According to UNCLE JOHN'S BATHROOM READER :

3 Wise Men are not mentioned in the Bible.

click on picture to read

Cartoon by Gary Larson

The Atlanta Cyclorama is moving to a new home.

The Atlanta Cyclorama huge art depiction of the Burning of Atlanta is moving this month, maybe today.  It is moving from one end of Atlanta to the other.  For many years it has been on the south side in Grants Park just feet from the Atlanta Zoo.  Soon it will be on the north side at the Atlanta History Museum just down the street from  Governor's Mansion.

I remember one time reading the building it was in leaked and water damaged the huge art piece but I have seen it since and it appears the experts restored it like it should be.

I have been to see it at least twice.  Each time I was very impressed with the details.  Maybe being older and wiser on my second visit I appreciated it more that time.

Another item I was impressed with in the lobby of the Grant's Park Cyclorama was the locomotive engine THE TEXAN stood proudly on display.  THE TEXAN is the locomotive that chased THE GENERAL from Kennesaw to Ringgold in THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASE.

The docent pointed out during the main attraction presentation a little life like figure of a man in a white suit and a mustache having trouble with his horse during the Burning of Atlanta.  She hinted that it was Clark Gable, a.k.a. Rhett Butler.

I just went through looking at the Atlanta Cyclorama pictures and I can't find Clark.  Did he settled his horse down and galloped away? 

click on each picture to see the details better.

Years ago we took a vacation to Pennsylvania (see my article on Jimmy Carter speaks at Independence Hall).  We spent a day touring Gettysburg.  There we got to see their Cyclorama.

The one in Atlanta, I think it rotates around you but at the Gettysburg Battle Park you rotate around it.  I may have it reversed.  During the presentation I heard a sniff and looked to the man to my side.  He was crying.  Crying in as infectious as giggling.  I started crying too.. 

Throwback Thursday: Men and their Car Props

Jones Boys

Paul Everett Foster

Will Tyson

Throwback Thursday:  Men in Cars backdrops.  Back in the early 1900s apparently a make-believe car would be one of the backdrops.  The first picture is Anna's mother's mother's  Jones' side of the family, brothers and cousins;  the second picture Anna's mother father Paul Everett Foster; and the 3rd, my father's uncle Will Tyson.

People Are Interesting Department

Today at Kroger's Grocery Store: 

In the aisle that has plastic containers there was a short middle-age lady trying to reach a shelf that had had small containers stacked.

I think we must have helped her get the ones she was reaching for.  She told us they were the right price and size. 

She added she cooks for some men.  She said each time they tell her they will return the containers.  But they never do, she said sadly.

I wonder if this is a charity thing or some type of small business. 

Classical Gas

Never misses a beat and it jumps from one composer to another, amazing!

Yee Doggies!

Seeing a big yellow stump grinder on wheels in the yard behind us this morning reminded me of what I saw last week:

In Marietta, on Fairground Street near the corner of Roswell Street was a big yellow machine on wheels  doing some roadside work.  It may have been smoothing out some freshly laid asphalt  or something else, I don't know what it was doing, but it was doing something.

However, no human was  on it was controlling it..  The human was nearby, maybe fifteen feet, operating the machine by a little remote gadget.

That is one of those "Yee Doggie!  What will think of next?"

Benjamin Pondering

Early Neighbors

Avalou Clayton, Jean Steele, and Clifford Clayton.  are my  first neighbors that I interacted with.  Clifford and Avalou Clayton are siblings.  They lived two doors down from our Clay Homes Apartment.  Jean lived across the street behind Pete Steele's Store.  Her father was Pete. Avalou and Jean are about the same age and a couple years older than me and Clifford is a couple years younger than me.

We lived in the Clay Homes from about 1941 to 1947.  My closest friends then were Caro Joe Clayton (Avalou's  and Clifford's brother) and Tommy Hadaway, Jean's nephew.

I remember one time about a block south of the Clay Homes a dog got between home and Carol Joe and I.  We ran all the way to my grandparents about a mile away.   I was about 4 or 5 years old, the family was amazed I knew the way.   When I was in the Navy Carol Joe was killed in a car accident at a Soaks Creek Covered Bridge.

