The Magically Appearing $5 Bill

Many moons ago, my fambly and I lived in Powder Springs, Georgia, and I worked at Hartsfield for Delta Air Lines.

Working for Delta was a wonderful thing on many levels. The pay stunk, and sometimes the work was back-breaking, and working outside regardless of weather I got sick a lot, but at the time, Delta was a great company, and there were thousands of wonderful people working there for Delta too.

There were a number of Christian friends there, and on many breaks we would have impromptu Bible studies.

I worked a 3:30pm to Midnight shift, and once or twice a month several of us would go to an all-night International House of Pancakes in Riverdale, Georgia, a few miles from the Atlanta airport.

As I mentioned, the pay at Delta wasn't very good, and for my family eating out, even a McDonald's value meal, was quite a luxury for us. The decision to go eat an after work breakfast was usually spur of the moment. We all had rotating days off, and on nights we were all working was when we would try to go and fellowship after work.

I have never been in the habit of carrying a lot of cash, and this was way before debit cards were common, so sometimes I would beg off because I didn't have any money.

My grandfathers and my father all were cash men. My maternal grandfather, Papaw Hinton, carried so much cash with him that even as a kid I lived in fear he would be robbed. But my nature was to keep all the money in the bank to use for bills and family outings.

Well, one night, all the guys were working, and my good friend Joe told me they were going to try to go to the pancake house after work. I told him I'd let him know later.

Then, when no one was looking I pulled out my wallet to take a look.

I'm not sure why, because I knew I didn’t even have a dollar with me. I KNEW that. I guess I hoped that maybe the money elves had worked some magic for me.

I opened my wallet and there was a five dollar bill in there. I was stunned. It truly felt like magic.

The next time I saw Joe, I told him that I would join them for pancakes after work, and did so.

I will NEVER forget the feeling of opening that empty wallet to find a single five dollar bill in there.

See, every now and then, when Lovely Wife would have to go out for whatever and had a little change left, she would put a few dollars in my wallet because she didn't like my habit of walking around with not one red cent in my possession.

When I called her from work and told her I was going to go out with some of the guys to eat after work, she mentioned having put $5 in my wallet that day.

I appreciated it as only someone who's been flat busted broke can understand.

And them buckwheat pancakes and fellowship were some kind of good too.

Happy Birthday to Sainted Mother

Sainted Mother as a wee gal.

Sainted Mother and Don C. on their wedding day in 1952.

Sainted Mother and Don C. in the mid fifties. I think she told me this was in their apartment in Philadelphia, where Dad was stationed for a while. She worked at Wanamaker's Department Store.

I have to confess, that I'm pretty bad with what day and date it is, and with directions.

I always have on a watch with the day and date, and I write down directions.

So I'm sitting at work, reading an electrical schematic, and my heart skips a beat because I realize what today is. Just like waking up in the middle of the night in a panic because your subconscious reminded you of something important.

Today is Sainted Mother's 72nd birthday! And I had forgotten all about it.

I'm such a failure as a son.

Anyway, I had some of the photos that I had scanned of my family's past when Lovely Wife and I were in Louisiana just after Christmas this past year.

I had worked on cleaning and repairing some of the one's with her, and some with her and Dad in them.

Happy birthday Mama. I love you with all of my heart. I'm blessed to have had, and still have you as my mother.

They don't make 'em any better than you.

I Could Use Your Help / Monday Update

Sorry folks. I was hoping to be able to write something at lunch today, but I had a doctor's appointment and ended up not having time for a post.

I've encountered an interesting situation with my photography, and I've written about that on my photography blog, John's Daily Digital Images today.

Go on over there and check out today's photos and read about my predicament. Maybe you can help me out.

Picture Post, Sunday June 24, 2007

Howdy folks. I was going through some photos that I've taken lately and ended up with several evening photos, that although not spectacular, I thought I would post them.

I've lived in several southern U.S. states, and they all had appeal for different reasons. Lovely Wife and I tried to take advantage of the places we lived because we have moved so many times in our marriage that we never knew where we might be in another couple of years. I'd hate to look back and say, "Boy, I sure wish we had done such and such while we lived in Wherever."

Of course, most of the things we have done are the cheap things. For most of our marriage, until I went back to school, earned my engineering degree and moved to Palm Bay for my first, and thus far, only job as an engineer, we were pretty much broke.

We went to public parks with the kids, zoos and things of that sort when the girls were little, and so on.

Growing up, I was one of those young people who didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and I didn't know where, I just knew that I wanted out of Monroe, Louisiana.

For the record, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Monroe. I'm just one of those people who knew I wanted out of there. Monroe has as good a bunch of people there as anywhere else in the world. I'm not saying something about Monroe when I say I wanted out; I'm saying something ABOUT ME.

I've always loved the beach and when I had my degree in hand one of the job offers I had was here in Melbourne / Palm Bay, Florida.

Now, having said all of that, one of the special things about this area is the water. I cannot tell you what it still does to me after ten years of living and working here to come to a point while driving where I can see either the Indian River Lagoon or the Atlantic Ocean. My heart leaps a little bit, even after all of this time.

So the first four of today's pics are a few afternoon shots that I've taken in the last week or two, that are a good representation of what evenings are like here literally 300 days or so every year. It's beautiful so many evenings and causes in me sensations I can't really describe to you.

Without further ado:





This final one is a bit different. I had taken this shot and when I pulled it up on the computer I realized why. To me, the street light over part of the Melbourne Causeway out to the ocean looked like those laser beam, eye thingies on the space ships in the original The War of the Worlds movie from the fifties. Zzzzt!

Y'all be particular now, hear?

Some Pics for Saturday

Here's a few photos. The theme ended up being trees, I guess. I liked these photos, although they're not spectacular.

I haven't posted nearly as many photos here since I started my photography blog. I've not written any new posts due to being rather busy, so I thought even boring photographs were better than the swill I served up yesterday.

This first one was taken when I was wandering near Lake Toho in Kissimmee, Florida.

A beautiful, massive oak tree in Dade City, Florida.

A closeup of some of the Spanish moss in the tree in the picture above this one.

I hope you folks have a wonderful Saturday.

I'm supposed to go buy a new gas grill today, and we're going to look at some furniture as well. Hopefully I'll have some burgers and whatnot cooked on the new grill for supper tonight.

My Achin' Back; My New Tripod!

Yet another day without much to say. I haven't been writing things about the old days much lately, so I can't fluff up something and put it out there for y'all.

Today is my every-other-Friday-off Friday, so I slept late, and for some reason my back is giving me fits.

We had overcast skies and rain Wednesday night and yesterday, and it's mostly blown through, and my back tends to hurt more when a weather front leaves than when one is about to arrive.

Consequently I cannot predict weather with my aching bones like some, because mine hurts more when the bad weather leaves than when it's almost here.

Just one more way I'm weird, eh?

Warning, Abrupt Subject Change Ahead:

I've been into photography since I was around 12-13, in the eighth grade. And I've mostly been the type of photographer to try to hand-hold my shots unless I was outside at night when hand-holding a 15 second shot is impossible.

Since I didn't use a tripod a lot, I've always had a cheap one. I always wanted a nice one, but them puppies can be ex-pen-sive, believe you me.

Really fussy photographers will easily spend $600 on a decent tripod. Yep, that is not a mistype. Six hundred smackaroos, my friends.

But, being an engineer has it's advantages. Heck, even having the engineer personality type would help here.

What I'm talking about is the type of person, like me, who, when they want to buy something, do what the engineering world calls a "trade study."

