Welcome to 2018.... WAH!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

New Year's Eve Day Dinner Tradition

We are traditionists.   If we do something  the same annual date more than twice we have met the requirement for doing the tradition thing.

Black-eyed peas is a must on New Year's Day.   That may not be a tradition, that is a living requirement.

I remember for several years it was prime rib at George's Steak House on old Atlanta Road, aka West Atlanta Street on New Year's Eve.  We did that several years until we got a bad meal and the tradition ended.  Another time for several years it was another steak house every New Year's Eve and they went out of business and that changed that.

Our latest annual kick is Oyster Cafe on the 4-Lane north of Kennesaw.  We have been going there  on New Year's Eve Day several years.  We rolled back our celebrated New Year's Eve dinner earlier because there are too many drunks on the road that evening.  Statistically, one out of every four drivers is drunk .

The Oyster Cafe used to be Oyster King.  I don't think Oysters are even the most requested dish there.  It is their jumbo shrimp deep-fried in a batter they perfected. 

It is owned and operated by a Korean family.  When the name was Oyster King it was a little ex-Waffle House looking dump.  

Then it burned down.

After a few years it rose from its ashes and became the main establishment of a little shopping center just across the vacant lot from their old spot.

They usually have one Asian waitress and one red-neck waiter/waitress who sometimes can communicate with the customer better.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! WONDER WART HOG & MEPANGSTERS!

click on pictures to read the balloons and make it understandable

You know superheroes are not real, right?  They are for kids with fragile egos that need a "I'll show them!" fantasy.

However, this superhero, WONDER WART HOG is more closely to reality.  In fact, you might even be superior.  WWH is the brain child of Gilbert Shelton and also THE FABULOUS FREAK BROTHERS.

Enjoy!

(click on image to enlarge)

Gazebo donated to Glover Park by Life Chiropractor  College in Marietta before  it was discovered that  nepotism ran rampant  at the college.

Throwback Thursday: Steel's Store and the Clay Homes

1987.  Jean Steel and her mother Ruby Steel at my parents 50th Anniversary.  Ruby's and her husband Pete Steel owned and operated Steel's Grocery next to the Clay Homes.  I could throw a rock from our apartment and shatter a window in their home in back of the store.  I came close to almost doing just that.  Actually I threw a hand full of gravel at the window  of Jean and Helen steel's playhouse behind the house behind the store and breaking it.

I remember getting into trouble for doing it.

Here is a picture of Ruby visiting us in our apartment  and I'm the dirty little kid beside her.  I look about 3 years old, that would make the picture about 1944.

I wonder why Ruby is visiting?  Probably to collect for a broken window.

Remember, the last Friday of February the Marietta Museum of History will continue their series of "Remember When..." and will have  a panel discussing he low rental projects of Marietta,  including the Clay Homes. 

Check with the Museum to make sure I have the date right.

There They Are!

A famous mountain climber, I forgot who, once said he climbed Mount Everest because "It was there."

Well, that is why I took these magnificent Christmas lights  is that they were there!  And they glow in the dark too!

God-Given Talent

I read in UNCLE JOHN'S BATHROOM READER , THE WORLD'S GONE CRAZY an article  about Tatiatan Kozhevnikova, a 42 year old housewife and fitness enthusiast from Novosibirsk, Russia of having  the record of having "the world' strongest vagina muscles".  Because of giving birth to 15 children she developed an exercise she calls her "intimate exercises"  She can "clamp" down with it and lift over 30 pounds.  Thinking of that talent she developed reminded the time I went to a strip show at a traveling carnival that was in a big vacant lot across from the street from the future home of the Big Chicken in the early 1960s.

The feature show that drew crowds of young men in was a woman who could strip down naked, dancing to music, of course, then stoop down on a cigar on the stage  without using her hands, if you know what I mean.   Then light  it, and make it puff clouds of cigar smoke.

That is a true God-given talent if I ever heard of one!

I don't remember if she could blow smoke rings or not.

Man!  This sexual assaults thing  by leading admired and respected males is something.  It is happening across the board.  Some I don't like and some I do like, like Garrison Keiller, have been charged.

I wonder who is next?

Bullies and Bullees

On Christmas Day, if you channel surf, you will probably have the choice of football or the movie CHRISTMAS STORY, written by Jean Sheppard, about a Christmas in his childhood.   We see the movie every year.  We know it word by word, but it is still a pleasure to watch.

In it the hero Ralphee is constantly being bullied by the two neighborhood bullies.  Ralphee finally blew a fuse and beat the shit out of the oldest bully, Scut Farkus.

Each Christmas season when I see this movie, Scut Farkus reminds me of a bully Vern in my childhood I had to deal with.

