Janie Visiting a Niece's Grave

Carmel, NY, 1965.  Rodney Petty showing Janie Petty Hunter and Bonnie Hunter's his baby sister's grave.

CATCH 22 IDIOTS!

IDIOTS!

I just got an automated phone call from the company that handles our phone system.  The computer called and said it would like for me to discuss our account, for me to press a number that meant OK, or a number that meant the person it needed to talk to is not there at moment.  I pressed the number that the person it needed to talk to was not there at the moment, Anna takes care of the details on the internet/phone/cell phone billings.  So, in so many words it said OK and left a number to be called.  After hanging up I decided I could talk to them and maybe it was something I could solve so I returned the call.   The computer said  it could see I was calling from a certain number and was that the number I was calling about.  I said Yes.  It said that I have any technical problems and I said No.  It said my account is up to date, I don't owe them any money so they it thanked me for calling and hung up. 

I called back.

Again I went through the questions and when it got to asking me why I was calling, my account or technical problems  I said, "Returning your call."

I had to hold for the next available person.

Then I explained to the lady why I was calling.  She said to make sure I was talking to really me she asked  me for my secret pass word.  I said I didn't know.  Then she  asked who my favorite singer was.

I said I don't know, it was according what state of mind I was in when I was asked that, but I named off a few which were wrong.  Then she said she was going to call the number  I was calling about and see if they will give me permission to talk about the account.

I said, "Well, in that case you will call this number and get me on the line  and is that ethical, for me to tell you that I am OK? "

She said for me to not hang up and she would call the number I "claimed" I was at.   She put me on hold and called.

I could hear a beep like somebody was calling.  She told me not to hang up so I did not interrupt the call I was on.

After a short period, she came back on and said she could locate the person of that number.

That is because you were calling me, I heard the beeps, but you told me not to hang up from this call.

She said, "Well, I cannot authorize you to talk about an account until the owner gives you permission".

I said, "Which is me."

She said, "Sir, I suggest you look for that pass word and call back."

Me:   "Nope,  I don't owe you money,  I am not having technical problems, y'all will call me back if y'all think it is important enough."

Cliick!

Billy Joe Royal and Mr. Caudell

Billy Joe Royal and his family lived in the Clay Homes overlooking the west court. Back then a court in the Clay Homes was a spacious green between apartment buildings. I’m sure they were not nearly as big as I remember. A green court had about the same proportions as a football field.

I lived in the Clay Homes before the Royal family and the court in front of the Royal apartment is where somebody brought their 16MM movie projector and showed movies on warm Sunday nights. I remember lying in the grass watching TOM SAWYER.

We moved from the Clay Homes to Manget Street across from Larry Bell Park. It was in the same school district, I went to the same school, but with different neighbors. My sister Frances and I kept up a relationship with Clay Homes chums but also developed friendships with our new neighbors.

Although during the Billy Joe and Jack Royal era of the Clay Homes I wasn’t a neighbor, just a frequent visitor.

I remember we liked to sit out in the dark on the green grass of the court after dark and talk. I don’t think we talked loudly, we just talked and laughed a lot.

Mr. Caudell, across the court felt differently. Just our presence, sitting in the dark talking and laughing irritated the hell out of him.

I remember he was always smoking. On the porch in front of his apartment you could not see him in the dark shadow, only the red glow of his cigarette. The madder he got the more the little red light would bounce or shake.

Then, it would only be a matter of time that you would see the red light take flight – down the few steps and across the court towards us. He would always first politely tell us to hold the noise down. And we politely told him we would.

Not long afterwards, after forgetting to hold down our ruckus, you could see that little red hot dot come bouncing towards us again. The next time he was more demanding and rude.

After his 3rd or 4th trip he was always spitting mad.

I don’t remember us ever working it out. It was just a confrontation we could count on.

I don’t know how I know this, but I do. Mr. Caudell was the father of a cashier at the Big Apple where I later worked. One time a customer hit the roof when she told him how much his groceries were and said he demanded for them to be added up again. With the manager, L.L. Thurmond, standing over her to read off each price – that was before bar codes – she recalculated it and came up with the exact same total. She won my respect for being efficient. 

Tuba Skinny: GIMME SOME!

Apparently this is Tuba Skinny music, but I don't see them.  It must be on a their CD.  That is an interesting title isn't it?  How more romantic could one get?





I love to see people dance and jiggle.

Almost 2 Years Living Grandpa Frank Paris Hunter(1879-1950)

My grandmother Minnie Tyson Hunter died 21 July 1948 at  age 69.  Before school started in the next 5 or 6 weeks we moved in with Grandpa Hunter, Minnie's widower. 

One of the Christmases  probably the first Christmas there, Santa Clause brought my sister  Frances and I bicycles .  I had no idea how to ride one.  I could see it was a keeping your balance thing. 

Grandpa taught me how to ride it.  there is a slight hill from the corner of East Dixie Avenue to our house.  The  street was not paved then.  We would push the bike up to the corner, then I would get on it and coast down the hill.  Grandpa ran along behind me holding my seat to keep me balanced.  It took about two times and I got the hang of it  enough to ride a bike.  If I remember correctly, that same Christmas morning my sister and I rode our bikes to the Clay Homes, about a mile away to show off our bikes to our ex-neighbors. 

