1 Oxymoron and 1 "It Figures" Coming Up!

Former CEO of National Lampoon Timothy Durham and two others were found guilty of convicting investors of about $200 million.  A jury found the three guilty of fraud and conspiracy.  Life in prison has been recommended.

They had a Ponzi scheme going cheating the elderly out of their savings.

U.S. Attorney John Tompkins said none of the three has shown any remorse.

Timothy Durham resigned his position as National Lampoon's CEO last January.  He was a major Indiana Republican Party doner.

-story reported by AP.

Wow!  I see one oxymoron and one "it figures" in the above story.

Today is National 'Square Dance Day

So swing your partner, just don't let go, she might hit the wall or go over some folding chairs or something.

Vintage Atlanta Post Card Henry Grady Statue

Here is a vintage post card of the Statue of Henry Grady on Marietta Street in Atlanta. 

Is it really Henry Grady?

It looks like he is wearing a cape.  I think it is Superman.

The Hunter Genealogy Inspiration continued

Not long ago I told you how William A. Hunter (1842-1928) inspired me to look at my heritage; my family tree.

I mentioned his bastard father Jason Henderson Hunter.  I also researched Jason.

Jason moved to from Buncombe County, North Carolina, to Union County Georgia, in the early 1830s.  Jason and his brother Andrew were soldiers in the infamous "Trail of Tears" removing the Indians from north Georgia and western North Carolina to Oklahoma. 

Jason then settled in Macon County, North Carolina, married, settled down and had several children.  Once he applied for a loan and the bank sent an appraiser to his house to see what he had as collateral.  In the list was a female slave housekeeper and her "high yellow" child, about age 4.  I think Jason might have been the father of that child too.  In court, he was accused of bastardy 3 times, once by William's mother Rebecca, and twice by the same woman with the last name CatherineDavis.  He was found guilty all three times and had to pay child support for each.

He was also the town constable for Franklin, North Carolina.

He and his family moved to Cape Giraldo, Missouri. Something happened to his wife and he remarried.  Again having a flock of kids. 

In Missouri he became a state represenative.  He and his wife and a partner was accused of land fraud.

The Civil War started and Jason formed his own unit which made him a Colonel.  His unit fought for the Swap Fox of Missiouri General M. Jeff Thompson.  They specialized in attacking Yankee ships on the Mississippi River.

After the war and with a new wife he was a State Represenative in Greene County, Arkansas where he also owned a broom factory.

He had at least 15 children from at least 5 women and that is not even counting the slave lady.

I noticed that Franklin, North Carollina, Cape Garaldo, Missouri, and Greene County, Arkansas have one thing in common:  They are all on the "Trail of Tears".

On This Date In History, November 26:

1938 Tina Turner [Anna Mae Bullock], was born in Brownsville TX, singer (Proud Mary).

In July 1965, some friends and I went to the Royal Peacock in Atlanta to hear Ike & Tina Turner and the Ikettes sing live.  When she sung in that tight short dress pumping and humping with the song she was singing I think we were all dazzled.  I know I was.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WOODY!!

According to CBS SUNDAY MORNING SHOW Woody Woodpecker turns 72 today.  He was created by Walter Lantz.

I'm not sure if I should claim Walter Lantz or his creation Woody Woopecker as a relative.  I am related to the Woodys in Fannin County, Georgia, who married my Mashburn and Petty kin and I am so related to the Lances of Union County, Georgia, and Hayesville, NC, they married two of John Hunter's children.

Larry Hagman Died

So did J.R.

And Captain Nelson

Enjoy Black Friday!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Pardon Me!

A Thanksgiving Long Long Ago

Back in BN (before Navy) there is one Thanksgiving I don't think I will ever forget.

One Thanksgiving in the very wee hours a bunch of us went to the outskirts of  White, Georgia, to hunt.  We had a plan.  We remembered so many times of driving on deserted roads and coming across a rabbit in the headlights and they just froze from a moment before they hopped off.  Our plan was for two of us to ride on the fenders with shotgun in hand ready for those headlight-frozen rabbits in mind.  Luckily we came across none.

