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Sunday, September 30, 2018

Every American Citizen Has The Right to....






This morning on CBS SUNDAY MORNING NEWS they had an article on the late Gilder Radner.  In it, they had part of a skit that was on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE  that Gilda said something like, “Every American citizen, regardless of race, sex or financial status,  has the right to make a fool of themselves!

Great quote.!  I looked for it on Youtube but I got tired of looking, she has hundreds of quotable blurts on there.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! HELP'S LI'L ABNER

Remember the daily newspaper comic strip LI'L ABNER?  Well, this is a lampoon on it.  It came from HELP Magazine, editor Harvey Kurtzman, story by Ed Fisher, and illustrated by Will Elder.  Usually, Will Elder illustrates stories by Harvey Kurtzman, as he did in MAD, HUMBUG, TRUMP, and HELP.

Click on page to make it larger to be able to read the balloons and see what is going on.






Saturday, September 29, 2018

Lindsey, the Bad Person Slayer





Lindsey Graham pitched a fit Thursday at the Kavanaugh Allegedly Sexual Misconduct hearings.     He could not hold it in any longer how the Democrats were dragging their feet and asking inappropriate questions, and so on.  He might be on to something. 

The Republicans certainly did nothing like that.  But of course, it could be because they did not have to.  They did not allowed President Obama, near the end of his term,  to nominate a potential Supreme Court judge.*

*Even though it was his Constitutional right, according to Mitch McConnell  

Friday, September 28, 2018

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Damn Liberals!


Today, we were sitting in a doctor’s inner-waiting room, like a stage 2 waiting room, watching the Kavanaough hearing live on CNN.

Then a nurse materialized and turn off the TV and said the doctor told her to do it.

I thought one lady was going explode or implode.  She turned red and said, “DAM LIBERALS!!” 

About that time she was called back and carried 3 or 4 look-alikes with her.

That left four of us:  Anna, I, and two other ladies.  The two ladies were humble, non-pretentious, and polite. 

One of them said, “Well, I think we have just been put ln our place.”

I cracked up laughing.

Boondocks


Olympian High School Yearbook.  Colorized by Joe Jenkins



(copied & pasted and edited from a post on Chicken-Fat in 2009)
Throwback Thursday: About 1958 or 59 several of us boys went to Panama City Beach, Florida. We went in Billy Joe Royal’s 1950 black Ford.  That was before Billy Joe Royal was a famous rock & Roll and Country Singer.. he was a singer of that, but not famous... yet. Our bunch was Billy Joe's brother Jack, Tommy, Charley, and Harry Whitten.

 It took us about 12 hours to make the six to seven hour trip. We got lost a bunch of times on little dirt roads in Alabama.  I think it might have taken so long because we left around 11pm, and through Alabama Harry drove and everybody else fell asleep.  When I woke up at daybreak I saw that we were on a dirt highway or road, freshly cut with no signs of civilization.   asked Harry where were we and he said he had no idea.  Harry died a young man just a few years later.

In Panama City Beach area  the cheapest motel we found was The Key of Rest Motel. They advertised only $8 a night for two people. Between all five of us we had about $40. I had $30 of that and Jack had about $15. We decided The Key of Rest Motel was about the best we could do.

Jack and I had most the money so we both registered and each paid $8. The room had twin beds and a bathroom that we shared with the connecting room.

We brought our stuff in, which wasn’t much and then bought some Straight 8 Beer which sold for $1 a six pack.

This was the first week of June. High school students from all over Alabama and Georgia  converged on Panama City. Most of the Marietta people had rooms at two motels just down the street. A few of our friends found out where we were staying and dropped by for a visit and bringing more beer.

After a while we decided to walk across the road to the public beach and go hang out on the beach and maybe get some sun.

I remember they had sun-tan lotion tents. You step in a tent, deposit a quarter and you are sprayed with lotion. We were too poor to do that, but I thought it was interesting anyway.

Also was a sign with a local ordinance number at the bottom. The sign said, “No Colored Maids allowed in bathing suits on the beach.” This was a public, government owned beach. I thought that was terrible.

I noticed the lady who owned our motel come from down on the beach someplace carrying a very big fishing rod and a basket which I suppose had fish in it. I was glad to see that… I thought she wasn’t swept up in running a motel so much that she couldn’t enjoy the Florida amenities too.

When you are feeling the effects of alcohol you can tolerate the hot sun more than usual. We all took a nap on the beach baking in the sun. We woke up a few hours later baked. We were red as lobsters.

