The Evening Rambler for about as late in August as you can get

This year will be remembered locally as one of the hot Santa-Cali-Gon festivals.  Last year was the "downpour on Friday" S-C-G, and 2011 was the "microburst blowing some of the tents down" S-C-G.  There have been other hot Santa-Cali-Gon weekends in years past, in fact, one was quite a bit hotter - like 105 or 107 degrees or some such insane thing.

I can almost hear you now, "What's with all this Santa-Caloo-Whatever"?  Well they had to call it something, and "Big Fall Festival" was already taken.  Actually, a big part of the local history here in Independence were the three trails west, the Santa Fe, the California, and the Oregon trails.  The Santa Fe trail started over 100 miles to our east, in Franklin, Missouri; Independence was one of the last two stopping points (the other being Westport) where people could make repairs and stock up before taking the long drive west across prairies and mountains.  At some point just west in Kansas, near Olathe or Gardner, the trails split apart.

The S-C-G festival for short (to save keystrokes, but I just blew that), has settled into a pattern over the years of a few carnival rides (always set up on the south end), food (funnel cakes, kettle corn, hot dogs, pickles, fried Pepsi doughnuts and the like), and crafts and clothing items (if any article can have a child's first name on it, it will be so).  There's also a few music venues out in the open, and today I happened by one band who was playing some good blues.  I also saw that a dulcimer club had set up under a tent, playing for all they were worth.  They had a good sized, appreciative audience.

One thing you don't see there anymore are the re-enacted gunfights; that seems to have gone by the wayside here.  Come to think of it though, I don't think we have a history here of shootouts, I always got the idea that was more of a Dodge City or Tombstone pastime.

And of course there are always crowds of people ambling along, though I think it was a bit less crowded than some times in the past.

Did I mention it was hot?  Brutally hot?

My wife and I came with a bottle of water each, and it was a good thing too.  We stopped by our church's booth for Fried Pepsi Doughnuts, and then began a search for a friend of mine, who helps his mom and dad sell some really good pickles (be forewarned, they have a bit of a bite).  We finally found where Blake was set up, and found out that unfortunately his dad had fainted from the heat and dehydration, and had been taken to the hospital.  We're still praying for Blake's dad, but we got an update that he's gotten good treatment and is doing quite a bit better now.

I hadn't planned on this whole Rambler being about Santa-Cali-Gon, but I think this has gone long enough.  I'll save the other stuff for another time. 

How about a slide show?

I've got the projector and screen all set up and ready to go!

"Bob, you're not going to show the old Colorado trip slides again?  Everybody's seen all those!"
"No, no...just a few slides in honor of Mike's birthday."

(Click of the power knob being turned to ON, the soft whirring of the cooling fan, and the sounds of the projector being adjusted so the picture's in the center of the screen.)

"Okay, this is actually a card we got from the Scowdens one Christmas."

"Aww!"

(Cli-CLICK!)

"This one's from Thanksgiving 1973 at our place."

"Look who's right out in front?"

"Yep.  That was a fun time."

(Cli-CLICK!)

"Ha!"

"Oops, gotta do that at least once.  Hang on, I'll get it."

(Sounds of the projector mechanism being opened manually, and the slide holder being removed, the slide being taken out, turned, and being re-inserted, and everything being put back right.)

(Cli-CLICK!)

"So okay, that's Mike and Kathy at the...wait, that must be from a few years ago.  That looks like a different house than the one they're in now.  I think."

(Cli-CLICK!)

"What's he doing here?"





"I think he was explaining to Victoria how McDonald's gets the eggs round for Egg McMuffins.  Mike knows all kinds of stuff like that."

"What I want to know Bob, is how you remember trivia like that years later."

"Not sure.  Kind of scary, huh?"

(Cli-CLICK!)

"This...and the one before too...were taken at Aunt Timmy's 80th birthday celebration."

(Cli-CLICK!)

"Well, not quite as bad as the other one.  Wait a sec."

(Sounds of the projector mechanism etc., etc., etc.)

(Cli-CLICK!)

"There we go.  Dave and Mike, same evening."

(Cli-CLICK!)

"The gang!"

But you know, what's weird is that I couldn't find any of Mike on one of his birthdays.

************

Mike, I hope you had a Happy Birthday!  With cake.  And all.

New July friends

We met in a tent of all places.

I was so excited,

So I paid the price and took them home.

Later one evening, we put on a show.

They sang their brief song.

But then they were gone.

