Tucked inside a box lot I got at auction this week was a small ziplock bag with a pink ribbon stapled to a green sheet of paper with the words “Anti-depression Kit Contains:”

Interesting, I thought. It obviously was a joke of some sort, because you can’t find (or buy) a kit to relieve depression. Medicines can control clinical depression, but for the “down in the dumps” feeling we all get sometimes, changing our outlook can be the cure.

How we feel about ourselves can set our moods and our relationships. I truly believe that. If we’re sour, we act sourly and treat our friends and loved ones that way. We do have the ability to pull back and remind ourselves to act positively and civilly. We don’t have to be negative; the ability to determine our emotions is one element of control that we do have.

This makeshift anti-depression kit – and it looked truly handmade – was obviously meant as a joke and I took it that way. As I read the green sheet and looked at the items inside, I realized that there were some truths in the message.

This is what the kit contained:

An ERASER, so you can make all your mistakes disappear.

A PENNY, so you will never have to say, “I’m broke.”

A MARBLE, in case someone says, “You’ve lost all your marbles.”

A RUBBERBAND, to stretch yourself beyond your limits. (Unfortunately, the rubber band was brittle and broken – the more reason for us to rely on ourselves rather than a prop.)

A STRING, to tie things together when everything falls apart.

A HUG and a KISS, to remind you that someone, somewhere cares about YOU!

I couldn’t find anything to represent a hug and a kiss in the kit, but a website I visited mentioned Hershey’s candies as the token. I guess the previous owner of the kit ate the Hershey’s Kisses.

This kit bears the sentiment of the countless emails (many of which I delete) I get from folks. Every now and then, though, I get one that I can relate to and use. Do you? What do you do with them? Forward them? Take them to heart? Delete them?

I suppose for anyone having a bad day, receiving an anti-depression kit or a care message can make their day and boost their spirits. Maybe that’s why people feel inclined to send them and forward them.

Every now and then, we all need a little something-something.

You can make these kits on your own, write your own messages and give them out as fun gifts. One website offered some other items to put in them (Photo at left is by Ben Heine):

Candle, to light up the darkness.

Tissue, for drying your tears.

Toothpick, to pick out the good in others including yourself.

Cotton ball, for the rough roads ahead.

Confetti, to add some sparkle to your life.

Lifesaver, to remind you of the many times others need your help and you need theirs.

Another site offered kits for all kinds of occasions – back to school, boot camp, baseball, bike riders, why I love you, unemployment – while another suggested some of the same for people undergoing chemotherapy. Not a kit, but to make you smile, take a look at these YouTube videos of a laughing baby and a baby giving you the evil look.

I came across the anti-depression kit as a “sanity-saving” tip on this website for teachers, among some other things they do to keep sane. Imagine being in a classroom all day with kindergarten or grade-school children.

Maybe the anti-depression kit – and those emails – can induce a sense of serenity. How do you fight the doldrums?

Some of these must be in the realm of hoarding rather than collecting. At auction recently, a large container of cocktail stirrers or swizzle sticks caught my eye. There must have been a hundred or more of the plastic items, all in bright neon colors. They looked to be used, likely taken home from a restaurant or bar after a drink or two.

My mind couldn’t grasp the point of collecting them, so I asked the buyer standing next to me. What do you do with a bunch of stirrers? Sit them on your bar in your basement, he said. Another buyer concurred, adding, “I wouldn’t use them, though.”

Neither would I. Would you?

The stirrers sold for $15. Intrigued, I Googled to see if they were auctioned on eBay, where you can buy or sell anything. And I did find them: a vintage lot of 21 sold for 99 cents. 18 sold for $4.99. 40 sold  for $10. 59 new ones (clear with colored drinks at the top) sold for $61.

Under the keyword “swizzle sticks,” they sold for far more: 126 for $79. 78 for $30. 250 for $26. 40 Las Vegas sticks from someone’s grandmother’s collection from the 1950s-1970s for $52.

I was dumbfounded. Who collects swizzle sticks, I wondered.

I found out that many people do. And there’s even an association, the International Swizzle Stick Collectors Association, founded in 1985 in Canada. The association is holding a convention in Las Vegas in September. Here’s a 2001 interview with the co-founder Ray Hoare, who says he has more than 50,000 of them. He collects them, he says, because it’s fun.

