Always, Again and Again!

 

We were married in 1967.  After that, when my ex-Navy buddies dropped by for a visit and we took them out on the town we always tried to take them to Polaris Lounge, which was a rotating  restaurant on top to the Regency Hotel, high up and amazing view of Atlanta  and the Witz End*, *Bring Money. On 5^th Street in Atlanta.

The Witz End* (*Bring Money) was owned by Nancy and Phil Erickson.  Always the how was done by a crew of pantomime players called the “Merry Mutes.”  Early on  young talented Dick Vandyke was part of he Merry Mutes.  Almost every time we were there, one very funny and talented young lady came out wearing a construction worker helmet .  She sung “They Are Tearing Up Peachtree Street Again!”  with her helmet tilted and an invisible “air” jack hammer tear up a make-believe street.  It was a riot.

I was reminded of “They Are Tearing Up Peachtree Street” again when we went to Wellstar Kennesone Hospital.  They have torn down another old section and are replacing it with another tower.

Always removing and adding.

 

Ken Akins

 

Ken Akins is a State Representative  of North Georgia.  He is also a distant cousin.  I took this picture a few years ago at Reece’s Model Farm near Vogel State Park at a Bluegrass session.  He was on the free ‘mator sandwich’ committee.

My Big Sleep Walk

 

I am reading another UNCLE JOHN’S BATHROOM ALMANAC.  The section I am in now tells of many sleepwalkers who found themselves in strange places or doing something strange.

Which reminds of my sleep walk in the barracks of NAS Lakehurst, NJ.

The morning before I was a transient in the Charleston Naval Yards in South Carolina.  I had been waiting on orders for about 30 days.  Probably, about noon I was paged and I reported where I was suppose to and the yeoman gave me my order to the ship USS J.K. TAUSSIG Lakehurst, New Jersey.  He also gave me a bus ticket from the Philadelphia Bus Station to the Naval Station at Lakehurst, N.J.  He told he have prepaid tickets from the airport to the bus station.  He said that would have to come out of my own pocket.  I only had about $5.  I told the yeoman that he just shrugged.

I had to report to the service who would get me to the Charleston airport.

I had to rush to the barracks, get my stuff in my duffle bag, which I did.

In a commercial airline I was taken to the Philadelphia Airport.

Outside I found a driver with a sign saying to the Philly Bus Station.  I think the fare was ten dollars.  I told him I only had $5.  I suppose, being in uniform  he felt for me.  He told me to get in.

On the bus I enjoyed the ride of old buildings and homes through New Jersey.

I got out of the bus at the guardhouse at the gate.  It was almost dark.

I walked in and at a counter I gave a Chief Petty Officer my orders.  He looked at the orders up and down and kind of smirked.  He nudge the duty officer who was turned the other way looking at paper work on his desk.  He looked at the orders and looked at me.

One of the men, I forgo which one, said, “I hate to tell you this, but we are about 14 miles from the ocean.  There is no ship here.  This is an aviation base.”

“Well shit”  I thought.

They called whoever and could not come up with a solution.  They told the duty driver to take me to the barracks and let the day people tomorrow figure it out.

The duty driver carried me to the barracks to a huge dark room of full of bunks.  I found one unattended and did not find cloths hanging on them, or sheets.   I suppose they   issued me a  sheet and pillow, I don’t remember that was a problem.

I was exhausted.  I fell asleep almost immediately. 

Then about 1 a.m. I dreamed I was back at the Charleston Naval Yards Barracks and outside in the dark dodging bombs and machine guns.

I actually was out in the dark running when I saw two men coming in.  I ran up to them and told them to run, “The Russians are attacking!”

They looked surprised, then curious about me.  They convinced me I was having a bad dream, to go back to bed.

Which I did, almost.  I got my bunk in the pitch dark and had no idea where it was.

I slept on a bare mattress through the night.   At 6 a.m. I think they turned on the barracks lights and I found my stuff.

That morning in the chow hall I saw the two men I warned sitting two tales over looking at me.  When we jumped our scraps in the garbage can I told them my side of the story.  No problem.

Several months later I rode to North Carolina, with the same two.  I was on my way home to get my car and drive it back.

Incidentally, I drove back all night long.  I was to report the next day so I fell asleep in my bunk.  And woke up a few hours later, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

I heard of people getting medical discharges from the Armed Services for sleep walking.

Ga's 1st Lady of years ago died a year ago

 I posted this on Facebook about a year sgo:

Georgia’s First Lady several years ago, Sandra Deal died today. I took this picture of her at the Governor’s Mansion Opened House for the Holidays decorations.

