I came across this blog yesterday, and I’ve already decided I’m going to check it every day from now on. The site is run by a man from Christoval, Texas; every day he puts up an interesting old photo, with a brief explanation of what it’s all about. It seems he often does weekly themes as well. He’s been regularly posting to it since March of 2007, and the back list is well organized for easy browsing. I spent over an hour yesterday just going through the American Civil War and early days of aviation posts. I know there’s hours more to be enjoyed, and I wanted to share it with you.

I promise not to intentionally lift any of his content into my own Awesome Pictures category, although there has already been a small overlap: He has a picture of General William Tecumseh Sherman on his site too, although his caption focuses less about the general (as mine does) and more about how the blogger’s ancestors fled from Georgia to Texas to escape the Union’s scorched earth tactics during the March to the Sea in 1864.

Anyway, this is a great site, and well worth a look. Enjoy!

The William Blount Mansion in Knoxville, TN

This old postcard shows the William Blount Mansion in Knoxville, TN.  William Blount (pronounced to rhyme with “country” not “county”) was the territorial governor of the territory of the United States south of the River Ohio from 1790 to 1796.  In 1796, Tennessee became a state, and he then served as a US Senator from 1796 to 1797.  He was not the inventor of that specialized cigarette called a “blunt”, so just get that right out of your head.

Anybody got one cent?

When I was in 1st grade, one of the other 1st grade classes went on a field trip to Blount Mansion.  When that class returned, the unfortunate left-behinds were regaled with stories about the steep staircase and the gift shop. 

I never got to see Blount Mansion.  But I have this nice postcard, which I will now list on ebay.  Maybe Steven Stafford will buy it.

Papa & me, age 2

My father was born on November 28, 1913.  I found these pictures dated November 1958.  It was about the time of my 2nd birthday, and my father’s 45th.  This was taken on the front porch of our house on Nichols Park Road. 

What's that face about??

As children, we were not allowed on the front porch.  The steps were steep and hard, and we would surely fall and get hurt.  This side of the house faced south, so there was plenty of sun for this late fall picture.  LilSis would be about 1 1/2 months old.  Mom was probably holding her, and that might have been what my frowny face was about.  Booted out of the crib at a tender age.

I was a voracious reader, and when I was in 4th grade, I read “Heidi”.  The father in the book was referred to as “Papa”.  I started calling my father “Papa”, he didn’t object, and there you have it.  History was made. 

He was a good, hard-working father.  He sat down to eat, read the newspaper, and watch television, but little else.  He always had a task at hand or was musing out the details of something.  If the end of the world came, you’d want to be with my father.  He could do anything, and he always took care of business.  He was a wonderful role model and an all-around good guy, with a startling sense of humor.  He participated in a church fund-raiser called a “Womanless Wedding”, and grinned all the way around while wearing a brown page-boy wig and green dress, a scaryfunny sight to see at 6′6″. 

The world is a better place because of the “Tall Man”.  He died in January 2006, and we will always miss him.

Ruth & Becky

This picture was taken sometime during 1960.  I’m about 4 years old and Becky is about 2.  It appears that someone got a color camera, and that perhaps all pics moving forward in time will be in color.  This was made in the living room of our house on the “divan” as Mother called it.  I found out years later that it was just a couch.  And of course there’s the prerequisite crocheted afghan on the back of the divan.  I learned how to crochet once upon a time and thought that I would make a granny-square afghan similar to the one in the picture above.  Nope!  Too much work.  And all those little squares to keep up with until they could be stitched together with the black yarn….  Dante’s Inferno might have had a crocheted granny-square room in it.  I suppose they are holding a spot for me in the granny-square department in Hades. 

The divan had a matching chair.  Both were a nondescript beige nubby fabric made to withstand flamethrowers and small children.  My mother painted the walls four basic colors:  beige, eggshell, blue, or green.  My older sister made the comment once, after returning home from college, that the colors were “institutional”.  I didn’t know what that meant for a long time.  I suppose that she’s right, but I don’t know what other colors would be used.  Black-of-death?  Pepto-pink?  Red-orange-of-hell?  That was so last century.  The color of small children’s handprints would have been a big hit. 

Once upon a time, when pictures were being developed from film, the pictures were returned to you, by the developer, with the month and date stamped on them.  Like on the picture above where it says “Dec 60″ at the bottom of the picture.  In my family, and perhaps yours too, this was never an accurate way of determining when the photo was taken.  Cameras were used only on photo-opportunities, and never as casually as we use them today.  A roll of film could have 12, 24, or 36 pictures, at least the ones that I’m most familiar with in the 1970’s and ’80’s.  It might take a really long time to use up the entire roll, maybe even a year, but certainly always months.  So I doubt that the picture above was actually taken in December 1960.  I’m wearing short-sleeves, and Becky’s wearing a thin-looking dress. 

