Limbs and Leaves

Now for a random collection of pictures of limbs, leaves and trunks. Click on the images to make them larger. 

 

TV Theme Songs

A major part of the memory storage space in the brain of every person is taken up with theme music from television shows. It doesn't matter if we liked the shows or hated the shows, the 60 second musical intro is often emblazoned into our memories. 

Many people are impressed with Chopin's "minute waltz," but it would be hard to beat the comedy, drama, inspiring sweeps and catchy melodies of the avalanche of 60 second television theme songs that have heralded the many thousands of shows over the years. Some featured full orchestrations, others spotlighted jazz ensembles, and one even got by with just whistling (you know which one I mean.)

Here's a random list of television shows; see if you can remember the theme music from each of them.

Andy Griffith Show
Green Acres
Mission: Impossible
Quick Draw McGraw
Hill Street Blues
M.A.S.H.
Hawaii 5-0
Peter Gunn
Lone Ranger
Monkees
Batman
Twilight Zone\
Murder She Wrote
Star Trek 
Bonanza 

 

Click on the triangle video links

Cajun Gold Book Reviewed

Jeff Salter interviewed me on his writers' blog a couple of months ago, and today he posted his review of my Cajun Gold novel on his website. Here is a link to it. 

https://fourfoxesonehound.wordpress.com/2019/09/12/a-screwball-hoot-from-bayou-land/

Jeff has written a number of books and I appreciated his looking over my novel.

To read his interview with me, CLICK ON THIS LINK. 

To buy a copy of the book, CLICK HERE.

Rickety Picket Fence

Here's a picture of a picket fence in need of repair...

Click on the image to make it larger.

Flash Flood Foundation

This is what happens when your house foundation is washed away in a flash flood. 

It must be a well-built house to still be standing with only half a foundation. 

Apparently, according to this October, 2019, photo from Google Street view, they were able to restore the foundation and save the house. 

 

Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World

Tucked away in the shadow of the bridge crossing the Mississippi River in New Orleans is a former riverside warehouse that now houses Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World. It is a huge collection of Mardi Gras floats, artwork, and sculptures, outlandish creatures, funny faces, and even superhero characters. Plus a pelican or two.

Ten artists work feverishly all year long to produce hundreds of new floats for area parades, sometimes using parts and pieces from previous floats, sometimes creating new creatures altogether. In addition to Mardi Gras floats, the company also provides beautiful/intriguing 3-D artwork for amusement parks, casinos, and specialty businesses. 

The tour of the place takes about 45 minutes and includes a short movie about Mardi Gras, its parades, and the peculiar effects of "Carnival Season" on New Orleans inhabitants and the thousands of out-of-towners who somehow spend $1 billion each year on the extravaganza.

Here are some pictures of the more colorful, memorable, amusing and disturbing samples of Mardi Gras madness, captured in papier mache, styrofoam and fiberglas.

Click on the images to make them larger. 

 

The World of Mardi Gras World

 

A guided tour

 

A Work In Progress

 

 

Arrrrggghhhh!

 

A blank float canvas

 

Musicians

 

Superheroes

 

and Superdome heroes

 

Although they look real, no dalmatians were hurt in the taking of this picture

 

 

Hancock County Map Production

Here's the production sequence video for the 2019 Hancock County pictorial map featuring Bay St. Louis and Waveland, Mississippi. Click on the play triangle to start the video, then the "[ ]" in the bottom right to enlarge the view. 

It took about a month to draw the pen and ink base map, then digitizing it and using the computer to add colors, shading and texture.

Leeds Map

Here's the downtown map I drew of Leeds, Alabama, back in 1988, some thirty years ago. 

 

Click on the image to make it larger.

Lunar Landing Motel

On a vacation trip a few years ago, we stopped at a small roadside motel in Lamar, Colorado. One of its rooms was decorated with space scenery on the walls, so naturally we asked for that one. Here are some pictures of what it is like when your motel room is surrounded by a lunar landscape (and comets!)

 

A bed among the craters

 

Comet in the corner. Don't get too close to the thermostat!

 

Just the right size for hugging...

 

Watch out for that comet!

 

Some days it just feels like this.

Donaldsonville Roots

This picture was published on August 13, 1961, showing a scene from 1903 in which a family from Donaldsonville, LA, is heading for the annual fireman's parade. I found this clipping from the Dixie Roto Magazine (Times Picayune, New Orleans, LA) in my grandmother's files, and since she was from Donaldsonville, I suspect it has some family significance. Click on the image to make it larger. 

Teenage Movie Making

When I was a teenager in Bay St. Louis, MS, my friend next door, Terry Phillips, and I made several action/adventure movies together, using an 8mm Kodak movie camera. Sometimes other members of his family would be brought into the cast as well.

There were three movies based on the character named Simon Smud, a super spy who worked for the Federal Reconnaissance Observatory Group (F.R.O.G.). The name of the first film was The Man From F.R.O.G., and if you are familiar with 1960's television shows, you will recall the spy show called "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." So creativity was not that important in our premise.

The second FROG film was Let's Kill Frog, and the third was Firestorm. Basically all the plots were the same, a lot of running and jumping, staged fist fights, and some special effects. Most of them were filmed at Holiday Nursery on South Beach Blvd., but we also went out and did some filming in the neighborhoods, the train station, and other exotic locations.

One time, while filming a chase scene, we came across a forest fire on the side of the road, and while other people were fighting to put it out, we were filming fight scenes with the forest ablaze in the background. 

I won't detail the special effects, but I will say that our parents gasped at certain times during the screening of these cinematic wonders. It's amazing the puff of smoke you can simulate when you have a small packet of flour attached to a mouse trap. The trap is tripped, and the handful of flour shoots up into the air. 

There were other movies beside the spy movies, a science fiction time travel film where a visitor from the future can't understand the people of today, and an adventure film set in Africa where jungle explorers are unlucky enough to be near a volcano with a meteorite crashes into it. Needless to say, we used a lot of ketchup as a stand-in for lava coming down the side of the volcano.

We also did a lot of "test films" where various special effects were tried out, and those are my favorite. The spy films and science fiction films were, by necessity, "silent films" because this was before video cameras and even sound 8mm film. So whenever I showed those, I had to narrate the action and sometimes provide the sound effects.

The Time Museum

Passing through Jefferson, Texas, recently, I stopped in to tour the Museum of Measurement and Time. It featured more than 500 clocks, but not only clocks but old phones, maps, typewriters, record players and even old computers.

Click on the images to make them larger. 

There were clocks of all kinds. 

 

Ornate Clocks

 

Wall clocks, mantle clocks...

 

Novelty clocks...

 

Grandfather clocks, specialty clocks...

 

Seth Thomas clocks, as well as Avon Collectible Cologne Bottles, more than a hundred salt and pepper shaker sets...

 

The owner is a retired surveyor, so there were a lot of surveying instruments, antique rods and chains all the way up to laser sighting devices. Plus a great collection of old maps. 

 

This Planters Clock not only told you the time, but also the best dates to plant certain type of vegetables.

 

A fine selection of old Victrolas...

 

Hand grinder organs and cylinder music boxes...

 

Beautiful sounding disk music boxes...

 

Even old novelty phones and early computer systems

 

A classic wall phone

 

Other old phones

Admission to the museum is free of charge, and the owner and his wife Johnny and Edith Ingram give you a personally guided tour, explaining the various types of clocks, even making one or two strike the hour so you can hear the chimes. 

He was especially proud of one clock that kept track of not only the time, but also the months and the dates of the month as well as the days of the week. 

All in all, it was a great tour of time pieces dating back to far before the turn of the 20th century.