Clay Leaders and their yard

 

This statue of Alexander Stephens Clay is in Glover Park in the center of downtown Marietta.   He and his family did a lot for Marietta.  Mayor, General, circuit judge, and more.  The family owned a large house that Clay generations lived on Atlanta Street, almost within a rock’s throw of the Confederate Cemetery.

They had a nice big front yard with beautiful bushes and small trees.  We passed it daily on the way home from grammar school.  And often my friend Tony took a dump behind one of those beautiful bushes.

Brad Martin & Me with the GOBAGs (Good Old Boys & Girl)

 I did not take this picture.. I don't do selfies very well. This is Bradley K. Martin and me. You can plainly see that Brad and I share the same view. Although, from the camera point of view I am right, but maybe from Brad's point of view I am left. But, from my point of view I am not right or left, but in the middle. Oh me, life is confusing.

Acworth's Main Street and the Lake

 This picture is my son Adam's drone shot of Acworth, Ga.  Look, there's Main Street and in the background is Acworth's Lake, which is really Lake Allatoona Extended.

I was surprised looking down from above downtown and the lake.  I thought they were a greater distance apart.

On an Easter Sunday morning in the 1950s Milton Martin and I took a rowboat to the other side and went up and down creeks.  I wore a bathing suit.  The following Monday morning my body, legs, and arms were red as a lobster.  Even today there is a shade difference showing my bathing suit line.

My first Visit to NYC, True Story

 

Anna is reading a book that starts off of a young Englishman flying the NYC to sightsee, then at a spur of the moment take a bus to Ocean City, Maryland.  It reminded me of my first tip to the Big Apple:

New at NAS LAKEHURST, NJ,  being the latest low man on the roster I was assigned to sweep the hall way, opps!  I mean passageway.  The irst day there  was assigned to the 1^st Lieutenant  Department, which was the custodian department.  I swept and dumped garbage cans.

I was assigned a cubical that had 4 bunk beds, and 4 lockers.    Including me only 3 of the bunk beds were occupied.  One guy was on leave.  The other occupant introduced himself as Marlow.  Marlow was from Maryland.

We talked.  I asked him how far was it to New York City.  He said about 60 miles.  Have I ever been there?  No.  Wanna go tomorrow morning?  Sure.  The bus comes through the base.  We can catch it.

Which we did, the next morning.

Entering the big city  I could see clothes hanging on clothes lines that were stretched from apartment buildings to apartment buildings.  Wow!  This is New York City!

The bus entered the Port Authority building on 42^nd Street.

We walked up 42^nd Stret a few blocks to the Times Square area.  Lots and lots of people.  I think this was late August or early September 1963. 

The 42^nd Street and Times Square areas was very loud with blaring music and shouting men inviting people in their joints.  There was all kinds of lounges, eateries, side shows, etc.  It reminded me of a carnival atmosphere.  The visitors were enamored with all going on.  The non-visitors walked hurriedly; they had a mission.

Marlow wanted to look up and old buddy, so we took subways, walked down alleys, streets and I remember going through a courtyard surrounded by apartments.  We probably were in the Bronx or Brooklyn. He knocked on a door on the ground floor.  The wife of his friend greeted us.  The friend was out of town.  They talked awhile, updating each other and we returned to Times Square. We checked out a lot of things and then we began looking for a place to stay cheap for the night.

A middle aged nicely dressed man was close, appeared to be listening in on our conversation.  Finally, he stepped forward and said he could not help from hearing that we needed a place to stay overnight.   He said maybe he could help out.

He said in his apartment but he only had room for one of us but only one could  come with him and he would pay for the othe forfr a night at the YMCA.

I chose the YMCA.

Only a few blocks away was the SLOAN HOUSE YMCA.  At the counter the man paid for a room for one night.  Marlow and I agreed to meet at the Port Authority Bus station, the next day, Sunday.

 

The William Sloan House YMCA was a nightmare.  The small room was OK.  But it had no bathroom.  There was a central waterhole down the hall where men did their bathroom stuff.

The next morning I walked to Port Authority on 42^nd Street.

I had a long wait.  There was a bar.  When in Manhattan one should drink a Manhattan drink, right?  I had two.

With two Manhattans in me I got my nerve up to call an idol of mine, Harvey Kurtzman.  Harvey created MAD Comics book and left after about 24 issues.  At that time he was the editor of HELP! Magazine.  He would not too long in the future do ANNIE FANNY cartoon, along with my favorite MAD Artis Will Eldert for PLAYBOY Magazine.

