Scenes from Lebo, KS

This is the school, built in 1927. In some years it housed all grades from 1st to 12th.

Old Pictures

A lot of old photos that I wanted to save together. Is that called a collage?

More Cat Shenanigans

Caption to this cat picture: Not Helping.

An Interesting Idea

No particular reason for using Mr. Manilow for this blog. A thought that I ran across on Facebook: Your life will get better when you realize it's better to be alone than to chase people who don't really care about you. Wish I had learned this earlier in life!

Faces

I use a free program called Picasa to sort and store my photos. It has many features that I was not aware of when I first started using it. A class at the library helped but there are still things that I don't know about all of its options. When there are unidentified photos stored, they have a space to type in a name. (I had over 5000 unidentified.) Usually with the first keystroke, several small photos appear of folks who are already tagged in your lists. The suggestion is based on the similarity of facial features. Amazingly, some of my children and their children or cousins or grandparents are suggested. The computer detects some family features that I don't see. This photo is of my mother's school class. When her face was isolated and I typed in a letter, it brought up other photos of her. She is in the back row, third student from the right. Technology is so fascinating.

Two Spoiled Dogs

Jill and Jack. She's hyper and he's calm.

How to Keep Warm in a Blizzard

Cats are smart.

A Dangerous Shadow Box

This stayed on the wall after someone bumped into it and received a bloody wound on the arm. Sorry he was hurt but so glad all the antique crockery remained on the shelf.

On the Beach

This was a trip to Galveston. I am trying to not get any sunburn or more freckles.

Snowball

Jo and I with a cat that came to their house and stayed. When she and her sisters were considering a name, her mom settled the matter with Snowball - because he was so black. Jo's mom was a wonderful woman and raised four great daughters. I spent a lot of time there. Her dad played Big Casino with us but never on Sundays. He also gave us some advice about telling the truth. If you always do it, you'll never have to remember what you told to whom. Now that I've reached a certain age, that was very good advice because sometimes I don't remember which event I told to whom!

Summertime and Iced Tea

 

This is my friend and I having a snack and some iced tea in her back yard - 1947.

 

Have  you noticed that some ads use the term "ice tea?"

Of course, my favorite is "sweet tea" and I am not even from the south.

Flood - 1947

This was the deepest water we could find at 15th and Maple in 1947 during the flood. The water got in our basement and my dad was trying to bring some things upstairs. The cedar chest kept floating ahead of him. So discouraging! We sold the house and moved shortly after that to another area. The folks who bought the house built up the yard and a retaining wall was put in place. I believe the flood control dike was put in place about 1951. Google failed to find the date for me.

Sitting by the Fountain

Here are four of us Hutchonians at Carey Park, sitting on the wall that extends from the fountain with the colored lights. This was at the south end of Main Street and at night while driving south on Main, you could see the lights change color and light the waters. A few years later, the flood control dike was built and the moved the fountain off to the east side of the entrance. I haven't been past there at night for many years so I don't know if it still functions in the same way. https://www.cardcow.com/images/set36/card00383_fr.jpg If you copy and paste the link, you can see a post card with the fountain at night.

Coffee

The old Cuisinart pot quit yesterday. So now we are perking with  KitchenAid.

We considered one of those new fangled cup-at-a-time brewers.

Decided we were too traditional (and cheap) for the newest thing.

 

Smitty

This was the policeman on the downtown beat in the 1940's in our town. Everybody knew him and liked him. On the right is my friend, Lu. We both worked at Kresses from 1947 till 1951. We worked Saturdays from 9 till 8 with two hours off for lunch and supper. For these nine hours we received an envelope with four dollars and fifty cents in it - cash money! I think we made such a small amount (fifty cents per hour) that they didn't withhold any taxes. However, during the summer when we worked full time to relieve others for vacations, they did withhold fifteen dollars one year for my entire tax bill. And cokes were a nickel, banana splits, malts and milkshakes were twenty-five cents. The most fun was working at the small lunch counter where we served sandwiches, drinks, ice cream and potato salad. One day a co-worker who trimmed the windows bought her lunch and took it upstairs to eat it in the lunch room. People of color did not sit at lunch counters then. A man said to no one in particular, "I didn't know you took THEIR money." I said, "THEIR money is the same color as yours." I wonder if he had told the manager I would have been fired. Don't know, since he did not.