We went swimming at the Larry Bell Park swimming pool.  We always had season passes, I think because my father was friends with the management of Larry Bell.  Vern was always there and always picked on me when I was close.  I kept my distance.  He talked mean, I was sure he could wipe the pavement with me.

One day, not in the summer, Vern and another kid came face to face  with on East Dixie Avenue, beside Hick's Grocery.  While Vern was calling me chicken and in my face the other kid (who I don't remember who) went behind and got on his knees.  This Vern pushed me hard.  I fell over the kid and hit my head on the sidewalk.  I was in pain, they walked away laughing.

I had a friend named Frank Hunter.  He was not related, he was from Boston.  Frank was hot tempered.  Several times we had run ins, and Frank flared up fighting and each time I whipped him.

Then the next summer at the pool Vern saw Frank hanging around with me and said something smart-ass to him.  Frank, not a chicken like me, came back to him with an equal insult.  They went out behind the pool to settle it.

Frank whipped Vern's ass.

That started me thinking:  If I can whip Frank and Frank can whip Vern, why am I letting Vern bully me?

The next day at the pool Vern and a buddy was sitting on a rail.  That would be a good place to pay him back the time he push me over the kid on is knees.  I walked up to him smiling with my fists drawn, ready for battle.

Vern was no fool.  He got down and walked away.  From then on he avoided me.

Over a half-century later I heard that annually they was a Bell Reunion at the American Legion.  The Bell Reunion was a reunion of people who went to Larry Bell Park for the various sports and hanging out.  I wanted to go to see old acquaintances I haven't seen in years. 

I went the first time in 2006.  Vern was there.  He hadn't changed a bit, except looking elderly.  He spoke to me friendly like.  I told him he used to pick on me at the pool back then and I was wondering if this was going to a continuation and he and I settle it one and for all.

He very friendly, patted me on the back, "Lets don't do that!"

From that reunion, and every year thereafter we have been friendly.

Speaking of bullying, I know someone who was the target of some bullying, and years later he was in a position of deciding on contractors, and one of his bullies of a previous life tried for a contract.  The person I know did not say being bullied  influenced his decision the reason the ex-bully was not awarded the job so who knows?

Bullies need to understand something about memory and Karma.  Bullees  are usually smarter than  Bullies, therefore will probably be in management someday.  Then, Karma might step in.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Our grandson Benjamin

photo by his mother Sabrina

Book Report: MARLEY'S GHOST (a picture book for grownups)

click on pictures to make them bigger and more understandable

Off and on in the past several days I have been reading a novel, or more correctly:  looking at a novel.  It is the graphic novel MARLEY'S GHOST (aka A CHRISTMAS CAROL) by Charles Dickens.

Of course I know the story, I have heard it countless times with Uncle Scrooge (not McDuck), Tiny tim, and all the rest of Christmas Carol people.  The reason I am going through the story again is because of the illustrator:  Harvey Kurtzman.  Kurtzman did his own adaptation in 1954 (and the e-version was marked down).

The Kurtzman adaptation  was not known until it was found fairly recently.

One thing I found interesting was that it was made in 1954, just when Harvey Kurtzman was getting recognized as the editor and creator of MAD Comicbook and was the first and then the pace setter of the Zany satirist-type of comics.  He was pouring out  great quantities (and quality) of his talent and went beyond that into another field of comics,  graphic novels.

MARLEY'S GHOST takes a close look of Ebeneezer Scrooge's life and how he became what he was;  grouchy old self-centered sour old man successful in business.... and did I say penny pincher and self-righteous?

When dealing with Scrooge normally the colors were dark and gloomy, but when people were   partying and doing Christmas-spirited things  the colors became bright and jubilant. 

It also showed that you don't have to be Christian to enjoy the season and show goodwill towards your fellow man.

However, the fact that it was discovered unpublished after he had died indicates he did not make a dime on it, but hopefully his survivors did.

It was good that Kurtzman did it in the time in his life he was at his creative peak.  As he got older he came down with Parkinson disease which caused his hands to shake. 

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! HUMBUG Christmas Story

click on each picture to read the text (not to mention also to appreciate the art)

Yep, this is the final Christmas story via the 1958 Humbug satire magazine. If you are an EC comic fan you probably have noticed that many times in EC publlications all the creators are illustrated in the same room, in a twisted sort of way. And this is about what editor Harvey Kurtzman had put on the last page here. Old habits die hard.

Elizabeth "Jo" Hunter Stewart (1924-2017)

Sadly, I just learned my first cousin Elizabeth Jo Hunter died October 29, 2017.    She is Herbert  and Willie Collins Hunter's daughter.