 The first swizzle stick was patented in 1935 by a man named Jay Sindler who wanted an easy way to remove an olive from his drink without using his fingers. He called his new invention the “Swizzle Stick;” it was made of wood with a spear at the end. A Washington Post story from this year noted that the “real” swizzle stick comes from a tree in the Caribbean and is used to stir drinks called swizzles. They go as far back as the 18^th century.

The most obnoxious swizzle sticks I found were what most would call black memorabilia: Six vintage “Zulu-Lulu” stirrers – “a conversation starter,” one eBay seller noted, “politically incorrect,” another said – which sold for 1 cent up to $9.99 on eBay. They showed a naked silhouette of an African woman with plump breasts at 15 that sagged as she aged. They were attached to a card that pronounced: “Will make your guests bust out laughing!” “Look what a few years do to Lulu!: Nifty at 15; Spiffy at 20; Sizzling at 25; Perky at 30; Declining at 35; Droopy at 40.”

These tasteless stirrers were made in Hong Kong and were sold as a party gag. They are part of the stereotypical portrayal of black women as jezebels and sex objects. This blogger at Kitsch-Slapped wrote about why she wanted one because they were so horrific, crossed both race and gender lines, and reminded women of what men thought of them.

As for the plastic stirrers at auction, I recall bringing some home when I used to hang out at clubs, but I’d finally throw them away. I’m sure many others have done the same. If I’d kept them, it would’ve been called hoarding, like taking home packets of sweeteners from restaurants.

A couple years ago, I was at an auction preview for the sale of silver coffee sets, paintings, books and furniture from the estate of a woman who lived on the Main Line, a wealthy enclave just outside Philadelphia. In the back yard, spread out over several tables, were about a thousand packets of sweeteners. The folks from the auction house didn’t know what to make of it. 

The woman didn’t need to take the sweeteners; she could afford to buy her own. I guess she couldn’t break the habit of just picking up a few packets and dropping them in her purse. I didn’t attend the auction itself, so I’m not sure if anyone bought the stash.

Was that a collection? I think not.

One such mystery captivated me at auction this week. I had missed the two items on the auction table on my first walk-through, both lying almost hidden beneath glassware, Hummel-type figurines and a cane. 

One was a dainty pink hankie of sheer fabric with embroidered flowers, and American and French flags. The other was also sheer fabric with a flower; embroidered across the top were the words “To My Dear Sister,” with a note card inside. When I turned that one over, I saw that it was a postcard, but with no stamp. It did have a handwritten note and address:

Dear Sis:
Accept this Souvenir Card
from your brother
as a token of
Remembrance.

Your brother,
Philip

The sister lived in Greensboro, Md. The note card simply read: “To Josephine from Philip F. Vonville.” Commercially printed on the card were the words “Souvenir from France.”

I can only assume that Philip was a soldier (the items had a patriotic feel to them), and possibly was serving in France during one of the world wars. I could find nothing else at the auction bearing his name or showing any connection to either of them – although I’m sure there must have been other items there from either his life or hers.

But there together, these gifts were a sweet reminder of a strong bond between brother and sister. They were very sentimental. I wasn’t around when the items were auctioned, so I’m not sure what they went for. Likely, they were sold as part of a lot with the other items near them on the auction table.  

For me, one of the allures of auctions are mysteries like these. Who were these people? What kind of life did they lead? Was pink Josephine’s favorite color?

So I plugged Philip’s name in Google, and a Philip F. Vonville did come up. He was listed in the honor roll of men and women from Caroline County, Md., who were killed during World War I. I found another Philip Vonville from World War II, who apparently fought bravely in the battle for Okinawa. He, though, was from Columbus, OH.

Which are you, Philip? I’d love to know.

By sending this memento to his sister, Vonville was doing what countless other soldiers have done through many wars, along with sending home letters. (I wrote a post a couple months ago about a doctor’s letters to his family, the most wrenching of which were the conditions he saw at one of Hitler’s concentration camps.) It’s their reciprocal version of families sending care packages and letters to loved ones fighting away from home.

During the Civil War, families and soldiers exchanged carte de visites, portraits of themselves on small cards measuring 2¼” by 3¾”. (An aside: Practically everyone had these portraits made, including Sojourner Truth, who sold hers to raise money to support her abolition work. On the front of her carte de visite: “I sell the shadow to support the substance.”

