Time Jumping

On THE TODAY SHOW this morning they announced that tonight, the last minute of June will have one additional second.  They went on to say that each day the real time is shorted by a fraction of a second and ever so often when enough fractions add up to be a whole, they tack an extra second on the end of the month to make everything, time-wise to work out.

It is like a time warp, or time traveling.

Then I wondered if actually rearranging seconds might after a terrible effect on the human race I got my Ouija Board out and called up a conference séance with Albert Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton.  I told them the problem of humans monkeying with real time and would there be any bad consequences.

They both chuckled and called me a few names that was in a foreign language and laughed again, harder.

I didn't wan to look stupid so I laughed too, and that caused them to laugh so hard they started coughing.

They gave me this advice:  At the final bonus second at the end of June jump  up in the air.  Being in midair you will escape the time consequence.    When you land you will  land in the first second of July, so you will not be effective.

click to enlarge

Downtown Marietta mid 1950s, at the prime of my formative years.

This is my comfort picture.  When I want to relax from an uptight day to be able to sleep I look at this picture and each little square inch brings back adolescent  memories..... and I get sleepy.... not bored, but content.

I Didn't Ask and Marlow Didn't Tell

From my late mother-in-law Marie's Postcard collection I pulled and  posted this to facebook saying I have been to the U.S.O. in NYC and L.A. and they had free punch, coffee, and donuts, and that is about all I said.

However, there is a story around the New York City U.S.O. visit.  Pull up a seat and I'll tell you.

When I first became part of the Helicopter Squadron HU-4 at Lakehurst, New Jersey,  I was awkward and shy.  I was the new kid on the block.  I was assigned a cubical with three other men.  Two of them were on leave and the third one was Marlow.  We hit it off, and Marlow took it on himself to introduce me to New York City, the next day, Saturday. 

NYC was 60 miles north.   Saturday we took a bus.  I was impressed looking out the bus windows and seeing the huge city unfolding before me.  We went down a hill, then through the Lincoln Tunnel. under the Hudson River and came up a hill on 42nd Street to Port Authority.   I soon found out that 42nd Street had all the tourist traps kind of joints.

We first took a subway to either the Bronx or Brooklyn and looked up an old friend of Marlow's.  The friend wasn't there but his wife was there and they talked about family and friends.  I think they knew each other in Marlow's home state, which is on the Mason-Dixon Line.  I was amazed at all the clothes lines with clothes hanging on them between apartment building, just like in the movies.   WHOOPEE!

We hit a few bars and when it started getting dark we took the subway back to Manhattan.  I think that is the time we saw Chubby Checker in a lounge singing his "Twist" top 40 song.

we also went to the U.S.O.  There we had our dinner of  Donuts and coffee.   There were music and a dance going on.  People were all smiling, but in a phony kind of way.  They were doing their part to make the service man feel at home.

We left.  Just outside the U.S.O. a man came up to and started a conversation.  He was a smooth talker.  He asked if we had a place to stay and we said no.  He said he had room for just one of us... Marlow was more worldly than I, and also a smooth talker, somehow they worked out a deal. Marlow would spend the night at his apartment and the strange man would pay for me a room and give me a few bucks for breakfast  the next morning.

We walked just a block or two away to the William Sloan W.M.C.A.   The strange man, Marlow, and I walked into the lobby and he registered me at the desk and gave me the key to the room and $50 for breakfast.

I hope Marlow was worth it.

The room was small and had no bathroom.  The head was down the hall.  I didn't know we were staying overnight so I had no toothbrush, shaving gear, or anything. 

So, I slept and the next morning just used the bathroom in a room crowded with men and left and found a place to eat breakfast. 

I don't remember how Marlow and I met back up.  We probably agreed to meet at the Port Authority Bus Terminal at a certain time.

When we were back together,  he never mentioned what happened that night then or never.  I didn't ask and Marlow didn't tell.


 However, another new friend quickly figured it out.  Stay tuned.

