Sepia Saturday 180 Life must be lived with fun

In this week's prompt, Alan  mentioned life and what about it?  I saw this quote recently,  "There are two great days in your life, the day you are born and the day you figure out why." The why is always the mystery isn't it?    I love our Sepia posts with glimpses of life and times here and there and what it meant and as in this prompt, what happened behind the scenes.  Today I went to my late Uncle Carl's albums, where I can always find something to share.  I laughed out loud at these photos, you will see why and maybe you will too.  I have written  a lot here about Uncle Carl, Mom's brother,  who took many photos and enjoyed himself  and life especially when he was out with the guys hunting, fishing, or just hanging out playing cards. 

It's 1982, turkey hunting season, sometime in the fall and it is time for the guys to arrive at their camp in Avonmore, Pennsylvania "outpost 39" as painted on Uncle Carl's sign in front of the place.  Avonmore is a borough in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 820 at the 2000 census. Area: 1.6 sq miles (4.144 km) near the Kiskiminetas River.

 We have been watching TV reruns on the A&E cable channel of "Duck Dynasty" which is hysterically funny and is all the rage.  It is true to life  about a Louisiana family of sons, father, uncle, and their Duck Call business.  Uncle Sy is my favorite character in the series.   Well, Uncle Carl and his friends were far ahead of the Duck men.   They had their own comedy episodes.



What is this all about?  Turkey hunting?  Will the turkey fall down in hysterical laughter when this man appears?  I have shared here before, these men were out for fun...
On the back Carl wrote, "Cliff Andrea" I  do not know him. But this is funny!  Deer antlers with curls and an automobile insignia atop.. Fishing pole?

Sure enough, here they go on the turkey hunt. Notice the outhouse in the back...
and the serious hunter.  On the back Carl wrote Rich Debick & Cliff.  
 Is that a turkey call in Cliff's mouth?

At least one foul  was claimed evidenced above  by two more of the guys who look grizzly, camouflage and all. Some of the turkeys are huge and this one looks pretty big to me.  At least they are not wearing antlers on their head. 

I often buy  comical cards to send to folks on birthdays, etc.  I think I can use some of Uncle's photos to make my own...I need the right sentiments printed along with the photo.  

This  has been my Sepia Saturday post.  For more laughs and  so much more interesting information, check out the link to the host site where so many others have so much to share.
http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2013/06/sepia-saturday-180-8-june-2013.html

The foot of the stairs

The expression "foot of the stairs"  has been familiar to me, it seems all my life.  I grew up in a two story house in PA and later on in my adult life, the first house we built in Fair Oaks, CA was two story.  I have always thought it an odd saying and for years have had the idea that I should find a piece of sculpture or piece of artwork, resembling the foot of the stairs, a logo.   I have searched galleries and artifact places looking for something suitable and  have not found just what I wanted.  Now that we  again live in a home with stairs, upstairs and downstairs,  I  resumed my search, but to no avail. 

Until last week  at a local thrift store a bright gold metal ladies boot attracted me, best of all it was  marked to half off and only $5.  It became a place holder for the foot of our stairs where it has taken its place.  It was made in Taiwan (at least not China) and is rather heavy, I thought someone perhaps had repainted it but it does look like that's the way it was.  I may  fill it later with some silk plant or who knows what to emerge from the top.  I also seems the style for the era when the washer next to it was used.... So while I continue my  search for an actual "foot" type object, the golden shoe will do.  Jerry, who has learned over  46+years with me  to never try to anticipate what treasure  might attract me, thought this was not all that bad and having been along on  searches for a proper foot of the stairs,  asked if the search would now be over?  Well, "no"  it's not really a foot but will serve until the foot shows up.  So the golden shoe  joins the other decor at the foot of the stairs,  my grandmother's old  metal washer used when laundry was done by hand, perched atop is the  fabric angel made by my friend Sandy years ago and this spring a new whimsical turtle along with floral vine added their presence. 

