Happy Birthday Juanelle

In 1959 we met the family of Kenneth and Eileen Conrad, we started attending a church where they were members. This was such an amazing family. Kenneth had been a paratrooper in WWII and coming back through Florida, he met Eileen Pinder. A wonderful cultured young lady from South East Florida. Eileen had a wonderful singing voice and so did her sisters and they sang as a trio. I have heard stories of these ladies range and harmony, after hearing Eileen sing, I knew this lady could have sang in Carnegie Hall.

The story continues….. Kenneth being an honest guy, but also a sweet talker, married Eileen and took her from the modern conveniences and warm weather she was used to here in  Florida to a farm house with  running water, and also an out house in North central Missouri.

Eileen was happy being a farm wife, learned very quickly the ways of a Missourian, and in the process bore 10 children. We met them when there were 9, David Luke was the baby and came later.

Anyway thru the years we have kept in touch. Friend Kenneth has passed on but the rest of the family is still around, some scattered.

Today we travel to Pompano Beach to attend a Birthday for Juanelle. I am thinking she is the third child, she and some flying in from Missouri.

Harry the tall guy is playing with Juanelle’s hair. In front of Jua, is Glenda holding the baby at the time, Vickie. Front row is Irma, Lil, Mary.

Second row is left Robert, Kenny, and Vickie.

This is a singing family:

The guy here is David Luke, master carpenter and the baby of the family. Every one of the children have been successful in their own right.

This is Glenda with Irma Lea, or Aunt Nee as she is affectionately called. the eldest Harry Vietnam Vet.

This is Eileen and Vickie singing, this family sings. Vickie has even more range and strength than mama Eileen.

This is our son Mark and Little Vickie, today will be the first time they have seen each other in 50 years.

           

the Birthday girl, Jua….

Happier times with Kenneth and Eileen on one of our passes thru Missouri. Kenneth farmed 40 Acres and worked full time at HB Chance. They raised a marvelous family….

Nite Shipslog

PS:

Old Friends are great.

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Kenneth had a dodge about like this, When the family was in it, it was LOaded.

White Out!

Not the blinding snow kind, but the ‘fix my mistakes’ kind.

Remember correction tape? I remember some electric typewriters that had an extra spool of tape for correction. The print ribbon dropped and the correction tape popped up for you to rekeyed the error keys.

I sit in amazement at the ‘Word Processor’. Where you can change, replace, move delete and never ruin a NEW document. You can see it before it prints, you can even have a spell check, auto or manual.

I bring this up because I still have white-out. I used to laugh at friend Fred whose Sweet wife Frances was his ‘Minister of finance’. I got to thinking of that, since I left the business world Sherry is ‘Our Minister of finance’.  This girl gets upset about missing dollars and even missing pennies when balancing the check-book.

           

This week she was $2.00 off. She would not change the total and go from there, she had to find the error. She used white-out to cover two pages of figures, then refigured. SHE FOUND IT!

I had a good laugh, remembering the first contract on a house I built. I had no idea where to get the contract forms. That was a long time before the internet.  I dug out our own house contract then sat down and laboriously covered every entry.  Then wrote the new contract.

The attorney handling the sale was Parks Wilson in Belmont. He looked at the contract and broke out laughing,  with tears in his eyes he said, “Mr. Darnell, you need to invest in the White-out company.”

    

I was learning, I used a lot of whiteout, but I knew one thing, I had just completed a new house and sold a house by myself. I had earned $10 an hour. I knew I was going to be a builder and one day this lawyer would look at me with a little more respect. In fact he did; he also became a friend and gave me some good advice at times that helped me succeed.

(This box contains words NOT said)

Now in life, it would be nice to be able to use whiteout on our mistakes. It is good to say I am sorry, but the words (or deeds) have been said/done. The mind does not know whiteout. IF someone in anger calls you an SOB or other name, then later apologizes, it just does not work like whiteout. The error and the correction action are still vivid in the human mind.    

Ma or Betty could state this better, but we need to think twice and speak once.  We should never intentionally hurt someone with the wrong word, because whiteout won’t fix it.

Nite Shipslog

PS:

And I haven’t said a thing that you do not know!

So?….How did this happen?

 

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Above is the Tucker, that did not make it. and Below is just a beautiful shot.

 

Folks you remember

(Note: Lucy, Joe and Spunky are well. She has lost her Blog and don't know where to find it, computer glitch, I found her on Facebook)

