November 2008 Archives
Only one of these is labeled: the shot looking over someone's shoulder at the sea: "One side of corridor." Not really sure what that even means. It would be great to attach these somehow to the letters that they surely came with. Maybe someday.
Interesting document from World War II relating to my father, Clark Watts. (as usual, just click to make it larger)
Well, actually March 1962. I can't really imagine that this is a scene that gets recreated regularly these days. I found it to be culturally interesting, though. Imagine a poor native American dressing up these days and feeding a black bear on a chain with what appears to be a beer bottle.
Who's the sister in this photo?
Who's the sister in this photo?
Well, if anyone ever wondered why I get along with women so well, just take a peek at what I grew up with (these photos were taken, from all I can tell, between 1967-1969).
Left to right: Madeline, Julia, Margaret, Cynthia and Suzanne.
Left to right: Madeline, Julia, Margaret, Cynthia and Suzanne.
Not much to say here. Here's what we had for lunch today. Apple pie from Whole Foods was dessert--and I'm warming that up now.
Not much to say today. Getting busy for Thanksgiving. Just picked up several pounds of beautiful, fresh gulf snapper at my favorite fish market--Snapper Grappers.
Here are a couple of things I did a week or so ago. the first, my usual monthly newsletter for the Alabama chapter of the Sierra Club. The other, a cover for a program manual for the Alabama Communities of Excellence.
Here are a couple of things I did a week or so ago. the first, my usual monthly newsletter for the Alabama chapter of the Sierra Club. The other, a cover for a program manual for the Alabama Communities of Excellence.
Going through old photos is a real adventure. Most aren't labeled (by most, I mean practically all). Here are three interesting photos. The photos on left show typical war scenes from WWII (one has the inscription: "This is a big gun.") The other appears to be camp life. Not really sure if this in the European theater or the Pacific. The photo at right is Uncle Bill Watts.
So much to do this week. But hey, it is Thanksgiving week. Planning the menu. Think we'll go for an atypical meal this year. Pecan crusted flounder for everyone but me (allergies will keep me to a parmesan crust). Garlic, smoked cheddar mashed potatoes and wilted spinach for the main course, along with some fresh baked sourdough bread. An appetizer of fried green tomatoes over a bed of arugula dressed with a simple sherry vinaigrette and drizzled with a remoulade sauce. My only question is what to have for dessert?
Oh well, still a couple of days away. I'll come up with something. Back to working on ads for Underwoods this morning.
Oh well, still a couple of days away. I'll come up with something. Back to working on ads for Underwoods this morning.
At left, Aunt Gladys Watts Waddell, center is a photo labeled Joe (Uncle Joe Watts) operating the radio, and at right Clark Watts, photo labeled "How do you like this of me and my girlfriend."
More to come...
More to come...
Well, here we are on a sunny--and really cold--Saturday morning. I have a funeral to go to today. A close friend's father died Wednesday after a long battle with lung cancer. Sad stuff.
On the plus side, I discovered yesterday that a grant I wrote back in March has been funded--$52,000 to put on workshops around Alabama teaching people about making their tourism projects (as they relate to byways) better!
I wrapped up a newsletter yesterday for CGH Insurance (we'll be switching the online newsletter over to a new format with the January 2009 issue).
I've got to get back to my scanning of old photos--maybe this afternoon or tomorrow!
On the plus side, I discovered yesterday that a grant I wrote back in March has been funded--$52,000 to put on workshops around Alabama teaching people about making their tourism projects (as they relate to byways) better!
I wrapped up a newsletter yesterday for CGH Insurance (we'll be switching the online newsletter over to a new format with the January 2009 issue).
I've got to get back to my scanning of old photos--maybe this afternoon or tomorrow!
I haven't been much for updating my blog lately. Thanks for checking. I'm planning to get back into it this weekend. I've been really busy working, but that's not the real reason. As many people who have read my blog regularly know, I lost my Mama on March 3, 2007. (I wrote about what Mama meant/means to me here.) It has been the hardest thing I've ever gone through--hopefully ever will go through. Losing a parent is always difficult, I'm sure, but to have Mama stolen from us by an evil man who wanted nothing more than money for something is just more than any of us could handle.
The justice system moves slow in America, but we seem to have finally arrived at an end. The trial was in September (I've posted about it here). The sentencing was this Monday. What is below pales in comparison to what my siblings, my niece and my nephew so courageously said, but this was all I could muster. The D.A., who really strikes me as a good and decent human being, had tears in his eyes. They sentenced the man that murdered my Mama to 45 years. The end result should be life in prison.
I woke up yesterday morning with the realization that this was the first morning since this evil man murdered my Mama that he woke up with no hope. I'm sure that before this he had hope that he could get away with it, hope that a jury would believe his lies and finally hope that a judge would fall prey to an easy sentence. Thankfully, none of that happened and he will wake up in a prison cell until he dies.
