Back in the Day...

Happy National Paperback Book Day!

While we are on the subject today is National Paperback Book Day.  I suppose one day there will be a National e-Book Day - Apple and Amazon can only hope.

What I Learned While Listenilng to NPR

If you are reading an e- book on your Kindle or your i-pad there is a good chance you are telling publishers how to make a book more readable.

As you read an e-book your reading device is sending messages to the publisher telling the details.  If you put it down for a while the devices report on what page you put it down and how long of a break you took.  An analyical expert can figure why you put it down - was it that you didn't like what was going on, or just boring?  From what your actions are they will know how to design a book that you will probably like.

The next book or the next you read could be computer generated - that you unknowingly created the formular.

It is like used to at Blockbusters they displayed a video and said,  "If you like this video, then you will like these:"

The e-book I am currently reading is a novel based on historical facts.  If I linger too much in one spot or even quit reading, it is possible my actions will distort future histoical novels based on the same time period so it will sell .  For instance I could go on a trip and forget to carry my i-pod and the next novel about Tom Dooley would make him out a successful man who never had V.D.

Who needs facts and a creativitive writer  when you have a analyical statistician?

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! EC's Sci-Fi BRAIN CHILD

This was published in EC 's Wierd Fantasy Comic, which was one of their sci-fi lines - although the name sounds sort of, well wierd.  The art is by Al Williamsom.  He was a well known sci-fi illustrator.

Tuba Skinny Honks Out Cemetary Life

This morning while  paying my friend Joe's blog TALLY-HO! a visit I came across  this Tuba Skinny video playing Cemetary Life.  Man!  It is good!

And Drats!  Why didn't I think of that first?

For several weeks now Joe had been searching and posting Tuba Skinny playing New Orleans type snazzy jazz.  By the way, in this video they are playing in New Orleans on Royal Street, right in front of the hotel we lastly stayed as a whole family in that city.

Joe's blog:

http://joeb-tallyho.blogspot.com/

Tit For Tat

Remember several weeks ago I reported on this blog that I reported that I saw my little toddler neighbor was playing in the street on his tricycle with cars almost wrecking dodging him and I walked him to his home and told his aunt?

And afew days later she came over and told me to mind my own Goddamn business and then accused me of calling Family Protective Services (I dildn't) which came and almost took her daughter away? she told me when I fuck with her kid I was fucking with her, and I certainly don't want to do that. For good measure she told me the next time I had a heart attack don't come running to her Mama because she will tell me to ram it up my ass.  (her mama is a nurse)  Hmmm.  That is funny - the time I had a heart attack I didn't even think about seeking her help.... the way it she sounded I come running to them everytime I need something.  I never have asked them to borrow anything, but it they cannot claim the same.  She just burned that bridge.  Should I ask for my hammer the mama borrowed two years ago?

No good deed goes unpunished.

And did I tell you since then her daughter, nephew, and niece, all age 5 and under scattered all over the neighbor and two people on opposite parts of the subdivision called 911 almost the same time? And one kid was missing for a short time which caused many police to swarm the neighborhood? Did I tell you the aunt was charged and had to go to court over it all but apparently got away with it?

Update: Yesterday returning home driving on Sandy Plains Road, about a mile more to go, I saw another member of the neighbor household, the sister-in-law, mother of two of the children, and her toddler son, the one I got off the street.  She had him by the hand and they were walking.   In the past I have stopped and picked them up several times. But then I heard the little voice of my concious say, "MIND YOUR OWN GODDAMN BUSINESS!!"  Which I did.

Billie Jean

I got an email from Johnny Pascoe, Billie Jean's ex-husband, saying there would be no funeral or memorial service for her.

I did not know she had died.  I heard a year or so ago she was having a serious bout with cancer and I haven't heard about it anymore.

Even though there will be no funeral or memorial service I would like to say a few words about her as I remember her.

