Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Life and Death

Pic of the day;
Crazy Headlines!


 

 For today:

LIFE...

There are many unconventional lives, mine has been one, from birth 'til now.  I was raised in a very fundamental church life.  When I was a kid our church had a list of ‘SINS’. Our church also were believers in the gift of tongues. As in when the Holy Ghost fell on the day of Pentecost and the disciples of Christ spoke in other tongues, Etc.

Oh yes, and of course many members became excited praising the Lord and were known to walk benches, run, dance, shout and roll on the floor.

THUS WE were given the slang term of being “Holy Rollers”.  We were shunned by many people as being a cult.  Now lemme tell you it ain’t no fun to be the son of a Holy Roller Preacher. I took a lot of ribbing because of my family’s religion, of course a few fights.

I want to clarify here. I have known some of the most honest good folks in the church world. I even met and married the most beautiful girl in the world in church.

I do thank God that our church moved into the mainstream now, and very seldom referred to as Holy Rollers. Of course I haven’t seen/heard much tongues, shouting or rolling since the 1950s. Although on occasion one will hear a message given in tongues.  I guess we grew and quit much of the demonstrations.  We are now just referred to as Pentecostals or Full Gospel.

My Dad was a farmer in Georgia, when he felt called to be an evangelist. In the Early 1900’s that meant getting a big tent and finding someone who would allow him to set it up and preach. He joined what then was called the Fire Baptized Holiness Church. He was very successful and won many to the Lord.

Once when a storm destroyed his tent, he said he had a vision or leading, to join a new organization called the Church of God.  He did that. In the 1930s he organized and built a large church in South Gastonia, NC. It still stands today.

My dad was never a dogmatic minister. His messages were about the Love of our Savior. Dad delivered a message and it was like a story, holding folks' attention. He was fond of the 30 min sermon saying that was ideal for the mind.

 I mentioned to Victor that I appreciate his creation of Father Ignatius in his books. When I read about Father Ignatius, that could have been my dad. The stories Victor writes show the Father as having great insight and common sense. Yep, that was my daddy.

I mentioned my sister Kat and her husband Dick. He was also a successful preacher; Kat was the perfect preacher’s wife. Dick died before Kat.

DEATH...

 I sang and talked to Kat most of the night before she passed away. In the early hours of morning, she slowly raised her arm pointing upward. I walked over to check on her then returned to my chair...... Suddenly it hit me. My dad pointed up, just before he died.  I went to her side, "I am sorry Kat, I know you were saying you are going home, right?" She blinked her eyes twice (yes). She could hear me but could not talk. She communicated by blinking her eyes.  She became ‘glassy eyed’ and listless come morning.

Sherry and I were by her side, her eyes were closed.. Suddenly she opened her eyes, they were clear, she appeared to be looking far off, slowly the sweetest smile crossed her lips and face: she held that for just a moment, closed her eyes and left this world.

We have wondered, “What did Kat see in that last moment?

Nite Shipslog

PS 

Thanks for all the visits. LOL Sorry to be so long I started this entry just to tell about Kat’s passing and elaborated too much.  Love y’all.

 

Then there was Shirley, or Shirl.

 Photo from the Past:

 


Shirl stopped by to see us on the way to sing with to an appointment to sing country. she could do about any style.

Now for today:

Shirley and I were sort of a second family to mom and dad. So we grew up together.  She taught me to play hopscotch and ride a bike, when dad pastored a country church. Our closest neighbors were farmers. They were black and in the 1940s we did not know that segregation was demanded down south. When we played with anyone it was those farm kids.  We had a ball.

Shirley fit in upper society, at times I would remind her she once played in a barn and jumped out of the loft into straw and manure. We kids racked a big pile after cleaning the stalls in the barn. It was great to jump in and very soft. LOL


Later at another church and in her teens, Shirley and her friends, Micki and Margreta, had a Trio and tried out for a shot on statewide TV.