Well, anyway, this was my impact statement
To know me was to know my Mama.
Her favorite color was purple. Her favorite season was spring.
She loved the land and watching the purple irises poke their blooms skyward. She loved the jonquils and the daffodils springing out of the ground first to chase off the winter. She even brought me the blooms of some of the first of them the Saturday before she was murdered.
We talked on the phone every day for the last 4 years of Mama's life and she would always tell me about something growing or changing in the yard. She loved Marengo County and she LOVED Octagon.
More importantly, Mama believed in the people here. She probably taught more than half of them in school. She taught for something around 30 years, taking enough time out to raise the 6 of us--and to teach us all to be good, decent people and to care about those around us. She taught us to believe that people are at their core decent. She grew up in the Great Depression and learned that we must all look out for each other in order to survive.
She taught by example as much as anything else. She always treated everyone with respect and love. She had high hopes for all her students and worked hard to make sure that when they left her classroom, they were better for it. She'd do all she could to help them find jobs after graduation and she even helped them with work clothes if they couldn't afford them on their own.
There are so many things I still have to learn from her. I didn't know until I was thumbing through a book on WWII that she had volunteered with the Red Cross weekly while in college to wrap bandages for the soldiers. She loved to write in the margins of books.
She could have told me all about this and the thousands of other things that I don't even know to wonder about, but she was stolen from me.
And that's only part of the pain I feel. When I first started talking, I said to know me was to know my Mama. The important part of that statement is the "was." I'm a very different person today than I was on March 3, 2007. Like Mama, I trusted people. I was pleased to see the first blooms of spring popping up in my front yard from the bulbs I had dug the year before at Mama's house. I was happy. I was laughing, smiling, living life. I was talking to Mama on the phone and telling her about those first flowers popping up. I was excited to know that I could pick them soon and take them home to her in the way that she always brought flowers to me.
And then, because someone wanted something and is an evil, evil man, Mama was stolen from all of us. I immediately knew that something was wrong--before we got to the house, before we talked to anyone. On the drive from Birmingham to Octagon that night, I cried and I cried. But I started to get angry, too. I still cry regularly. But the thing that has impacted me the most is the anger.
I'm not afraid of people anymore, perhaps even when I should be. Instead, I'm angry. I've lost much of that kindness that Mama instilled in all of us. I've lost the trust that she always had--willing to stop even in her 80's to offer help to someone broken down on the side of the road. Mostly, I feel anger.
I hope some day to feel the same love and joy for the world again. I don't know if seeing the maximum sentence for this horror will give me back my hope, but it is all I can ask for. I'm honestly still shocked that the maximum sentence isn't death. I'm still amazed that the most we can hope for in a sentence is actually the least that could possibly be acceptable considering how cruel and violent this attack so clearly was.
Anything less will certainly be a cruel blow from a system that claims justice as the goal. The loss of my Mama is the largest, cruelest and most incomprehensible thing I've ever been through. Please don't let the violent, cruel person who committed such a horrible murder ever find his way back on the street--EVER. The thought of seeing him walking any neighborhood is just too much to bear. The thought of all those wonderful people who live in Octagon trying to go to sleep at night with the knowledge that this violent thug could one day walk their streets again is too painful, too unacceptable to imagine.
The justice system moves slow in America, but we seem to have finally arrived at an end. The trial was in September (I've posted about it here). The sentencing was this Monday. What is below pales in comparison to what my siblings, my niece and my nephew so courageously said, but this was all I could muster. The D.A., who really strikes me as a good and decent human being, had tears in his eyes. They sentenced the man that murdered my Mama to 45 years. The end result should be life in prison.
I woke up yesterday morning with the realization that this was the first morning since this evil man murdered my Mama that he woke up with no hope. I'm sure that before this he had hope that he could get away with it, hope that a jury would believe his lies and finally hope that a judge would fall prey to an easy sentence. Thankfully, none of that happened and he will wake up in a prison cell until he dies.
Well, anyway, this was my impact statementTo know me was to know my Mama.
Her favorite color was purple. Her favorite season was spring.
She loved the land and watching the purple irises poke their blooms skyward. She loved the jonquils and the daffodils springing out of the ground first to chase off the winter. She even brought me the blooms of some of the first of them the Saturday before she was murdered.
We talked on the phone every day for the last 4 years of Mama's life and she would always tell me about something growing or changing in the yard. She loved Marengo County and she LOVED Octagon.
More importantly, Mama believed in the people here. She probably taught more than half of them in school. She taught for something around 30 years, taking enough time out to raise the 6 of us--and to teach us all to be good, decent people and to care about those around us. She taught us to believe that people are at their core decent. She grew up in the Great Depression and learned that we must all look out for each other in order to survive.
