Being High Again & Hi ANTICO!

Yesterday We went to the High Art Museum again. Today We went to see the works of two artists: Radcliffe Bailey: Memory as Medicine and John Marlin’s watercolors: A Medium for Modernism. Both were very good and very different from each other.

Radcliffe Bailey worked with paint and sculpture to bring out the his black heritage.



This scupture was there, except the head all these are piano keys. I lifted this off Google.

John Marlin was a well traveled and versed man who ran around with people like Georgia O’Keefe and her husband – something about their carefree lifestyle reminds me of the Great Gatsby that hardly noticed the people around them struggling for survival.



The above was there is named something like Sun and the Brooklyn Bridge. I lifted this also from Google.

In the visiting exhibits at the High Museum you are not allowed to take photos. The permanent exhibits you can, which I helped myself to. Here are some random samplings:










If you think there is one too many of me, then you will love the below art. Click on it and you will see hundreds of me. You will see the last thing a fly saw just before I swatted it.




There was an elderly dignified lady studying a painting by Nellie Mae Rowe. I couldn’t help myself. I walked up to her and said I went to visit Nellie Mae one time at her house in Vinnings. At first the lady looked perturbed that I jumped in her face but as she listened and she was amazed. I told her Nellie Mae lived in a shack by the railroad tracks in Vinnings, and a friend of mine, Sandy Hicks was ran over at that same RR crossing by Nellie's house. I told the lady she had little dolls and notes to God hanging in the trees in her yard and any other trash people threw from their cars she molded it into art and had it dangling all over in her yard. I told her Nellie Mae took me inside to show me her house. In it was a room that was a shrine to Martin Luther King. Another room was dedicated to Jesus, and framed pictures of John F. Kennedy were in just about every room. I told her Nellie Mae also has some dolls she made that was on display in a case, but I they are not there now. After I said all I could think of she looked at me very sincerely and thanked me for sharing that with her and said she had drove through Vinnings many times back in the early 70s and probably noticed that house and wished she had done as I did, dropped in pay a visit.

The below four folk-art pictures are by Nellie Mae Rowe:






And of course look out any window and see the magnificent Building Art by Atlanta:







After the High we went to ANTICO PIZZA on Hemphill, near Northside Drive. We had heard a lot of good things about ANTICO NOPOLENTANA Pizza, about how good it is. And it is good, it just about rolls off the crust as you lift it to take a bite. We read a lot of reviews about the restaurant and found out that it didn’t have much seating for dining in; they don’t sell alcoholic beverages but you are welcome to bring your own in, but you can’t bring your own soft drinks; the counter staff, order taker and cashier were always very rude…. which just wasn’t true; they were very nice and accommodating.

Remember we read it was very hard to get a seat during the lunch? We timed the arrival of our visit alightly after 2pm. There were several tables empty. By the way, the tables are long that several parties could sit at.

The place is very original, eccentric, and interesting. It also has good pizza. However, there are some non-francised pizza eateries within a short distance of our house that is just as good.

My First Hummingbird Video

See the little hummingbird I caught in a video? I might brag about being an expert nature photographer and I had to climb through brush and wade through creeks and climb high up in a tree to get this picture, but the plaid of the screened window might give me away. Do you blame me being inside and photographing through a window? See that beak and how sharp it looks?

Sunday I cooked a Boston butt on the grill on the deck and spent some time out there. The little allusive hummingbird made a few appearances at the feeder we have dangling near. Then I got my camera and I sat with it on ready to press record as soon as it appeared again. I waited and waited and got tired of waiting and put it down. Then with the camera off two hummingbirds showed up and performed what looked to be an aerial ballet for my benefit. They did loops and figure 8s and all kinds of tricks. Actually, I think one was guarding the feeder from the other one, but it was a good show to me. I reached for my camera and they both flew off. Later one showed up and did some solo acts. I expected him to pull out a little mike and sing and tell a few one-line jokes and maybe do a tap-dance on the feeder. Again I reached for my camera and off it went.

Monday we were washing windows. The feeder is dangling from a gutter and in front of the window I was washing. A humming bird came and sat on the feeder and ate inches from me and didn’t notice me at all. Later that day, I pulled out the camera and tried it again, and Wal-la!