During World War I, soldiers sent home what became known as “sweetheart jewelry,” pieces that they either bought or made while in the trenches (called “trench art“). The jewelry was a necklace, bracelet or pin made of such materials as silver, wood or pearl, and representing a branch of the military. It was given as a sign of love and remembrance. Most – like the hankie and post card – had a patriotic theme.

I had never heard of sweetheart jewely. Here are some examples on this website, which has pieces for sale.

In my Google research, I came across one WWII veteran who told of the items he sent home to his younger brothers: British binoculars, a German helmet and bayonet, and a swastika arm band from Normandy. I also found a story about a sister who sold medals and other items her brother had left to her after he, a British soldier, was killed in Afghanistan in 2008. She used the money to pay for a Mediterranean cruise, according to several newspaper accounts.

That’s a far cry from Philip and Josephine. What mementoes have your soldiers sent to you? I’d love to hear about them.

I’ve found a few in box lots at auction, but none to compare to the vintage ones I saw last week at an exhibit at Longwood Gardens, a natural paradise. I asked my sister blogger Fatimah Ali, who writes the Healthy Southern Comforts blog, to join me for an early-evening excursion to revel in the smell of lavender. Once a month during the exhibit, Longwood Gardens offers “Fragrant Friday.” 

The exhibit is called “Making Scents: The Art  and Passion of Fragrance,” which tells the story of what flowers produced perfumes, how the fragrances were created and who made them, some names I readily recognized – Chanel, Schiaparelli, Christina Dior, Lalique, Coty, Lanvin, Guerlain, Jean Patou.

The exhibit has been there since April – and will remain until Nov. 21 – and each month it highlights a particular scent. July’s lavender is one of my favorites. We sampled lavender lemonade – delicious! – made lavender-infused eye pillows for homeless women and pouches for their children, and brought home a small lavender plant.

On lavender-colored paper, we wrote a description of the memory of a scent. Mine: When I was working, a staffer and I would breathe in whiffs of lavender when we felt stress coming on, precipitated by someone in the office who had gotten on our last nerve. It beat counting to 10 or screaming.

At the exhibit, we also created our own fragrance: Mine was a combination of aldehyde, jasmine (another of my favorite scents) and vanilla. The scent was captured on a scratch card, which produced only a hint of my first perfume. It’ll take a little while, one of the Longwood people assured us. Three days later, and now I can smell the scent. Still can’t wear it, though. 

The most exciting part of the exhibit was a display of beautifully designed perfume bottles. You can see photos in the slideshow below.

One of the names I was looking for and found was the famous fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. One of her most famous perfumes –Le Roy Soleil, whose bottle was designed by Salvador Dali in 1946 – was not there. But a bottle made in its likeness by Phillipe Romano was (you can see it in the slideshow). Both bottles were based on the Dali painting “Le Roy Soleil” of  France’s Louis XIV, the Sun King.

One of Schiaparelli’s most famous perfumes was “Shocking” (1936), the bottle in the shape of a woman’s torso and the box a hot pink. It was said to have been copied from the dummy of Mae West’s tailor (Schiaparelli designed for West), according to wikipedia. I have one of those bottles, got it at an auction as part of a lot. There is some perfume in it and Schiaparelli’s name on the back. The bottom appeared to be missing, along with the flowers covering the cap.

That lot came with several other bottles, most of them miniatures and some unmarked. I have – and have had – a few others that were marked: Givenchy, Bijan, Richard Hudnut, Corday, Lows French cologne, Alfred Wright, Max Factor.

I don’t intentionally collect the bottles, but I have a friend who does. And she’s not alone. Perfume bottles are very collectible, and miniatures are said to be especially enticing. Lalique is considered the most valuable, according to an article on the Telegraph Media Group site, which also quoted a specialist at Christie’s who said that Rene Lalique was the first to design bottles for commercial use.

Individual bottles and collections can be valued into the hundreds and thousands of dollars, but I’m sure most people collect them for their beauty. Lynn Dralle, who calls herself the Queen of Auctions, suggested that you buy a lot of perfume bottles at one time when you’re at an estate or house sale to get the best prices – and remember not to bypass bathrooms ’cause that’s where the bottles are. She has links to ones she’s bought and sold on Ebay (prices were not in the stratosphere, but every little bit adds up, I suppose).

For prices in the stratosphere, check out these bottles sold at an auction at a convention of the International Perfume Bottle Association this year (and estimated prices of others at the auction).

Want to see a really expensive one: Take a look at this 1870 engraved Guerlain perfume bottle that sold this year for $55,000 in France.