I was thinking recently  I remember Grandpa as an old man then.  It must have been  physically challenging to him to run behind a bike going down a hill.    He died about  1.5  years later at age 70.  That is not too bad, I keep telling myself.

Grandpa Hunter and I became good friends.  He kept his moonshine and wine under wood under the house.  He would crawl under the house and crawl back and make a large breath sound when he straightened up, I don't know if it was the booze that pumped that deep breath out of him or standing up in an upright condition.

He and his son W.C. ran around with some seedy looking characters.  I think they were just jobless and hung out together and passed around the bottle in the paper sack a lot.  I think they worked off and on at a mattress factory at the corner of Butler Street and East Dixie Avenue.  One day it burned down and his friends scattered.  I did not see them after that except for W.C.

Grandpa had a black cat named Tom that would come and go, sometimes months at a time.  Once he just did not come back.   

His yard on Manget Street had apple, pear, peach, and black walnut trees.  He may have had a pecan tree.  One time he had chickens.  There was a chicken coop in the back part of the yard, which I sometimes used as a club house and other times pretended it was a battle ship that I was captain of.

One time when he had a few drinks Grandpa told me that our name was not really Hunter, he said he did not know our real name.  His father William Hunter, he said, was adopted.  He wept as he told me.

That was what got me interested into family research.  Not when he told me but when my oldest son was born I remembered what he told me and went on a quest to look for our real name.  I  found out.  It is Hunter, but for a while William was William Trammell (his mother's maiden name) but he changed to his real father's name... long story.

Another time he wept was when we were sitting in the front yard and a truck pulled up.   A woman got out and asked him was he Frank Paris Hunter.  He said he was  and she introduced herself to him as his daughter.  That really gave him an unexpected blow.  He knew of her but never met her.

After Frank had married Minnie Tyson, he had an affair with a McClure girl in the Woodstock area and got her pregnant.  William Hunter ; Minnie's father; and the McClure family  gave the pregnant girl money to go to Texas to have her baby.  The baby, when grown,  paid a visit.

I don't know what they discussed but they talked a lot.  Then the woman got into her truck and drove away, that was the last time I know of she made an appearance.  Grandpa was emotionally shook up.

Later, when doing family research I discovered that Frank , Minnie, and then their only child Herbert moved for a couple of years to Texas.  They lived in Hunt County, Texas, where their only daughter Beatrice "Bee" was born in 1903.  They were back in Cherokee County in 1906 when their next son, Robert "Bus" was born.  I don't know if their residence in Texas had anything to do with the McClure girl or not.

Routinely, Frank would get up before anyone else, start the fire in the fireplace and buttered the toast.  I always have been an early riser, I would be the second one up.  I would back up to the fire to enjoy its warmth.  I think we burned coals instead of wood.  One morning while backed up to the fireplace a cinder popped out of the fire and immediately caught my pajamas on fire.   Grandpa grabbed me and threw me down and rolled me.  He saved my life.

The skin on my legs were covered with blisters and I was in agony.  With Daddy's knowledge of homemade remedies he doctored me and I was back to normal in no time.

Sometime later Grandpa had a stroke.  He was in the old hospital.  I remember the room location.  It was on the top floor, on the south end over looking Victory Cab or Guest Motors, whichever was there at the time.  I was too young to visit him so I had to slip up the exit stair case.  I opened the door and  grandpa was trying to get out of bed.  He was delirious.  My uncle Herbert and some other brothers, I don't remember who, was trying to hold him down.  It was the last time I saw my grandfather alive.  He died 20 March 1950, at age 70.

You Can't Carry It With You

Now, Jim is never more.

Jim was addicted to yard sales.  He was always going to garage sales buying a nice combustion engine or something for a couple of dollars and show off all the expensive tools he bought that way.  Now, look where they are (above).

Jim was born in Marietta many years ago.  He and his two brothers grew up around Powder Springs and Reynolds Streets.  After his WWII time he moved to Miami and started a small engine repair business.

He married Louise, also from Marietta.  They never had any children.

After they retired they moved back to Marietta and bought the house next to us.

I admit that Jim, sometimes, was a pain the ass.  He just wanted to be helpful which sometimes messed up my yard plans, because of his aggressive suggestions.

But I still miss him. 

I had a Snapper Self-Propelled, a Snapper riding lawnmower, and a powered water pressure machine.  

Anytime one sputtered Jim came running with his tool kit and more often than not messed it up.  One time I had my sons help me load the riding mower into my pickup truck when they were over on a Sunday.  The starter would not work.  I had plans to take it to the Snapper shop the following morning.

That morning Jim's wife Louise called and said Jim saw my lawnmower on the back of my truck, I wasn't going to take it to pay somebody to fix it was I?  I admitted I was and he was over in just a couple of minutes.  He fixed it.  He fixed it that I could start it by bypassing the start button and line up a screw driver between the battery and live wire to start it.  I had several screw drivers to curl up while trying to start it.  Another time he tried to fix my water pressure machine and could not adjust the thing the piston or whatever, and it warped the shaft, or it was the shaft, whatever.

