Today's Dog Park Report

This morning was a nice morning for the dog park.  Usually on weekends three to five people show up with their pets about 9 A.M but one weekends more come, maybe a dozen or more.

This morning a lady in the parking lot on the other side of the fence asked me if there is a place to take small dogs.  I showed her the gate that said "SMALL DOGS".

She had her family with her: a husband, another grown up and about three or four kids.  They had two dogs, one was a little puppy and the other one was a little dog.

In the SMALL DOG section their two dogs stood at the fence and looked at the dogs on our side.  They looked envious. The lady and her family decided to come over.  They entered through  the gate very reluctantly and carefully.  They kept their dogs on leashes.

John suggested to them to take their leashes off so they could run and have a good time.  They asked would it be dangerous?  We said NO all the dogs like new comers.

(fresh meat)

The leashes were unfastened and bigger old time dogs gathered around the two little dogs and liked them and tried to get them to play.

Then Ellwood, a highly energized dog, mounted one of the small dogs.

Rhoadie, a overgrown puppy himself, followed Ellwood's example and mounted the other one and started hunching.

The family with three or four kids, all kept a plain non-expressive faces during this time.

Ellwood's and Rhoadie's   owners pulled the dogs off.

Then several of the dogs starting howling.  Every time certain dogs are present the chemistry is just right for howling and singing.

About that time the new family put the leashes back on their small canines.  As they were leaving John said, "Comeback when your dogs learn how to sing."

1848 House, again

From Google:

 Planter John Heyward Glovers, Jr. built Bushy Park, a Greek Revival plantation house, on his 3000 acre property in 1848. The house had 17 rooms and many outbuildings, including a stone kitchen, which still exists. Heart Pine floors and hand-hewn beams are featured in the house. William King* and his servants occupied the mansion during the Civil War battles in 1864. The house was also used as a federal hospital.”

1848 House Postcard

I took the above picture with the gates closed about  two years ago.

In the mid 1920s, when the house was vacant once, there were rumors the house was haunted.  My father, a teenager, on a dare spent the night alone.  During the night he felt something pull his hair.  He said he left rather abruptly.  The next day he and friends went back, in the daylight time, to investigate.  They concluded it  were cobwebs that pulled Daddy's hair.

Near the year 2000 Bill Dunaway, Marietta, Mayor, of Marietta, bought  The 1848 House and turned it into an upscale restaurant.  We dined there several times and was impressed.  So were the food critics and some TV food shows.  There were weddings, receptions, birthdays, and other gala affairs.  It was the place to be - it came with bragging rigts.

Bill Dunaway said they still had the ghost problem.  There was at least one ghost on the premises that was mischievous and a wannabe womanizer.   He goosed the some of the staff at times and maybe swing the chandelier at times.  

The 1848 House ran its course and it went up for sale.  Rumor was that Mick Jagger was considering it.

Finally, it and the many acres that surrounded the house was sold.   A subdivision was built around it.

Roanoke, North Carolina, Lost Colony

Click here for Wiipedia's report on the Lost Colony

The above three pictures showing the mounds of dirt and a couple of worn trails are just about all the physical evidence of Roanoke, North Carolina, Lost Colony.

About a hundred feet away is a parking lot and a nice museum but I doubt either was there which before the Lost Colonists became "Lost".

Above this paragraph is a  Wikapedia link about the lost colony and the facts.  But the bottom line nobody has any idea what happened to them, except the colonists themselves and maybe the neighboring Native Americans, that is.

But I have two possible explanations:

1.  Click on the pictures to make them larger.  See the many foot prints in the dirt?  Has anybody thought to follow those footprints to see where they lead?

2.  The link will tell you were two neighboring Native American tribes were:  the Secotars and the Crocoans.

Maybe the two tribes had total different philosophies on how to treat outsiders and were angrily divided. Maybe the leader of one declared NO IMMIGRANTS ALLOWED!  GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM!

And the Colonists  walked out into the Outer Banks waters and disappeared.  

Channel 46 News Asks the Invisible Man His Opinion

A news reporter and her cameraman for Channel 46 stopped us in the Kroger parking lot and ask if they could ask us some questions about politics and recent election.
We reluctantly agreed. First they asked Anna questions and she honestly told them her opinion.
Which was partly on the channel 46 6 O'Clock news this evening.
Then they asked me and I ranted and raved and spouted off.
As they were parting from us I told them when they edited it, to "Be kind."
They did, they did not show me at all.  That was kindness.

The Invisible Man Strikes Again!.

Anna said a lot, but they edited it down to a short sentence about  being sick and tired of Political Robo-calls.  We saw it on the  news and found it on their website, but it was in with about five minutes of  others clips, so I could not figure out how to get it on here.