Eastern Art Meet Western Art

I took this picture a few years ago. It is the building next door to Burger’s Produce on Canton Road. I think the name of the picture should be: Eastern Art meets Western Art.

Col Poole's BBQ Post Card

Col Poole's BBQ in East Ellijay, Georgia has grown quiet a bit since this post card was made. Now it is even gaudier. But what do you want good taste in barbecue or good taste in roadside advertising?

We ate there not long ago for lunch and he had quiet a few customers, including firemen and policemen. If business gets any better he is going have to replace those pig tombstones with a pig crematorium.

OMs Howard & Arnold

Bell Reunion, September 2010.

As young kids Arnold's family lived just a few apartments from our apartment in the Clay Homes.

Every once in a while I feel the need to explain to newcomers to this blog what an OM is: Somebody with some age on them who has been in Marietta as far back as they remember. I know there are other definitions, but as for at Chicken-Fat goes, if you have been here long enough to see all the changes that makes you an OM.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! VENGEFUL SIOUX!

This story, VENGEFUL SIOUX!, was pried from the pages of EC Comic's FRONTLINE COMBAT #15, 1953. The story was probably written by editor Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by Jack Davis.

This, more than others it seems, has a lot of Jack Davis profile art in it. I think "profile" is the right word I'm looking for, the side view of a human doing something. Jack Davis draws excellent side-views of people doing action type things.

FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER - Glover Park

On this Date in History, August 27,

1908 Lyndon B Johnson (D) 36th Pres (1963-1969) was born.

1912, Edgar Rice Burroughs' publishes Tarzan.

I just have one question: Did Tarzon wax his chest?

Watch Your Step!

This is a streetcar, or trolley, in its time in Marietta. It looks to me that it is in front of the old streetcar terminal on Church Street, which is now a lawyers' office. The streetcar made daily trips to Atlanta and Smyrna.

In the picture there are at least six horse and buggies, or surreys. They are probably waiting to pick up certain people as they get off the streetcar. That reminds me in Marietta, back before I was a teenager, it was not unusual to see horses and wagons on the streets in town. It was not an everyday scene, but from time to time you did see horses.

Then, you jump back 60 or so years before that and you would have probably seen more horses pulling wagons and buggies than you would see automobiles.

What does that mean? Horse manure all over the place! Wear your galoshes!

Why I Don't Forward Much Stuff To My Friends

Often people forward to each other inspiring or funny messages, worth sharing with people you care about. Usually at the end of the forwarded message it will say please send this to a number of people you care about, usually 5 or 10, and sometimes it says and send back to “me”.

BULLSHIT!! Chances are you are hurting the people’s computers that you are forwarding these things to. If you care about your friends don’t mess up their computer.

I read that some people make a good living cooking up these inspirational messages to throw into the forwarding system.

They figure if you send it to 10 people and they send it to 10 people each they will soon have a huge network of spyware sending vital information to an agent who knows what your interests are and can sell your name to interested markets.

And the part of a forwarding that says please send this back to “me” is just a ploy contrived to give you a guilt trip if you don’t obey.

Each time a spyware is secretly put on your computer by these inspirational forwarding not only does it invade your privacy but it also slows up your computer a bit. After receiving a bunch your computer becomes sluggish and can hardly process information. When you get a bunch like that you need to run a virus cleaning program to delete them.

So, if you send it to a friend you might not be doing him any favors. It seems you rather forward all that loving inspiring stuff to your enemy.

Brandi's Chili Fries Smothered & Covered and Recycling

Yesterday I was helping or hindering Richard, the man hooking up my mother-in-law’s new dryer. After the job was all completed I asked him to help me load the old dryer onto my truck to take it to the dump.

As he helped me he said more or less, “Why don’t you take it to Marietta Recycle Center and they’ll pay you, instead of you paying the dump.”

I asked where is the Marietta Recycle Center and he gave me verbal directions of how to get there by going down Bells Ferry Road, crossing Cobb Parkway, and taking a right at the second traffic light, next to a restaurant and he named the restaurant.

