Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Way Back When-sday

These pictures are from the year Pops entered the Miss Gizzard Shad beauty contest. It was probably around 1979 or so. The contest featured men dressed as women and was a fundraiser during the Shad Festival in our hometown of Grifton, N.C. In the top picture Brandon (seated) doesn't quite know what to make of his cross-dressing dad while Russell is just rolling with the punches and trying to take Pops glasses out of his hand before he breaks them (notice the liquid courage in the other hand). In the picture at right, Pops is getting dressed before the contest and has obviously forgotten that those aren't real.

Pops did a strip tease for his talent. It was good enough to earn him the runner up title and a trophy. Considering the looks of some of his competition (at left), I'm not sure runner up is really that good of a thing. ... I checked out the schedule for this year's Shad Festival -- it's next week -- and couldn't find the Miss Gizzard Shad contest on it this year. I wonder if it fell victim to more politically correct times.

Pops, this could have been you ...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

These are some of the memories I have tried to forget. I didn't like that Brandon was upset with his dad dressed like that. He's trying to smile but I can see the tears in his eyes. Then there is Russell taking care of his dad's glasses. He has always been the caring one. We used to have fun at that festival but Canal Day up here is better. ILY

Anonymous said...

Funniest Way Back Wednesday ever!! Bring back the Miss Gizzard Shad contest!

Victoria Williams said...

OK. OK. OK. OH MY!
Gees, Jeffrey. Does this explain any strange behavior of yours?????
Ha ha ha!