Arther Smith Talent Scouts came to Valdese and the girls entered. When their time came, Shirley started out playing the Accordion and as they sang "Because Just Because" (by Frankie Yankovic), she switched to the piano without missing a note (quite a feat).

They won and were featured once with Arthor Smith and the Cracker Jacks on WBTV, of course the girls were the talk of the local High School for a while. 

Shirley married an ‘Aerospace Engineer,’ Jim Wrape. They had a good marriage and sang in the Charlotte Methodist choir.

After Jim passed, she leased our home and moved to Belmont while we traveled. She became active in the Belmont Historical Society.  The town of Belmont was founded on Cotton Mills and She became interested. I had picked cotton one summer as a kid, but Shirley never did. She shocked the folks at the Society by growing cotton and using the product, most still on the stalk, created some great decorations for her home and in the Historical House of the Society.

She always had a great musical talent and dreamed of being a lead singer in a band. In Belmont, She met and became a steady date of Smokey Coe, he was a record producer and had his own band. He was famous locally; he had been the first to Record and promote Randy Travis. She got the chance to fulfil her dream by singing with Smokey Coe’s band for a few years and loved it.

Her last was sad. She called us in Florida and told us we needed to come home and take care of her, "I'm losing my memory!" she said. We came home to find it was true.

A sad but sweet thing, Sherry and I were with both my sisters when they passed. Those were both tough times.

 Nite Shipslog

PS:

God has allowed us to meet some of the best folk on the planet. In person and here on the net.  Thank you all for being here… and being YOU, and reading an old man’s memories.


Monday, November 4, 2024

And then there was Kat and Shirley

 Photo from the Past:

 

This is Dick and KAT on our trip to Alaska. They followed us in their Bounder Motor home. Top is in the Yukon at the Sign Forest. Below we are boon-docking in the wilds of Alaska.


 

So for today:

Sisters are special.  Sherry had two sisters, Colette and Lennie.  My BILs & I learned when You married one of ‘em Harris girls you married them all. They were very close. We traveled thousands of miles with them and their hobby's around this country. BUT they were hometown bodies and about a month was the most they could be gone. LOL

I had two big sisters, Kat & Shirley. Where I come from, if the sisters were older than you they were the 'BIG' sisters.  Kat the oldest.

I remember the tale around our house about (in 1944) Kat and her cousin as teens, concerning freckles. They despised theirs. Her cousin told her that she heard that putting fresh cow manure on them for a few hours would erase them. The cousin spent the night with Kat. The pasture was just out our back door. After everyone in the house was asleep, they found a fresh cow pile and applied the manure. They tried to stay awake for a couple hours but fell asleep and mama found them sleeping in the kitchen when she arose in the AM,  everyone at home got a good laugh. BTW, Kat said it DID NOT WORK!~  LOL

Kat married at 16.  She had a fine husband. He became a minister and years later was elected to Church Administration where they served overseership in NYC and later over all of Canada. Mostly they worked with Jamaican and Haitian immigrants.

Once the General Overseer of the denomination asked Kat to address the hundreds of pastors and wives attending the Assembly. As she spoke the Overseer disagreed with something she said and stood to correct her. She amazed her husband and church leaders by saying, “Sit down big boy, you asked me to speak and I am not finished !”  The entire congregation stood applauding, as the overseer sat down embarrassed.

She was known as MAMA by the Jamaicans and Haitians in NYC and Canada.

I am an ignorant southern boy. I knew my family by the names they were called at home. Once Sherry & I went to visit Kat in the hospital. I asked for Kat Lankford’s room number. The receptionist said, “We do not show a Kat Lankford, but there is a Mary Katherine.”

" But..."

I started to say 'I know she is here,' and Sherry interrupted me, “Jack, THAT IS Kat’s name!”  Boy howdy, am I one of the sharp knives in the drawer or what?  LOL

Nite Shipslog

PS.

 Thank all of you that read here. I enjoy comments and appreciate it as I read them. Y’all are the BEST! Thanks for the times you have let me relive some memories.