That night we went to a pavilion by the beach called “The Hangout.” There was a jukebox playing rock and roll music and hundreds of teenagers… some were dancing, most were standing around looking at the dancers, and some more was out on the beach beyond the lights fighting. We wisely stayed in the lights.

When we returned to our room that night and we all stripped down to our underwear we were blistery sore. I think a few friends came in that had no money or a place to stay so we told them they could stay with us.

It was so crowded if anyone moved someone else screamed in pain. One of us checked out the joining room. It was not being used. We divided up, half of us went into the next room. Then there were probably between 4 and 6 per room. We all went to sleep peacefully.

In the middle of the night the outside door opened up in the unpaid-for room and there stood the woman who ran the motel with a newly married couple. The bride screamed, the woman proprietor hollered, and some of the half-naked red-baked boys screamed.

She kicked us out. We asked for a refund and she laughed bitterly.

When we were putting stuff in the car she marched over from the office and wisely demanded to go through our suitcases. She retrieved her towels.

With no place to go we headed to Valdosta, Georgia. Billy Joe was born in Valdosta and had family there. I am not sure if Jack was born in Valdosta or not. Doc Holliday was.

Again it took us longer than it should have. Again we got lost and went through Tallahassee, Florida, which I think was way out of the way.

Billy Joe and Jack’s uncle and aunt welcomed us. The aunt cooked some delicious breakfasts. For almost a week we just lounged around and went to a local teen hangout at Twin Lakes Park a couple of times.

Their aunt and uncle were very much into music. They had a piano and guitars. Billy Joe would practice singing with playing different instruments. I think he could duplicate anybody’s voice and style while singing… if you had your eyes closed you were think the Coasters or maybe Ray Charles was singing, and the next song you would think it was Hank Williams…. Then you would hear, Jerry Lee Lewis grabbing the bull by the horns.

After the first week Tommy, Charlie, and I went with their other uncle and aunt who lived in Tifton to spend a few days. Jack and Billy Joe stayed with the ones in Valdosta… they were singing together over the piano and guitar, harmonizing like.

The Tipton uncle and family lived in a rented house behind the owner's house.  The house was on the edge of a pastor.  The county Tifton is in was dry at that time.  The uncle went the next county over to get us booze.  On one of the nights they took us to the American Legion in Sylvester, Georgia. That night it was hot in south Georgia, I felt sick, .  I laid down in the driveway.  His wife told him somebody might run over me, and he said, "Hell, they might bump up against him, but he is too big to run over."  I was a big kid then.  I slept there by the pasture fence all night.  In the morning I woke up with a cow looking at me through the fence.

In a few days we returned to Valdosta to hear the latest. A furniture warehouse had a dance a certain night every week. BJ and Jack’s uncle played in the band… and BJ was going to get to play with them.

For the occasion BJ and Jack’s mother and their two sisters came from Marietta to Valdosta to hear him on stage. They knew he could do it, and do it well - and they were right.

After the dance was over, Mrs. Royal and her daughters, Tommy, Charlie, me, and Jack crammed into a car and drove back to Marietta. Billy Joe stayed back in order to perform.

As far as I know that was Billy Joe Royal’s first singing gig to an audience.

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Benjamin the Soccer Player

Soccer class.

-Photo by his Benjamin's mom Sabrina.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Unbalanced Scales



This past weekend I heard Mitch McConnell say that it is the president's Constitutional right to nominate a Supreme Court Justice,

It is?

Then why did he and other Republicans refuse to accept President Obama's Supreme Court Justice nominee near the end of Obama's term?

Monday, September 24, 2018

Franklin, Macon County, NC, back when...




I am re-reading the Macon County, North Carolina,  Historical Society’s first book to refresh my memory and while in the pages make sure I did not miss something concerning my kiln.
Here are two note-worthy items, to let you know how things were back then.

They needed roads but building roads and upkeeping was no one’s job, so they made it all the males’  job.  When I say “all males” I mean all males, white or black, slave or free, over the age of 14.  For whites the exempt age was 55 and for blacks it was 60.   Of course.  Nothing fair about it:

During the April, 1863 Court session, the justices ordered “that all white males between the ages of 14 and 55 and all black males between the ages of 14 and 60 to work on public roads.  The change in the selection of workers may have been due to many men serving in the Confederate Army.

