Crockett, Tubbs... Whipple

(Via Amanda Emily) Long before he dedicated his life to protecting toilet tissue, Mr. Whipple enjoyed an invigorating career as a Miami news man... Okay, so it's actually Warner-Pathe News photographer Cliff Poland back in the autumn of 1950. Back then, things were different: news organizations shot on film, no one left home without a wristwatch and grown men ALWAYS tucked in their shirttails. And what a shirt! I think I have that same floral print in the bottom of a drawer somewhere, though even on my least wrinkled day, I never rocked it quite like this Über Photog. But he wasn't just fashion forward. Poland was a storied lenslinger; he was even aboard the USS Missouri when General MacArthur and a couple of dozen Japanese ended a little thing called World War II. Ever the stickler for protocol, MacArthur didn't want a bunch of newsman jamming microphones in his face during the surrender. So Poland fabricated a curved stand that would place the mics in front of the general, but below his ornery eye level. The ceremony got underway, a temporary peace fell over the globe and a press conference practice was born. Not bad for a guy in a tropical top...