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HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Have a healthy year. Keep moving, keep up the circulation.

Deaths in 2009

It is getting that time of life that I hear and read of more of my old school chums that have died. And of course, also dying are ex-coworkers and kin folk. Dying is as natural as living and as sure as taxes.

A sad list. Friends and relatives who departed in 2009*

Randy Blake - co-worker
Bobby Cole - classmate
Ken Braswell - Co Little League player and schoolmate
Clayton Carnes - co-worker
Louie Clayton - co-worker and family friend
Oscar Freeman - Anna-s co-worker
Ronnie Howren - Schoolmate
Jay Hunter - Cousin
Frank McKenzie - Schoolmate and neighbor
Willis Scoggins - Family friend and neighbor's brother
Dora Hunter Spiva - Distant cousin
Sandra Wyatt - Schoolmate

*I am sure there are more I am unaware of.

Marietta Scene

Glover Park, Alexander Stephens Clay statue.

Photo by Adam P. Hunter

1956 OLYMPIAN - Sports for the Leasure Class

GOBAG Meeting - The Last One for the Year

The first picture is of course warm and inside. It is the Ropers cuddling their new granddaughter.

The rest of the pictures are the GODBAGs enjoying some terrific late December weather.

If there was a picture of me there, with my cough and cold I would have to label it "What Kind of Fool Am I?"

I think they had soup and sandwiches, and probably chased with antibiotics two days later.

What’ll You Have – Whatcha Got?

I missed another GOBAG meeting yesterday. I think I missed the whole month of December. I am still congested but not as bad as before. I don’t want to chance it, knowing the Billy Joe Royal concert is already paid for, so I don’t want to have another setback and have to miss it.

After all, money is money.

It is not fun being sickly over the holidays. The only good that came of it is that it kept my appetite nailed down. In early December I tried putting on a certain pair of Levis and I could not button the waist. Yesterday, I tried them on again, and they were slightly on the loose side.

Throat congested or not, some things still needed to be done yesterday. I took my 89 year old mother-in-law to a couple of places.

And while taking her from place to place I made a quick-stop at Golden Years Nursing Home to have a quick visit with Jerry McB. We decided what time we should pick him up for the Billy Joe Royal concert and to make sure he had his ticket. Jerry has a long goatee now. I see why they call a goatee a goatee. I half-way expected Jerry to say, “Y-y-y-e-e-e-s-s I-I-I h-h-h-a-a-a my ticket…ba-a-a-a-a.”

I hope he didn’t catch my cold or I would have defeated my purpose.

One place I carried her was The Varsity. She loves Varsity hotdogs. It was a preplanned meeting. We met her granddaughter, the husband (a preacher), and the granddaughter’s two grandchildren, a boy and girl, both under 10 years of age I think.. The two kids were my mother-in-law’s great great grandchildren.

They didn’t get to see each other for Christmas, so this was their Christmas luncheon.

I was sitting eating and enjoying the interactions of the two kids when I noticed a friend walking around like he was looking for someone.

Should I wave my arms to get his attention and introduce him to my in-laws? Hell No!

This guy, as nice as he is, has a way of getting right in your face and mooching whatever he thinks you might have, like cigarettes or maybe you would buy him a beer. I have seen him ask people for money, beer, and cigarettes. I had a vision of him mooching Varsity fries from the kids and the preacher. And I didn’t have my new video camera.

Pictures of last night meeting is on the way.

1956 OLYMPIAN - Track

How Is Your GARMIN Hanging?

Not long ago I was sitting and eating with several people I know. But the truth is, the others know each other more than they know me or I know them. You might say I was a “slight” outsider. What else is new?

I think there were about five or six people. I think each of them brought up their GARMIN at one time or another in the conversation.

First I thought GARMIN was a person. But then the more they talked I thought a GARMIN maybe was a little hand-held toy, like a yo-yo. Maybe a GARMIN was a modern MOJO. Then one person said something about mounting their GARMIN. Mounting? Is it an inflatable-adult toy?

Finally, I asked what a GARMIN was and one person politely (not talking down to me) said that it was a GPS system. This little group are not much on traveling as far as I know. I think if they made many trips outside of their comfort zone I would have heard about it. Most of their driving is done in a 30 mile radius of places they already know well.

So, why do you need a GARMIN to show you how to get to someplace you know already?

I get directions before to places I haven’t been before and if I make a wrong turn or miss my stopping point I will find out about it eventually and turn around. It certainly isn’t worth dollars to me get it right the first time. That is one of the reasons we leave early.

Yesterday I heard another person use the word GARMIN. when someone was trying to tell her directions say, “Don’t worry, I’ll use my GARMIN.!”

Ahah! It is a status symbol-gadget toy! Why didn’t they say so?