Back in 1962 and 1963 I worked with a girl named Sue (nothing like a boy named Sue) at Eastman Atlantic Mfg Co on Chattahoochee Blvd in Atlanta.

A friend of mine, Ed, returned from the Army.  His father was in a serious accident and Ed got a hardship discharge to help with the family.  Ed asked me to get him a date and I got him a date with my co-worker Sue.  They hit it off., got married, had two children and got a divorce.

But first, after they hit it off and was heavily dating I joined the Naval Reserves and became a regular customer at the E.M. Club at NAS Atlanta.

Sue lined me up with a date with her cousin Billie Jean who lived with her folks in Newnan, Georgia, and we double dated with Sue and Ed a few times.

I think we just went to a movie and out to eat one time and to the lake another time.  But the time we went to the E.M. Club at NAS Atlanta I think gave us memories.  There was a country rock band playing.  Billie Jean was bopping with the music and before too long, I think I had enough drinks to ask her to dance.  We got on the dance floor and I started making fun of people jerking around to the music and she likewise... I think that night we created the would-be-famous-some-day the reeling in of your dance partner like on fishing rod and reel - but if I remember correctly I didn't reel her in but lassoed her and pulled her in with an invisible rope... and she galloped around the perimeter of the walls and I behind her slapping the back of my leg.... everybody stopped dancing and stood and watched us.  We put on quiet a show - it seemed like keeping a beat with the music we communicated on the same wave lenght and we pulled the band and the others in with us. 


Shortly after that I went into the Navy on active duty for two years.  When I returned Johnny and Billie Jean were married.  They first adopted a child and had their 2nd one naturally.  Many couples did that, first adopted then I think the motherhood juices started flowing naturally and the second child was natural.

In time Billy Jean started a retirement or nursing home.  Her parents were in the same kind of business when she grew up which probably gave her all the ins and outs.

Johnny and Billie Jean's daughter gave her a granddaughter about a week before she died.

Glover Park, The Bell and the Fountin

CONSCRIPTION, a new old word.

The act of conscription has been around a long long time.  I just read its definition, so it is new to me.

It more or less is the act of drafting the mass of young people in a given country for a single purpose, usually a war.

I discovered Conscription while reading  Sharyn McCrumb's book THE BALLAD OF TOM DOOLEY.

Sharyn also explained what extras of the Conscription concept the North and the South added during the Civil War.  Essentially, large land owners and people that were well off were exemped.  It was the working class who put their life on the line.  The rich man got the benefits but sacraficed little.  What else is new?

I heard another case of the priviledged and under priviledged  under Consription is that in the Revolutionary War it was a rule that officers would not be assaulted.  Of course, it was fine for an officer to kill an enemy enlisted in combat but for an enlisted man kill an officer enemy was a no-no.

I'm sure an officer made up that rule and the enemy officers quickly agreed.  But it officers got shot at just the same.

The Civil War codes of Conscription reminded me of one of my ancestors.  He was a large land owner which made him exemped from fighting.  He didn't have to go, but money is money, so he was paid a sum of money to fight for John B. Tippens.  During the Siege of Vicksburg he went AWOL from his unit and signed an Oath of Allegiance to the U.S.A., a day or two later he was AWOL from the Yankee unit he was assigned to and he appeared back on the roster of his CSA unit.  Then, he was AWOL again.  It appears that he had a hard time deciding which was the winning side.

My Birthday Came and Went

The birthday cake was made by our daughter-in-law Sabrina.

This was a tri-birthday party.  My birthday was last week;  Rocky's Mother-in-law Chong's birthday will be in a few days, and Anna's mother's birthday will be in the first week of August.  Our family got to kill 3 birds with one stone.

My son Adam and his friend Savvy gave me the above pictures.  If you click on the pictures you will see the top picture is the Big Chicken in front of the Strand Theater.  And the bottom picture is The Big Chicken embracing Scarlet O'Hara.  I like cartoon like things, and landmarks, and local history.

