Jan. 7, 2020 10:47 hours PST ... --- ... A theme to tie all my stories together, that is the elusive question. One of the earliest stories I remember clearly happened at age 3. I was living near Houston, Texas because my father was on a temporary assignment, working for the government as a scientist pre NASA days. I was out playing in the fenced yard using sticks to build a house for my doll. My mom came to get me for lunch and I showed her the worms I had found. She immediately, in a micro flash, knocked them out of my hand, grabbed me and drug me into the house. She explained they were poisonous snakes, Copperheads. The babies are just as deadly as the big ones. This instilled a fear of snakes that I still suffer. I hate snakes, even the nice ones. Now how do I tie this to my next notable memory at the feed store, age 8. I was at the feed store with my daddy on my birthday. I had just picked out a pocket knife for my gift. They let me have it while my dad put in his order for feed and other supplies. I wandered to the back where the feed was loaded. A wonderful kind dark-skinned man, that had known me for years, loaded the feed and while he waited for the next order, he carved on his walking stick. He was loading when I wandered back and felt the call to test my new knife. I sat down and started carving on his stick. My dad came back and saw me about the time the loader did. He spoke first, and it suddenly struck me what I had done. He said, "Well that's a mighty fine carving, Faetta." I apologized for not asking permission because I knew that is what my father would request. He said no problem because I was an artist and welcome to carve on his stick every time I visited the store. Now how do I tie all these diverse stories to one common theme that would make an interesting book? What would I title such an eclectic and eccentric life? Now toss in the story of the one time our girl band visited the beach and played surf music. Picture us all in tight miniskirts and tall white go-go boots. This was in-between junior and senior year, and one of the girls had an aunt living near the beach that hosted us for a week. Mountain cowgirls turned beach chicks for a week. One week preparing and cooking mountain oysters, then the next week preparing and cooking ocean oysters. Even a title for such a book eludes me.
I didn't realize you were from Georgia. My dad's family is from Folkston. My maiden name is Chesser, as in Chesser island. Didn't mean to derail my friend Faye's epic stories.
Jan. 8, 2020 08:45 hours PST I had an 'on the edge of your seat' story for this morning then I saw Hal's demands about posting a current avatar. He proudly posts his avatar and some Indian Cheif Well, the old Nancy Drew came out in me and I used overlay photography as forensics to compare facial features. He did look a bit like the old Cheif, but I wasn't convinced. My findings are on that thread. I realized my allocated forum time was almost gone as I tried something new. I warmed my morning protein shake and put in a slash of coffee and it was great. I had already drunk my coffee and hot chocolate and wasn't excited about a cold drink, so I experimented and was amazed by the aroma and delicate flavor of this warm satisfying drink.
I dislike drinking cold protein drinks in the wintertime, too ! Adding some to my hot coffee instead of regular milk is what i usually do as well, and it asked a great breakfast drink, regardless whether the protein drink is chocolate or vanilla flavored. Other times, I have a small protein bar along with my coffee in the cold mornings, and that works good , too. I want a little something before we go to the fitness center, but don’t want to swim on a full stomach, so a protein bar or drink is a perfect compromise for me. I like your overlay work, and especially the one of you and your grandmother. I am pretty sure that Hal has said he had some German and some Jewish in his ancestry, but I don’t think that he has ever mentioned having any Native American in there at all, so the picture was probably just for effects.
Overlaying could be a cool web service. People who want to compare their pictures with celebrities or whoever they think they resemble. It could be a whole new brand of selfies. If you could develop an app for it, you could become a millionaire. Then a few of us could take a cruise and you pay for it.
There is already a lot of those sites. Some are really good and use morphing features that adjust your features to match better than an overlay. Getting a good result with overlay requires a lot of similar features and proportions. No millions for me and no cruises even if they paid me. Boats and I are no longer on friendly terms. It would be a puke fest and not be the gala you had in mind.