 PS2 (ref previous post) Chatty was right in a comment about putting the candy in the pot rather in the grounds. Last nite  I put two mini-candies in the pot and it worked well, the candy melted into the coffee,  no mess, but still did not flavor the coffee enough to matter.  If I were to try it again I would put a mini candy in for every 2 cups brewed. LOL

Saturday, November 2, 2024

I worry me!

 Pic of the day;

 

This split entry home Sherry and I built all by ourselves, except for the heat and A/C systems.

  For today:

I remember hiding Easter Eggs in my youth and forgetting where I hid them.  At times one or two weren’t found and we found them later in the Summer.  Now in my second childhood or the winter of my life, I am starting to hide things from myself.

I know one should not do this, but for many years when we lived close on finances, I would put a dollar-bill behind a framed picture, you know, for a ‘rainy day’.

A friend’s hubby died and she found MUCH money in his wallet, and he had told her he was nearly broke. Yes, someone will find a bill or two hid in my wallet also! Do you do that?

Hiding money.  Sure, most times we retrieve what we have ‘put back’, but sometimes we don’t!  Example I have probably mentioned it here before, but my sister (and we too) liked thrift stores. Once in a small town in Florida she bought a small cushion for her couch. She bought it because it had a zip on cover she could wash.  When she got home and removed the cover she found a $100 bill.  Some old person had hidden it and the cushion was discarded at their death.

That makes one wonder how much money is hidden awaiting the lucky finder.

I am writing this because lately I have hidden things from my self, I still am looking for a ‘door stop’ I ordered for this coach and did not have time to install it when it came in, so I put it aside until later.  LATER came and I cannot remember where in this crazy coach I put it.

I misplaced something VERY IMPORTANT a couple days ago and looked thru every drawer to no avail.  Finally, I asked Sherry, and she said I had told her where I had put it, and I had. So at least I found the important stuff, now to find that silly door stop!

 

Nite Shipslog

PS 

Thanks for all the visits. LOL

PS2:  I found the door stop. In a drawer just a few inches from the door where I will install it. I kept looking for the little box it came in. I forgot that I had taken it out of the box therefore it was overlooked. It still in the plastic wrapper it came sealed in. ;-)

Tomorrow, sisters (maybe) LOL

 

Try something new maybe even crazy?

  A picture from the Past.

 Our next to last house under construction

Below I am lining the Pool room with Canadian Cedar.

For Today:

Like a lot of people, we had NO trick or treaters here at Halloween. So, we MUST eat that bag of candy we bought for them, SHUCKS!

I have mentioned I prepare the coffee around here.  Sherry says I make the BEST.  (at times I wonder about her reason. LOL) WE no longer use a percolator, but our Mr. Coffee is pretty old. So as I made coffee that night I decided to try something NEW.  I put a small snack size ‘3 Musketeers’ bar in with the coffee grounds, just to try something different.

Okay, that was not a great idea. It sorta stopped up the filter and overflowed the grounds and DID NOT enhance the taste of the coffee.  As a matter of fact at this writing a day later, Sherry did not comment on any difference in her morning coffee.  LOL, so much for sweetened flavored coffee at our house that I expected.  LOL

Some of my family have done odd/ crazy things. My brother Junior tried several business starts, but hit his stride in making concrete yard decorations. Bird Baths, chics and ducks, etc.

Brother Junior and Mozelle his wife in front of their store. The business was started in his back yard while they worked in the cotton mill.  Jun was a hero of mine, he served as Port Gunner on his ship in the South Pacific.

Brother Odis could do anything with wood. He was a truck driver and drove past the USS North Carolina (a WWII Battle Ship) twice a week. He made sketches of it and finally built a 9 foot model of it. He got carried away and finally had a fleet.  Even did the Pinta, Nina and the Santa Marie. They were displayed in many new buildings at their opening. One was the NCNB TOWER in  Charlotte, NC

Below Shirley and I delivered the model to the USS North Carolina monument where it was displayed for many years.