It got to the point that when either lawnmower or water pressure machine needed work done I would load it onto my truck at night in the dark and backed up into the carport.  I knew Jim normally woke up about 8:30am.  I would leave the house with the equipment  before 7am.

One time Jim saw a truck that looked like mine that one of the headlights wasn't working.  He came over with his equipment to take out the  bad headlight and either fix it or replace it.  I told him it was working fine.  He told me he saw it not working.  I told him there were two or three others trucks in the subdivision  that looked just like mine, and one of them was the one with the bad headlight.  He didn't believe and wanted to drill a hole through the body someplace to give it the so-called bad light additional electrical support.

One time Jim told me he had brake problems and to save money he paid Bob, the useless man across the street to fix it.  He chuckled and said he cheated Bob, he could have charged him much  more, but he only charged him $20.  A few weeks after that Jim had a heart attack.  Instead of paying an ambulance he drove to the hospital.   The cardiologists put in a pacemaker and he had to be the hospital a few days.   I volunteered to take his car home.  He reluctantly told me OK.

I did not know it until I had to use the brakes there were no brakes.   Luckily, I had a Volvo in the Navy that the brakes were shot and I learned to gear down....gear down easily.

I got the car home and the next time I saw Jim I kidded him about he didn't get the best of Bob, Bob got the best of him.... he just gave Bob $20 for no services rendered.

Jim died and a few years later, last year, his wife Louise died.

I thought Jim, the way he squeezed a dollar and did without a lot, they lived from social security check to social security check.   But apparently I was wrong, he had hundreds of thousands of dollars squirreled away, which distant relatives will probably fight over and all his prized collections are in the dumpster above.

It Is What It Is

This morning Willow and I walked in the slushy snow and ice.  It was not too bad, it was like waking on a slushy drink.

A neighbor is a nurse at the VA Hospital in Decatur.  She backed out of her driveway , rolled down her window and said good morning.  When she sees us walking in the mornings she always says good morning.

She said she was leaving late to avoid the traffic.

I said it may be just as bad because everybody might be doing the same thing.

I said I hope she wasn't having problems with all the  investigations  that the VA Hospital is receiving right now.

She swatted in thin air, like swatting a fly, in her Jamaican accent said, "It is what it is."

I told her I like that expression, "It is what it is."   I said it was profound.

She cackled laughing as she drove off.

From Tree to Tree

Across the street from us in Larry Bell Park was a ravine that was about the length of a  football field that stopped at Manget Creek, just below the softball field.  The ravine was a long deep ditch line with trees.  As a kid I like to go in it when I wanted to be alone and think.  It was also a good place to play.  Over a period of time I learned of one slim tree there I could climb up near the top, get it weaving back and forth with shifting my weight and with enough swinging it leaned over to a similar shape tree and I grab onto that tree straighten my legs out and the tree I was in would spring back in shape and I from the top of the second tree shimmy  down, mission accomplished. 

Of course approval or showing off was always a priority and I wanted to show my friends Gene Sanges and Tony Hester.   One day while playing in the ravine with Gene and Tony I did my old trick, I climbed up the tree I was well acquainted with the intentions of swinging over to the neighboring tree.  I didn't make it to the second tree.  When I got the first tree weaving back and forth with my weight the tree snapped and down I fell.

It knocked me out cold.  Tony and Gene thought I was just playing possum.  Tony went and got his wagon and they carried me to his back yard.  They told me if I did not get up they were going to take all my clothes off in front of Tony's sisters Peggy and Lula.

I did not get up and they took my clothes off.

Then they thought I was dead.  

They loaded me back in the wagon and carried me to my house.  It must have been on a weekend, my parents and sister were not there.

They carried me into my bedroom and put me in my bed, threw my clothes on the bed too, and left.

When my family came home there I was out cold, naked in bed.

I'm sure that was a shock to them.

Ironically, I did not know it at the time, but with my uncle, Daddy's brother W.C. was young he did the same trick on the same property, and was knocked out.  He was in a coma for weeks.

Several years ago Tony's mother died.  I went to the funeral home to pay my respect.  Tony was not there yet but his two sisters Peggy and Lula were.   The whole time we talked I wonder if they were thinking the same thing I was, seeing me in the buff.   That subject went unsaid as we talked about old times.

Australian Bakery and Bluegrass

Australian Bakery on South Park Square in Downtown Marietta. 

For the past several years  on Tuesday evenings in Front of the Australian Bakery bluegrass players have been showing up jamming.  There is no schedule or plans.  Ever who shows up with their instrument finds a group jamming that they will be comfortable in and jump in and start plucking away.  We have not been there in a while, I don't know if it is still going on or not.  If you are interested in watching or playing you might call the Australian Bakery.

I am been known to pick up a guitar and play there .  My, My, what do we have here?  It is  a video of me* playing the ole' guitar.   Awww Shucks!

*If you believe I was actually playing that thing I have  some property down near the  Okefenokee   Swamp I'll like to talk to you about.