I was curious to see if there were any perfumes or bottles made by African Americans. One site said that Madame C.J. Walker sold perfume (among her hair-care products and cosmetics), and another site gave it a name “Floral Cluster” (1925). I wasn’t able to find a perfume bottle, but I did find a 1920 ad for her products, including Floral Cluster talcum powder , described as “exquisitely perfumed.”

Finding one of hers would be fantastic.

Click on each photo below rather than viewing through PicLens.

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Compared to what comes out of the mouths of rappers these days, Foxx was pretty tame. Back then, his jokes were full of innuendos – not the real thing – and he was oh-so-funny.

I came across a 1956 recording of Foxx at auction a few weeks ago while waiting for an item I wanted to come up for bids. I started flipping through some old 45s, most of which were in their original cardboard jackets and paper sleeves. Some were singers I had never heard of before and others were surprises:

The Gene Krupa Trio
The Three Suns present your Christmas favorites
Ziggy Elman and his Orchestra
Frank Sinatra sings songs from his Warner Bros. picture “Young at Heart”
Jackie Gleason plays Romantic Jazz (a surprise)
The Alto Sax of Jay White
The Ray Charles Chorus
Harry James and his Orchestra
Louis Armstrong, “Hello Dolly!”
Stan Kenton “Sketches on Standards”
Redd Foxx “Laff of the Party”

The last one stopped me. I picked it up from the stack, pulled out the record and read the titles. On the B side was “Women Over Forty,” which got my attention because that’s the demographics for We Are Black Women. I was curious about what he had to say.

Believing the entire B side was about this subject, I decided to bid on the stack of 45s, all 70 of them inside a black plastic milk crate. I figured that I’d get them for about 5 bucks – who wants a carton of old records, especially since they weren’t albums? Someone else did, and I ended up paying $11 for them.

Fortunately, I still have a record player at home with the small disc for playing 45s. So I listened to the record (it had a lot of scratchy background noise) and found that the joke about “Women Over 40″ was one of several on the B side. “Laff of the Party” was a series of recordings of a vintage Foxx on stage before a live audience. These were party recordings for people to get together with drink and fun, and listen to him riff on everything from sex, women, men, infidelity, honeymooners, donkeys, strippers, stagecoaches, and more.

Here’s a sampling of the recording I got at auction:

When I examined the record and sleeve closely, I realized that the record was Volume 3 (1956) and the sleeve was Volume 8, Part 1 (1959). Looking further among the stack, I found two others in paper sleeves – Volume 8, Part 1, and “The Honeymooners/The Sneezes” from Volume 1 (1956). Foxx was in his 30s when he made these recordings.

Two of the 45s bore the label Authentic Records, a subsidiary of Dooto Records, which signed Foxx to a long-term contract in the 1950s. The series – along with his other recordings (the website for his estate says more than 50) – sold 15 million to 20 million copies (depending on which story you read).

Foxx sued Dooto in 1961 to try to cancel the contract, accusing owner Dootsie Williams of holding out on royalties. He was tied to Dooto until Frank Sinatra bought out his contract and brought Foxx over to his Loma Records label in 1967. (Williams’ label Dootone was the first to release the song “Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)”, performed by the Penguins in 1954).

The world knows Redd Foxx as the crusty but loveable old junk dealer in TV’s “Sanford and Son,” where he cleaned up his language but not his comedic craziness. He was known among black club-goers and record-buyers way before then.

He was born in St. Louis in 1922, raised by a single mother after the father left the family when he was 4. His mother moved to Chicago to find work, leaving her two boys with her mother. When he was an adolescent, Foxx joined her in Chicago before running away to New York. He got the name Chicago Red because of his hair color and light complexion, and met Detroit Red – who would later become Malcolm X – in a dishwashing job at the Chicken Shack in Harlem. He worked a club in Baltimore for a while – a tough town for a comedian, he said – and ended up on the chitlin’ circuit back in New York. He teamed with Slappy White for a couple years before heading to Los Angeles to work with Dinah Washington. There, he was signed by Dooto.

Take a look at a Dooto ad for Foxx in Ebony in 1959 (and a 1967 Ebony interview ) and an ad in Billboard in 1961. Foxx died in 1981 owing the IRS more than $3.6 million.