Sunday funnies!! 2-FISTED ENEMY CONTACT

War is Hell!  If Harvey Kurtzman only got that message out in his war comics I think he would feel at peace with himself as having done what he set out to do.  This EC comic is written by editor Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by his MAD collaborator buddy Jack Davis, which I heard is in bad health these days.

James Marion and Jane Pannell Prance

Here are some interesting pictures taken of Anna's great grandparents James Marion Prance (1857-1935) and Jane Pannell Prance (1853-1927).

Be sure and click on each  image to make it larger to see it better..  

James and Jane

James and Jane's House on Ebenezer Road, near Canton Road

James Rock Quarry

James Cotton Gin

Jane on Back Porch working

James' grandchildren

Tuba Skinny, Good Liquor

Good Liquor  Gonna Carry Me Down

EM Club Dancing, Recyled

Hark, Another story recycled?  Who says you can't recycle garbage?

This is not totally unlike STAR WARS. Several segments into the overall story and you now are having to deal with a regular length flashback:

Before I went on active duty in the Navy I went to monthly weekend meetings.

Which gave me E.M. Club privileges. We made quiet a few visits to the E.M. Club and to the Base Exchange and the service station which sold 3.2 beer by the case.

I wanted to get all the benefits I was entitled to.

I was going in the service and a friend of mine, Ed, was coming out of the service. His father worked construction and had an accident. His hand was squashed. He would never be able to work again. Ed was stationed in the Army in Germany. He came home and was getting out with a hardship discharge to help with the family.

He asked me to line him up with a date. The receptionist, Sue, at the company I worked for was just out of high school and was boy crazy. I lined Sue and Ed up. And she in turn, lined me up with her cousin Billy Jean, up visiting form Newnan, Georgia.

We went to the E.M. Club. A live redneck band was playing on the top songs. Billy Jean was bouncing all over with rhythm of the music. She had music in her brain and blood. Me? I always made fun of people dancing to fast music, saying it was some kind of native ritual.

Never the less, we got up to dance. Her in her rock and roll mode and I, in my make-a-mockery- of-rock-and-roll dancing mode. We made a good dance couple.

We got out on the dance floor and she would do these wild steps and I would do near the same in jest.  I think we should have been given credit for inventing several dances that night… one that comes to mind is where one person pretend they have an invisible lasso and ropes you and tugs you in – we did that, we also ran and yipped and leaped around the perimeter of the inner walls of the E.M. Club… everybody else quit dancing and watched us… the guitar player where follow us on twanging out twangs to spark even more outlandish rhythm jerks from us.

It was a night to remember or regret.

Ed and Sue got married and had two children. They are now divorced. Before they divorced they both called me up, each on an extension and both gave me a piece of their mind for introducing them.

Billy Jean married another friend of mine. They are divorced too. Billy Jean now owns a nursing home, which was the same type of business her parents owned in Newnan.

Since this has been published on the blog the first time, Billie Jean has died, cancer.

Walking the Dogs

I walk Willow early in the morning  most the time.  For the past two to three months there is an old man walking his dog about the same time.

I say "old" but he is probably younger than I am.  He just looks older because  he  always has such a bitter scowl on his face and wears knee high black socks and brown leather shoes.

We went a long time without speaking when we passed each other.  Every time we got close, his dog got so excited he would get right in his dog's face and demand harshly that it sit.  SIT!  Then he would jerk his chain and demand for his pet to SIT! until it did.

Finally one day, I said, "What kind of dog is that?"

"Airedale!" he  roughly, without taking his glaring eyes off his dog.

"Good looking dog!"

He continue to glare at his dog to make sure it didn't un-sit.

I see him just about every morning  but avoid him and he does the same to me.

If we are walking towards each other and if the Airedale gets overly excited it gets disciplined.  SIT!

I thought about suggesting to the old fart he should take his dog to the dogpark so it can run free and play with the other canines, that's all it wants to do.  But I wouldn't dare, he may tell me to SIT!

It got where Willow and I smirk at him when he comes near and sometimes it looks like Willow is trying to hold back giggling. 

Then this morning he  gave me recognition!  He raised his hand as saying, "Hi!"

