The Rich Gets Richer - What Else Is New?

The wealthy get wealthier and have-nots get even less.

While exercising this morning I heard a news tidbit that in the U.S. productivity is up. Profits are up. That means the economy looks good.

Then, it seems, that wages should be up so all us can bask in this Land of Free Enterprise.

Nope!

Only the top 1% can claim substantial increases in their earnings (I hesitate to use that word “earnings”).

With the economy is full swing it means prices go up (widen that profit margin) which ups the cost of living and the average family is having a hard time making ends meet. Many have to hold down two jobs.

The reason the report, I heard the report say, is that companies feel they have more of an obligation to please their stockholders than their workers.

The stockholders are that upper one percent.

But don’t feel too scornful towards that one percent. After all, they got a big tax cut. They got the tax cut because of the theory the more of a tax cut they get they more they will spend, which more goods will be produced to serve their needs, so more people of the work force will be needed to keep the wealthy supplied with the goods. Can you imagine what a responsibility that is for the wealthy? To keep us low life in jobs?

Such a responsibility will probably drive some of them to drink… martinis, scotch, etc.

The Story of my Life

Destiny and Synchronicity

Destiny and Synchronicity are two forces of nature that we find amusing and dumbfounding. Is it a true invisible force of nature or divinity that plays chess with us to arrange these destinies and synchronicities or do they just happen?

Who knows?

I think the recent blog that I told about my wife Anna and mother sitting by one of the authors they admire for about two hours and not knowing it until she walked out the door was an example of synchronicity.

Since the Comair plane wreck that killed 49 people in Lexington, Kentucky stories are coming out how people just missed the flight.

Here is another one: Anna’s late cousin had two children, a boy and a girl. They are grown in their late 20s or early 30s now, and married.

The girl, or young lady, has just been chosen to go to a college in Kentucky. It is a college that specializes in grooming people to be preachers. She has plans to become an ordained minister.

The young lady and her family moved their belongings to the college in Kentucky. Her brother helped them. He drove a big rented truck up with them. And to return back to Marietta he was scheduled to fly back on the ill-fated Comair flight. For some reason I haven’t heard yet, it was decided he would go back on a later flight.

I would call that Destiny

Message From God

This is based on an Uncle John’s Tear-Off Daily Calendar about two weeks ago:

In 2004, in Orlando, Hurricane Charley with its 140mph winds uprooted trees, destroy thousands of homes, and killed 32 people.

One of the few things left standing was a billboard that the current advertisement had been ripped off, and beneath that, the sign read, “WE NEED TO TALK signed GOD”.

The Golden Horn - Revisited

Photo by Rocky Hunter

This morning we were looking at the pictures on Rocky’s blog he took in and around the High Museum in Atlanta yesterday.

When the above house materialized Anna asked wasn’t that where I went to the Beatnik Coffee House when I was a teenager. It took me a second to refocus on it, because the front door and big window have been replaced by a double set of garage doors – but that is it!

On March 29, 2006, I wrote a blog entry on our beatnik experience in a coffee house that was there on the sidewalk level of that building and how I almost became a slab of meat in their cooler in 1959 or 1960. Back then it was called “The Golden Horn”

Man….. you dig?

Coming Down From Kendall Mountain

Before I tell of the baby shower we went to today I need to paint a little background: Several years ago at an arts and crafts show in downtown Marietta on the Square was a lady in a booth selling autographs books. She was offering her signed autographed books by her. Anna looked over one book and it looked good so she bought the trilogy, all signed. The books are about a small fictitious community in the north Georgia Mountains. After Anna read them she lent them and she has ordered the set of books for her mother and a friend as gifts. And she wrote the lady saying please let her know if the publishes another book. I noticed her address was in Calhoun, Georgia. The lady sent her a card back, saying a 4th book was just published, so Anna again bought copies and gave them as gifts. The lady’s name is Marian Denman King.

Okay, we got that out of the way. Yesterday we went to Anna’s first cousin’s son and his wife’s baby shower. After we had refreshments the men folk went downstairs to the den to watch ball games.

I guess the men were expected to go and watch sports, There were two TVs, one that had on the Braves vs. Washington game and the other TV was showing the Little League World Series, which had a team from Columbus, Georgia and the other team from Oregon. The Braves were winning when I last noticed, 7 to 1, and the Little League team from Columbus, Georgia, was also winning.

I was sitting beside an old man on the couch. He told me when he was a child his family owned all this land these estates we were in, which included a champion golf course and rolling hills of homes. This is Kennesaw, Georgia. And we talked about downtown Marietta. He told me of an uncle and a grandfather that lived near downtown Marietta that he used to visit. We talked about the various streets in downtown Marietta and how they have changed. He said he hadn’t been downtown Marietta in a long while because he moved to Calhoun, Georgia. Then we talked about Calhoun. I asked him about the big bronze statue of an Indian downtown Calhoun, who was it. He said he never got close enough to read who it was. He also told me in Calhoun he owned a skating rink business and operated it for 30 years. He sold it 7 years ago. Now, every time they goes out to eat or someplace people remember and speak to him but he doesn’t remember them.

From downstairs we could hear the rustling sounds of footsteps and movement. It was time to go back upstairs. It was time to go.

I stood in the foyer and talked to various people standing there. The man who owned the skating rink in Calhoun and his wife left. After they left Anna’s first cousin’s mother was telling me she owned a booth at the Antique Mall in Kennesaw. She said that her sister-in-law that just left brought down a bunch of books she had written that she was going to try to sell in her booth.

Then my first thought: A writer of books in Calhoun? I am a family researcher, and I know most, if not all of my in-laws’ in-laws’ maiden names. I knew the lady I was talking to maiden name was King. It suddenly registered that the Marian Denman King series were written by somebody that lived in Calhoun. I asked her what was the books about and she said “a fictitious place called Kendall Mountain.” BINGO!!!

Anna and her mother sat for about two hours beside an author whose books they really enjoyed and they didn't know it until the lady had been gone about 5 minutes.

It is indeed a small world. For natives around here I think it is less than 6 degrees.

To Bee or Not To Bee

Will it be the end of the human race or not?