When I listened to “Women Over 40,” I chuckled, but I also thought about how far we over-40 Baby Boomers have come. Many of us are able to take care of ourselves and our families, work jobs that had once been closed to us, retired because we wanted to follow our passions, travel the country and the world, and do just about anything we want to do. In other words, we are fearless.

What a truly different over-40 woman Foxx would find now. Wonder what his new jokes would be like.

That apparently doesn’t bother some people, because the half-dozen taxidermied animals at auction this week were snapped up very quickly. One of my favorite auction houses was selling mounted heads of deer, a black bear, two turkeys, an antelope and more. One of turkeys was captured with its head and neck pressed toward its tail as if it were afraid (which it probably was).

The animals were displayed on a wall at the auction house – the best way for you to envision them at home.  

Even before the auction started, absentee bidders had stuck red stickers on the nose of the bear and some of the other animals. I watched as two men stood for a long time trying to decide if they wanted to bid on the antelope – “an African antelope,” one of them said. I’m not sure if it once roamed the land in Africa, but now its top half was tucked under a table (well maybe not “tucked,” since it was so big). On the floor were its two horns, which had fallen out of their sockets.

The men finally walked away. Later, though, one of them called the other over after having pulled the animal from under the table and stuck the horns back into the two gaping holes. They placed a red sticker on the animal’s head.

The table below the stuffed heads held a cobra, turtle, and blowfish, all well-preserved, along with several horns, a raven (which looked to be carved), a small alligator (or crocodile?) head and three white-washed jaws with teeth. The prize, though, was a stuffed armadillo in full form, looking as good as it did the day it gave its life to perpetuity.

Lately, a famous mounted animal was in the news: Roy Rogers’ famous horse Trigger, who was sold at New York’s Christie’s auction house for $266,500. Also sold at that auction this month was Dale Evans’ horse Buttermilk for $35,000 and their dog Bullet for $25,000. All had been in the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum in Branford, Mo., until it closed in December.

The word was that Trigger was stuffed, but apparently he wasn’t. He was mounted: When he died in 1965, a plaster replica was made of him and his hide was stretched over it. Buttermilk and Bullet were similarly preserved.

I remember learning the word taxidermy when I was a child. On the way to school, our bus passed a shop with its name on the door; part of that name was the word taxidermy. I had never heard of it before and I looked it up; all I remember is that it had something to do with stuffing animals.

Googling recently, I found that taxidermy today is considered a work of art and that taxidermists are considered skilled artisans. According to the site taxidermy.net, the tissues of the animals are recreated with man-made materials (including the eyes, nose, mouth and tissue), and only the natural parts are used on the outside (in the case of deer, for example, only the hair and horns).

Apparently a lot of taxidermy is going on. There are schools to learn how to mount animals, local and national associations, a how-to magazine and lots of supply companies. And as shown at the auction, plenty of interested folks.

Here’s a sampling of was offered and the prices (these do not include the auction house’s 14 percent premium):

2 rams horns – $22.50

Cobra – $35

Blowfish – $22.50

3 deer – $20-$25

Bighorn sheep – $60

Black bear – $110

Turkeys (2) – $36

Armadillo – $120

Turtle – $37.50

Corkscrew horn – $42.50

Steer skull – $20

Antelope – $70

Alligator jaw – $65. Auctioneer said it looked like a shark to him. Not to me.

Shark jaw – $40

I’ve never found any of those books at auction, but I’ve always kept my eye out for them and any others illustrated by famed artists. So I was delighted some time ago when I came across a lot of six books illustrated by artist N.C. Wyeth. I knew I had to have them, because I love the works of Wyeth and his son Andrew. Their paintings are so real (yet their styles very different) that I feel like I’m inside their canvases, participating in whatever their characters are doing. In the case of Andrew, I feel like I know these people.

I won the bidding on the books and walked away with them as if I’d just won first prize. I didn’t know if any of them were first editions, but that didn’t matter because I was buying the artist.

A 1933 edition of “Treasure Island” by Robert Louis Stevenson was among the lot. Wyeth illustrated the book in 1911, and the illustrations are considered to be some of his best work. He created 17 canvases, making enough money to buy 18 acres of land in Chadds Ford, Pa., to build his dream home and studio. The Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford has several of his original illustrations in its permanent collection, including those for ”Kidnapped,” “The Black Arrow,” “The Boy’s King Arthur” and “The Last of the Mohicans.”