Here is the town of Franklin’s 1855 ordinances:

For running a horse race through the streets for pleasure or show.  Fine not less than one or more than five dollars.

For disturbing the peace, by cursing, quarreling, or using obscene language on the streets or sidewalk, or other vulgar behavior not less than fifty cents and not more than five dollars.
For throwing fireballs within the village, twenty-five cents for each offense.
For selling ardent spirits in the streets or on the public square within the corporate limits except the usual or authorized places.

Sunday, September 23, 2018

HAPPY CHECKERS DAY!







Today is National Checkers Day.  Nixon’s dog Checkers came to mind.  September 23, 1952, Nixon gave his famous “Checkers speech”.  Nixon was then a candidate for vice-president and found himself in hot water because he was accused of improprieties of campaign funds.  His approval ratings were losing points.

He called a press conference and said some people were critical of him accepting  the dog Checkers as a gift.  He said they named it Checkers.  He went on to say how cute Checkers was, and Pat and the girls loved it.  And regardless of criticism he gets, They were going to keep it.

It was a stroke of genius of feeling the public’s pulse.  Checkers had nothing to do with the campaign funds.  The public fell for the heart-warming story.  The public loves dogs.  His approval ratings went up and he was elected vice president.  I think his running mate Ike probably privately shook his head.

I think Trump needs to get a dog.

SUNDAY FUNNLIES!! Old Photos Out of HELP Magazine


I think HELP Magazine had very little money to pay for artists, photographers, etc.  So, they got a lot of their material from Public Domain sources, like the below.









Saturday, September 22, 2018

Tournament of Smart People





The quiz show JEOPARDY will have a tournament, kind of, with the players being the big winners of previous JEOPARDY games.  Today on their web site live they had selections for the teams.  I don’t know how it will run, but I think it will something on the order of  a high school quiz bowl of the smart kids representing their high school.

There will be six teams with 3 members on each team, just like a nightly panel on JEOPARDY.

The six team leaders:

Colby Burnett.
Buzzy Cohen
Julia Collins
Ken Jennings
Austin Rogers
Brad Rutter

When Brad Rutter was introduced they said he had never been beaten on JEOPARDY by a human.  Well, how come he is not still playing?

Of course, the five team leaders had to pick members of their team.  Just like phys ed  in high school when the jocks got to pick the best for their team, somebody would have to be last picked.  A position I found myself in many times.  But of course, only the top winders were there,


Classy Art




Not only is the art impressive, check out those hands.  They look like they could tie knots in metal pipes.

Friday, September 21, 2018

Photo Bomb



Today I in the drive-thru at a restaurant waiting in line.  The drive-thru drive went by a patio with people out eating lunch.

One table was a young business lady talking to her laptop, opened up.  She was having a business conference, Skype - like, very efficient. 

I couldn't help but wondering what if a few mischievous youths got behind her and made a photo bomb.  I have had people make photo-bombs of what I was trying to do, so .  It might give whoever she was communicating s nice change.

For a funny photo bomb click below:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=702pXW7qrwI

Thursday, September 20, 2018

You Will Not Interrupt Me




I think the new ploy to get telephone solicitor’s foot in the door, or voice to be heard, is to first when they answer say something personal like one just did and another yesterday, said, “I’m sorry, my ears are still ringing from my son’s music practice … ha ha.”  I interrupted to tell her we don’t… and she talked right over my interruption.   I was talking to a recording.  She went on with her sales spill as I hung up.

Spelunking or Plunking at Salt Peter Cave, Throwback Thursday



Throwback Thursday. Copied and pasted from my previous blog (2007).
Not long ago, I suggested to a fellow blogger who lives in the area that she should visit Saltpeter Cave just outside of Cartersville, Georgia.

I have been there several times and had adventures each time that I will remember the rest of life. After I told her about the never-ending cave I did a Google search to maybe give her some good directions and found out that just about every southern state has a cave named Salt Peter. However, when I made Salt Peter one word: SaltPeter Google narrowed the possibilities down and I found it.

Unfortunately, the Saltpeter website said it was on private property and visitors were not welcome. I thought it was just outside of Cartersville – well it is, but it is in Kingston, Georgia. I should have thought of that.

Back as teenager, probably about 14 years of age, I was in the Explorer Scouts. Our troop (or whatever the group calls themselves) went to Saltpeter Cave on a weekend and camped out outside the main entrance.

It had two entrances. The big entrance is huge, King Kong could have tossed huge new houses through the opening with plenty of room to spare. The other entrance is around the hill’s corner and high up.