And as I’m zooming in on the photo to look at dress detail, I notice that I am picking at my cuticles.  In the picture, I am picking at my nails and I am four. 

Some days I am still four.

Aunt Etta, YoursTruly, Cousin Gordie, BigSisSandi

This picture was made at Grandma Packett’s.  The date on the picture is April 1957, so I’m guessing it’s Easter.  I’m about 4 months old here.  Grandma had a large dining room table with ladder back chairs that Cousin Gordie has now.  The table was a good place for a small child to make a hideaway under.  Once I took some of Grandma’s postage stamps that she kept in a Lazy Susan on the table and hid under the table and licked each and every stamp and stuck them under the table. 

I got caught.

I don’t know what the meal was in this photo, but I see biscuits!  Always homemade!  There was probably a sugar-cured ham and green beans and mashed potatoes.  That might be a cake on a cake stand in the middle of the table but I just can’t be sure.  I think I might have some more pictures of this day, but I’ll have to sort thru some stuff and match up the dates on the pictures.

I need to go eat some food now.  My mouth is watering…

These are some old pictures that I forgot to upload from a couple of months ago I hope you enjoy them! Try to guess the date eh?

Aunt Becky

My grandmother Packett had lots of siblings.  Here’s her sister Gladys, known to me as (great) Aunt Becky.  It’s a mystery why Gladys was known as Becky.  Her first marriage was to a man named Millard Beals – is this how my uncle Millard James “Big Jim” got his name?  Who knows, but I suppose so.  Supposition will have to make do in the absence of real evidence.  I never knew that husband or what happened to him.  I do vaguely remember hearing about another husband named Dan Betts.

Becky & Dan Betts in Lenoir City, TN

This picture was made in front of my grandmother’s house.  The street is Wilson Street.  You can see a farm gate to the left.  That’s the entrance to the fields where my father kept cattle, and perhaps an angry little pony named Happy.  Becky and Dan’s car is parked in front of my grandmother’s gate. 

I believe that Becky lived in Norfolk, VA, but, like most of my grandmother’s family, she’s a mystery to me.

Godmother Irma & YoursTruly

Godfather Will & YoursTruly

These pictures were taken in May 1957.  I was about 5 months old.  This was the day of my christening.  I recognize the outfit from another picture with Mother and me (but I don’t know where that pic is…). 

But this post is not about my christening, it’s about an *AHA* moment.  Irma was from a large, close family.  She told stories of growing up, and how she would go to a neighbor’s house who kept every newspaper that she ever had on her porch, and that Irma could sit and read the funny papers.  She could leave the stack of newspapers when she was finished with a sitting, and when she went back to read again, the newspapers would be sitting there untouched, waiting for her to read some more.  I never knew where Irma was from, but I did know that her father was Paul Young and that he was Scandinavian. 

I’ve had some correspondence on this blog from a pet store owner in Thomson, GA.  I had never heard of this town so I looked it up on the map and found that it is near Augusta, GA.  So someday I’d like to go to Thomson, GA, and visit the store and see the area.  While touring small towns might not sound like fun to some, I find that it’s much more fun than going to the mall.  See the USA in a Chevrolet and all that. 

Well, I decided to make a family tree for Irma’s family.  She and Will didn’t have children, so somebody’s got to do it, and basically I’m just nosey.  I found Irma and her family on several censuses.  Her father was a brick mason.  And they lived. in. wait. for. it. Thomson.  GA. 

Now, how does a random person reading my little blog just happen to live in a little town that I’ve never heard of until a couple of months ago, and it’s just the same town where one of my favorite people in the whole world is from? 

Maybe it’s not AHA, maybe it’s just AAAAHHH…

So now I definitely have to go to Thomson, GA.  And maybe pick up a brick or two.

Webb sisters Annie & Ruth

I love these old pictures.  I like to pore over them and look at all the details.  The clothing, the hairstyles, the body language, the shadows of the photographer on the picture make me wish to step into the picture just for a moment in time. 

These gals are dressed up.  What’s the occasion…

Annie was an older sister.  I believe that she is on the 1900 census as Sarah A.  She married Ed Porter.  He owned a furniture store.

Ed Porter's obituary

I wonder why the obituary doesn’t mention his wife Annie Webb Porter, but it does mention Annie’s younger brother Joe Webb as a pallbearer.  Another pallbearer is Gordon McConkey.  He was a son-in-law of Ruth Webb Packett.  He married my mother’s sister Etta.

