Beware

 

Crowd by Jack Davis

 MAD Magazine #14

Bob Bettis's Sons

 

Arnold Guest & David Green

 

It looks like David Green (left) is picking on Arnold Guest again.  Since this picture was taken Arnold has left us.

Bluebird Cafe in Nashville

The famous Blue Bird Cafe in Nashville. Surprisingly the Blue Bird Cafe is just hole-in-the-wall size at a out of the way shopping center strip. Well, it was out of the way for us anyway, but something we wanted to see. We were on our way to Memphis and stayed overnight in this musical town to see the Blue Bird. We heard several song-writers, singers in a casual informal atmosphere..... we ordered something small and stayed couple of hours and heard some nice music. No big names, that I know of, was there that night. I bet the Blue Bird owners hate customers like us....ones who want to take up their space for hours by spending a couple of dollars when the good paying customers are lined at the door and waiting.

Late Betty Smith Hunter in-law

 Betty Smith Hunter at a Marietta Museum of History 's REMEMBER WHEN presentation. Betty is a long lost cousin-in-law. She married Randall Hunter - then she too, became a Hunter, whether that is good or bad is up for debate.

Betty was a councilperson and was responsible for many good things for Marietta, such as park in parks and the Confederate Cemetery.

I did not realize until I talked to her several times that when she was a kid living with her parents I delivered their paper on Lakewood Drive.

Small world! To make it even smaller, my grandmother and aunt lived across the street from them.

Betty Hunter and I have both done a lot of family history research.

Randall and I both are descendants of William Hunter (c1750-aft 1840) and Anna Caldwell (1762-1863) - yes, Anna lived to be 101 years old. On the 1860 census she was blind and living with a son.

Betty's husband Randall Earnest Hunter and I are 5th cousins, once removed. To give you an idea how distant cousins we are it is believed by the professionals that all the commoners that have been in England for generations are at least 4th cousins to each other.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! CRACKED MAGAZINE, PLANETS OF...

 Art by John Severin, formerly with MAD COMIC BOOK

Corpse With No Teeth

 

My cousin Bobby Crain, taken over 30 years ago at a Hunter Reunion. I saw him at our cousin Alice Hunter Sternagle's funeral last week and he hasn't changed at all. I think he got his gray hair early in life and kept it. At the funeral he told me how he and his late brother Jimmy found a body when they were going fishing in their early teens. The body they found had shot himself in the head. There was no face left - except teeth.

Barbara Shea Foster - Growing Pains

 Barbara Shea Foster (1922-1998). I like this picture of Barbara sitting on the front fender of a car. She is sitting on the right fender, or left to the viewer. Sitting on fenders of cars socializing was an enjoyment that is now a thing of the past.

Barbara is the daughter of Daniel Eugene and Anna Mae McCall Shea. She was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Sometime when she was still under her parents roof they moved to Marietta.

Barbara married Paul Everett Foster, Jr(1922-1995), 4 June, 1948. Paul is Anna's mother Marie's brother.

Letter to Santa

A True Christmas Story featuring my late sister Frances.

In the early 1950s when I was in the 6^{th th} or 7th^th grade and my sister Frances was a teenager in high school.

During Christmas season the local newspaper, THE MARIETTA DAILY JOURNAL published letters

To Santa every day.

Frances, a witty person, but quiet, and shy told her close friends she was going to write Santa in care of THE MARIETTA DAILY JOURNAL’S LETTERS TO SANTA PAGE this:

 

Dear Santa,

I don’t want much for myself, but would you please send my parents a son-in-law?

From,

Frances Hunter

It appeared in THE MARIETTA DAILY JOURNAL.  She had nothing to do with  it.  THE MARIETTA DAILY JOURNAL put it on a news network and in went nation-wide.  Frances started receiving proposals, care of the Marietta Journal daily.  She received a sack full.

Frances was horrified.

THE MARIETTA JOURNAL photographer and reporter visited our home on Manget Street.   I was jumping around saying “Frances is more popular than Margaret Truman!”  (Margaret Truman, daughter of then-President Harry Truman, was getting a lot of press over her piano playing.

In the interview my parents told the reporter to put an end to it, it was only a joke that someone went too  far with it.

Whoever sent that letter never admitted it.  I think it was either Barbara S.  or one of the Hobby brothers.

Click!

 

WOW!  Modern technology!

We had a roofer  over to talk about a new roof for our house.  To find out the square footage of the top of our house he merely got on his phone.  Then way way up in orbit a satellite measured the top of our house and reported back. 

