Mrs. Foy B. Mitchell, Wedding Announcement

Mrs. Foy B. Mitchell was before her marriage August first, Miss Frances Mashburn, only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. P. A. Mashburn of this city. The ceremony was performed in Pine Bluff, Ark., where they are making their home. The groom is a lieutenant in the army, stationed at Griders Field, Ark.

Here’s another random piece of paper among my mother’s things.  I see that the bride’s last name has been misspelled.  It should be Mashbern.  I know this for a fact because, when I was on the high school paper’s advertising staff, Mashbern Jewelers was one of my accounts.  I misspelled it the first time I presented an ad to them, and Mr. Mashbern was gracious enough to correct me kindly. 

I’ll presume that the new Mrs. Mitchell was a friend of my mother’s.  I’ll post this on FaceBook next and see who bites…

High School Reunion, Starring My Mother

That’s my mom, in the next-to-the-top row.  She has reddish hair and no glasses.  I don’t know the vintage of this photo, so I’ll guess it’s in the late 1970’s.  This appears to be a high school reunion, because my mother didn’t belong to any clubs as an adult that I know of, and the picture is taken at the “new” Lenoir City High School. 

I’m hoping the LilSis can help flesh out more details of this photo.  There’s no writing of any kind on the back of the photo.  Just another thing in my mother’s collection of stuff.

Letter From My Father, November 16, 1976

So Close, Yet So Far Away

Today was my final meeting with my college advisor.  Actually, it was only my second meeting with him in my college career.  I am not pleased with the level of service that I received, in general, at this supposed up-and-coming university. 

The reason for today’s meeting was to begin the process of finalizing the graduation procedure.  I had to go to the registrar’s office to pick up a form to fill out and present to my advisor.  I arrived at my advisement meeting about 10 minutes early, so I waited at a nearby table while I began filling out the form.

Some of you might know that I was the fifth grade spelling champion.  I’m really lousy in math, but misspelled words jump out at me and demand to be corrected.  And right there, on the graduation form, is a misspelled word, not once, but three times.  Anyone heard of spellcheck? 

Gaaakkk!

Fortunately, I had the trusty camera by my handbag.  Read ’em and weep.

In Which BabyBoy Becomes Perfect

The BabyBoy is now perfect.  Or at least that’s what we’ve been told.  One of his older friends said of him a few years ago, “Just wait until he’s 25.  Then he’ll be perfect.”  I’ve had a few issues with BabyBoy.  I hope I have psychologically blocked them by now.

When life gives you cheese, buy cheesecake.

Adoring and adorable fan.

Perfection!

Shed Construction Photos

My friend Susan is considering building a shed.  I have decided to post pictures of the shed right here on this very blog.  Otherwise, I could email them to her but I concerned about causing her email to explode or implode from all the bits and bytes.  So, if you are not interested in seeing photos of lumber and blue sky, you might just want to move along to someone else’s blog…

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LawtonFest, Part 9, Ante Bellum Island Families of Hilton Head, SC

Sugar has an ancient pamphlet with mucho information about the early families of Hilton Head Island.  I scanned the entire booklet so that credit can be given where credit is due.  If someone has an issue with my posting this stuff online, fire away, and I’ll deal with it. 

You will possibly need to click on each image to enlarge it for maximum reading pleasure.  If that’s not large enough, and you folks know who you are, click on the image one more time to enlarge it yet again.

The Chapel of Ease, St. Helena’s Island

A chapel of ease is, by definition, a place of worship that was built for those parishioners who could not attend worship services conveniently due to distance or difficulty of travel. 

A little day trip several years back found us at the Chapel of Ease on St. Helena’s Island.  Here’s a link to a SC historical site with more information – click here.

The approach from the parking lot.

The same side from the back corner. The blazing bright midday sun lit up the walls inside and out.

Continue to walk counter-clockwise around the building. We're at the back of the building.

Same back corner in a landscape shot.

The side doorways and windows are directly across the ones on the opposite wall. Very orderly and well-planned.

This gives you a better idea of how large this building actually is. That's Sugar standing in the doorway at the other end. No, he is not 4' tall.

More Sugar.

The walls are made of tabby. If you are interested in learning more about tabby and tabby structures, you can find more info here.

These photos were taken before I had a digital camera.  I used these dandy little disposable cameras.  I think I had another camera that had shots of this day trip, but I believe that Packett ate the camera, or at least destroyed it enough so that we’ll just have to go back and take more pictures.  A close-up of these thick tabby walls is the next order of business. 

And we know that I’m all about “business”.

Meet the Churkey

This morning BabyBoy stopped by with a question and a cardboard box.  “Hi, Mom, have you lost a turkey?” 

Now, there are many ways that I could answer that. “Why, yes, son, thank you for noticing.  I was just wondering where I put my turkey.”  “Why, I’m not sure, son.  Let me check the refrigerator.”  “Why, no, son, I divorced your father.  Remember?” 

*****

We have a neighbor named Carmine the concrete guy.  I couldn’t make this stuff up.  Carmine is from Joisy, and he really is a concrete guy, and he looks like he could be someone who would help someone else sleep with the fishes.  He, however, is a big softy and has several little bitty dogs that need occasional bathing and grooming, so BabyBoy goes to his house and takes care of the dogs.  Yesterday, Carmine called the BabyBoy to tell him that someone has lost a turkey, or rather Carmine has found a turkey, so BabyBoy went to his house this morning to pick it up. 

I wondered why Carmine wouldn’t want to keep a frozen turkey for himself, although actually the box looked too small to hold one.  The dogs were milling about, I’m sure to snag a bit of the turkey, and I’m thinking that my freezer is too small for even the smallest of frozen turkeys.

BabyBoy opens the box, and there’s the frozen turkey, but it’s not frozen, and it’s not a turkey.  He replayed the conversation from Carmine the Concrete Guy.

“And I’m tellin ya, this noice boid just comes upta me, like it KNOWS me.  And I’m tellin my woife Joycie that this is a NOICE boid and someboidy’s gonna be sad that they lost their boid.” 

At this point, BabyBoy interjects that he had enjoyed some nice fried toikey just last week.  And Carmine chided him, “No, no, no, this is someboidy’s boid.  Don’t be sayin’ that you’re goinna eat this noice boid.  You’ll hoit his feelings.”

*****

A happy ending is in store for us.  This noice boid has gone to live with a mentally-disabled man who lives with his parents.  They have a flock of barnyard fowl, but they are too wild too handle, and this noice boid has apparently been hand-raised and enjoys being petted.  So the noice man is very happy to have this noice boid in his life. 

I love a noice ending.

A Sickening Feeling

The flag is still on the porch.

I found several pictures in my mother’s things.  On the back of one she has written “See the American Flag still on the porch”.  Nothing more, but in my handwriting I had added “Wayne & Josephine B’s house after tornado, March ’93, Lenoir City, TN.”

And I have just realized that my mother probably drove to their house to take a photo of the disaster.  Now I understand where I get it.

(If you’ll do a google maps search on “451 East 2nd Avenue, Lenoir City, Tennessee”, you can manipulate the map and see the house as it is today.  Pretty cool.)