The cave had never ending rooms, one after another. I was surprised at the pitched black of absolutely nothing when we all turned out our flashlights.

There seemed to be big rooms at first and got a little smaller as you went back. In one of the first big rooms was either two or three rectangle holes in the earth, about six feet deep. Were these graves? Another scout troop there were from nearby, one of the boys said he heard they were Indian graves.

Also, somewhere we heard they mined salt peter in these caves in the Civil War. I heard salt peter was an ingredient the military gave its enlisted men to keep down their sex drive. I doubt if that is true. It seemed that the fighting men would need all the raging hormones they could pull up. I also heart that salt peter was used in gun power, that seems plausible.

This cave had plenty of stalactites and stalagmites. In one room there one of each, one on top of the other, almost like a mirror image. Another one, which ever is the one that is on the floor was the size of a teepee and had a crawl entrance. I entered it and climbed down and down, maybe 20 to 25 feet, and it stopped, so did I and climbed back out.

One crawl tunnel emptied out in the first room of the big opening. It opened up with maybe 8 feet below you into the room. Before you had a chance to figure out how to maneuver yourself out and down the steep wall the oozing bat shit solved the problem for you and gave you no choice. You could only side one way, down – sliding.

As the rooms got smaller one time we were wading and heard running water ahead. We were not brave enough to move more in that direction.

In little small tunnel that I had to squeeze through and opened into a larger room, I clung on to edge, because darkness was below me I came across something smooth and round. Had I found an egg of a mysterious extinct cave dwelling animal? I put it in my coat pocket for closer examination when I got into the day light.

It was a used flash bulb.

We went back there in just a few weeks but this time it was a day trip. We didn’t camp out.

In a couple of years when my friends and I became old enough to drive and enjoyed rambling on the old country roads in Georgia we went back a few times and went in the cave.

The last time I went I think I was about 17 or 18 on a Sunday. It was with Larry S., cousin Jesse, and a friend or two more. They were fascinated by the cave.

After we went into the innards of it and came back out Larry took a rope out of his trunk and went over the big mouth of the cave and tied the rope to a tree there and it dangled down over the opening.

As I type this I am wonder if this was the same rope that I hung on and vomited while lowering down the cliff above Dahlonega, Georgia (remember that blog?). Roughly same time period and same car that held the rope, same friends.

It is possible, but if so, it would have to be after the Dahlonega event because the rope was much shorter.

One at a time us boys took times grabbing the rope and swinging out into the mouth of the cave and swinging back.

The mouth of the cave, once you enter it on foot you have to be careful descending down a steep loose rock incline. The incline went so far then there is a drop off of about 15 feet. On foot, you would need to go near the outer end of the cliff where the incline continues.

Of course if you are swinging out on a rope your primary concern is not to fall.

I fell off the rope. Once airborne, swinging out in the huge mouth of the cave my hands started sliding at a rapid rate. I held harder, which burned the flesh off my hands.

I slid right off the rope and fell on the steep inclined and rolled and tumbled at a fast rate of speed towards the drop off. A out-jutting big stone stopped me.

I wished I was dead to get rid of the pain. Both hands on the inside were burning like hell, no skin, just raw red hands that blisters were forming. My bones were in pain also.

But, again, I slipped by death by a hair. I could not walk well. My friends and a couple of strangers helped me out of the mouth.

We went home, me completely absorbed in my pain and burns.

I knew the moment I realized I was in pain, that would be my last visit to Saltpeter Cave.

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Talk Like a Nut-Case Day





Talk like a Parrot day:



Arrk!  Polly want a cracker!

Huh?  Pirate?  OK

Talk like a Pirate Day:



Oh Dear, the  mean old Croc ate at my hand!

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

The Invisible Eavesdropper





Sometimes when I am in the right mood I am glad I am invisible. 
Today in a department store I had “watch-the-pocketbook in the shopping cart duty” I found a comfortable chair and was seated hard at work doing my duty watching.  Two young female store clerks got near straightening out clothes on hangars.  One was proud of the other one that just got a promotion and put on as a regular.  They were laughing, giggling, and gossiping like teenage girls do.  One of the things I heard said, “Greg is going to be sooo pissed when he finds out you got promoted and he didn’t.”
Also the same girl asked her promoted friend what was the floor manager talking to them about as she walked.  I noticed that too, some of the short females had a hard time keeping up.   The promoted one said, “Just a bunch of B.S….   she likes to hear herself talk.”
“Well, what was she talking about?”
“Who knows?  I was thinking about me and Danny.”  She said.

