Paces Ferry Rd Post Card & Photo

One is an Atlanta postcard. The other ne is a picture I took of a driveway on West Paces Ferry Road in Atlanta about 30 years ago. Similar?

1st Day of School 1947

This picture was taken in early September 1947 in our front yard on the corner of Wayland and Waddell Streets in the Clay Homes. We are suppose to be looking gloomy because it is the first day of school.
It was my very first day of school. I went to the first grade that year.

Left to right: Jeane Steele, Billy Somebody (who later moved to Gramling Street), Eddie Hunter (that's me), Frances Hunter, and Helen Steele.
After that school year, the next summer we moved in my grandfather, but we still went to the same school (Waterman Street School).

Smiley Burnette and Me

Did I ever tell you that years ago Smiley "Frog" Burnette and I rode the range together? I took care of the serious masculine stuff and Smiley was the comic relief. I laughed at him, not with him.

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Poor Folks (us) Eating Watermelon in Low Rent Projects

Eating watermelon with my sister Frances overlooking the mess. This picture was taken near our back door when we lived in the Clay Homes in the early 1940s.

In recent years the Clay Homes has been bulldozed away and the low income residents were replaced by yuppies slinging money all around. That is Gentrification!.

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My Teacher, Miss Shouse

One of my report cards in the 5^th grade.  You will see that Miss Shouse watched me in a critical way, but there's more that are not in pictures:

One time Van Callaway pushed me against the fire escape railing splitting my fore head.  Miss Elberta Shouse sat in the teachers lounge on a little couch holding my head up and also holding an ice pack to keep me from bleeding out until help could arrive.

She lived in a boarding house on Forest Avenue.  Somehow a Pigeon got in her room and she caught it and had it in a box.  She said I could have it if I wanted it.  After school I walked home with her and got the bird in the box and carried it home and put it in an extra room on the back porch.  The next morning feathers were all over, but no Pigeon.  Either  a rat or a cat ate it.

Elberta went on to married Billy Kinney, a reporter for the local Marietta Journal.

My New (sort of) Blog

For my new attempt of a photo blog, check this out:

http://ethunter.blogspot.com/

Years Ago

This picture was taken in 1947,  Left to right:  Jeane Steel, Billy somebody who moved to Gramling Street, Eddie Hunter (me), Frances Hunter, and Helen Steel. 

I think the picture's purpose we were to look sad, which wasn't hard to do,  because it was the day of going back to school, after the summer break.  Except for me, it was my first crack at it.

As sad as it looks, here is something else to think about.  The picture was taken early September 1947.  It is less than 29 years and 11 months of being a 100 years old.

Now, that is sad!

The Exorcists in Bucks County

c1964.  Dick Day and I exorcising evil spirits from a pot in front of an antique store in New Hope, Pennsylvania.  Have you ever read the book "Devil in Bucks County" by Edmund Schiddel?  I think I have but not sure.  New Hope is in Bucks County.  It is just down the road from Valley Forge, where Washington and his troops spent one winter during the Revolutionary War.

When we visited New Hope in the mid 1960s a few times we found it to be like what just about every little rural quaint American  town has destined to be:  An antique mecca.

After the Navy Dick went on to be a news announcer for NBC Radio.  You have probably heard his voice.   He is probably retired now if he is still alive.

Anthony, Opal, Me, and the Preacher's Daughter

Throwback Thursday.  c1949-50.  The toddler is my cousin Anthony.  His mother Opal Petty is stooped down comforting him.  And the handsome brute on the tricycle is me.  The picture was taken in their front yard in Varnell, Georgia.

Varnell is about ten miles northeast of Dalton, near Cohutta.  Look at the tricycle.  It is too big for Anthony.  And it would not be mine, we were at least 85 miles from Marietta. 

It probably belonged to the little girl next door in the big white house.  The little girl's father was a preacher. 

On the other side of their house was a railroad crossing and a big water tank tower.  I vaguely remember that she and I climbed up the ladder and down into the tank.  And all the grownups had a hissy fit.

