Seen yesterday

Yesterday morning I was driving east on Harbord near Bathurst. A 40ish man in a motorized wheelchair was on the sidewalk on the south side of the street. He turned the wheelchair to face a crosswalk, and then backed it up for some reason -- right into a ditch.

I slowed the car, intending to help him. Before I could act, he hopped off the wheelchair and down into the ditch, lifted the heavy wheelchair out of the ditch (something I wasn't sure I was strong enough to do myself), then walked briskly around it to inspect for damage. Satisfied that the wheelchair was OK, he got back into it and went on his way.

I'm still a tad perplexed.

Mil Lel squared circles

These two postcards from Mil Lel puzzled me for a few minutes. The postmark is only recorded from 1899 to 1902. But the 1d red perf 12 x 11.5 was issued in February 1904, so these had to be later than that. I couldn't quite make out the date on either cancel until I noticed the odd "1909/1910" notation at the bottom of one card. That was the clue I needed: the cancels are both dated JA 1/10 (January 1, 1910) -- by far the latest recorded date for these.

The cards are neat -- both show pictures of the main street of Mt Gambier, one looking east and the other looking west, mailed by the same person to the same recipient at the same time. Mil Lel was a satellite post office outside of Mt Gambier. There was a bicycle mail service between the two towns.

My best eBay find in quite a while!

Don Adams dies at 82

Bob Roman had the best, briefest, obit:

It would have been nice if he'd made it to 83.
"Missed it by that much."

(Of course, that would have been funnier if it had been 86 rather than 83, but I laughed anyway. Bob also missed it by thaaaat much.)