I was unsure if I should salute back or continue to keep my distance.  Maybe, because he has broken the freeze I can suggest his dog visit the dogpark.  Maybe not.

Not that it matters, but his house is covered with vines and ivy. 

Marie's Postcards: Glover Park

Marie's Postcard Collection continued.  This is Glover Park in the center of downtown Marietta.  It is sort of a Mecca of OMs and OCs.  They gather here for festivals, outside concerts, and just to sit.  It was donated  to the city by John H. Glover.  The back of the card says Major John H. Glover but I'm not sure it wasn't MAYOR John H. Glover instead.  See how one letter can change everything?

Do you see anything differently about the park than any other time you have seen it?   There are no drunks!  I have been going to that park since I was a toddler and there were always staggering loudmouths drunks!  I remember when I was just a tiny kid I saw old weathered men take a brown paper sack out of their hip pocket and take a swig from it.  Now, it is  socially chic to sip wine  there and get charmingly    woozy. 

Golden Horn Revisited

Here is another story recycled from 2006.  If you had already read it, move on.

Back in either 1959 or 1960 my friend Monty called me and wanted to know if I wanted to go to a Beatnik coffee house in Atlanta. “Beatnik coffee house?” I said. I wasn’t keen on going out on a school night when it was going to something I knew nothing about – in some of our misadventures back then when we went to a place we knew nothing about we suddenly had to scatter or suffer some consequences, and I was afraid this might be the case this time, and Atlanta is/was a long way away for a school night.

Neither of us knew anything about beatniks or coffee houses. From TV we figured the males were bearded, wore berets and the females had long straight hair and wore black stockings. In the coffee houses we knew from TV all they did was hang around zonked on opium or espresso coffee and recited beat poetry. The most important lure for us was that we thought the females in their black stockings were all opened minded and all for free love….. which is just what a teenage boy would want.

So Monty, I, and two more friends headed to Atlanta in Month’s mother’s Volvo PV544 on a dark foggy night.

The place we were looking for was The Golden Horn on 15th Street. We found it without any problem. The Golden Horn was located on the street level floor of an granite building that was a three story apartment building, each level above street level had a porch or patio. It was across the street from the High Museum which was also known as the Atlanta Art Museum. The museum was facing Peachtree Street, but the side of it was along side 15th Street.

Monty parked the car down the street about a block, you never know if what might happen that we would have to leave suddenly.

We went in. To the left was a table full of tasty looking cakes, and behind that was a bar that did the serving of beverages. A lean lady with long black hair and black stockings came up and asked us did we want a seat and we said we did. Yep, she was just what we expected.

The room was not that large. Maybe 10 or 15 tables in a dim lit room. On the far end was a small low stage. We sat down and expected someone to come out on stage and play some bongo drums or maybe recite poetry, or whatever beatniks do.

The people at the other tables seemed quiet, chatting among themselves. I would guess they were college students, Georgia Tech was only a few blocks away.

The dame with the long black straight hair and black stockings asked what did want and we said coffee. This is a coffee house – right? She brought back four coffees and our bill.

A man in white skin tight leotards and a unicorn head climb up on stage and music was played… it was flute music. The man with the unicorn head starting lightly dancing, at times it was like a ballet because he would leap and tip toe and piloret.... all this to classical flute music.

We were not music appreciators by any means. Any thing musical we like was on the top 40 radio stations. Our minds had not yet matured to appreciate good music or interpretive dancing.

Monty would later become a disc jockey.

Our whispering conversation went something like this: “Good god! We came all way down here to see this shit?”
“Is this a queer joint?”
“No, there is a couple of girls here.”
“How much is the bill? Lets pay and get the hell out of here!”
“Damn! It is sixteen dollars!”
“Sixteen dollars?”
“yes – that coffee must cost $4 a cup.”
“Shit! Now what?”

The thing is, we didn’t have $16 between us. We had something like $3 and some change.

So, we made plans. While we were whispering making our plans the woman brought another round of coffees and added it to the bill.

The table with the cakes were on a table, just a leap from the front door. We decided we would get up and stand over the cakes as if we were planning on which cake to pick out and run out the door the first chance we got.