Sitting in the bar’s telephone booth I found his name in the NYC telephone booth’s telephone book.  His address was Mount Vernon, NY, which I think is a suburb of NYC.  I called him and was surprised when I asked for Harvey Kurtzman and he said, “Speaking.” I  told him how much I enjoy his endeavors.  He seemed to be nice.  I bet he got a lot of nervy fan calls.

After that  we carried on one-line per letter correspondence for a couple years. 

Malow finally showed up and we took a bus back to the base.

In line for dinner at the chow hall that evening a guy I recognized working in an office where I swept came up behind me.  We nodded at each other and introduced ourselves.  His name is Don.

Don asked me what did I do over the weekend.  I told him about going to NYC over the weekend and a guy showed up and furnished where we stayed.  A smirk cam over Don’s face and he wanted to know the details.  We became good friends.

That’s All Folks!

Tyson Sisters & Eveyln Crowder

 Here are my two great aunts and my grandmother. who are sisters: L to R: Annie Tyson Crowder (1893-1979), Lela Octavia “Tade” Tyson Carr (1886-1957), and Emma Minna Tyson Hunter (1879-1948).

Aunt Annie lived in Fair Oats. She was married to Tom Crowder. Unfortunately they lost their only son Horace Reid Crowder during the D-Day Invasion. They had a daughter Evelyn who never married.

Aunt Tade married E.J. Carr 4 Dec 1928 and that is about all we know about him except he is buried at Mars Hill Cemetery, Acworth, Ga. In my preteen years Aunt Tade lived in downtown Acworth next door to a school and walking distance to Acworth Beach. I sat with her often waiting on Daddy to pick up from a day on the beach. She seemed to be always grateful to be able to pump me of questions of family, uncles, aunts, and cousins.

By their attire, it looks like the sisters just had a spend-the-night party.

 Al Felstein and I.  Al was editor of MAD Magazine for 30 years.  Before then he was editor, writer, and artist of EC Publishing Company's TALES FROM THE CRYPT, and other horror and sci-fi comics.  He co-collaborated the stories with EC Publisher Bill Gaines. 

Here, retired he was signing and selling his art in 2000 at Atlanta's Dragoncon. 

Big Smile Greeting

Posted years before on Facebook:

As I was letting Anna out of the car in front of the hospital I saw a paneled van that on the side was COBB COUNTY SHERIFF. I told Anna I hoped that a prisoner would not yank her in a room and hold her hostage. She got out and went to the automatic sliding glass doors. When she got to the doors from the outside from the inside a female deputy with a female inmate in orange appeared. The female deputy and female prisoner had totally blank expressions. The prisoner's hands were handcuffed in front and her ankle's were shackled which caused her to waddle instead of walking normal. She looked young, like 21.

I was wondering what would she say if she ran into somebody she knew from high school? Look straight ahead? Or smile a greeting and say something like, "this isn't what it looks like."?

All react

Adam, c1984

 

My Daddy Was A Local Witch Doctor

 I posted this on Facebook 3 years ago:

This was the 1st 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!

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD #20's KATZAMMERE KIDS.

 Story by editor Harvey Kurtzman, Art by Will Elder

Acme Catalog

 

Would Pay to Pop

 At our GOBS meeting we use to have at the American Legion I met a quiet soul who served some prison time for robbing a bank. He served his time, paid his debt to society and became a productive citizen again. Good for him.

After getting to know him he shared an unique proposition he had one time: Before he was released a co-inmate offered him a substantial amount of money to when he got out to “pop” my first cousin, once removed, for having an affair with the co-inmate’s wife. He turned him down.

Small world.

I was going to post the ex-con’s picture but backed down. Good for me.

All

Cousin Vickie

 

My late first cousin Vickie Crain, 2014, at the Bell Reunion at the Horace Orr American Legion Post, Marietta, Ga.

Emma Victoria "Vickie" Crain Smith  (1943-2017) is the daughter of Robert Spencer and Beatrice "Bea" Elizabeth Hunter Crain.

Gwinnett County Courthouse, Trial of Larry Flint

 Posted on Facebook 2 years ago:

This is the Gwinnett County Courthouse in Lawrenceville, Georgia. I took this picture on the way to visit relatives in the Christmas season. The courthouse is big and majestic looking. It is also a historical landmark.

In 1978, publisher Larry Flynt (1 Nov 1942-2 Feb 2021), was on trial being charged with publishing porno. There at the courthouse serial killer Paul Franklin shot Larry Flynt. He survived as a cripple. Flynt died in February this year.

photo by me.

