CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
This is beyond cool because it's a "real world" example of a weird phenomenon that we explain in the book The Ghost in the [Scanning] Machine. When old books are digitally scanned, the translucent tissue guards in front of plates reveal ghostly manifestations, eerily like spirit photography. In this old yearbook, the exact effect has been created deliberately, without tissue paper. From Mount Olive Junior College's 1960 yearbook.
By the time he signs his message, Colonel Jambuel Q. Stoopalaya is transformed into Col. Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle. We also appreciate the references to Mr. F. R. Q. J. H. Feltoph Randus and to the dose of bromo-seltzer named Herman. From Tulane's 1933 yearbook.
We thought this mild oath, "Judas' cats," was one we'd somehow missed along the way, but a search indicates that it's extraordinarily rare. From the University of Western Ontario's 1930 yearbook.
Here's an early iteration of the joke about there being a Nantucket subway, from Northeastern's 1968 yearbook. Today, there are whimsical maps of the Nantucket subway, and if you'd like to redecorate with Nantucket Subway ceramic tiles, they actually exist!