All four of us got up, went over to the table and stood there looking at the cakes. The wench with the long straight hair came up to watch us. To make it look like we were dead serious on picking out a cake I put my hand out, finger extended and said, “Hmmm Lets see….”

She interrupted me by putting a sharp butcher knife up to my face and say, “Touch a cake and off goes your finger honey!”
I let out a nervous laugh.
The bitch said, “You think I’m joking!” and jabbed the knife in midair within inches of my stomach. I backed up.

She jabbed at me again and I backed up some more….. how in the heck did I find myself in this mess? I thought.
About that time the door slammed and we both looked at the door. We could see my three friends heads bobble by the window as they were running.

Now she was mad. She jabbed again and I turned around and ran. Somehow to get away from her knife tricks I found myself on the stage with the unicorn, then she joined us. People in the audience were laughing. I jumped off the stage with her behind me swiping at me.

This time the door was in front of me and she was in the back of me. I opened the door and ran out and ran down towards the car, but I was running scared and caught up with them before they reached it.

We all had a good laugh when I told them what happened and we all climbed into the car. Monty said, “I lost my wallet.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I had it out when we were counting our money. I must have dropped it on the floor.”
“Let it go, the dollar you had in there isn’t worth it.”
“I an’t leaving without my wallet. My phony driving license is in there, do you know how long it took me to draw the Seal of Georgia on that thing?”

Me: “I’m not going back in there for anything.”

We agreed the other three would go back in and demand the wallet back and I would be out side with the Volvo running, and as soon as they ran out they would hop in and away we would go – back home.

They went in and I sat in the drivers seat with the engine running, one foot on the clutch and the other foot ready to stomp down on the gas. I was the get-away driver.

They ran out laughing. Monty had his wallet, which he put in his back pocket.

“How did you get it?” I asked.

As a last second inspiration, Monty and his two companions when they entered The Golden Horn fell down to their knees and began crawling all over the room squealing like pigs. Everybody cracked up laughing, even the witch with the long straight hair and butcher knife. While crawling, Monty made a straight line to the table we were at and saw his wallet on the floor and snatched it up.

Alls wells that ends well.

HAPPY FATHERS' DAY!!

The late Willie B. and his youngin at the Atlanta Zoo.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! PANIC's Little Red Riding Hood

I think this version of LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD was written and illustrated by the EC Horror (TALES FROM THE CRYPT, etc) line of comics.  So it might be little more bloodier or brutish than other versions of the same story.

Click on each page to enlarge them to know what is going on.

Cutting Meat Post Card

Marie's postcards.  This one looks like it could be the Folk Art of C.W. Conners, but it isn't.  The name is CUTTIN OUT THE MEAT, what used to be southern tradition on cold mornings.  

When they killed a pig or cow everybody knew their job.

That reminds me, the job that kills live stock for processing:  I read that it has a high turnover rate.  Snuffing the life out of something with furry innocent eyes will get to a person.

One time recently, someone, I forgot who, told me last winter  they killed three pigs and packed up their parts.  I asked him did he give the pigs names and he sadly said yes.

Dahlonega and Them Thar Hills Then

I originally wrote this post in 2006  I came across it the other day, so here I am getting more mileage of it.

Since the below was written we have been to Dahlonega several times and found the nearby ghost down of Auraria, which was actually the gold mining town.

Dahlonega

Up until 1832 it was illegal for white men to come north of the Chattahoochee River in Georgia. A treaty existed to keep white men out that was signed by the representatives of the Creek Indians, Cherokee Indians, and the United States Government.

Then, gold was discovered in Dahlonega by white men. The fact that the white men were there illegally to discover the gold was not even considered, as far as I know.

“There is gold in them’ thar hills” was originated by Georgians talking about Dahlonega. The Treaty to keep white men out was quickly voided. What legal loophole did the government use to allow white men to come in and mine for the gold? Who needs a legality loophole? Gold is gold and Indians were not even Americans.

