3 Amigos

The three boys in the backyard on Lexington Ave.

All of us looking like little angels and Chad's chin has sprung another leak.

Wallowing

Here we are in the living room of 1451 Lexington playing with Dad.

It is spelled wallowing but pronounced wollering.

1451 Lexington

This isn't the first house we lived in but its the first one that I really remember.

I will never forget it's address because Mom taught it to me in the form of a poem.

Say it with me "1451 Lexington". See it rhymes.

This is the house that my Mother grew up in and across the street is where she first met my Dad.

I watched Tweety bird eat birdseed on the front porch and from the same front porch watched Astronauts orbit the Earth on their way to the Moon.

We rode our Big Wheels in the back yard and played Batman, Tarzan, Lone Ranger and Tonto and had many other adventures there.

When I drive by it now I have fond memories of the place but then I have the overwhelming urge to call my parents up and thank them for moving us to the country.

Peace

The peace symbol must have been all the rage when these photos were taken because I am flashing it in every picture and Brett does it it one, Chad is just huggy.

Brett had begun to develop his look of shoulder pads and pants.
It never took off as a fashion trend but that didn't stop him from trying.

You can see the beginning of the word "Hi" in the sunflower that we later completed.

Kids this is in the front yard where a giant tree probably stands now and you can see our station wagon in the driveway.

Hey! We Match.

This is another photo from Opryland.

This picture is taken in a fun house mirror but you can still see that my mom and I have matching clothes.

Stretch N Sew, what a wonderful thing.

Warmer Days

Here is a picture of warmer days.

If memory serves me right this is at a hotel in Cave City, Kentucky.

It was on old 31 close to the Tee Pee motel.

When we go past this hotel today I think it looks scary but I remember having a good time that day.

Snowman

This is not near as great as my Mothers snowman, as seen here, but I think Brett and I did a pretty good job.

It was 1973 and I was 8 and Brett was 6 and the snowman is almost as big as us.

Notice that Brett is striking a pose that he would later teach to Chad.

Notice we are wearing our favorite gloves, Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. (Looks like I am holding an icicle)

It's supposed to snow tonight.

If it is a good snowman building snow take a picture of your snowman, send it to me and I will post it here.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.Bug BunnyYosemite Sam and weapon

Disney

Another classic Disney photo 1972.

A photo spot filled with ears and duck bills and as a matter of fact when you squeezed that duck bill it quacked.

We must have squeezed the bill to much because Chad doesn't look that happy and for that matter neither does Mom.
It looks like Brett and I are feeling the Disney love though.

Fashion

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas but it's time now to get back to laughing at old pictures and memories.

Brett's family, his wife in particular, loves looking at Brett's wardrobe in these old pictures.

I saw this picture and knew they would love his coat. He was gettin jiggy with it.

Our football stocking caps are in place and Chad is striking a casual pose.

The date on the slide says 1978 and my guess is that it is taken in the Smokey Mountains but I am not sure.

Merry Christmas

Christmas 15

Couldn't tell if this was Christmas or Thanksgiving but I thought I would put it up anyway.

This is in the kitchen at our house on Lexington Ave. in Indy.
It is the Butler side of the family.

I see Aunt Pearl in the middle with Aunt Odel to the left. Mom is on the far left.

I will have to guess who's back is to us, and my guess is Georgina.

Fill us in on the details Mom.

Christmas 14

My first Christmas (1987) with my new bride!
(This is our 20th!)

What was the name of the dog?

Christmas 14

These were cool toys the Mattel handheld games.

It looks like I am opening a basketball game but I think football was the best.

Here is a link to some info on the games. Link

For just being red dots the game play was great.

Christmas 13

Hear No Evil . . .

Apparently this is a favorite pose of ours no matter what the season.

It seems like when we were young the little monkey statues bearing the label "Here no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" were everywhere, including our parents little monkeys be it in Christmas photos or in the woods.

Home

Dad sent me a picture of the house from the road today. The view is much different than when we first moved in.

Reunion

This picture looks like it was taken the same day as the pool party.

The yard seems so naked.

Dad said he sent me a current picture of the house but my mail never delivered it.
If it comes in I will post it with another shot of the house I found so we can see the stark difference.

My kids had fun trying to put the pond and barn where they should go from yesterday post.
They said the clothes line and grape arbor are still in the same place so that helped them visualize.

I don't remember when the trees became trees and not sticks. High school?

Sad that Dad's trees have some disease now and are dying.

Christmas 12

Drool Chad, Drool.

Pool Party

Here are some pictures of a pool party we had after we had first filled our pool.

I see some people I know and some I don't in these pictures. Recognize anyone?

I see the Stapert's and Aunt Lori but besides Mom and us kids I am at a loss.

I do remember this day though. I remember Sondra and Rhonda didn't swim with us so I asked Steve why. He said that they had gotten in trouble because they had shaved their legs and they weren't supposed to. I remember thinking girls were gross and then dove under water.

Notice that there is no barn and where Palmer's pond is there is a cornfield.

Flying

Here is Brett and I flying. This is in the back yard on Lexington Ave.

We spent a ton of time in the backyard on this swing and on the monkey swing in the tree. No slides of the monkey swing yet but I know we have super 8 films of it and I hope to get some of those films copied and up on the blog too.