Pete Seeger, LITTLE BOXES

On my walk/run this morning I listened to LITTLE BOXES by the late  Pete Seeger,   

Here, lets listen to it again:

One of my Forrest Gump's Moments

Fifty years ago yesterday, February 21, 1965, we went to New York City.  It was only about 60 miles away from our base.  We read a mass order from the Fleet Commander that there would be an anti-Vietnam War protest of Arm Services people in their uniforms  at Union Square in New York City, and  under no circumstances active servicemen  to attend .  Anybody in uniform would be arrested by Military Police.

We went, but didn't wear our uniforms.   We wanted to take pictures.

We found Union Square but there was no protest going  on.  Maybe we were early, maybe we were late, or maybe the location was changed at the last minute.

Just killing time, we rode around looking at the big city.  We rode up 5th Avenue and passed the Guggenheim Museum on the right, and up a few blocks the Metropolitan Museum on the left  and Central Park.  Then several more blocks and Central Park on the left ended. 

Seeing the pedestrians we realize we were in Harlem.

WHAM! 

Somebody  hit my Volvo with some kind rock or brick.  Some people shouted at us.

We got the heck out of there.

Later, on the news we learned that Malcom X had been assassinated in New York City.   Maybe the reason we were hollered at was because I had  Georgia License Plate on the car.

Elvis Presley died almost 40 years ago and he just won't fade away.  His songs are still played, they are still Elvis imitators,... just the other day I saw a picture of  Elvis in all his finery wishing  a friend's mother a happy birthday at a nursing home.

For sure, it is not too late for me to get on the bandwagon, with a Elvis cartoon that was originally printed in the first issue of TRUMP magazine in the '50s.  Text by editor Harvey Kurtzman and art by Wally Wood. 

click on image to enlarge to make it readable. 

Emi Sunshine Horrible Highway

Folks, She is real and she is good and not pretentious, in her own way.  But she knows how to put on a good show!

Is a Picture Worth a thousand Words?

I have always respected Jimmy Carter.   I think  he tries to do the right thing, bring peace, be truthful and make the world a better place to live.

But no matter how good a person is - if there enough pictures of him or her, you will be able to find some not so complementary.   For instance, the picture above, Carter looks like an insane disturbed individual on the verge of drooling.

Instead of "Would you buy a used car from this man?"  for this picture, "Would you bend over in front of this man?"

I think there is a demand for someone with the knack of finding this type of picture to be used in every political race.  And they are so easy to find.  It would be an easy job.

Playing at Construction Sites When We Were Young

Playing around construction sites is what we kids did.   And getting seriously hurt at these sites was part of it.  Also, next door to the bus station and next door to the Clay Homes the federal government had a school built to teach men returning from WWII a trade.   After the workers  left for the day we would go over to the site and play.  There was a stack of wired fence in cylinder shape.  We found it was fun to get a cylinder shape wire roll out in the open, turn it on its side and walk on it.  It is a tricky thing to do and could easily get your mind confused, sort of like blowing bubble gum and dong a task at the time - you mind could only take on one task at a time at that age.  My sister Frances was walking a bale of wire and something went wrong and the fell. 

Her arm was twisted.   I ran home to tell my folks. 

I told Daddy: "Frances fell off a roll of wire and hurt herself.  Her arm has a big dent in it!"  Daddy jumped a foot up in the air from the chair and ran down to check.  It was more than a dent, her bone was protruding. 

The doctors  she would never   use that arm again.  But Daddy had different ideas.  He got her a rubber ball and had her to continuously squeeze it with her bad arm.  It time, it paid off.  In a few years it was good as new. 

Ex Soldiers Never Die, They Just Fade Away

After the veteran trade school was built it  next to the bus station in Marietta itwas a busy place.  It was located at the edge of the Clay Homes.

   Which meant a lot of people hung around  in the parking lot, which attracted us local street kids. 

A man started coming everyday who on a motor scooter.  He was never lost for words,.  He was clever, a good speaker with a country accent, and from his tales he told us kids he was a war hero.  He was one of those people that made you wonder why they needed the other soldiers for?

I grew up to be a young man and the whole time, up until I went on active duty I think occasionally I would see Gene over on the side of road sitting on his motor scooter  with a bunch of adolescents around him as he spun them another war story.

Gene never held a job after he left WWII.  Gene was a casualty of WWII, he was shell shocked.

He  reminds me of  Luke Wilson playing Dink Jenkins     in the movie MY DOG SKIP.

Also, while on the subject of the veterans trade school and hanging out in the parking lot what Cherry Bombs are.  Once some students let the fuse of a cherry bomb, put a can upside down on top of it and ran.  It exploded and the can went flying straight up in the air.  

And another, more daring student, blew up one in the front entrance hall and we all ran.

They Did, Therefore, I Am

click to enlarge to read

Dali: Eccentric or Smart Nut?

Savaldor Dali (1904-1989) was a strange bird.  He was a Spanish surrealist painter.  I first saw samples of his surrealist art at the New York Metropolitan Museum when I was in the Navy and next, still in the Navy the Philadelphia Art Museum.  Then in later life I saw some of his stuff in Chicago and also the Atlanta's High Museum in a traveling exhibition.

There is a Salvador Dali Art Museum in Saint Petersburg, Florida, which is on my bucket list.

I found his eccentric surrealist art, well, interesting and worth studying the symbolism and also the slaps in the face art.

