You know that Mike hast to go some where on nice weekends. This time it was a reenactment over at Silver Lake in Kenosha County. Of course we got in the faithful old Mustang, put the top down and took off. When we got there we discovered a nice park not far from our house. A quaint reenactment set just before the Revolutionary War broke out. Here’s the photos from the day.
This was the first thing that caught my eye. This barefoot little girl ran past us and down the back of the tents. I loved her costume! She was adorable.This was a pewter smith demonstrating how he made eating utensils. If you click and hop over to my Flickr account you can see some of the many trinkets he has made with his 100s of pewter molds.Well I assume you know what lace is but a lucet is a tool used in making cords.This tent had some beautiful handmade furniture for sale. Lovely stuff!This gentleman explained how to fire the cannon, the different types of shot used and when they were used in battle, then took the scouts through a drill enacting the process of firing.The don’t tread on me flag was flying.The storekeep in the tent in the background there had a very floral ensemble whose hat only made me think that he looked like he had been sleeping. Also I loved the lady walking by in historic garb.Red coats took off their red wool coats and slept outside their tents on the unusally hot day.
As always you can click on any photo to be taken over to my Flickr account. There you can see more images from the day. Until next time!
It’s a well know fact Mike likes to putter in the yard and I don’t. I find it too much like work – I’d rather make something than sweat in the beating sun digging in dirt. Still I love beautiful flowers, yards, and gardens. Honestly if it weren’t for Mike I’d live in a condo an enjoy the grounds tended by others. Since he likes it I live in a house with a yard tended by Mike. Here’s some photos that were on my camera from our yard.
As you can see the apple tree has recovered from our winter trimming. It’ll need more reshaping this winter.When our lilacs bloomed they were beautiful.
The roses are lovely too.The red tipped white rose is my favorite I think.The red is so bright that it almost vibrates!I don’t know what these are called but I like them. They are hardy and bloom in the heat and cooler summers.Mike put his University of Tennessee stepping stone in the garden by the front door. Great place to display our alma mater.
Back on May 26th Mike and I were looking for something to do. You know he HAS to get out and DO something if it isn’t snowy on the weekend. So after seeing in the paper that there were boat races on Lake Andrea in Pleasant Prairie we were off to see what it was about.
It was about small boats that sound like lawn mowers doing laps on a very small lake not far from our house. Really there were heats, different levels, and such. Interesting but as the sun started to set the day was getting cool we headed home. Here’s a few shots of the day.
We weren’t the only ones out for the day. Here come three boats on the turn…As you can see they didn’t leave their opponents in the dust but rather in the mist!With the races on Froggy wasn’t renting any boats that day.Here’s a shot of mechanics working on some of the middle class boats.There where the green flag is in the photo was the starting line. They used flags like in car racing. If a boat broke down there would be a caution flag. Winner got the checkered flag.Safety crew was out in wave runners. They’d tend boats that stalled or broke down. They’d also act like tow trucks of the water.Sure it was a cool day. I had the hood up on my hoodie (take that Geraldo Rivera I rehabilitated the hoodie for middle-aged moms!) but this spectator was a bit excessiveAs you can see Mike wore a polar fleece but bundling wasn’t necessary for us.
As always there’s more on my Flickr account – clicking on any of the images will take you there. Feel free to snoop around over there as much as you want.
What if you died and no one noticed for three years? That’s what happened to Joyce Carol Vincent. I have to admit when I first read the basis for the documentary Dreams of a Life I thought the subject would be a drug addict. Maybe someone morbidly obese with no relatives and withdrawn from society so no one noticed with the calls for pizza delivery stopped. I didn’t image it would be a young vibrant woman who had, had lovers and was admired by many. I didn’t image it was someone with sisters and her father still living. I didn’t image… so I watched. How does someone 28 years old wind up dead for three years and no one notice?