Below is most of Odis's fleet.

Above is Odis with the Pinta.  NONE of his ships were from kits, he did them all from scratch.

Yeah, I have also did the crazy. Sherry wanted a swimming pool. I have never liked the outdoor pools. They are a pain to maintain and expensive to keep regulated. So on our next to last house, I put a pool inside.  The Grand kids loved it.  We did too. There were no closing and opening spring and fall, that is expensive. It cost us about $6 a month to maintain the inside pool, it stayed at 92 degrees.    (Night view)

I installed sliding glass doors on two sides for ventilation and comfort in the summer.  I liked the Cedar, I was advised never to put a finish on it, and it would handle the moisture well, and it did. I enjoyed hanging that cedar, it was a fun job.
This is the fun view, we loved it.  BUT we decided to travel full time and could not leave the pool unattended, so we sold it.
 

  Below is the house on South Main after completion.

 

It was much cheaper to throw the candy in the coffee pot, to do something crazy. LOL

NiteShipslog

PS: 

AGAIN THANKS to y’all for stopping by the Shipslog. It is nice to know some folks will read this stuff, if it is crazy.

And then there was my sisters!!!!!!  Maybe tomorrow..

 

Friday, November 1, 2024

Halloween, then and now

 Photo from the Past:

 


So for today

I remember Halloween before trick or treat was popular. I never went door to door for candy, WE turned over trash cans (back when people had old 50-gal drums and set them out on the street for the city to collect.)

Oh, and we went to town and ‘soaped’ store windows. Most of us had an old bar of soap and carried it to town to write on store windows. Lemme tell you there were no ‘dirty’ words written, that was a NO-NO even for the worst of us.



Now if you really wanted to be mean, you carried one of mama’s wax squares that she used when sealing homemade jelly. That sucker wrote on windows good and the store man had to work the day after Halloween.

YES, we went down town to make noise and look around to see if we could ID anyone we knew.  Most kids had a nickel/dime mask they had bought at the dime store (some saved from last year).  Most kids made up their Halloween costumes to go with their mask. There were some GREAT ideas, and it was a fun time to try to scare people.



I am NOT downgrading preachers and churches that shun Halloween, Saying it is ‘devil’ worship.  BUT..... I was a preacher’s son, and I NEVER considered it evil to have fun on Halloween.  Evidently my dad did not, he never castigated me for wanting to dress up for Halloween, unless it happened to be on a church night. LOL (I hated it when that happened!!)

This year I am glad for our church back home in NC, they had a Trunk or Treat night in the church parking lot. Giving out candy and inviting the kids to church. Maybe some churches miss a time to contact and show kids that do not attend church; church ‘Ain’t so bad,’ after all.

 

Nite Shipslog

PS: I hope you had a chance to see Chatty’s Halloween blog.   https://chattycrone.blogspot.com/2024/10/october-29-i-love-halloween-can-you-tell.html.

 Thank all of you that read here. I enjoy comments and appreciate it as I read them. Y’all are the BEST! Thanks for the times you have let me cry on your shoulder…..

 

 

Thursday, October 31, 2024

7 Things to Say When Someone Gaslights You

  A picture from the Past.

 

1950s pics from the net.

For Today:

I didn't think I would use that number headline thing, BUT do you understand the topic?  I really do not.  I also do not know what ‘trolling’ is, in today’s language.  I have trolled while fishing, all my life, but I have never trolled people, how do you do that?  Drag a steak behind you? :-O

I actually smile, because I remember when my mama & dad had no idea what ‘cool’ was. LOL

“Made in the shade with table grade!” that was cool in my day.

One of my dad’s sayings (from the EARLY1900s): ‘That ain’t worth a hill of beans!’

Hey, Daddy-O

‘That’s the living end!’

Every generation has it’s coined phrases.  I have gone thru a few of course, but it is getting harder to make sense of the use of newer ones.