Who is that handsome brute sporting the Tilley Hat?  It is I!  (somehow It are I! just doesn't sound right).  I know, I know, all these years I have been using a ballcap as a toupe.  Now that I am 71 my son Rocky and his wife Sabrina thought maybe it was time for a more grownup type of hat.  Something to show my maturity in a fashion statement.  I played with it in the mirror last night putting it on and putting it off, turning the brim one way and then the other.  I like it!  The more I looked at it the more I like it.... is it the hat or me that I am falling in love with?  Now that I am wearing a hat for grownups I found if you pull down the brim in the front and back it has sort of an "Indian Jones" look.  And if I turn the brim up on the sides it has sort of a "Jungle Jim" look.  Who do I want to be today?  .

Also I got some gift cards, which will be well used. 

I Have Been Too Busy To Work Anythling Up

check back later

Today is also National Rat Catching Day

Happy Parents' Day!

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! LI'L LULU & WITCHES

(pssst! click on each page in order to read the balloons)

Doctor's Office

The other day I went for a routine doctor’s visit.   I arrived at 10:30.  The lady behind the counter told me I was 30 minutes early.

“OK” I said.  I am always early for doctor’s appointments.  It seems that if I was late for an appointment it would mess up everything for the rest of the day,  like dominos.

I was the only patient in the waiting room. There should be no problem, I thought – in and out quickly.

From the exit door emerged my old school friend Walker.  After about 52 years of not seeing Walker we got to see each other last Sunday at the Marietta Campground Meeting  After 52 years; then seeing each other twice about 4 days apart.   

A talkative casually well dressed elderly man arrived.  He wanted to talk to the lady behind the desk about who has the right to see his medical information – and who gave anybody permission?  He had a warm smile on his face the whole time.  Then he wanted to see the nurse,  he said she would know what he is talking about.  By thlis time I picked up on his last name, it was one of the most prominent names in Marietta.
 
 

I think the lady behind the counter said she would let him talk to a nurse, just to get him  from keeping her from working. I suppose.  She told him to have a seat and the nurse (by name) would see him shortly.  He sat across from me and we chatted.

At 11:00, the time for my appointment, a Latino lady came and signed  in.  The lady behind the desk told her she was 30 minutes late.  She did understand English, but I take it that she thought she was at least there now so that was something.  She sat beside me and I spoke to her and she politely spoke Spanish to me.  Either of us knew how to talk to the other one.

The nurse opened the door and called the elderly prominent old fart’s name.  He followed her inside talking away in his smiling gentle way.  I think the old fart just wormed himself in on my appointment.

About ten minutes later the nurse opened the door and called the Latino lady in.  Another one knocked my appointment up some minutes.  I was thinking about what just happened, the two extreme ends of the local social food chain delayed my appointment almost 90 minutes. I was fuming to myself. Damn! I slipped through the cracks again! This is symbolic for what many people consider America’s biggest problem, the middle man carries everybody’s load.

Finally the prominent old fart casually came out with the nurse and he was still talking – he was using his cane to make gestures with. She jokingly told him he had better watch where he pointed that thing, she’ll jerk it away from him and use it on him. He apologized and said he didn’t mean anything by waving his cane around, he used it to talk with like some people use their hands. That embarrassed him, putting him on the defensive, and about that time he saw me still sitting where I was sitting when he wandered to the back with the nurse. He said, “You still sitting here? I demand you take this man now, he was here when I came in!” I think he was just changing the subject to put himself on the offensive.



And the nurse took me back and on the way back she jokingly asked if I had been busy.

I replied, "Busy waiting!"  By her expression she knew what I was talking about.

After my doctor’s visit and I was leaving through the outer lobby I saw the prominent old senile old fart was talking the ears off a cute outer office receptionist.  Little young cute receptionists like that are old-fart patient magnets.

