Thursday Thing-along

Way Back When-sday

It's getting to be that time of the year again. Walmart and Kmart have had their decorations up here since before Halloween. I swear it used to be Thanksgiving before this would start ... maybe I just have kid memories wherein I focused on one holiday at a time and didn't notice all the encroaching trappings of the other holidays.

• Halloween meant costumes and pillowcases full of candy.

• Thanksgiving meant being out of school, going squirrel hunting with Granddaddy, eating turkey, dressing, green beans, mashed potatoes and Mammy's gravy with sliced boiled eggs.

• Christmas meant every happy thing you could think of -- including no school -- rolled into one old big ball and bounced from one set of grandparents' house to the next set's house. It meant trying to fall asleep so Santa would come. It meant hearing Pops ring his jingle bells and pretend he was Santa leaving the house. It meant Mama in her housecoat smiling as she watched us all tear through our things to find the next surprise.

There was no need to rush to get from one holiday to the other since each had its special things that went with it.

Anyway, enough daydreaming .... the picture this Wednesday is of my very first Christmas tree. How do I know that? Because Mama and Daddy did a great job of writing on the backs of the many photos they took of us growing up. That's something many of us in this digital age are going to miss out on. I can go back through all these photos and see their handwriting, their little marks, etc. It's a special treasure our family is lucky to have. I hope some of you have the same treasure from your parents or are creating a photo treasure for your own children.

Nice

Never thought the price of gas would be this low again.

It's Friday .... Casual Friday, that is

Thursday Thing-along

And what comes next, hey bust a move ...

Way Back When-sday

This photo of Stephen (from left), me and Pops was taken in February 1970, about three and a half weeks before Russell was born. Stephen and I are each in our footy pajamas -- mine have musical instruments on them and Stephen's have little cowboys, I think. .... Anyway, I loved these PJs because you could slide around on the wood floors in the hallway. I may have to get me another pair soon.

By the way, that couch we are sitting on didn't finally bite the dust until a couple of years ago. It made it through countless incarnations, moves and parties before finally begging for mercy.

It was good to see the guys ...

A few video clips from our 2008 annual backpacking trip ....




A few more to come later....

200-plus camping photos ....

Click on the arrow to start the slideshow...



You can make the slideshow bigger by holding your mouse over it and clicking on the four-arrow thingy in the lower right corner.

If you don't like seeing things in a slideshow or just want to look at specific photos, the 2008 camping photos can now be found in a set on my flicker account here. I will add more details in the captions as I have time.

Movies still to come....

We survived another one

We survived another of our annual backpacking trips. There were 10 of us this year, including a mix of veterans of the trip, a couple of people who have been a few times and two rookies. It rained on us for part of Friday night into Saturday early afternoon. Just enough to wash some of the stink off us.

More photos -- about 150-200 of them -- and some videos will be coming later today and over the next few days. Stay tuned.

Thursday Thing-along

I've delayed posting it -- but Jeezuz -- this song is just so darn catchy....

Way Back When-sday

This photo is from 1968 and is of me (almost naked boy to the right) and my best friend at the time, David Isner. David lived down the street from me in Grifton, N.C. His parents and my parents were good friends. Our fathers worked together at DuPont and our families were members of the neighborhood golf course and swimming pool. David and his family moved north to Pennsylvania a few years before our family moved north to Delaware. We ended up within 25 miles of each other but rarely saw each other. The last I heard, David was back in North Carolina working as a commercial fisherman on the Outer Banks.

From backpacking to tailgating

We hiked off the mountain early this morning to make it to the Eagles
game against the Giants. Full weekend of mandom.

Boys will be boys

The annual backpacking trip has started.

Thursday Thing-along

Love Chevy Chase in this one ...

Way Back When-sday

After our day hike the other day we stopped by our parents' house and had dinner while watching the Eagles game. Looking around the den at us all with plates in our laps, it reminded me of the holidays. Why? Because holiday meals were often spent eating wherever you could find room to sit in the grandparents' houses.

The photo above is of Pops' brother Uncle Tim with his plate during Christmas 1972 at Grandma and Papa's house. It was typical of Uncle Tim and Uncle David to go hunting before the gathering so the hunting pants and boots were just as much of the holiday scenery as the big plates of food.

I voted....

.... Did you?

Always prepared

The annual guys backpacking trip on part of the Appalachian trail is coming up this weekend. I thought it would be a good idea this year to take a trip up a few days ahead of time and hide some beer and water near where we will set up camp. Every year our backpacks seem to get a bit heavier. So on Sunday, we took a day trip up to the trail section. I'm only posting a little bit of the video here. I didn't want to show the hiding spots .... just in case you were thinking about searching for the beer.




Here are some camping photos from 2007.

These are photos from our 2006 trip.

Dance little doggy, dance

My brother Stephen and his family have an older dog named Chelsea. She is almost completely blind and deaf .... but she loves to dance.




I guess she's just scratching her back but it's fun to watch.