I’m sorry to say there aren’t any pat answers. No answers as to how she died, was it natural? was it murder? No answers as to why no one came in three years to collect bills or rent. The answer comes in our society where we have any acquaintances but few true connections. People are transient we move on and assume so do they. But in the case of Joyce – she wasn’t moving.
I found that in many ways I understood Joyce. I move a lot and here in Kenosha I have acquaintances but no real friends. Same could be said of Oak Ridge and Kalamazoo. I think after a few military moves I learned not to connect to people easily, it’s hard to keep up long distance friendships so best to be choosy – very choosy. Which leaves me with few regular contacts here where I live and it has been that way for years.
But unlike poor Joyce, I do have those I keep in touch with – my best friend and I haven’t lived in the same county since I was in 8th grade – rarely have we lived in the same state. My husband and I talk daily when at all possible even if he’s traveling. So there are connections, there are those who would notice. Yet, would work check? I think so but it might be a bit before they did. Would my on-line friends check? No, people cyber-fade it’s a fact of on-line life. We just figure real life took them in another direction.
By the same token, if I didn’t see a neighbor for sometime would I check on them? The lady that walks the big rottweiler would I learn her name, check to see why they haven’t been by in some time? No. It’s not maliciousness or total lack of caring – it’s just we don’t know each other. I look back in old pictures and how intertwined my parents life growing up was with the neighbors. Now, I’d be hard pressed to tell you my two side neighbors names much less front and back neighbor or at angles. People keep to themselves, watch tv, play on computers, chat with cyber-acquaintances half a world away.
There are good and bad things to modern society but the saddest things are when good souls slip away through the cracks… good ones like Joyce. We are left wondering what if… I ponder what if we were disturbed by her story enough to make a change and connect with more people?
I have to admit I’m a newer Dr. Who fan. It was the Ninth Doctor that brought me into the fold. I’d tried before in various times of my life because I had friends who enjoyed it. It was him that brought me into the fold. However I have to say when I think of MY doctor it’s the Tenth Doctor. I’ve watched on and off with the Eleventh but he reminds me too much of Aaron’s friends and honestly that’s too young for MY doctor.
This was why I was inspired to make a bracelet when I spotted a square bead on sale that made me think of the Tardis. I wanted a bracelet that was inspired by the more recent Doctors. I set out looking for time themed charms and charms themed by things that made me think of the Timelord that traveled in a Police Box. So here’s what I found, what I did with it and my Dr. Who inspired bracelet.
First was turning the inspiration bead into a Tardis. Sure it’s not exact but it is more inspired than exact (and thus copyright interfering) copy.
Tardis charm – the bead that started it all
The bead was a large hole one and I had to make it work into a charm for the bracelet idea. So first I had to fill in the shaft. I used a silver tone column bead and a bugle bead to fill up the space. Then to copy the light on top of the Tardis I used blue thunder polished rondelle crystal topped with a white seed bead. To make a foundation I used an octagonal silver toned spacer bead and a silver seed bead.
Clock for a Time Lord
Of course if inspired by a Time Lord you have to have a chronometer charm. Since he traveled in space I rooted through my bead stash for things that would invoke that and make charms from them. Here’s what I came up with.
moon and stars with Tardis blueSorry the color is off but the sun was setting and I couldn’t get good lighting. These are blue goldstone beads that reminded me of a starfield.
From there I went looking for things that reminded me of that universe. I came up on one that invoked another favorite character of mine – Capt. Jack Harkness who very well maybe The Face of Boe.
Face of Boe – Is that you Jack?
Then I saw I had wings and blue eyes – well angels and eyes- that must be the Weeping Angels? RIGHT? So that was another charm.
Don’t blink – Wings and Eyes (in Tardis blue of course) invoke the Weeping Angels
Then I found the blue agates with druzy cracks in them. That made me think of The Crack In the Universe story. So of course I got those and made charms of them.
Crack in the Universe – Druzy cracked agate
Then I thought really I can’t have a Dr. Who inspired bracelet without a sonic screwdriver inspired charm. So I had to puzzle out how to make one and incorporate what was becoming the unifying theme – Tardis blue. I settled on this afters some stewing and set off to find the elements to make it in my stash and at stores.
How I made a sonic screwdriver
It is a small (4mm) bicone thunder polished Tardis blue crystal as the first element on the headpin. Then I used a beadcap that made me thinking of the opening of the prongs when the screwdriver is in use. I needed to bridge the small hole of the cap to the larger hole of the handle I used a silver toned heishe bead. Then came the shaft which is a column bead that again had a hole that was too big so I filled it with a Tardis blue bugle bead. Then another heishe and topped it all with a small sliver seed bead. Not too bad I thought. You can see the assembly and the final product there in the image.
Then I found two more charms that invoked a story arc and a character. First was a wolf howling which made me think of the Bad Wolf arc about his companion Rose. Oh and the final one is a historic figure as well as a character in Dr. Who’s universe Madame de Pompadour. I found them later and here they are.
Now I had enough to assemble the bracelet. There will only be 9 as that is all the Tardis beads they had. One of the finished products is of course MINE! So if you like it and want one of the others – contact me marylouiseeklund @ gmail.com and we’ll work something out. Oh put Timey Wimey Bracelet in the title!
It was the last Sunday in July again, time for Mom put on her program for the annual Hicks Family Reunion. I went down to assist. This year she was doing her grandmother’s line. That’s our claim to the Hicks family.
It all started with David C. Hicks and Sarah Dennis Hicks. They married in Cocke County, Tennessee in 1830. David met Sarah when he crossed the mountain from Virginia on his way to buy a farm and set up housekeeping in Middle Tennessee. He must have been a non-inheriting son to be moving like that. He was born 10 Apr 1804 in Albemarle County, Virginia and died 09 Oct 1850 in Cocke County, Tennessee. All I know is that his father was David James (or possibly James David) Hicks born in 1774 in Virginia. David C.’s mother was Jemima Tennal (spelling according to their marriage record also spelled Tinnell in family Bibles). They married in 1770 in Albemarle County, Virginia. It is very probably that David James’s father fought in the Revolutionary War given his age and location, but on what side we don’t know.
Sarah Dennis was born about 1812 in June in Cocke County, Tennessee and died 8 Mar 1898 in Cocke, Tennessee. Her parents came to Tennessee to live on her maternal grandfather’s land grant for service in the Revolutionary War. He was Hugh Creighton (B 1730 Ireland, D.1804 New Jersey where his son Patrick lived) and served in the Revolutionary War. He already had a farm in South Carolina so he gave (or they purchased) his land grant in Tennessee to his daughter Anne and her husband John Dennis. The name Creighton with various spellings was carried forth in the Hicks family in his honor to this day. Anne and John had at least three children one of which was the first Joel Dennis. He married Margaret Henry (which makes this line from my maternal grandfather related to the line of my maternal grandmother truly kissing cousins) and they were the parents of the Sarah Dennis that founded the Tennessee Hicks line from which I am descended ( the post about Joel Dennis from the Civil War was his son, Sarah’s brother)
Sarah and David C. had 8 children. Their youngest was David Crockett Hicks ( his father’s middle initial is C. but we don’t know what it stood for, he was however a constituent of the famous David Crockett of Alamo fame) who is my great great grandfather. Crockett was a character about whom tales are still told. He had a temper and was lazy. He was born 27 Jul 1852 Cocke, TN and died 16 Aug 1943 Sevier, TN. He married a Margaret Jane Denton (from whom I have another Revolutionary War ancestor) in about 1873. The courthouse burned in Cocke County so the exact date has been lost. She however was born 18 Jun 1854 Cocke, Tennessee and died 04 Jan 1949 Sevier, Tennessee. Here’s a photo of them and their living adult children.
Back L to R: Bon Dalls, Dibrelle Augusta, Ollie Belle, Crayton Dennis, Mark Clyde, Bessie Paralee, Crayton Dennis Front L to R: Sarah, Fred Ashberry, Margaret Henry Hicks, David Crockett Hicks, Minnesota, and Jerome. Their son Joel David Hicks died before this photo was taken.
The reunion consists of the descendants from those in the picture. In their later years Crockett and Margaret moved about living with their children as Crockett never owned land or made a homestead. Each living child (Dibrelle was killed soon after this photo but that’s a story for another post) took turns keeping crochety old Crockett and quiet Margaret. My great grandmother was Ollie Belle (b 16 Jan 1888 Cocke,TN d 25 Oct 1975 Blount,TN) and if you were being disagreeable she’d call you Crockett.
She married Milas Lavator Rolen (b 22 Jun 1880 Sevier, TN d 28 Dec 1936 Sevier, TN) on 12 May 1907 in Sevier, TN. Here they are on their wedding day.
He was a sheriff for a few years then went to the US Marshals and became a Revenuer. They had 7 children. Here they are with their family.
back row L to R Herbert, Bennie Zue, George Ann, Milas Lavator Jr., John Hollis, Sammie Sue. Front row L to R Lavator, George Ann, Ollie Belle
My grandfather was John Hollis Rolen (b. 23 Nov 1909 Sevierville, TN d. 08 Feb 1975 Sevierville, TN). He did many things in his life and some day I’ll share his security clearance form for WWII in a post that outlines many things he did some we didn’t know. However most of my mother’s life and all of mine he was an engineer for the 3M Company. Yes the post-it and Scotch Tape people. He married Johnnie Mae Temple (b 23 May 1913 Sevier, TN d. 11 Feb 2007 Sevier, TN). Here’s a photo of them just shortly after they married. They married 08 Apr 1939 in Alcoa, Blount, Tennessee.
Johnnie Mae Temple Rolen and John Hollis Rolen.
They had two children. My mom Sylvia came first then John Hollis Jr. Unfortunately Junior died of a heart defect shortly after being born. Mom made it and is still going strong. She married my dad Sidney Bright. Here they are on their wedding day.
Well they had me! That’s how I wound up being at the Dandridge Tennessee Senior Center on the last Sunday in June this year for the Hicks Reunion. Mom traced down all the descendants from Ollie Belle. She worked on it for the full year! It took three volumes. She not only got a data on everyone but also did a small personal biography of each person and a photo page. Really hard work and excellent results. Here’s my copy of all three volumes.
Turn out was good. Ollie Belle Hicks Rolen, Sarah Hicks Rolen Baxter, and Bessie Parlee Hicks Williams decendants were represented. Here’s this year’s group shot.
Descendants of David Crockett Hicks and Margret Jane Denton.
The next reunion with be year after next. That’ll give mom time to relax and work on the Williams line from Bessie Parlee Hicks.
I was just thinking about “what is a good basic education?” I mean beyond mastery of reading, writing, and arithmetic? (We won’t go into how poorly or well that is. Topic for another post.) I do think another very important part especially for those of us who are products of the Western world is a grounding in the classics – not just lit, but art, history, and architecture. I think a good basic education means you can recognize world renowned buildings – like Parliament, Kremlin, Machu Picchu, Great Wall, Sydney Opera house, Parthenon, White House, Hatshepsut’s Mortuary Temple at Deir el Bahari, the Pantheon, etc. Not only should be able to name them but tell why they are significant be it historical or architecturally or socially.
Which brings me to my morning coffee thoughts. I was surfing Pinterest as I do. (I have to limit it to my morning coffee time and breaks). There I saw a photo pinned under architecture as “the Forgotten Temple of Lysistrata“. Which I thought odd on several levels – the obvious one “Hey that’s the Pantheon’s dome, arches, and oculus” which led to the morning pondering. The more obscure one is Lysistrata is an ancient play about the battle of sexes, so why would there be a temple to a comedy? Now I don’t expect everyone to know that. But know the Pantheon on sight – yep I guess I expected that to be part of a basic historic education.
