Smart Ass

Once, years ago, I asked a friend that I considered very intelligent, why smart people did not brag about being smart.

He jokingly said he wouldn't know (of course he would say that). 

He went on to say the smarter a person is the more he or she realizes how much he or she doesn't know, therefore is humbled.

I read an article in UNCLE JOHN'S BATHROOM READER  this morning about a guy in the United States, curious if anybody had his same name, Googled that name and found a person in Australia.    He emailed the person with his name and they struck up a relationship and was surprised they had similar history:  Born the same year,  both had three children and so on.

That inspired me to do the same.  I Googled my name and only found my daddy and me.  Then while there on Google  in my name I clicked Images and saw myself and Daddy in various Chicken-fat pictures that I put there.  However, also there was on picture I don't remember seeing in a long time.  I comb through my picture file often looking for certain things, and this picture is not in my picture files.

I like to come across pictures I have taken but haven't seen them in so long I forgot they exist.  This one is labeled   1977 of Daddy and Rocky.

He Died. He Was Lucky

It is too late now, but the previous postmaster of Marietta, Garth,  could have been the postal child for inappropriate sexual behavior of the opposite sex.

I have heard of him showing sexual explicit photos in magazines in the mail system to female employees and more.

He believed he was a good photographer and more than once he has asked shapely young ladies to be photographed in a bikini.  I know of one case that his model quickly shot up the management ladder and the last I heard she was  a postmaster in north Georgia.  

One  young lady, a clerk took some time off for a boob job.  When he found out he made a special visit to the branch she worked at to check her out.  It was only a short time she was a manager.

Garth died a couple years ago before the current social climate.  He was lucky.

Throwback Thursday, Paul Foster in the South Pacdific

Throwback Thursday.  This is Anna's uncle Paul Everett Foster Jr, (1922-1995) about 1943, in the Marines in the South Pacific.  I think Paul is the guy stooping, front row, far right.  See the guy with the bra?  That reminds me of the movie SOUTH PACIFIC.

After the Marines Paul joined the Air Force for another tour of duty.

Ridleys

Alvin Ridley

Virginia and Alvin Ridley

When Georgia and Alabama played Monday night I heard the name RIDLEY mentioned over and over.  There was a Ridley on each side.  They are brothers.

Whenever I hear the name Ridley my ears pop up and my attention span zooms in to learn more.

My Grandma Petty's  maiden name is Ridley, so I have a natural yearn to learn more about the Ridleys.

They have an interesting story the cover centuries.

William Ridley (1739-abt 1825) was born in England and died in Burke County, North Carolina).  When William first moved to America he settled in Boston where he was a school teacher and shoe cobbler).  He fought in the Revolutionary War, on the side of the Americans.  He fought at Kings Mountain, near the border of North and South Carolina.  The Kings Mountain Battle, although only about two hours long, is believed to be the deciding point of the war.

He married Jane Pursley, who I believe lived near Kings Mountain at the time they met.  They married in Burke County, North Carolina.

They had five sons and one daughter.

William's son Matthew Ridley (abt 1782 - bef 1830) is my ancestor.

William's son William Ridley (1783-?  ) married  Mary Ann Smith and they also had five sons and one daughter.

Mary  Ann died and William married secondly to Margaret Maxwell and they had one son.  Then William died.

Researchers believe that Margaret sold William's three youngest boys in indenture servitude.

And the three young men escaped and went to north Alabama and in time their extended families reached into west Georgia, as far south as Heard County and as north as Ringgold, Georgia.

Now here is irony:  Matthews descendants mostly settled in Murray County, Georgia, and Cleveland, Tennessee, and as for west as Ringgold.

In Ringgold you have Ridleys with two different ancestry trails back to the original William Ridley, Revolutionary War soldier.

Below is a blog I made about the eccentric Alvin Ridley:

To get out of work, of retyping everything, I just copied and pasted.

Now, get this:  Margaret sold three of her five stepsons into servitude.

HOWEVER!!  They ran away or escaped.  Ales, Charles, and Asa Ridley went to Tennessee, just above the Alabama state line, Eastern Alabama, in the Sands Mountain area, and as far south as Heard County, Georgia.  Of course the three brothers off-springs multiplied, and some of the extended families ended up in Chattanooga and Ringgold, Georgia.