Not only was his art work eccentric, so was his life, or at least any time he was in a camera's viewfinder - it was good for business.   

click on images to make them make more sense, well, maybe not.

I think the above one and below one is what is most known for.

A portrait of his wife Gla

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEARS!!

Today is Chinese New Years.  It is the year of the Goat and Sheep.   Have you ever heard a goat scream?  It sounds like a horrified  elderly lady.

Several years ago we read an ad saying a Chinese Restaurant in Cherokee County at Highway 92 and Bells Ferry Road was having a Chinese New Year Party.  The ad had an artist rendition of people having a good time with a Chinese Dragon, a Champaign bottle spewing over, streamers, noisemakers, and so on.

It looked like the place to be.

Also, they had a coupon by one meal and get one free.

We went, wild-eyed, ready to party down.... maybe they might let us get in the big dragon train.  Man!  Fun City!   And one of the meals will be free, the cheapest one, of course.

I imagined a Chinese band playing Chinese music, people jokingly shootings fire crackers, a lot of corks popping off Champaign bottles, laughter, whoopee!  etc.

We were the only customers there. 

A little Asian toddler kept peeping at us through the door.  I guess we looked kind of unique.

No singing, no fire crackers, no bursts of laughter, no fire crackers.... just a dinner.

A few weeks after that a drug deal went wrong and somebody got shot and killed there, we read in the paper.  If that had happen while we were there expecting fire crackers, after we heard the gunshots we might have got up and danced.

Edgar Bell Foster's Family

This is Anna's mother Marie's uncle (her father's brother)  Edgar Bell Foster (1884 - 1932), his wife Sophie Lackie (1886 - 1965), and their son Charles Loy Foster (1909 - 1964).  

The goat wagon driver is Charles Loy, again, several years later. 

Charles married  Lucille Hanson (1909-1952) and they had two children.

Charles V. Foster

Billy  T. Foster

They lived in the Roswell, Crabapple, Georgia, area.

USS JK TAUSSIG On Dry Land

At Charleston Naval Transient  Center at Charleston Naval Yard when you  receive your orders you have been waiting for, sometimes you are expected to leave within the hour.  That happened to me.

From the base movie theater I was working (ahem) my leader, the CPO, told me to report to the Transient Office.  He shook my hand and told me he enjoy working (ahem!) with me.  I went to the transient window and a yeoman told  gave me my orders to report to the ship USS J..K. TAUSSIG at Lakehurst, New Jersey.  He gave me an airline ticket to Philadelphia and a bus chit from Philadelphia to the Naval base at Lakehurst, New Jersey.   He said the tickets were only good for town to town, as far as getting a cab from the Philadelphia  Airport to the bus station in downtown I would have to make do, the travel expenses did not cover that. 

I had no choice but to go,  I had to pack and  be at the Charleston Air Port in a very short time.   They had shuttles going back and forth to the Charleston Airport.  I made it in time. and off I flew.

The commercial airline plane, probably Delta or Eastern landed in Philadelphia.  I got off the plane, claimed my duffle bag and then I was on my own to get to the bus station in downtown Philadelphia.  

Here I begin to feel the crunch of just how poor I was.  The cheapest way  to the bus station was my a shuttle that cost, if I remember correctly  about $8 and I had about $9 and I don't think credit cards had been invented yet.  By the time I got to the Philadelphia Bus Station I only had change left.

I enjoyed looking at the New Jersey countryside on the way -  A lot of it reminded me of Norman Rockwell art.  Old Antique American!

We arrived at the base just after dark.  The bus left me standing looking at the gate with guards and the duty house next to the gate, where I was to report.

I walked in and to my left was a counter with three people: a  chief, an officer of the day, and a duty driver.  I handed the chief my orders.  He looked at them, raised his eyebrows, like he was amused and handed the papers to the duty officer.  He took a good look at me and looked at the orders.  He said, "USS J.K. TAUSSIG?"  We are fifteen miles from the ocean."

I forgot which one, but either the officer or Chief or both started trying to make phone calls to offices that would probably know how to correct the error.

Did I tell you this was Friday evening?    No one would in the know that would know what was going on and how to correct it would not be until Monday morning.

They told me to spend the night in the base main barracks and be the base's weekend guest and report to the personnel office Monday morning.  They gave me a chow pass.

The duty driver carried me and my duffle bag to the main base barracks.  By now, it was pass 10:00pm and the barracks bay was pitched black, with only a red exit sign above a door.

I found an empty unclaimed rack and stripped down to my skivvies and crawled into bed and immediately went to sleep, I had a tiring day.

About 1:00am I was dreaming I was sleeping in the Charleston Naval Transient Barracks and suddenly we were being bombed by the Russians!  They were bombing barracks and flying around in machine gunning down people running around.   I  started running for my life.  I was still dreaming but this time I was on my feet bent over to dodge the bombs and bullets.

I ran out the red exit door and into a hallway... or passage way, as they would say in the Navy.   

Two men in civilian clothes were coming in from the outside.  One was a tall dark headed man with a relaxed southern accent and the other one was a short blond headed guy with a Brooklyn accent.  I ran up to them and asked were they still bombing outside?  They looked at me like, "What the hell?"

I explained to them the Russians were attacking us.