After a while we headed back to Marietta.  I think we were driving through downtown White and we had a flat tire.  I think it was downtown because there was a service station, a store, and maybe a couple of brick buildings.

We did not have a spare tire, which happened often back then.  It seemed like after the first flat we would have learned to carry a spare.  But we didn't.

It was dark.  There was nothing we could do until daylight.  We sat in the car and do what young men do, talk and cut farts.

After an hour or so the daylight slowly merged in.  We were on the side of the road beside a service station and across the street up a little slope was a neat little country home. 

We could see up behind the country home, up the slope about 40 feet or so was an outhouse.  Larry said, "Look!"  Pointing at the outhouse.

Larry loved to take dumps in outhouses.  He said he was going to go use it.  We tried to talk him out of it but he insisted.  He walked up by the house and proceeded up the slope to the outhouse, opened the door and went in and shut the door.

We were talking and I saw that a matronly lady was walking up the hill in her robe with a magazine in her hand.  I punched my friends to look and we all started giggling.

She opened the door and dropped her magazine.  Larry flung himself out of the outhouse, like a force kicked him out.  When Larry got embarrassed he would always scratch the bridge of his nose or his forehead to cover up his face.  As he bounded out, almost hitting her he was scraching his forehead with one hand and trying to pull his pants up with the other.

And we were down on the highway having fits of laughter.

It was his car.  He jumped into the car and we drove away with the flat flapping to reminding us that we were still had a flat tire.

Just a city block or so down the road was another service station.  We figured out the ownder lived in a house behind the station.  We knocked on his door and he had a used tire he could sell us for a price.  Between us, we fell about $2 short.  The man took it and put on the used tire.

We left and on down the road, near the 41 Highway we ran out of gas.  It is useless to try to find a gas station with no money.

We decided I would hitchhike to my home, get my car, drive over to Larry's house and get some money from his secret hiding place.  He said he parents were out of town for Thanksgiving.   

When I got to my house my mother was preparing dinner and my uncle and aunt Tom and Mary Jo Petty had come for Thanksgiving Dinner.  It was the last time I saw Tom alive.  They tried to get me to stay but I had things to do and I didn't want to bore them with the details.  I don't they would understand and try to help which would mess up their plans.

I got Larry's secret money and headed back up the 41.  As I was going through Cartersville heading north I saw my cluster of friends walking on the south lanes with their thumbs out.

I blew my horn so they would quit hitchiking and turned around to go south at the next redlight.

What if they had caught a ride and how far would I go looking for them.  It was just a matter of good timing and maybe divine intervention, I do beleive.
Or, possibly it is true that God looks out for fools and drunks.

My Initial Genealogical Inspiration

As a kid I never retained the stories my father and his brothers and sister told me.  Not only them, but old neighbors who lived near the Hunter boys about 30 or 40 years ago had plenty to tell me.  I thought it was interesting at the time but did not consider retaining any of it.  Old Blind Charley who lived with his sister had some doozies to tell me about the Hunter boys. 

My father's father kept his moonshine hidden underneath the house.  At times he would have a belt of it and let out a big sigh.  One time after hitting the bottle he was crying.  I asked him what was the matter.  He told me he didn't know our real last name.  He said his father was an orphan at birth and had the last name of the family that kept him, up  in Franklin, North Carolina.

I finally retained something.  In fact, I was so impressed with not having a known last name I went to school bragging about it.  My parents or Miss Whitehead called my parents wanting to know what I was talking about - they had papers to fill out on things like this.

Years later, in 1975 we had our first child.  I wanted to give my son a heritage.  A story of our ancestors.  But I remembered my great grandfather was an orphaned.

I did a little research on how to do family research.  Then I went to Woodstock to Carmel Baptist Church, where I knew my great grandfather William A. Hunter was buried, found his tombstone and wrote down his living dates (1842 - 1928).  I also knew he was from Franklin, North Carolina, fought in the Civil War and was wounded near here during the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in June 1864.  I went to the Kenneaw Mountain Civil War Museum and talked to somebody about the possibiliy of finding William's name.  He told me they had a list of every man that fought there that summer.  He asked his name.  I told him and looked up on his index, which at that time wasn't on a computer I don't think.  He looked and looked and said there was no William A. Hunter that fought on Kennesaw Mountain during the Civil War.