I have heard lately more than once that our honey bees population is dwindling for various reasons. And along with that little interesting nature tidbit of news is that if the honey bee populations goes, we go. Without their work distributing the pollen vegetation can not continue, thus, we will run out of food in about a year and stave to death.

Here is another fact I have heard several times lately: Honey bees are not natives to North America. They arrived with the Pilgrim. The honey bees were brought to America by Europeans.

How did American Indians, before 1620 survive without bees? Vegetation was around on this continent before then wasn’t it?

Trip?

There is a possibility my wife may have to go on business to a town between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, in late October. The town it is in, Arlington, Texas, I think, also has 6 Flags Over Texas there.

It looks like it is a two-day meeting. Which when travel time is added it is about 4 days away.

Now, the question is, should I or should I not go?

What would I do? I could visit all the cemeteries in the area. Some of my Hunters, Pettys, Trammells, and Tysons relatives moved to the area in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Or I could visit live Pettys, Trammells, and Tysons still living in the area – but sometimes these visits just end up with you and them just staring at one another.

Note – If you have a sharp eye you will see that I mentioned the Hunters moving there but said nothing about the Hunters still living in the area. That is because the ones I know about moved back to Georgia in 1879 – but that is a long story.

We would probably have to rent a car. I think there will be a shuttle transporting her bunch from the motel to the meeting place but is a shuttle going to come back at lunch and drive slowly down the road looking for a decent place to eat?

On the map and doesn’t look no further than ten or fifteen miles from Dallas. I might just go into Dallas and look up the Book Depository and the famous Grassy Knoll and poke around and see if I can find something the officials overlooked. Maybe a match cover with Jack Ruby’s is on the Grassy Knoll and everybody else overlooked it over the past 43 years.

Maybe I can look at the Warren Commission and see who all were the witnesses of that terrible day and look the ones still living I can visit them and sort of “lean of them” to find out what really happened and who is covering up.

I know, I’ll find a witness that I think is lying and tie that person up and tell them old corny one liner jokes until they crack and can’t stand it anymore and then tell me what really happened.

Or I could go sit on a bench at 6 Flags Over Texas both days and not speak to strangers until Anna gets off .

OUCH!

Our son Adam was riding his bike Wednesday night and a bug flew into his eye. He said he could feel it squirming and trying to get out of his eye socket.

That must have been a horrible feeling.

He returned home and somehow washed his eye and turned his eye-lids inside out and the bug got out. I didn't catch if it was dead or alive when it made its exit.

The next morning his eye was bothering him so he called his doctor's office who recommended he get to the ER SAP. He was waited on quickly at the ER and they cleansed the eye area and said the bug's scratches same close to his eyeball, which would have been another story.

It could have been worse.

The Pleasure Is All Our's

Tomorrow we are to attend a cousin’s son and daughter-in-law’s baby shower.

Last week we spent hours in Babies R Us carefull checking over many of the items on the registered list and finally bought a thing like a stroller frame that you put the car seat into, which wasn’t cheap for someone we don’t know that well.

Last year or the year before the cousin gave them a wedding shower which we attended and brought a gift.

I have been told all my life that it is a better pleasure to give than to receive.

I feel like a selfish pig.

Oozing Yuccas! Yuck!

Our yuccas are in bloom. Here is one.

Each has several long stalks coming out with thick white blossoms on each. There were about five stalks that did their job, grow and shed the blossoms so they can so forth and multiply. I cut them off today. After the blossoms are gone the stalks have no use so they dry up and become ugly scraggly sticks.

Before I cut them down I got close enough to a blossom bearing stalk just to see what it was doing. I saw an organized line of ants walking in-step up the stalk to where the pollen-sticky-goo was oozing out. I suppose each ant got some goo under each arm or packed it on her back somehow and was supposed to return to their home nest with the goo to share.

Only thing, I did not see a formation of ants going down the stalk, only up.

Upon a closer study I saw near the top where the goo was at its gooish, was a spider web. It looked like more ants than not was getting tangled up in the web and a very happy little spider was making her way around welcoming her groceries… and probably rubbing her fore pinchers together cackling “heh heh”.

I wish I could have taken a closer picture of that.

But getting back to the general overall look: There were a line of ants in formation climbing to the top of the stalk to get the food, only to be devoured by something bigger and stronger.

See? That proves there is a God.

Spies in the Revolutionary War

Last night I attended the Cobb County Genealogical Society meeting. I am a charter member joining when it was first organized in 1977. I was the society’s first newsletter editor. I still belong but no longer take an active part. I only show up at the meetings that I think will interest me, such as last night, which was about “Spies of the Revolutionary War”.

The meeting each month is held at the Marietta Central Library downtown. Before the meeting I went to their CD section and checked out CDs with Eric Clapton and one called Rounder Blue Grass 2, which has an assortment of blue grass artists.

I went to the meeting room and sat down behind one of my distant cousins Lynda. Standing talking to Lynda was a man dressed as one would be dressed in the colonial period. He was explaining to Lynda that his shoes, which looked like paten leather shoes with buckles, that his shoes had no left or right. Either shoe fits either foot. You adjust the buckle to make it either left or right, like the picture above. He seemed like a very nice guy that was really into the history of the Revolutionary War. He was the speaker for the night.

Before the speaker was introduced the president asked the treasurer to give her report, which was that the treasury had $10,000 plus. Then he asked the secretary to give the minutes of the last meeting and she stood up and said they are on the table in the back if anybody wanted to see it.

Then he recognized some other officer who wanted the floor. She pleaded for volunteers. She begged for people to volunteer to fill the officers’ postions that are leaving. I could have declared myself el Presidente’ by just volunteering. The said they are on the verge of disbanding if they cannot get anyone to fill the vacancies. Then I thought, “Hey, I might volunteer to be the treasurer, which would be a nice position in case they did disband… $10,000 plus… “

No, I won’t. I already did my volunteer work for the society. Besides, it would just be my luck that the treasurer’s job is to make up any difference in the account and it probably the account should have had $50,000 in it but that shady land deal in Florida took most of it.