I had decided at Christmas time to display the old washer relic there and  adjust its decor throughout  the year,  for St Patty's time it was a shileleigh of sorts. Its roles are certainly  steps up in luxuroious retirement when considering its uses in it's early life,  pre our modern washeing machines.  I used to think the old wringer washers one of  which my aunt Jinx kept and used for certain items all her life were antiquated but when I think of how hard it must have been to boil the water on a wood or coal stove, pour it into  wash basins or troughs and attack it with the likes of this metal wooden handled relic, to scrub clothing, well, we do have it much easier...  Lots of toil back then, hard physical work.  On the other hand my ancestors  did not spend time thinking of the foolish things that I do, "foot of the stairs..."

Wonder where that expression started and still today can find little information.  A Google search shows it dates to northern England, and is used to express surprise, " I'll go to the foot of our stairs" .. a form of exclamation. Similar ones would be "Stone the crows!" (a bit old-fashioned, no doubt) or "Christopher Columbus!" (ditto), or the more common "Jesus Christ!"    I never heard of  "stone the crows either"  but I have been guilty of  the JC and now I'm thinking it might mean, "well I'll be damned."   

Array at the foot of
our stairs



Another  Google  writer shared:  "This saying originated in the North of England but  did travel to others parts of the UK during the 20th century, notably the Birmingham area where it was commonplace, but not much further, and is little known in other parts of the English-speaking world. It is now less used than previously, although it is still staple fare for any writer wishing to write a part for a stage northerner. There are also less well-known alternatives with the same meaning - 'the back of our house' and 'the bottom of our garden'. All the variants were too low-status and colloquial to have been written down and I can find no printed examples of it until the late 20th century. The expression is certainly older than that and I have a clear recollection of my parents using it in the West Midlands in the 1950s and I would guess that it is older still. Beyond that there's little more to tell. Exactly when the phrase was coined, by whom, and what it refers to, I don't know"

Well the phrase certainly made its way across the Atlantic and  as far west as western PA where I grew up and simply heard it as a common expression of location like, erhaps some of my Brit blogger pals can expound..". . it is mostly Northern English, and more particularly related to Yorkshire. Apparently, it is still in use. It is frequently featured in sitcoms etc when there is a typical Yorkshire character, in order to add a bit of local 'colour'. No one seems to know where the expression comes from. Why: "Go to the foot of (the stairs)"? Why would it come into it at all, when expressing surprise? Or is this one of those deliberately absurd phrases used in a tongue-in-cheek way? "Our" seems to imply the person is talking about his or her family-home."   So you know now more about the foot of the stairs than you ever expected....oh and yes, I have also been searching for that perfect item to resemble the "head of the stairs...."  a Google search for the origin  of that expression finds nothing but instruction on stair building, beyond my interest level.  Somewhere ot there is a sculptor who has the perfect head and foot resemblance for me.  I will keep searching.....• “She had run up in her bedgown to his door to call him as usual; then had gone back to dress and call the others; and in ten minutes was walking to the head of the stairs with the candle in her hand.”....Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Sepia Saturday Carts and more wagon train travelers of the past

This prompt raised my memory of  travelers we met in California, in December 1983, wagoneers,  of the oddest, adventurous, aspiring to live in the 1800's.  It was a family of four, man, woman and   two children.  Fortunately I had some photos of them, fading now and not of the sepia era but on theme as you will see. 

It was right after Christmas in 1983, when we lived in Newcastle, CA but this  took place in  the then rural area of  Penryn, a village established by Welsh  quarry miners in the 1800's.  We were at the home of friends for cocktails and were to meet others for dinner but this couple announced that they had a meal to take to a traveling family before we all went for dinner, the delivery would be on our way.  It was and remains the oddest traveling group we have ever known of then or since.  Today we recall little about  the particulars and unfortunately at that time I was not journaling  faithfully nor blogging, else I  would have more information to share today.  When we arrived at this rail road property  less than a mile from our friends'  ranch, with the platters of hot food she delivered,  my mouth fell open at the sight.  The weather is cold in Northern California in December and January, damp and foggy, bone chilling at times. 

Home base on railroad property of the 4.  The big sacks in front are
bush , tree, shrub branches trimmings brought by local farmers
for the animals.  Notice they were neat about their litter in a pile to the
left.  And someone had  given them two plain Christmas trees.