I recently had the joy of experiencing Wyeths’ take on Stevenson’s tale of pirates and gold in “Treasure Island.” I was at the museum for another exhibit and wandered into a room that held several oil-on-canvas paintings that Wyeth made for the book. I always want to “see” the illustrations in their original size, and this exhibit was a treat for me.

I met one woman who, too, found the paintings amazing, so much so that she was inspired to go home and read the book – which she had never done. I read it as a child (I recall wanting to write my own treasure-hunt play and have my cousins act it out), and I understood what she was talking about. These paintings evoke curiosity in you.

Hung there on the wall was the inside-cover illustration that led the book: the mutineers charging forward toward the edge of the page, barefooted and shoe-ed, weapons at the ready, birds flying overhead, behind them a background the color of a yellowed sun. Like the woman visitor, I stopped and lingered at each of the paintings, taking in the details and the awesomeness of Wyeth’s hand.

The other illustrations from the book included:

Captain Smollet defies the mutineers (caption from the book: then, climbing on the roof, he had with his own hand bent and run up the colors)

The attack on the block house (the boarders swarmed over the fence like monkeys)

Long John Silver and Hawkins (To me he was unweariedly kind; and always glad to see me in the galley)

The hostage (For all the world, I was led like a dancing bear)

This book, though, was not my only treasure from the auction. Here are the others, all published by Charles Scribner’s, several as part of Scribner’s Illustrated Classics for Young Readers:

“Kidnapped” by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1929.

“Drums” by James Boyd, 1928.

“The Scottish Chiefs” by Jane Porter, 1925.

“Jinglebob” by Philip Ashton Rollins, 1930.

“David Balfour” by Robert Louis Stevenson. I was a bit confused about the copyright date on this one. On one page (which has a color plate) at the front of the book is the date MCMXLI. Flip the page and I see the date 1946. Not sure what that’s about.

Many of us read some of these books in school. Interestingly, I found a piece of memorabilia from one child’s school days inside the pages of  ”Treasure Island.” It was an English grammar review on the objective case of nouns.

What memories.

There were 19 brightly colored stickers, most with the name Rickie Tickie Stickies, the rest labeled “the fantasticks.” I examined the packages closely and saw one set of orange daisy-shaped flowers with pink centers. When I flipped to the back and saw the image, it sparked a memory.

It was a familiar Volkswagen Beetle from the 1970s plastered with daisies. Then I realized that I knew the image but not the name. They were a symbol of Flower Power and the hippie movement of the 1960s. I never knew where these images came from or who invented them.

The peel-and stick decals I got at auction were in their original packaging, unopened and sealed, except for one sleeve of daisies. Someone had apparently bought them 40 years ago, never got around to using all of them and just put them aside. The packaging was in good condition, but aged.

There were pink ladybugs (9 for $2), yellow/pink/royal-blue/lime trains with cars (5 for $1), an array of yellow/orange/hot-pink animals (9 for $2) and pink/orange paisleys (9 for $2). The Stickies were dated 1970. The package warned that they had to be removed within six to eight months or the company wasn’t responsible for any damage. 

On the back was the inscription:

They’re Right Now. They’re Bright Now.

For walls, ceilings, shower enclosures, luggage, notebooks, boats, appliances, raincoats, furniture, bulletin boards, cars, glass doors, garbage cans, gift boxes.

Top Quality Vinyl Decals in The “In” Colors. Easy to Apply, Washable, Non-Permanent.

They were a fad of the late 1960s – that’s how they were described on several websites – that made a man named Don Kracke millions of dollars. Kracke, who was working in an ad agency at the time, saw some hand-drawn flowers on the side of a Volkswagen bus and felt he could do prettier, according to neatorama.com.

He designed his own version of daisies, polka dots and paisleys, and put them on his own car, according to a 1998 story in the Los Angeles Times. Neighborhood kids took to them; so he created 3,000 in hot colors, and peddled them in his neighborhood and to a local hardware store. He didn’t expect the fad to last beyond 1967, he told a reporter.

It took off, especially the daisy sticker, embraced by “flower children” all over the country. By the end of 1968, 90 million Rickie Tickie Stickies had been sold.

“The key is timing,” Kracke is quoted as saying on the website drfad.com. He created the stickers a few months after 1967’s Summer of Love, a defining moment for the hippie movement at its epicenter of San Francisco.

The company lasted for about six years before Kracke sold it to a Minnesota company that no longer exists.

