A kid in 1942 pictured with his bike and schoolbooks along with the local butcher

When I was a kid during the 1960s the Fox Point house we lived in had a dining/sun room which had a built-in bookcase.  In that bookcase my Dad had one book from elementary school.  I believe it was a history book but don't remember the title.  I can't find it up here, maybe it was tossed ?  Anyway the thing I remember about the book was that inside the cover someone had written:

"In case of famine, eat this book, it's full of baloney!"

Kids were just as goofy in the 1940s as they were in the 1960s and as they are now :)

Anyway I thought of that schoolbook my Dad (he was 12 in November 1942) had when I saw this picture on Shorpy:


source: https://www.shorpy.com/node/27329#comments

This interesting photo was taken by Marjory Collins using what appears to be a 4x5 view or press camera on a tripod (see later blowups).

If you zoom into the bike seat you can just make out the larger book title:

Nations Beyond The Seas

I commented on Shorpy that a postwar edition of the book could be borrowed on Archive.org:

https://archive.org/details/nationsbeyondsea0000wall

Then Dave at Shorpy posted this blow up:

At first I thought: the Shorpy guys are wizards like Harrison Ford in Blade Runner - "Enhance 224 to 176":

  

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHwjceFcF2Q

But it turned out that a different photo taken at the same scene was used:

https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017839974/   

The book titles can be seen easily in the 122 megabyte scan (the TIFF one with the wrong size).  You can also see Marjory Collins' hand and her camera reflected in the window:


In the original picture you can see the reflection of Marjory Collins too:
 

This all reminded me of the 1966 movie: BLOWUP

https://archive.org/details/blow-up.-1966.1080p.-blu-ray.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowup

In the movie a photographer is taking snapshots in a park and accidentally captures a crime which he realizes later on after blowing up the pictures.

Photography can be historical fact and nostalgic fun at times - nothing could beat those large format cameras on a tripod in the control of a real professional photographer - and it is just silver suspended in gelatin on a somewhat clear film.

Also, correct spelling is highly overrated :)

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm