Bluegrass in Woodstock, Ga

Thursday night we went to an outdoor Bluegrass concert in Woodstock, on Market Street in a little park.

The band was Sweet Auburn String Band from Atlanta.  They may have been if the crowd quit socializing, shut up,  look ahead, and listen. 

The property of the park also includes two old abandoned houses, and a rotting barn.  One of the houses some artists or graffitists got a hold of it.

Nice evening. 

Tuba Skinny: Mother's Son-In-Law

Willow is 10 Years Old Today

On this date, June 10, 2016, Willow is 10 years old. 

Actually, we do not know the exact date of her birth.  We do know that this is her 10th year.

We decided on June the 10th, because, "why not?"

So, as Co-Dictator-For-Life of Hunterland, North East Cobb, I declare that Willow was born June 10, 2006.

Larry Schuler, Local Movie/TV actor and Mail Carrier

Larry Schuler at Mayes Ward Funeral Home 2015 visiting.  Larry was a mail carrier for the Marietta Post Office.  I think he is retired now.

Larry was in some movies and TV programs.  He was the hotel clerk in MY COUSIN VINNY and also a hotel clerk in MISSISSIPPI BURNING.  He was in some other movies as well as playing a deputy often in TV's IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT.

June 10th, This Date In History

1752 Ben Franklin's kite was struck by lightning

Donald Duck Turns 82 Today

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Donald!

Throw Back Thursday: Clyde's Gang

As you may recall (or may not) several days ago I had a picture of the Herring Family that lived in the Forsyth-Alpharetta - Milton area hoeing their garden.

These two pictures are some of the same people and in the same area but doing something different.  They are not working the dirt, they look like they are partying

The picture with eleven young men and women in it is called "Clyde's Gang", Clyde was Clyde Herring.  She is one that would die of an unknown disease soon.

The other picture of three young people, Clyde is the one on the left, unknown in the center, and on the right is Anna's great aunt Gertrude Jones Wood (1899 - 1986).

Kenneth Carlile, Ex-Grammar School mate

Kenneth Carlile at a Varner's Renion.  As a kid Kenneth and his family lived next to my grandmother in the Clay Homes.

He was also a class mate.  Once when we were in the 5th grade a Duncan Yo Yo representative showed up on the Waterman Street Grammar School campus doing all kinds of yo yo tricks.  I forgot what I did, but I did something to mess up his act.  Kenneth ran to our teacher Miss Miller and told on me.

That was the first time a peer told on me.  

Kenneth owned a flower shop in Kennesaw, I believe, until he sold it and retired.

Marietta Mountain View

click on to marker larger to see the details better

Look!  I can fly!

Actually, I can't.  I got to the parking lot near the top of Kennesaw  Mountain via other means.

I always like to look down on Marietta from high above.

On the left is the Kennestone/Wellstar Hospital Complex.  Like most old Marietta people, we had more than a few love ones that their lives end there.

Just a hop and skip to the right is the water tower at Saint Joseph's Catholic Church and School.

And down more to the right center is downtown Marietta.  My kind of town.

And someplace in the horizon you can see Blackjack Mountain, which did a Lover's Park and Smooch overlook of the downtown lights; sort of like a lovers' Lane.  

I been thinking about exercising my love of photography and visiting that area some night when the Moon is full and see if I can take some interesting pictures.  Maybe some old fashion blackmail is in order.

Remembering Sycamore and Garrison

In Marietta, Sycamore Street links Clay Street and East Dixie Avenue.  Sycamore Street is a street that climbs a hill then goes down.  The middle of the length of Sycamore, on top of the hill, is Garrison Drive.   The Groover family lived about halfway down the street.  Garrison Drive runs from Sycamore until it gets in back of what used to be Crestview Baptist Church then it makes a sharp turn, where  Harry Garner lived and goes back into Clay Street.

Almost across the street of the corner of Clay and Sycamore my uncle W.C. Hunter was born.

As you go up the hill on Sycamore on the left is a driveway of a house facing Clay Street.  In the back yard were rabbit cages with rabbits in them.  I used to stop by and study the rabbits.  One time the lady of the house came out and offered me a rabbit if I helped her for a day.  Which I did.  I was probably about 10 years old.  I raked, picked up sticks, and made the yard look neat.  An old man in wheelchair would sit on the edge of the back porch and talk to me.  At the end of the day the lady let me pick out a rabbit. They all looked the same.  I took one.  I was afraid to let my parents know afraid they would not let me keep it.  Imagine the surprise my mother felt when she came into my bedroom the next morning to see a rabbit hopping around my bed and several rabbit pellets on the bed.  I remember she hollered and I don't remember the outcome of the rabbit.

Back to the Sycamore end of Garrison Drive.  On Sycamore, facing head on at Garrison is a house that Williamson Brothers BBQ Catering is in.  I remember it as being haunted when were kids.

About three houses from the corner on Garrison was where a one-armed man lived.  I think he was bald-headed and drove a jeep.  I used to see him playing ball in the Church Softball League at Larry Bell Park, near the granite stone building that dynamite was kept.

Katherine and Brad at 50th High School Reunion

Katherine Durrett and Brad Martin at the Marietta High School 1960 Class 50th Reunion in 2010.  One has attended Emory and other top colleges; author of a book of the leadership of North Korea; and head of a sectional News Department in Japan.  The other one is pretty.

I'll let you match the descriptions to the correct person.

Larry McDonald Posing in the 4th Of July Parade

This is Congressman Larry McDonald (1935-1983) in an Independence Day Parade on the 4th of July about 1980.  I was using my 35mm Minolta with a barrel 200mm zoom lens.  Larry stopped the parade and posed so I could get some good shots.  I suppose with that shotgun looking lens he might have thought I was the press.

Surprise!

As we know the Korean Airlines  plane he was flying in September 1, 1983, was shot down by Soviet Interceptors for violating air space. 

I just noticed that the flight number was 007.  As in Bond, James Bond.  Ironic isn't it?

D - Day Was Duh Day

On this date in 1944 was Duh-Day.  It was the day the allied forces came  ashore on the beaches of Normandy to show the Germans a thing or two.

I had two uncles there:

My father's brother Stanley Hunter.

and my mother's brother Roy Petty.

Speaking of my  late mother Ethel America Janie Petty Hunter, D Day was her 26th birthday.  Today is  her 98th birthday.

More Benjamin Pictures by his Mom June 2016

Click on a picture to make it bigger.

Randall Bramlett in Concert

We went to see Randall Bramlett and his band in Concert at the Art Place  Saturday night.

Here are some pictures:

Irish Trammells?

Speaking of Trammell Genealogy, do any of you Trammell researchers know of any Irish Trammells?  I have a new Trammell friend that her Trammell ancestors generated in Ireland.

I'm sure she will appreciate any information you can share.

So Long Muhammed Ali!

He's Out!

So Long Muhamme Ali.  

You raised our eyebrows, gave us much to talk about and even more to think about.

The Herring Family Working the Soiol

This is the Herring family hoeing their garden in the Alpharetta area.  They were neighbors and friends with the Jones family which is Anna's mother's Marie's side of the family. 

One of the girls in the picture will die of a rare disease in a few years.  But they look happy now.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD takes on CONFIDENTIAL

CONFIDENTIAL magazine mad up stuff and what they didn't make up they made mountains out of molehills.  

They were such an easy target MAD targeted them.  Story by editor Harvey Kurtzman and art by Will Elder.

Remember to click on each page to make it readable and understandable.

Tuba Skinny: WEEPING WILLOW BLUES

Our dog is named Willow.   And she is blue a lot.  But she doesn't weep, she whines.

Prairie Home Companion, THE RAVEN

The Prairie Home Companion will soon be over.  All things must move on.

The Jock and the Brain

The Jock and the Brain.  John Sinclair and Eddie Leiter at the 1960 Class Marietta High School Class Reunion at The Allatoona Yacht  Club in 2010.

My TR4

This picture of a TR4 red Triumph looked much like the one I bought.

Yesterday, We were talking about Triumphs the dog park  and I re-lived the below:

In  July 1965, the same month I returned home from the Navy I bought a new little red Triumph, TR 4, and I think I remember the word Mark II on it too, whatever that means.

I enjoyed driving in the north Georgia mountains with the top down, wheeling around curves that seemed they would never end. 

My lifelong friend Sam Carsley, his co-worker, and I would meet up at Fisherman's Grill many week nights and guzzle beer and solve the world's problems.  

Once Sam and I went to his co-worker's apartment near 10th and 14 Streets.

To get the most benefit of the weather and the coolness of being in a convertible, we drove to his house in Atlanta with the top down.

We drank plenty of beer and when we left his apartment about 11pm it was pouring down raining.  We were not sober enough to correctly snap the buttons to put the top on. 

We drove back to Marietta, me driving with the top town and Sam in a heap under the canvas top shivering and fussing.

Another time in the Triumph I was sitting in the parking lot of a Burger King, probably eating a whopper, when I saw a huge dump truck backing up towards me.  I got closer and closer.  I blew my horn but it just kept coming.  It scraped over the hood, stopped and started driving forward.  The underneath of the dump truck bed was on top of my bashed in hood.  It drug me and the  along.  I kept blowing my horn and by then other people were running up to the driver pointing in my direction.

Oopps!

The dump truck company paid for a body shop and paint job repair with no fuss... shit happens.

After I picked up my Triumph at the body shop I signed off that all was OK, I was satisfied.

A few days later I noticed the straight stick transmission was not working right.  It locked itself in a gear several times.  It was bad of locking itself in reverse and either 3rd or 4th, I forgot which now.

In Atlanta at a red light on Bolton Road near Hollywood  Road the transmission locked up on me... jerking the gear stick back and forth, I finally got it out of the position it was stuck in but got stuck again in reverse and would not change.

I backed my car into a Sinclair Service Station.

I told the mechanic about the trouble I was having and he said he would look at it.  I noticed he was reeking in the smell of alcohol. 

I sat in their showroom/office while the owner ran back and forth waiting on cars wanting gas and hearing the clanks and clangs from the bay of my car being worked on.  The mechanic was also singing loudly.

Once the drunk mechanic stuck his head in the office door and asked his boss if he had a coat hanger.

A coat hanger?

He fixed it.

It lasted about a year more until, I suppose, the coat hanger lost its grip.

Cuz Johnny Hunter

Cousin Johnny Hunter in Brandy's World Famous Hotdogs parking lot.  This was taken a few years ago.  Johnny lives in Brunswick now.   He stopped in town on his way to Springer Mountain in North Georgia to go hunting or a "Men's Week Out".  I don't know if he got to shoot one of those free-range Springer Mountain Chickens or not.

The Elderly Takes on City Hall

Yesterday I went and paid our auto tax and got our license  stickers for another year.  We are required to get our vehicles emission annually tested to qualify to pay taxes. 

There are exceptions:  The Toyota Tacoma I bought in 2015 won't need an emission test until 2018.

And the Chevy truck and its owner (me) are too old, if that is, we don't drive over a certain amount of miles annually.    Since I only drove 1.4 miles with it in the past 12 months I qualified.

I was sitting waiting for my number to be called and the window I was closest to was an elderly man conducting his business, in a kind of a stupor way.

I overheard the clerk ask the man for his proof of emission test passed.  He said he didn't have one.

Taken back a little, she asked him if he had an exempt sheet.  He said he hadn't heard of that.

She ask him did he get an emission test last year.  No  The year before?  Nope, don't think so.

Did you bring your mileage in the years before?

No.

She was getting irritated, I could tell.

Then, my number was called.  I was tempted to pull out my phone/video and tell them I would skip this time I wanted to get this confrontation on camera.

But I didn't.  I conducted the business I was there for.

I told Anna this and she said, "What did she (the clerk) do?"

"She must have done something, he wasn't there - she got into our conversation (she was the next window over)".

The clerk waiting on me and I got sidetracked and she told me her husband, a policeman, used to be a police chief in a town in south Georgia.  She told me the name of the town but couldn't think of the county it was in.

The clerk dealing with the old man popped up and told us the county name we were trying to think of.  The lady waiting on me looked surprised that she knew her home county's name and also surprised she was riding our conversation.

I was surprised too - what happened to the old man?

The Wright Family, c1892

Throw back Thursday.  About 1892.   This is Anna's father's mother's  Wright  family.  Anna's  grandmother, Lessie Mae Wright is the baby sitting in the lap of the lady with the blousy  sleeves, who is Louisa "Louise" Kuykdendall Wright, sitting next to her husband (her left)  Henry Gabe Wright.  Henry's parents are sitting  in the top right corner.  They are Loveuia Adeline Saint John Wright and Isaac Wright. 

Dead Bumblees

A Bumblebee grave yard.  Just like an elephant grave yard, only smaller.

Caught!

Herman, an ex-co-worker, called me.  He told me Bobby Cook died.

And while on the phone we asked each other about different people's destinies that we haven't heard from lately.

I asked is "Junebug" still in the post office.  Herman said no.

Then one of us made a coughing/clearing throat sound which embedded in the sounds was a sentence.   We both cracked up laughing.

The sentence first made a quick brag about the size of his male body part and the second part of the sentence asked "do you want to suck it?"  All hardly understandable because of false coughing/clearing throat spell covered up the words... almost.

Junebug was working at the station next to me on the window.  After a lady conducted her business with Junebug, he had the coughing spell mentioned above and said the two-part sentence.

Her eyes widened.

She said, "What did you say?"

Junebug said "Nothing, I was just coughing."  And glanced over to me.

She turned her head my way also.

I was pretending to be shuffling through some paperwork  and not noticing what was going on around me.  Apparently, I was invisible again, I think the lady determined I was in another world.

What is strange is  that normally Junebug mumbles anyway, and you are always having to say "Pardon me?" or "Huh?" or "What?".  This time he came through loud and clear, even if the words were embedded in a cough.

Now, Junebug's face was red.

The woman was staring him down.

She asked to see his manager.

The manager came and asked her to step into her office and talk it over.

Junebug got away with it.  In the office the lady reasoned that it was just her word against his, and of course there were no witnesses.  (ahem!) 

But she said she was going to keep her eye on him and tell her friends who come to window to do the same.

John Neese

John Neese.  As Forrest Gump said, "Life is like a box of chocolates...."   So is eating at Johnboy's All-You-Can-Eat Country Cooking Buffet. I am not saying their food is a metaphor for chocolates but the people that come there.

I never know who I'll see when I walk into John Boy's.  On this day, over a year ago was ex-coworker John Neese.  John retired about the same time I did from the Postal Service.  He is the baby brother of Jack and Jerry Neese.  I went to high school with the oldest two.  I did not know John existed until I met him at work.