Halloweens Past

When I sent my last post, I saw the date and remembered I'd collected these pics Halloweens Past. I only regret that I missed the Halloween at Inks Lake many years ago. I invite any of you who remember that weekend to tell us about it below in a comment.

1984 - David and Lisa after a hard day of pre-school at Child Craft.

 

1986 - David at our home in Powder Springs, GA.

1986 - Kat (Nicolette) the Cat in front of Grandmother's house in Grand Prairie. I scanned this from Mother's collection, so I suspect Cathie or Dad took the picture.

 

1987 - David as Dracula at home in Powder Springs

1999 - Nat the Bat at home in Austin. Maureen sent me the pics.

2006 - Lauren and unidentified friend at home in Arlington.

 

2007 - Allison, Gillian, and Lauren at Ellen's and Stan's in San Antonio.

2007 - Allison and Lauren w/ jack-o-lantern in San Antonio.

2007 - Kat and Gillian in San Antonio.

Random Portraits

This picture of Paul was taken at the family reunion in Utopia in 2002. Most of us haven't seen him since he was here last December, but Karen and Lisa got to visit with Paul and Lee in Virginia last week. Lisa and a friend flew east to run in the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC and Karen went along to provide moral support. The last I heard, Paul's hoping to be able to visit us in January - we look forward to it.

 

This one, of our "other" Paul, was also taken in 2002 at the family reunion. To be specific, it was taken at the restaurant in Leakey where we ate lunch after exploring the territory north of Utopia and west of Vanderpool. It's not unusual to find "stuffed critters" mounted on the walls of a Texas restaurant or bar, but a bighorn sheep resting behind your chair is a little bit different.

 

Lauren, Angela, and Drew were captured here on Grandmother's patio one evening in Grand Prairie a little over a month later - during my Fourth of July visit to Texas. I thought I'd take this opportunity to mention that all pictures of Lauren taken in the future will be without her tonsils - she had them removed last week. I assume she has recovered by now -  I hope she's not sick of ice cream.

Random Portraits

Well, Saturday's game against Oklahoma was something less than impressive - except perhaps to Sam Bradford. But even so, a win is a win. Perhaps some time over the next few weeks things will come together for the Longhorns and we'll finish up the season in a memorable manner.

All three of these pictures were taken in 2002. The one above, of Gillian and Summer was taken in late June , a few months after Summer was moved to a new stable in West Cobb County.

 

This picture of Angela was taken one night over at Mom's house in Grand Prairie. I can't remember what she was chuckling about, but she's typically in a good mood whenever she's around family - and Christmas was only a few days off.

 

This picture of Donna's brother, David, was taken in July at Jonathan and Heather's wedding reception in Mount Pleasant. I've always liked David - he's a "what you see is what you get" kind of guy. I always enjoy getting a chance to see him.

Cousins IV

 

They're everywhere! They're everywhere! I remember late one afternoon in 1963 when we were in the midst of our move from Quantico, Virginia to (eventually) Austin, Texas. I think we were in Grove, Oklahoma, having stopped to see my dad's Aunt Hettie. We had eaten an early dinner (supper) and the nine of us kids had adjourned to the motel swimming pool. There were only two other people at the pool, a couple who had been enjoying the quiet and their reading. Now, apparently they were enjoying the antics of a wild tribe ranging in age from 3 to 18 that had finally escaped from their automobile prisons after a long, hot day's drive.

After we were thoroughly cooled off and our exuberance subsided somewhat, the man called me over and asked me if we were all brothers and sisters. I told him we were and that we were moving to Texas. He told me that he and his wife were quite impressed by such a large, well behaved group of kids. They especially liked how the big kids looked after the little kids, and all of us were enjoying ourselves so much.

I'm reminded of that afternoon whenever my nieces and nephews congregate. Whether there are two of them or 10 of them, all you see are smiles, and all you hear is laughter and the enthusiastic chatter of friends, too long apart.

This picture of Gillian, Drew, Natalie, and Paul, in the hot tub was taken in late May 2004 at one of our biannual family reunions in Utopia.