She taught by example as much as anything else. She always treated everyone with respect and love. She had high hopes for all her students and worked hard to make sure that when they left her classroom, they were better for it. She'd do all she could to help them find jobs after graduation and she even helped them with work clothes if they couldn't afford them on their own.
There are so many things I still have to learn from her. I didn't know until I was thumbing through a book on WWII that she had volunteered with the Red Cross weekly while in college to wrap bandages for the soldiers. She loved to write in the margins of books.
She could have told me all about this and the thousands of other things that I don't even know to wonder about, but she was stolen from me.
And that's only part of the pain I feel. When I first started talking, I said to know me was to know my Mama. The important part of that statement is the "was." I'm a very different person today than I was on March 3, 2007. Like Mama, I trusted people. I was pleased to see the first blooms of spring popping up in my front yard from the bulbs I had dug the year before at Mama's house. I was happy. I was laughing, smiling, living life. I was talking to Mama on the phone and telling her about those first flowers popping up. I was excited to know that I could pick them soon and take them home to her in the way that she always brought flowers to me.
And then, because someone wanted something and is an evil, evil man, Mama was stolen from all of us. I immediately knew that something was wrong--before we got to the house, before we talked to anyone. On the drive from Birmingham to Octagon that night, I cried and I cried. But I started to get angry, too. I still cry regularly. But the thing that has impacted me the most is the anger.
I'm not afraid of people anymore, perhaps even when I should be. Instead, I'm angry. I've lost much of that kindness that Mama instilled in all of us. I've lost the trust that she always had--willing to stop even in her 80's to offer help to someone broken down on the side of the road. Mostly, I feel anger.
I hope some day to feel the same love and joy for the world again. I don't know if seeing the maximum sentence for this horror will give me back my hope, but it is all I can ask for. I'm honestly still shocked that the maximum sentence isn't death. I'm still amazed that the most we can hope for in a sentence is actually the least that could possibly be acceptable considering how cruel and violent this attack so clearly was.
Anything less will certainly be a cruel blow from a system that claims justice as the goal. The loss of my Mama is the largest, cruelest and most incomprehensible thing I've ever been through. Please don't let the violent, cruel person who committed such a horrible murder ever find his way back on the street--EVER. The thought of seeing him walking any neighborhood is just too much to bear. The thought of all those wonderful people who live in Octagon trying to go to sleep at night with the knowledge that this violent thug could one day walk their streets again is too painful, too unacceptable to imagine.
Seems that I can't catch a minute to do anything these days.Worked hard all day on Monday until a friend from high school (Walter Smith) came by Monday night for a quick visit. He was in town going to St. Vincents. Yesterday, had to drive to Montgomery to give a presentation on scenic byways--small world. Kathryn Friday was there--my high school English teacher. Hadn't seen her in years and I've seen her a dozen times in the last year-and-a-half. Small world. Today, another byways meeting, this time about directional/wayfinding signage for byways through the Alabama Department of Transportation. There is certainly a need for more effective signs for tourists. We're working on it!
Oh, and the usual work on my monthly Sierra Club newsletter, AIA Christmas party invitation, CAWACO/Five Mile Creek updates and more. I'm tired.... At least no meetings tomorrow!
Oh, and the usual work on my monthly Sierra Club newsletter, AIA Christmas party invitation, CAWACO/Five Mile Creek updates and more. I'm tired.... At least no meetings tomorrow!
Seems as though I haven't had as much time as usual to play with my blog. I think I've gotten a bit caught up playing with flickr, plus I've just overall been really busy working on several projects. Getting finished up with a program manual for the Alabama Communities of Excellence and finished a newsletter for AIA, Birmingham chapter. I've been pounding out ads for Underwoods (sister company to Birmingham-based Bromberg's Jewelers). Oh, and I wrote a reasonble itinerary for the Alabama Front Porches website that I posted on the blog I created for them. Need to scan some more old photos in. Haven't really made anything interesting to eat in over a week--busy and boring.
Well, I haven't really been doing a lot of cooking the last week (made several homemade sourdough pizzas, but those just all look the same in photos). Here's a sandwich I made for Ann's birthday last week. Fresh Big Sky Bakery bread (a Birmingham bakery), fresh veggies and blue corn chips. It is pretty similar to a sandwich that we got frequently at Ketabies--sp?? (later the Highland Market and now Rojo).
The sandwich is pretty simple: fresh sprouts, tomatoes, shredded carrot, walnut pieces, Swiss cheese, raisins and Ranch dressing between two slices of good wheat bread. Simple and delicious.
I am pretty sure this is Uncle Bud, Aunt Sadie Lou, Mama and Aunt Phoebe. I don't know who the other person might be. Any ideas?
A trip to Bibb County last week netted a few good photos of the Cahaba River and the changing fall colors.
I know some of these folks (Mama, Mammy, Uncle Bud, but I surely don't know some of the others. Any guesses?
Anyone want to help me with identification?
