Longacre Park 1973

Mom, Aunt Laura, Brett, Chad and cousin Sherri at Longacre Park.

Aunt Dixie

You will be missed Aunt Dixie.

Longacre Park-Pool

My Mom and Aunt Laura and wading in Longacre pool.
I see Chad in front of them and I can also make out me and my cousin Sherri behind our mothers.

look at all the towels stretched out on the hillside behind the pool.

1973

Uncle Jerry

My Mom's brother Jerry died Monday night.

Here are a few pictures in memory of him.

Bailing Hay

Dad bailing hay with his brother, George back in 1973.


My cousin Steve is helping and my brother Chad is along for the ride too.


That is my Uncle George driving his Oliver 1250.

Warmer Times

Uncle Joe

My Dad's brother, Joe Fred, passed away last week.
I had the honor of being one of his pallbearers Friday.

This is a picture of him holding me. Grandpa can be seen in the background.




This is Uncle Joe's wife, Aunt Betty, holding me.
Dad is in the background and Joe's son, little Joe/Jody, waits for his turn to hold me.

Here is Dad (Left) with his sister Nancy, Ike and Jack at the grave side.

Go fly a kite

Flying our Jolly Green Giant kite at Uncle George's house in 1972.

Jack

Looks like Uncle Jack came over for some Chef Boyardee pizza.
It was 1973 and Chad seems awestruck by our Uncle.

I was looking at the Tupperware cups when I noticed Foghorn Leghorn on the table.


I remember they day I got him.
We were on one of our many trips to Dad's hometown in Kentucky and on this trip we had also visited the taxidermy museum in Cave City.

The entrance of the taxidermy museum is a huge gift shop and Dad had let us pick out something to take home.
I chose this guy.

Wish I could say that I still had him.

I am tempted to stop at this museum every time I go through Cave City to see if I can find him again.

Easter

Easter at Grandma Whites was always a good time.
Good food, Grandma Whites eclairs anyone?, and cousins always made it fun.

I love the picture at the top.
It reminds me of cartoon gangs that were on Television at the time.
When you were watching stuff like, Scooby Doo Where are you?, The Funky Phantom and The Hair Bear Bunch it is bound to come out in your clothing style.

See what I mean?

I am not sure what Uncle Ed was watching that influenced his green suit choice but it was probably ANYTHING on prime time television at the time.


It must have been a really nice weather that Easter.

We played football that day. What a great time. I remember bits and pieces of that day in Grandma's yard.
Specifically that I kept stepping in dog doo.
I can always find it. It is a gift I have.

Cousin Sondra is looking like she is ready for the Bicentennial with her outfit.

Hey look her twin Rhonda has on a matching shirt! Crazy how that happens.

More pictures of that day can be found HERE.

Have a nice Easter.

If your out there cousins, from both sides of the family, say hey in the comments.

Happy Birthyday Mom

I know I am a day early on all of the birthday posts but I figure I better do them while I am thinking about them verses forgetting them and doing them three days late.

Mom celebrates her birthday tomorrow.
She is still in El Salvador right now.

In the above slide she is celebrating her 30th birthday and the year was 1978.
That is her Mother sitting next to her, my Grandma White.

I think my Aunt Carol made this very special cake for her.
It is a classic "Over the Hill" cake but with a twist.

It was made completely of foam.
Mom tried and tried to cut the cake but could not.
The cake would mash down and then it would spring back up.

"Come on old lady!" "Are you to old to even cut a cake?" were remarks that could be heard from shouted from loving family members.

I thought it was great.
I also thought this was one of my Aunts best cakes, pure icing!
All us kids licked it clean that afternoon.



Here is Mom on her first birthday.
She has the lamb cake that our family traditionally has to celebrate the first year of life.

••••••••••••••••••••

Follow up

Chad's birthday is today and he and his wife, Cathy, stopped by to say hello.

"Hello!"

Mom in El Salvador

My Mom and my Aunt Carol are in El Salvador for the next couple of weeks.

They are there on a missions trip.

So if you would like to follow along on their trip go to their blog for daily updates.

El Salvador

Sledding 1974

Sledding at Uncle George's house in 1974.