 

This one, taken in Karen's and Richard's backyard, shows Paul and Cat on the trampoline, and Lauren, Allison, and Natalie waiting their turn. The occasion was our Labor Day/Cathie's Birthday celebration, also in 2004.

 

Here we have Daniel and Drew shooting pool on New Year's Eve 2005. You can't tell from the photograph, but there is a large party going on all around. At some stage the party will overflow to one neighbor's house and then another's, and 2006 will be underway.

 

This group, Natalie, Paul, Mary Clare, and Allison, is taking a few moments of rest in Karen's living room to regenerate some energy for the 2007 Labor Day/Cathie's Birthday festivities going on in the backyard and around the pool.

*****

Lauren is having her tonsils removed this week up in Arlington, so I guess she'll be eating ice cream as her family cheers for the Longhorns in the Red River Shootout. Most, if not all, of the Austin gang will be down at Ellen's and Stan's house in San Antonio, making sure South Texas is aware of each Longhorn exploit and every Sooner miscue.

Hook 'Em, Horns!

Productivity Plummets. . .

. . . but that's alright because I've found that productivity and contentment are ofttimes inversely proportional - and certainly more often now that I'm retired.

Last Sunday I led off the pictures in my post with a WebCam shot from the National Park Service website for Purchase Knob. Today's post is simply a series of shots from the same fixed camera at 15 minute intervals, starting about 11 AM this morning, but it demonstrates how useful the website was when I used it to plan my photo expeditions to the Smokies - and it's a great view!

Purchase knob is located about 29 miles due west of Asheville at the eastern boundary of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The camera's field of view is about 60°; sighting along the left edge near the horizon you'd find Hot Springs, along the right edge Asheville. Mars Hill would be just about centered on the horizon.

I usually like to look at the series of pictures quickly, one after another as a time sequence - like an animation - but in this case, slow as good too. The clouds heighten the anticipation for the next picture in the sequence leaving the viewer to wonder what will be revealed next as the clouds move past.

11:00 AM

11:15 AM

11:30 AM

11:45 AM

12:00 PM

12:15 PM

12:30 PM

12:45 PM

1:00 PM

1:15 PM

When you think about it, this goes a long way towards explaining why I get so little done nowadays. It doesn't take much to satisfy me if it involves a great view. . .

October's a Busy Month for Birthdays

I have a theory that the mind stores dates (and telephone numbers) in a different place than it stores everything else. Furthermore, in some unexamined process some dates  replace previously stored records when a (ridiculously small) finite limit is reached. With eight brothers' and sisters' birthdays to remember, friends' birthdays are pushed right out there to the limit, which explains why I can remember Ellen's and Tony's birthdays but have no idea when Jonathan's is and only occasionally remember Donna's. My theory doesn't account for the fact I have often sent birthday wishes to Donna on 29 September when her birthday is actually the 27th. You'd think that I'd just remember it's either the 27th or the 29th and, since all my previous guesses have been late, her birthday must be the 27th. I obviously haven't worked out all the details of this theory, but at least I know that's apparently not how my mind works.

Then, there's October 9th. I knew that was somebody's birthday but I couldn't think whose it was. I was sure I had a notation somewhere, so I spent much of last night during the Nebraska/Missouri game searching files and old notebooks for the subject of today's post. I did finally find what I was looking for and maybe the search will fix it in my mind, but I've decided that while using birthdays is a convenient and appropriate method of choosing a subject for a given post, it could lead to people expecting posts on their birthdays and then I'd be embarrassed if I left someone out, which would surely happen eventually. Therefore, this will be the last dedicated birthday post. I can't take being on the hook (if only in my own mind) for an endeavor which is bound to fail eventually.

Tim's birthday is October 9. Our paths first crossed 40 years ago down at NAS Kingsville when he was transferred in from NAS Whidbey Island. The picture above, taken in June 1977, shows Tim and his new bride, Beverly, on the Sausalito side of the Golden Gate, with the bridge in the background. They'd come back from their Hawaiian honeymoon and stopped off in San Francisco for a couple of days. Sally and I drove up from NAS Lemoore to meet Beverly for the first time.