You see the Pantheon was the first understanding that arches in a series made a dome that would not need support in the center offering a large open interior space. Even my bumpkin small high school education taught me that. It was something that was modified and used later in the Medieval Period to make wall of glass and cross shape of cathedrals in the form of the flying buttress. Again I accredit my tiny country high school for the knowledge.
Next I quizzed Mike who has been to the Pantheon and doesn’t have as strong classical education as I got. “Would you recognize the interior of the Pantheon if you saw it photoshopped into another picture?” His answer “No, but I’d recognize the ugly outside of it.” SIGH my expectations are dashed. I’ll give him that it isn’t pretty on the outside the interior is the impressive and the knowledge gained in the use and modifications of arches. Heck, we aren’t really sure what it was built to do.
As my morning coffee grew cold I considered what I thought was a good basic education – a working understanding of how another language different from your own native tongue is structured, a grounding the the history of your predominate culture and introduction to other major cultures of the world (including art, architecture, mathematics etc), strong general science basics (biology, physics to include astronomy, chemistry), mastery of the basic grammar of your language, understanding of major literary works in that language (having read a few completely and introduced to others and their significance), basic economics (personal accounting, intro to various business systems), music at least two years on one instrument (including discussion of the math and physics of sound and how that is captured in written sheet music), physical education (including explanation of what exercise does what muscles to relate back to biology class), Geography (relating to history and general science as well as current political boundaries).
Okay maybe my expectation is a bit much but wouldn’t it be grand if we all got that as a foundation to start building our dreams…
Manhattan Skyline from the Staten Island Ferry 05/1973 from the US National Archives via Flickr’s The Commons no copyright restrictions.
~The following was inspired by watching the 2006 documentary The Falling Man. A link to it is below, it deals directly with the victims of 9/11 those who fell and/or jumped from the towers. If such things are too disturbing for you I recommend you don’t read further and you don’t watch the documentary. ~
So on the long drive home from Ft. Leonard Wood we needed to stop and stretch our legs. We chose to stop in Springfield, IL and see the Lincoln Library and Museum. We were there for about two hours seeing the museum and having lunch. Here’s some photos for you… want more? Click on one and head over to my Flickr.
Mike and Lincoln have a lively discussion.The notes the statue was holding.External view of the museum and library complex.Another statue of Abe on the way to the museum.Mike photobombs the first family on the White House lawn…John Wilkes Booth leans on the White HouseYoung Abe Lincoln
Areas where I could take pictures was limited in the museum. Outside was cold as we drove snow from Missouri to get there!
What am I without my story? I am no one I don’t have a name. How each person got their name, is part of their story. From the one given to me at birth to the one I choose to be called now and all the names for me in between comes the story of who I was and who I am. Without my story I have nothing to call myself. I am nameless.
What am I without my story? Experiences build on themselves. Without the tales of what I’ve done or where I’ve been I can’t tell where to go. Without my story of my first steps I cannot walk. I am adrift.
What am I without my story? Without my tales of school days I cannot read or write. Without my first word I am unable to speak. I am mute and unreachable
What am I without my story? Take away the tale of how I met my husband and married him. I am aimless without my rock in life. I don’t know the love and deep friendship of the one person closest to me. I am alone, unloved.
What am I without my story? Take away tales of my growing up and my supportive loving parents are gone my security in life is ripped from me. I have no foundation
What am I without my story? Take away tales of the furry ones that warmed my heart and I haven’t learned to give, care, understand those who don’t have words. I am compassionless.
Without my story I am pointless. Not just because I am writer but because my personal story makes me who I am. I know when I people watch each person has a story to tell. Each person is a rich wealth of inspiration to fill many blank pages. Take away those stories, and we are merely reams of blank paper waiting for the story to begin.
When the blank page seems terrifying I try to imagine a world without stories. That is more terrifying than starting a story that will later need revision. A world without stories scares me more than the flashing black curser on the white background waiting, just waiting for life to begin.
Mary Louise Eklund 