Now back to our Grandma Petty: Frances Viola Ridley.  Her closer Ridley kin have also multiplied and extended the extended families.  They are in Chattanooga, Ringgold,  and so on. 

My point is both sets of Ridleys have detailed listings of all their family members, but somehow Alvin Ridley, TV retired TV repairman in Ringgold, Georgia, is not listed in at all.

Who is Alvin Ridley?

Alvin Ridley is a very eccentric man who was accused of keeping his wife locked up in their house and starving her to death.  He had to go to trial and the jury found him not guilty.  The reason was, being a recluse he refused to let anybody in their house.  When his lawyer tricked him into getting into the house, the lawyer found the alibi proof he needed:  Walls covered with paper with crammed notes on each sheet of paper written by his wife Virginia.   She wrote her opinion on everything and when she ran out of opinions she would write poetry.  She wrote she quit taking her medicine and she autopsy showed she had the same symptoms of somebody with her disease, if they had quit taking their medicines.

I saw two TV specials on Alvin Ridley through the last dozen years and this weekend I heard a NPR program with his lawyer, the last elected Democrat in office, in Ringgold, talking and recounting it all.

With a little mini-research I found Alvin was born in 1943 and with further research I cannot find him listed in any Ridley family papers.  Apparently, neither Ridley group one wants to claim him

Grandpa Hunter, Life Saver

click on picture to see better

Frank Paris  "Grandpa" Hunter (1879-1950)

The new heater/artificial fireplace with a mantel we bought the other day is relaxing to watch or just have in the background.  It has the illusion of fire leaping on  logs.  You can turn up and down or you can turn it up to a roaring fireplace.  That is just the illusion, which puts out no heat at all.  On another switch on the remote ou can  adjust  the heat high or low.

On Facebook or my blog I jokingly said the good part is you don't have to chop firewood.

And I am adding, not jokingly, another good part is the  little red hot cinders that sometime pop out a fireplace are non existent .

True story:  When my Grandma Hunter died we moved in with my Grandpa Hunter on Manget Street.

There was a fireplace in the living room.  On cold mornings in the winter Granpa woke up before of the rest of the family and start a fire in the fireplace.  I I remember correctly, that was the only heat source in the house. 

We did not have kindling or any kind of wood logs.  We had a good supply of coal under the front porch.

After Grandpa got the fire started he would go to the kitchen and start making toast putting butter on slices of loaf bread, ready to put in the oven when the family started stirring around.

I was usually the second one to get up.  I would stand by the fireplace and get warm by the heat.

One morning I was backed up to the fireplace when a cinder popped out of the fireplace and landed on my pajamas.  My pajamas instantly flamed up.  Grandpa grabbed me and threw me down and rolled me.

And saved my life.

I don't remember being taken to the doctor about my burned legs.    They were covered with blisters and I was miserable in pain for a week or so.  We didn't seek medical help often, Daddy was our doctor.

One Small Step for Women Hood

While the current topic is on bosses, or influential men, taking sexual advantages of their female underlings  reminds me of something I witnessed at the Atlanta Post Office in the 1970s:

The Federal Annex Building in Atlanta has three postal workroom floors.  On the basement floor three women clerks and I stepped into the elevator .  We all were going to the 3rd floor. 

On the 1st floor the elevator stopped and in walked the tour's floor manager, white and in his late 50s or 60s.

The elevator closed and continued going up.

One of the lady clerks shouted out to the floor manage, "Hey Frank!  When are you going to come over to my apartment again?"

The other two women cackled. 

Frank ignored her.  

Encouraged by her friends' cackling she added, "And this time don't just stuff it in and piss on me, do some ramming!" and ended with laughing and clapping her hands and the other two clerks laughing.

Frank , red face, left the elevator in a hurry.

As far as I know, and I was a time keeper, so I would probably  find out, there was no consequence to her moment of ribbing.

Let the Game Begin!

Furious

Michael Wolff was given permission to go inside The Whitehouse and interview and watch Whitehouse staffers do their work.  I heard on the news his book FIRE AND FURY reported the staffers saying some uncomplimentary  things about Trump.  One was he about as dumb as a watermelon.