A few years ago my sister Frances and I revisited Varnell.  This is what used to be the preacher's big white house,  Is vacant now.

Thoughts About Chicken-fat attendees

Every day I check stats on visitors to my blog on the Stat Report.  It tells me how many visitors went to chicken-fat the previous day, and recently what they looked at, how long they stayed and where they are from.  About 10 to 20% are local visitors.  The rest are living  all over the world.  Spain, France, and Australia viewers  big SUNDAY FUNNIES fans.   About 20 to 30% are digging into my genealogy reports.  People from Russia seem to like American life off from the mainstream.

The attendance number that constant repeats itself is 244.  I think there are 244 people  the same 244 day after day visit chicken-fat and the rest come and go.  So, if  the attendance on any given day is say 243 I wonder if that person, who ever  out in cyber-land  might be ill or his computer is broke.

These are just random thoughts about  chicken-fat's viewers.

Last Wednesday the number of visitors that day were shocking:  1162!  I studied what people looked at, no one thing in particular.    The next day it was just over half that amount, and now it has settled back to what it is normally, in the 400s.  Within the 400s is the 244 core.

When a person approaches me and tells me they read chicken-fat daily I am always overjoyed.  Maybe foolish for them wasting their valuable time on my blog but being self-centered: HOORAH for me!

When it hit 1162 and then in the 600s I  wished it would sink back, I was getting stage fright.

I think I might have been mentioned in a complementary way in something read nationally and people in droves came to see what was so good about chicken-fat.

It did take long for the 600 plus visitors realize there is nothing to me and moved on.

Whew!

What, Me Cute?

On my Family Tree genealogy program and Ancestry.Com I have picture of family members and this picture is the one I put up of me. By the dates it was when I was in the first grade.   This evening  I called the help desk at Ancestry.com for technical help.  The lady tecky went to my family tree to get a better idea what I was talking about.  She came across this picture.  She exclaimed , "Oh!  How Cute!"

Aww Shucks!  

Dwelling on Selfies in Error

Yesterday we had lunch at Smoke Jack BBQ in Alpharetta.  Not only was I impressed with their pulled pork sandwiches but also their gumbo.  The place is on South Main Street.  It is across the street from  Alpahretta's new city hall. I thought the big new building was impressive and I attempted to take some pictures with my i-phone.

The time was noon and the sun was straight above us.  Being that the sun glare was in my face I could not see my iphone little mini screen.  But, knowing the building was right in front of me, I thought I would be able to just aim the lens in that direction and its bigness would compose itself.  I took two pictures to make sure I got it right.

Above are the two pictures I took.  What I didn't realize I pressed the selfie selection.

It is always a shock to see a picture of myself  when I am not expecting it,   Unexpected pictures of myself is a rude reminder just how old I am.  I keep forgetting.

Some people might say I am  a flirt around women but I prefer to think I am just doing what I was taught to do, and that is be nice, polite, and congenial  to ladies.

While I am being nice to the ladies I need to remind myself what they are looking at:  not a charming debonair young man but an old fart (see above).

While you are looking above at the two pictures of me please notice the one with white clouds right behind me making me look like I might have thin wavy white hair. 

Darn!  I always wanted to have a stock of thick white hair! 

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.

My Near Death Experiences

On Facebook  the day before yesterday I posted the time when I was under 5 years old and got hit by a car.  Brad Martin commented that I am "invincible".   Anna read it and said, "You are a cat." 

She knew of other near death experiences I have experienced through the years:

About 1944.  At Sweet Water Creek near Austell a underwater current caught me and swept under and away.  Daddy and Dick Sullivan jumped and saved me.  Daddy jumped in without taking off his socks.

About 1950.  I climbed to the top of a small tree with the intentions of making  it sway back and forth and then on the final sway reach over to a parallel small tree and latch on to it and transfer my bulk to it.  I have did it before, alone, but this time I had an audience, I was showing off.  The next thing I knew my friends were putting me onto my bed.  The tree top had snapped and down I went, which knocked me out.  They thought I was faking and stripped me butt naked in front of my friends sister, knowing I would jump up when they begin to undress me.  I didn't and they got scared.  My parents were not home.  They did what they thought was right and placed me in my bed.  I don't remember if they put my clothes back on or not.