The speaker knew his stuff and made it very interesting. He told of many spy-related incidents that turned the tide of the Revolutionary War.

One of the things he told about was the British occupying Trenton, New Jersey. A spy came to the head British Commanding Officer and gave him a sealed note. The sealed note told George Washington and his men were about to cross the Delaware River. They did cross, as the note said, and the Continental Army whipped ass and took it from the British. The British commanding officer was killed. They found in his pocket the sealed note, still sealed. If he had read it things might have been different.

This reminded me of my Navy days when one Halloween night a bunch of us went to Trenton to the cemetery that had the Continental soldiers buried there. We were looking for ghosts, which we didn’t find. However, one of us picked up a tattered 13 –stars flag on the ground. When we got back to the barracks it was after 10p.m. and the lights were out. We went to the cubical of one of our work-mates ,Dick H, and threw the flag on him sleeping. He jumped up. As quickly as the flag landed we yanked it up and ran out.

The next morning at breakfast in the chow hall he told us he had the strangest dream last night. He said he felt a presence. He jumped up and a tattered Revolutionary American Flag was on him and it lifted up and floated away.

We acted surprised and told him he either dreamed it or it could have been something ghostly.

The speaker of the spy stories told an interesting local story. The only county of Georgia’s many counties (159?) named after a woman is Hart County. Hart County is named after Nancy Hart. Nancy was married and lived around the French Broad River of the Carolinas. She was a dead-eye sharp shooter and was willing to take changes. Being a dead-eye sharp shooter must have been a challenge she overcame because she was also cross-eyed. She was also red-headed – fighting Irish? General Lighthorse Harry (Robert E. Lee’s father) had her pose as overgrown retarded kid that wandered into enemy camps looking for work. She would do whatever work, like chop wood, bring water, and other minor jobs. Her ears were opened. The Brits did not mind talking war plans and secrets with her within earshot because they thought she was just a retarded overgrown boy. The plans she got back with helped the good guys win.

It just occurred to me that I might make a good spy. People usually consider me invisible – people don’t seem to see me at all. I missed my calling.

Lets see... Where was I?

Let me see …. Where was I?

Today I had a physical exam. It was a Medicare thing. Medicare encourages you to get a physical within your first six months.

I think other than the body fluids they squeezed out of my body, all seemed to be okay. The blood test and urine sample I won’t know the results for a few days. The doctor said my heart and lungs were doing great.

One problem I think the male patients of this office have surely all had during their physical, but none wanted to tell anybody of authority was the urine sample arrangement. The commode lid would not stay up on its own. So you have to hold it. If you hold the lid with one had and have the sample cup your other hand, well, isn't a 3rd hand needed?

One minor discovery that took me by surprise was that I lost ¾ of an inch since the last time my height was officially measured. The only advantage I can see to this is that sometime in the future I will be able go into a stall in a public restroom by just walking under the partition without having to open the door.

But who is going to lift me up?

Wednesday

It has been a productive day, sort of.

The first thing I went to my eye doctor for my regular yearly exam. Since a couple of years ago, when they found my eye balls had a high pressure number, they have been keeping an eye on it. When they found it I was prescribed some kind of eye drops and the pressure went away, much to the surprise of the doctor.

I made my appointment 8am. I figure the best time to make your appointments is the first one of the day or around 11:30, which should be just before lunch. In either case, you are subject to be waited on and out of there quicker.

This morning was an exception. I got lost in the shuffle. The nurse for my doctor was new (to that office), she came up from the Piedmont office, she said, because they were short handed. So, after she did her part with me she told me to go sit back in the waiting room and the doctor would call me. That is not the way it has been done. After the nurse does her thing you just sit there and the doctor comes by and sees your papers on the door, and looks it over and goes on in and does his part.

But she sent me back to the waiting room. After a while the receptionist asked me didn’t she already see me go to the back and I said yes, and told her that I thought the nurse, being new to their operation, put me back here, when I thought she shouldn’t. Apparently, she went back and said something and the nurse called me back and the doctor looked over my figures and said I was doing okay, keep up the good work and come back next year.

I walked out without paying a dime. Thank you, tax payers. Medicare is great.

Then I thought I would go to Costco and buy gas. On the way, I thought I would drop by the doctor’s office I am scheduled to have a physical next week. I have a slight problem I wanted to ask the lab about. What it is I also have orders and the form from my cardiac doctor to get blood work at a lab done before my next appointment. I asked the lab lady could she do both of them, one for the doctor and one for cardiologist. She said sure, but added that I may have a hard time to get Medicare to pay for both of them if they are the same blood test. Darn! I now I am confused.

In the waiting room was Jim, a friend of mine. I sat down and we talked a while. Then, on to Costco to get gas..

I worked on genealogy today and studied a genealogy program manual I just received – I sent off for an update of Family Tree Maker Genealogy Program and also as an afterthought ordered the manual… so the lady on the phone had to make two orders of it, because I ordered it after she asked, “Is that all?” But she said they wouldn’t charge me postage on the book. So, now I have the manual and not the program, so I am studying it.

Also I did a few things around the house such as ran the dishwasher and emptied it.

On a HBO station Woody Allen’s “Play It Again, Sam” was on. I didn’t realize or remember how much “Play It Again, Sam” is similar to “Annie Hall”. They even have the same two main actors, Woody Allen and Dianne Keaton… and the same plot, Woody a bumbling klutz who is missing out in the romance department and his female running around buddy, who happens to be married… and they finally click, romantically. Keaton dresses like Annie Hall in both of them. The only difference I can see is that clips of Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca” is in one and not the other.

Of course I could be wrong. It has been a long time since I saw “Annie Hall”.

After Anna came home we went to downtown Marietta to a and met a friend of Anna’s who got a promotion and is transferring to D.C. We met her at a Thai and sushi restaurant. It was a goodbye dinner.

The restaurant is what used to be known as the Denmeade Warehouse. Mr. Denmeade was a nearby plantation owner, and this building is right by the railroad tracks. I have shown a picture before of just on the other side of the tracks are doors into a cement wall, that they would put the cotton in waiting to load it onto the railway during pre-Civil War Times. More recently, the building was the warehouse for Veach’s Wholesale Grocery. Anna’s father was the manager of Veach's for 30 years. When he decided to retire Mr. Veach closed the business down.