She was a character.  When she was a student at UGA, she worked part time for cartoonist Ed Dodd (MARK TRAIL).  Professionally, she was a psychologist for Cobb County Board of Education. 

She was always on top of things and positive.   She lived 93 years.   She will leave a vacuum.  

About 1979 at Hunter Reunion

1987: Jo and my late mother-in-law Marie Prance 

They were classmates at Marietta High School in 1939

Jo (right) with neighbors protesting a zoning.

Thanks to the Armed Forces

Drive through the Marietta National Cemetery, entrance at Washington Avenue and Cole Street, during this season and say a spiritual THANK YOU to all these members of the armed services who jointly defended our freedom.  If you cannot make it,  click below watch the video I made seven years ago.  But  still do your spiritual THANKS.

At Pet Smart near Town Center today I told the cashier that about ten years ago we adopted a dog and came directly  to this store to buy her some food and toys. 

I went on to tell him she was in our shopping cart.  She did not know us at all.  She leaped out of the cart and started running.  As she got near the front motion sensitive doors they slid opened for her and she kept on running out into the busy parking lot.

I think most, if not all, of the store's employees dropped what they were doing and started chasing her outside. One employee that was not in the chase was a teenage girl sitting in her car  in the parking lot eating fast food chicken nuggets on her lunch break.

The dog, soon to be named Willow, ran to one end of the parking lot and turned around and was running back in the direction she came from.  By now she had figured out what was going on.  Soon-to-be-named Willow was running toward the girl in her car.  She got out of her car and held up a chicken nugget in her hand and the dog ran right to her.

GOTCHA!

The cashier wasn't quite sure how to respond.  He said, about the same thing I would have said:  "Will that be all?"

I love to have a captive audience when I tell of a high energy adventure.

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF WINTER

(outside our Navy Barracks 1964)

Welcome to Winter!

(1st Day)

Throwback Thursday: Clay Homes and Other Low Rental Projects Discussed

Throwback Thursday.  This is a picture of my sister Frances and I about 1946 in the Clay Homes.

The Clay Homes was a low income rental project with, I think, 139 apartments.   It was bulldozed away about ten or fifteen years ago and has been more or less a vacant lot until year ago when yuppie like townhouses were built there.

Of course  now the living spaces are more expensive which means higher taxes.  And less costly on the city also.  Low income housing means more trouble with the law.

It is a win-win situation, unless you are poor.

The Marietta Museum of History will be having a panel discussion on the Clay Homes and other low rental housing projects at their "Remember When" series the morning of Friday, February 23, 2018.  Before you go check with the history museum to make sure of the time and date.

I'll be there either selling apples or stealing hubcaps outside (just joking).

My Style of Boxing Day

In the United Kingdom, mostly, December the 26th, the day after Christmas, is Boxing Day. 

Boxing Day is the day people give those who served them in one form or another, an annual tip.  I have no idea why they call it Boxing Day.  Please don't tell me, my mind can only hold so much.

Our (Anna and I) form of Boxing Day is actually Boxing Days.  It takes a couple of days to get the annual tips to people we that have serviced us all year long, such as the paper delivery lady, Postal people, etc.

We have five or maybe six, people we like to show our appreciation annually by giving them a tip.

Here are the tips that will be handed out free:

1. Do not buy a 1950 Studebaker in bad shape.  It might be hard to find parts for.

2. Do not think you have to have every product Amazon offers.

3.  Do not chug-a-lug a bottle of hot sauce to impress your friends.

4. Be careful when starting small talk with strangers while in line or in a waiting room or something.  You  never know what is ricocheting around in their minds.

5.  If you want to mix well with humans well, make damn sure you know and have instant recall all the statistics of every sporting game, pro and college, and every statistic of every frigging player.

Yesterday, Anna's Birthday and Our Anniversary

Our sons and their families came yesterday and brought goodies.  It was our 50th Anniversary and Anna's birthday.  It was very enjoyable and we were delighted. 

Dogs Will Be Dogs

This morning while doing my physical therapy exercise and looking out the window the window I saw our fence, still flattened because of the snow storm and beyond that the neighbor's basement door's dog door.

It will take a while for the fence people to mend our fence back like it is suppose to be.  In the present time the dog next door has ventured over the squashed fence to our yard and has been playing with Willow.  Willow enjoys his visits.

As I exercised I remember when first meeting the new neighbor a few months ago I mentioned the basement's dog door, that I see his dog is using it.  He said the one that was there was too small, so they installed a bigger dog door.  Now, it looks like the big dog comes and go to the back door as it wants.

