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However, the fact that it was discovered unpublished after he had died indicates he did not make a dime on it, but hopefully his survivors did.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

I just read it on Facebook so it is official:

It is OK to lie when you are helping Jesus.

Honey Pot and Honey Pot

I saw on Facebook a long time friend and co-worker is retiring, Sybil "Honey Pot" Bonner.  Actually it was on Anna's facebook news, not mine.  One of Anna's friends was congratulating Sybil for retiring.  Her picture was included in the post.

I have not seen her in many years and wondered several times was she still with the Postal Service.  She is also closely related to another long time friend and Postal co-worker Herman Wigley.

Back when Sybil, aka "Honey Pot" came to work at the Sprayberry Branch Post Office, after I got to know her, and friends enough to kid her, I called her "Honey Pot" and she felt complemented.

And to further tease her I told her of the joke I saw one time a Virgil Partch (?) 's cartoon of one lady telling another woman that her husband, retired from the Army, loved her so much he was always calling her Honey Pot.  In Army-talk Honey Pot means toilet, aka latrine.

So, then she started calling me "Honey Pot".  Our pet nick names for each other were Honey Pots.

December 5th History, Einstein Accepted

On today's date, December 5, 1932, Albert Einstein was granted a visa to enter America.

Our nation's history might have been completely different if this immigrant was not granted that visa.

It makes one think just how much our history wasn't or won't be altered by vistas denied.

Nut Job

I went to PT this evening.  Those in the "know" know PT stands for Physical Therapy.

This was my 3rd session.  Listening to the therapists and the helpers talked I learned they drew names and they will have a party a few days before Christmas.  And I know who's name one of the assistants drew.  Also, an old woman stuck her head in to wish them a Merry Christmas and they all thanked her for the delicious candy she made for them.

I could tell that is what she wanted to hear: Thanks and praise. 

I was more concerned about a lady patient trying to decide if I knew her from her last time or not.  Last time a lady  with beautiful gray hair was walking on the treadmill.  After she finished she lifted her leg as high as the hand rail of the treadmill  and rested her leg on it and tightened her shoe strings.

I was impressed and told her.   That started a conversation.  We had a good rapport going for 5 or 10 minutes.  Then it was time for me to go.

This evening a lady was there that looked similar but her hair was an off color gray mixed with brown and she did not have makeup on.  She looked something like the lady I talked to last week again, maybe it wasn't.  Maybe she had on a wig and makeup on our first encounter.  She slightly smiled and nodded at me, but there everybody gives  each other by a slight nod and smile.

What if I tried to continue our conversation of last week and if it wasn't her she would think I am a nut.  

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! WONDER WART HOG/ MERANGANTERS

click on each page to make it bigger, readable, and prettier

This is the infamous, or unfamous, WONDER WART HOG, by Gilbert Shelton, also the creator of THE FABULOUS FREAK BROTHERS.  It was torn (literally) from HELP Magazine, Jan 1965, Editor Harvey Kurtzman.

Welcome to DECEMBER!!

Hemorrhoids Home Remedies and After Effects

Recently, I had a certain irritable feeling that I thought I might have hemorrhoids.  I will spare you the details. 

We Google for home remedies for this condition and came across one suggestion of rubbing the area with apple vinegar.

I tried it and it worked!

That got me thinking:  If a CEO for a powerful company took that home remedy his "yes man", if he likes the taste of apples, might have a pleasant surprise.