Both of them picked up on what my state of mind was and patiently told me I had a bad dream and right now I was confused.  I woke up and felt very embarrassed and they were very understanding.

When I returned to the big room of racks (beds) I had no idea how to find where I was sleeping, in the dark..... but somehow I did.

The next morning  in the chow hall I saw the two men that caught me in a frantic state of mind just several hours earlier.  They spoke and were nice and wanted to know if I was OK. 

Yep, OK for a crazy man.

  I was a little embarrassed with the two men looking my way and talking.  I felt my ears should be burning as they analyzed me.   But, I would just have to live through my embarrassing moment, as I have many other times.

   The reason I remember one was tall and dark headed and one was short and blond and their accents - about  six or eight weeks later I would ride to North Carolina with them.

HAPPY FAT TUESDAY!!

Fun for everybody!

and Happy Mardi Gras too!

Catholics Spying on Protestatnts

When my family lived on Manget Street across from Larry Bell Park, down the street almost at the corner of Glover Street was a small  church called Mary Memorial  Church.  I  drove by there recently and it is still there, I was surprised how small the parking lot and church are.  I was friends with two brothers George and Mike Hobby, both have died.  They were Catholic.   During this time of our lives they lived with their parents on Glover Street.  They sometimes had a horse and had a barn for the horse behind their house.  The barn was right behind the Mary Memorial Church. 

One Sunday night we three were climbing on their barn and climbed up on the roof.  We discovered we could sit on the barn roof and look into the window of the church having its Sunday night service.  They did a lot of shouting, crying, screaming, and raw religious music.

My uncle Tom Petty and his wife Mary Jo Johns were members there and also belonged  to a gospel singing group.  It would have been very interesting to watch them sing.  Tom did not look like the singing type.  They never performed the nights we were there.

The two Catholic siblings enjoyed perching on top of the barn and watching the Pentecostal  or Primitive Baptist Church.... it was far removed from what they were  used to: confessional booths, Priests with robes, Crosses, Marys, and all that.

I don't think any of the congregation ever saw  us gawking at them.  But again, maybe they did and preferred not to cause a ruckus.

HAPPY PRESIDENTS' DAY!!

One thing I like about Presidents' Day is how non materialistic and non-commercial; not  like Christmas and some other holidays.

Speaking of Presidents -

Or, my first 30 Days on Active Duty.


Well, well, today is President's Day.  So, if you came home to get away from the Presidents' Day Sale, you can read a little about the a president, Franklin D. Roosevelt's flag boat embedded someplace in the below ramblings.

When I first went on active duty in the Navy I was sent to Charleston Naval Yards, in Charleston, South Carolina.  I spent about 30 days there.

The Naval Yard was a huge Navy Base on the Cooper River, near a big bridge.    The big bridge always seemed to be looming saliently in the background.

The Naval Yard was a Transient center.  There were may six to ten barracks for transients.  In the mornings we stood on an assigned number on the pavement so they could do a muster check.  Then, after  were assigned jobs for the day.  For a few days I was picked for cleanup details.  A group of us would report to places like the EM Club, Marines Club, CPO Club, and so on and clean up from the night before.   Also, one day I had to help clean up the chow hall. 

Interesting in cleaning up the different clubs I found instead of placing bottles into a container, it was quicker and more efficient, really, to throw the beer bottles into the container, breaking them to pieces  - that way breaking into pieces you could put more bottles into the container to be dumped.  Just don't go skin diving in the dumpster.

Once I was assigned  to paint a historical boat.  It was the flag ship that President Franklin Roosevelt used from time to time.  It was docked at a dock.  We painted the deck gray.  While I was painting a wave knocked the boat a wallop and knocked me onto the fresh paint I just put down.  It mostly got on the front of my hands.  I don't remember what I did with my clothes with paint all on them,  I probably bought new denim chambray shirt and pant replacements. It was only slightly larger than a cabin cruiser you would see on a lake.  FDR might have preferred small things.  His Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia, is a small house.

Finally I was picked for permanent job for as long as I was there to the base theater.  Another transient and  I had the daily job of cleaning out the theater and other rooms, which all in all took about 90 minutes.  Then we would watch  the latest movie with the Chief Petty Officer in-charge of us.   I became friends with the other transient and one weekend we hitchhiked together back home to Georgia.  He lived south of Atlanta and I lived north of Atlanta.  More about that later.

The base was so big there was a bus service.  The bus was Navy gray.  One night I went to a movie and taking a bus back to the barracks, miles away, I rode the bus.  I remember one person getting on did something that did not sit well with the driver.   They had words and the driver ordered him off and he refused.  He was really a high ranking officer and he was on the bus because he heard the bus driver was crude and rude.  The driver proved the rumor true.  After the officer's secret identity  was known there was a deathly quietness.

One evening my new friend and I ventured off the base at the main gate.  Just outside the main gate was a busy street that was lined with bars on both sides.  They were all trying to lure the sailors inside.  We went to a few bars looking for something interesting (and cheap).  One bar seemed overly crowded and we went in to see why so many sailors were drawn there.  It was the barmaid.    If the barmaid served you a drink, she charged something like $5 more than if you bought the drink yourself  from the bartender.  The reason was the stirred the drink a special way.  First she drove her finger "inside" herself and used her finger as a stirrer.   We left.  They even charged just to watch her mix drinks her special way.  Those sailors had probably been at sea a long long time.

