Happy Birthday, Lovely Wife!

Today is Lovely Wife's (cough, cough)th Birthday!

Happy birthday Honey, I love you. I have from the moment I first saw you at that Christmas party, twenty-five years ago this week.

And now, a few photos of her from the years that I really like. (Hey, It's MY blog.) All of these except the final one are scans of her father's slides.


This is Lovely Wife as a widduw baby, with her Dad.


I love this slide. All cheeks and pouty lips. (Isn't her face and head here shaped just like Tweety Bird's?)


Goin' with a little attitude here, allowing us to bask in her coolness.


Continuing the attitude theme here, the cat eye glasses and the crossed arms say it all. Oh, and the Mona Lisa smile.


This is actually a crushing Christmas for her. She begged for a puke green VW Beetle, a real one, and this little yellow VW-like car was in her stocking on Christmas. She's smiling, habit from a photo-bug father, but her eyes show her pain. Either that or the pattern on the couch had her hypnotized.


And finally, a semi-recent photo.

Love ya Babe!

It Makes Me Proud...

to be from Louisiana.

Seriously though, isn't Louisiana already famous enough for it's retarted politicians, and the retards that elect them?

Sheesh.

Now one of her infamous children, David Duke, is trying to deny the holocaust. In Iran, no less.

With that Amadenihoobiejaminakerist guy that is their president.

The world is upside down and crazy, you know?

I have an idea. I'm gonna start telling everyone I'm really from Alabama. Then, they'll all respect me.

Heck, my IQ is soaring just thinking about it...

Separated At Birth?

We have cable TV, and I like to watch VH1 Classics channel. Since the original MTV and VH1 have all but stopped showing music videos, I end up watching VH1 Classics.

I like 80's videos better than the stuff that's played on the radio these days anyway, so if MTV did actually show a music video, it would probably be by someone I don't like.

They show lots of 80's metal on VH1 classics, which I like better now than when it was new. Go figure.

And you can't have 80's metal without Rob Halford of Judas Priest showing up sooner or later.

One day, Number One Daughter and I were watching VH1 Classics, and they interviewed Rob Halford.

Number One Daughter: "Dad? Know who he reminds me of?"

Me: "No, who?"

Number One Daughter: "That GUY on the Goonies movie!"

I almost choked I was laughing so hard, because, although I would have never made the connection myself, she was absolutely correct.

Their heads are shaped the same and everything.

Observe:














Rob Halford and "Sloth" Fratelli,
separated at birth?

Scary, ain't it? And ever since then, whenever I see Rob Halford, I "think" Sloth Fratelli.

That is all. Carry on.

Howard Griffin Land O Toys

As a kid who loved Christmas, I always wanted to go to Howard Griffin Land O Toys in Monroe, Louisiana.

In the 60's and 70's there was a chain of discount stores, like the original, non-grocery Wal-Marts, called Howard Brother's. The Howard of Howard Griffin was an owner of Howard Brother's. This chain had stores in Northeast Louisiana, and I'm not sure where else.

Now Howard Griffin was a boat dealership, and they had their main showroom for said boats on South Grand in Monroe.

Sometime each fall, they would clear the boats out of the main showroom building and fill it wall to wall with toys. So Howard Griffin Land O Toys was a seasonal toy store in Monroe every year, roughly from the end of October or first of November through the end of December.

This was years before we had ever even heard of Toys-R-Us. And as a kid in Vidalia, a two-hour car ride away from Monroe, Howard Griffin Land O Toys might as well have been on the moon.

The frazzlin' TV station we were able to receive from Monroe, KNOE showed tantalizing glimpses of Howard Griffing Land O Toys on commercials. It looked glorious, even on our black and white TV. (I have a vivid imagination, and could add color in my head.)

Just like most people can remember the words and the jingle tune for Oscar Mayer bologna, I can remember the tune and words to the Howard Griffin Land O Toys commercials.

Howard Griffin Land O Toys
Loads of fun for girls and boys
Bring the kids and look around
The biggest toy deal in the town.

At least, that's the words I remember. I've never seen them written, so there might be a little mistake or two in there. I was never sure if it was "biggest toy deal in the town," or "biggest toy dealER in the town." Dealer makes more sense, but I never could hear the singers saying the -er part, so I'm still not so sure which is correct.

In 1975 however, we moved to Monroe, Louisiana, and almost every year until they stopped having Howard Griffin Land O Toys, we would go.

You have to understand, that this was a humongus deal to me as a kid. Even if my first trip there found me too old (13) for most of the toys they stocked, I couldn't get enough. My parents hated taking us down there because parking was a nightmare. It was normally a sedate boat showroom and their parking places were adequate for that, but every Christmas season it was chaos when the place was transformed into a toy store. The parking immediately became woefully inadequate.

But hey, I was a kid who couldn't drive yet, so what did I care about parking? Nada.

Even after I was older and driving, I would take Younger Brother, who is seven years younger than me, down there for "him" to look at stuff. Yeah. Right. Him. In truth, he was my excuse to go there myself.