I found out about censuses.  They had a census every ten years.  1850 was the first that everyone in the household was listed along with their age.  Up  until 1850 only the heads of households were listed.

The Cobb County Library, at that time was on Atlanta Street in the old Post Office.  The Georgia Room a the library was family research friendly.  I learned how to use the microfilm reader  I looked at the 1850 Macon County, North Carolina, census in search for William A. Hunter, about 8.  Franklin, was the county seat of Macon County.

I looked at every name in Macon County in 1850 and there was no William A Hunter, any age.  There was only one Hunter family in Macon County that year, Jason H. Hunte and he had no children named William A. Hunter.

My next step was to get my neighbor Harry who worked for Southern Bell or Bell South to get me a Macon County telephone book.  Harry did.  I think he did it because his boss was my cousin Dee's   husband.

I knew William's wife was Emaline Ray, also from Macon.  With the telephone book I sent every Ray and Hunter family listed in the phone book, a letter with a self-addressed stamped envelope enclosed asking them did they know of an Emaline Ray who married William A. Hunter.

I got a few of my SASE envelopes back wishing me good luck in my search.  Then I got a letter the president of Ray's Cured Hams in Franklin saying that I might try his cousin Hess Ray, which I probably didn't have Hess's address because he didn't have a phone.  He knew all about the Ray history, the president of the ham company told me.

I wrote Hess and got a reply.  It said in so many words that William A. Hunter's real name was William A. Trammell.  He said after the war when he returned home he and his brother Van killed a man and they were wanted for murder, they fled.  William changed his last name to Hunter.

Then I moved swiftly.  I went back to the office of the Kennesaw Mountain Museum and yes, William A. Trammell, of North Carolina is on the list.  I went back to the library to look at the 1850 Census again, yes William A. Trammell was listed as a grandson living in the Jacob B. Trammell household .  In the same household there was Jacob VanBurren Trammell, who was actually an uncle of William's, but they were about the same age.

I sent off to the Probate Judge of Macon County asking for the copy of the wedding certficate  for Emaline Ray and it came back that she married William A. Trammell.

Later I found that William deceased mother sued Jason Henderson Hunter, the town of Franklin's constable, for Bastardy, and won.  The court was ordered that he pay child supprt of $100 a year.   So, William actually claimed his paternal name which most people do at childbirth.

But all these questions's answers were starting to fit like a glove and I was finding out so much about my family plus real history.

I was hooked!  Thank you William, wherever you are.

This house is now American Tool Rental, Main Street, Woodstock, Georgia

Today, Nov 19 is World Toilet Day

Outhouses for Sell near Cleveland, Ga

Freedom of Expression

Americans have the right to protest.  They have the right to hold signs up to show how they feel.   That is Freedom of Expression, which falls under the Freedom of Speech umbrella.

Sometimes Freedom of Expression might call for disrobing to express yourself.  Just don't get too expressive while you are nude or you might get arrested.

I was wondering, what if a bunch of nude people are protesting and it is time for a lunch break and they all walk over to the neighborhood diner and walk in naked.  Is it OK if the manager offers them a paper towel to sit on?

What Is Good For the Goose Is Good For the Gander

Texas Governor Rick Perry and Lt. Governor David Dewhurst backed  a change in the state law requiring mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients.  There is nothing wrong with that, putting the poor folks in an embarrassing postion for taking money to survive on.

I do not know much about David Dewhurst but I have watched Rick Perry when he ran for governor.  I noticed the way he fumbled and got hung up on the next word he was going to say in such a way, I wondered if he was under the influence of alcohol.

So, if the poor have to take drug tests to get money should the elected officials also take test to see how often they are under the influence while making important decisions?  After all, their decisions will effect the economy much more the poor people welfare checks will.