Jan. 9, 2020 05:42 hours PST or 13:43 Greenwich Mean Time ... --- ... Well, I went to bed proud of myself for not responding to the phony-baloney cartoon character's new personality that certainly doesn't resemble old Sol as they attacked me with their sissy slap victimhood. Nice try but as I journey on my 70th trip around old Sol, such a juvinile pile of steaming horse dung, is just too obvious. I witnessed more clever behavior and rhetoric in Jr. High School. Although I went to bed proud and pleased with my restraint, patterned after our President, I had a bad dream. This morning I listened to the most elegant, strong, but kind and caring speech any President has ever delivered. Compassion for human life over property damage or failed assaults resounded loud and clear. I am proud to live in these times. I remember in school practicing nuclear bomb survival drills. I was never as traumatized as other children because my father was one of the ones involved in developing our ABM's and assured me they were faster than any warhead missile and always would be. That is just simple physics. He was also involved in early space science. He retired young so we could stay on the ranch full time. THE DREAM: I was out walking in an old town area and stopped to tie my running shoes. I had my leg up on a ledge to make this task easier. I was at the corner of an old tall red brick building. Between the sidewalk and the road was a canal about three feet wide and running swiftly. No one else was around. Suddenly I felt a hand groping a personal forbidden place. The pressure paralyzed me. A girly looking short skinny man said he was going to teach me a lesson for telling facts about the Democrats. As my discomfort increased, I realized my right arm was working. I grabbed his "man bun" and started bashing his nose against the brick corner. When I let go, he fell ... dead! I dragged him to the canal and pushed him in. He disappeared in a metal culvert. I walked nonchalantly to the far end (several blocks down and where it poured into the bay) to see if he came out. I heard an old man's voice say, "Don't worry that culvert is full of decaying bodies. When it gets plugged, the city puts in a small explosive and that cleans it out. I have watched and protected this street for years and was ready to intervene when you took matters in your own hands. I take it you are not a city girl." I woke up glad this dream had a good ending. I noticed my legs and left arm were still partially numb. I didn't sleep any different, it is just something that happens because of my nerve damage.
Jan. 10, 2020 06:14 hours PST and I don 't care about Greenwich time this AM ... --- ... Apparently no one knows Morse code, but that is not my rant this morning. I saw our lovely and intelligent @Lois Winters start a thread that caught my interest, but I was too busy thinking up cutesy things to weave into my web of words for today's panty wetting post, so I put it on hold until this morning. I couldn't find it, so after applying my forensics skills, I located it merged with another thread disclosing something about George. I was relieved as I thought it might have been deleted and I had lost my time on the soapbox to tell about my Singer treadle sewing machine origins. When the used store dealer told me it had come from the old bachelor apartments, I was intrigued to find the history of this place and why bachelors had a sewing machine. This was before we had discovered that such a scenario might have been identified using multiple letters of the alphabet to describe an alternative lifestyle. Anyway, after talking to some old toothless guy sitting in front of the general store and gas station, now known as a mini-mart, I found out that the Bachelor's apartments were, how shall we put it, a whore house during the great depression. I guess the store owner was too much of a gentleman to just blurt the truth out so he sugar-coated it for a young lady, one such as myself. The old man decorating the storefront because he was too blind to play dominos in the dark backroom, told me many stories of that famous housing project. My favorite was his own. His wife believed he was visiting single man friends there and gambling and that is where their money went. These unencumbered males hosted gambling and even the sheriff was a regular at these games. She finally had it one day and he confessed and she beat him half to death, knocking out or loose most of his teeth. She packed up and left taking the only car and what cash they had left. They had no children. He never married again and when one of the rooms at the Bachelor's housing became available, he moved in as the maintenance and handyman for room rent. He did odd jobs around town for food and spare time in the back of the store gambling where he won more than he lost. He told me of all the costumes the girls used to sew on that old Singer. I told him I sewed much of my own clothes and got it especially for modifying second hand jeans. I didn't have electricity in my cabin so after a few repairs including making a couple of missing parts from scrap iron, it sewed perfectly. I also sewed a sail for one of my sailboards. I sewed several bikinis for summer windsurfing using a loose stitch since it didn't have anything but a straight stitch. That seemed to brighten the old man up. I assured him I was not the kind of girl that would live in such a place as the Bachelor Apartments, but knowing the history of the machine would keep my mind from wandering while sewing. My mind wouldn't drift off to scenes of royal ladies trained in finishing school dressed in elaborate evening gowns with waist bound painfully in corsets sewn on this old machine.
What an interesting story, Faye. I don't know as I'd research something I'd wondered about as you did, but would just allow my imagination to run wild. Especially, if I'd known that sewing machine came from The Bachelors Apartment.
@Lois Winters but I didn't know what the apartments were until I investigated and then it was too late to un-hear it. They were torn down in the '50s and I had never heard of them. OK OK, I am much too curious but I can't help it!