The press reported Trump is furious over the book.

I bet watermelons are furious too.

Where Does It Hurt?

click to make it big enough to read

It hurts when I laugh.

SUNDAY FUNNIES: Football Bandwagon Continues

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 UGA Football  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.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BONNIE!!

Getting On The Bulldawg BandWagon

Click on pictures to see them better

a selfie of Jack Davis and his favorite Dog.

Getting on the Bulldawg band wagon.   Why not?  Trump is.  I have a lot of DAWG art at my finger tips (push of a button). 

Most of it was done by Jack Davis (1924-2016).  Jack was a Georgian native (/Atlanta) and a student at UGA before WW II, then he went into the Navy, and then afterwards he returned to the UGA campus to continue his studies.  It is unclear if he graduated or not.  Then in the late 40s he moved to New York City and became a famous artist, doing a lot of art for  EC Comics (which included MAD comicbook), TV GUIDE, and so on. 

He spent his last years on the Georgia coastline playing golf.

He did a lot of pro bono work for the UGA Booster club.

Throwback Thursday: Jones Reunion 1929

click on picture to see better

This is the 1929 Jones Family Reunion, in the area of county line of Forsyth and Fulton Counties.

The men are lined up on the left and the women are on the right. In some religions years ago the church had two doors, one for the women to enter and one for the men to enter.

Two of the three boys on the left are Anna's uncles Paul and Charles.

Behind the boys, the only one not wearing a dark coat, I think is there father.

Anna's mother,  Marie, then age about 9, is on the right with the women. She is easy to spot because it appears she is he only one of that age group.

Also, it appears that the men, in most cases wore dark, and most the women and children wore light clothes, with the exception of the granny-age females, who wore dark.

Me The Yellow Kid?

The other day I went cyber surfing looking for a New Year's kid, or a cartoon of, hopefully wearing a top-hat.

I came across cartoons of THE YELLOW KID.  I remember reading about THE YELLOW KID.  The Yellow Kid lived in the poor section of New York City.  He wore a dress or a gown, or a long t-shirt with no pants.

I remember reading that The Yellow Kid was one of the first comic strips in newspapers (1895-1898).  He was named that because it was in the Hearst Newspapers, which was published on cheap yellow paper, thus they got the name of Yellow Journalism, which they passed the name on to the kid.  It was drawn by William Outcault, and was a spinoff from the HOGAN'S ALLEY strip.

It reminded me of me of a picture I  have.  I was a just a few months older than a toddler, living in the Clay Homes, which was low income housing.  And I was wearing a t-shirt and pantless (in the picture).

click on above to enlarge

We are not normally football fans.   But we are UGA fans and usually just want to know the bottom line if they won or lost  and their standing.

But this time, we watched the Rose Bowl game from beginning to the last second, a maybe 5 or 10 minutes beyond.  This game was so action packed and each side seem to have likeable characters or good-guys.  We hollered GO GO!  When a DAWG ran with the ball and let out whimpers when it wasn't going their way. 

It was so close and leap-frogging scoring , who wouldn't be excited?

Yesterday they either told it on TV or Anna read it to me that there is a devoted DAWG-fan couple that will not watch the game together because every time they have the DAWGS have lost.

With that in mind, with Anna and I watching  every play in the game and hooting and hollering, I will take credit for Anna and I being the main factor the DAWGS won.

The Big Chicken, looking down (and up) At

Video: click on The Big Chicken's beak

On Chicken-fat I have mentioned THE BIG CHICKEN here in Marietta more than once.  It is a big bright landmark. 

For us locals we usually think  "All roads lead from The Big Chicken".  Meaning, when someone asks us for directions in Marietta the first question we ask is: "Do you know where The Big Chicken is?"

Most people will say yes.  It is at the corner of one of the biggest intersections in Marietta and also the two roads are state highways.  So, if you have been in Marietta over ten minutes you probably drove by The Big Chicken and couldn't help from noticing it.

Once it has been established they know where The Big Chicken is the rest of the directions is a piece of cake, or piece of fried chicken.

Here is a drone's eye view of The Big Chicken and some information about it narrated.  

HAPPY 2018!

Welcome to 2018.... WAH!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!