Hutchinson High School

About 1946 and then they tore it down - late '70's, I believe.

Hunting? Or Just aiming?

I am in the background pointing at something - possibly a tin can. This is about as wild as we got. Shooting with a friend who knew what he was doing. He was L. Hutton and a friend of a friend! It's amazing we didn't hurt each other but we were very careful. There was actually a rifle club at Hutch Juco (now known as a Community College.) Both men and women were members. I did not participate in that. I do remember we had a lot less shooting going on in the general public. However, there weren't nearly as many people around in the good old USA either.

Dad Ready for Work

And out by the garage. He was a lineman for the Kansas Power and Light Co. and later a foreman on the truck. I feel such admiration for all people who have to work outside in the cold winters and hot summers but there is a special place for those who go out in storms and fix downed wires to restore our power. My poor grandmother worried about him for twenty-nine years. Her older son worked for a power company in Lyons, KS, and either fell or was electrocuted while trimming tree limbs in 1922. So until she died in 1951, she was so afraid for her younger son. I remember that every Sunday night my dad wrote a letter to his folks. There weren't so many phone calls back then. Long distance was mostly for emergencies or bad news. So I imagine a weekly letter was really appreciated!

Dad and Mom

Out by the garage again. . . 1949

Graduation 1949

We sure took a lot of pictures "out by the garage."

Another 1940's shot. In my mom's flower garden although no flowers are visible. Also a little Spanish with the signature.

Tacky Day

Back in the day the school let us come to school with ratty clothing and odd looks. . .at least one day a year. This was known as Tacky Day. I am here on the right giving my friend, Avanel, the word. I don't know what the word was, but I look pretty forceful and she is slightly amused. There is not much going on around here so more of these old photos may be showing up.

Shorter Than We Thought

I knew that people lose height as they age but this is ridiculous. L. when a full grown adult: Six feet tall. Present day: Five feet nine. Me: Five feet seven and a half. Present day: Five feet five. So why don't I have to shorten my jeans?

No Cozy Fire

It's still cold outside but we aren't using the lovely fireplace. For one, we went cheap and didn't have a remote firestarter installed. So now we find we need a wrench to turn on the gas to start the realistic looking logs. Oh well. Too many house fires this winter around and at least one from a fireplace box. We never go in the living room anyway. Our living room(s) are the bedroom, kitchen and computer room.

More Sun

We have had a very long spell of cloudy weather along with low temperatures. Today we saw the sun and almost 40 degrees! Tomorrow another dip to single digits. I am anxious to see these glorious flowers bloom this summer.

Another quiet day in the cold, cold middle of the country. Luckily, L. only had to go out to put the polycarts outside. And a sad day for not just Paris, but the world.

Fat

 

Fixing a roast that weighed 2.33 lb. when brought home from the market.

Cut off .33 lb. of fat?

Once I asked a young clerk at the meat counter to trim a roast for me.

He took it back to the cutting place and an older, more official looking butcher returned it to

me without a smile on his face.

He probably wanted to see what the customer looked like who wanted the fat trimmed.

If he had asked, I would have told him that he has much sharper knives/scissors/trimmers

than I have. Stores who offer to do whatever you want, within reason, could do it with a smile!

So today I used my scissors and still didn't excise all of the blubber.

Sunrise 1-5-15

I didn't even think of the date being 1/5/15 till I typed it!  I just got up early this morning for a change. About five o'clock and then decided to get a photo through the screen and plastic on the back porch.

Exhausted

We enjoy football and Dallas is our favorite team - after the Kansas City Chiefs. The game today was amazing and not in a good way. It tired me out to see so many things go badly. But a win is a win.

Galavant?

I have seen an ad on television for a new show, Galavant. That made me think of a word that I haven't heard in many years: gallivanting. My mom used it to say someone was gallivanting around. To me that meant roaming around loose and up to no good. With this tv program having Ricky Gervais in it, there will probably be a lot of that going on. The way my (feeble) mind works, I also thought of Sir Galahad. . . the reason for the photo of Sir Knight who now resides in Omaha after living in our basement for a few years.

Bubba Stick

This was accidentally left in a grocery cart today. A trip back to the store and the customer service had it! Some kind soul turned it in. L. is so happy. A good start to 2015.