HAPPY FLAG DAY!!

HAPPY FLAG DAY!

At the foot of Kennesaw Mountain, Marietta, Georgia, 2011.

Memorial Day at Marietta National Cemetery

The above marker is a memorial marker.  The sailor was lost at sea.  Norman Carlsey is the father of a friend I grew up with.

Click on each picture to make it larger.

Saturday before Memorial Day the local Boy Scouts placed an American Flag at each grave and saluted the marker.  We came along a few hours later with a camera.

Did You?

Sept 11, 2011, Before Sunrise at Kennesaw Mountain

This morning before daylight we drove to Kennesaw Mountain. We knew the Kiwannis Club of Marietta, Georgia, had a project going, as they have in the past several years: They arranged, through donations, for 3000 United States Flags to be flying. Each flag represents a person who died in the 9/11/2001 attack on our soil.

In just a short time after our visit dignitaries were to speak and verbally honor the victims.

All those flags are so beautiful and what they represent are beyond my words.

The 4th of July on the 3rd

Normally Marietta's 4th of July parade is held on the 4th. But this year the 4th fell on Sunday. Before the parade everybody in it is lined up properly in their place in the Roswell Street Bapist Church parking lot and the parade starts there. Of course, if it was on Sunday that would mess up Sunday morning worhsippers' plans.

Another oddity about the parade I noticed. For the past years the Lions Club has handed out U.S. Flags to wave. But a a year or so ago, the rules were changed saying you can no longer hand out things during the parade. Being a bit smarter than the parade planners, the Lion Club now goes down the parade route before the parade officially starts and hand out flags.

Rules are meant to have a technical loop-holes dodge, but one organization, I forgot which one, just handed out little flags during their parade walk anyway. Rules are meant to be broken too.

I took about 40 minutes worth of videos. I could not possibly get it all on Youtube, so I went through eleminating scenes. First the Barbie-Dolls-look-alike Misses went. Then the politicians went.

I only kept two politicans in because I feel that I know them.

I finally got it cut down to about 7 minutes. If you think this is bad, you should see what I left on the cutting-room floor.

Today is Flag Day

Today in history, June 14, 1777. the Continental Congress adopted the Stars & Stripes replacing the Grand Union flag. That may be why today is Flag Day.



Also on this date Lash La Rue was born in Gretna La, cowboy actor. In his down and out days he came through Marietta and stayed awhile. The last I heard he was cracking his whip and announcing special prices for the Furniture Barn in local TV commercials.
L-Atlanta Country Radio personality Rhubard Jones; R- Lash La Rue



Also on this date in 1946 Donald Trump was born. His first words were, "I want it all!"

Leaders Know Best

We watched THE PEOPLE CHOICE AWARDS on CBS last night. We spent a good deal of the time saying, “Who is that?” or “I never heard of that show (or group)”.

We see our share of movies but don’t see many sitcoms or drama shows on TV.

However, one thing that perked me up was the name: THE PEOPLE CHOICE AWARDS? That name sounds socialist or communist inspired doesn’t it? People’s choice! Bah!

Of course everybody knows it is up to our leaders to decide what we like to watch the best – it is just un-American to think otherwise.

Guarding America Against Americans

After Obama was declared the winner I think I felt the earth tremble a little. Maybe not, maybe it just felt like it. People living near older cemeteries reported that they also felt the earth tremble, but it felt like more than a mere tremble. I wonder why?

Which reminds me:

In July 1959 when I turned 18 there were a couple of things I needed to do. I had to sign up at the local draft board and I felt it was my duty to register to vote.

Where I registered is vague. It seems logical that the voters registration office would be at the courthouse. But, I think it may have been across what was then Washington Avenue (now Roswell Street) at an Army Navy store.

The owner(s) of the Army Navy store had some ties with the county government.

Either the courthouse or the Army Navy store I registered to vote. I brought my birth certificate and all that. I think probably all I needed was the statement “I’m Ed Hunter’s boy” .

But I did it the right way and so did the guy who authorized my voting eligibility. I think his name might have been Luther. He pulled out a worn sheet of paper with typing on it. He told me to me to read aloud what was typed.

It was Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

I started reading aloud, “Four Scores and Seven ye…”

I was interrupted by Luther, or whoever. “That is good – you pass!” He told me.

“I don’t have to read it all?” I asked.

"No. You said “FOUR” instead of “Fo’” – that is what I was listening for. If you had said “Fo’” then I would have to turn down your registration application. We can’t let all those crazy people vote – no telling what crazy they would vote for.”