Throwback Thursday: The Bat At Waterman Street School

Throwback Thursday.  Back again at Waterman Street School.

When I was in the 7th Grade one warm spring evening, after dark, I saw  a bat dive for bugs under the street light in front of house.

I heard that bats were blind and rely on their built-in-radar to sense bugs and attack them.  I threw up a pebble and sure enough, a bat shot out of dark and zoomed right by the pebble.  I suppose at the last moment it realized it wasn't a morsel of food and darted sideways.  After throwing other pebbles up and watching the bat each time go after it, I developed a plan:

When a car came down the street I would throw a pebble directly in front of it but low.

When I did that, I did exactly that and the car hit my little bat  friend.

The bat was dead, or so I thought.

I went back to the house and found a the kind of netted sacks oranges came in and put the bat in it.  I forgot where I stored it overnight.

The next morning I carried it to school.  I think my intention was to impress Mrs. King, my grades were borderline.

I always have had the habit of arriving early.  School was no exception.   In the hallway at school that morning I was standing  outside our 7th grade talking to others waiting on the bell to ring.  I had already showed my classmates standing there the dead bat in the netted sack.

Then, one, a little girl, said, "Look!  Your bat is alive!"

I looked down and the little varmint was prying away the net and suddenly jumped out and became airborne.

It flew up and down the hallway outside the classrooms bumping into the wall, search for a way out.

When the kids realized what has going on the begin to panic and scream and run away from the area it was bumping into the ceiling and walls, but their running caused the bat to follow the movement, which they screamed even louder.

The principal, Miss. Whitehead, and the janitor, Cliff, came rushing to the scene with brooms.

Miss Whitehead ordered all the children into their classrooms.  They ran into their rooms screaming.

I walked in with my head down, on thinking, I was going to get it.

And I did.

Not long after we were in our rooms Miss Whitehead came in, red faced, and told Mrs. King she wanted to have a word with me.

Out in the hall, red face and teary eyed, she wagged her finger at me and gave me a good chewing out.  She told me she taught my father, and his brothers, and they were always pulling something, but nothing as bad as this.  People could have been killed, stomped to death.

"DON'T  YOU EVER, I MEAN EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS AGAIN!!"  Her snarling red face shouted  at my frightened face, about 4 inches apart.

Oops!

Jack Royal, R.I.P.

James Caudell called and said our friend Jack Royal died today.  I don't know the details.

As teenagers we used to have some good times.

pictured is Jack and his wife Joy Lewis at the Strand Theater attending  a tribute concert to his brother Billy Joe.

I did not think he looked well.That was the first time in many years I saw Jack and the last. 

1st Baptist Church of Marietta Easter Hangoer

I have an Easter Hangover;  too many Reeses' Peanut Butter Eggs all at one time.

Which, the Easer part reminds me of churches.  Here are some pictures I have taken of the First Baptist Church on Church Street, Marietta, Ga., over the years. 
I like its modern-Gothic look.

Benjamin and Mommy and Daddy

Benjamin's First Bouncy House

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! MAD's Casey at Bat

After watching the Braves' first game this year in their new stadium in Cobb County Friday and going along with all the excitement, I say, "Tim Lee, you are forgiven!"

In case you don't know Tim Lee, he is the Cobb County Commissioner Chairman who secretly arranged for the building of the new stadium and the Braves to move and kept it a secret until the deal was done.

It still makes my skin crawl to think somebody would make a huge deal like that, which will cause the Cobb County treasury to shift funds around and maybe look for more without making  sure it was OK with the Cobb County Citizens.

But it is done now, so, let us enjoy the game.

Which the Sunday Funnies this week is about ,coincidentally, baseball.

From the pages of MAD comicbook #6, written by editor Harvey Kurtzman and illustrated by Georgia born and cornfed Jack Davis..

Be sure and click on each page to make it larger and understandable.

PLAY BALL!

BENJAMIN the egg HUNTER

Grants Park Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt, Saturday, April 15, 2017, Pictures by Sabrina Sexton.

tooting My Horn

I toot my own horn a lots. 

Here is my facebook friend/real friend/and cousin Jean Campbell, giving me a break:

Money Talks News posted an article about 'Facebook Makes You Sad.' I think surveyors asked the wrong people. They said, "Exposure to the carefully curated images from others’ lives leads to negative self-comparison, and the sheer quantity of social media interaction may detract from more meaningful real-life experiences." Obviously they don't know Ronnie Hutcheson and Eddie Hunter

I Like Lighthouses

These are lighthouses we saw on our trip down the North Carolina Outer Banks Coast several years ago.

