Tag: Celebrations & Holidays

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Thoughts of Flags and The 4th

After seeing the great job Bill Adams did with his license plate American Flag, Mother said she’d like to fly a flag in front of the house. We were always big on putting up flags on holidays, but the flag holder Dad was using in this photo was taken down when the house was covered with vinyl siding some years ago.

Mother swore that there was a flag holder on one of the walnut trees on the east side of the house, but I rooted around through the ivy (hopefully not the poison variety) growing on the tree and couldn’t find it. On the way back from learning about fly repelling in Jackson, I stopped at the Ace Hardware at the bottom of the hill for a new flag bracket. The screws that came with it were too short to go through the bracket and bark, so I had to scrounge some longer ones from the basement.

Mission accomplished.

Just about the time I shot the last screw in, Mother gave out a triumphant shout, “I KNEW that flag holder was here on the tree. I was right.” Indeed, she WAS right. The holder was right there on the tree where she said it would be. The only thing was that the tree had grown around it so much that you’d be lucky to stick a matchstick in it, let along a flag pole.

My First Grade Flag effort

I know there are some photos of me with a flag because it was my daily ritual to put the flag up first thing in the morning when I was kindergarten age. The first thing I ran across was this piece of artwork from my First Grade Scrapbook. Dad was working on a job in Kennett at this time, so he told me to save all my school papers and remember what I had done that week so he could put it in a scrapbook.

Here’s the scrapbook entry

Sept. 11, 1953 – We were allowed to draw or do what we wanted for awhile and I practiced on some addition and wrote the alphabet with a picture of a Flag in colors under my writing. Mrs. Kelpe is telling us a story on Pinky the Pig which she did not get to finish. We got a surprise today and it was a free ticket to get ice cream. The kids that had marks behind their name even got a ticket.

Note that I already understood the elements of a good story: food, scary mystery and explosive action. It was clear that I had a much better future in math and literature than art. If you don’t believe me, take a look at my sketch book from Ohio University’s Art 101, a required course for photo students.

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Bill Adams’ American Flag

I overshot my street this morning and ended up going down Anna Street. About a third of the way down the hill, my eye was drawn to what I thought was a huge plastic flag hanging in front of 1733 Anna. I was almost halfway to the next house when I saw that it wasn’t plastic, it was an American Flag made out of red, white and blue license tags. I hit the brakes and the go-back lever so fast I may have left black marks. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

Bill Adams and his wife were walking out to the car with keys in hand, but Bill was kind enough to chat with me. His wife must have known what a talker he is when he encounters another talker, so she went back inside the house where it was cool.

Found license plates on eBay

Bill, who said he isn’t really a license plate collector, started acquiring his tags on eBay around November 2010, and snagged his last plate toward the end of January of this year.

The cheapest tags were about a buck each; the most expensive was $55. “I could have gotten them cheaper if I had waited around, but I wanted to get the project done,” he said. Overall, the tags averaged about $7 to $10 each. His favorite tags are the ones with the state slogans on them. His least favorite are states like Delaware that have flat plate without embossed numbers and letters.

I think he said he had every state represented except Idaho, New Hampshire, Georgia and California.

Flag folds up for storage

After getting the plates, he spent a little time trying to figure out how to mount them. Instead of one large unit, he decided to string them together with Nylon ties so the whole contraption could be folded up into a storage container. The two support poles are made of two 2x4s joined together on each side and dropped into a 4×4 sleeve so they can be removed.

Bill is thinking about using the poles for other holidays, but he’s not sure if he’ll make the displays out of license plates. There are a lot of green and white tags, though, he said. Those would work out well for Christmas.