In 1977, he wrote a book – which was republished in 2001 – called “Turn Your Idea or Invention Into Millions.” He has brought 2,500 items to market, and was one of the writers of a 1970s comic strip called Yankee Doodles. Kracke is also a painter; his works were exhibited in 2007 at a Palms Springs, Calif., gallery).

Kracke apparently did not trademark his design, so other companies copied the concept. The fantasticks may have been one of them. I could find nothing about these stickers in my research. They had the same feeling of agedness, so I’m assuming they were from the same period.

I have yellow daises, a little boy with yellow hair and a little girl wearing a lime hat with flowers. They’re described as a ”Home Decorating Kit” with suggestions on the back on where to place them – walls, waste baskets, canister sets, mirrors, glass doors, boats, walls and surfboards. All so very familiar.

They probably had been stored lovingly in a china cabinet, cleaned often but rarely brought out for play or entertainment. I came across this grouping of about 30 or more cups and saucers recently at one of my favorite auction houses.

They carried some of the most familiar names in china: Limoges France, Aynsley, Theodore Haviland Limoges, Bavaria, Wedgwood and Dresden. One had USA on it without a more specific maker’s name.

The sets were striking because there were so many of them. At auction, I’m used to seeing a tea cup and saucer here and there – or even several of them at a time – but never a collection. My auction buddy Janet has picked up a few, including some lovely pieces by Aynsley.

The air of sophistication that permeates a vintage tea cup makes you feel cultured – a feeling that is emboldened with the sip of refreshing and relaxing tea from one of them. Put yourself in the middle of a tea party and the experience is enhanced. That’s what I felt when I saw a photo of a women’s tea party in Harlem captured by photographer James Van Der Zee in 1929. It was in an auction at the Swann Auction Galleries in New York earlier this year.  

The photo felt like a Saturday afternoon, the group of women in their finest clothes, sitting or standing while around them were other women servers. The caption identified them as the Madame C.J. Walker Valentine Tea Club, Shop Number 1. Walker was the black business woman who 100 years ago built an empire on hair products for black women.

They’re holding what would now be called “vintage” tea cups. (Photo above is from the Swann Auction Galleries website).

When I think of tea parties, I think of the British and their high teas. But tea didn’t get its start there. The Chinese have been drinking tea from tea cups – they were actually small bowls without handles – for centuries. Tea cups didn’t arrive in Britain until the 1600s. Initially, tea was so expensive that only the upper crust could afford it. During the 19^th century, handles were added and the modern tea cup was born. Here in America (especially in the South), we like our tea cold.

Surprisingly, I could not find a collectors group for tea cups on the web, but I’m sure there’s one out there. As for prices, I found tea cup and saucers ranging from $20 to over $100. Here are some beautiful ones for sale at the Atlanta Antique Gallery.

If you’d like to start collecting them, several sites offered some good information on where to find vintage tea cups and saucers at low cost – flea markets, thrift shops, Goodwill, (and I would add, auctions) – how to take care of your pieces (wash by hand, not in the dishwasher) and tips on collecting.

You don’t have to collect them to just sit in china cabinets. Several sites had put them to other interesting uses: holding cupcakes at a wedding, serving as a cutesy birdbaths, and using chipped ones for storage or good ones for flower arrangements. 

And we must not forget that they are also used to read fortunes through the scattering of tea leaves. It’s a practice called tasseography – I didn’t know it had a  special name – and it has its own special tea cups. Since I have never had my fortune told before, I assumed fortune-tellers used any old cup to read the leaves. Many do, I suppose.

Here’s a look at two fortune-telling tea cups – one with symbols and one with playing cards - for interpreting the leaves, and a website that sells them. These tea cups are also made by some of the finest china makers, including Aynsley. According to wikipedia, the most common designs inside the cups are zodiac, playing cards and symbols.

At one auction a few years ago, I got in a box lot a small pamphlet with some age called “Cup Reading: The Ancient Art of Foretelling the Future,” distributed by the Salada Tea Co. It tells you all about reading leaves and understanding the symbols. An arch – a long journey, probably by steamship. A ring – marriage. A peacock – a happy marriage or good fortune. An owl – illness. Gun – unhappiness.

I’ve never tried out the book’s offerings. Me, I like to figure out my fate on my own or at least make it happen.

As for those tea cups at the auction? After brisk bidding, they sold for $80 – the price for just one of them.