I want one!

I guess I am a backwards soul. I haven’t figured any excuse to justify owning a GARMIN yet. But just give me time.

1956 OLYMPIAN - Baseball

Ronnie Howren

Ronnie Howren - Another MHS and Waterman Street Grammar School alumni has passed on.

I went from about the 1st or 2nd grade through to the 8th grade with his brother Gresham. Ronnie was a couple of years younger. And from time to time had dealings with their mother the late Mrs. Howren (she was a school teacher at Waterman). Back then I knew the family fairly well. They lived on West Dixie Avenue only three or four blocks from where I lived.

I have not seen Ronnie in over 50 years. We have probably walked right by each other at events in Marietta and did not recognize each other, so I can't say anything about what a fine person he developed into but I'm sure he did. At a younger age I remember him as determined. I'm sure he did well in life.

Below is a note emailed to his brother's Gresham's 1959 classmates telling places and times for his visitation and services:

Gresham's wife Lydia asked that I let you know that Gresham's brother Ronnie Howren had passed away. Ronnie had been ill for some time and had recently been moved to hospice.

The visitation will be at Mayes Ward Dobbins funeral home on Tuesday December 29 from noon till 2 p.m. with the memorial service to follow at 2 p.m. at MWD.

Brandi's Gift Certificates Galore!!!

"And I pulled out my thumb, all covered with chili, and said, "What a good boy am I!""

And Tiny Tim said, "Good night and Merry Christmas to all!!!"

Christmas Time - Run Right Though It

I heard a statistic someplace that during the Christmas season suicides are higher than other times in the year. Why is that? I don’t pretend to know why, but I suppose with all the lovely and dramatic Christmas music and heart warming gut-wrenching stories and bout families and religious relations it causes one to reflect on one’s self.

That is what “reflect” is isn’t it.? To look at one’s self, as in “reflection”, as in “mirror”. And if you don’t like what you see you may try to do something about it. I hope not.

I think maybe the reason there are not more suicides this time of the year is that it is just too darn busy and planned out. Making plans for shopping what for whom, looking for the right venue, actually shopping, preparing for parties, parties, juggling everyday routines and sicknesses into the holiday season…. It is a hit-the-floor running kind of day just about every day of December, sick or not.

Very few people take the time to stop, reflect, and wallow in one’s own misery.

Our avoidance of the simple self-reflecting might be an imbedded defense mechanism.

Then after it is all over with you take a breath thinking you got through it all and then suddenly you remember New Years is just a few days away.

Here we go again!

1956 OLYMPIAN - Basketball, Girls

Woody and the NRA

This weekend we watched the movie WHATEVER WORKS starring Larry David.

It was a pretty good movie. It had a lot of of Woody Allen style self-analysis and social criticism in it that a lot of it is worth quoting.

Here is one:

"If it was not for sexual inadequacies the National Rifle Association would go broke."

SUNDAY FUNNIES - TWO-FISTED TALES #9

TWO-FISTED Comicbooks was an EC Comics publication. Harvey Kurtzman was the editor. He illustrated a lot of the covers and some of the stories, which he wrote just about all of them with maybe a few argumentatively exceptions.

This issue, number 9, Kurtzman did the cover. The story within is WEAK LINK! It takes place in WWII with the GIs fighting the Germans. The artwork is by Will Elder and John Severin. Severin, Elder, and Kurtzman were more known for their pioneering work with the new MAD comicbook

The Weak Link was always an interesting phase. It means any organization, like a chain, is only as strong as the its weakest link. This Christmas season I heard a different version, but the same concept: A mother is only happy as her sadist child.

1956 OLYMPIAN - Boys Basketball

Music to Look at Posts by

I don't like criticizing other blogs. It is kind of like "those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks". So, I won't (live in a glass house).

I saw a link to a blog I thought might be interesting so I went to it and it had a nice visual layout and looked like it had an interesting essay to tell.

HOWEVER!!! You had to listen to Willie Nelson sing while you tried to read. It is hard for me to do. Willie Nelson is a fine singer and I enjoy his music but trying to listen and read at the same time is distracting.

They both deserve to be appreciated - but you can't do both at the same time, or at least I can't. It confuses my brain, like trying to pat the top of your head and rub your belly in circular motion at the same time.

Or that is my 2 cents worth anyway.

1956 OLYMPIAN - B Teams

A Child Was Born Yesterday

Angels came and watched over the birth of this child.

Was this Jesus? The savior of the Gentiles?

Nope! Every birth is a blessed miracle. Angels come and watch over all new borns and ooh and ahh over them.

Paul and Ivanell Roper are the proud grandparents.

1956 OLYMPIAN - Football

Football on Christmas Day? Are we innovative or what?