Riding the Mother Road

Bill just retired from a career as a postal carrier. “Retirement is great. For awhile, I thought I’d better make a list of things to do. That didn’t mean I had to KEEP the list; I could put off a task to the next day, change priorities…”

One thing on his list is for the couple to take a trip to see their daughters in Seattle. They’re going to fly this time, but Bill’s other obsession is to drive every inch of Route 66, the Mother Road. He’s managed follow it as far as the New Mexico-Texas border. “I’m not looking forward to Southern California and LA.” He admits, however that even big cities can have quiet moments. They hit Chicago on a winter Sunday morning and had the road almost to themselves.

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Fireworks on the 4th

Christmas with its presents, Easter with its egg hunts, Halloween with its trick-or-treating candy, your birthday and the Fourth of July (fireworks) were the biggies when I was a kid. Sure, there were religious and patriotic overtones to the holidays, but, be honest, what did YOU think of?

One year Dad ordered a huge box of fireworks through the mail. When it arrived – and I mean a HUGE box – we all gathered around and unpacked it piece by loving piece. We were admonished NOT to pull on the fuses or they might not work. We weren’t allowed to open any of the individual packages and we certainly weren’t allowed to jump the gun and actually light anything early.

The funny thing is that dad used REAL dynamite on his construction jobs, but he was as excited about the 4th of July as we were. (By the way, how do you like Brother Mark’s bright red, get-away-fast shoes?)

Cherry bombs and M-80s

I don’t recall exactly what was in there. I’m sure it had cone-shaped fireworks, all kinds of rockets, Roman candles, bottle rockets and fire crackers from the lady fingers all the way up to the two-inchers. For the little kids, it had carbon snakes and sparklers. It might even have had the mighty cherry bombs and M-80s.

Launching cans

Our big thing was to see how far we could launch cans. The small cans that frozen lemonade came in were perfect for the smaller crackers. We quickly learned that the M-80s and cherry bombs wouldn’t send the can in the air. It would blow them up on the launch pad.

To keep from burning up a gazillion matches, the fireworks stands would give you cork-covered sticks – punks- to light the fuses.

Even fireworks can become boring

Shooting cans in the air and lighting firecrackers one at a time was fun, but quickly became boring. The next step was to twist together the fuses of half a dozen firecrackers so you could try to get them to all go off at the same time “like a stick of dynamite.” Of course, that never happened. the first one to go off would cause the others to scatter or it would blow out the other fuses.

Dad considered it bad form to light whole strings of firecrackers. Until, of course, even HE got bored playing with them. He usually suspended them from a tree branch so they’d writhe, pop and flash in the air. This was particularly good at night.

Dad wasn’t big on picnics

I don’t know how many times I heard him grouse, “Six days of the week I sit on the ground chewing sandwiches full of sand. I don’t plan to do that on Sunday.” I guess the 4th didn’t fall on a Sunday, so my grandmother, Mother, Brother David and Dad are gathered around the table in our backyard.

Don’t go back too soon

When we lived over on Bloomfield road, Dad got half of the instructions right. The “light fuse and get away” part he understood. He didn’t bother to read the section that said, “If the firework doesn’t go off immediately, do NOT lean over it to see why.” One of those cone fireworks came to life when he was checking it, causing us to hold off lighting the rest of the fireworks until he returned from the emergency room.

I don’t remember what the exact nature of the injury was, but he never shot off that particular type of firework again.

Writing with sparklers

The date stamp on the front of the print says JUL 1960, so I must have shot this with my trusty Kodak Tourist II folding camera set on Time Exposure. I’ve got some shots filed somewhere where my brothers spelled real words in the air. I didn’t bother: my handwriting looks like this ALL of the time.

Two more generations

Wife Lila captured Son Matt and Grandson Malcolm shooting off fireworks in 2008, when Malcolm was four. He’s not exactly sure how he feels about the noise.