This family was from Arkansas and were journeying on their last leg through northern California with nothing more than wagons, mules and burro.  They were some sort of early survivalists perhaps or what?  John, the man was intent on making this journey to the central valley of CA where his family lived and employment  awaited but that was not his primary vision. He wanted to do this adventure while he was still young enough, was fascinated by the western tales of wagon trains and the like and wanted to be able to say he did this, the old time way.   One could say he lived his dream or nightmare.  They had been on the road over a year when we met them, an extremely long slow journey. This is before easily available cell phones, Internet and Facebook.   

Apparently John had some connections with the rail road lines and was able to stay on rail property so they rather followed the lines when they could.  They stayed in this spot for a couple weeks and accepted  charity of food and animal feed but would not accept cash.  They allowed us to take photos after we returned with food and blankets.  By that time they had become acquainted with many locals who all came out to see this sight and help them out.  

Another  local man brought them supplies while we were there
and the woman was moving them with the burro

It was 1983  how could this be?  Notice the bicycle off to the side which
they had for trips into a nearby store.  It was the most modern vehicle
in their homestead.  On the left you can see the rail line down the hill below them. 

They had a type of double expandable cart system which the man
had designed and built himself.  Some one had given them the two
geese they kept in  a cage.  More of their menagerie

This is the woman, mother of the two children.  The boy was about four
years old and the girl about six.   

The burro

One of their mules....

 We  wondered before what ever became of them,  there were no news stories about them, respectful of their  request for privacy perhaps.  So we assume all went well and John was satisfied with  his dream.  Jerry recalls that John was very  handy,  mechanical and able to fix most everything.  Well he would have to be to  do all this.  This is my Sepia post for this week, the oddest arrangement. 

Click on the link to  see what others have to share in this week of carts and beasties.   http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2013/05/sepia-saturday-179-1-june-2013.html

Sepia Saturday 178 Memorial Day back to 1943, my father

2013 Some things of my father, insignia, leather pilot cap

An open theme this week allows me to travel from today to 1943 with a  Memorial Day tribute to my father and all the brave souls who gave their all for our country and freedom.  The color photo to the left has mementos from my father, US Army Air Corps Lt. Lewis S Ball.  You know the story, I never knew him born  months after he and his entire combat flight crew disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean, June 20, 1944, WWII, The  aviator cap is in perfect condition and most likely could  have been a spare which seems to counter to the sparse gear the US Army distributed back then.  This cap was amongst many  documents and items I found it in an old  suitcase in 2004 after Mom died.   I have wondered as with so many  unanswerable thoughts, where did he get it and how did it stay in perfect shape?  There are letters on the top, "USN"  which I think are for US Navy, curious, my father was US Army Air Corp.  Did they get aviator caps for whatever service branch, did it matter?  

This photo of my father at the propeller is 1943 with him wearing this or another identical cap at Dorr Field, Arcadia Florida during his early flight training in P-38's and PT's. 

1943 July Lt L S Ball  Dorr Field

Lou  liked flying and especially  those small planes and aspired to be a fighter pilot in the Army Air Corps, but Uncle Sam needed ever so many more B-24 pilots and although Lou was not a large man in height he was strong and eager and assigned to fly the B-24 Liberator.   The following post card was one of the few things Mom shared with me although she would always call it, "that damned plane."  I don't know what he thought but I have some of his own notes and drawings from training, he was a dedicated student.   It has been said that the B-24's  were flat faced, rectangular and had  the look only a "myopic mother" could love.   The cockpit  was cramped requiring pilot and co pilot to live cheek to jowl during missions.  One WWII pilot wrote, that the first time he entered the cockpit of his B-24 "it was like sitting on the front porch and flying the house."  The Liberator was one of the heaviest planes in the world, the D model  weighed 71,200 pounds loaded.  Flying it was like "wrestling a bear" which left the pilots tired, and sore.  B-24 pilots were known to have huge muscles on their left arms which they used to man the yoke while their right hand worked other controls.  
 



