The Bus Station

Also known as the Greyhound Bus Station.

Now, the present bus station is a simple little unpretentious building on Cobb Parkway/the 4-Lane, not nearly as big. There were a lot of traveling by bus back then, therefore big waiting rooms were needed.

Maybe one reason it was so big because it had two waiting rooms, one for whites and one for blacks.

Another reason it had a grill in the back. As you walk into the grill area you are overcome with the smell of mustard, onions, and deep-fried grease. The background sounds were ping-ball machines, the juke box, grease frying, bus arriving and departing announcements over a speaker and farts, or emissions, of buses on the outside.

On the outside loading area there was a photo-booth and a machine that you could make your own dogtag with your name, it had the appearance of a big tin coin with a big star in the center.

I had a friend, Jimmy Pat, who had a warped sense of values, that had a fascination with the photo booth. He was always trying to contrive or scheme a shocking way to use it.

One time, he stood on the booth's seat and exposed himself for the camera. Then he tacked up the pictures on the bulletin boards at school.

The Terminal Taxi service in the picture normally parked next door in an unpaved vacant lot. It was first owned by Mr. Goddard, his son Ray was a class-mate. After that my late cousin Dalton Tyson owned it, which I'm sure there is a story in a story how he received ownership.

Terminal Taxi is shown here having a fleet of 10 cabs. That is pretty impressive.

On the way home from our scouts meetings we always stopped at the bus station to play the pin-ball machine, and at least one of us the photo-booth.

Before the bus station there was a big two story old house occupied by two sisters and their brother. We lived a block away in the Clay Homes.

When the Bus Station was being built after the workers went home we would go out and play in the mud and whatever. One time I threw a bottle over a bush and hit my friend Tommy Hadaway in the head. He was bleeding and was rushed to the Old Hospital. The doctor put a clamp over his wound.

See the building above, looking down? That was part of complex that was built to teach G.I.s returning from WWII a trade. We were also on hand to watch it being built and played on the equipment also. My sister Frances was on a large roll of fencing material, and it rolled out from under her and she broke her arm.

What used to be the bus station is a lawyers' building now.

Time changes.

1956 OLYMPIAN - Beta & Key Clubs

Dead and Alive at Once

Did you know the brain continues to emit electrical wave signals up to 37 hours after death?*

I don't know, but it seems it may be a possibility that you are not really dead until those electrical waves stop. Clinically you may be dead because all your working organs ceased to operate, but you just might be alive, just lying there thinking things over.

If all organs are dead then it is doubtful that you know what they are doing to your body because you your nerves are not working. You probably won't be able to hear either. You might just be lying there saying, "Why can't I open my eyes and see?"

It seems like a great time to day dream and think about things.

Just a thought.


*From Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader 2009 page-a-day calendar.

1956 OLYMPIAN - TAC & Chapel

On This Date in 1967

42 Years ago today, I married Anna. That was the best thing I've ever done.

1956 OLYMPIAN - Music

Marietta Pilgrimage - 2009's Pictures

These are pictures I wasn't able to publish Sunday. They were not all the show homes on the tour. Some of them I just thought were interesting or brought back memories.

Psstt! You will get more out of each picture if you click on it.

GoBAG NOBAG

This evening was miserable, weather-wise. It was raining, cold, and dark. It was just too gloomy for any pictures. There was nothing picaresque but me and I am on the wrong side of the camera.

Now that I can publish pictures again I am choosy again.

But the mushroom soup and sandwiches were good.

Finally!

Still Not Working!!

I know, I know. If it is not working allowing me to do pictures how come this post and the previous post have pictures?

Good question.

Apparently, it allows me to do non-photographic pictures, as in drawn pictures.

Since the beginning of this mess it has not allowed me to download (or upload) photographs from the Olympian and this morning I tried putting in photographs of the Marietta Pilgrimage and it refused it.

I don't know how the system knows the difference. I do all my photographs and non-photograph pictures in JPEG format.

&%#%!@*+*&%$!!

A Time For Reverence

I was having lunch yesterday at Brandi's World Famous Hotdogs with Paul and I noticed two ladies sitting at a table next to us. They have not received their food yet. One lady had her head bow and it looked like she was clasping her hands under the table.

On the other hand, the other lady was drinking her drink and looking around.

I talked to Paul for a while and after a few minutes looked back at the ladies. The lady looked to still be praying, with her head bowed and apparently her hands clasped. That is a long prayer I thought. She must be blessing everybody she knows and all her kinfolks.

The other woman sipped on her drink and continue to look around. That doesn't make sense I thought. I noticed when people pray at a restaurant they hold hands and pray together....of course only one does the talking, but definitely all at at the table bow their heads.

Then the mystery was solved. The lady that I thought was praying brought up from her lap a littel blackberry gizmo. She was texting!