However, the Indians did sue and carried the case to the Supreme Court, which ruled in their favor. Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson was president then. He made a statement something like, “Supreme Court Chef Justice John Marshall made the decision, now, lets see him enforce it.” In other words, the Indians lost, because gold is gold and greed is greed.

The State of Georgia had a land lottery which several of my ancestors got land in and mined for gold.  Another ancestor, Jason H. Hunter, was one of the soldiers in the infamous “Trail of Tears” that marched the Indians, inhumanely, to Oklahoma.

Now, in present time the land of Lumpkin County has been hydraulically stripped, where in many places the land is not good for much except to trap tourists and be nice to the yuppie people who have cabins near by.

I have had friends right after our high school years to make bootleg moonshine trips from Dahlonega and Dawsonville to Marietta from time to time. To make a moonshine haul was something of a status symbol. The movie “Thunder Road” impressed us.

My senior year in high school, I think it was probably spring of 1960, a friend found out that their was a certain cliff north of Dahlonega that at the foot of it, many feet down, were a bunch of cars that went off the road. Some of the people there in Lumpkin County, and neighboring Fannin and Union Counties after they got tired of paying car payments would push their cars off that certain cliff and collect the money from the insurance.

Several of us decided that we would go up very early one weekend and with a long rope lower ourselves to the bottom and pick prime parts from the various vehicles and hoist them up via the rope.  We planned to be there at the top at daybreak. We preplanned to leave home at midnight.

What we didn’t plan was our social life. I think four of us went on the trip. Two of us went to a party on the spur of the moment and got drunk, just a few hours before our planned time to leave. That was a dumb thing to do.

On the way up we drunk plenty of coffee. North of Dahlonega is a fork in the road. At the fork is a big pile of rocks and boulders. The legend is that an Indian princess was buried there, I think there was also a love story involved, like in every Lover’s Leap place you have been to. If you turn right at the fork you would go over Blood Mountain, by Vogel State Park, and into Blairsville. If you turn left you would go more directly north and head towards Suches, Georgia, and Morganton, Georgia, which is the road we went.

We arrived at the spot much earlier than we had planned. It were hours before daylight. We pulled over and parked. On one side of us was the cliff over looking a valley of blackness but with some speckled lights. On the right, was a mountain. We were on a outward curve of a bend.

Not much to do until it got light, so we sat around in the road and talked and talked about adventures of the past.

One friend named Larry went off on the mountain side and found a several fallen limbs. He loved to build fires of big logs, which he did – in the middle of the road, in a outward bend, which hid by the geography of the road…. Gasp!

We continued to talk about old times, good times, and what all. Then, off in the distance we heard a truck shifting gears on the mountain terrain. We knew it was headed towards us. We tried stomping out the fire, we tried moving the burning logs but couldn’t because they were covered in flames and the truck was getting louder and louder.

Oh shit! Was about our only verbal response.

Around the corner its headlights materialized and his brakes begin to squall. We took off to the side of the road.

In a last minute decision the driver decided to accelerate and plow right through it. KAPOW! Red cinders flew up in the air, and the flaming logs scattered. A couple even went off the cliff. Luckily for us no big fire occurred that got uncontrollable.

We must have been doing something right…. What?

He kept on going.

I brought up that when he got someplace he would probably call the law and report us. So, we left.

We went up near the town of Blue Ridge, Ga., and drove back.

We timed it pretty good and arrived back at the site at daybreak and lowered the rope. Larry went down, then Gene, then me. The other Larry was going to stay up top to raise the rope as we died parts to it.

Half-way down I began to feel woozy. On a dangling rope with many feet straight down I was getting sick. I couldn’t let go. I hung on for dear life and vomited. Which splattered on Gene. He took it good stride and even laughed about it later.

Gene had about 2 months to live at that point. He was in a drag race, which he collided head-on with a policeman, a Mr. Hood, who had just left his house for dinner, and apparently forgot to turn on his headlights. He and Gene were killed instantly. Gene was a freshman at Georgia Tech.

We got to the bottom and there were 3 cars. Larry looked around each one and anything of value had already been stripped off.

So, back home.