About 1950.  Manget Creek was overflowing and flowing  very rapidly.  Somehow, I got too close to the water and it swept me away.  I caught a creek side tree leaning and clung on for dear life, which paid off.

About 1952.  A bunch of us were playing in the loft of Eddie N.'s grandparents' barn on Glover Street.  Eddie N. was mentally challenged.  One of my "friends" reminded Eddie N. of the time he and I had a fight and I broke his nose.  He suddenly jumped on me and with very strong hands started choking me.  I could not breath.   Then, in our rolling and scuffling in the barn's loft what we didn't know was the floor of the loft was just un-nailed plywood.  We caused the plywood to be unbalanced on the rafters it was resting on and it tilted and like a dump truck dumped us down onto the ground  floor of the barn.  That interruption saved my life.  I hopped to my feet and sprinted off like a wild rabbit.  Eddie N., by the way, is serving a life sentence for murder that he committed when he grew up.

About 1958 or 1959:  A group of my friends and I went to Salt Peter Cave near Cartersville.  I had been there once or twice before with the Maple Avenue Explorer Troop that  I belonged to a couple years before.  There are two entrances to Salt Peter Cave.  One is a small opening and the other one is a huge opening.  You could almost toss a McMansion into the big entrance.  As you enter, it goes  down at a steep level until a certain point, then it drops off into a cliff.  After we looked around the cave and got tired of it, outside the big entrance, my friend Larry tied a big rope onto a tree.  We took times swinging out into the darkness below us, and swinging back.... or they did, anyway.  When it was my turn, eagerly, I swung out.  I was overweight and the rope started sliding out from my grip.  I tried to hold on for dear life, but I was just too heavy, the rope slipped out from my grip.  I hit the rocky downward slope and rolled but stopped by a boulder on the edge of the cliff.  My hands were bloody and later all blistered up.  I was in extreme pain.  Again, my friends (different ones this time) helped me home, and again my parents were not home, so they helped me to bed.

 1960.  After getting off work at the Big Apple one Friday night several of us went to the Dixie Inn in Woodstock.  They were having a red-snapper and catfish special.  I had the red-snapper.  A fish bone caught in my throat and I couldn't breathe.  I collapsed to the floor hacking for breath.  Somehow my hacking dislodged the bone.  Interesting, I was completely ignored by the waitresses, they almost had to step over me to do their serving.

1975.  At the intersection of Gordon, Floyd Roads, and Bankhead Highway in Mableton, one morning coming from work going under the green light a truck ran the red light from his Bankhead side and t-boned my car.  He hit with a powerful speed and it knocked me to the other side of my Gremlin before caving my side in, which saved my life.  He went through his windshield, which killed him.  He was sick before, they believed he blacked out a moment before he approached the red light.  That was before seat belt laws, which if I had a seatbelt on I would have been crushed however  if he had a seatbelt on his life might have been saved.  An argument for and against seatbelts in the same wreck.  Ironically, on the radio Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Track" was playing.

2002.  I had a heart attack.  I kept telling the medical people at the hospital it was not a heart attack and all the time they were telling me it was a heart attack was they were rushing around trying to inject a "clot buster" in me, whatever that is.

2004 or 2006.  On Christmas Eve I had a stroke.  My face and eyes froze looking sideways.  I was rushed to the hospital.  Again I kept telling them it was not a stroke and again, if I remember correctly they were rushing around  trying to use the "clot buster" again, or maybe I got the two mixed up.

I know there are probably many people that have had even more closer to death experiences and unfortunately, some have not lived to tell about it.

I think now the odds are against me to the point of even being paranoid walking down stairs.

Balancing Minuses and Pluses of Life

Repeat:

click on to read

In the spring of 1975 Anna was pregnant with our first born son, Rocky. One weekend we went to the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, which is booth after booth of arts and crafts.