Inside the restaurant is very charming with a bunch of Asians with black ties waiting on you hand and foot. Rocky had eaten there several times and had nothing but good to say about the place. We were there about 90 minutes, I counted the sounds of 4 trains during that period - that is part of the small town charm.

Bloom?

I am not sure what this is, or where or when I took the picture. I just thought it looked interesting.

Lem Guffin (1887 - 1969)

Lem appeared on my blog earlier with his bride Maude Wright on their wedding day. Lem looks like a young banker or insurance executive, which I think he was the latter.

School Buses, Bus Stops, and Sex Criminal Laws

Yesterday was the first day of school for the school year in Cobb County. The Marietta School System went back last week.

When I went to school, as I remember it, we started soon after Labor Day, never before. And my mother, who grew up in a rural community, remembered all kids generally got out of school during harvest time.

I have no kid in school, so, why am I thinking about this? My routine. I was thinking of leaving out on my bike and I thought of having to compromise with big orange school buses and the kids in clusters at bus stops waiting on them. I decided to postpone my ride until 8:30. By that time, hopefully, we won’t be in the way of each other.

Yesterday in Smyrna, Georgia, because of some kind of freak accident a school bus had a dangling possible live power line dangling from the pole onto the bus. An alert citizen saw this, and ran up to the bus before it opened its door and told the driver to keep the kids inside until the line was resolved. I think the news said there were two or three kids and the bus driver inside. It was very hot inside the bus but they could not leave. Finally Georgia Power came and fixed the situation, but it took some time. There was concerned that the people in the bus would become dehydrated, so ambulances and the police were there to do what had to be done. After Georgia Power hoisted the live line out of harms way the kids left the bus and there was no medical problems. They have the alert person who first saw the incident to thank.

Also, speaking of School Bus Stops, Georgia recently passed a law saying no sex offender and be within so many feet (I forgot how many- I think 1000) of a bus stop. Somebody did a quick study and found there is no such place in Georgia Cities and the suburbs – only possibly in remote rural areas.

So, they have passed a law that it will be impossible to enforce. The lawmakers, and the preppy looking legislator spokeswoman, said when they meant not within so many feet of a bus stop they didn’t mean it – it is so many feet within a designated bus stop. So, see? No problem, only a solution.

The last I heard the case is in front of a judge to decide if it is constitutional or not.

Some would say that the message here is if you don’t do sex crimes then you don’t have anything to worry about.

And that reminds me of a case in Rome a year or so ago, where a young man, I think 18, had sex with his underage girl friend. I think she was 18. Two years difference in their ages. He was accused of statutory rape. I know it was being appealed and I haven’t heard if he got out of it or not… come on, it was his girl friend. So, if he didn’t get out of it, he will have no place in most of Georgia to work and live – as the law is presently worded.

Adam & Rocky in Ball Room at Chuck E. Cheese

Reuben - 2

This is how I remember Reuben. Of course, unless he is a medical oddity I'm sure he has changed some over the past 40 years. I know everybody else has - except me of course, unless you count hair-loss, sagging of facial skin, etc.

Reuben

This morning when I checked my email there was an email from Reuben an old Navy friend of mine. That was a very pleasant surprise!

Reuben said he retired from the Navy in 1984 (think). In 1965 he got out shortly after I did and stayed with me and my parents and looked for a job in the Atlanta area, and then reenlisted.

He said he ran a Google search and found my blog and has been reading it. So, I there will not be much catching up, because I have been catching myself up on Chicken Fat for about the past 8 or 9 months.

But there are plenty of things I want to know about him and what he did with his life for the past 40 years.... time stands still for no one.

Edwin "Ed" Tyson Hunter, Sr. (1911-1988)

If my father was alive he would be celebrating his 95th birthday today.

Correction: If my father was alive we would be celebrating his 95th birthday today. He wasn’t much on celebrations that he was the focus of. He was quiet and very unpretentious. He was my hero.

He lived 77 years.

Progress

movie fever

We just watched the 2005 version of Zorro with Anthony Banderas. Each time I see a Zorro movie or a Durango Kid movie, I feel like getting in a good fight using whips, swords, and doing a few snappy kicks, leaping, swing with my whip across the room and jump from one roof top to another.

Here, pardon me, while I get this momentarily urge out of my system.

Here I am leaping gracefully across the room with my black cape following behind me, almost like a ghost. I land gracefully on my two feet and survey the room, but you see, I don’t look behind me where a bad guy is slipping up with a long sword, but you see, I see his image in a mirror close by, so I quickly spin around just as his long sword is coming down and dodge it and punches him in the face. He looks shocked for a minute and takes another jab with that sword. This time I leap up and grab the chandelier and swing right into him, my manly black Dingo boots right into his face which knocks him out cold.

Then I continue swinging on the chandelier and three other thugs come out, all have guns, knives, and even brass knuckles. I very gracefully let go of the chandelier and I go into a spin. The thugs all shoot at me, but I am artfully dodging the bullets as they whiz by me… but the bullets, after they whiz by me, hits each of the thugs and they fall down dead…. Did I tell you they surrounded me, and who would have thought that it would have worked like that.

Then, I take some very high steps and leaps which shows off my long legs. Then I see the boss of the bad guys setting a timing device on a pack of dynamite sticks all wrapped together. By this time I am up on a balcony. I do a very graceful swan dive off the balcony with my cape serving like wings of a bat. I gracefully (and artfully) grab the mean bosses shoulders and bring him to the floor with me. Like a gymnastic major, I roll and pounce up and ready to jump around from furniture high furniture piece to furniture piece, like bars, cabinets, and all… the mean boss yields his gleaming sword at me and each time I jump with both feet and he always misses me. We fight some more, and oh, did I mention there is a big gear thing pulling a big cable in the middle of the room, for whatever reason, who knows. The bad guy is about to stab my heart when his shirt gets caught up in the gears and cable and he is shot up to the top of the room and hung – or did he fall into the meshing of the giant gears? Anyway, he is dead. I gracefully, with my long legs leap across the room to shut off the timing advice, but a bad guy I thought I killed shot me in the arm which kinds of knocks me woo-woo – but the digital timer is only about 4 seconds away from 0… then, my faithful horse happens to bound through the window with glass shattering all over the place, also with along graceful leap, and kicks the timing device to pieces.