Billy & Jimmy

This is William H. Bonner (1859 - 1881) as a young man.  There are no pictures of William as an old man because he never got to be old.  He was known better as "Billy the Kid".

He was killed as a young man by lawman Pat Garrett.

I wonder what Billy would have been like if he lived in our age and in Marietta.  In other words, if he was a friend in our formative years:  Would he turn garbage cans over with on the way home from Boy Scout meeting?  Would he hide in the woods with and hollow scary sounds to the teacher in a classroom who he knew would freak out?  Would he "roll" the opposing high school's marching band during half time of a football game so that all the marching musicians would be tangled up in steams of toilet paper?  Would he learn to learn to sign his father's name and forge his name to reports sent from his teacher to his dad?  There are much more but I'm not sure about the statue of limitatons on some of it, even if the culprit is dead.  You see, we had a friend named Jimmy Pat who did all those things, but he died too.  Jimmy Pat did not die of unnatural causes though, he died of heart failure when bending over to pick up his lap dog.

Do You Recognize My Twin Distant Cousins?

This is/was the family of John Andrew "Andy" Lance, Jr. and four of his children. 

He and I are/were 2nd cousins, twice removed.   Andy was born in 1875 and died in 1939.    He was married twice:  First to Maggie Byrd, who died in 1903; secondly to Lydia Emmaline "Emma" Whitaker (1881-1966).  They had seven children.

As you can see the oldest are twin girls.  At first glance of the picture the twins reminded me of another set of twins that I couldn't quiet put my finger on?  Have you ever had that feeling.  I get that feeling more and more as I get older.

Then it hit me.  Did you see the movie THE SHINING?  Remember the twin girls in the corridor of the hotel?

On this Date in History, November 14:

1863 Bedford Forrest was assigned to  command the CSA of West Tennessee.

 From what I observed die hard southeners have a deep respect for Nathan Bedfod Forrest.  From what I read he was hateful and apparently was a graduate from the same charm school as Andrew Jackson, who apparently had the philosophy, "If someone disagrees with you, shoot 'em!"  If either of them ever belonged to a debate team, I bet their team always won.

I'm Confused

Locally a gun shop owner offered a free chance to a shotgun for those who voted.  I suppose you would have to had furnish proof you voted.  After you cast your ballot in Georgia you are given a stickum that has a Georgia Peach on it and says something like "I voted!"

The shop owner had two shotguns chances for those who voted.  He picked two and the last I heard no one has stepped forward to claim their shotgun.  Which is understandable, that happens all the time, like the lady discovered she had a winning lottery ticket onlly days or a day before the time limit expired.

What confuses me is why the gunshop owner offered such a deal.  I think probably the person who would want a shotgun would mostly likely vote against Obama.

Follow me so far?

Obama is good for gun sales.  Although Obama has not said one thing to insinuate or hint he is going to outlaw gun sales paranoid people want to stock up.  They think he has it on his agenda.  Nobody has went broke over estimating the paranoida of the American public.

Gun sales has shot way up since Obama became president.

So, realistically, shouldn't the gunshop  owner have done somethilng to help Obama be reelected to keep those sales coming in?

But aside from that, it is good the gunshop owner gave people a reason to get involved in civic affairs and vote.

Like I said, I'm confused.

What Business Is It Of Congress?

Ex-CIA Director General David Patraeus's affair has stirred up congress.  They want to know why they were not told.  They probably want to know the details and see any pictures taken too.

As I see it, that was General Patraeus's privae affair (literally) and is nobody's business but his, his mistress(es), and his immediate family.  Shouldn't congress get their mind out of the dirt and get back to more important matters, like balance the budget?

What if James Bond was not part of the British Secret Service but a CIA Agent instead.  Everybody knows Bond has plenty of affairs while working on a case.  Would congress want to know all about them too? 

VETERAN'S DAY! KISS A VETERAN TODAY!!

General David Patraeus, ex-Chief of the CIA

SESAME STREET 43 Years Old Today!

Funny, you don't look it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

HAPPY NATIONAL CHAOS NEVER DIES DAY!