Old Fashion Baptisms in Marietta Long Ago

There was a pond off Bells Ferry Road on Old Bells Road that was used for Baptisms for nearby Shady Groves Baptist Church.  The terrain of land looked something like the pictre.  It might be it.  The picture was said to be Baptisms in Marietta, it just didn't point out where.

Which reminds me of a picture I recently saw on the Internet of a young lady, who had just been Baptised, walking out of a pond in a wet white dress.  Evidently she didn't think to wear under garments.  It was like she was the winner of a wet-t-shirt contest.


On a side note, one time I went to a wedding of my friend Tony at the house on Old Bells Ferry Road that was beside the Baptism Pond.

3 CHEERS FOR JOHN MCCAIN!

It takes a honest and fair man to tell well-known members of his own political party that are making untrue and unfair statements about an individual.  This is not the first time John McCain went against his fellow Republicans to defend a non-Republican.  I applaude him.

Michele Bachmann said we have a Muslim in the State Department that has questionable connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.  Thank you Michele for a bit of nostalgia - it carried me down Memory Lane and reminds me of the good old days when Senator McCarthy said there were card toting communists working in the state department.

Michele was referring to Hilary Clinton's assistant Huma Abedin who is Muslm.  Muslim is like any other religion - they pray to an Almighy and each religion has mislead extremists willing to kill. 

The D.J. Moon Family

I am scanning some pictures of the Moon family for a relative.  The Moons are on Anna's mother's side of the family.  Here is Darling J. Moon and his family.  His wife is Lena, the boy's name is Toy and the girl's name is Virginia.  I should say "was" they  all died of old age and related illnesses.

Darling and Lena had a store on Roswell Street, about where Johnson Tire Company was before they built the brick lococation next door. 

They lived in back of the store.  They were closed on Sundays.  But people knowing they lived in back of the store didn't hesitate to knock on the door and come  in to do shopping.  To get a day off they took all day trips on Sunday.  Once they even drove to Tybee Island and back the same day.

Toy went to North Georgia Military College in Dahlonega.  He spent his last years as a carrier and time keeper at the Marietta Main Post Office.  Toy's sister Virginia married and moved to Washington, DC.  I haven't seen a picture yet that she wasn't dressed in height of fashion for the time period.

Toy was born in 1917 which would probably mean this picture was taken in either 1919 or 1920.

A Real Consveration

The below conversation actually took place in a bar yesterday.  I know, I overheard it.

R:  Donald is a son-of-a-bitch.
P:  How so? 
R:When his brother Bob  died he was broke.  Donald had all their inheritance - there wasn't even enough money to bury him..  Donald is a rotten son-of-a-bitch, doing his brother Bob like that.
P:  Didn't you put a contract out on Bob one time?
R:  Well, yeah, he was fucking my wife when I was in prison!

Paul Roper is Alive and Almost Well

This picture is a couple years old.  But it is still Paul.  He had a heart attack Saturday, after a day of pulling the weedeater crank cord.  It just plain wore him out, apparently the cord pulled on him instead of visa versa.  After about a day of constant pain  he called 911 and before he could hang up the ambulance was there.

A stent was put in and he went home today.  They went through his arm instead of his crotch.   A new approach.  He went to the GOBAG meeting this evening and seemed fine . . . considering.

DIXIE HIGHWAY, REVISITED

This book is better than my ramblings, read it instead.

In the 1940s and 50s we kept the Dixie Highway pavement and tar hot on our frequent trip up and down that 100 mile stretch between Marietta and Chattanooga.  

When I say "we" I mean some of my mother's siblings and their spouses and children and us.  My grandmother and some of her children lived near Dalton and Chattanooga and some lived in Marietta.

I felt I knew the road pretty good and felt that I wanted to see it again to see what changed and what has remained the same.  In today's terms, to ride up it to Chattanoga was on my "Bucket List".  And it was my birthday, so there.