Starting on the day after Christmas, everything in Howard Griffin Land O Toys was half off. Half Off!! We would go down there and brave the crowd, looking for the diamonds among the dregs that were left.

I usually bought new H-O scale electric race cars and things like that, and I remember Younger Brother getting a Star Wars Jawa Sandcrawler in 1978 or so.

These days, we've lived many places with Toys-R-Us, and there's a well stocked Wal-Mart on almost every corner, so we've become jaded.

It's an easy thing to find even old, hard to find toys on ebay, if you have the money.

I have to say though, that back when a toy store was a rare and awesome thing to visit, the memories of them have become mystical and way overblown.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Christmas might seem crass and commercial compared to back then, but I still miss the wonder of the rare toy store sighting and/or visit.

It's nothing for many of today's stores to have toys you can see up close and even put your hands on, but back then? Nuh uh.

Kids today don't know how good they have it, but then again, they are totally robbed of the kind of anticipation we had back in the olden days. (My olden days being the 60's and 70's)

I'd love to get into the Way Back Machine and go visit Howard Griffin Land O Toys, circa 1975. I would take Younger Brother along, and hey, since we're back in time, we could stop and pick up Big Brother and head on down to South Grand Street and check out the toys.

---

If anyone from Monroe happens to read this, and knows more about Howard Griffin, please leave a comment.

I remember Jack Howard was a Mayor of Monroe, and also a business owner. But that's about the extent of my memory on that.

---

Sunday, March 28, 2011
Sad Update: The News Star paper's web site reports at 10:34pm central time, that the old Howard Griffin building is on fire.

Zack Southwell reports: Black and gray smoke continue to billow out of the Howard Griffin building in the 700 Block of South Grand Street in Monroe.

The entire structure seems to be in flames ... gradually it’s falling to pieces. The windows and walls are golden in flames and as Monroe firefighters battled to bring it under control.

The fire was reported about 9:48 p.m. Sunday.

A reporter at the scene described the fire as “raging. “It’s fierce .... the heat.”

Hat tip to commenter Melinda.

Picture Post, Sunday December 10, 2006

First of all, there was an awesome night launch of Space Shuttle Discovery last night.

I woke up yesterday morning at 4am, nauseous and my back hurting really bad. I moved to my recliner, but things got worse and not better. I ended up with fever and vomiting and other intestinal issues all day Saturday.

So last night when the shuttle was about to go up. I crawled out of bed, waited until the countdown got to 1 minute left, and went out into the front yard with Lovely Wife to watch it go up.

Even 40 miles away like we are, it totally lit up the sky. It is almost impossible to believe that something man made can light up an area of a 50 mile radius.

I watched until it winked out of sight behind a few thin, high clouds and came back inside. At that point, the shuttle was 67 miles up, and over 300 miles from the Atlantic Coast of Florida.

About todays photos, I haven't been this sick in a long time, so I'm just going to post some old Masters's family slides that I've been scanning and color correcting. Sorry, but that's all I have the energy to do this morning.

This is Younger Brother in 1975, just after we had moved to Monroe, Louisiana from Vidalia, Louisiana.


This is my Dad and Younger Brother coming out of an old country church at Silver Dollar City in southern Missouri. The whole back side of the church is glass and you can look out over the Ozark Mountains. This was 1973 or 1974, I think.


These next two are Big Sis and Big Brother playing with a wagon, around 1961.


This one is so cute, Big Brother leaning his head on Big Sis's shoulder.


These last two are of Me, Big Brother, and Big Sis in 1966, on a trip to Florida. These were both at Cypress Gardens, I think.


Check out my knock-knees, or knot-knees, however you say that, in those last two photos.

Yesterday's Photos

I haven't been out taking photos in a while, and yesterday (Friday) evening, Lovely Wife and I had to go somewhere in town. I took my camera along, hoping that after our appointment, we could find some cool things for me to photograph.

When we left our appointment, the sun was pretty low, so we raced over to the beach to check out the ocean. We haven't been in a while, and wanted to sit and watch the waves for a bit.

When we got over there, it was almost too dark for any photos, and I ended up only taking three. Three. Pitiful. But, you take what you can get, and it didn't stop us from enjoying watching the waves for a while. The wind was blowing as hard as I've ever seen it blow here in good weather, hurricanes are in a different category of course.

It was a beautiful evening and we were the only ones at the beach park we went to, Ocean Park in Melbourne Beach, Florida. The wind was blowing so hard you could see the sand shifting on the beach like in wind storm shots of the desert in movies. Another couple came up and we all talked for a while. David and Mary had moved here last year from Birmingham, AL, where Lovely Wife grew up. Eventually, they got too cold and left.

Cold. In Florida. Go figure.

I took this first one while waiting at an interminably long traffic light, waiting to get onto U.S.1.

This one is one of two I took on the beach, from the top of the stairs down to the beach. This is a straight shot, unchanged.