The big dog and I haven't met.  When he sees me at a distance he fiercely barks at me.

As I was doing my PT exercise in the den I thought of one time we considered getting Willow a dog door. 

What would happen if we now we had a dog door for Willow?  We might be sitting watching TV and suddenly the big dog slides in through the door and decides to take care of business concerning me being a nuisance to him.

I wish the fence man would hurry up! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNA!!

SATURDAY NITE FUNNIES: BERLIN 1961

click on pages to enlarge them to make sense (or not)

These funnies are about how forsaken and depressing Berlin was in 1961.  Cartoonist Arnold Roth, on an assignment from HELP Magazine,(Editor Harvey Kurtzman) does his take of how things were then, there, or is it "there, then."?

Trickle Down Theory

Eric England, Cousin Sniper

In 2008, we went to the Descendants of John Hunter Reunion in Blairsville, Georgia.  We have been going to this reunion, off and on,  at Track Rock Campgrounds since1980.  There I always see some distant cousins I got to know at a earlier reunion and get to meet some I haven't met before.

In 2008 I met a distant cousin that I did not remember his name after he told me.  I took the above picture that day.  He had on a Marine cap.  I asked him where all he served and he told me.  When one of the places  he said, was THE USS NEWPORT NEWS I lit up.  I did too!  I asked when, when he gave the dates and I said I was there part of that time, January 1965.  He was part of the Marine detachment there.

It is small world, we were cousins on the same ship in the city of Jacksonville, Florida, Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi River, and the City of New Orleans and did not know we were blood kin.

Later another distant cousin, Bob Reece, from Blairsville and Marietta and I became Facebook friends and we are related the same way the Marine and I are related, descendants of John Hunter (1775-1848).

I sent Bob the same picture above and asked him if he knew this man, since they both were Blairsville natives.  He said the face look familiar, he would have to think about it.

Then months later Bob wrote:

Eddie, I just realized who this guy is. It's Eric England. He is a legendary Marine. Sniper with a huge amount of kills. If he is related to you, you should research him. Top marksman in the Marine Corps for years.

Here is a You Tube video I found:

Or am I MAD INSIDE?

I picked up our mail at the post office yesterday.  While walking to the car I was flipping through the envelopes and magazines to see what all we had.

A Christmas card from my fellow comicbook connoisseur Par stood out.  It stood out because in the place of a Christmas stamp or any kind of regular postage stamp was a postage stamp duplicating the cover of a MAD's paperback of years ago, INSIDE MAD.  (cover above).

I made a pedestrian U-turn on the sidewalk.  I heard of people ordering stamps with their favorite photograph of pets or children.  That must have been what Par did.  I was going back inside the post office and ask a window clerk how could I order stamps like this and was it too late for Christmas.

As I was walking into the building and flipping through our mail again, I saw that actually the INSIDE MAD picture was the return address on the TOP LEFT side and on the TOP RIGHT side was a Christmas stamp.

I U-Turned again.  Never mind.

What me a dyslexic? 

Birds!

Up in the sky something went wrong with the geese flying south. I never saw so many birds high up in the sky honking and I think panicking. There were several triangle formations that merged into one big mix-up. They started flying away from the group, all in different directions. Either the same birds or more came and did the same error. 

My theory is that the flight leaders, the ones head of the triangle were looking for a certain landmark in this area and it is no longer there... either a shopping center or a building is now over it since the last time they traveled south. They all screamed and honked desperate sounds.
Something is not right.

Looking Back, 1983. Adam and Rocky, Easter

This year we had an early snow.  In 1983, we had a late snow, an Easter Snow!

Do Your Research!

A day or two ago I was at a gas pump filling up.  The facility has 10 gas pumps.  I saw the cashier outside her office going one at a time to customers, talking to them a minute or two then move on to the next customer.

My time was coming up, she was getting closer.  I wondered what she was going to talk about?

When she got to me, she asked me, "What do you know about generators?"

I told her what little I know and what my neighbor did for us when our power was down with his generator and a heater blaster. 

She took it all in and asked questions.  I guess she was without power during the snow.

She was doing research.

Trump Bragging

I read this morning that Trump was bragging about predicting the outcome of the Alabama Senatorial Race between Roy Moore and Doug Jones.

However, he endorsed Roy Moore, the loser.

If Moore had won, Trump could have bragged about that.

On bragging, you can't beat him.

Holy Poo Poo!

A middle age man lives down the street.   He is known for compulsively going all out decorating his house and yard for special days throughout the year. 

Halloween is always interesting.  

Most recently he spent a couple of days building a Manger scene in his front yard.

