Patricia Whitten

Patricia Whiten.. This picture was taken about 2009 at a meeting of getting a Vaners Annual Reunions. I’m a couple years older than Patricia. About 51 years earlier she asked me could she ride to summer school with me, she had no transportation there. She knew I had to go to Summer pass the 11th grade and she had a class she had o pass.
On the ride to and from school we gossiped about our common friends, TV shows, and whatever else. I think it was always general with not much personal.
Then one morning between classes somebody, I forgot who and I r had a car race. Patricia was in the car. I chased whats-his-name down Polk Street at a high speed. He was so much ahead of me I lost sight of him but I was srtill at high speed. What I did not know he was waiting on me behind the Mountain View Cemetery, fairly near their back gate. When I saw the car I was chsing it seemed like we were about 10 fee from them and we were going high speed. I slammed on the brakes and the screech and squalled something terrible and car did a spin. But we missed them. No wreck!
Patricia chewed me out in a loud voice and kept on chewing me out in her loud voice. I don’t remember if she rode back with me or not. Our car pooling days were ove.
I think we wen until I took her picture here without speaking. Shef forgave me and . We became friends again., or Facebook friends anyway.
She married and had a family.
She died several years ago.

Joe Fry & Mr Harley

 Joe Fry, One of supervisors in the Atlanta time keeping office. The guy he is presenting an award to is Mr. Harley.I Mr. Harley and his wife loved to sit on their front porch and watched people walk by and speak to them. He was also Wayne Williams Sunday School Teacher. They are probably dead now, that was about 50 years ago. Joe Fry fought in Europe in WW II. He said every day he was reminded he was black and had to do the grunt work. He said when Bob Hope came to entertain them the white soldiers were the first people in the audience, then German prisoners were the second. And last, way back in the back were the the U.S Black soldiers. That is a shame they were treated that way, even when defending our country

Saving the Day

 

George and his History Lectures

Back in the 1970s I carpooled to Atlanta to work daily with George. George is a Marietta native and so were his folks. He heard lot of informal local history and retained it, which is more than I can say. I looked forward to our daily drives. They were educational. Here is one of his George's narratives I happened to remember this morning: Outside of Marietta back before Lockheed came to town, out in the county was rural. Big and small farms. Once, a large landholder named Bill and his wife were having a heated argument. Bill got so mad he hit his wife over the head with something hard and knocked her out. He then set their house on fire. He was trying to push her under the burning house when she woke up. She put up a struggle and she overcame him and their roles reversed and she was trying to push him under the burning house with him struggling. I don't remember who won..

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

 

Carol & Teenage Killer Next Door

 This is fellow retired postal employee Carol. I ran into Carol at a grocery store. Carol was a relief rural route carrier. Then she wasn’t. Then she was a Target employee. Who knows what goes on particulars that go on in people’s mind that impel them to do what they do.

Carol lived next door to fine family in a nice East Cobb subdivision off Trickum Road. If I remember correctly a little kid of the nice family next door banged on their door in the middle of night. The reason the little girl was banging her big brother, a teenage was on a killing rampage. He had just stabbed to death their parents.

It so happened that another close by neighbor was also a Marietta Postal employee, a supervisor, named Keith. Keith is very athletic, involved in sports and a smooth taker. I forgot the details but I think Keith was involved getting the teenage boy captured.

Micajah Clark Dyer Aviator Inventor, Distant Cousin

 

Thugs & Coloring Books

 

Killers, Thugs, and Coloring Books

Copied and pasted from my chicken-fat.com blog Aug 2009

When I first got out of the Navy I went to work for the Atlanta News Agency. The Atlanta News kept most of north Georgia supplied in magazines.

I was a route man. I went into convenience stores, drug stores, or and other stores that sold magazines and took a quick inventory of the magazines that they had on hand. When I turned in my inventories an office staff would quickly go over it and determine what to send each store on their next delivery.

Sometimes they would supply us with books to unload on the stores. They usually were not magazines but books to push off on the people that sold our magazines.

Once they gave me several boxes of coloring books. I think there were almost a thousand coloring books I had to try to sell to some poor store. I quickly found no one wanted the coloring books.. The managers said in so many words, “Don’t come back with them!”

After talking to other route men I think the idea was to sell them the books knowing full well they would return them for credit in a week or two. In the meantime, in house inventory was performed… and guess what? You don’t have to pay taxes on books and magazine that are not in the building.

So where was I going to unload almost 1,000 coloring books? Nobody wanted them.

The Federal Pen at the end of the Boulevard in Atlanta was on my route. That was my next stop.

Ahah! I wrote out a bill for the number of coloring books and backed up to their loading dock and took them out of the truck. I had the guard sign for it, I gave him his copy of the bill and went on my way, smirking on the long driveway to get the heck out of there.

As far as I know the coloring books were a hit, none were returned.

A couple of years later Anna and I went to an art show at the Federal Pen. Some of the art was fantastic. They didn’t sign their names, they signed their number. The prices were reasonable, so we bought three canvases.

Who knows, I may have had a hand inspiring them.

Who?

Posted 4 Years Ago:

I was doing my walk this morning and haven’t even gone far enough to be off my street when a red pickup truck slowed down, then stopped and the window rolled down. An old fart, about my age, said, “How you doing?”

“So so, how you doing?” “Who is this guy?” I thought.

We talked and talked. We talked about the old days in Marietta and going to the Old Hospital on Cherokee Street, and Doctor Merl Haygood, and more old Marietta stuff. And all the time wondering “Do I know this old fart?”

We talked about our time in the service, he was in the Army about the same time I was in the Navy.

I know it is a Small World, but it would be nice if I knew who I was talking to.

He said he thinks I should get another dog. It seems he knew about Willow’s departure.

I am not sure, but I think it could have been the same guy that between 5 and 10 years ago at the bottom of the hill on the street near by in the morning before daylight I saw the flickering of flames in the back of a house. That was before I carried a cell phone, so it must have been nearer ten years or more. I bangedf on the door of the house and no one came. About that time a pickup truck slowly rode by and I ran out in the street and waved him down. He had a cell phone so he 911.

The firetrucks came and what it was flames were surrounding the LP gas bottle and the fittings. The put the flame out and woke up the woman that lived there then and told her.

Ironically, a week or so later while walking I saw the woman in her yard and I told her that I was the one who called 911 (which really it wasn’t, it was the guy in the truck). I expected a pleasant “Thank you” for saving her and her daughter’s life, but just got a glare, “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

Anyway, back to the guy in the truck this morning, that might have been the person that called 911, if he had on his mask this morning, like he should have, I could have said,

“Who is that masked man?”

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