Dating Dylan's BLOOD ON THE TRACK

 Anna pointed out that the latest AARP Magazine has a section about Bob Dylan. I started reading it. It appears to be a collections of short notes and short articles about Bob Dylan. One short is about the song BLOOD ON THE TRACKS and it has 1993as a header.

1993?

Wait! That is not when it first came out.

How I know:

In the morning, Spring 1975 I was driving home from the Atlanta Post Office. I worked the night shift and otf at 8:30 am. About 9 am in Mapleton I was on Gordon Road crossing Bankhead Highway under a green light in my Grimlin and WHAM! A pickup truck ran the red light and t-Boned me on the driver’s side.

The force of the collision caved in my driver’s door and knocked me on the other seat. The Grimllin landed upside down. The guy that hit me went through his pickup’s windshield which probably killed him instantly.

I don’t think seat belts were the law then. The driver’s side was crushed in. Before it was crushed in it knocked me on the other side. On the other hand, the driver of the pickup truck went through the windshield, which killed him. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt either. In the same wreck there is an argument for and against seatbelts.

I landed upside down in a McDonald’s parking lot. I remember when my car stopped bouncing and skidding Bob Dylan’s BLOOD ON THE TRACKS was playing on the radio.

People came running out of McDonald’s to see if they could help and I’m sure to gawk. I don’t know if they tried to move me or what.

I do remember, hanging upside down managing to get my Marboro pack out and lit up a cigarette. Just as I exhaled one time the cigarette was jerked out of my mouth by an ambulance driver.

The pickupr driver was sick and was driving to the drugstore to pickup his medicine. They believed he blacked out.

They called my wife Anna at work and she dropped everything and came to the ER at Cobb General on Austell Road.

She was pregnant with our first born, who was born October the 1sr, 1975.

After they gave me pain pills and got the broken glass out of my hair Anna had to go back to work. She called her mother to come and pick me up to carry me home.

Then, I was sitting in the waiting room in a wheelchair waiting on my mother-in-law to pick me up when a tall young man came into the waiting room and sat down. Then an older lady came in and sat down. The older lady looked around and saw me sitting and asked me what happened and I told her and told her I was waiting for someone to pick me up. Then she walked around the waiting room and saw the tall young man sitting, The older woman asked the young man was he there to pick me (pointing at m) up? He looked at me and said no. Then she explained her reasoning why she thought I might be the one he was looking for.

Then she sat down. After several minutes the tall young man got up and wandered around and walked behind her and started bending over like he pecking her head. He made faces fat the back of her head, gestures, and pecking, sort of. Being high on pain medicine from the wreck I got the giggles.

And that is why BLOOD ON THE TRACKS was not in 1993. Actually, I Googled it today and it was released early in 1975.

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4Russell Engelhardt, Bradley K. Martin and 2 others

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Peter Bagge Meets Harvey Kurtzman

 

The Show Must Go On

 

On THE TODAY SHOW this morning the singing group THE TEMPTATIONS  was on.

WOW! 

I remember watching them live in either 1959 or 1960 at Larry Bell Auditorium  on Clay Street in Marietta, Georgia..  That was over 60 years ago, they did not look that old.  Maybe they have a very efficient replacement system. 

Anyway, I have many memories of that night. 

Also that night playing on Larry Bell’s stage was Billy Joe Royal,   who was making a name for himself.  I remember Billy Joe was singing and people were dancing,  a fight broke ouft  Security or police drug out Billy Joe’s best friend.  His friend looked overheated.

Billy Joe singing did not miss a beat although it all happened right in front of the stage.  The show must go on.

Atlantis Wow!

 

I'm sure you have read Plato's writings about Atlantis, the lost city at the bottom of sea. We found it! It is not at the bottom of the sea. It is the next door island to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. We did a "tourist walk-through" and they have a huge casino on the ground floor. I think a scene of a James Bond movie was filmed there. Interesting fact: Nassau and Atlantis citizens are not allowed to enjoy the casino - it is against the law. Also, there is water surrounding the building. In the sub-level are windows and you can see captured sea animals like sharks, sting rays, and other fish, who don't know they are captured, roam around looking.... looking at you on the other side of the plate glass licking their chops, Don't feel nervous, management topside is doing the same thing as you enter the casino.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!!V EC Comics ACES HIGH

 Art by Atlanta's own, Jack Davis

My Distant Cousin and the Headless Horseman

 

Today a poster in a store window was advertising the play LEGAND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW coming up at the Jeanie T. Anderson Theater soon.

Of course The LEGAND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW is the tale of school master Ichabod Crane fighting with the Headless Horseman, in and about the church’s graveyard., written by Washington Irving (1783-1859), the same who gave us RIP VAN WRINKLE.