I was impressed, not only of the exactness of the report but also the fact that an aged good old country boy knew the right buttons on his phone to push.  I can’t even figure out what button to push to not make a loud click when I take a picture.

Petty Family's Big Rock

 I remember my mother telling us about when she was in her early teen years her family lived on a farm in Murray county, Georgia, near Cohutta and Varnell. On their farm was a huge boulder that was a good backdrop for pictures.

If I remember correctly before the big rock was where it was in the pictures, in that spot there was an opening of a cave. In the first room of the cave was Indian lore and a footprint on the ceiling. She said her brothers went further back and by flashlight or whatever, saw a huge body of water.

Then, their father, sold rights to the Georgia Department of Transportation to dynamite the area for stones to crush to use for the Cleveland Highway that ran near their home.

During the dynamiting the huge rock or boulder covered the entrance of the cave.

I’m reading the book MURRAY COUNTY HERITAGE compiled by the Murray County Historical Committee.

I just came across this on page 2:

“In 1934 a large cave was discovered and was thought to contain lost Indian treasures. Professor J.R. Stull was told of the cave by an aged Cherokee in Utah followed markings on tree to the spot where some “stone images” were found.”

I wonder if this cave on my grandparents’ farm is the same as Prof. J.R Stull heard about.

Pictures: (1)Opal and Janie courting (2) ?, Janie, and Osmo; (3) Sarah, Roy, & Leonard; (4) Sarah and Grandma Petty (Frances Viola Ridley Petty).

SKIPper & Me

 MY DOG SKIPper #2.

This my second dog named Skipper. Skipper #1 got ran over and killed on Atlanta Steet, near Hick’s Grocedry.

The muscular Tarzan look alike with Skipper is me. Where I went Skipper went, unless he had romance on his mind or a place he wasn’t allowed, like the movie theater, school, etc... Back then there was no leash law.

He was something of a Super Dog. Almosr every time we rode off to town in the car, he would chase us. The only time I heard my daddy cuss is when he looked in the rearview mirror downtown and see Skipper running behind us. We lived out near the 4-lane, almost 2 miles away.

Each time we would pull over, open the trunk, and Skipper jumped in. One time we routinely did that and forgot about him until about 3 or 4 days and we missed him it occurred to us he might be in the trunk of the car. We ran out to car and slowly opened it afraid of what we might see. Out jumped Skipper, he did a quick shake like he was all wet and wanted to be petted.

Another time around the corner on Glover Street there was a place we called “The Hollow”. We thought it was haunted. It was a clearing adjacent to the woods. At night it was always pitched black because of moon shadows. We used to dare each other to go up in hollow in the dark. One time I took the dare. When I got in the darkness I saw a pair of green eyes rushing towards me. I kept my eyes on the green eyes coming towards me and tripped. The green eyes landed on me and started licking my face. It was Skipper!

Because Skipper coming and goings as he pleased my parents had a chain-linked fence put up in our back yard to keep Skipper grounded, so to speak. After the chain-link fence was installed, Skipper jumped over it with no problem

Skipper was a lady’s man, or dog. There were several young puppies in the neighborhood from time to time that had Skipper’s markings and same white and black markings.

Roy Petty's Boys

 

This is Billy and Rodney Petty, sons of my uncle Roy Petty and his wife Dorothy Humes, about 1959. This same Christmas card photo was used as an insurance advertisement and was in Saturday Evening Post. At the time they lived in New York City.

Later they moved to Carmel, NY, where Roy was over Clear Pool's Boy Camp, a Heinz Foundation project. The second picture is of me and some Navy friends visiting Clear Pool Camp and played cowboys and Indians. Rodney and Billy and in that picture also. That was about 1964.

The color picture was taken about 1985 of Billy and his wife Joy when they visited Marietta. They live in Colorado.

PS click on the picture of the boys camp. You see the dog without a tail. On a previous visit when I was in the Navy we were on walking on a road that went around a lake and a car went around the curve past and almost hit us, but swerved and hit the dog. The mishap cut the dog's tail off.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! CONFIDENTIAL Mag as seen by MAD #25

Torn from the pages of MAD Magazine #25, story by editor Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated 

 by Will Elder

 

Congressman Holding Umbrella for a Commoner

 vHere is a picture of Lillian her husband and former congressman Buddy Darden leaving a party at the Trammell house on Trammell Street in Marietta a couple years ago.

This evening we went to a memorial service for my first cousin Alice "Rusty" Sternagle. There were several speakers, most were siblings, but there was one state senator Steve Thompson and one former congressman, Buddy Darden. Alice did a lot of volunteering for the Democratic Party of Cobb County.