There was one display of some kind of the things about the same size and as eggs. Out of each one, was a little carved human baby prying him/her out of the cracked egg. I think each one was home made. Anna really liked a certain one and I was going to buy it for her but the one she wanted was reserved for someone else who already paid for it.

The lady told me she also sold them at Tuxedo Pharmacy in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. And if I came there Monday morning I could buy one there. OK.

While looking at the arts and crafts I noticed a strange woman standing at a distance smiling at us. Why? I thought I would pretend to be looking at some art near where she was standing so I edged myself over to get a closer look at her and she wasn’t there. Then, about five minutes in another section of the festival there she was again, looking at us smiling. Again, I pretended to be studying a good photo shot with my camera and backed up to where she was. Only thing is, again she slipped away.

So much for that. I just thought it was mysterious and strange.

The next Monday morning after I got off work at the Post Office in Atlanta I drove to Tuxedo Pharmacy in Buckhead and they did have the little egg/baby that Anna liked so I purchased one and went home to hide it.  I gave it to her later on Mother’s Day.

A day later, Tuesday morning I was driving on my way home from work and I was going through a busy intersection , going under the green light and WHAM!!! A pickup truck rammed my car in the side at full force. It ran the red light part of the same traffic lifht. It knocked the car out of the intersection and onto the edge of a McDonald’s parking lot. The car, a Gremlin, was turned over on its side.

I did not have my seat belt on. The driver’s side of the car was caved in. If I had my seat belt on, I would have been crushed, but luckily the force knocked me on the other side of the car.

The man that hit me also didn’t have his seatbelt on. He went through the window which was the caused of his death a few hours later.

There is an argument here for and against seatbelts in the same wreck.

I remember being in a strange awkward position on the shotgun side of the car, turned over, glass over me, blood oozing out of glass cuts that showered me, and Bob Dylan’s “Blood On The Track” was playing on the car radio.

I found out later the man who went through the windshield lived nearby. He was an aged man, about 65. He was driving to his drugstore to get a prescription refilled. It is believed he fell unconscious while driving, so probably never knew about the accident.

With “Blood On the Track” playing I was pinned down but managed to pull a cigarette out of my breast pocket and light it. What I didn’t know, gasoline was pouring out of thecar onto the ground.

People were gathered around and I heard sirens getting louder. Before I had a chance to take over two good inhales on my cigarette a paramedic reached in and grabbed the cigarette out of mouth.

As they got me out of the crushed vehicle and loaded me onto a stretcher I got a lecture on smoking near an overturned car. I also received a lecture on smoking period – “Smoking can kill you.” one said as they loaded me into the ambulance.

We went to the hospital. Somehow I told somebody to call Anna at work. She and a couple of co-workers arrived shortly after I arrived.

I was x-rayed and looked over and the glass picked out of my hair. Aside from a few scrapes that was solved with bandages the doctors declared I could go home. I had a painful headace. There was some kind of mix-up about transportation, I forgot the details.

When Anna came to the hospital she was too nervous to drive, so a co-worker carried her. Then she had to get back to work and for some reason which I don’t remember I could not be released for about one or two hours.

We called Marie, my mother-in-law to come and pick me up and carry me home.

They wheeled me in a wheelchair to a waiting room and told me to wait for my mother-in-law there. They said that is where she would drive up to, under that drive through awning. OK.

I was sitting there. An older lady was also sitting in a wheelchair near me. Over, behind a round pillar was a tall lanky teenager with long hair, sitting, looking bored.

The older lady asked me was I waiting on someone. I said, “Yes, I am, somebody is suppose to come and pick me up.” She hollered over to the teenage boy, I forgot how she called him, but she said something to get his attention, then once he looked up she said, “Is this the person you are waiting for?”

I said, “No, no. I am waiting for my mother-in-law, it will take her a while, she is coming from north Cobb, between Woodstock and Kennesaw.”

The teenager got and stretched and walked over to be attentive to our conversation because he probably wasn’t sure it concerned him or not.

The older lady went on to explain why she got the boy’s attention was that she didn’t know I was waiting on a female and she was thinking I might be waiting on him, but because of the big pillar hiding us from each other we might not have know we were in the same room.”