This is the same shot as above, but I played with the Photoshop Elements watercolor thing-a-ma-jig until I ended up with a pretty watercolor. I really like this one. It really looks like someone with talent actually painted it with watercolors.

This is another version of the same beach photo, but I played with the color saturation until I liked this other-worldly look. What think you? Number Two Daughter said it looks like the special effects in an early 1980's video.

This one, I zoomed down the beach a little. This is the straight shot, no manipulation except a bit of unsharp mask.

This is the same photo as above, but I played with the solarization feature in Elements. I used to like to solarize black and white prints back in the darkroom days.

I really like the watercolor one, third from the top.

Five Dollar Bill

In the summer of 1995, my family and I were living in Monroe, Louisiana. I had moved back to my home town to finish my engineering degree at nearby Louisiana Tech University. (Monroe has a nice University, The University Of Louisiana - Monroe, but, alas, no engineering school.)

Anyhoo, that summer, we were dying for a break from the routine. And nothing breaks up routine like a Road Trip!

We decided to go to Atlanta; it was an eight hour drive from Monroe, and we could stay a few days, see some old favorite places from when we lived there, and maybe some old friends too.

The Sunday before our trip, our pastor Mickey Humphrey, asked everyone who was willing to do something special, to raise their hand.

I raised my hand.

Brother Mickey said, I want each of you, to put a five dollar bill in your pocket. Sometime this week, you'll run across someone who needs it, and you can give it to them and Bless them in Jesus's name.

Hey. Easier than I thought. I thought.

So, I put a folded five dollar bill in my pocket every day that week, waiting for the right moment. A front pocket too, for quick and easy access.

A whole week went by, and I hadn't given away my five dollar bill.

I felt like the biggest loser, a total failure. I had failed God somehow, somewhere. My only recourse was to keep the bill in my pocket for convenience, and hope for a person that needed it.

The next week, just over a week from that Sunday, we left for our trip to Atlanta.

We got up at like 4am, hoping to be on the highway by sunrise. We wanted to get into Atlanta in the early afternoon so that we would have part of that day to use in doing whatever struck our fancy.

We got up, loaded the car, headed out, and right before we got on I-20 interstate highway, we stopped and filled the tank up with gas. Lovely wife went in and paid while I pumped the gas.

Then I backed the car over to a pay phone for Lovely Wife to use. I can't even remember what for now. Maybe to check on hotel reservations or something, but it doesn’t matter. While parked over by the pay phone, I could see a man sitting hunched over and leaning against the side of the gas station building in the dark.

The lights all around the pumps were like sunlight in their brightness, and it made the darkness beside the building stand in stark contrast.

"Give that man the five dollar bill." was what I heard in my heart. And I got that physical feeling I get, of a giant hand sqeezing my chest. I knew the Holy Spirit was talking to me.

Lovely Wife came around the car and got into the passenger front side, and I said, "I'm going to pull over there and give that man the five dollars I haven't given away yet." "Ok," was her response.

I cranked the car up, pulled over and nosed the car toward the building near the man. I opened the driver's door and stood and walked the few steps over to the man.

It was a black man, wearing a baseball cap, and sitting next to a gas can. He looked up at me.

As I approached him, I said, "Excuse me sir. This might sound crazy to you, but I have a five dollar bill that God wants me to give to you."

I reached out with the five dollar bill, and he automatically reached to take it.

His face turned to absolute wonder. His eyes got big, he started stammering. "Wha… How… Oh my goodness! Thank you! My car ran out of gas right over there two hours ago. I had this gas can, but not one penny to buy gas with. The people here at the station wouldn't let me have a gallon on my promise to return later with the money for the gas, and they also wouldn't allow me to ask anybody coming to get gas if they would let me have a couple of dollars. Man, I don't believe this."

I said, "Well, here's your money, and Bless you, in Jesus's name." I simply got back in the car and backed up and we were on our way.

And for our whole trip, while we were in Atlanta, I saw so many people begging, and homeless people after that episode. This guy I had given the money to wasn't homeless or anything, he'd just run out of gasoline in his car, and didn't even have change to call a friend. But it made me notice all those people in the Atlanta area that wanted help.

I remember being overwhelmed and breaking down and crying because we barely had money for our trip, we were on the most threadbare shoe string budget ever for a trip. I was overwhelmed at the realization that, even if I had millions of dollars to spare, it wouldn't be nearly enough, not even for the folks in that one area.

But I learned that, if you have five bucks to spare, God will provide you with someone to bless with it.

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Brother Mickey Humphrey was the pastor of the church Lovely Wife and I attended when we were dating, and engaged, and he's the one that performed our marriage ceremony. He died in 1996 of cancer. He is still very much missed.

Here's one of my old slides, from 1982, of Brother Mickey at a church picnic:


Whenever I see a preacher make a spectacle of himself, such that his fall makes the evening news, I think about Godly men like Brother Mickey, and our present pastor, Pastor Mark, and am thankful that for every preacher that falls in public, there are thousands of men like this who walk the walk. It's the toughest job in the world.