Tonight I carried my dog Willow for a last bathroom call for the evening.  We walked by the Manger with all its wise-men, Mary, Joseph,  and barn livestock looking admiring an lovingly at the baby Jesus.

Willow within feet  in front of the Manger hunkered over and took her evening dump.

That would be realistic  like real barnyard animals do, take dumps whenever they want to.

I wished I had my camera.

An Act of Kindness

An Act of Kindness.   My late friend Sam Carsley, one time gave me a book gift titled something like "SIMPLE ACTS OF KINDESS".  It was all about kindness acts in the Civil War, enemies, mostly one on one situations.  I thought of this book yesterday:

 As I said our power went off at 6pm Friday.   Surrounded by snow it was very cold.  Sunday morning it was 25⁰.  We were wrapped up in layers when we heard a bang on the door.  It was our neighbor Chris.    He is a young energetic bachelor.  He is also an electrician.   He said, "Do you want heat?"

I instantly replied, "Yes!"

He said, "I'll be right back!"

I went outside to see what was next.

Chris and his girlfriend emerged from his garage.  Chris was pulling a huge bomb looking thing on wheels and his girlfriend was pulling a generator, also on wheels. They were hooked together by a thick cable.  The bomb looking thing opening was blasting heat.  It heated up the house is less than 30 minutes.  They said they were just being neighborly and us elderly, we might sick easily.  They said they did or are going to do the elderly couple on the other side of them.  Bless them.

$100. Easy Come, Easy Go

Anna's late father Paul was the manager of Veach's Wholesale Grocery.  Grady Veach was the owner.

Anna and I were married fifty years ago yesterday, December 9th, 1967.  For a honeymoon we rented a cabin at Unicoi State Park near Helen for a week.

As a wedding present Grady Veach gave us $100 for groceries for our honeymoon.

We were to go to the Helen for a 50th Wedding Anniversary weekend but the snowy weather had other plans.  Not only did it make driving difficult but it knocked out the power in our house. 

Today in the afternoon the power was restored.  We went through our freezer to determine what could be saved and what had to be thrown away.

We threw away about $100 worth of food no good.

50 years ago Mr. Veach gave us $100.  This weekend the weather took it back.

Easy come, easy go.

50 YEARS AGO TODAY

I Love You, Anna!

A Quick Story

On a whim, We wanted Mexican chicken soup tonight.  I went to the closest Mexican restaurant to pick up two to-go orders.

I had my Kennesaw Mountain ball cap on.  The waitress that waited on me said she was glad to see somebody away from the Mountain that likes it enough to have a cap with its name.  She said she walks to the top every morning.  I told her good for her, I haven't walked to the top in two years.

Then I told her the real reason I had the cap:  In 1864 my great grandfather William Hunter was shot in the knee while getting water at a spring.  His friend, by him, was shot in the forehead, being killed instantly.  Another friend started running and the Yankee ran by him chasing the other guy.  He recuperated in a private residence in Woodstock.  After the war was over in about a year was about the time he healed, he walked home back to his home in Franklin, North Carolina.  Then he and his uncle killed a man arguing about politics.  The man they killed fought for the north.  They fled, they were wanted for murder.  My great grandfather first went to Texas then he decided to return to Woodstock because he made friends there while recuperating.  He changed his last name to Hunter, which is probably OK, because court records show is mother sued Jason Henderson Hunter in 1842 (the year William was born) for Bastardy and won.

The waitress was spellbound.

Not only did I give her a tip, but also a high adventure story, and about $1.00 worth of a history lesson.

I gathered my to-go bags and she looked down at my charge ticket and "Thank you, er-Mr. HUNTER."

If she learned anything, maybe it will be never complement a stranger about his hat.

Throwback Thursday: Jack Hunter

The kid on the left is my father Ed Hunter (1911-1988) and on the right is one of his little brothers, Jack Hunter (1914-1990).  I think the picture was taken about 1918.

About 23 years later, on this date in 1941,  Jack survived Pearl Harbor.

He spent a career in the Navy.  One time from a PT Boat he pulled Eddie Rickenbacker out of the sea is credited with saving his life.  At time I think what would become Dobbins Air Force Base in Marietta was then called The Eddie Rickenbacker Air Strip.  I wonder if Jack and Eddie discussed that.

After he retired from the Navy he moved back to Marietta and worked his second career at Lockheed.

He and his wife Ruby was known as a driving force of helping handicapped children.

Jack first married Sarah Nell Collins, 3 August 1941, (less than a month after the Invasion of Pearl Harbor).  

He secondly he married Ruby Ruby Langely, 3 April 1952. 

Ruby died 3 September of this year.  She and Jack had one son, also named Jack.