He finished giving me directions and said again they would pay me cash money for the dryer. I said then while I was in the area, I could go down the street and eat at Brandi’s World Famous Hotdogs. His eyes lit up. He said you can’t beat Brandi’s spicy chili dogs. I agreed. He said last week he and his son was in Brandi’s and his son had a “double dose” which about caused him to explode. We laughed about that and I asked him “what is a double dose?”

He said it is a chili dog and an order of chili fries. I said I never tried their chili fries and he said I have missed something.
I took the dryer to the Marietta Recycle Center and got $14 cash.

I went to Brandi’s, arriving not long after they opened. Brandi saw me and waved. She knows me. She took my order and I went home to try out a “double dose”. I don’t want to “miss something” as Richard said. The combination of a chili-slaw dog and an order of chili fries is very tasty. Yep, each item complemented the other.

As I was driving home I was thinking I don’t know of an eatery around except Brandi’s that remembers their customers as individuals and the customers remember them the same way. I think that partly has to do with the high rate of turnover in the eating business, they don’t stick around long enough to see repeat customers.

OM Jennings

If you have more than one Jennings how would you spell it? Jenningss or Jenningses? Jennings Patterson has been around Marietta about as long as I have. He has always been a pleasure to talk to. Several years ago at a concert in downtown Marietta he walked up to me and ask me was I Eddie or Rock Huner and he told me who he was, it took my mind a few seconds to readjust itself but it was Jennings, and now I don't see how I didn't instantly recognize him.

Invisible People Can't Read

If you have read my blog for any length of time you probably know at times I complain or politely grumble because I am invisible; or often ignored.

But instead of doing something positive like robbing a bank or be a spy I rather take the low road and just quietly and politely grumble about it.

Which brings me to my next “Being Ignored Adventure”: We live in a subdivision of about 200 houses. About every other week newspaper-like papers are thrown in each driveway. It is all advertising with coupons and all that sort of shoppers’ delight kind of stuff. The papers are in weather protective sacks just like the newspapers delivered and by outside appearances it is easily confuse the two.

That is all the houses get a copy but one: our house of course. The house next to us has been vacant since January. I always get the copy left in that driveway.

Another irritant with this is the people across the street always get a copy and never picks it up. The drive over and over it and finally, it just get torn into pieces and the weather carries it away.

I think the reason we don’t get one because the person delivering the papers probably has been instructed to leave them at houses with mailboxes. We don’t have a mailbox. We have a Post Office Box.

I guess that is understandable.

However, the bottom line is an unoccupied house qualifies to get the sales paper and we don’t.

A Fragment of the Cobb County Government Buildings

Looking from the East Park Square, probably about where C&S Bonding Company stood at one time.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!!! WONDER WART-HOT & SUPER PATRIOT

This is another installment of WONDER WART-HOG, this one he meets SUPER PATRIOT by GILBERT SHELTON.

Once you get into the story you will see the SUPER PATRIOT is condemning communism. Aha! You might say the anti-communism story-line certainly dates the article. You might go on to say we can’t condemn communism too much, after all they (China) might repossess everything this country has.

To keep this comic current, please substitute either of the following scapegoat symbols when Communist or Communism is mentioned: Liberal(s), Democrat(s), Muslim(s), or Mexican(s).

Checking Out WINTER BONES

I said it more than once, and maybe even pounded my fist into the wall or a table to emphasized my point that when you belong to a video-by-mail club such as NETFLIX or BLOCKBUSTER, to get your money’s worth you get to see some movies you wouldn’t normally see. You also see some strange; weird: and interesting movies.

WINTER BONES takes place in the Ozarks. Someplace near the beginning Missouri is mentioned as the state they are in and another time some mentions the Arkansas state line, which I think was near by.

Back, when things were “in black and white” moonshine was the locally produce commodity that helped people survive. Now, the same type of people is producing Meth. There are meth labs that are not actually seen but are driving force of what the movie is about.

It was directed by Debra Grinik. It was written by Debra Grinik and Anne Rosellini. The protagonist was Ree (played by Jennifer Lawrence), a 17 year old girl who was in search for her father. Her father had a reputation of being the best meth cook in the area. If was cooked by him, you knew it was quality dope.

Garrett Dillahunt was the only star I recognized, but that doesn’t mean anything. I think all the characters were played by professional actors. They did not sound like they were unenthused reading their lines, like many southern movie do when they hire from the neighborhood.