And afterwards, we all have a good laugh.

You should see me after I watch a 3 Stooges movie.

The Jocks

Adam (on left) wresting and Rocky on base listening to the instructions of his first base-coach. I don't remember the details but I'm sure Adam threw the guy out of the ring and went and then threw him back in to torment him the boy some more. And I'm sure Rocky scored another run.

Perry Parham (1940-1953)

Perry Parham was my first friend, my age to die. It was a jolt of reality. We could get killed doing things.
Perry was riding his bike in the dust hour and got ran over by a motorist who didn't see him. He was killed instantly. Blood was all over the street.

Perry was a great baseball player. We both were on Marietta Little League teams. We both went to Waterman Street School and both lived in the same section of town. We knew each other by name and have played together several times. But I can't say we were best friends, but I was still shocked.

They named the Little League field in town The Perry Parham Memorial Baseball Field. And they have the above memorial marker. Every year on the first day of the season the little Miss Little League and Mr. Little League, after they are photographed, with the little girl holding the bouquet they go to the marker and place the flowers.

A year or so after that terrible accident his parents divorced and both moved away. His older brother Clayton on his class's reunion list is listed as "Whereabouts - Unknown". The family vaporized.

I Have Just Enough Knowledge To Be Dangerout!

I have just enough knowledge of computers and the electronic world to be dangerous.

Yesterday, I waited around for two or three of my entries to appear on my blog. I waited and waited. Then, I went to Anna’s computer and looked and they were there! Also, through my editing dashboard thing they were there, along with comments. So, other people were receiving it, even in our own house, so why didn’t I?

I called my son Adam, who is very sharp on these things I get tangled up in and he told me to press the Refresh command button, which I did, and it all materialized.

Then this morning, the same thing happened, the entry of the Petty family I submitted did materialized so I chuckled to myself and hit the refresh button. And it still didn’t materialize. Then, I went through the dashboard and it wasn’t there. So, I checked on my other blog, Chickenfat and it was there, I had placed it there in error. So, I copied and pasted it on the Chicken Fat blog that I use mostly.

The same thing happened last week – as you might remember, when I asked you to go to chickenfat.

And the day before yesterday Anna and my lines went down. We could not get on line. Sometimes when that happens if I unplug everything including the modem and router and wait a minute and plug it back in everything works fine. This time it didn’t. And it was time to go to bed. The next morning our lines were still down. I was going to call Adam, but first call Bell South, but before I did, I wanted to check to make sure I plugged the lines back into the modem and router snugly. And there was the problem. I overlooked plugging the little power cord back in.

So…..

Petty family c1946, Varnell, Ga

his is my mother’s family in about 1946 in Varnell, Georgia. That is me on the 1st row, the last person on the right. I am sitting by my uncle Osmo who was a very interesting man. Behind me my sister has her arms around two sisters. Slightly behind her is our grandmother, and to her right is our mother.

My father is the 3rd one from the right on the back row. Next to him is Walt, my grandmother’s brother, who was retarded.

The only adult in the picture still living is Wallace. He is on 2nd row with his hands on one of his daughters shoulders. He is now 97. He was the head of the state’s rehabilitation in Milledgeville until he retired.

It looks like one big happy family doesn’t it. Wrong! They all fought like cats in a paper sack. The root of their fighting stems from their long-dead father who pampered half of them and physically abused the other half, giving them whippings regularly, for the least reason.

Osmo, the one sitting by me, always knew what to say to trigger them off, and I think he loved a good fight.

Plains, Georgia, November 19, 1976

Days of Yesteryear:
A couple of weeks after Jimmy Carter won the presidential election we decided to go to Plains, Georgia, and check the Carter family out.
Jimmy's mother Miss Lillian went to the Plains RR Depot a couple times each day to sign autographs. She was long legged that took big steps. A little short Asian body guard must have had a hard time keeping up with her. One of us, I forgot who, reached out to shake her hand and she drew back and said, "Don't touch me!" She didn't mean any harm, she just did not wanted to be touched... she should know about what kind of germs people have on their hands, after all she was a nurse. She was very kind to the people who came to see her.
Jimmy's brother Billy did not seem to take all the gawkers so well. That is Billy in the red jacket. He drove from his service station (pictured) across the street and went into the Carter Peanut Warehouse office and came back out with two women who he left with. He glare at me or my camera through the vehicle's window as he rode by.
The street Jimmy lived on was blocked off with a security gate, so we didn't get to visit and sit a spell with him.

Observances & Mental Notes on My Bike Ride

Out on my bike ride this morning I noticed a couple of things worthy of me commenting on. Heck, to be honest almost anything is worthy (or fair game) for me to comment on.

I noticed a sign nailed to a telephone pole saying “Horse Camp” and it gave the number to call. I wonder what the horses do at Horse Camp? Late at night around the camp fire tell “hoss stories”?

Also I noticed the Cobb County school buses were in motion on the big roads and the sub divisions. The Cobb County Schools System doesn’t start until next week but it appeared to me that the buses were making a dry run. Each driver was driving over his/her route and even stopping, opening the door, waited probably a minute, maybe more, and taking off again. I suppose they were timing themselves on how long they can expect to do their run twice a day and to see if any new problems were waiting on them that were not there in June.

The 16 year old boy that lives across from us has always stayed in trouble at school. For several years he has been going to an alternative school and a special bus transports him each day. When he first started with the special school the female bus driver would come, wait a minute or so and blow her horn, if he didn’t show up she would move on. Then in the afternoon, she would drop him off and take off.

But Joe is a smooth talking young man. He is a big boy, well over 6 feet and shows a certain equal respect when he talks to you. He is not intimidated, he calls you by your first name and somehow get the feeling he is sizing you up. I think one day he may be a good con-man.