Ruth & James Packett, more of the same

A little digging and dusting, and another picture is unearthed.  This one goes with the picture of Ruth, James, & Evelyn that I posted earlier called “The Packetts”. 

When I enlarged this picture, it looks like there are people on the porch across the street watching what is happening at the Packett house.  And there’s a dog lying in the front yard.  Probably infested with fleas and parasites.  The dog, not the people, although it’s a possibility. 

My mother used to tell a story about a neighborhood dog that was afraid of storms.  The dog would paw frantically at the screen door until he got in, and my grandfather James would say, “Clem, sit down.”  The dog, in a panic to get away from the storm, would run under one of the beds to hide.  My grandfather would then say, “Or get under the bed.” 

Apparently dog training runs in the family.

Ruth Packett & her flowers

Doesn’t she look serious?  Flowers were serious business to Grandma Packett.  Every evening during growing season, she would go outside and water her flowers.  When I was growing up, she lived in the little green house on Wilson Street.  That’s the only house that I ever associated with my grandmother.  That yard was shady, but she still got flowers to grow.  She had what was called a “snowball” bush.  We know it today as a hydrangea.  She also had elephant ears and coleus and bachelor buttons.  And the porch had flowers in pots, and cuttings that were taking root in glass jars of water.  But before that she lived in some place called the Grubb Apartments, I suppose after her husband died.  She and her husband James had lived in a house on “C” Street.  I have these few pictures that I believe were taken on “C” Street, but I don’t know exactly where the house was.  Last night, I drove up and down “C” Street using Google.  I couldn’t find the house or where it could have been because I don’t have a house number. 

She looks dressed up in the above picture.  Do you suppose it could be *Easter*??  She wore an apron over her house dresses, so this wasn’t an everyday picture.

Ruth Packett watering flowers

I’m wondering what the building is.  Perhaps it is a shed that actually is on a neighbor’s property, but it certainly figures in the overall landscape of the lot.  The picture of Webbs & Packetts eating watermelon is in front of the shed.  Someday perhaps I’ll get all these pictures sorted out and I’ll re-post them all in correct order.

Someday.

James Packett on "C" Street

My mother’s handwriting on the back of this picture says “James Packett on C Street”.  Was he walking away from his house?  Or toward it?  The picture of Ruth, James, and Evelyn Packett is taken on the same angled hilly terrain, but a different house in the background.  I’ll dig around and perhaps find more pictures of the elusive “C” Street era.

She did it!

I’ve mentioned before that my mother had an artistic streak.  She’s the one that painted the piano.  More than once. 

Every summer, Will and Irma Jaques stayed at their cottage by the creek, which was across the road from us.  When I was a child, you could see their house from our house on the hill.  Now, it’s concealed by years of overgrowth of trees, underbrush, and vines.  After Will died, Irma continued to make her yearly trek from Florida. 

Irma was larger-than-life, a real personality full of enthusiasm and fun.  Every summer, she had a project that somehow related to arts and crafts.  One summer, she and Mom dipped artificial flowers into some kind of glazing solution, and then arranged those shiny little beauties into arrangements that were then presented to every friend and relative within shouting distance.  Another time, it was making Christmas angels out of Reader’s Digests.  Another summer it was ceramics. 

Irma was a painter, at first self-taught.  I have a painting of a kitten that she painted for me in 1959, one of her first works.  One fateful summer in 1966, she and Mother had their art studio on Irma’s porch, which overlooked the creek.  Irma taught Mom how to transform her creative, piano-painting self into an artiste extraordinaire.  I personally loved jigsaw puzzles, and had one of those 500 piece puzzles of a thatched-roof cottage with a walled garden spilling over with flowers, with a proud peasant house-wife presiding at the gate.  That picture became Mother’s oil painting that was the piece de resistance of a summer spent on the porch, painting and laughing and talking and sharing.  Irma insisted on framing it, and demanded that Mother pose by the porch.

Ruth, James, & Evelyn

There’s no date on this picture.  On the back in my grandmother’s handwriting, it says: Dad myself & Evelyn Packett.  Under that in my mother’s handwriting, it says: Ruth & Jim Packett.

I believe that this picture would have been made in the era when they lived on “C” Street in Lenoir City.  LC had a pretty simple system of naming streets in one section of the town.  The streets that ran parallel to Broadway, the main street, were named 1st Avenue, 2nd Avenue, and so on.  The streets that ran perpendicular to Broadway were named “A” Street, “B” Street, etc. beginning south of Kingston. 