This was such a great hill for sledding and it holds so many great memories for me growing up.
We always wished that there was some way to automate getting us and our sleds back up this huge hill.
We never did find away to do it but this is what it would have looked like if I would have had my way back then.

Sledding

I named the saucer sled as my favorite Christmas present as a kid but I was raised sledding not on a saucer but on a toboggan.

This is probably one of my first times sledding.

Most memories I have riding on the toboggan have me being up front in the sled.
That means when you hit fresh snow it all flies right up in your face.
Talk about cold! You had to scrape the snow off your face.

All my toboggan memories are on Uncle Georges sledding hill.
His hill was awesome!
I mean so good that it almost ruins sledding anywhere else kinda good.

Dad and I are on Uncle Georges hill in this picture.

Those are some good memories.

Cousins, cold and hot Chocolate.

We also have some funny home movies that show Uncle George crashing.
I need to dig those out this winter and post them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The food spread in 1979!
My Grandma on the left followed by my Mom's sister Carol.
Grandpa is at the head of the table and Aunt Loraine is on the right.

I hope you have a nice Thanksgiving and for all you kids who aren't allowed to sit at the grownups table I hope you have a fun cousin to entertain you.

Like my cousin Dee Dee!
I noticed a toy laying on the hearth guarded by a rabbit.

A Fisher Price movie!

You can see other posts about this great toy HERE and HERE.

Grandma White's 1978

Just a few more days until turkey day.
This is my Mom's side of the family at Grandma White's house and I can't tell but it looks like Grandpa Chet is getting ready to pulling the table cloth out from under the dishes.
What a riot!

Poplar Log Cemetery

After we left the Old Mulkey cemetery I called my Dad and had him meet us at the family burial grounds, Poplar Log Cemetery.

Dad brought mom and my brother Chads kids with him.



I had Dad tell us stories we had heard before but we love to hear again. Also I want my kids to know the stories so that they can pass them down to their kids.


In the picture above Dad is telling us about his youngest brother, William Med, who only lived for a day.

These two headstones are for Dad's Uncles who had pneumonia but went ahead and checked their traps in the winter and died while still young boys.

Listen to your Mother boys is the lesson here.

I think this is another one of my Grandmas brothers.
This one relative needs a whole post to himself.
Fear, murder, revenge and a shootout at the courthouse is the summary of his story.
Check back later for the story in its entirety complete with the newspaper clippings.

Left to right: Levi, Joel, Me, Zach and Dad in front of my Grandparents grave.

Here are my Grandparents in front of their grave.
Dad said they were proud of it. I thought it was a little creepy at the time.
Now whenever I am at the grave side I think of this picture.

Me with my Grandma.

My Grandpa name is John Turner.
My Dad is James Ted and we named Joel, Joel Ted to keep the J.T.s Running in the family.


Many stories here.
The kid who died from eating to many apples and died from diarrhea.
The relative who died from riding his horse while drunk and ran into a tree.
Not to mention the town drunk named Tanglefoot.

Labor Day Weekend 09

My family and I went to our family reunion over the weekend.

It is held in the small town where my Dad is from, Tomkinsville, Kentucky.

First thing on our agenda was the watermelon festival that is held in downtown Tomkinsville.
The festival starts off with a parade.
We missed the very beginning of the parade because we had to make a bathroom stop as soon as we got into town but I don't think we missed any major floats.

We saw the babies who won contests for the prettiest eyes, prettiest smile, prettiest hair and most photogenic.
We not only saw the winners but also ALL the runner ups. For each category.

Not to mention Miss Teen, Preteen and soon to be preteen winners.

We did get there in time to see the "if it has a motor drive it" portion of the parade too.

We also saw a very scary Ronald McDonald who kept holding up a fake fish for some reason.

Then there was the horse section of the parade which is usually eventful but there wasn't near as many horses or riders this year so there was nothing much that happened.

Missing from the parade was the "Every kid in town on a quad" portion of the parade.

After the Parade we made our way to the second thing on our agenda which I will save for tomorrows post.

While walking to our destination we spotted some local yahoo's standing on the sidewalk.
I thought I would take a shot of them and post it to add some local flavor.



Wait! Those aren't just any yahoo's. That's my Dad and his brother Uncle Ike.

Mom and Chad's kids are there too.

Well it was good to see family in town already.


More on our weekend tomorrow.