During last year the female bus driver started pulling up in the driveway and she and Joe would sit in the bus and talk or sometimes stand outside and smoke (both of them). Then, she begin to visit inside the house for about 30 minutes. I suppose he was the last kid to leave off. And, what they do behind closed doors is, well, behind closed doors.

Now, I know what you are thinking, I will just go ahead and say it: Eddie, you are sure are nosy!

2nd Grade - Waterman Street School

Mrs. Killenbeck was the teacher. The only thing I remember about Mrs. Killenbeck was a framed picture of Harry Truman hanging in her classroom. Years later after she retired she lived behind a friend that I carpooled with when I worked at the Post Office in Atlanta. When I was in car waiting on him every so often I could hear her laughing insanely, or like a maniac.

3rd Grade - Waterman Street School

My teacher was Mrs. McCollum - well, her name changed to Mrs. McCollum after she got married that year. She married Herbert McCollum who would become the County's Commissioner. He did some very crooked things to get Cobb progressed to the times, which included a new courthosue, which everybody regretted getting rid of the old one. Herbert McCollum and my fathet were political enemies.

4th Grade - Waterman Street School

Miss Rakestraw was the teacher. She was such a doll. Half way through the year she got married and resigned. I didn't get along with the new teacher, Mrs. Poole, the witch.

New Link

I should have added Button Gwinnett long time ago but out of laziness put it off until I forgot about it. She is a good writer with a good insight on Georgia Politics. She is over to the right* folks, just go down.

*That is over to the right on the screen.

An Afternoon in the Park - May 1989

An afternoon in Glover Park, downtown Marietta. Rocky (near center) is playing his trombone in the high school jazz band and Adam is in another part of the park playing play stuff.

Lady Sings the Blues - Georgia's 4th Dist Election

Well, we won’t have Cynthia McKinney to push around anymore.

Or will we? I bet she is not through yet. She has plenty of gumption left and she will use it.

I heard that some Republicans were secretly wishing she would win. They were hoping she would win because she was very good at embarrassing the Democrats.

However, things like that can backfire. Look at Bush, who I think is a an embarrassment of the Republican Party. Both people have been out of control while in office.

I have to Cynthia credit for her early critiques of Bush and his handling of Iraq. She was accusing him of handling it wrong long before anyone else dared to. I think she deserves a thumbs up for that.

Small World in a Small Town

Monday while my mother-in-law was shopping at Krogers she ran into an old church friend. The church friend had a picture in her pocketbook that she gave Marie. I don’t know, but I suppose she thought Marie could do something with it. I scanned it and made a couple of copies for her.

Marie and another lady are doing a history book of their church. And many people in the picture were members of the church.

The picture is the students of a small school house in the community at the time. Marie recognized some of the kids and heard the names of others in the picture. She estimates that the picture was taken about 1940.

One person I recognized the name. I will call him P. P was an in-law on Anna’s father’s side. Probably just a couple years after that picture was taken the name I recognized joined the Army and went into WWII. After the war he returned home and married and they had a child.

Not long after later:

Small World and Small Town:
On my father’s side of the family two brothers, which are/were my father’s nephews were going fishing. They main road the crossed to get to the pond they fished in they noticed a truck parked on the side of the road.

Hours later when returning home, (they were barely teenagers), the truck was still on the side of the road. They looked in and saw a dead body. It was P. He was killed by a handgun and his body has been sitting there for hours.

Monkey Taking a Leak

I photographed this when we visited some kind of Wild Animal Kingdom thing that you drive through south of Atlanta. I don't think it is still there.

Geogia Election Run-Offs Today

Good Morning!

Today is run-off election day. We will not vote today. We should have taken a closer look at who is running and toss in our 2 cents, but didn’t. So, I guess we deserve what we get.

One race I find interesting is not taking place in our district anyway. But if it was I would be voting against Cynthia McKinney by voting for Hank Johnson.

Isn’t that a shame? That we find ourselves voting against a person instead of voting for a person? That's politics!

So, now I have to decide whom I am going to vote against in November.

Mother-In-Law Marie

Today my mother-in-law Marie turned 86 years old. She still drives and gets around fine, going to a few meetings a week, mostly church related.

We, our sons, my sisters, and Marie's brother and his wife, and a son's girlfriend took her out to eat yesterday. See my son Rocky's blog for our dining experience - his link is at on the right.

Today at this time she is probably at her weekly Bible Study, and afterwards her friends will probably eat out at John-Boys Country Cooking as they do every Monday. Then, this evening we will take her out again, but this time we will be armed with coupons.

Adam & Rocky, Univeral Studios, Orlando, 1992

They look worn out from doing their job of sightseeing.

Sam & Daves' BBQ & Sam & Daves' BBQ #2

There is a barbecue place near the Chattahoochee River named Sam and Daves’s BBQ. We read an ad and searched for it on Google and found a couple of raving reviews. The only thing, they said, it was a hole in the wall at a shopping center. The only has two tables. It was primarily designed as a take-out place.

We tried it and fell totally for the delicious home-town style they made of it. The barbecue is moist with just the right rubs. We think it is the best barbecue place in Cobb County – maybe the world.

The best we can figure it is owned by three men, Sam, who is a lawyer, Dave, who is in real estate, and Dave. That’s right, two Daves. I am not sure what other line of work the other Dave is in. I am pretty sure both Daves are part owners.

Sam Huff, the lawyer, was at one time in the early ‘70s an assistant D.A. in Cobb County. He father was a judge. Once about that time I was on the Grand Jury and watch Sam present some cases for indictment. Then he was clean faced and a wee bit nervous. Now he is white bearded and not nervous at all.

I also went to see Sam as an assistant D.A. when my motor cycle was robbed from me with a bad check. I wanted to see about pressing charges. Sam told me that once I accepted a predated check from the guy I was accepting his credit, thus it was no longer a criminal matter – it was a civil matter.

One of the Daves is David Poe. His family had a smoker on a trailer and would go to events where people would gather and dish out the barbecue. They called their portable barbecue organization Stump and Sons Barbecue. His mother was a small woman, who they called Stump. And, well Dave, was a son.