As a matter of fact if you want to see our home movies on here lets ask Dad to dig them out for me by asking him in the comment section, even you lurkers who view but don't comment let me here from you too.

We are flying in these picture, not pretending to fly. If you don't believe me look at my face in the slide below.

In my mind I was soaring through the clouds with my cape out stretched behind me..

Christmas 11

Double Bubble

I found another picture of us in our Double Bubble Stretch N Sew shirts.

We are waiting for the bus on the first day of school. I have my bell bottoms hiked up, it looks like Brett has on his favorite belt and Chad is looking forward to Double Bubble hand me downs.

The mailbox has Moms painting of us as a raccoon family on it.

The most shocking thing in this picture is that you can see the house from the road.
Dad built the house in a cornfield and planted a ton of trees around it, all of which block the view of the house now.

All the trees were saplings. Some trees Dad dug up out of the woods, other he dug out of ditches, some he started off other trees and several he ordered in the mail. But as we would plant each tree he would have us jump over it and then he told us that we could tell our kids that we had jumped over every tree in the yard, which I do every time we visit.

Dad send me a picture of the house now and I will post it.

Here is a close up of the house with bikes, tents, a pool and swings.

Toys!

Here I am all geeked out over a toy that Brett got for his birthday.

I was trying to explain this toy to my kids over the summer.

It went something like this. "We didn't have video or DVD. This was before the Cartoon Network and Disney channel. There were only four T.V. stations but some days UHF came in pretty good and that might have been another two channels but they were very fuzzy. We had a toy that you held up to a light and when you turned the handle you could watch a scene from a movie. You could go as fast as you wanted or as slow. You could even go forward and reverse."

"We only had a couple of movies but we would watch them again and again. Chad would stick them in backwards and then it was hard to get them out. Between the Movie Viewer and View Master we had plenty for our viewing pleasure."

The kids had a hard time visualizing this. So here is a slide of the awesome toy.

I can only remember a couple of movies that we had, The Lonesome Ghost and Bear Trouble.

Brothers do you remember any more?

I remember watching one about the future Space Shuttle but we didn't own it.

----------------------------------------

Brett had a cool phone that was making me make this face over the weekend.

I see cousins Rhonda, Steve, the back of Chad's head and I am thinking that that is Sondra's nose in the bottom right corner.

Christmas 10

A lot of hair in this one.
I see me, Chad and Brett. I think that is the back of Doug's head and I have no clue who the other person is.

Christmas 9

Chad looks full in this one.

Doug, Chad, me and is it Dave?

Happy Birthday Brett!

It is a little early but I will not be able to post this for sure tomorrow so Happy Birthday Brett!
(I know your Birthday is the 17th but I wanted to post this before the weekend.)
You Tiger you.

Drinking Lemonade

I found this slide that had I missed the other day taken at the Lemonade spring in Tompkinsville Ky.

It was neat to see a hillside where a creek just poured out freely from its side.

It was cool and refreshing.

Link to previous post.

Christmas 8

Here is Dad wondering what is under the tree for him.

Bretts Skills

Brett has always been very athletic.

Here we see him 1973 using his great balance, rolling a cable spool across Uncle Georges front yard.

The old house you see in the background holds quite a few memories and adventures for me and my brothers.

It was like a perpetual haunted house.

Our cousins, Steve and Trina, never missed an opportunity to terrify us here or anywhere for that matter.

We loved every minute of it.

Blue Jay

Mom commented on "Christmas 6".

I notice one of my paintings on the wall..the big blue jay painting on a cedar shake. Grandma White loved to watch the blue jays outside the window (behind uncle Ed's head). She would share how mean those birds were to the cardinals...but God made up for their meanness by making them so pretty. In fact, the fact that she actually liked watching birds was something that surprised me about my Mom in her later years. I painted the blue jay for her because of that "surprise". And, out of view on the other side of the shadow box was the mate to her fowl duo...a "lovely" (also oversized) painting of a cardinal. Just goes to show that Mom's are always proud of their kid's artwork - even if their child will be embarrassed by it in later years.


I found some slides of Mom's paintings.
I don't know what your are embarrassed about I always loved and was proud of your paintings.

The raccoon's were my favorite.

The Time Has Come

Our wives aren't in many of our slides but they should be viewed in their youth too.

Brett, Chad I expect you to get me some photos of your wives soon but to start things off I will begin with my wife.

Here is Elaine's comment on "Super Jock" yesterday made under the pseudonym "Me".

I had the Super Jock basketball guy. I specifically remember the Christmas I got it - I was probably 8 or 9. It was one of my favorite toys being the tomboy that I was.

She mentioned that she was a tomboy so I thought I would post a couple of pictures of her as a kid on her family farm.

Proud of her Yoo-hoo.



With her favorite dog, Ginger.


Dreaming of driving the 4020.

Be sure to follow Elaine's thoughts and what is going on in my family by reading her blog.

Thoughts of a Preachers wife. Link (and on the side bar)

Christmas 7

Okay Mom fill us in. How old are you in this picture?

Some One is Getting Older

Here we have Brett looking forward to his birthday this weekend.

If memory serves me right this was taken in Metamoria, Indiana on a train there and the date stamp on the slide says 1975.

I have a few photos of Brett I will post this week in hounor of his upcoming birthday this weekend.

Question
Does it make me old if my younger brother is turning 40?