 

I got out of the Navy in February 1978 and in May of that year the FAA decided to give me a chance to continue in air traffic control and let me make decent money doing it. (The Navy would've let me do the first, but wasn't interested in the second.) As soon as we found out I was going to be working in Brownsville tower, Tim and I jumped into a Piper Warrior and flew down to Brownsville to "scope out" the area. Enroute, we passed through NAS Kingsville's airspace (above) chatting over the air with former coworkers in Approach Control. I found out later that we had been tracked from Fort Worth to Brownsville by the DEA as drugrunners, and the only reason we weren't pounced upon when we landed at the Brownsville airport is that the only place we visited in Brownsville was the tower and the facility chief's office. I was in the office when the chief answered the phone. He read back the side number of our airplane and, when I told them that was our plane, he told his caller, "One of them is here in my office and the other is up in the tower." He told me at the time that it was one of Tim's friends at the air route traffic control center checking up on him. He told me a couple of months later - as I was on my way out the door - that it had really been the DEA.

 

This picture of Tim and my dad, was taken in June 1979 at Cathie's and Brad's wedding reception in Grand Prairie. Tim and Dad always got the biggest kick out of each other. When PATCO went out on strike a couple of years later, Dad told Tim it was an illegal strike but that dad would hide him when the US Marshals came after him. Anyone who knew my dad would be shocked to hear him make such a statement.

 

I've already mentioned in other posts that Tim and Beverly - among others - often came with us on our periodic family weekend campouts at Inks Lake and, for as long as they had their boat, Tim and I dragged lots of Parkers all over the lake. The picture above (with Michael's son, Joey) was probably taken in May 1981 and the one below in September 1982.

 

 

In 1983 - note that Tim has different hats in the previous pictures - Tim brought the boat down so we could play on Lake Travis. Whenever I look at this picture I start laughing because I remember that as Tim was pushing David on the float, he was explaining to David all about "lake sharks". Then he spent the rest of the afternoon trying to convince David that he'd just been kidding.

 

We moved to Georgia in March 1985 and into a new house the following September. Tim and Beverly and their daughter Amy were our first houseguests - not counting Tony who was there to help move on the day our household goods arrived. In the picture above, Amy, Dallas, and Tim are playing "go fish".

 

Sixteen years took its toll on both of us. In 2002 on one of my business trips to NAS Pax River, Tim drove down from DC to meet me at Paul's house in Virginia. Paul took this picture of us when Tim arrived to take me to dinner.

I keep waiting for him to retire, but apparently the feds can't do without him. For a long time I've had this recurring image of Tim and me on the porch of a cabin somewhere, kicked back with our feet up on the rail, sipping Jack Daniels out of iced tea glasses. . . but I guess he'll have to slow down a lot before he can catch up with me.

Happy Birthday, Tim !

I Had Some Time on My Hands. . .

. . . and wouldn't you know it, another birthday came up. Tony's this time. He sure is getting old, but we shouldn't hold it against him. Hell, Pat's older than Tony is. Anyway, today's his birthday and if I did it for Ellen, I can do it for Butch. I think I've got enough pics for a good post, so let's get to it.

Lord! I loved that car. A Midnight Blue '64 LeMans convertible with white upholstry and a white ragtop. I loved it so much that in '68, when I was stationed down in Kingsville, I bought one just like it. I had to get rid of it when I was transferred to Adak but. . . I digress. The picture above was taken in '65 or '66, the LeMans parked in front of the garage on the hill behind the house on Lowell Street. Tony's lookin' spiffy - must have a hot date.

 

Lord! I loved that car. Whoa! Sorry. . .     This pic shows Big Tony, Tony, and me leaning against Butch's MGA one Sunday afternoon in Brevard - probably 1968. I really liked driving this car, but there wasn't enough room in it to swing a dead cat. Give me the LeMans.

 

I think this picture was probably taken in 1971 or 1972. Donna's standing on the retaining wall where Tony cut his finger. Aunt Chris' Chevy II and Margo's orange VW Bug are parked in the driveway behind the houses. The beer of choice was PBR.

