Weekend Pics

Here are some pictures I took over the weekend. They are not perfect compositions or a study in color or light. The subject matter is all that counts. I deleted the ones that only had my foot hand, or an eye as the focused subject.

The first picture was in the previous blog. It was the sign in front of the Sandy Plains Baptist Church saying this coming week is No-Watch TV week. I am just trying to get some more miles out of it, that’s all.

I took it while on a bike ride in my area of Marietta as well as the next two below.


The top picture is the McMansion that I reported was fire Friday. Saturday I boldly parked my bike in the driveway next door and took this picture. My bike was pointed outward towards the street in case anybody hollered at me… brave, aren’t I?

The below were taken at the Big Shanty Festival in Kennesaw Sunday:






The above picture was taken of “Wildman” Dent Myers’ store. He is an interesting person. Someday I may have to talk some more about Wildman.




By the old Train Depot were many age groups clogging and doing hip-hop dancing, musical dancing, and I don’t know what all. I sat there transfixed, all the dances impressed me. Not too many years ago they had a big group named THE LI'L GENERAL CLOGGERS (or similar) that did things like this, I don't know if they were the same group of not. There, while enjoying the dancers and the dances we had barbecue Sandwiches we bought there from the Kennesaw Optimist Club. It was good and plenty of meat, but I should have complained, just to take their optimist smiles off their faces.

There we ran into my first cousin. She was there with her daughter and two grandkids. She confirmed what I said a few postings back.

I think the arts and crafts booths were the most I have seen in one place. They just about covered every street in the downtown area. I was talking to a lady that had jewelry booth and she told me she does better at festivals that are sort of inner-city or in the center of large towns – she said she has always done good in festivals in downtown Marietta but not at well as more rural areas such as Kennesaw.

I noticed a lot of people wearing something with the brand name Harley Davidson on them. Maybe a tee-shirt, a back pack, belt buck, whatever. It is not the first time I noticed a lot of Harley Davidson attire at festivals. I may just have to send off for me a Trek Bike tee –shirt to show them a thing or two.

Also we noticed plenty of people brought their dogs. We wished we had brought Willow. Oh well, we can make it up next Friday night by carrying her to concert at Glover Park in Marietta.




You can see the Kennesaw Civil War and Train History Museum over the peak of tents – if you stand on your tip-toes and strain.



A Titanic blow-up ride? It is like a water-park slide, but instead of water to slide down on, you do it on your butt.



What is a Civil War historical area without a reenactments? It reminds me of a book I once read by Sharyn McCrumb named GHOST RIDERS. Only one side were re-enactors and the others were well…gulp! You get the idea.

The Kennesaw House

In the book Marietta – Then and Now by Joe Kirby and Damien Guarnieri tells of the Kennesaw House. It tells that a parapsychologist, hired by the History Channel, said there were one thousand ghosts in the building. I don’t doubt it. It has a lot of history.

In the Civil War it was a hotbed for intrigue and well, war kind of stuff. Andrews Raiders spent the night there before stealing The General locomotive from the South in Big Shanty (Kennesaw) the next day.

The owner of The Kennesaw House was the Fletcher family. There is an excellent book named “Journal of a Landlady” by Louisa Warren Fletcher and edited by Henry Higgins and Connie Cox with Jean Cole Anderson. It is very good, but and I enjoyed just as much was the parts outside her journal where the editors tell many points of interest in Marietta and what is so historical about each point. Anybody interested in the History of Marietta would feel awarded if they read the book.

It was up until Sherman’s visit four stories high. Sherman’s men started the act of destroying it, I suppose layer by layer, and was called off when Sherman learned the Fletchers were born and bred in the northeast or Mr. Fletcher was a Mason, I forgot which – which, an old age art of favoritism was utilized.

Now, the Kennesaw House houses the Marietta History Museum on the 2nd floor and a investment firm on the first. I forgot what is on the 4th level but it is something interesting – but evidently not a retention holder, for me anyway.

When we were kids, preteens, I think it was some type of hotel or rooming house. We used to slip by the people on the first floor, quietly go up the squeaky stairs, which was a challenge not to make any noise and play on the two levels. We would play “Hide & Seek” up there and hide in the various rooms that were not occupied. I think some were and some not, but mostly not. Each room was decorated in a basic manner. A bed, dresser and chair. I remember on each dresser was a big porcelain or white glass bowl and in it sat a big matching pitcher. Each room was timeless, it could have been in 1860 or 1956.

I don’t think the rooms had bathrooms. If so, we would have used them. The restrooms must have been at the end of the each hall, just like old hotels, which it was.

Later, when teenage fashion was everything. Up until I was a teenager the fashion for boys was Levis with the cuff rolled up just once. By the time I was well into my teenage years the fashion was still Levis, but no cuffs, and the pants were what we called pegged. The inseam was cut and reseamed, causing a tight legging look.

Some boys had their mothers peg their pants, some did their own, and others carried them to a tailor. I went to Hazel the Tailor. Hazel was a little bald headed frail black man who had his shop on the ground level of the Kennesaw House,. Outside his window you could see the railroad tracks and the Freight Depot, which is now a parking lot. Time stands still for no one.

Kennesaw City Cemetery

Kennesaw made the news ten so years back when they passed an ordinance making owning a gun mandatory. True. Talking about gun control!

Interesting, since that ruling has passed Kennesaw has one of the lowest crime statistics of any town of the same size.

The only family I know of buried in the Kennesaw City Cemetery is my grandmother’s brother’s family Bud Tyson (Thomas G. Tyson).

The cemetery is bordered by a closed school on the east side which I think is now partly used as the city's education administration and on the west side the property of a motel on Cobb Parkway that appears to market those out of town workers - they have weekly rates. They also have guests who like to hang out in the cemetery and socialize and drink their beer - or at least on my two visits to the cemetery seemed that way.

Next to the railroad tracks in downtown Kennesaw is a old building. My father told me it was originally built as a building to hold grain before it was shipped and it was built by Bud Tyson. That same building has been remodeled and for years now has been a Civil War museum housing The General locomotive. The General, you may recall, was stolen by Andrew Raiders during the Civil War and was chased to Ringgold, Georgia – which inspired a couple of movies, one with Buster Keaton and the other one made by Disney and starred Fess Parker. They have other very interesting exhibits there too. I have been there several times.

I did not know Bud existed until I got into genealogy and started asking family members questions about the family. Bud died in 1919 and his wife Etta Hilderbrand Tyson died two years later. Both died too early in their life, leaving two young children.

Their children apparently were raised by the Hilderbrand family and never came around at family functions. I wonder who is putting the flowers down?



Thomas G. Tyson (1882-1919)



Etta Hilderbrand Tyson (1890-1921)



Georgette Tyson (1914-1996)



Thomas G. Tyson, Jr. (1916-1989)

Skip, Bluto, Me, & Dent Wildman Myers