This is the cover of my father's  August 1943 "Dorr Way", a booklet for the pilot trainees, they were the class 44-a.   I am  mindful of the task these  men faced  and grateful that I have these historic items.  It is a wonder that in the times of WWII the U S Army Air Corp would take the time to photograph and document their times at these different training sites.  It was a time when they would move quickly through and advance to the next training or wash out and be assigned to another task, not able to make it as a pilot.  Many hundreds of thousands of men went through the training but most did not achieve pilot status. The wash out rate was  at it lowest 30 percent but in  later years 45%; but the men who were not pilots would be given other flight status  jobs, bombardier, gunner, radioman, all with an appreciation of the difficulties they faced.    

 

 Louis Zamperini discusses the huge fatality rate of B-24 crew in his marvelous  book ,  "Unbroken" authored by Laura Hillenbrand,  the dangers that abounded even before they flew off to war theater.  The men called the B-24  "The Flying Coffin"   "Stories of its dangers circulated among the would be airmen all over the country.  Pilot and navigator error, mechanical failure, fuel leakages, sinkability, inability to ditch, and bad luck were killing trainees at stunning rate.. 52,615Army Air Corps stateside aircraft accidents over WWII killing 14, 903 personnel...In August 1943  590 airmen would die stateside, 19 per day." 

 

My father's squadron, # 6 at Dorr that Class of 44-a.  There were 6 similar
squadrons according to this book.  He is seated to the far right on the ground.

I cropped and enlarged the photo to the right of my father from the Squadron photo.  There again is that aviator cap, and goggles.  He looks happy and excited.  Look at his sparkling smile and his eyes.   He had less than one year of life left ahead when this photo was taken.  Maybe he did not yet know that the Liberator awaited. He was a positive young man.   Lou would  confide  in  his young brother, Henry, on his final leave home  that he was not so sure he had done the right thing in taking the pilot's training.  I doubt if he had much choice, he was in the Army and they made the rules.  It was not today's Army by a long shot and how could he have declined pilot training for which he scored very high in aptitude and  preliminary  screenings.   The aviators gathered in the photo below are waiting solo assignments.   


1944 June, short  newspaper clipping about
disappearance of my father
 and ..Combat crew 193







Last photo Dorr Field book 1943, an almost
spooky quality to the men now ready to meet their destiny, whether  to the next phase of training  as in Lou's case or...,.

This is  my Sepia Saturday contribution.  Click here to the Sepia host site where members of the international community respond to the prompt.  This week many consider the  eyes  in the   photo.   
 http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2013/05/sepia-saturday-178-25-may-2013.html

 









Rain outside so inside, the dreaded Room



Deserted back thistle finch feeder



It's a rainy day which means a break from the outside chores and adjournment indoors.  As Bea mentioned over at the Frog and Penguinn, seems irrelevant to say much these days with the OK tragedy.  We sent checks to Red Cross and Salvation Army immediately and many prayers.  Our friends there are safe thankfully, but  so much devastation...Despite the normally actively used black thistle seed finch feeder out back today, one odd lone gold finch decided he wanted into the top of the mini Alberta spruce out front.  Was he off course?  Was he trying to stay dry?  Who knows.  So seldom do they venture out front away from the back seed feeder that he caught my eye.  But all I could  capture was this glimpse.  I know it is a he because the males are the more brilliant gold.  Meantime the back feeder is deserted as they all avoid the showers.  



View out front window. A gold finch hides atop the mini
Alberta spruce and the tulips are about done
blooming,  grass is growing



I have tried to dedicate  two hours a day to clearing the mess of paper in our downstairs back bedroom,  results of my attempts to consolidate  and winnow photos, ours and all the inherited ones I brought from PA.  So far I do not reach my goal of two hours a day, because I allow distraction to occupy and divert my attention.  I see  something about the photos that sends me to the computer to look up genealogy and then to determine whether or not I have scanned that photo and if so it can be tossed or set into a very small stack which will go into an album. Once at the computer it is easy to check Facebook or a multitude of things and then soon it's time to return upstairs and start dinner.  I have justified the mess in that room because no one is here to use it, it is downstairs and out of the sight of any guests and if I keep all this stuff out and about I am more likely to deal with it.  But lately I cannot stand it any longer and so I made the two hour a day vow.  Today with the late April showers is a good day for inside work and I am avoiding the Room. 