I also remember when they were bulldozing and clearing the area for the Greyhound Bus Station I threw a rock over a hump of red dirt an hit Tommy in the head, putting a big gash in it.  He was taken to the hospital where they put a clamp on it.  

As I type this the Superbowl has just went into overtime.  It reminds me a few years ago when the Clifford, Avalou Clayton and their sibings' mother died.  We went to the funeral home for visitation to pay our respects.  We expected to see a bunc of old friends from Crestview Baptist where we used to be members and the Claytons still were.  None of the Crestview members were there.  They were  all having a Superbowl Party at a deacon's home.  True.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! Robert Crumb's Visit to Burgaria

Remember Underground Comix artist Robert Crumb?  He is the cartoonist that drew the KEEP ON TRUCKING cartoon which has been duplicated over and over (and he has not been paid one bit of royaties).

Here is a sample of his work when he was still wet behind the ears.  Robert was sent on assignment to Bulgaria in the 1960s.  It was published in HELP Magazine.  I am not sure who he was on assignment for, American Greeting Cards or HELP Magazine.  He might have been working for them both then.... and again, maybe not.  It's confusing.

Be sure and click on each picture to make it bigger and readable.

Hobos and Trumps

When I saw this Gary Larson cartoon my first thought was a scene my sister and I witnessed back in the 1940s:

My grandmother and her daughter Opal rented a house about  a block from Main Street, Cohutta Georgia.  The rented house was a nice two story house near the top of hill overlooking  a panoramic few of a large pasture with a big white house on the other end.   There were railroad tracks  going across the property.  The railroad water tower was downtown.  When the engine needed water the train operators lined up  to the water tower which meant the trains boxcars extended out to the pasture and  in front of my Grandma and Opal's rented house.

Once, when we spent a week there, we were out in the front yard and we saw two men going from  boxcar to boxcar and opening doors  They had ball bats.

They opened the boxcar directly in front of the house and looked in.   A man jumped out and started running.

The two men with bats  chased him in hot pursuit.

I hope he got away.

My second thought was the Trump family:

Years later I was informed the pasture and the house my kin rented was owned by the Maples family; the future grandparents of Donald Trump's 2nd wife Marla Maples.

Root-a-Toot - Toot!

I am not a big sports fan.  I just don't understand.  Why root for any team unless you are related to someone on a particular team.  When my sons played baseball I rooted for their team  

And that is not to mention all the money and souvenirs .

And the statistics.  Sports teams and the professional sports people have a history of statistics.  Sometimes I think, when someone instantly rattles off a players statistics they are doing it to impress me with their knowledge.  However, if I don't already carry those statistics in my mind, it is not impressive to me.  But on the other hand, I can understand wanting the statistics to predict how things will go.  However, if you know already, why bother watching the game - its confusing.

Besides with my limited facts saving space in my brain I think it just about full without the sports facts.l

And people get so worked up over it all, jumping up and down,  chest kissing, etc.

I just read in UNCLE JOHN'S  BATHROOM READER page-a-day calendar:

Studies Show men have up to a 25% surge in Testosterone when their sports team wins.

So!  It is an aphrodisiac! 

Now, I understand. 

Postal People,Check This Out!

Postal Employees and Retirees, they are messing with us

CLICK HERE!

Throwback Thursday

Looking Back Thursday:  This is my Daddy, Ed Hunter.  This picture was taken at the Marietta Police Station when it was on Atlanta Street in the late 1940s.  I think he was chief then.  I remember  it was taken to illustrate how a policeman should not dress.  The badge is upside down and might be on the wrong side, and so on.

Today at 2:28pm the phone rang.  Our phone caller  i.d. named the party calling as Angel Hernandez, 1-281-652-6564.

A man's voice said, "Good afternoon, this is  The United States Treasury Department calling ."

We said, "You are lying, the caller I.D. says you are Hernandez."

Silence.

We hung up.

Willie Back in Marietta

Willie Johnson, poolside, at the Marietta High School 1960 50th Reunion in 2010.

I think Willie is  a professor someplace out west.

When we were seniors he and his family lived in Whitlock Heights,  I think close to Frog and Police Chief Ernest Sanders.   But maybe not.