That made sense to me. I have seen many comedy of errors that the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing.

The tall teenager walked behind her then folded his arms, like one might do to imitate a bird and started to pretend to peck the top of  her head. It reminded me of a big bird standing over her pecking her on the top of her head.. I don’t remember if Big Bird was known yet or not, but if so, that is what he looked like. Why was he doing this? Acting crazy behind that old lady’s back. Was he on drugs?

I don’t know why he did it, but it got me trying to swallow my giggles. I was probably high on some sort of pain medicine.

I took off from work ten days or so. I had a pounding headache. The other man’s insurance company gave us book value for my Gremlin and paid me a small amount for my pain and suffering and reimbursed monetarily what sick leave I used.

Still happy with American cars, we bought an orange Pacer that looked something like a big pumpkin.

Just after I returned to work I put my motorcycle up for sale. I had a Honda CL350. It was the type of motorcycle that was good for road or off-the-road. A man came and was really impressed with the Honda and complemented me for taking a such good care of it. I was asking $600.00. He didn’t try to talk me down. He wrote out a check and told me would I please wait until Friday to cash it until Friday, and if I didn’t mind he would predate the check for Friday. No problem, I told him.

The check bounced. I went to his house and the house was empty. He and his family moved. I went to the Post Office and paid a fee for them to look up the man’s forwarding address and he did not turn in one. He and his family just skipped out. I went to the local school and talked to the kid’s teachers and she said the boy told his classmates they were moving to some town in Oklahoma.

I went to the County D.A. office and talked to an assistant about how would I go about pressing charges against the man for giving me a rubber check and riding off in the sunset.

The assistant D.A. is now a prominent lawyer and also owns two barbecue places in town – his barbecue is the North Carolina type, delicious! He told me that when I accepted the predated check from him I was accepting his credit, with risks that come with such. The act of accepting his credit made it a “non-criminal matter”. Credit problems is a civil matter.

I tell these two incidences of bad things happening to me because I wonder if it was something the gods worked out, a kind of “give and take” or maybe a Karma, of a plus causing a negative to back down? Or put it this way, I suffered a bit, to prevent anything negative happening during the birth of my son. He was born healthy and wise.

And, if you recall the smiling dame at the Dogwood Arts Festival…. Was she someone dealing out the cards of life?

It is just a thought.

But if that was the case, what did the guy that went through the windshield get?

My CHRISTMAS in the %&@*&! ER

I'M BACK HOME!    We are back from the ER,  now,  I am wearing a catheter again.   We had to postpone our family Christmas dinner  that was to be held here today..   Before I get into nauseating details let me tell you a true incident that just happened:  Anna ring fell and hit the floor and almost rolled over the furnace grid that leads to the basement .  If it had rolled just another inch or two it might had ended up the furnace.  I said, "Today must be our lucky day!" 

When Anna made the announcement on facebook so many of you were concerned,  thank you, I am touched, more ways than one.  What happen all day yesterday I had a hard time urinating.  I could only dribble and drop, very little at a time.  Since my prostate operation this situation of having a hard time urinating has increasingly grown worse.  Yesterday, I went from  about 6 or 8 pm until 4 am without peeing at all.  I only got  about one hour's sleep.   Well, at 4am I hadn't urinated yet so I woke Anna and we called the urologist office and the PA on duty told me to go to the ER.  Which we did.  They immediately gave me a catheter to relieve the pressure.  The ER's urologist and the on-duty urologist of the group I go to, looked at it.  By running exploratory catheters down my pee-pee my urologist group's on duty doctor    determined  the healing of the prostate operation caused some big scars.  Big enough to block the path of the urine flow.  Now, they will, in steps, at their office, ream it out, so to speak.

All the people  that got involved in this, doctors, PAs, and nurses they were all very friendly and treated me like kin or a friend rather than a patient with a number.

My urologist group's doctor, when he first enter and lifted my hospital gown to see what he was dealing with said something to the effect that, "Here, Modesty  goes out the window."  Which was very true, two female nurses , two mail nurses, and two doctors looked over my private parts and I think most had reason to get their hands on my stuff  - with rubber gloves on of course.  I thought about making a wise-crack saying they need a fisheye mirror like convenience stores have so the people walking down the hallway would not miss the show.   But I didn't.