I do look them up and ‘gas lighting’ makes a little sense.  Trolling also does, but I don’t see them becoming part of my vocabulary.  But hey, if I live to be 115 yrs old, heck I just might adapt some.

Oh, there is another thing of concern today, weapons. I have been asked several times, ‘Do you carry?’  Now believe it or not, I know exactly what they are asking. My only answer is, ‘One never knows, does one?’

I have friends who ‘carry’, they are proud of it and many pull it for show.  Not me. IF and I say IF I carry, the only person to know that will be the one holding up a convenience store, etc if I am around.

I am not against personal weapons.  They have honestly saved lives on several occasions.  On other occasions injury/deaths have occurred unnecessarily because of ignorance. I am an expert with handgun and rifle. I broke the range record once at Parris Island, the pity was, it was not officially on a qualification day. LOL

I carried a weapon several years in in the Corps, I still remember the serial #, 1572057. I still own a couple and hope there is never a cause to use one against my fellow man.

Anyway, I do see LIFE different now at 85 than I did at 17. LOL.

So just don’t be a Party Pooper or a Ding-a-ling. Some people are Wet Blankets.  But it would be better to be a Beatnik, they were cool.  Just don’t be a square or a turkey!

 

NiteShipslog

PS: 

AGAIN THANKS to y’all for stopping by the Shipslog. Y'all are the Cat's Meow!!  It is nice to know that folks read this stuff.

Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Good People

 A picture from the Past.

 

One of our great camping sites in the past, this one from Green Mountain near Lenoir, NC

For Today:

Do you know any good people?  Of course you do! Do your friends run around with bad folks?  Most likely not!

I have always worked to give a full days work for a days labor. I have only worked with one ‘lazy guy’ in my life time.  Most workers I knew tried to do their best.

I have never hired a man who would not work.  I have only had to let two men go, not firing them, just told them I could no longer use them. One because he would NEVER be a carpenter and the other because I could feel that one day he would be hurt badly on the job, he seemed accident prone.

Now I am not ignorant, I know there are crooks in this world. There are plenty who would/will steal your car, but I still contend there are more of the good guys than the bad.

What about your grand kids?  Are they more good than bad?  So are everyone else’s grands that  I know.

I just wanted to say something positive.  Now I feel a little better.

 

NiteShipslog

PS: 

AGAIN THANKS to y’all for stopping by the Shipslog. It is nice to know that folks read this stuff.

 

Monday, October 28, 2024

29 reasons to read my blog!

 Pic of the day

 For today:

If you are on the same parts of the internet as I, you just might be sick of article titles such as:

,,,,, 10 Ways to Know if You were Raised by Bad Parents!

……… 8 Foods thought to be good for you, BUT aren’t!

…….. 10 Things that mean your Mate is cheating!

,,,,, 35 Subtle Gaslighting Phrases That Are Unfairly Belittling Your Emotions

……. 13 Noodle Recipes We Just Can’t Get Enough Of

,,,,,, 9 Items To Avoid Ordering at Longhorn Steakhouse

…..5  Reasons Your House Is Dusty All The Time

 ....... 14 Mannerly acts no one uses today!

 I think articles like those listed above are simply ‘click bait’, I have tried to read one or two and the writer goes on and on before addressing the title.

Methinks also there may be too many writers or columinists that can’t think of enough serious subjects to keep them busy, so they just make up stuff.

However like those conspiracy theories some articles can cause lots of trouble, like the one about ‘ways to tell if your mate is cheating’, someone taking another’s opinion as gospel, could split up a couple of good people.

Now as to 5 reasons to read my Blog? Sad to say I can think of only one, and that is so I can hear from others I consider friends.  Because in reality, like most men, I do know a lot of people but I have few friends, many have passed on.

Sherry just now asked, “Are we gonna play donimoes?”

I said, “Give me one reason why I should!”

“How about a Black eye?”

“Reason enough!”

We just finished the game.  LOL

I appreciate you being here to read! WE hope you are having a great day!

 

Nite Shipslog

PS 

Thanks for all the visits. LOL