Pardon Our Progress

 

I worked about 15 years at the Atlanta Post Office before transferring to the Post Office in Marietta. Most of the time in Atlanta I worked in the time keepers office. There you can not help from meeting some interesting people.

This evening my mind had re-runs of a guy at the Atlanta Post Office that worked in the box section. He was a vey nice easy-going guy but maybe too easy going.

Once he took the supervisor’s test. Afterwards the Atlanta Postmaster wanted to meet him. He had made the lowest of any one ever taking the test. That was one thing I remembered about him.

Another thing, one time my office co-worker went to this guy’s house in Paulding County to see something he had for sale, I forgot what, a table or something. While there my co-worker had to go to the bathroom. He asked where the bathroom was and they told him. They also added, “Turn on the light and Watch your step.”

They were right. The bathroom had no floor. Only the frame of the floor, like rafters. The boards were discolored, not new timber any more. They did not have a basement so you just saw dirt. Apparently, the guy started off remodeling their bathroom and lost interest, or the novelty wore off and he just quit. He got the plumbing completed but just not the floor. The plumbing in the bathroom is the most important, right?

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SUNDAY FUNNIES: MAD #8, FRANK N STEIN

Cover art and story by editor Harvey Kurtzman and art by Will Elder

 

Rolling Live

 

At the Marietta Museum of History a couple years ago it was bringing up memories of the Marietta Police Department.

About a half dozen ex Marietta cops got up told of their memories, which were mostly hilarious. The memories also showed they were humans with big hearts.

One retired policeman, I don't remember the name, at the podium asked for people born in Marietta to raise their hands. Almost everybody and I raised their hands.

Then he asked how many people went to Marietta High School. A good many of the people, including me raised their hands.

Then, he asked for people who rolled Marietta High School to raise their hands. As far as my peripheral vision could tell, I was the only one who raised a hand.

Maybe I had better explain:

At a football game two friends and I arrived fully stocked under our coats with rolls of toilet paper.

Every so often we would throw a roll high in black sky and it would unroll as it traveled in the air. twice it looped over the power lines.

MHS was playing Roswell. When the Roswell Band came marching on the field at half time as they march we let the toilet paper fly. Rolls flew and mysteriously did magic tricks like wrap around the legs of the band member trying to march,, tangled around tubas and other horn instruments.

I think everybody on the Marietta side were happy with the Roswell Band Half Time Show for a change.

I am pretty sure the statue of limitations has ran out.

Trump's Values

 

The Last Tango in Toronto

 

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 39^th 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.  I am liberal like they were (are if they are still alive).

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.  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.

Here us men climbed a huge tree.  Look hard and you can see us.  I told him "all we need were some water balloons."

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 it may have had the word YELLOW in the title, who knows?

That’s about all I remember worth sharing.

Where's the Blimp?

 

1st Day of School

 

Leaning to Ride a Bike is as Easy as Falling Off a Bike

 

’m not quiet sure when I learned to ride a bike. I think Santa brought bikes to Frances and I the first year we moved in with Grandpa Hunter. That would have been when I was seven and a half years old.

As I remember it, that Christmas Morning Frances and I just hopped on our bikes and pedaled up the hill on Manget Street, then up East Dixie Avenue, then up Atlanta Street to Waterman Street, and then down Wayland and cut right at Steele’s Store and visited the Claytons on our new bikes.

Like I said, that is the way I remember it. I think we had to go through a transition of leaning to keep balance on bikes… keep it moving. I vaguely Daddy pushing me down the hill on Manget Street to get rolling fast enough to keep my balance, but I think the time I took flight on it, completely balanced, once when Grandpa Hunter was pushing down Manget Street hill. I remember gliding away from Grandpa and staying balanced, and away I went.

I must have been closer to 8 years old.

The reason I am trying to show the most probable age I learned to keep my own balance on my bike was because our grandson Benjamin took the flight of bike balance today at 4.75 years at Grant Park today. We are so proud. So are his parents.

It brought back sweet memories for me.