While Buddy was speaking I thought about the above picture and an event for the party. When we arrived it was raining. I let Anna out at the curb in front of the Trammell House and then I drove to a designated parking area around the corner on Wright Street. And the same was for Buddy and Lillian: He let her out at the curb in front of the house and he also drove to the designated area on right street. We arrived at the same time. Walking back to the Trammell House the rain had increased. Buddy, much taller than I, held his umbrella over my head as we walked and talked. When we arrived he was a little wet and I was dry.

I don't think that happens often, a former congressman holding an umbrella for a commoner.

Uncle Osmo Petty on a Postcard

 We have been uncluttering or un-hoarding lately. I have been looking at thousands of pictures deciding what is to be thrown away, what to use, and what to set aside to decide later.

This is a postcard. It is my late uncle Osmo and according to the back an “ex-wife”.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

 

Niagara Falls, Toronto, and us many years ago

 

This is a travel adventure, I suppose, in early October 1973. How do I know this? While on the road back home I remember hearing on the news that the 39th President, Spiro Agnew, was resigning because of a scandal. He resigned October 10. 1973. Hooray for Spiro for being a time-mark for me.

We were friends with a married couple who were as hipped as they could get. They kept up with all the folk music, all the protesters, and so on. I am not critical of this.

They decided to move to Canada to be among and mingle with “their kind” – the people who avoid being drafted in the Vietnam War. The only problem with this is the husband, like me, had already served in the Navy.

They moved to Toronto. The husband was a computer whiz and had no trouble getting a job. The wife, it took a little longer.

They left us a check book to pay their bills as they came via mail, which I checked their mail daily and mailed it to to them fairly frequently, but not every day.

After they got settled they and got a nice apartment in high risr they invited us for a visit. We took them up on their offer.

We took a couple of weeks leave and drove up. We stopped at Niagara Falls and spent a day checking out the Maid of the Midst boat that Marilyn Monroe was in and we checked it out on the New York, U.S side, which is on top of the falls, and on the side where you can see the falls fall in all its glory, the Canada side.

Then we drove north, if I remember correctly Toronto was about 70 or 80 miles north with very little activity between.

They were both working, but they us a key hidden somewhere, I forgot where. Their apartment was high up and they had a great view of the city.

When they came home we went to their China Town and saw an interesting local parade with Chinese dragons.

I think our Columbus Day was the same day as Canadian Thanksgivings is. They both took off and we went to the city center which was full of activity. There is a science museum with some interesting hands one experiments going on. I could control a laser beam to melt a hole through metal, which I told the husband to hold his car keys above his head and see if I can shoot them off his head (laughing)….no no no.

Also he and I climbed a huge tree in the parking lot. Look hard you can see us, but watch out for the water balloons.

They also had a theater with special effects. If I remember correctly, the seat you were in would tilt, turn, to make it feel you were actually there. It also appeared to take us on a very fast ride around mountain ledges, cliffs, jumping gaps, and whatever. There was a young lady next to me, which I did not know, got really bananas in the movie’s fast tracks movies, so transfixed she grabbed my leg close to the crotch and held on for dear life. How can you politely tell a lady younger than you to please remove her hand. You don’t. You just sit back and enjoy the ride.

They had to go to work the next day. We went to a walk in movie to see a movie that was banned in the states, I forgot what it was, it might have been THE LAST TANGO IN PARIS. Starring Marlon Brando. Or he title might have had the word YELLOW in it. Who Knows.

That’s about all I remember worth sharing

1963 Thanksgiving Memory

 

Thanksgiving 1963 Memories.

I just came back from my home in Marietta, Ga., retrieving  my car, when JFK was assassinated. 

My friends who did not go home for Thanksgiving and  I drove to Seaside Heights Beach just to ponder what this assassination along with his proposed assiginatee meant.  The beach was lonely, nobody but us.

Either that day or the next a Norwegian   ship shipwrecked nearby.  I think we helped with that but vaguely remember it.  The only thing I remember was helping pulling 3 or 4 men in bright orange or red suits onto whatever we were on. 

What was so enchanting about it was looking through the morning for and suddenly dimly spotting them and seeing them materialized out of the fog.

And later that day the same men and more in their bright colored jump suits joining us for Thanksgiving Dinner in the NAS LAKEHURST chow hall.  They kept to themselves.  All was  quiet.  No happy Thanksgiving Jubilation.  I suppose JFK's assignation brought us all down.