My claim to fame:

Doing family research one never knows what one will come across to do with one’s family.

My ancestor Joseph Bookout (1701 – 1806) (I know, it say he lived 105 years) was born in Holland and died in Randolph County, North Carolina. He arrived in America with two brothers. What ever became of James is unknown. But his brother John went to up state New York.

Thus, we have this:

"The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow" (the Headless Horseman) started in the cemetary at the Dutch Reform Church, Tarrytown, New York (near the Hudson River.

John BOOKHOUT or his son was serving on the Board of Elders when the legend was born. Later Washington Irvin made the legend into a published story.

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2Sally Teal-Holman and Jane Hamilton

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Beware

 

Crowd by Jack Davis

 MAD Magazine #14

Bob Bettis's Sons

 

Arnold Guest & David Green

 

It looks like David Green (left) is picking on Arnold Guest again.  Since this picture was taken Arnold has left us.

Bluebird Cafe in Nashville

The famous Blue Bird Cafe in Nashville. Surprisingly the Blue Bird Cafe is just hole-in-the-wall size at a out of the way shopping center strip. Well, it was out of the way for us anyway, but something we wanted to see. We were on our way to Memphis and stayed overnight in this musical town to see the Blue Bird. We heard several song-writers, singers in a casual informal atmosphere..... we ordered something small and stayed couple of hours and heard some nice music. No big names, that I know of, was there that night. I bet the Blue Bird owners hate customers like us....ones who want to take up their space for hours by spending a couple of dollars when the good paying customers are lined at the door and waiting.

Late Betty Smith Hunter in-law

 Betty Smith Hunter at a Marietta Museum of History 's REMEMBER WHEN presentation. Betty is a long lost cousin-in-law. She married Randall Hunter - then she too, became a Hunter, whether that is good or bad is up for debate.

Betty was a councilperson and was responsible for many good things for Marietta, such as park in parks and the Confederate Cemetery.

I did not realize until I talked to her several times that when she was a kid living with her parents I delivered their paper on Lakewood Drive.

Small world! To make it even smaller, my grandmother and aunt lived across the street from them.

Betty Hunter and I have both done a lot of family history research.

Randall and I both are descendants of William Hunter (c1750-aft 1840) and Anna Caldwell (1762-1863) - yes, Anna lived to be 101 years old. On the 1860 census she was blind and living with a son.

Betty's husband Randall Earnest Hunter and I are 5th cousins, once removed. To give you an idea how distant cousins we are it is believed by the professionals that all the commoners that have been in England for generations are at least 4th cousins to each other.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! CRACKED MAGAZINE, PLANETS OF...

 Art by John Severin, formerly with MAD COMIC BOOK

Corpse With No Teeth

 

My cousin Bobby Crain, taken over 30 years ago at a Hunter Reunion. I saw him at our cousin Alice Hunter Sternagle's funeral last week and he hasn't changed at all. I think he got his gray hair early in life and kept it. At the funeral he told me how he and his late brother Jimmy found a body when they were going fishing in their early teens. The body they found had shot himself in the head. There was no face left - except teeth.

Barbara Shea Foster - Growing Pains

 Barbara Shea Foster (1922-1998). I like this picture of Barbara sitting on the front fender of a car. She is sitting on the right fender, or left to the viewer. Sitting on fenders of cars socializing was an enjoyment that is now a thing of the past.

Barbara is the daughter of Daniel Eugene and Anna Mae McCall Shea. She was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Sometime when she was still under her parents roof they moved to Marietta.

Barbara married Paul Everett Foster, Jr(1922-1995), 4 June, 1948. Paul is Anna's mother Marie's brother.

Letter to Santa

A True Christmas Story featuring my late sister Frances.

In the early 1950s when I was in the 6^{th th} or 7th^th grade and my sister Frances was a teenager in high school.

During Christmas season the local newspaper, THE MARIETTA DAILY JOURNAL published letters

To Santa every day.

Frances, a witty person, but quiet, and shy told her close friends she was going to write Santa in care of THE MARIETTA DAILY JOURNAL’S LETTERS TO SANTA PAGE this:

 

Dear Santa,

I don’t want much for myself, but would you please send my parents a son-in-law?

From,

Frances Hunter

It appeared in THE MARIETTA DAILY JOURNAL.  She had nothing to do with  it.  THE MARIETTA DAILY JOURNAL put it on a news network and in went nation-wide.  Frances started receiving proposals, care of the Marietta Journal daily.  She received a sack full.

Frances was horrified.

THE MARIETTA JOURNAL photographer and reporter visited our home on Manget Street.   I was jumping around saying “Frances is more popular than Margaret Truman!”  (Margaret Truman, daughter of then-President Harry Truman, was getting a lot of press over her piano playing.

