Spitball Army

This vintage postcard pictures a “Storm, Oceanside, Calif.,” and is prettified with green and blue washes of watercolor. Storms at sea are quite a bit darker than this, but I imagine there wouldn’t be much of a market for a postcard that had dark and forbidding beaches on its front. The postmark on the back of the postcard is 1 September 1913; for a look at a storm at the Oceanside Pier nearly a century later, see the shot I took – below – in December of last year.

Dear Jesse and Grace
We are having a nice time, no one to bother us. Have it all our own way. It is quite pretty here, so very clean and nice.
Aunt Alice

(photo: spitballarmy.com)

The photo above was taken on 15 December 2008. It was very cold and windy. And dark.