Sam Huff has won barbecue cook-off competitions and so has David Poe. Again, I don’t know about the other Dave.

Sam has a gray beard and the two Daves are good looking men. They have a devil-may-care way about they operate things – something about them remind me of the A-Team. I can see almost picture one of them, with a cigar clinched in their mouth fighting the rude customers – but where is Mr. T.?

Two weeks ago they opened a new barbecue restaurant probably about a mile west of the Square. It is named Sam and Dave’s BBQ #2.

The Marietta Journal interviewed Sam and he said their barbecue was good you will want to "slap your mama!" I like that expression.

We went the first night and have been back twice twice. Each time the food was great. We try not to be compulsive and try to do things in moderation, but with this barbecue we just couldn’t help ourselves it was so good.

The first night we had regular pulled pork. The next night we tried barbecue chicken. And last Friday evening we had beef brisket. It was all delicious.

Now, I am thinking ribs. I try to keep my ribs consumption low – (1) they are so good I suspect they have more than their share of fat and (2) ribs are expensive.

I had ribs from Sam and Dave’s for my Father’s Day Dinner that we got to go from the original Sam and Dave’s BBQ. So, that may do me and be happy with the other three selections.

Interesting enough, it is one of the few places that you are most likely to see all natives. I don’t think we heard any Yankee or foreign accents there. Everybody seems to be local.

Night Blooming Sirius or Cereus

About twenty-five years ago near midnight my in-laws called excitedly asking me to come over with my camera. I was off that night.

I grabbed my camera and quickly drover over to their house. Their house isn’t but a few miles away.

They had in a pot a Night Blooming Sirius in it. It was a big plant with a very bright blossom on it. It blooms rarely – I forgot how often, no more than once a year, but I think it was something like every four or five years. I ran a google search and saw some pretty photos but nothing that told their frequency of blooming.

Anyhoo, It had a stout looking stalk with the blossom in full bloom at the top. It smelled to high heaven. It was the Night Blooming Sirius’s time to mate. It had an erection.

A Wandering Friday

As I have mentioned more than once in my blog Anna is off on most Fridays. That is our gallivanting day. Yesterday, after Anna got a haircut the theme for the day was look for a paper or plastic plates, preferably baby blue, for a baby shower for a co-worker and his wife and upcoming baby boy yet-to-be-born.

The shower is in early September but it is not too early to start looking for things. We visited at least three party supply stores and a number of other stores likely to have stuff like that.

I was getting very tired and sleepy. I was afraid I was going to slip off into a coma never to be awake again.

I am not a good shopper. I like to go directly into a store, buy whatever target purchase I went for and leave. I am not good at drifting aimlessly from product to product picking them up, turning them upside down, then putting it down and going to the next one… on and on without end. I wish I was a more enthused shopper, but it in my blood not to me – I have to find things within eyesight to keep me amused.

Regardless of my near coma condition I noticed some of my surroundings:
At a party supply store the proprietor was an Indian (Eastern type). He was in his late 50s or 60s, very brown skin but strikingly white hair. He looked very relaxed and at peace with himself. He wore sandals. There were two employees, one an Asian and the other was apparently the Indian’s son. To the Asian he politely addressed him as “sir”, which I thought to treat people with respect never hurts.
A fast talking Caucasian battery salesman came in and looked over his battery display turn sty and went ahead and replaced some from his large carry-case. After he did it he explained what he did to the display and the Indian elderly nodded as he told him, not asking for proof . The slick salesman gave the Indian a bill and he waddled to the cash register and paid him cash.
At a grocery store two enlisted Air Force men in fatigues were buying a few things on their way home. On three or four different occasions I noticed that people wanted to stop and talk to them… one old man, who looked like a natural grouch smiled from ear to ear when he talked to them. Everybody who stopped them to talk to them were friendly.

Then, my bad shoulder, the one that has been operated on started hurting. I guess it knows it cue… when I start slipping off into a coma it is to start emitting pain to keep me awake – and it did a good job. I can’t be bored with a throbbing pain.

I decided that I couldn’t take anything for it because I am already taking my limit of things like that with my baby aspirin each day and my Tylenol PM.

This was after dark, maybe near 9pm. Anna suggested we go to the new nearby CVS Pharmacy that we haven’t been in yet and see what the druggist suggests. The thought of wandering up and down the aisles of the new store looking for blue paper or plastic plates – aarrrggggggg!!!!

Anna went by herself. She came back with Arthritis Tylenol. The druggist recommended that I leave my baby aspirin and Tylenol PM off for the night. I did and it worked. I forgot about my pain.

All’s well that ends well.

Lem & Maude Guffin on their Wedding Day

This is Anna's great aunt Maude (1895-1975) and Lem (1887-1969) on their wedding day August 13 1916. They had no children but I think a street is named after Lem. There is a Guffin Drive in the area where they lived.

Music

Remember the last picture of Adam hard play basketball. Also the basketball played him. Here he is with his arm in a cast because of a hairline fracture.

Rocky was in a volunteer band "Let Freedom Ring" in Marietta's July the 4th Parade.

Dope Dealer's Specials

Our new Honda came with built in XM Radio capabilities. If you sign up you can receive satellite radio. It has well over a hundred stations, I forgot if it was 147 or 187 selections. All sorts of music, including blues, bluegrass, any decade like the ‘50s, or 60s, rock & roll, country, Salsa, you name it. It also has a few entertaining shows to listen to, also a local weather & traffic report. Whatever you pick is commercial and DJ free – all continuous music, unless of course you pick the traffic & weather station.

However, it is not free. It comes with a monthly fee.

But they offer you a trial period free. We went by the instruction booklet to sign up and called the 1-800 number and they took down our information then asked for our credit card number. Why do you want that? Because we will charge you each month. We are calling about the free trial. Oh! Your car dealer has to set you up on that.

So we called the dealer, which is in a little down north of here, Woodstock, Georgia. The person that is suppose to set people up with a trial XM Radio account has never had to do that before so it took a couple of days of hit and miss before he got it right. We were the first ones from that dealer to try this? Strange.

Now we are in the 3 month trial period.