Happy Father's Day 2013 - a short and different blog

Happy Father's Day to anyone reading this who is a father...or who has celebrated with his or her father today!

It's become a tradition for me to write a Father's Day blog entry, so I thought I'd do something a bit different this year.  For those who don't know, one of my big passions is genealogy.  For many years I've been fascinated by this treasure hunt, not to mention all the enjoyment I've gotten looking at old letters, old photos, and retelling old family stories.  Now, I've not neglected my maternal line, but here's something for my dad, his dad, and so on.

I've done some research on my paternal line, and one thing I did for interest and amusement was commit these first names to memory.

So, I am,
Robert, son of
Albert, son of
Harry, son of
Jacob, son of
Isaac, son of
John, son of
Isaac, son of
Henry, son of
John, son of
Philip, son of
Thomas, son of
Thomas, son of
John, son of
John.

And that John Wingate is as far back as I've been able to go so far; he was born in Scotland in 1602.  I still think Wingate is basically an English name (there is a town of Wingate in northern England, near Durham), and some branches of the Wingate's moved to Scotland.  Or it's possible my family is more Scottish than I think.

Anyway, my line came through Scotland, back to England briefly (one of the Thomas'es I think, though I'd have to look that up), then across the Atlantic to Maryland, Delaware, then Ohio.  My Dad was raised in Ohio and Michigan, and came to Missouri to work as a pilot for TWA in 1942.

Now what I ought to do is follow this up in a few days with some scanned photos of my Dad.  Maybe I can find one of him in his TWA uniform.

Books of maps

We here at the Porch do like a good map. And so, we are interested in any blog post that lists 7 must-read books on maps.

Like this one.

Proof

Last year when my main computer needed to be replaced, the new box came with Windows 7, which I like.  One problem, the Cannon scanner software doesn't communicate with the new system.  I considered upgrading the scanner software, but have decided to move it to my other computer instead, which is still using Windows XP.

Which means it's about time to pack away the old HP scanner, which is slow, noisy, sometimes balky, and not that user friendly.  I'd have jettisoned it long ago, except that:

A.  It still works, and
B.  It has a transparency adapter so I can scan in 35mm negatives and 2" x 2" slides.

All that preamble to tell you that I've started a massive project to scan all my slides.  I'm not very far into the project; I'm up to about 1956.  I had a rather exciting "Aha moment" when I noticed something in this slide, for the first time yesterday; and I've seen it many times over the years.  This is from my first birthday.

On or near November 12, 1954, and appropriate to this blog, this was in Grandma and Poppy's kitchen.  Left to right, my Uncle Bud, me, and my sister Connie (I'm not sure why she's staring at the wallpaper).  Now Cousin Mike, see if you notice anything...interesting about this picture.  I'll give you a few moments...

Hint:  I've mentioned this here before (paragraphs 17 & 18), it's an old family story.

What we have here is photographic proof of waaaaaay back when I started out as a lefty, before my dad trained me out of that, and made me mixed-handed.  Before yesterday, I didn't realize there was any evidence.  It's neat the things I discover when I look through old stuff.

Oh, and another bit of trivia.  The windowpanes slid into the walls, and you'll notice the one on the right side is open.  I'm sure this wasn't too late in the evening, but it was already dark.  And though this was in southern Missouri, November evenings are usually cool there.  But this was 1954, an unusually hot year, or so they tell me.

While I'm in the mood, here's a few more pictures from that evening.

This one was actually taken just before the one at the top.  I don't know if Connie's trying to get my attention or Bud's.  And I don't know if Bud just sampled some of the cake, or if he was prompting me what to do next.  Well, we can see the story, even if we don't know the dialog.  This next image I cropped...seemed to improve it, I think.

I hope you enjoyed those!



  

Another short post

We plan to get the last of the decorating done this week, hopefully in the next day or three.  So this evening I worked on decorating the mantle.  I cleared off everything but the lamp, put up the long two-by-four with the cup hooks for the stockings, and placed on top of that the big wooden nativity set my stepfather made for us years ago on his scroll saw.  I added the lighted garland, and it all looks festive.  There's really only a few finishing touches to go.

While I was doing this, it occurred to me that I usually put on Christmas music while I decorate indoors.  But this time what I was hearing was a lot of weird sound effects; my youngest daughter was playing a video game.  Otherwise cute cartoon characters were giving off mournful wails and groans as they entered combat and blasted each other to destruction.

I'm not quite sure what it all means, but anyway, Merry Christmas.