Ironically, Paul and I were discussing just how far technology is going... and who knows where it will end.

Marietta Pilgrimage - aka Tour of Homes 2009

Normally the annual Marietta Pilgrimage post is probably 80 to 90% pictures. This time it is 0% What about that?

Hopefully in a day or so my little difference with Google will be settled and then I will run the pictures...maybe as Marietta Pilgrimage Part 2 or Son of Marietta Pilgrimage.

This year all but two of the houses were on Church Street. The exceptions were a house on Freyer Drive and the Public House on Cherokee Street.

The house on Fryer Drive was built by Morgan J. McNeel, Jr. in 1924. Morgan was the developer of the all the houses in the area which was named Cherokee Heights and is considered the first modern subdivision in Marietta. His father owned McNeel Marble Company, so there were plenty of marble things in the house. That was the house we toured first.

The second place we went was Ivy Grove, which was a public house. On these annual tours a Public House is a place for the public to use their facilities and buy something, like a slice of cake, coffee, tea, etc... and in the case of this house, also arts and crafts were available. The house was built by Edward Denmead. At one time it was a plantation house sitting on 1800 acres, which went almost to downtown Marietta.

It is so close to the present day Kennestone Hospital complex I think the plantation would have engulfed that area too.

Which brings up another thought. I read someplace that the fictional character George "Kingfish" Stevens of The Amos and Andy Show lived near Rose Lane, which would be near Kennestone. In other words, the fictional character Kingfish's ancestors were probably slaves owned by real person Edward Denmead.

By the way, Sherman spared Ivy Grove. He didn't have it torched. Which is saying something, I'm not sure what.

The mansion had been owned by the Georgia-famous Jimmy Carmichael and the president of a ball point pen company, I forgot which one.

Now the huge mansion is unoccupied...and almost empty. The rooms are huge and seemed to be a bathroom in every room.

The other houses were on Church Street. Some were big and some was small. But they all were expertly renovated and just the right furniture and heirlooms were placed just right. And that was the docents' job, to point out the history uniqueness of each item.

At one house, the Granger House, I noticed that the docents would mentioned Woodstock, Georgia, a lot. About the owner's great grandfather, grandfather, and grandmother, all from Woodstock - items came from their house and so on. Finally there was were lady flitting around that seemed to know everything - I asked her was she Mrs. Granger. She said yes. I said my great grandfather William Hunter lived in Woodstock, on Main Street, the same as her husband's grandfather. She was very friendly and one thing led to another and she knew my cousin Hunter Ingram, who was mayor of Woodstock one time, and so was her husband's grandfather and her grandmother was a Dobbs, I forgot her first name, who was Anna's grammar school teacher. Small world!.

At another house the front porch docent and doorkeeper is Rachel, a friend of mine. We developed a friendship when I discovered she bought and renovated the Trammell House on Trammell Street. It was almsot like we were cousins. For a while, we emailed each other back and forth planning to have a big Trammell reunion at her and her husband Doug's house. I ran blog notices and notified all the Trammell descendants I was communicating with and we had only two people that even considered it. One lived in Florida and the other one lived someplace like Missouri. Somehow, we could never get our plan off the ground.

I learned something yesterday: In Muslin art animals and humans images are forbidden. Also, everything is symmetrical. Why not just look at a kaleidoscope?

Hopefully I'll have more about the tour when I am able to put my pictures up again.

What Were You Doing 68 Years Ago?

(as you know I have ran out of picture space. I have an order in to increase my picture memory to 20 GB, which they say might take up to 24 hours, so in the meantime I need your help to build the image I intended for this spot: Two pictures: (1) Japanese airplanes flying over Pearl Harbor shooting and bombings and the USS Arizona sinking; (2) me as a 4 and half months old baby lying in bed cooing with snot all over my face).

Or were you alive then?

I was alive but I was only 4.5 months old. I thought I had more serious matters to attend to: cry when I was hungry; cry when something hurt; and cry when I was sleepy. What more more important did the world have to do but to tend to my wants and needs?

SUNDAY FUNNIES

What Sunday Funnies?

How can I show Sunday Funnies without having anymore picture allotment? They didn't think of that did they? Huh? Huh?

Concert in Cobb by Cobb

We went to listen to The Cobb Symphony Orchestra at the Murray Center of Mount Paran School. It was the Symphony’s Christmas show. They mixed old Christmas songs with classical religious music. A choir complemented the orchestra. It was very moving and enjoyable.

The Murray Center was nice too. Only someone needs to learn how use the thermostat. We were cold during the concert.

The Cobb Symphony Orchestra is no stranger to us. This is about our sixth or seventh Cobb Symphony Orchestra concert. We have been to about three in Glover Park and this was our third Christmas concert.