And sometimes I wish I was more visible.

This is not the first time I was like a bump on a log and was right in the middle of two teenage girls talking and being themselves.
It reminded of the time I walked into McDonald’s in the middle of the day to get a Coke.  I walked up to the counter where two female counter clerks were standing talking.  Although I was the only one in the front and standing on the customer-side of the counter and they were only the width of counter away from me.  They were talking about their boyfriends.

I patiently waited, hopping soon one would glance up and see me.
One of their conversation was about to tell her co-worker and me about the technique she did when her boyfriend asked her oral sex.
I hate to be rude and interrupt people when they are talking, but I felt it was time to clear my throat.

They looked and there I stood, probably two feet from them.  They looked horrified, like a deer in headlights.  Both of them ran off into the innards of McDonald’s.

I don’t remember if I got a Coke or not.

Monday, September 17, 2018

The Hummingbird Free from the Spider's Trap!




We have a nephew who takes sort of a blunt view on social issues.   He can lay out in a logical intellectual  format why he feels how he does about any issue or person he feels negative towards.  He is sort of a Rebel James Dean type.  Yes, he has a Hawg.

On Facebook this morning he told that he saw a hummingbird on his hummingbird feeder struggling and could not break away.  He rushed out and found that the little fellow was tangled up in a spiderweb, almost like the spider threw a net on it.  

The nephew broke it away from the main web cable and hurriedly carried it inside, Googled what do you use to dissolve spider webs off hummingbirds.  

He soon got his answer and he began applying the homemade solution that was suggested.  While he had a hold of the bird he also fed it sugar water, which it gladly accepted.  Once, feeling better and free of spider webbing he took off and flew around the room.  The nephew caught him and carried him outside and away he flew.

I bet at this very moment, he is up perched on a high branch preaching to other little birds “Yes, there is a God!  He saved me!’

Sunday, September 16, 2018

Roy Petty, the Uncle and the FBI Jerk





Yesterday we watched the season’s finale of the series OZARK.  The OZRKS is a lively high action series with plenty of blood being spilled.  We first looked at it after we had lunch at J.D.s On The Lake restaurant.  We went there because we heard was a frequent prop for the series.  It was.  I think I read that it will not  be in future episodes.

They used the season’s finale to kill off some characters.  That doesn’t mean they won’t be back, there is at least one ghost that shows up often now.   One character they killed off, was really a heartless bad guy who was a unscrupulous FBI agent that was very mean to people, suspects and co-workers.  Viewers  are probably glad he was killed off.  I knew his name was Petty, the same as my mother’s maiden name.  His first name was revealed.  It is Roy Petty.   

Roy Petty is the name of one of my mother’s late brothers.  Our Roy Petty was a war hero and was on the Board of the Heinz Foundation and ran a boy’s camp that most the kids were from the streets of New York City and its boroughs.  He also rubbed elbows with the rich and famous as far as hawking for donations.

I wonder if Roy somehow inspired somebody that was in the creative arts and they used his name.  Naw!  I don’t think so, I think we were the only ones that called him “Roy”.  His real name was William Leroy Petty.   His buddies in the Rangers called him “L-Rod” and with neighbors and professionally  he was just “Bill”.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! Baseball and the Mets


As you probably know the Braves #1 in their by 4 or 5 ahead, in their group standing.  Don't ask me what group. 
So it is time for me to hop onto the bandwagon.. 

This story originally appeared in HELP Magazine in 1963.  It is illustrated by Georgia's own, the late Jack Davis.  Jack also gets credit for the field research but I would think it was probably all nudged by editor Harvey Kurtzman.






Saturday, September 15, 2018

Hypothetical for a moment.





Let’s get hypothetical for a moment. 

Say you are fine, but at huge shopping mall, at Christmas time it is pouring down raining and there is only one parking place available, and it is almost closing time.  Should you grab that spot?  If caught the penalty will be stiff.

Case # 2.  Suppose a person with a handicap plate drove into a crowded parking lot and for whatever reason he/or she just did not want to park into a handicap place so they he/she takes the last regular parking place

Case #3.   Suppose the handicap plate if for the wife, but the husband is driving and the wife is  home watching a soap opera and there is only one parking place left, and it is in the handicap.  Should   he grab it?