I doubt if we will take it. If we want uninterrupted music we have CDs.

What I am getting at is this sales ploy is what is know as the “Dope Dealers Special”. It is given to you free for a while with hopes you will be hooked when it comes time for you to pay to continue and gladly do so.

If you watch crime shows on TV you know dope dealers do that. Let people have dope for free or almost free and then when they are hooked the dealer start charging. Apparently that system works.

If these street people dope dealers can come up with a brilliant sales ploy as that, I bet they can come up with some other brilliant sales ploys.

Maybe CEOs should look into firing their Madison Avenue advertising agencies chocked full of Harvard and Yale graduates and replace them with the sleazy dope dealers.

The dealer man know the laws of the street and the jungle. They know what the people are afraid of and how to get to them. They will get that product moving.

And hey, are intimidation tactics acceptable?

The Georgia State Capital from the Coke Museum

This is the picture I took from the top floor of the Coke Museum.

By the way, that gold dome is really gold, mined from the the hills of north Georgia.

Georgia State Capital

This was on a birthday card I received a few days ago. It is from our state representative (Republican). He probably wants a list of the free-loaders which includes people on Medicare.

As soon as I saw the card made me remember that you cannot take a good picture of the Georgia Capital without taking pictures of the trees. That is good too. Trees are good. But, one day I wanted to take a picture of the Capital without all the trees. I walked around the block several times and could not come up with the right angle to miss the trees and get all of the building.

However, when Bluto visited (see previous blog entries) from the top floor of the Coke Museum in the staircase well I found is a good place to take a picture of the Capital without the trees - or the trees are still there, but in a lower position so the Capital can stand out.

If you are ever in Atlanta and have the time you would probably enjoy visiting the Capital. We did. A museum of history and Georgia's natural resources. is in the open lobby of both levels. There are all kinds of paintings and statues of famous Georgians.

Neat!

If our yard could only be half as neat.

Soaps

Back in 1975 when our first son Rocky was born Anna quit work to be a full time mother.

While holding the baby feeding him and rocking him soap operas on TV caught Anna’s eyes. Me too. I started watching Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman which came on late at night.

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was produced by Norman Lear and starred one of Woody Allen’s ex-wives, Louise Lasser. It was very bizarre and unpredictable you never knew what would happen next. It dealt in many subjects in a salt-of-the-earth or profound approach. It lasted less than two years. I think they ran out of subjects to attack and also I don’t think there were enough people to appreciate it.

We also began keeping up with a certain daytime soap that still is on 30 years later. And we still keep up with it. We don’t make it the focal point of our lives or anything, but I tape it and on weekends the VCR rolls it while we do chores.

Being the genealogy nut I am, I find it very interesting the intertwined relations everybody has with each other. It would take a patient devoted genealogist to make a relationship chart that would graph the different relations. Genealogy soft-ware programs do that, but it might blow a circuit trying to sort it all out.

I noticed that time has little meaning as we know it in the soap we keep up with. I have seen the same two people in room conversation begin on Christmas Day, and off and on during the week they would cut to that room where the two people are still having the conversation, then at the end of the week of viewing, they mention going to someone’s New Years Eve party that evening. If a girl is age 8 or 9 one week you might see her character change next week to a teenager curious about sex and having a good time. Sometimes a character starts showing his or her age and suddenly they are replaced with a younger better looking actor.

Sometimes when a new actor replaces the old one a little wit in shown, a line may be something like, “Kirk you don’t seem to be yourself today.”

The women, even the most moral and innocent, are acceptable to having an affair – usually her environment is beyond her control – her and a male person will be stranded on a desert island or something, and neither of them would do such a thing – but they each come around. Infidelity is rampart on soaps, or at the least the one I know, but I bet they all go by the same formula.

Almost everybody has an identical twin and will have amnesia.

Many times somebody is killed or in an accident the body is not recovered, and more so for villains. So, sometimes they return.

There seems to be most of the time a good guy with a British accent and sometimes a bad guy with a accent in around the Romania part of Europe.

The men, or the young men at least, seem to naturally walk around with no shirt on. Either the scene takes place while they are working out, or just out of the shower with a towel wrapped around them, or maybe shaving.

The makers know their target audience.

Daddy and Most of his Siblings

Here is Daddy and all his siblings except one brother, W.C. They are lined up according to their age.

Left to right: Dick, Stanley, Doug, Jack, Ed (Daddy), Bus, Bee, and Herbert. All the brothers have noses that appear to be broken, probably because they probably were broken - the brothers were pretty rowdy in their youth.

Shooting the Bird

While I am linking quality over quantity blogs I want to link Bird’s Bird In Hand.
I have been reading Bird’s blog for sometime now. Bird is a schoolteacher living in northeast Georgia. She is perk, and feisty which is reflected in the blog. Also she strongly believes in the Golden Rule and Fairness.

I placed her blog link below her husband’s Aging Hipster blog.

If It Is a Hunter, It Has To Be Good

Over to the right in my list of links I added a new one. My son Rocky's blog.

He has a different format than his dear old dad. He believes in quality instead of quantity.

The Passion of Mel

Normally I don’t keep up with big name stars’ personal lives. If a star wants to make a fool out of him or herself while drunk, that is their business.

But in the case of Mel Gibson I think some Karma humble pie was in order.

I have not seen Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of Christ. So, I don’t suppose I can rightly criticize it. I do know it was almost required viewing for Southern Baptists. I heard many of them say every body must see it – it would open their eyes.

Open their eyes to what? That Mel Gibson is a good movie maker? If he portrayed anything that was not in the pages of the New Testament then it was only his artistic touch or his opinion – In that case the movie was not fact based - so, why should everybody see his movie?

I understand from articles and people that have seen it that it shows the Jews to be mean, cruel, self-centered people. From what I understand Mel strayed from the Bible a lot to show his beliefs which doesn’t concur with the pages in the Bible.

And of course we Gentiles aren’t mean, cruel, hateful, or self-centered. We are gentle, as our name implies… but how did we end up controlling the New World and owning human servants (slaves) with our gentle passive ways?

Playing the Game

Adam (on left) playing basketball and Rocky batting.