Somehow my friend's mother and my mother became friends.  I don't know how Mama did it, but she knew how to relate to people and find out what  there was we had in common... which this was a piece of cake for her.  As I mentioned earlier  one weekend we hitchhiked back to Georgia.   It took several rides to get there.  He got off  south of Atlanta and about that same area I had to stand by myself with my thumb out in the middle of the morning for a couple of hours.

My last ride a guy picked me up someplace in Atlanta.   He asked where was I going and I said Marietta and he said he was too.   About the time we were going over the Chattahoochee River he reached over and touched my thigh.  I started cursing him and demanded to be let out or I would jump  out.  He said he was only joking and would not do it again.  I sat uptight the rest of the way home.  He let me out in front of our house and I ran in without even thanking him.  He rode back and forth on our street for a few times before he probably determinate I really did go into a house.

I spent about a day at home and hitchhiked back to Charleston.  The only thing I remember about the return trip a drunk man driving and his wife and several kids picked me up.  He stayed  sped through Georgia and South Carolina during over 100mph most the time.  And oh yeah, his car was junky inside too... trash all over the seats and floorboards. 

Tuba Skinny: WILL YOU REMEMBER ME?

Being a bluegrass fan I have heard the song WILL YOU MISS ME WHEN I'M GONE? many times.  This isn't it.  That one had words.  

Are We Party Animals or What?

Every weekend lately or near weekend something worth celebrating or being festive about  was/will be going on:  There was  Super Bowl Sunday;  yesterday was Valentines,;  there was the Grammys; tomorrow a lot of sales-savvy people will have hand to hand combat a the President's Day Sales; and  last but not least tonight on TV is looking back at the best of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE!  

SUNDAY FUNNIES! WONDER WART HOG in DRAG CARTOONS Mag

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE TO MAKE BIGGER TO BE ABLE READ IT.

Before Gilbert Shelton became well known for being the artist for the FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS he drew WONDER WART HOG for DRAG CARTOONS MAGAZINE and also HELP! Magazine. 

I knew about WONDER WART HOG being in HELP!  but I did not know about WWH being in DRAG CARTOONS Magazine until I read my friend Pappy's blog  about Golden Age Comics at http://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/.

This may appear that I am swiping Pappy's blog material and making it my own.   Harvey Kurtzman, creator and first editor of MAD said "imitation is the most sincerest form of flattery."  Therefore, if imitation is a very sincere form  of flattery, then plain-out using the same material is a step above the sincerest.... like more sincerest!

A Valentines Story, Sort of

The next town north of where our Navy base was in  Lakehurst, New Jersey, is Lakewood.  It had a theater we went to and  a bookstore, and several bars.  It was less than ten miles away.

Off the main street, down a couple of blocks was a bad neighborhood.   It looked like it may have been a high crime area.  There on one side of the street was a bar we named BAR X.   BAR X was a seedy looking bar, that all the patrons looked like they were up to no good.

Across the street from BAR X was another seedy looking Bar, which we named BAR Z.  If we were just visiting it in today's time, we would probably name it BAR XXX.   The place had a few prostitutes hanging out and at the door was a big black woman that always seemed to be at the entrance who always tried to impress new comers with her song she made up "Play with my Box and I'll suck your Cock!"   I don't know how she did it, but Box and Cock rhymed. 

Another bar in the Lakewood area we found interesting was a few miles south of town.  It was a rural bar that mostly farmers hung out at.  Video juke boxes were just becoming popular in bars, they were cheaper-than-live-music entertainment.

One evening I drove into Lakewood by myself to go to a movie.  My friends had duty.  After the movie on the way back to the base I stopped by the rural bar to have a drink. 

The joint  was crowded.  The only seat available was at the bar by a woman  that was sitting by a man, who I found out soon enough the man was her husband.

She whined to me that her husband would not dance with her.  He was a chicken farmer and believed in working all the time.  It was their 25th anniversary and he was not going "get out there and make of fool out myself" he said.  

I  jokingly said, "Aww come on!  Twenty five years,  celebrate!  dance with her!"

He never smiled.  He turned around and looked me up and down and said, "You dance with her Butter Ball!"

I laugh jokingly.

He said, "I mean it, you want to see her dance you dance with her now!"

I nervously laughed again.

He said, "Now Butter Ball!!  I mean it!"

I said, "Let me go to the head first..."  And walked towards the John.

And pass the MEN sign and walked right out the door, hopped into my PV544 Volvo and hauled ass.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

When we lived on Manget Street, across from Larry Bell Park, one time I heard a car horn outside.  I looked out and there was a taxi.  I ran out and told him no one hear called a taxi.

As he drove off another one was driving up and another one was coming down the road.   I think every cab company in Marietta came on a call that afternoon.  after that the drug store delivery people starting delving sundies, milkshakes, Cokes, hot food from their lunch counter and so on and on. 

My mother was at her wits end.

Then Jimmy Pat Presley called and my mother answered.  He said, "Hi Mrs. Hunter, what's new?"

