Charles and Paul

c 1927 - These are Marie's two brothers Charles Jones Foster (1925-2012) and saluting Paul Everett Foster, Jr (1922-1995). They were born in and grew up in Marietta. Their father died when they were just boys and they had to find part time jobs to help support the family. The both got jobs at The Strand Theater. Paul was a projection operator and Charles did odd jobs such as getting the weekly coming attractions programs printed out and distributed.
They both went into the armed forces during WW II. Paul went into the Marines and Charles went into the Air Army and learned to be a pilot.
Paul fought in the Pacific and Charles flew supplies into war zones.
After the war Charles was hired as a pilot for TWA. Paul joined the Air Force.
After his Air Force obligation he Paul returned to Marietta and became a postal employee.
Charles told me he was a Marietta Postal employee one time too. I think it was probably before he went into the service.
Paul became the head window technician. Some people thought he was Marietta's Postmaster.Paul and his wife Barbara Shea and Charles and his first wife Florence Rogers all share the same plot at Kennesaw Memorial Cemetery.

Glover Park

click onto make bigger and more impressive (or not)

True Story

Throwback Thursday.  I heard the other day that on a recent Sunday a Methodist minister in Texas blessed a bunch of #2 pencils for the children of the congregation to do a project of some kind.  After it was over several of the adults wanted to get one of those "blessed #2 pencils".

That reminded me of this neighborhood years ago, maybe 20 years or more:

On our side yard and behind us was a family with two teenage kids and a mother and daddy.  The daddy owned several convenience stores which took up all his time.  He was rarely there.  Neither were the teenage kids.  The wife, Cheryl was there by herself most of the time.  She took a lot of medicine.

Cheryl was high most of the time and hung around her house in her night gown.  She told one of us neighbors that Elvis walked up to her while she was waiting for her medicine prescription to be filled at Echkards. Drugs.  Elvis said, "Where you been all my life, I'm coming back and get you!"

Did he?  A big shiny Cadillac was sighted in the neighborhood, cruising slowly.

Cheryl was discovered dead  by her husband, she had been dead several days.  She died from an overdose.

Cheryl's husband and kids moved out, to west Cobb to be closer to his stores.

A middle-age husband and wife bought the house.  The husband's name was Bill.  Bill started seeing glimpses of Cheryl walking in the dark, or over him at the ceiling looking down and more.

Bill's wife Sarah decided to have the house exorcised by a priest.  She invited me and other neighbors to come over and witness the exorcism.  A robed female Episcopalian priest came over and her smoking or incense swinging metal balls.  She blessed the house.  Then it was like a yuppie party:  Cheese and wine and social awareness chats.

A day or two later I saw Sarah out working in the back yard and thanked her for inviting me and asked her has Cheryl been back.  She said, no, but Cheryl did make a finale'.  She dropped a dead rat on Bill's face while he was asleep.

They moved since and probably about 4 or 5 families has moved in and moved out.  I think it has a higher turnover than the other houses around here.

Willy B;'s Friend

Grant Park Zoo years ago.  Remember the famous gorilla Willy B. at the Grant Park Zoo in Atlanta?  When Willy was first introduced to his species opposite sex when he was middle age, I think this lady was one of the ones he was introduced too.

Trump Girls

HAPPY NATIONAL DOG DAY!

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD's MELVIN MOLE

Speaking of gun control.  Mole certainly knew how to control a gun.
Mole's first name is Melvin.  The story here last Sunday was named MELVIN.  Melvin of the Apes.  Editor Harvey Kurtzman felt the name "Melvin" was funny.  Then along cane Alfred E. Newman.
Art by Will Elder.
click on panel to make it bigger, readable, and hopefully funny.

More than..

 The other day Benjamin's Mom on Facebook told about her and Benjamin were telling each other:

"I love you more than..."  and then say something like "water in the ocean" or "Sunlight in the DTheaytime" or in something else in that mindset"

Then Benjamin told her "I love you more than there is pee in a pottie" and broke up laughing!

I like that.  It shows he is witty and now working on his delivery.

That's my grandson!!

Somebody Might Be Out There

UNCLE JOHN'S BATHROOM READER is sort of like an almanac with a lot of interesting and sometimes unbelievable facts.  I read it regularly, in fact, most of the time when I am sitting on the John.  I don't think it is published annually like almanacs are - I do not think it has a routine publishing pattern.

Anyway, I am presently reading  UNCLE JOHN'S BATHROOM'S READER  THE WHOLE WORLD'S GONE CRAZY.  Today I read an interesting article about radio signals from space that may possibly change everything.

Google 6EQUJ5 and read the summary yourself.

Throwback Thursdy - True Story

The following has been copied and pasted from a post from a previous Chicken-fat post:

Throwback Thursday True Story:  One time I remember standing on the steps at Waterman Street School, waiting for the bell to ring so we could go in.  We were in about the 4th grade.  Larry pulled out a condom and showed me, and I was impressed with the little white O-ring around the opening of it. Which I had a very scientific observation that went something like this: "so that is a rubber? Where do you buy them at?"