Since the photos had been done by the Army Air Corps, I assumed that these men were involved in the Tuskegee Airmen program, designed to train black pilots during the war. The photos only identified three with first and last names, and I could not find either of them listed on Tuskegee pilot lists on the web. Most websites listed pilots only, not support people, so I was not able to find out anything about these men.

Recently, I got an email from a woman who identified one of the soldiers, the man at the far left in the front row. Her husband had roomed with his brother-in-law at Tuskegee. This was her message to me:

“Lt. Wiley was James Wiley. He and his brother-in-law were both members of the unit trained as pilots at Tuskegee Univ., Alabama, but only James flew in Europe. Ed was in the last class to graduate but did make a career in the Air Force, flying as a USAF pilot in Korea. He is still alive. James died several years ago in the Seattle area. He was active in the Sam Bruce Chapter of TAI almost to the end.”

James Wiley – I finally had a name to research. I found only one James T. Wiley who was listed as a Tuskegee pilot, and I’m assuming he’s the one in the photo.  Wiley was among the first 24 pilots of the 99^th Fighter Squadron who landed in North Africa in 1943. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Smart in science, Wiley attended the University of Pittsburgh on a scholarship, earning a degree in physics in 1940, according to an interview with journalist George Edward Barbour in 1985. He wanted to work in a lab but couldn’t find a job. He enrolled at Carnegie Tech for a master’s degree, and heard about the government’s Civilian Pilot Training Program to train civilian pilots at various colleges. Black colleges including Tuskegee were later included, and Wiley applied. In the meantime, he took lessons and earned a private pilot’s license, and then got commercial and instructor training. He was accepted into Tuskegee.

“It was like going to heaven,” he told a Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter in 1996.

Here’s what I found out about 2^nd Lt. Wiley’s experience as a Tuskegee airman:

The Army Air Corps wasn’t sure what to do with these new black pilots, so the airmen waited around for months after graduation for instructions (here’s a photo of Wiley and his graduating class of 1942). Finally, in 1943 the orders came down and by May they were in Tunisia – the first black pilots in the war – as part of the 33rd Fighter Group. Their main job was to escort bomber pilots, but they did experience some combat from time to time. They were commanded  by Col. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. who would in 1944 also lead the 332^nd Fighter Group composed of black pilots in three squadrons, including the 99th. Davis, the Army’s first black general, was in the first class of pilots at Tuskegee in 1941.

The 332^nd became known as the Red Tails; they painted the tails of their P-51C aircraft red to identify themselves.

A few days after arriving in North Africa, Wiley was one of three men who flew the squadron’s first mission – in what was called a “milk run” or routine flight – over the Italian island of Pantelleria in a Curtiss P-40 War Hawk (here’s a photo of Wiley and other 99th pilots with a P-40). A few days later, another group became the first to participate in aerial combat against German fighter planes.

 The Tuskegee airmen were not readily accepted and their abilities were routinely questioned. They were given the chance to prove themselves on Jan. 24, 1944, downing eight German planes in the morning and in the afternoon when Wiley took on the enemy. You can read an account here (page 116).

In one of their best feats, in June, the pilots disabled a German destroyer in northern Italy. When Wiley returned to Pittsburgh on a furlough that June, 50,000 people came out to honor him (he was 25 years old and a captain) and the mayor gave him a key to the city.   

Wiley told the Seattle reporter that he flew more than 100 missions over southern Europe and was never shot down. He also told the reporter that he and the other black pilots had a little fun: “I liberated an Italian plane,” Wiley said. “I stole it.”

Here’s are photos here, here and here of Wiley with a captured Italian fighter in North Africa or Sicily. The caption says he repaired the plane and then flew it. I’m not sure if this is the plane he was referring to.

Wiley remained in the military until 1965 (the University of Chicago website showed him earning an MBA degree in 1954), and later worked as an engineer at Boeing until he retired in 1980. He was active in the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. chapter in Seattle, Wash., where he settled. He died in 2000. (The circa 1945 photo of Wiley at left is from the Lincoln Trails Library System website.)

I also came across a circa 1942 photo from the Carnegie Museum of Art of Wiley in uniform with his parents. Here’s another photo of Wiley and two other pilots near a p-47 in Italy in 1944.

In 1997, artist John D. Shaw immortalized the 99^th squadron in a painting called “Red Tail Angels,” depicting pilot Bill Campbell and William Holloman escorting a crippled bomber.