Each one of the Christmas concerts we have been in a position to watch the interactions of the musicians. One time when they played at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church we had near front row seats. We were so close to the violins players I felt like one of them. Being close and being invisible I could watch their body language and facial expressions to one and another (the violin section). We could tell who had warm or cold feelings towards each other. It was an interesting social network… the inner cliques, and so forth.

One lady violinist was interesting to watch. She has long blond hair, slim and graceful with mannerism of a school teacher. The first concert I noticed her in she had a private joke with another violinist. They communicated wordlessly – they only needed their facial expressions and body language to share their wit. She looked in controlled until the end when they were to bow and thank the audience by a big smile. That was the biggest frozen fake smile I have seen in a long time.

Some people (including me) make it an effort to smile when they have to, like when posing for a picture.

A female trombone player was interesting to watch too. I remember her years ago when she worked in the deli at Kroger’s. She was witty and laid back. She and her middle age co-worker had the late shift and seemed to always be cooking up free samples (for themselves) – something about them reminded me of the 3 Stooges. Now, I see her old friend in the crowds of just about every concert at Glover Park. He appears to still be a useless slob.

However, she isn’t. She is rated on of the highest skilled musicians in the Atlanta area and the top musical synthesizer*, in the Atlanta area.

The music was great.

Another thing great was viewing the musicians through binoculars. Watching a musician intensely playing an instrument is – well profound. With the binoculars I scanned to each player and pretended to take a photo of the how focused and intense each one was. If only I was allowed to.

But, what good would it have done? I used up my photo allotment on the blog (Oh me).

It was sold out. Therefore when it was over, the parking lot was one big traffic jam. Most cars wanted to turn left out of the parking lot onto Stylesboro Road. It is very hard for a flow of traffic to turn left onto a heavily traveled road like Stylesboro. I hope next year they remember that if they have it in again at Murray Center and rent a off-duty policeman to direct traffic.

The concert we went to was at 3:00 and over about 5:00. And everybody had a hard time getting out of the parking lot, including the musicians. And they were to play at 7:00 across town at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. I hope they all made it to their next gig time.

*whatever that is.

Oh No!

While downloading the 4th picture in an Olympian Posting the system blocked it and said I had exceeded my picture quota.

Now what?

I'll have to study all the links they provided to figure out a solution. In the mean time maybe I will just use words to describe things... and since a picture is worth a 1000 words, well, you get the picture (hopefully)... then they will tell me I exceeded my text allotment.

Stay Tuned.

1956 OLYMPIAN - The Press

Mike Joins the "Me & Smiley Burnett Club"

Mike Dilbeck is another one that belongs to the I had my picture taken with Smiley Burnett Club.


1st Member, president and founder:Eddie/Rock Hunter

2nd Member: David Greene

By the way, the first of the year is coming up. Annual dues are due. Cash please.

Xenophobia

One day the other week I took my mother-in-law to her beauty shop. Her weekly hair appointment takes about an hour. I brought a book to read.

The beauty shop is in an old shopping center. The old Shopping center is beginning to show signs of deteriorating. And also, a few stores cater to immigrants.

I was sitting in the car reading my book when a big pickup drove by me in the parking place beside me, then stopped in the row behind me. I watched in my rearview mirror as a young Latino man got out of his truck and went to a small grocery store that caters to people south of the border. Soon, he came out with a Weber-type grill fully assembled, standing on its legs, in a grocery cart.

He and another Latino pushed the cart to the truck. The next few minutes they worked to get the grill into a car sitting next to his truck. Then in a minute two more young Latino men or teenagers materialized. Then one or two more came out. By the way they were laughing, jostling, and carrying on, they all knew each other.

They were all standing around talking in Spanish. One decided to turn his speakers up very loudly. They liked Hip-Hop music.

I felt, with their loud music, they were being obnoxious. I felt threatened.

An old woman came out of the beauty parlor. She was using a walker. She looked happy with herself with her hair. Then she looked up towards the music and saw the bunch of Latino’s. She walked very carefully studying the group as she edged towards her car, not taking her eyes off them.

What was she going to do if she had any trouble? Guard them off with her walker? Lift it up and jab at them? They didn’t pay her any attention. They were enjoying each other.

She got in her car and hurried away.

They kept hanging out talking loud and laughing with the loud music thumping.

Then I thought: They are not hurting anybody. They are just hanging out. I hung out many times with my friends, when I was their age. Hanging out with one’s own is universal.

One of them started doing a mock dance for the others’ amusement twisted or hopped by my car and he saw me. He went back and turned off the car radio. They didn’t know I was there. How could I expect them to be harassing me if I was invisible to them just like I am everybody else?

They still hung out, but being aware of me, they were more subdue.

Apparently I was on-guard for no reason.

1956 OLYMPIAN - Student Council

My my, lookie here! Marietta's future Mayor is all over these two pages. This must have been Bill Dunaway's first experience with being elected to something.