Postcards from the edge

I live in what I consider to be a prime estate sale neighborhood: mostly ranch houses built in the 1950s and ’60s, lots of retired military folks (military = well-traveled = interesting estate sale fodder) and doctors (already discussed what makes their sales generally worth hitting). If I didn't live here already, I would totally stalk my own hood. So when a sale crops up, I tend to get irrationally territorial—like, who do you people think you are coming to my turf, trying to buy my neighbors' stuff? I haven't called the cops on the estate salers who park in the street (you are so busted! no one is allowed to park in the street here!) but I've been sorely tempted.

Like at this sale, at a ranch house set way back from the road, tantalizingly obscured by a grove of oaks—how many times have I jogged past it, biked past it, walked the dog past it and wondered what treasure lies within?

Well, I got a pretty good haul, including a box of San Antonio postcards. Oversized and rounded at the edges, with saturated colors and brightly colored borders, they were printed in McAllen, TX, by James Hanshaw Postcards. Not sure when but I'm going to guess the ’70s. (I might just be saying that because this image of La Villita is reminding me of the famous chase scene in The French Connection.) James would have benefited from the services of a proofreader but doesn't that just make the idea of San Antonio—7th largest city in the U.S., number one tourist destination in TX, simultaneously disrespected and embraced for its core lameness—as the city that "spans the centurys [sic]" all the more endearing?

I don't know what I'm going to do with all these cards exactly (a feeling I often experience post-sale); if you'd like me to mail you one while we still have a postal service, lemme know.