This is copied and pasted from the National Whatever Day website:

Chaos in Greek mythology and cosmology referred to a gap or abyss at the beginning of the world, or more generally the initial, formless state of the universe. In Greek mythoical cosmogony, particularly in the Theogony of Hesiod, Chaos is the original dark void from which everything else appeared. First came Gaia (Earth) and Eros (Love), then Erebus and his sister Nyx (Night). These siblings produced children together which included Aether, Hemera (Day), and Nemesis. Other cosmogonies, such as the lost Heptamychos of Pherecydes of Syros, also have the gods being born from Chaos, but in a different way.




Later uses of the term by philosophers varied over time. In modern English, the word is used in classical studies with the original meaning; in mathematics and science to refer to a very specific kind of unpredictability; and informally to mean a state of confusion.



Don’t forget to celebrate your chaotic life on November 8th on Chaos Never Dies Day.

More about Tuba Skinny on TREME

My buddy Joe Stewart posted on his blog Tally Ho! the New Oreleans Band the thing they did for HBO'S TREME last Sunday that I mentioned a couple posts ago.  It made it to You-tube.  Here is the link to that scene with Tuba Skinny:



And here is a link to Joe's TALLY HO! blog.

http://joeb-tallyho.blogspot.com/

Amazing!

Absolutely amazing!  What is amazing is not that Obama won.  He did not win by a landslide.  It was a close race.  I am right in the middle of Repulican Land and the belief around here was that Romney was in there;  he was going to wipe the floors with Obama.  Romeny would not doubt be the next president.  What is amazing they thought Romney had the election with no problem.

I would have been suprised on who ever won.  It was too close to predict.  But they did. 

I think they deciphered things they wanted to hear as facts.  Did they watch too much FOX NEWS?

Every Vote Counts! Vote!

If you live in Georgia you might have your doubts.  Even though the surveys in Georgia show Obama and Romney are running a fairly close race, something like 45 for Obama and 55 for Romney, I think if the election will reflect that, if I am not mistaken Romeny will walk away with all the electoria votes.  Why?  Because Georgia is one of the states that the winner takes all.  That is a stupid law.

HOWEVER!  If you voted for Obama although it might not officially count it will count in the survey polls - the pulse of the public polls.  It it is 45 to 55 the politicans, if they are smart, will realize the Republicans do not have a mandate to rule, from the people or the Divine.  I think the next time they should compromise some to get favored reactions from the people who voted liberally in the previous election.  They are greedy, they want everybody's vote

By the way, many communities are arming themselves and gated communities are locking in gates in fear of the masses who will lose will stampede.  tch tch.
Nobody ever went broke over estimating the fears and paranoida of the American public.

Vote today!  Regardless of how you vote, you need to get your opinion counted.

Tuba Skinny on Treme'

Last night I was watching the latest episode of Treme', which is a ficitonal story of the New Orleans people getting over Katrina on HBO when I saw my favorite New Orleans band Tuba Skinny.  I first recognized the washboard player, then the singer (Rebeka?) then others.  They were performilng and were actually part of the story.  A character of the story was a Tuba Skinny band member.  I was thrilled they are getting national attention.

So, in case you don't know of Tuba Skinny, here is a sample I lifted off Youtube:

Rope Mill Park, Woodstock, Georgia

This is on Little River, just north of Woodstock.  I found it yesterday.  I took an interest in this area because it is the stomping grounds of my great grandfather William Hunter when he was recuperating with wounded knee after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain during the Civil War.

psst!  Click on each image to make it bigger.

Remember, Before Bedtime Tonight, Fall Backwards

HAPPY ALL SAINTS DAY!

Yep, there is Presidents Day in February and All Saints Day today.

I wonder in Heaven there is some kind rivalry among the saints?  Surely, since they are all Saints, they are in Heaven.  And surely they at times end up at the same area and I wonder if their is a polite, "I'm  Holier than thou!" and, "No, I am Holier than Thou!" going on politely among them.

And I'm sure some Saints are against excess drinking.  How does Saint Patrick feel about that?

Welcome to November 2012!

The Election Month