 

By '72 or '73, when I shot Tony throwing darts on the deck, Ann and Tony had moved across the street to the house they're in now, and Tony and Donna had bought Mrs Barnett's house next door. Aunt Chris still lived across the street and KG and Nana lived one lot over from Butch's and across the street. They had the neighborhood pretty well sewn up.

Besides painting the house yellow, Tony, his dad, and I built the deck. We almost ran out of beer, but it was okay - we leveled every post and joist. Next to the house, the deck was about 9' above the ground; at the back edge of the deck, it was about 20'. It was an exciting project.

 

This picture of Tony, David, and Big Tony planting azaleas in front of Ann and Tony's house was taken in 1982. David was really wanting to play in the dirt.

 

This one of Aunt Teeny (up from Fort Lauderdale) and Tony was taken at a group birthday party at Ann's house in September 1984. The cake is decorated for ". . . Donna, Ellen, Jeff & Tony".

The parties have been getting better ever since. This one, at the Biltmore Forest community center in 1997, was the pièce de résistance, Ann and Tony's 50th wedding anniversary. I'll tell you how great this party was: I didn't take any pictures - I was having way too much fun. I think everyone else had fun too. I remember that Jeff's daughter, Erica, thought Marshal may have had more fun than me, but not much.

 

This picture of Pat and Tony, from November 2002, was taken at our (then) Annual Fishing Trip and Whiskey Guzzle down in Charleston. Now, I've really missed that since I moved back to Texas in '05. These events were so much fun that, after the first few, Donna would typically head to Asheville for the weekend - to establish an alibi, perhaps - in case the three of us got in trouble?

Happy Birthday, Butch !

Where Did the Time Go ?

When you start scanning old snapshots and slides there's no way to avoid the question. Depending on how your pictures are sorted - if they're sorted - you can often follow a thread that echoes the intersections of your life with the lives of some of your favorite people. Today is Ellen's birthday, so let's highlight her and see what we've got. . .


This picture of Ellen and me was taken at Tony and Donna's house in Arden in 1980. I was between semesters at Texas, Sally and David were in Australia, so (of course) I headed for the North Carolina mountains. It was scanned from a Polaroid print and I suspect Tony took the picture.


I was back in North Carolina in '82, with Sally and David this time. Our two families went on a picnic in the Pisgah National Forest. Sally had taken David, Ellen, and Jonathan exploring in the stream paralleling the road from Brevard to Mount Pisgah (US 276) a mile or two north of Sliding Rock. This picture shows Jon escorting Ellen in the wild.


This one of Ellen was taken in December 2000 up at East Tennessee State in Johnson City. The occasion was Jonathan's graduation from college - and the reception that followed. A fine day, to be sure. Unfortunately, I was shooting pictures with my Sony Mavica.The results were okay for the time, but the low resolution pales by comparison to that of my Canons today.


This picture of Ellen with Oscar was taken one weekend in 2003 when I had driven down to Charleston from Atlanta. It was always a pleasure, visiting with Tony and Donna, and I always considered it a special weekend whenever Ellen arrived and injected her energy and humor into the visit.


Also in 2003, Tony and I were stretched out in easy chairs, watching television, when Ellen blew in and informed us that we needed to get off our butts and take her skiing. She didn't have to twist any arms and we were soon out in the boat surveying the shorelines of the Wando river. In the picture above, as we passed a local golf course, the Cap'n described to Ellen some links magic he had performed the previous weekend.

When we were suitably impressed, the conversation turned to fishing and a sand shark either seen, or hooked, or caught, in the river the last time they were out. In the context of the discussion, the recurring term "shark hole" certainly elicited some trepidation in Ellen, contemplating a couple hours of waterskiing. In retrospect, I suppose that was pretty insensitive of us, but Tony inspires confidence and Ellen has never been a wuss. The waterskiing commenced. . .


A few weeks later, on Ellen's birthday, I sent Tony and Donna a picture of the "cover" of this notional sports/leisure magazine highlighting life on Charleston's rivers and harbor. Of course, I had better pictures of Ellen skiing, but this one allowed me to weave a story around our afternoon's discussion of "shark holes", and I hoped Ellen would keep it as a memento of a fine Saturday afternoon.

Oh! By the way,

Happy Birthday, Ellen !