This comic postcard was not mailed, so it does not have a personal story connected to it

The linen-style postcard was printed by the “Art-Colortone” process.

On the face, we see a very buff and sun-tanned lifeguard surrounded by a bevy of adoring young women.

Each of the four girls is wearing a two- piece bathing outfit, but they are not the tiny bikinis that became trendy in the 1950’s.

(Such as the “itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie, yellow polka-dot” variety of the 1960 pop song.))

In the distance, some hapless suitors look on forlornly.

A humorous couplet encapsulates the scene:

“You’re one in a thousand”, I said to Bee;

“And so are your chances”, she replied to me

The postcard is from the “Bathing Comics” series, copyrighted by the Curt Teich Company of Chicago.

Scenes of beach humiliation were common in comic books of the era, especially in the advertisements for exercise equipment, vitamins, nostrums and strength-building regimens.

Those who grew up with comics of the fifties or sixties were likely to have encountered some image of an undeveloped guy having sand kicked on him by a strutting beach bully.

Here, in the postcard illustration, there is no encounter – the luckless suitors stand apart and watch the pretty girls fawn upon the grinning lifeguard.

One hopes that all the disappointed beaus found lovely gals who loved them.