Of course, that was a racist ploy to prevent blacks from voting. Before then, the south used the “Grandfather Clause” to prevent blacks from voting – it was another type of literacy test – but the problem with the literacy test a lot of whites failed it too. They added the clause that if your grandfather voted you can bypass the literacy test.” That was ruled unconstitutional, so in time they fell back to the oral literacy test – which in time was ruled unconstitutional also.

The guy (Luther?) felt he was doing a great service to America by not allowing a certain segment to vote. And I bet no amount of arguing could change his mind.

I cannot think of anything more un-American than refusing a certain segment to vote because you were scared of how they may vote.

Yesterday, if you happened to have been near the cemetery Luther is buried you might have heard deep down in the earth a muffled voice, “I knew this would happen!”

Flags at Kennesaw Mountain

(psst! Double click on each picture for a greater impact)

Kennesaw Mountain, near Marietta was the site of a Civil War battle between the Yankees and Johnny Rebs in June 1864.

Now it is a National Park.

Each year the Marietta Kiwanis Club plants thousands of U.S. Flags in front of the Kennesaw Mountain Museum. The number of flags is the number of innocent Americans killed on September 11, 2001. I do not know the exact number.

Saturday evening we went and visited the flags. I saw one flag pole sticking out of the ground with a flower and vase at the foot and attached half way up the pole was a picture of somebody’s loved one who was killed that day. I felt emotional.

Then, I saw hundreds of flags around me, from a different point of view - all fluttering in the breeze. They appeared to be alive and were waving at the people wandering around and trying to communicate with us.

In a way it is an emotional living monument.

September the 11th, 2001 - rocketboom911

September the 11th, 2001.

I’m told if I tag this ‘Rocketboom911’ it will be swept up and added to a big collection of people’s experiences on day “the Earth Stood Still” – so here goes:

As everyone else, I started off my day unsuspecting anything was in the works that would affect the whole world just a few hours away.

At daybreak I walked routinely my two or three miles and came home and took a shower. I did not eat a breakfast because I wanted to treat myself out.

I am a sucker for commercials of a new food. The Krystal was having commercials about their Cajun spicy chicken and biscuits, served all day. I love spicy food, so that day I skipped my low calorie breakfast at home and drove to the drive-through window at the Krystal and ordered a Cajun Chicken and Biscuit at the squawk box. The female voice said, with a foreign accent said they didn’t have that. I told the non-expressive squawk box that I just heard a commercial for it and it said, “Now being served at all Krystals.” She simply said, “Okay” and told me the amount and “drive around– “please.”

I drove around and paid and the lady with the foreign accent and a mike-earphone set hooked to the side of her head and she gave me the sack and told me to have a nice day.

Krystal, by the way, is very similar to White Castle in the northern states. Their hamburgers are very small with little chopped onions and they seem to have more mustard and catsup on it than beef.

While I was driving I pulled out the biscuit and took a bite. It was just a regular deep fried spit & chew chicken, no spice, no Cajun – the window lady took care of that simple enough… take their money and tell them it is whatever they wanted. Everybody wins!

I drove over to my two sisters’ house, which used to be my parents’ house. My sisters were in Florida and asked me to feed the pets while they were gone.

I did as I was instructed. I fed the cat Candy on the table and fed the dog Cindy on the floor, changed the water, changed the newspapers on the floor, and dipped out little nuggets out of the sandbox.

I dealt with the newspaper and the sandbox lastly. While doing one of them, I forgot which one the TV came on. My sister had this old console TV left over from my parents that she was still using. It came on for no reason. Scary!

The Today Show was on. Katie Couric was looking me straight in the eye saying an airplane has apparently crashed into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The announcement got my complete attention. I sat down and watched. Just a few minutes later they announced a second plane had hit the other building.

“Terrorists” was suggested on the show. News began popping in from all over. Things got wild.

My first thought was “Oh SHIT!!!”

Then I thought “What now?” And I thought of where Anna and the boys were at that moment – at their different work places and called them to make sure they were okay.

I drove back home and spent the rest of the day in front of the TV trying to make sense of it all. Which, five years later and it still doesn’t make sense.

I was very interested in what our leaders were going to do. It seemed the biggest thing to do was hide until the smoke cleared.

Now, it appears that they are blaming a country that had little to do with terrorists.

You think a new pipeline in Iraq had anything to do with pinning the blame? Of course the fact that they had for sure Weapons of Mass Destruction was even more proof. And that is why we are more safe today?

Tag: rocketboom911