I remember this same view when I was a kid.  Of course, it was black and white then.  I beleive this is the remains of a bridge I  read that Sherman had destroyed.  See the guy fishing?  Also, there is a certain comfort feeling of seeing things you haven't seen for a while and they are still around.

This is an Indian who looks like a warrier or a hunter.  I would think he is pissed off.  This is in Calhoun, only a few miles from New Echota, the then seat of the Cherokee Nation.  His leaders voted for all the Indians to give up their land and walk to Oklahoma.  "The Trail of Tears".  That would be enough to make anybody highly perturbed.

Notice the rock that make this arch?  Along the highway there are many structures made of rock.  It was probably easily accessible.  I think the two CSA soldiers are not following protocal.  If I remember correctly military statues are to face the direction of  their enemy - in this case, the north.  I think one was facing east and the other one was facing west.

Also along the highway there appear to be no zoning laws.  There are all kinds of houses, junk piles of junk in front yards, not to be confused wtih decorative little statues and things, which Anna said is "Yard Art".

The Resaca Civil War  Confederate Cemetery that probably holds the CSA soldiers from a battle about a mile away.  Marvin, a friend, lives near here and he told me he sometimes cuts the grass of this cemetary.

This was the train depot.  Now it is Ringgold's Visitor's Center, History Museum, and bluegrass concert hall.  I bet they have a gift shop too.  They are closed on Mondays.  This is also where James Andrews and his Raiders were caught up with in the Great Locomotive Chase.

The overpass down the hill ahead was there when our family came up often.  It is still there.  What I couldn't find was the Wedding Chapel.  The Wedding Chappel of Ringgold offered a quick bloodtest and a quick marriage.  Las Vegas may have taken notes.  I was told by a stranger when just outside of town at a Civil War skirmish marker that Dolly Parton got married in Ringgold.  The stranger with a white beard told me he was returning from Tennessee where he is practicing for the Baseball Olympics in the age 70 category.  He new all the good places to play baseball in Cobb County, such as Al Bishop Park.

Also, a distant relative of mine is a  resident of Ringgold and famous in an infamous kind away when the law accused him of locking his wife and mother-in-law up and starved them to death....it took 20 years.  He was found innocent in the court of law, but a TV special was made of him and his eccentric ways.  It is no crime to be a hermit.

I found some relatives through my Tyson branch on at West Hill Cemetery in Dalton up on a hill.  When alive they lived in Tunnel Hill, Georgia, then some of them went south and settled near Ball Ground, and one of the daughters married into the Tyson family, near Woodstock.

Burial place for Leander Newton Trammell

This is Leander Newton Tammell's family plot.  The big marker is his, the small one is his wife's.  Leander, or "The Colonel" is a distant relative - well, not that distant, we are first cousins (4 times removed).  He is the one that is responsible for the Trammell House in Marietta.  I found their plot when I visited West Hill Cemetery a few years ago.  This time in Dalton I noticed that  I crossed Trammell Street, on the north side of town.

This grave has my mother's sister and her husband Cecil.  Interesting couple.  I also found this grave years ago, but paid them another visit.  This time I noticed they are buried next to Cecil's parents. 

This is West Hill Cemetery's Confederate Graves section.

I found my mother's brother and his wife Mary Jo's grave.  It is the first time it has been visited by one of our family members as far as I know.

I went into the cemetary's office and asked if they had an index.  The lady said yes and she looked up Thomas Petty.  She found him.  She gave me a map and drew line on the route I should take to get to his and Mary Jo's grave.  She said something like this... "You take the Sermon on the Mount road up and turn right at the green gate - then you park and walk eight rows from the Sitting Jesus."  It sounded like a satire from a Kurt Vonnogut or Terry Southern novel

This is the Chapel in the cemetery.  I just wanted to point out that kind or rock again. There are plenty of structures are made of it.

On the way home we stopped at J.D.'s Bar-B-Que in Acworth.  Delicious!!