In the interview my parents told the reporter to put an end to it, it was only a joke that someone went too  far with it.

Whoever sent that letter never admitted it.  I think it was either Barbara S.  or one of the Hobby brothers.

Click!

 

WOW!  Modern technology!

We had a roofer  over to talk about a new roof for our house.  To find out the square footage of the top of our house he merely got on his phone.  Then way way up in orbit a satellite measured the top of our house and reported back. 

I was impressed, not only of the exactness of the report but also the fact that an aged good old country boy knew the right buttons on his phone to push.  I can’t even figure out what button to push to not make a loud click when I take a picture.

Petty Family's Big Rock

 I remember my mother telling us about when she was in her early teen years her family lived on a farm in Murray county, Georgia, near Cohutta and Varnell. On their farm was a huge boulder that was a good backdrop for pictures.

If I remember correctly before the big rock was where it was in the pictures, in that spot there was an opening of a cave. In the first room of the cave was Indian lore and a footprint on the ceiling. She said her brothers went further back and by flashlight or whatever, saw a huge body of water.

Then, their father, sold rights to the Georgia Department of Transportation to dynamite the area for stones to crush to use for the Cleveland Highway that ran near their home.

During the dynamiting the huge rock or boulder covered the entrance of the cave.

I’m reading the book MURRAY COUNTY HERITAGE compiled by the Murray County Historical Committee.

I just came across this on page 2:

“In 1934 a large cave was discovered and was thought to contain lost Indian treasures. Professor J.R. Stull was told of the cave by an aged Cherokee in Utah followed markings on tree to the spot where some “stone images” were found.”

I wonder if this cave on my grandparents’ farm is the same as Prof. J.R Stull heard about.

Pictures: (1)Opal and Janie courting (2) ?, Janie, and Osmo; (3) Sarah, Roy, & Leonard; (4) Sarah and Grandma Petty (Frances Viola Ridley Petty).

SKIPper & Me

 MY DOG SKIPper #2.

This my second dog named Skipper. Skipper #1 got ran over and killed on Atlanta Steet, near Hick’s Grocedry.

The muscular Tarzan look alike with Skipper is me. Where I went Skipper went, unless he had romance on his mind or a place he wasn’t allowed, like the movie theater, school, etc... Back then there was no leash law.

He was something of a Super Dog. Almosr every time we rode off to town in the car, he would chase us. The only time I heard my daddy cuss is when he looked in the rearview mirror downtown and see Skipper running behind us. We lived out near the 4-lane, almost 2 miles away.

Each time we would pull over, open the trunk, and Skipper jumped in. One time we routinely did that and forgot about him until about 3 or 4 days and we missed him it occurred to us he might be in the trunk of the car. We ran out to car and slowly opened it afraid of what we might see. Out jumped Skipper, he did a quick shake like he was all wet and wanted to be petted.

Another time around the corner on Glover Street there was a place we called “The Hollow”. We thought it was haunted. It was a clearing adjacent to the woods. At night it was always pitched black because of moon shadows. We used to dare each other to go up in hollow in the dark. One time I took the dare. When I got in the darkness I saw a pair of green eyes rushing towards me. I kept my eyes on the green eyes coming towards me and tripped. The green eyes landed on me and started licking my face. It was Skipper!

Because Skipper coming and goings as he pleased my parents had a chain-linked fence put up in our back yard to keep Skipper grounded, so to speak. After the chain-link fence was installed, Skipper jumped over it with no problem

Skipper was a lady’s man, or dog. There were several young puppies in the neighborhood from time to time that had Skipper’s markings and same white and black markings.

Roy Petty's Boys

 

This is Billy and Rodney Petty, sons of my uncle Roy Petty and his wife Dorothy Humes, about 1959. This same Christmas card photo was used as an insurance advertisement and was in Saturday Evening Post. At the time they lived in New York City.

Later they moved to Carmel, NY, where Roy was over Clear Pool's Boy Camp, a Heinz Foundation project. The second picture is of me and some Navy friends visiting Clear Pool Camp and played cowboys and Indians. Rodney and Billy and in that picture also. That was about 1964.

The color picture was taken about 1985 of Billy and his wife Joy when they visited Marietta. They live in Colorado.

PS click on the picture of the boys camp. You see the dog without a tail. On a previous visit when I was in the Navy we were on walking on a road that went around a lake and a car went around the curve past and almost hit us, but swerved and hit the dog. The mishap cut the dog's tail off.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! CONFIDENTIAL Mag as seen by MAD #25

Torn from the pages of MAD Magazine #25, story by editor Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated 

 by Will Elder