These folks are dressed up.  I wonder if it’s *Easter*…

Are you there God? It’s me Candy~

Why do you allow us to see in color?

Why not Black and White?

I love looking at old pictures…
a lot are a brownish color, not black and white, like they are considered.

Did you give us color for “pleasure“?

color is so…

appealing

 

Picture I took of a flower  in Peru~

and still I am pulled toward  black and white.

Our Boat on the Amazon River, Peru

Thank you GOD for giving us your beautiful colors~

candy~

Chris Rice wrote a song that is so true…
Lazy summer afternoon
Screened-in porch and nothin’ to do
I just kicked off my tennis shoes

Slouchin’ in a plastic chair
Rakin’ my fingers through my hair
I close my eyes and I leave ‘em there
And I yawn, and sigh, and slowly fade away

Deep enough to dream in brilliant colors I have never seen
Deep enough to join a billion people for a wedding feast
Deep enough to reach out and touch the face of the One who made me
And oh, the love I feel, and oh the peace
Do I ever have to wake up

Awakened by a familiar sound
A clumsy fly is buzzin’ around
He bumps the screen and he tumbles down
He gathers about his wits and pride
And tries again for the hundredth time
‘Cause freedom calls from the other side
And I smile and nod, and slowly drift away

Deep enough to dream in brilliant colors I have never seen
Deep enough to join a billion people for a wedding feast
Deep enough to reach out and touch the face of the One who made me
And oh, the love I feel, and oh the peace
Do I ever have to wake up

‘Cause peace is pouring over my soul
See the lambs and the lions playin’
I join in and I drink the music
Holiness is the air I’m breathin’
My faithful heroes break the bread and answer all of my questions
Not to mention what the streets are made of
My heart’s held hostage by this love

And these brilliant colors I have never seen
I join a billion people for a wedding feast
I reach out and touch the face of the One who made me
I’m deep enough to dream in brilliant colors I have never seen
Deep enough to join a billion people for a wedding feast
Deep enough to reach out and touch the face of the One who made me
And oh, the love I feel, and oh the peace
Do I ever have to wake up
Do I ever have to wake up
Do I really have to wake up now

Click to hear song

 

Webbs & Packetts

 This picture was made in Lenoir City, TN.  My grandmother Ruth is the lady in the picture.  Her brother Joe is on the left, squatting on the ground.  Grandma’s two sons are the two young men.  Millard James is standing, and Cecil Paul is kneeling.  The girl is Marcellene Packett.  I don’t know who she is, but I suspect that she is a cousin.  Perhaps her father and my grandfather were brothers.  I can’t find her on www.ancestry.com, but then, I’m not sure how to spell Marcellene…

I place this picture about 1940.  I think I’ll name my next cat Marcellene.

The Girl Reserve Club of Lenoir City, mid 1930's

“Girl Reserve Club members will entertain the visiting teams at the East Tennessee Boys Regional basketball tournament in Lenoir City.  The tournament opens Wednesday.  They are: left to right, front row:  Bebe Ann Mills, Mary Alice McNew, Frances Hall, Alene Jones, Mary Ellen Wilkerson, Myra Miles Lewis; Second row, Betty Hand, Ernestine Lewis, Violet Breazeale, Jo Scarbrough, Velma Brown, Jeannette Connor; Third row, Mrs. Geneva Clement (sponsor), Frances Maher, Geneva McNew, Alice Ann Ghormley, Alice Blackburn; Back row, Lucile Kerley, Charlotte Armstrong, Genevieve Burnette, Evelyn Packet, Mildred Ingram and Nadine Blankenship.”

hello nice reederz its dennis the vizsla dog hay wel yoo may remember that sum time ago i wuz investigayting evidense as to wether or not dada wuz in kahoots with the ninja hedjhogs and at the time i wuz unaybel to proov it eether way however my seekret sorse hoo has in the past supplied me with fotografik evidense of dadas chekkerd past has forwarded me this pikcher of dada frum yeerz and yeerz ago chek it owt:

this is just horrifying and i am not tawking abowt dadas aviator glasses!!! i am tawking abowt the fakt that he is kleerly having sum sort of deep diskushun with a ninja hedjhog!!! hoo nos wot sort of promisses the ninja hedjhog mayd in ekschayndj for dada agreeing to giv it yummy meelwurms and to spy on me for the vast small mammal konspirasee eeven tho i wuznt eeven born then yoo no how ninja hedjhogs like to tayk the long vyoo and plan in advanse!!! ennyway i wil be investigayting this further i can ashoor yoo!!! ok bye

Later …

Here’s a website dedicated to pictures of your parents when they were awesome. It’s kinda funny and cool to check out, however I’m not sure exactly why. Some pictures are frightful though, and I’m thinking; “If that was the most awesome they were, how dorky are they now?”

http://myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com/

Worth a browse if you’re bored at work… which is always! Am I right? Come on, don’t leave me hanging. High five?