 

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! WONDER WAET-HOG MEERS THE MERANGSTERS!!

 

From HELP Magazine.  Story and Art by Gilbert Shelon (one of the greatest creative cartoonists of our time, according to me).

Fair Judgement?

 

Action Speak Louder Than Words

 

Brotherly Love

 

There is a story about everybody.  When one does family research you become more aware of that.  This tombstone Bobby Crain gave me this story that I will probably botch up because I did not take notes or if I did I cannot find them when Bobby told me on the phone:

James Spencer Crain (1865-1919) of Heard County became deathly ill.  He summoned a close relative, a brother I think to take him to the doctor and before they left James had his close relative open a box that was full of money.  James told him to take the box to pay the doctor whatever he asked for.

That was the last time they saw the close relative (probably brother) or the box full of money.

1st Meth Annex, Barnes ' Law Office, My Playground

 

This was the 1^st Methodist Annex.  Now, it is the law office of former Governor Roy Barnes. 

It was built about 1945-46.  I know, because I was there.  We lived about a block away in the Clay Homes.  I was preschool. 

When the workers building the Annex left in the evening we, the local kids, would suddenly materialized.  We played war, invented toys such as see-saws, leaping contests and whatever else we could invent with what we had.

One kid, Mike Hobby, fell from one level to the next, landed on his feet like a cat, however a spike or nail went through his foot.

Mike and his little brother George did not live in the Clay Homes like the rest of us, they lived in an older house next door to the Annex-to-be.  They just moved there from Macon.  Their father, Marian Hobby, gave them strict orders do not play in the Annex-to-be.  Opps!

Of course they did not want their father to know they disobeyed him.  I don’t remember how this came to be, but Daddy solved their problem.  If I remember correctly he cleaned the wound with kerosene.  And all’s well that ends well.

Daddy was something of a local  unofficial witch doctor.  He could get foreign objects out of one’s eye socket, puncture infectious pusy sores and other home remedies.  I remember seeing him many times over the stove holding a needle over the stove’s blue flame, getting ready to operate.

I remember one time my legs were infected with who knows what, my legs were covered with risons with whiteheads.  We went to his parents’ house and got a sack of black walnuts that have fell off the tree.  He wanted just the black liquidy goo that surrounded the walnut shell.  He rubbed my legs with that smelly stuff for a few days, and in the disease was gone.

Poof!

Nasty Women and Well Wished Lady

 

Post Op Chatter

 

It appears I apparently am OK after my cataract operation on my right eye. There is not even enough pain to whine. And another good thing Is that I heard some gossip that 3 or 4 nurses were telling about one of their peers that was off. They must have thought I was a piece of furniture or a corpse. My advice to anyone who works in a group and value their good name, don’t ever take off.

Fasting in the Fast Lane

I am having fasting until I have my cataract surgery about noon.  I am used to fasting.  I do it twice a year to have my blood checked for my doctor.  I found that is a delightful award  after fasting.  The food tastes so much better that one appreciates more after going without for a while.

Art by Will Elder from MAD comics.

 

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD #7 Harvey Kurtzman's HEY LOOK!

 

This is completely by editor Harvey Kurtzman.  But they were created before MAD.   As a freelance cartoonist Kurtzman sold these "fillers" to editor Stan Lee tro use in what would become MARVEL Comics..  I don't know how Harvey kept ownership but he did and recycled them in MAD.

As usual, click on page to make it readable and understandable, maybe.

Worthy

 I was thinking that maybe I am not worthy enough for cataract laser surgery. Then I heard of a dog that had the surgery. Then I had second thoughts. After thinking of all the dogs’ personalities I have met that I can remember I know I’m not worthy, but hell, I think I will anyway.

I Feel Like I know Them

 

Colonial Cemetery, Savannah

 The Colonial Cemetery is in the heart of the Historical District of Savannah.  The occupants are the early settlers of Georgia, brought over by James Oglethorpe.  I think for most of them it was the Debtor's Prison in England or grow your own food in the New World..  I wonder if some enterprising individual formed a bank or a credit union?  Then, if you had a disagreement with someone, the gentlemen's solution challenged them to a duel, which there are several losers of the said transaction here. 