Again, years later, again,Larry would take a condom out of his pocket. This time it was on the back row of the Hill Street Baptist Church. I wasn’t along with Larry and my other friends that Sunday night but I got several first hand accounts. They heard that on Sunday nights at Hill Street Baptist Church some available teenage girls went there.  So, the boys went to check it out. During the sermon Larry got bored and pulled out a condom and started playing with it. It wasn’t long until he blew it up and tied a little knot in the O-ring thing. His cousin Jesse, also one of us, reached over and flipped the balloon shape rubber. Larry wasn’t expecting it and it got loose from him and landed in the aisle. There was a big fan at the near the back pews in the doorway that kept the air circulating and brought in air from the outside. The white balloon was yanked into action by the fan’s wind current. It floated and gently bounced down the aisle like it had a soul of its own and wanted it saved by coming down to the preacher’s inspiring sermon. Larry and the others quickly left the church.

Those were the days...

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Julian Prance and Familky

About 1994 Anna's brother Julian Randy Prance ((1937-1999) and his daughter Daphne and her kids  visited from Texas.  Also in the photos are Paul and Marie Foster Prance.

Trump Backers

The Clyde Herring Gang

As you may recall (or may not) several days ago I had a picture of the Herring Family that lived in the Forsyth-Alpharetta - Milton area hoeing their garden.

These two pictures are some of the same people and in the same area but doing something different. They are not working the dirt, they look like they are partying
The picture with eleven young men and women in it is named "Clyde's Gang", Clyde was Clyde Herring. She is one that would die of an unknown disease soon.
The other picture of three young people, Clyde is the one on the left, unknown in the center, and on the right is Anna's great aunt Gertrude Jones Wood (1899 - 1986).

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SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD's MELVIN OF THE APES

Before Alfred E. Newman stumbled along, MAD's mascot was Melvin.  Many of the early MAD's protagonists were named MELVIN.... like,  for instance, take this story, MELVIN OF THE APES. in MAD #2.

Art by John Severin and story by Harvey Kurtzman

click to make pictures bigger.

Hunters at Ted's, June 16, 2019

Part of my paper route tour - Throwback Thursday

(art by Jack Davis, MAD)

II know that area fairly well.  Also on South Avenue my cousin Anthony Rollins and his mother and our grandmother lived on South Avenue.  Anthony retired from the Cobb County Sheriff Dept as a Lt. head of the crime lab. Also Jack and Neal Barfield  and the Wallace Brothers (all cousins) lived on South Avenue, I did not know them from my paper route but from Little League.

On down South Avenue on the corner of Frazer Street was a man who owned a restaurant on th 4-Lane close to Hodge Brothers Army Surplus store.  He kept a spider monkey in his front yard on a chain.  I used to buy candy at Yancy's Store one block away and toss them to the monkey.  He ate up most of my profit.  Cati-corner from him was Jackie Davidson, who was a majorette in high school, about a year or two ahead of us.  Her father was head of the water department..  Next door to the Davidson's was a man in a wheelchair named Grady.  I took the route over from Raymond "Snookey" Partain.  Snookey left Grady a free  paper every day.  Between him and the monkey I was being bled dry.  Finally I cut out his free paper.  But I didn't cut off the monkey's candy.  Across the street from Grady was a 4 apartment building.  It didn't take me long to figure out that a part time sports writer for the Marietta Journal was having an affair with a lady living in one of the apartments on the second floor.

Back at the corner of Frazer and Alexander Streets the second house up Robert Brooks and his wife Jo Ann White lived there.  Jo Ann and I are almost related, we have common relatives. (she is Larry White's sister).  In a few years Robert and I would be co-workers at the Marietta Post Office.

About three houses up Betty Guthrie and her family lived.  The lived at the corner of Frazer and Grover Street.  The 2nd house down my friend Johnny Pascoe lived.  On down the hills on Grover Street on the right Lawton Evans land his family lived.  Lawton and I were on the same Little League team, Southern Discount.  I remember he took his sport seriously and would pitch a fit and cry when we lost.

Back on Frazer Street, going back the other way:  After we cross over South Avenue there were some more apartments. same floor plan as the ones on South Avenue.  I remember one cold and windy day at one of these apartment buildings on the ground floor I was collecting.  Then the weekly subscription rate was 47 cents and I hoped they would give me two quarters and tell me to keep the change.  Anyway, as I was saying, I knocked on the door of an apartment on the ground floor.  The door to the apartment  was next to the door going outside, which for whatever reason was opened.   I knocked on the door and the lady came to the door.  She had a housecoat on. I told her  "Collecting for the Atlanta Journal and she went back, got her wallet, and came back.  As she was paying me a big gush of wind blasted through the opened outside door and lifted her housecoat up past her waist.  She had no panties on.  It was the first time I saw the female anatomy.  GOOD GOD!!

Over the next few days I told all my neighborhood friends that I thought would be interested.

The next collection day four or five of my friends met me and walked with me on my collection rounds.

At the apartment door where the lady's housecoat flew up I think looked surprised  with a bunch of preteen boys looking eagerly at her.

