Antique & Vintage Postcards

Four barefoot hula dancers freeze mid-gesture on a sunlit lawn in Kaunakakai, Molokai, their ti-leaf skirts fanning wide and pink-and-white lei bright against lush tropical foliage — a vivid chrome-era snapshot of Hawaiian performance culture tied to one of the islands' most beloved novelty songs. The card celebrates "The Cock-Eyed Mayor of Kaunakakai," a comic hula tune copyrighted in 1935 by Edward B. Marks Music Corp., whose lyrics ("He wore a lei / And he wore a smile / He drank a gallon of oke to make life worth while") became an enduring emblem of Molokai's quirky civic pride. Mailed June 29, 1970, from Hawaii to York, Pennsylvania, the message is breezy and jubilant: senders Lorraine and Laverne (traveling with the Kessler family) report things are beautiful, the trip was fine, and they're "having a ball." The Plastichrome by Colourpicture print, distributed by Max Basker & Sons of Honolulu, captures the saturated, optimistic palette that defined mid-century Hawaiian tourism imagery.