I remember a wayfaring man,  Dugan. He stopped by our house at least once a year. Mama provided him a place to sleep and take a bath. He sold needles and threads, and she always bought some. Mama washed and hung his clothes out to dry.
He told me he slept in the woods most of the time, and was happy when folks allowed him a place to sleep and eat.   I liked Dugan. He had a lot of tales to tell, and I am sure I sat wide eyed.
I said to daddy once, when were alone in the car, that Dugan was a bum. “No Son, Dugan is a throw back to many years ago when men made their way as ‘WAYFARERS’, the practice is most gone and you are witnessing history. Dugan is a figure of history. The ‘wayfaring man worked as he traveled, Dugan does work at farm houses, along with selling needles and pins to the ladies along the way.”
There was ‘Woolly’, or that is what daddy called him.  Woolly had a giant bushy beard and long bushy hair, he looked wild to a 6 year old. In 1949 men did not have long hair.  Anyway I was in the back seat of the  1948 Chevrolet, when Woolley got in. I squeezed as close to the other side as I could.  later dad told me Woolley was one of a group of folks in the country who called themselves ‘Israelites’, and I think Woolley was a Nasserite who did not believe in cutting his hair.
Then there was ‘Blue’. I met him in 1946, I was in the 2nd grade and he must have been in his 20’s. He was a light shade of blue. He was an avid reader and a person who studied scripture. He was a gentle person and lived about a block from the parsonage,where we lived. He attended our church.
His fingernails were a darker blue than his body, mama said it was something to do with how his heart was made, it did not process  blood properly. He was not an invalid, but he knew he would not live long, I remember his  funeral.
People I knew just in passing:

The ‘Goat Man’, I have mentioned him before. He drove a wagon pulled by 8 to 12 goats. He picked up stuff along the roads and his wagons were covered with hub caps and other junk he had found and would sell. That was along with goat’s milk. When he was passing any area where we lived, Daddy always drove us out to see, “The Goat Man”, I loved it. I wanted to live in a covered wagon and cook over a camp fire.

Some folk are hard to forget.
Nite Shipslog
PS: How did this happen? Would the Insurance man believe it?

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The Lark, lots of TV commercials about this car…

The Arches at Moab

When we stay in an area for awhile I start thinking of places I would like to return to. Once after leaving the USAF Academy at Colorado springs near Denver. We crossed the mountains to take in the Arches. We drove over the beautiful high mountains and headed down thru some even more beautiful country. Vail is nice and I know it must be beautiful in the winter, but we are not going to see that. I prefer the GREEN SKI slopes.

Once out of the mountains and thru this ROCK canyon is one beautiful drive.

As you see here the Interstate is two levels

Looking back, the mountains are spectacular.

Then after the UTAH state line we spy the Welcome to MOAB sign.

These formations are so huge and striking you stand in AWE and wonder how they were formed?

The formations are immense. All of them are about the height of the Huge Sheep below, it is 440 ft. tall. (That is about 44 stories  in building size).

Below we are sitting in one of the many arches.

The one below is called the Cowboy chaps, the Cowboy was pretty bow legged!

Places like this stick out in your minds. the folks at the park were courteous and very helpful, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit here.

Thanks for traveling back with us. Oddly this is filed about desert type land, from WET Melbourne, FL.

Nite Shipslog

PS:

TWO of those, “How in the world did this happen?”

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A couple beautiful Packard’s from Louis out on the other coast..

 

Above is the Packard 12

Remembering could hurt!

(Houses shown are some we built)

(Our home for a week here in Wickham Park. We are under two beautiful Live oaks and surrounded by water as you can see)

(medium 3BR)

Though inactive,  I am still a General contractor, I am a builder….. but most of all I am a carpenter.

I used a Ross Perot bumper sticker once but as a rule, I do not use bumper stickers. However, while I was an active builder I said there was one bumper sticker I would use if I ran across it.  It is the one that reads:

I spent the majority of my life in electricity and electronics. That was okay, but the whole time I continued to think of the things taught me by Luke Tucker in the building business.  I worked for him as a flunky and Carpenter’s helper as my first job.

I am not ashamed to admit it; nothing excites me more than the smell of fresh sawn lumber (discounting love and sex of course). I get the most excited when walking into Lowes Lumber department.

(small 2BR)

As a successful  builder my son Mark worked for me. Later he became a General contractor with my blessings, and did well. A divorce and his stubbornness caused him to hit the skids. Now after over 5 years he seems to have found himself, and we are praying it continues.

We are here in Florida to see his first closing in over 5 years.  He bought and remodeled a nice 2 BR house.  As I said previously, the closing is next Friday.

But the problem is, while here, he drives us around pointing out in very nice neighborhoods,  some run-down houses, saying:

This one is for sale for about $38,000.

This one will go for $32,000.

You can get this one for $50,000.

And this goes on….. and on…..

(Above is  one we built for my brother near Moss Lake in Shelby, NC)

NOW I want them all (these fixer-uppers he shows). I want to go to work remodeling these homes. I hate to see a nice home mistreated. To me it is a crime to mistreat  some builders masterpiece.  At least that is how I looked at every house, my heart went into it. I always remembered the words I told Sherry when I started building, when she learned her home was on the line for the construction loans. I told her, “Honey I will never obligate more than I can pay and I will never build a house we would not live in.”

(Thisone above, Sherry and I cleared this land, mixed all the mortar, laid every brick and drove every nail, She even helped roof it. We nearly killed our selves pouring the driveway!)

I honored that promise. There was only one house I was ashamed of, and it was the color that made me ashamed.  The house was a custom home and the buyer was a painter. He wanted wood siding, then he painted it an ugly green .(IMO of course)

I will consider myself lucky if we get out of here without buying one of these homes. I am ready to drive nails…….

Nite Shipslog

PS:

Believe it or not, my Sherry even smiled in agreement when I said, “Let’s buy one.”  (But did she mean it?????, or did I miss-read that look?)

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Friend Buddy’s Mustang (I think he has sold it)