She started off by saying, "Jimmy Pat, you know good and well what is new!"  and she continued to bless him out.

She was mad at him that day, but she didn't realize it but he had just given her something to talk about to her dying days.

HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13TH

William Jason Hunter

One of these men is  William A, Hunter/Trammell's son Jason William Hunter (1875-1896).  It looks like a formal portrait made in a studio.  He lived only 21 years.  The picture was taken within a year or two of his death. 

Jason married  Fannie Emaline Medley.  Fannie was luckier than Jason on living a long time.   She lived within three months of 102 years.

Jason and Medley had two daughters.:  Lois and Jacie. 

Jacie Hunter married Vernon Tip Ingram.  They had three children.  Their son Hunter Davenport Ingram became a councilman of Woodstock, then Mayor.

Lois married a Carraway but it did not last long.  They had no children.  Lois worked for Western Union in Atlanta.

Lois or Jacie never knew their father.  Lois was a baby and Jacie was not born yet.  

William A. Hunter/Trammell and Emeline Ray Hunter took the two girls and their daughter-in-law in after Jason's death and their welfare was became the grandparents responsibility.

William A. Hunter/Trammell was the only father they knew.

Lois ended up with the house that her grandfather had built.

Then, in the 1980s I came along doing genealogy research.  Lois showed me around the house and pointed out things of historical interest and  old family pictures . She also showed me the barn William fell out of and broke his leg which put his health on the incline.  I also  waw grapes on a vine on a little fence by the barn that William had planted.   I shooed them away the wasps  and picked some grapes for Lois and I to enjoy.

 

We were buddies.

During my visits I asked her did she know about William being adopted?  She said she didn't.  I asked her about the story that William killed  a man in Franklin, North Carolina.   She said she didn't know anything about that but it was probably untrue.

As research time went on I found out more of the details of killing and the adoption. 

William was the  bastard son of Jason Henderson Hunter, so the court of Macon County, declared, and his mother Rebecca Trammell died before 1850 and he was raised by his grandparents, Jacob and Polly Hogshead Trammell.    He did not murder someone but his uncle Van Trammell did, over an argument about the Civil War and William provided Van with a false alibi, which was proven wrong so a warrant went out for his arrest for being an accessory to murder, so he skipped town and changed his name to his paternal name.

I typed up a letter and sent all my uncles and other interested parties, including Louis Hunter Carraway, my findings.

Lois called me up so mad she was sputtering.  She told me she knew all that and that was the only father she knew and she  wanted to carry that trashy information to the grave with her to protect his good name.  She said she had a some correspondence between Jason and William recognizing their father son relationship.  I first instinct was that wanted to see those letters but I let her rant and rave.  And knew she hated me at the moment so much I was not going to see those letters. 

That is the trouble when doing family research:  Not every family member is highly successful and some of those who are did it my unscrupulous means.

Like her mother, Lois lived a long time,  over 102 years.  She is buried at Bascomb Methodist Church  Cemetery,  near Woodstock.

Larry Bradford Joke

Larry Bradford told me the below joke back in high school:

A young woman always prayed to have a perfect baby.  And she always led a good sinless life for that perfect baby someday.

After she was married she had a baby.  It was perfect in every detail, except one:  The little baby had a golden screw in its naval.   She was shaken.

She carried the baby to her church and placed it on the alter and began to pray.

"Please, I am never sinned, I have always led a straight and narrow life and prayed for the perfect baby and it is except for the little golden screw in its naval.  Please, remove the screw Lord".

A ray of light came downward through the stain glass windows to the baby.   Then, down the ray of light gently slid a golden screwdriver.

She knew what to do:  She grabbed the screwdriver  and with it unscrewed the golden screw.

Then, she picked up her now-perfect baby and its butt fell off.

Larry Bradford told that joke in such a way, you forgot reality.  He delivered well timed punch lines like no other.

This is the Lake Allatoona side of Allatoona Dam.  I took this when our son Adam gave me a lake tour as a gift.

If you were on top of the dam and looking down the other side you would see a huge cement cliff and many feet below is the Etowah River.  Over to the right of the river you would see a brick structure which is the remaining ruins of Cooper Furnace which was in full operation before the Civil War. 

AND!!! If you look  up in the sky you might see a few folded paper airplanes floating lazily down until they get too close to the edge of the damn and the west wind coming up the Etowah River hits the dam and go the only way it can, which is up, and scoops up the paper air planes and carries them high above the dam until it lets go and the planes start their floating back down again, maybe for all eternity.

My late friend Sam Carley and I launched the paper airplanes back in about 1961 and they were in their eternal routine before we left.  Sam was a Georgia Tech student and we were working out of his experiments.  *


*If you read this blog regularly,  you already know this, I have told of this scientific experiment  several times.

Another scientific experiment we made:  The theory of relativity  in its simplest form is that if you are  on a bus and jump up in the air you will land on the same spot you left the floor at.  It seems the bus should have moved out from under you so to speak.  But the reason it doesn't is that you are traveling the same speed forward the bus is, even when you jump straight up.  Sam just bought a used Chevvy green and white convertible.  He suggested we ride normal speed, throw a beer can up in the air and stop suddenly.  We did and WHOMP!  The full beer can put a dent on his hood.