Sorry, I’m on a Lion King high right now. But looky looky what I found in Jason’s archive of old Guidon photos:

6- LA Tenorio, 19- Rabeh Al-hussaini + afro

It’s Rabeh before the MVP awards and before he realized the afro just didn’t work. Who would’ve thought that two or three years after this photo was taken, we’d see this guy dominate the UAAP?

Aguilar during the tip-off

Japeth Aguilar in his last season for Ateneo, I think.

*photos from The GUIDON archives. Please link and cite properly if you plan on using the images.

I am contemplating a couple ideas for my book. The theme I mostly want to base it on though is landscapes that are near or by the ocean. I will be using some of my own writing taking different ideas that I have from the pieces as well as life influencing reflections. I would like to mix some Bible verses as well in with the mix paraphrasing some of my favorite passages that might correspond along with my images. As far as color schemes go, at first I really wanted to work with enhancing color and bringing the beauty through clarity. But after I have been working with my images with the old paper textures, I am very drawn to that and the old worn look the photographs have. I may do a mixture of both or make a three part and do a third color, a third black and white, and a third in the old picture style. This is how far I am and am excited to get started because once I think I get working, the final idea will become clearer to me so stay tuned.

Old Photograph Textures

Color by the sea

Black and White

I always get in a muddle (a good kind) when I start looking into things that catch my eye.

Last week I made another trip to the Albany Institute and while admiring many of the pieces there, scribbled what notes I might be able to translate later and still take in the place in a somewhat timely fashion.  I still have many more days to take on this task, since I barely completed a tour of the Culture & Symbols Gallery and glimpsed some of the gift shop.

The obsession that day was old buildings (one of the obsessions).  I began admiring an engraving of the home of a certain Joel Rathbone, Esq.  and the lithograph of a James Wagner c1860.  I was able to find this page on the Rathbone home which details its history and end.  (As I asked a friend in an email, what is it that always brings me back to Doane Stuart?)  I have not been having as much luck discovering anything regarding the fate of the home of James Wagner, though since the structure strikes as something I remember seeing before, perhaps it still exists.

I have however been taken on a delightful tour of  Albany County history from this.  While I’m sure what I should be doing is raiding the NYS Archives the hard way, poring over pages, I am trying to find everything I can online first.  I’m basically trying to find everything I can on something I don’t even know exists.

The same thing always happens when I start studying the huge lions that bracket rt 144 and Henry Hudson Park in the Cedar Hill area of Bethlehem, NY.  Casual inquiry has found me little (I may have some more names to research than just Guy Park due to a reference here about a Francis Nicoll and the name Barent Winne Rd, referring  to ), but the place always draws me to it.  In one of those rebellious moments I had far more often in my twenties, I ignored the “No Trespassing ” signs that surround the property and walked through the wooded property they guard.  An interesting place.  I wish I’d had a digital camera those days.  (Heck I wish I had a small one that I could always use to catch snapshots of all the nifty things I see in a day.)

At least here I am taking a far more proactive role in my curiosity (I just finished and sent out an email to the Bethlehem Town Historian regarding the place), but this isn’t my norm.  I tend to write snippets, gather friends to show my obsessions to, and daydream.

And with joy and regret, after a morning of scouring pages, I’ve found these pages.

—-  Lost Landmarks of Upstate New York: a collection of pictures and stories of buildings that have been either destroyed (or face imminent destruction) in the area

—-  Old Abandoned Buildings of Northern New York: a complement to a rather nifty page I found a while back when I started looking up the history of the Roma people and got side tracked to a study of Albanian History (which in turn led me to read about King Zog and his home (2) on Long Island).

Sometimes it seems I jump from one thing to another, flitting about like a butterfly in a field of flowers, I like to scan the pages of history.  The truth is that I’m always looking (and finding) connections throughout my journey, linking past and present, and the deeper I look, and the more side trips I take, the more connections I find.

It’s how life seems to work for me; I’m always digging for something I don’t know.

One of the things that I had really wanted at the wedding but we couldn’t get to happen was a slide show of Albie and I as little kids, growing up, then meeting up to now.

I have a scanner at work and I still have a tone of old pictures so today I scanned some in, I might add more if I come accross some funny ones but here are a few for now.

Fighter Pilot Albie

Katie in May 1989

Super Albie to the Rescue!

Katie and Granddad in October 1988