Why Did My Paper Route Customer Kill Himself?

 

This really happened. I don’t remember the details. The newspaper bundle(s) for my Atlanta Journal paper route were dropped off at the corner of Fraser and Manget Streets, near a little oak tree. There, under the tree I would put inserts or supplements into the papers and whatever else. I had several friends who came by and had a social time with me while I worked.

Across the corner were a row of apartment houses, 4 apartments per building – a row of apartments going south down Manget Street, and on both sides going east of Fraser Street.

We were about 14 and 15 year old. At the corner apartment building there was a lady with two or three kids. A female friend or cousin visited her often and sometimes they would walk by and talk to us on the corner. I think they were flirting. I knew the girl that lived there was married, I have seen her husband working on his car or whatever else. I knew their name because they took the paper, but it was hard to catch them with any money to pay their bill.

My Daddy was Chief of the Marietta Police at the time. On Sunday mornings he would help me do my route. The papers were bigger and harder to handle on Sunday mornings.

One day my Daddy told me that the husband of the lady I was talking about was found out in the woods dead. He had shot himself. He said his skin had turned black, I think by rotting. I don’t know if he knew his wife was flirting around or they had money problems. Either way I had to eat what he owed the Atlanta Journal. You see, the Atlanta Newspaper Company sold me the daily papers and I turned and sold it to the consumer. I was the middle man, I mean, boy.

Benjamin & Rocky 2019

 

Keep on F*cking Up!

 

 

Art by Jack Davis (MAD comic)

Being self-quarantine is tortuous. As far as I know I do not have COVED-19. We quarantined ourselves so we would not get it. Only seeing each other gets one wanting just to see another real human in person and have some kind of interaction, even a smile, or I would settle from a frown.

We went to Krogers the other day. I was thrilled to be right in the middle of humans moving around, studying labels, looking a coupons, and so on. I did not dare speak to anybody for they make speak back then I not know if their germs could reach me or not so I might soak myself in alcohol.

I did not dare take off my mask.

Then on one row, I think it was the one with potato chips mostly on one side and on the side were cookies and crackers, I struck up a relationship. I saw a lady with her mask on trying to use a straw to suck up whatever she was drinking, probably a cola. She saw me looking and smiled… like “Caught!”

She was going the opposite way down the aisles, so on every aisle we would say something, being creative saying something different again, like me: “Why don’t you cut a flap in your mask to stick your straw through?”

Or she might say, “See you again, real soon!”

Me: “Strange seeing you here!”

And on and on.

Until we went our separate ways

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SUNDAY FUNNIES!! DOPGATCH REVISITE

 Since I am reviewing my LI'L ABNER daily newspaper comic strip collection I thought today will be a satirical look at the very same.  Story by Ed Fisher and art by Will Elder.  As usual, if the print or details are too small, click on the page to make it bigger and maybe even more confusing. 

Li'l Abner Considers Being the President

 I am rereading LI'L ABNER by Al Capp daily comic strips from 1934 until it ended.  Thee are some classic profound chatter between the down-to-earth people.  

I came across this in a 1936 strip when Li'l Abner was recruited to play football for a college - Interesting.  

Annie Kendricks RIP

 

I saw a lady on TV this evening that reminded me of Annie Kendricks. I think there is a star or singer by the same name but this Annie Kendricks worked at the Atlanta Post Office when I worked there. I was a time keeper and she was a mail processing supervisor. Annie was a burst of smiles and friendliness. But she did not tolerate tardiness. One time I knew she was going to suspend. A guy for a week for being late a lot. After she presented the guy with the letter he yanked it out of her hand and stormed off. She hollered behind him, “AND HAVE A NICE DAY!!” I asked Annie, “Do you mean you suspend somebody for a week and tell him to have a nice day?” She saw no conflict, she truly wished him a nice day. After that we kidded each other scorning each other with a hateful glare and saying, “Have a nice day!” She died within a few months after that.