Lately I've wanted to buy my first "decent" tripod. But I will NOT, NOT, pay $600 for a tripod. If you put $600 in my hand, I can buy two lenses I'd like to have used on ebay for that. So, no matter what, I won't pay $600 for a tripod unless I was starting a photography business where I'd need a tripod to take heavy abuse, right?

So what happens in a trade study, which is easier with that new-fangled invention called the internet, is that I can go to photography web sites and read the trillions of personal observations on tripods and why joe photographer likes this one, but not that one.

I learned that today's $600 will buy you a decent set of carbon fiber tripod legs and a decent ball head for mounting your camera on.

It turns out that tripod legs and the head that mounts on top come in a dizzying array of types and prices. I won't bore you with the details, this ramble is already boring enough.

But after a couple of months of searching, searching, reading, and whatnot and learning more than even I ever wanted to know about tripods, I finally decided on a Slik 700DX.

It's reasonably priced for a heavy duty tripod, and most important of all, it stretches out really tall.

Some day's I'm 6'2", some days I'm 6'1" (depending on how wore out I am) and I've never had a tripod with legs that would allow me to say, point a camera at the moon without me having to stoop over and then look up into the camera's viewfinder. That's not fun at all, therefore I've done very few shots of the moon or anything where I need the camera pointing up.

A couple of days ago, my new tripod arrived, and it's definitely a sturdy booger. Despite having a screwy back, I'm still a pretty good pack mule, and what many folks consider heavy, I don't.

All of that goes to say this, my life is so exciting right now that a new, heavy duty, TALL tripod purchase was the highlight of my week. I'm going to try to get some photos I've been thinking about now that I have it too.

And. That's my story.

Also, if anyone is foolish enough to try to steal a camera from a 300lb man, I can easily beat him to death with my new tripod.

Thursday Thirteen #43

13 More Questions and Answers About Me Still stealing meme questions from other people's blogs to keep up with Thursday Thirteen. 1. Have you ever blown bubbles in your milk? Yes. When I was a kid, I'd sometimes take Nestle's Quick with me to school and add it to my milk. Blowing bubbles in it helped stir in the Quick. 2. Would you rather eat a Big Mac or a Whopper? Whopper. There's just something about beef cooked over fire to appeal to a man, ya know? 3. Have you ever gone skinny-dipping? Yes. I was indeed once a teenager. 4. When you are at the grocery store, do you ask for paper or plastic? Plastic. None of the stores have a choice for us any more. Plus, the plastic ones get reused for all kinds of things. 5. True or False: You would rather eat steak than pizza. False. I've never been a person to crave steak. But pizza is one of the basic food groups. 6. Did you have a baby blanket? Not one to keep with me for comforting, like a woobie or something. I did use a pacifier way beyond the normal span though. 7. Have you ever tried to cut your own hair? No. I'd rather pay the barber and breathe in the testosterone laden air of a good barber shop than to save a measly few bucks and do a hatchet job on my own hair. 8. Have you ever sleepwalked? I was told that I did sleep walk when I was a boy, but I have no rememberance of this. 9. Have you ever had a birthday party at McDonalds? No. I guess I'm a little older than that tradition. 10. Can you flip your eye-lids up? Nope, but I always wanted to be able to. I have a strange inability to willingly touch my eyeballs or anything like flipping up the lids. (That's why I've never even considered wearing contact lenses. 11. Are you double jointed? Only in my left thumb. I can make the thumb bend back on it's own without using the other hand and it will look as if it is broken or badly out of joint. Of course I did this a lot as a kid to freak people out, but as an adult, this has made learning the guitar quite difficult. That thumb tires and wants to bend backward and messes me up in fretting chords on the neck of the guitar. 12. If you could be any age, what age would you be? This is a very vague question, so I'll just answer this way: I would love to go back to around age 7, knowing what I know now, and live my life over. 13. Have you ever gotten gum stuck in your hair? Yes and No. Not in my head hair; I can't blow bubbles that big. I have however gotten it stuck in my mustache The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!