When I think of lighthouses, I think of a family that lived around the corner from us.  They moved now.  One time I helped an elderly late  neighbor Jim   with my pickup truck get a large French looking cabinet he  bought at a garage sale around the corner.  Once inside the house I saw in the living room bay window was a big display of little miniature light houses of all styles.    I was looking at them and the man of the house said, "I like light houses."

No shit?!

When we pulled away with the big piece of furniture Jim laughed, saying the guy was a nut having such a large collection of light houses. 

I thought look who talking, who has hoarded good buys at yard sales you can hardly move around in his enclosed carport.   Jim had weedeaters,  lawnmowers, blowers,  pressure washers,  chain-saws, and each has a story of how cheap he paid for it.  But the fact he would have never use them, they, in my book, was very expensive.

Other people have toy train sets with little tiny villages built  that run over their basement;  sweet little Barbie and Ken Dolls;  houses full of barking rescued dogs; antiques; and on and on.

And I am no better with MAD and MAD related publication; genealogy related stuff, and photographs.

What's your compulsion?

Boyd McKeown, The Music Man

Boyd McKeown.  This picture was taken at a Good Old Boys Meeting.  Not long after he remarried (at almost age 90).

He was the  Director of the Marietta High School Band during my time at the school, and  years before and after that.

About a month ago we attended a spring  concert of the Cobb County Orchestra at the Lassiter High School Concert Hall.  Boyd was one of the guest conductors.   

The leader of concert that day, a Lassiter High School Band Director himself, now retired, gave a speech about Boyd McKeown, about he being responsible for all the good things that has happened to music education in Cobb County.

Now, just recently I read that they are naming the new concert hall in Marietta in his honor.

On a personal note, at a Varner's Reunion in 2013, I think, Boyd sought me out, shook my hand,  and thanked me for putting out  the "Chicken-fat" blog saying he loved reading it.

The next time I saw him he introduced himself to me like we had never met and when I mentioned "chicken-fat" he asked what was that.

Aahh, the price of anonymity .

Throwback Thursday: Sex Education

Waterman Street Grammar School

This is the east side of Waterman Street School. See the front entrance to the right? Actually, there were two twin front entrances. This one is the one nearer to the eastern side. On those steps leading up to the front doors I remember discussing the life's mysteries, Sex, and such as how to make an egg's shell soften to feel like a thin membrane and to make it look like a hog's ball (soak it overnight in vinegar).  I was fooled. Larry Southern showed me the soft-shell egg and told me it was a hog's ball.

On those  same steps one time Larry pulled out a condom and showed me, and I was impressed with the little white O-ring around the opening of it. Which I had a very scientific observation that went something like this: "so that is a rubber? Where do you buy them at?"

About 12 or 13 years later again Larry would take a condom out of his pocket. This time it was on the back row of the Hill Street Baptist Church. I wasn’t along with Larry and my other friends that Sunday night but I got several first hand accounts. They heard that on Sunday nights at Hill Street Baptist Church some loose teenage girls went there and they were easy to pick up. So, the boys went to check it out. During the sermon Larry got bored and pulled out a condom and started playing with it. It wasn’t long until he blew it up and tied a little knot in the O-ring thing. His cousin Jesse, also one of us, reached over and flipped the balloon shape rubber. Larry wasn’t expecting it and it got loose from him and landed in the aisle. There was a big fan at the near the back pews that kept the air circulating and brought in air from the outside. The white balloon was yanked into action by the fan’s wind current. It floated and gently bounced down the aisle like it had a soul of its own and wanted it saved by coming down to the preacher’s inspiring sermon. Larry and the others quickly left.

Many years later, Larry's younger brother became the preacher of Hill Street Baptist Church.

In the picture see the fire escape ladder coming from the two class rooms on the second floor? One time a boy named Van rammed my head into the fire escape at ground level and it took about 8 stitches to sew me up. It was right in the center of my head, I looked kind of like Frankenstein's Monster for several years until the scar finally went away. If I look closely, I can still see a hint of it.

Van died about twenty years ago. He was a diabetic. He died because he went to the hospital to have a leg amputated and they removed the wrong leg which caused complications.

Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller  Center about 1965.  When I was in the Navy stationed in Lakehurst, NJ, we went to New York City, about as often as we dropped our hats.

If someone new came to our squadron we were sure to show them around the Big Apple.  It was more for us than them.  It made us look like we were in the know.

We had them fool for a while, anyway.

Dick Hyatt and Ray Schultz.  This is walkway between Rockefeller Center and Radio Music Hall.  

Radio City Music All is on the back side of Rockefeller Center.  The Rocketts!  Oooh La La!

(It just occurred to me why they are called The Rocketts- after Rockefeller - 50 years later, now I get it!)

Don Lash taking pictures in the center of Times Square, which is just around the corner from Radio City Music Hall