Pictures of Then

One of the by-products of cleaning out our basement is now I have about a dozen huge boxes of unlabeled and unsorted photographs. Luckily they are in clumps or groups that were taken about the same time.

Now, what am I going to do with them? I don’t have the heart to throw them away. But wait! Yes I can. I can scan them, put them in a digital image state and then throw them away.

So, for posterity purposes I am hiding them in digital maze that will probably never be looked at again but might be around longer than the human race. .. but they could be looked at again – but why?

This will be these pictures last hurrah for a long long time.

I took these pictures in the late 1970s at Sandra’s house. Just by Mr. Harley handing Joe some kind of plaque with his name on it I suspect it is an unsanctioned retirement ceremony. All of them were my co-workers in the Time Keeper Data Collection Site.

The lady above on the right pinning something on the other lady is my old buddy and co-worker Alice. Alice was one week older than me. She lived a fast life. She was always late. If she was so fast how come she was always late? That is because she also lived a disorganized life. I will always think of her with her red wig tilted on her head and one closed because the smoke coming up from the cigarette in her mouth. Alice also had a drinking problem. Alice had a heart of gold. She died of a liver disease.

We knew her as Alice. Her husband, 3 kids, and 19 siblings knew her as Barbara Jean.

I think the other lady, the pinee, is Joe’s wife.



Harry is dead too. Harry used to like to tell me what kind of mess his son got into, or as he used to say, “that boy of mine…” His son was about 25 and lived at home. I met his son once – that boy of his just didn’t seem to have the enthusiasm or gumption to find a job or move out or ask a girl for a date.



Joe was one of my supervisors. Joe was very get old and very sickly. He had high blood pressure and felt better when sucking on a lemon. He was very easy going. Joe would be in his late 80s if he is still alive… which I bet he isn’t

Mr. Harley was very scholarly and very courtly. He seemed always very gentlemanly to make every feel comfortable. Numeric-wise, I think his time on earth has come too.

Who is not pictured because he wasn’t there was Mr. Jonas. Mr. Jonas was Wayne Williams Sunday School teacher. He felt strongly Wayne Williams was innocent but got railroaded because of a screaming public.




Left to right:
Popcorn did not like me very much to start off with. It took him years go adjust to me. His wife was murdered and I sincerely felt his grief. I got emotional when I told him how sorry I was. We spoke on friendly terms after that.

Santes is the guy in the middle. He was a supervisor by default. Santes was easy going and was constantly getting chewed out by the person over him. But he kept on smiling. Santes wife was a postal clerk who looked mean enough to eat nails and spit out the pieces in your face.

The guy on the right is Chuck. Chuck was a ladies man. He thought he was a ladies man and he was. He had several female friends at the Atlanta Post Office . He thought therefore he was? Is that the way it was. He was also a smooth talker, who seemed to talk more than he worked. About ten or so years after I transferred to Marietta one of our ex-coworkers called me and said Chuck was very ill and it was doubtful if he would live much longer. I called him and he was so much out of it I am not sure he knew who I was or not. He died less than a week later.





Sandra was the hostess of this get-together. Sandra was very outspoken and once got fired for fighting a supervisor. Later, she got her job back because it was proven she could not have slugged him, based on the facts he said, thanks to my photographs.

I always admired William. He was a hard honest worker with scruples you wouldn’t believe, yet he didn’t make a big deal of his high morals. One time at the Parcel Post Annex which was miles away from the Atlanta Post Office it was discovered that the timekeepers were doing every thing wrong, and abusing their position. They all were fired and William and I were sent in to run the time keepers office until a new crew could be trained. For several months William and I each worked 12 hours a day, relieving each other, 7 days a week, everyday of the month, for a couple of months with no time off what so ever. Life pretty much sucked then. His initials were WAP, which is what I called him.



Sully was very outspoken in a loud manner. You might say he was usually negative in a positive manner. One time Sully and several of his friends pooled their money and bought a bus. They had plans on using it to carry clubs or organizations to special events. Everyday we got to hear of new problems their bus and their clientele were causing. I think they finally sold it to recoup some of their investment.

One time during a storm a tree fell on Sully’s house. He climbed on top of the house with a chainsaw to cut the limbs in smaller more manageable pieces. He almost did the same for him leg and arm. He had a chain-saw accident which almost killed him. When I transferred to Marietta he was still out.

Now, these pictures, like some of their subjects are put to rest.