Dahlonega was just about the only town of any size you would first come to as you went to the north Georgia mountains from Marietta. I remember one time double dating we were getting gas in the middle of town and there was a big sign beside the service station saying, “MAKE PEACE WITH JESUS”. Joe, the other male in the car, read the sign aloud and said, “I didn’t know we were at war with Him.”

Before the year 2000 I read in the magazine North Georgia Journal or Georgia Back Roads (the magazine changed names) about a rose farm in Dahlonega. The rose farm was a family business and it told of all their species, varieties, and what all. I don’t have much interest in roses but I had an interest in the family. Their name was Ridley, which is my mother’s mother’s maiden name. I think I figured out what relationship these Ridleys were, but wanted to know more so I went to see them in 2001. When I got there I found out the Ridleys sold their rose operation to a Japanese corporation and they moved to Florida.

Sometime in the past four or five years Anna and I went to the gold museum in Dahlonega which used to be the courthouse, is in the dead center of town, and the downtown street loops one-way around it.

Dahlonega is also the home of the North Georgia Military Academy.

Last fall we went with another couple who live in nearby Cleveland to an outing in Dahlonega. It is now full of antique and gift shops. Tourists were all over the place. Yep, Gold is still in those thar hills.

The reason I just wrote just about everything I can think about Dahlonega is this coming Saturday we are going to an arts and craft festival there – a weekend event called “Bear In-The Tree Fair”. The reason we are going is that they are also having a week end long blue-grass fest there. A friend that our son went to Europe with will be there playing with his new band and we would like to hear him play again.

Postcard collection continued.  I collect postcards too, just not on such a big scale as Marie's.  First is a postcard of the 1848 House in Marietta in my collection and next is the same subject in Marie's collection. 

If one ever asks you what mansion in Marietta was owned by two mayors a century apart you can smugly say the 1848 House.  It was first owned Marietta Mayor Bolan Glover , in well, 1848.  Then in late 1900s and early 2000s it was owned by Marietta  Mayor Bill Dunaway, who owned it as a fine dining restaurant.

It had a reputation of being haunted.  In the mid 1920s it was abandoned and my father and some  friends spent the night in it waiting for a ghostly experience.  I don't think they had any kind of ghostly experience.    Bill Dunaway has a few stories or eerie happenings there  that his restaurant staff had.

After it left Bill Dunaway's ownership the rumor was that Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones bought the house.   That didn't pan out.  The last I heard it was going to be a focal point or a clubhouse for a small subdivision.

This is a bust statue of Charles Roscoe Collins (1907-2000) in the Union County History Museum  which was the  old courthouse in Blairsville, Ga.  Roscoe and I are both descended from John Hunter, pioneer of Union County.  When I went to the Hunter Reunion in Union County every year I would talk to Roscoe, he always came alone,   I was always surprised he remembered my name and that I was Marietta - every year, he had a sharp mind.  I am always surprised when someone remembers my name.

I remember he and a Union County Congressman relative who also attended the reunions were the only two who wore ties or in Roscoe's case, a bowtie.  He also wore a button cap.

Roscoe was a pioneer educator and founder of several things, such as the Air Civil Patrol in that county.   

I have read several essays he had written about John Hunter's children.  The one that comes to mind is john's son  Andrew's trips to Augusta to sell the whiskey his father had made.  Augusta was the closest market.  His trail was the name of a certain highway, which was no wider than a cow path.

Roscoe is my 3rd cousin, once removed.  I'll take a claim to fame anyway I can get it.

Post Card of Harry Truman Home

We are leaning something new about my late mother-in-law almost daily presently.  We just came across a huge post card collection she kept up.   There are hundreds of them.

I think I am going to go through them and post the unique  or educational ones until my short attention span mind latches on to something else.

The first one is the house of Harry S. Truman, or 33rd president, in Independence, Mo.

Give Em Hell Harry!

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! Dog Fight!

You can tell I am a dog fan.  Recently I had Sunday Funnies called Dog Food! and today I have one about Dog Fights.

This was probably plucked from the pages of ED's ACES HIGH.

Click on each image to make it larger and understandable.