1903 season, which reads more like a Hollywood script than a sports biography. Waddell started the year sleeping in a Camden firehouse and ended it tending bar in Wheeling. In between, he won 22 games for the Philadelphia Athletics, starred in a melodrama where he improvised his lines, got married and separated, saved a woman from drowning, accidentally shot a friend, and even got bitten by a lion.

His quirks didn't end there. In 1905, his roommate and catcher, Ossee Schreckengost, demanded a clause in Waddell's contract to prevent him from eating crackers in bed—a deal-breaker born out of sharing the same bed during road trips. That same year, Waddell injured himself trying to destroy a straw hat, costing him a World Series appearance. Despite this, he clinched a Triple Crown in pitching and would have claimed the Cy Young award, had it existed, over the legendary Cy Young himself.

Waddell's life, marked by brilliance and absurdity, ended at just 37 years old due to tuberculosis, fittingly on April Fool’s Day, 1914.


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He looks like a happy guy. I love him now. I like the way he combed his hair, too.
 
WW2, 19th August 1941. Operation Leg.

Six Bristol Blenheim RAF bombers, accompanied by a sizable fighter escort, flew to Saint-Omer in German-occupied France. Their initial mission: to parachute in prosthetic legs for the captured RAF pilot, Douglas Bader.

In December 1931, while attempting aerobatics, Royal Air Force Pilot Douglas Bader crashed and lost both his legs. Despite being medically discharged against his will in 1932, he then rejoined the RAF in November 1939. Bader shot down around 24 enemy aircraft before his capture in 1941.

Special delivery for Douglas Bader:

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On 9th August 1941, alone over France in his Spitfire Mk VA, Bader spotted three pairs of Bf 109s and dived towards them. Known for getting in close, it’s believed he collided with one after destroying another. With part of his fuselage and tail fin missing, Bader bailed out, leaving one of his prosthetic legs trapped in the cockpit. He was then captured by the Germans.

Douglas Bader was taken to a hospital in Saint-Omer. Later, Colonel Adolf Galland and his pilots invited Bader to their airfield and received him as a friend. Adolf Galland notified the British of his damaged leg and offered them safe passage to drop off a replacement. Hermann Göring gave the green light for the operation. The RAF was allowed to drop a new prosthetic leg by parachute to St Omer, a Luftwaffe base in occupied France.

Not wanting to miss an opportunity after dropping off the leg, the RAF then flew on to Gosnay Power Station so they could bomb it unopposed.

Actor Kenneth More as Douglas Bader, meeting Canadians at an airfield in England. A colourised clip from the movie, ''Reach For The Sky'' (1956)
Douglas Robert Steuart Bader, born 21 February 1910 St John's Wood, London.
Knighted 1976.
Died 5 September 1982

 
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Lupe Velez, early 1930s. Dubbed "The Mexican Spitfire," she starred in both English and Spanish language films. Her personal life was as explosive as her screen persona, leaving a trail of failed marriages and romances. In 1944, at 36 years of age, Velez killed herself by overdosing on Seconal, a popularly prescribed sleeping pill.


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Christine Granville, also known as Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, “The Silent Killer”

Born in Warsaw, Poland, on 1 May 1908, she died on 15 June 1952 (aged 44) in Lexham Gardens, Earls Court, London. Her father was Count Jerzy Skarbek, a Polish aristocrat, and her mother was Stefania Goldfeder, from a Jewish banking family.

Christine Granville was awarded the British "George Medal" for gallantry and the French "Croix de Guerre" for acts of heroism involving combat with enemy forces. She also received an OBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire), a British order of chivalry. Winston Churchill once remarked that she was his “favourite spy.”

James Bond novelist, Ian Fleming, is said to have based part of the character Vesper Lynd on Christine Granville.

Christine Granville, also known as "The Spy Who Loved."


Christine, was part of the British "Special Operations Executive" (SOE) during World War II.
Seen here sitting next to a water duct near a bridge she had helped to blow up.

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Christina, medals & awards:
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The character, Vesper Lynd (Christine Granville?)

 

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