The Room:  Dresser and boxes and vintage suitcases which store
 photos and documents.  Assorted stacks on top the dresser



The Room:  Across from dresser the daybed houses albums and more
photos and ephemera.  Old  48 star nylon flag atop one pillow

A friend said she has seen far worse and  so what, who cares, well that only encourages me.  Yes, I could quickly put the  photos into those vintage suitcases and boxes and  be clear if I needed to, but just as surely as I do that I will want something for some reason and will have to retrieve by releasing the stuff from its container.  That's why I decided a year ago to leave things be.  No, I have not been merely dawdling but gave two good hours to vacuuming upstairs,  and downstairs and the stairs themselves and rearranging some of the sunroom furniture, one of the  few if not only portable rooms in this house.   But this does not "redd up"  the mess in The Room.  Redd up is a western PA term, but friends from Indiana say it too,  while others look at me as though I have uttered a foreign language when I say I'm going to "redd up now."  Jerry is used to these idioms, and of course when in PA, no problem, but here?  No they do not understand. 

Here's a corner of  the  rearranged sunroom,, a favorite place in good weather and a walk in ice box in winter.  No sun today but good sitting, reading, pondering place or for storm watching.  Activity happened there because I  acquired a new ladybug doormat and allowing the distraction I shuffled furniture.  But now I  return back to The Room,  wish me concentration and progress, then again as my neighbor said, "why get it all done at once, we are retired...save something for a rainy day.."   oooops, that's today.  

New lady bug door mat for sunroom door onto back deck



Woe is I,me and time a wasting.

I have been tinkering again, here with some keystrokes,  trying to master Google +  with all it seems to want to offer me from phone, tablet and PC.  As I  become  bored with routine  and rote,  I accepted the + challenge to migrate both blogs  to Google +.  This led me to  tinker with my profile and  tag line there.  When I looked back Google said it could not save it.  I looked again, it was saved. Another look and it's the previous edition, now you see it, now you don't.   It's not that I need something to do, I am merely tinkering to determine which is the better venue for me to use on our impending August Alaskan adventure.   But the more I dabble,  the more circular my thoughts become and by now I have gone  back to , "whatever..."  Alice has once more slipped down the rabbit hole and is no longer in Kansas, which by the weather  news of today is a good thing because Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas have had whirls of ill wind blown their way.  If this makes no sense to you, never mind, you likely don't know me that well or have no appreciation for  how I can follow and toy with distraction beyond all hope of focus.  And how on earth did I become a follower of my own blog?  Well Google + , explain that to me and why can I not delete myself as one of my followers?  Sheesh!    Meantime I am adjourning back outside to the bench with a nice tall cold beverage....plenty of ice and enough of this computer business. 

Sepia Saturday 177 Fences

This week's prompt immediately reminded me of several  fence photos  and one nearly upside down boy, but finding them, ahh that took time.  I remember hanging upside down just like the  children in the Sepia prompt off the cross bars of swings or other things.  It was all the better to startle adults who would shout, "get off there right now before you fall and break your neck!"  And then would come warnings about too much blood going into  the head from upside down.  It never bothered any of us.  Today, I don't like an overly  upside down  tilt to my chair in the dentist office when I have exams and teeth cleaned and protest, as I did a couple weeks ago, "Better let me up for a while, too much blood going to my head."  Ahh how childhood warnings stick in the psyche and emerge so much later in life amongst our truisms. 

I snapped this photo of our late son, Steve in 1976 climbing over one of our pasture fences that were not all that sturdy.  He was 12 years old then.  Fences were a necessity when we lived in Newcastle in northern California because we had a bottom pasture with a pond and we and the neighbors had horses, which had to be corralled, "good fences make good neighbors."  This pasture  fence had a gate farther down the hill that could be opened but Steve could not bother with walking farther when he could go over.  I remember shouting many warnings about this activity to no avail because he was typical country roughneck boy,  always tearing holes in his pants and shirts climbing over  fences to shortcuts.  

I don't know how I happened to have the camera with me just in time to snap this but I must have yelled something, like, "you are going to break your neck and go over upside down someday yet.....walk down the hill to the gate."  He  never did.  There in the left lower corner is  a glimpse of Cookie, one of  our German  shepherds who went wherever Steve went on the hillsides, she could not have climbed over that fence  but she would have found a way under because wherever he went, she shadowed.  Steve's birthday is this coming week, we will still feel pangs from loss although after 5 years we have accepted.