I was amazed by Willie's  slide-rule scholarly mindset.  In fact, I was so impressed, In class in high school I always tried to sit behind him to er-evaluate his work. 

Navy Man

This morning, going from the parking deck into the building my cardiologist is in up ahead of me was an old man holding the door opened looking at me.

He said, "Come on young man!"

I picked up my step a notch.

When I got to him I saw he was maybe ten years or more older than me.

I noticed he had a Navy blue ball cap with some words in front.  I did an awkward turn and said, "Let me see what your cap says.... Retired, U.S. Navy, I was in the Navy too!"

He said, "I was in it 30 years, got to see the whole world!"

I said, "Well, I was on active duty two years and reserves for six years."

It appeared that he didn't hear me, he started naming off the all the well known places he got to see. 

One of the places he named was May Port.

"May Port, Florida!"  Our ship spent New Year's Eve there in 1964!"

He kept on talking.  I did too.  We both were talking to ourselves.

We took a bus into Jacksonville and hit all the bars.  I remember we saw a lot of football players and football fans hitting the bars there too.  There was to be a big game the next day there.

Somehow my companion for the evening hitting the bars was a one-eyed (patch) woman who had a long horn, maybe 4 or 5 feet long.  She did not talk but she blew loud honks on her horn.
Speaking of May, there was also Cape May, New Jersey.  Cape May, New Jersey had a nudist colony.  Some of our squadron's helicopter pilots always seem to fly off their flight plan and over the colony.

By the way, did you know Bolivia has a Navy with 4000 men but has no coast.   I read that in UNCLE JOHN'S BATHROOM READER.   Hmmmmm.

Thelma is Out of the Hospital

My sister-in-law Thelma got out of the hospital today.  She has been in and out of the hospital, via the ER, at least twice lately.

Hopefully,  the ER is history.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD #27. FOOTBALL! On the Bandwagon Again!

I will be the first to admit that I don't know beans about football (or baseball).  I admire those who do, but it just isn't my style.  I think with my limited brain power  I have no need to keep up with all those sports statistics.

Having said that, I still feel the need to get on the Super Bowl bandwagon.  I thought I could at least have a MAD Magazine football article illustrated by the late Georgian Jack Davis.

It is about college football, rich colleges vs poor colleges, but it is still about football, right?

CLICK ON PICTURE TO MAKE IT BIGGER AND READABLE.

Incident at the Store

This slipped my mind but it popped up again:   The other day  we were in Walmart  going up the wide aisle that separates the groceries and women's clothing when I heard a man shouting.

I looked in the direction of the shouting and a Walmart manager and a clerk were standing looking meekly at a dark man with a beard shouting at them with a Latino accent:

"My name is not Padre or Puncho!  My name is Jose' Blabla.  I resent you calling me that!"  He went on to say he was in the Army for something like 20 years and fought hand to hand/ life or death combat and how dare  the youthful manager call him that.  He threw down his jacket like he wouldn't mind doing some more hand to hand combat.

We quickly left the scene.

After that, aisles away everything seemed calm with people concentrating on their shopping.  I assume  the manager and his helper ran and hid and the pissed off man left in a huff with no bloodshed.

Apple For the Students

Anna and I went to an Apple class on the basics of i-pad today. Some of the things the instructor told us we knew and some we didn't.  Each of us learned some, so it was worth the time.

The classroom was on their salesroom floor with people all around, which isn't a great learning environment.

We were the first ones there (of course).  The teacher said six people signed up.

One lady was there that had never used her ipad.  She did not even know how to turn it on.  She sat there lost.

The only other male student there was a courtly elderly looking man with wise kind eyes who made some wise statements.  I figured he was a retired college professor.  As it turned out, he is not retired, he is on vacation.  I don't know what his profession is but I hope he has a job to utilize his talent, saying wise things with a gentle look on his face.  He said he was on vacation.  He is hitting all the Apple technical classes.  He told us there was one later the same day at the Apple Store in Perimeter Mall and he told of others he went to at other Metro Apple Stores.

Not that it matters, but our teacher said six were scheduled for the class.  Seven showed up.