The movie has the same markings as ancient Greek plays, death and violence were not shown to the audience, only implied.

Ree wasn’t looking for him because she longed for her daddy. She was looking for him for survival. The rat put up their house, such as it was, as a bond guarantee, for his freedom until his trial date. He was no place to be found. Ree was the oldest of three children and ran the house. The mother was in a catatonic state throughout the movie. If her daddy didn’t show up then her and her siblings and mother would be homeless. She would just as happy to find his bones, then that would have excused his absence, thus no property forfeit.

Ree just about walked everyplace she went, through yards and down roads. It seemed in every yard there were shacks and junk cars and one yard even had an small old abandoned church in the yard. These are people portrayed as not putting on any airs, except with their vehicles.

Ree had balls. She spoke to people she was warned against and went places she was warned not to go. She was trying to save her family. But again, while she was relentlessly trying to save her family she took time off to visit an Army recruiter about joining the Army. She told him all her troubles trying to save their property, she was mostly interested in the enlistment bonus and how quickly she could get it, and he patiently and gently told her she could not take her family to boot camp or to a war zone. That was news to her. Well, nobody said she was real bright. She changed her mind about joining up.

I think it was a good realistically movie. As a bonus it was laced throughout out with bluegrass music.

For the trailer, click here.

Laurel of the Pines, Lakewood, NJ, postcard

Laurel of the Pines was a very excusive resort on the edge of Lakewood, NEW Jersy, not far from our Naval Air Station, Lakehurst.

A bunch of us wanted to somehow slip in the Laurel of the Pines and rub elbows with New York City's wealthiest. Another endeaver we failed at.

On this date, August the 20th, in History . . .

1866 Pres Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over.

I think some people I know would disagree with that. They are still fighting.

Wiliey Changes Professions

OMs Robert and Bobby

Here is Robert Martin talking with Bobby McEntyre at the 2010 Bell Reunion. Back in our formative years they lived about a block from each other. Robert lived at the corner of Manget and Clay Streets and Bobby lived one house from the corner of East Dixie Avenue and Manget Street. They are both Waterman Street School alumni, but about a 2 or 3 year difference.

I see that Robert has Lee on his nametag. I knew him by Robert in school. I suppose Lee is his middle name.

Gobs of Chicken-Fat Galore! WHOOPIE!!!

All you Chicken-Fat fans, both of you, will enjoy this: Today a truck overturned in Marietta on Church Street Extension between the Canton Road Connector and Loudermilk Drive spilling chicken fat* all over the place, causing people to slip and slide. It has already caused two accidents and inspired one song by a young person who was born after “SLIPPING AND A SLILDING” was a hit song.

The people who made it for lunch at Brandy’s World Famous Hotdogs deserve to be applauded.

*Technically, it was non-toxic animal fat, but I’m sure there is chicken fat involved and I could use the publicity. Whenever something is slippery, chicken-fat is near, or had a hand in it (that is almost what a teacher told me one time).

Time With Naked People

Have you seen the NUDE CLOCK?

It has the precision of a Swiss watch or a naked marching band at half-time.

CLICK HERE!

On the forwarding introduction was this:

This is a masterpiece!!!

This is extremely clever and it does actually work, in BOTH formats!!!!

And it's actually on YOUR correct time.

Click anywhere in the clock and it becomes digital,

another click and it returns to normal.

That's My Daddy!

The other day I was looking through old Marietta pictures on Facebook when I came across a police raid on a moonshine still. It explains that the raid took place just off Cobb Parkway, near where Treasury Drug would be one day.

In the picture I noticed a tall looking man with a white shirt on. I clicked to make the picture bigger. I know that man. He’s my Daddy!

I remember where the raid was, some of those involved in the and … and…. well, it seems I don’t remember as much as I thought I did.

A young reporter, named Bill Kinney was there covering it for the Marietta Daily Jounral.. I read or heard he got tipsy over the fumes. Bill was courting his future wife, my 5th grade teacher, Miss Shouse.

I remember at the time it was the largest distillery raid of illegal non-tax made whiskey in Cobb County, and I’m not sure the record has been broken yet, and probably won’t now.