Boys will be boys.

Cecil Grant and Georgia Petty

My mother's sister Georgia Petty Grant (1906-1966) and her husband Cecil Grant (1901-1958). Georgia was the oldest child. They had no children. Cecil worked for a thread mill and got one week a year off on vacation. They did not travel much. They lived in Chattanooga and on their one vacation a year they would come to Marietta for Georgia to visit with her siblings. While she visited Cecil went to the Southeastern Fair at Lakewood Park in Atlanta. The same routine every year. Georgia and her sisters sometimes would have a heated argument and everybody parted mad.
One time my sister Frances and I visited them for what was intended for a week. I was only 4 or 5 years old at the time. I think we lasted 3 or 4 days. I was a free-range kid and was not used to reporting or getting permission to do leave the yard. I think this drove Georgia up the wall.
Besides the annual Southeastern Fair Cecil was a man with more several interests: I think at one time he taught himself to play a string instrument ; He had a love for old 16MM black and white movies and collected them. He built a little shed behind their house and installed a movie projector. He watched on cowboy movies alone.
He met his death because of that little shack. He was roofing it and was using a metal hammer and hit a live wire.Cecil and Georgia are buried in West Hill Cemetery in Dalton, Georgia.

Stovall B & B in North Georgia

It looks warm and inviting doesn't it?

More than century ago before it was a B& B it was the house of Moses Harshaw. 

Moses was considered "The Meanest Man in Georgia".  When his slaves became too old to be productive he considered them a liability and simply ended their life.

On his tombstone is the words DIED AND GONE TO HELL.

1st Day or Pre K!

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! Bud Grace, Wedding Rehersal

Be sure to click on the cartoon to be able read and "get it."

What's In a Name?

When I hear the name Wendy I think of the teenage big sister of the household Peter Pan went inside chasing his shadow.

Or I did think of the Peter Pan Wendy..  Now I think of another girl.

At the Post Office about 25 or 30 years ago several new people were hired to do the grunt jobs.  After a few weeks the new people felt more like they were in familiar surroundings and began to kid around and be themselves.

One young lady was fresh out of high school and we had a friend in common.  Her Paulding County school bus driver, Linda, is a friend of mine,  Small world.

I forgot this young lady's name.  The reason I cannot remember her real name is one day, showing off pretended to gracefully kick an invisible football.  She held the invisible ball up about even with her chest and dropped it and kicked it.  Her leg gracefully went up with her toes pointing to the ceiling.
Then with her leg pointed upward she accidentally popped out a one-syllable fart.  It was like a short pop!

Everybody heard it.

From then on her name was Wendy.

Rabble-Rousing or Bringing Together?

Click on to make bigger.

Rabble-Rousing or Bringing Together?

art by Jack Davis

C

Preacher's Pet

This morning while in the car we had the radio on NPR station WBIE listening to Lois Reitzes interview a comedian who was at one time a regular of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. I could not place him. His voice seemed familiar thou. Lois asked him how did he come up with the characterTs he created. He said he used to make a lot of prank calls.

Which took my memory back to when I was a teenager and the phone. Sometimes a bunch of us would get together at someone's parents' house who weren't home that night and ended up spending the night. Which brings to mind my friend Johnny and his crank calls. I heard him do it several times and he had his technique down perfect. Johnny would call he certain number he had in his billfold and talked to his favorite target. He would scold her not for going to church. She thought he was her preacher. And he and her would tell  other rumours of their fellow parishioners. Of course Johnny made his up as he wentr - he would say, "You who I'm talking about, I am not going to come out and say his/her name.." And sometimes they would prey for the nameless lost soul. This went on for a few years, until we grew up.

Whatr's Next?

The Herring Family

This is the Herring family hoeing their garden in the Alpharetta area. They were neighbors and friends with the Jones family which is Anna's mother's Marie's side of the family.

One of the girls in the picture will die of a rare disease in a few years. But they look happy when the picture was taken.

Benjamiln, Father's Day 2018

The Rights

Unfortunately no place in the U.S.Constitution does it give anyone the Right to Bear Life...

Art by Will Elder (MAD)

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! LI'L ABNER by Al Capp

click on each pane to enlarge to read.

BULLY!!

Dora Hunter Spiva

c2007. Franklin Hunter and Dora Hunter Spiva (1905-2009) at a Hunter Reunion near Blairsville, Georgia, at Tommy Alexander's Track Rock Campground. Dora was about 103 when I took this picture. She always called me by my name. A neighbor, Jim 
bout 103 when I took this picture. She always called me by my name. A neighbor, Jim Reece, was a student of hers. He said at every high school reunion she was there and knew everybody's name. I told her niece who was her caretaker that memory was remarkable. She shooed off the statement like swatting a gnat and said, "Don't let that fool you, the night before reunions she studies their pictures."
Once I saw a Hunter relative show Dora her granddaughter and added, "Some people say she looks just like me."
Dora bent over and studied the baby and said, "That is the ugliest baby I have ever seen!" She had a great wit too.
She lived 104 years.