It was less than half a mile all the way down that old dirt road to the pond, lower pasture, too far for a boy on foot to be bothered walking to reach a gate when he could hop over and run through the pasture.  The following photo shows how run down those fences had become by 1980, weather and age taking a toll and necessitating  replacement at a healthy investment.  By that time we had given up our horses so it was not as critical to mend and keep up fences.  I will have to copy this and send to a neighbor who still lives back there.  Today that old dirt road has been paved and before we sold off, many homes had been built farther down on subdivided and developed property, making the old dirt path a daily speedway.  It was just one more reason why we no longer wanted to live there on those seven acres.  Country life was going away.   

I took a photography class in 1981 which included film development and working only with black and white photography.  I took and developed this photo  March 1981 showing the partial replacement  from run down rail fence to post and barb wire along the upper pasture.  I was advised that the photo was too busy and to focus down, but today I am glad I have this "busy shot."  We no longer live there and it does bring back the memories.  I tried to post it as an extra large photo but my blog lay out will not permit it, so here it is a bit smaller than I would like. 

This has been my Sepia post for the prompt of upside down urchins on fences.  To see what others have shared this week, click this link to the Sepia site, an international community.  http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2013/05/sepia-saturday-177-18-may-2013.html

Sepia Saturday 176 Our Town and the chick chick chick

I have few photos from my own school days or anyone else's in the collection here being predigital, we lacked ready use of  cameras at school and film developing was considered for special occasions.  Maybe that is all for the better, but this week's prompt recalled my obligatory high school chemistry class which I enjoyed  but no photos of our experiments. 

Louisa Lucy Leidel Wetchen

However  following my meandering mind while I was adjusting some ancestral documentation and errors this week, I found this photo of Jerry's maternal  great grandmother,  Louisa "Lucy" Leidel Wetchen taken about 1888 with a brood of chicks.  Lucy was a force in her own right, a straight arrow distinctive MN woman of farm and prairie who lived to be 86,  and as a widow for her last 18 years.  My in laws always said  "Grandma Wetchen was a stickler."   

This photo  immediately reminded me of one of my high school plays, "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder and my  role as Mrs. Gibbs and my lines, "here chick, here chick, here chick chick chick"  That  I  recall my opening lines 51 years later, is a tribute to memorization insisted upon by Mrs. Klinke, our drama teacher.  Not only that we all had to speak up and out, we had no fancy microphones nor sound systems as in  today's school auditoriums.  She drilled us, rehearsing up until opening night, again and again and again; until we could  deliver just right, according to her ear while I thought, "what is the big  deal about some woman feeding chickens?" some other lines are much more important, but not to Mrs Klinke, every line had to be projected and delivered. 

 As I recall I did quite well in my performances, Mrs Klinke signed my yearbook, "to Mrs. Gibbs."  as you can see here.   Back in that day, we all had our yearbooks signed.  I wonder if they even have year books that we had, they were quite the production for us. 

Mrs Klinke

In 2008, on this blog,  I wrote about my  Our Town experience, sans photo of Lucy. Here is the link to that post. http://patonlinenewtime.blogspot.com/2008/10/our-town.html

I suppose one could draw some mystical curious coincidental connection  that my 1962 high school play role would have been portrayed in real life years previously by my husband's great grandmother, someone I would never  know. Strong  women were not really on the radar screen back then, but I was fortunate to have many of them as teachers and my  relatives too.  There was one page of the yearbook with photos of that play.  I have scanned it here and you can enlarge it to see us in our poised glory.  I am "Patty" seated front row top photo and gazing at the bride bottom photo.  Bobby Ormesher who played  Doc Gibbs, my MR. wrote across that page.  We were so young back then, in the times of our lives.  We celebrated  our 50th class reunion in September,last year, it was a good time , and Bobby was a good dance partner.  

his is a Sepia Saturday post.  To read others,  click here to the main Sepia site.  http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/2013/05/sepia-saturday-176-11-may-2013.html