It wasn’t near what was would become Treasury Drug but on south down Cobb Parkway, or The 4-Lane, on the left either where Wal-Mart is now, near Windy Hill Road, or on up the hill, down the hill, and up the next hill, sort of behind the shopping center that has Olive Garden and Johnson Brothers Barbecue.

Me, Myself, and I

I watched part of a soap opera yesterday. It seemed to me that all the characters were mostly concerned with themselves and their own feelings. For instance:

“If Maggie dies I don’t know what I will do."

"I love you Maggie, do you love me?"

“I am so happy you are my brother.”

“I will kill him!”

“I am very mad because Maggie got shot! I can't live without her!"

"I can protect you!"

"How did I ever let this happen?"



Each character’s favorite subject was “I”.


The only person not saying “I” was Maggie. She was unconscious. Then Maggie woke up from being in a coma for over a week and her first words were, “I love you.”

Marietta Before Our Time

This picture looks like it was taken from the top of Groover's Hardware (now Tommy's Sandwiches) or from a window in the upper office space next door. This is the South East Part of the Marietta Square, downtown, probably in the late 1920s.

Glover Park is dead ahead. In its future the park is full of drunks and soapbox preachers, then renovation and landscaping comes into play to make it look more like what it should have looked like when this picture was taken.

On the left at the corner of Atlanta and South Park Square is a drugstore. If it wasn’t already it would become Reynolds & Ferrell Drugstore. I remember their counter service did well with ice cream. In the 40s our family used to love to park out front and eat our ice cream and watch people come in and buy their ice cream cones, all dressed in their Sunday’s finest.

See the cars? They all look alike don’t they?

See the street car tracks? That is proof streetcars were a way of life around here at one time.

Also see the barrel in the middle of the street? I suppose the barrel was to direct traffic. If you drove on the left of it you were on the wrong side. I think a barrel was there off and on when I was a street-kid. I kept imagining a high speed auto chase between cops and robbers and both parties driving by the barrel at high speed and causing it to spin and just when it quit wobbling and settled down the robbers fled by again with the cops right behind them coming from the opposite direction causing it to spin again. I watched too many Saturday morning cartoons at The Strand.

On This Date, August 16th...

1812: General Hull surrenders Detroit & Michigan territory to England. I read that Detroit is trying to make a comeback. It was suffering from 45% unemployment because the big ones of the auto industry moved to other locations, leaving the city high and dry. I think now the State Department is going over the legalities of the terms that General Hull surrendered Detroit to England in 1812 and say England won Detroit fair and square and it is now back under British rule as far as the U.S. is concerned.




1925: Fess Parker Fort Worth Texas Fess Elisha Parker was born either on August 16th, 1924 or August the 16th, 1925, take your pick. Wikipedia says he was born in 1924, on-line This Day in History says 1925.. He is probably best remembered for playing Davy Crockett and wearing a coonskin hat in the Disney movie. However, he also wore a coonskin hat playing Daniel Boone on a TV series. He also played James Andrews of Andrews Raiders in Disney’s GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE, which sort of started here in Marietta but really got underway a few miles up the track at Kennesaw… or was the name of it Big Shanty then? Not long ago we were in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta andread a sign said James Andrew was hung something like 40 or 50 feet from the sign, which would have been across Memorial Drive. I looked over to the spot the sign was pointing to and saw Fess Parker swinging at the end of a rope.




1977: Elvis Presley died of a heart ailment at Graceland at 42 and the music stopped.

No Explaination Needed

Some things are just funny on their own without any explanation; for example, an on-line announcement went something like this:

The SHS (Sprayberry High School) Class of 1965 will have their luncheon Friday at 1pm at Golden Corral. Senior Discount starts at 1pm.

OM Jackie Barfield

2007 - Jackie Barfield at the Horace Orr American Legion Post attending the Bell Reunion. Or is he? He's at the Horace Orr American Legion Post everyday!

Jackie Barfield, along with his cousns, grew up on South Avenue in Marietta. He and I were on Southern Discount Little Leauge with Romeo Hudgins and Pepper Martin coaching, two years in a row. I think I did a good job keeping the bench warm came in all sweaty from the field.