On the Patio of the 1st RedEyed Mule

 

On a hot July day about a dozen years ago with Paul Roper, Larry Bradford, Lee and Diane Cooper Moss at the first Red Mule (before their lease wasn’t renewed and they moved.

W.C. and his nephew Jimmy

 I posted this several years ago on Facebook:

Jimmy Crain, my first cousin, visiting our uncle W.C. Hunter at the Veteran's Hospital in Millegeville, Georgia. W.C. was a WWII casualty. He was shot in the head and the Army put a metal plate in his head. Recuperating in a North African military hospital he and another patient were drinking coffee outside and a group of U.S. Sailors walked by. W.C. pointed at one and said that guy looks just like my kid brother Dick. And that was Dick. After the war WC moved to Lake Jackson married, and moved back to Marietta single. The war did a number on him, he had a hard time living in society. W.C.'s name was Walter Clarence Hunter. He had a first cousin in Woodstock that had the exact name, so maybe that is why he preferred W.C. Jimmy visited W.C and my sisters did also. He got other Hunter visitors also. Near the end he had a throat operation and he could not talk after that I heard. Jimmy died in 2001` and W.C. died in 1998.

Hunter Brothers W.C. (Walter Clarence) and Ed (Daddy)

 Brothers: My uncle W.C. (Waltter Clairence) Hunter and my dad Ed Hunter. W.C. was a war hero in WWII. He was injured in the war, Africa I think, and the medical people had to put a metal plate in his head.

He had a hard time adapting to civilian life, even homeless at times. His nickname on the streets of Marietta was “Peanut”. He spent his last years in the Veterans’ Hospital in Milledgeville.

OK Cafe Proof

 I like these two pictures. With the sequence they are self explanatory. They were taken by me at the OK CAFE in Atlanta at East Paces Road and Northsiide Drive several years ago.

Out on the Town, at noon.

 

Before shopping today we looked on line for a certain bar and grill to see the time they opened.  We have been there several times over the years.  Information said 11:00 am.

We arrived in the parking lot at 11:05.   The six or eight handicapped parking places spaces but one were taken except one, which we took.

That told me what I always thought:  Old people like to get places early.

When we got our bill the total was minus “senior discount.”  Of the 10 or so booths every booth was occupied by old people

Now, I am wondering is everyday  like this, or is Wednesday Senior Discount Day?

On to the discount store:  One of the things our list was whiteout.   You know:  To white out mistakes instead of printing a whole document over.  A little Asian stock clerk was putting out stock in Stationary.  I asked her where is the white-out?  She did not speak English very well, so she had no ideal what I was asking for.

She handed me a little gadget about the size of a cell phone.  It had a keyboard and a screen.  I think she was using it right, if she couldn’t understand a customer, maybe if she call it in print she would know.  Anna typed Whiteout and she told her exactly where it was at.  Good idea!

Bang Bang!

 

Cover of EC's TWO-FISTED Comic.  Art by Georgia's own, Jack Davis.

Anna Nicole Smith's Home in Nassau where she died

 We took a Bahamas cruise in October 2007. At Nassau we took a tour of the island. One of the stops was this, the late Anna Nicole Smith's house. She had died only about six months before. People were there to pay their respect and, of course, to gawk.

A Mother & Son's Strange Hobby

 The funeral I went to yesterday I did not know everyone there. Of course not. I don't think at most funeral everyone knows everyone attending. There are two family groups, friends, and neighbors.

One of my cousins brought a camera and she was taking pictures of relatives'

Which brings me to this. I worked at the Postal Service in Atlanta at the Federal Annex as a time keeper/data collection clerk for many years, and on my routine trips around the huge building to pick up time cards at certain times, by an elevator I had to stand and wait a couple of minutes. The elevator was right in the middle of the parcel post distribution area. While standing there, several times during my day I got to know some of the distribution clerks. One was a tall goofy guy who accent was like an accent making fun of southern accents. But, his was for real. He made every one syllable two syllables. He looked about 50 or years old.

In time I learned he was single, lived with his mother and loved to read western books. OK, nothing wrong with that.

Then, when he got to know me better he told me that he and his mother had a hobby jointly: They looked over the obituaries and pick out which funerals they wanted to attend or have a visitation with. Then, while mingling with the survivals they would slip and take a picture of the deceased lying in the casket. Sometimes they would get caught and have to exit the funeral parlor in a hurry. Which, might have been interesting to see, the mother was probably at least 70 or older. He said they had a bunch of albums of their "collection", After that bit of confidential information I started using the stairs and lost some weight.

All's well that ends well.

Don't Ever Take Off

 Posted on Facebook 3 years ago:

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.

All rea