It Is All About Me

UNCLE JOHN'S UNSINKABLE BATHROOM READER on page 162 has an article  that said in the  2008 SALOON Magazine asked its readers to sum of their lives in six words or less.  They published about 15 of the best responses.  Most of them were profound and/or humorous.

One stood out to me.  One person said, "Frankly, it is all about me."

That is right!   Everybody sees and hears things through their own organs which the brain filters and interprets them.   Everybody can rightfully say, "It is all about me."

Which that is exactly what this blog is about.  Mind stuff that seeped out of me that I want to share. It is stuff  either I experienced,  saw, read, or heard, and went through my selective "hear what I want to hear" and "see what I want to see"; pictures I have taken, or stole;  then it was generated out of my own mind and it is  something I want to share. 

So each time you read a post from my blog, think of the first invisible line will be, "HERE!  ENJOY!!"
(or NOT).

Tooting One's Own Horn

I usually take a dim view when I hear (or read)  somebody tooting their own horn, with  an exception.  The exception is me.

Yesterday, I received the below email from Erin Hunt, which I must admit made me feel good and my head swelled up with an inflated ego.  Here is what Ervin had to say:

Hi. I stumbled across your blog, Chicken Fat the other day and I just wanted to say thank you. Phillip Hunt was my grandfather and I never really got a chance to know him before he passed away back in 2007. I never even met his parents. I've heard stories about Hunt's Economy Ice Cream and what we all call "Bubba's house", but I've never been able to do any more than look at the outside of the buildings. I've become very interested in my family history lately and reading through some of your blog posts had provided me with little bits of information about people I love but never knew. I'm extremely grateful for that. Thank you so much.

Erin

No, Thank you Erin for making my day.

Another Year Has Flown By Already?

Oh me!

Sometimes I Feel Smart and Sometimes Like a Nut

I dropped by the American Legion late Tuesday afternoon  and had a beer with friends.   A couple of notes:
 

Four of us were sitting at a table drinking our beers near the exit door.  A man leaving paused at the door, looked at us and said, "Thank you!"  And he left.

One of us said, "Why did he thank us?"

Another one of us, shrugged.

I had it.  I said, "Well, we are in the American Legion and it is a place for Veterans.  We served our country."

"Oooooooh" they said nodding.
We should have returned the thanks, after all, he was there too.

One of  the four men sitting with us used to be the life guard at Larry Bell Park Swimming Pool.  His name is Charles.   He said he celebrated his 80th birthday last  Saturday.  Well, I knew he was several years older than I, because he was an adult lifeguard  when I was in my preteen years.  It just never occurred  to me he was as old as 80, he didn't look it at all.  In fact, if someone said he was 65 I would think he looked young for his age.  And another thing amazing is his memory is so sharp.  He told of an instance when he was applying for a beer license when he was the manager of the Market Basket in the  1950s.  He told the names of the people on the board that approved the beer licenses and he remembered the city councilman Gene Holcomb who was there at the time.  I thought that was remarkable that remembered such details.

Then I asked Charles how his daughter was doing that worked at the post office for about a year.  He had to think for a few seconds and said he forgot she worked for the post office.  He said she quit because she couldn't get a daytime job at the post office.   i told him I know how that was.

 I was feeling a little smug because I remembered something about his daughter that he had forgotten.

Then, we got back talking about Gene Holcomb.   Gene's son Larry Holcomb died in 2000.  One of us said Larry was a young man when he died.

Then I said, "He wasn't that young."  I went on to say Larry and I are/were the age.  I said he died in the year 2000.  I went on to say  this is 2013, so that was 13 years ago.  They were with me so far... and I said, "I'm 75, so that makes him about 62 when he died."  Nobody said anything.  In fact, they all were  unusually silent.  Then, Jack said, "I didn't know you were 75?"

I am not 75, I am 71.  Why did I say 75? 

Well, shit!