Y’all be careful out there

  • Light fuse,then get away.
  • If the firework doesn’t go off immediately, do NOT lean over it to see why
  • If you’re in a drought area (I’m talking to you Florida and Texas), don’t be shooting off fireworks. The house you save might be mine.
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Thinking of Dad

Sometimes I KNOW I’ve taken a photo; I just can’t find it. It’s been a long time since I went wading through the boxes of prints and negatives that are stored in Wife Lila’s domain in the dining room buffet. She’s the custodian of “family” photos. Most of my pictures are of strangers.

My search came up empty, but I did find this envelope of color negatives taken in the special summer of 1976.

Looks like Son Matt was about a year old. Brother David and Diane got married. We went to Kentucky Lake and down to Dutchtown where Steinhoff & Kirkwood kept their construction equipment. You can click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

I’m jumping the gun a little on the formal holiday, but every day is Father’s Day when the memories wash over you.

Riding the mailbox

Matt’s not sure he likes the idea of riding the mailbox in front of the house on Kingsway.

Ears make convenient handles

Matt’s trying to figure out what those funny things are sticking out of the side of Dad’s head.

Dutchtown “garden”

Part of the land at Dutchtown was set aside for a garden and small orchard. The floods have gradually wiped out all of the fruit trees.

Not your normal Tonka toy

One of the cool things about about having a dad in the construction business was getting to play on the real version of what other kids had in plastic. OSHA would probably take a dim view of this, but we thought it was normal play. You have to admit that not many grandmothers get a chance to do this, either.

An appreciation for different vantages

As you can see, if you were in our family, you learned an appreciation for different vantage points.

Were we really that young?

Where have the years gone? Wife Lila and I are twice as old as we were when these photos were taken. One minute you’re holding a toddler; the next you’re cashing your Social Security check. (Which that toddler is contributing to.)

Not quite ready to drive yet

You wonder if a child this young has any real memories of this or if they’re based on photographs and family stories.

Not sure about hay bales

This shed was used to store lumber and bales of hay. Matt doesn’t look like he cares much for sitting on stickery hay bales. Or, he might be trying to figure out if you’re supposed to eat the straw.

Good pepper crop

The pepper crop looks pretty good, but Matt is more interested in an apple.

Trailer on Kentucky Lake

Dad and Mother had a trailer over at Kentucky Lake. There was a bass boat for Dad to use for fishing and a ski boat for hauling Brothers Mark and David around. I skied a few times, but decided that wasn’t my idea of a fun afternoon.

Dad is introducing Matt to the finer points of cane pole fishing.

Duck feeding is more his speed

Matt seems to hope that Pringles will be sufficient to keep hungry ducks at bay.

This, my grandson, is a fish

This sequence maybe gives a clue to why Matt doesn’t eat seafood to this day.

What’s this thing taste like?

Am I supposed to put it in my mouth?

OK, I’m done with fish

It don’t take me long to look at a fish. I’m done.

Dressed for the wedding

Dad always wore clean and pressed work clothes, even when he was headed to a dirty job on a construction site. He looked good in a suit, too. I don’t, however,  recall seeing him dressed like this many times. The occasion was Brother David’s wedding.

A pensive look

Those sideburns are creeping down pretty far. I guess it was the influence of Mark, whose hair was so long that I gave him a bumper sticker that said, “I’m a Boy.”

Mother and Dad together

They made quite the couple.

Mark, when he had hair

I’m glad he enjoyed it while he had a chance to.

David and Diane

Sister-in-Law Diane looks just like she did as a bride. David, fortunately, DOESN’T look like he did on his wedding day.

Bittersweet memories

A year later, I learned a hard lesson: better pile up all the memories you can when you have the chance.

We had planned to go back to Cape in July of 1977, but my new job as director of photography at The Palm Beach Post got in the way. I had to postpone our vacation a couple of weeks to get the next year’s operating budget out of the way.

Dad was going to use the extra time to build a sandbox for Matt at Kentucky Lake. He must have been carrying a sandbag when he had a massive heart attack. He was 60.

I’m sorry that he didn’t have a chance to see how his grandsons turned out. He’d have been proud of them.

Sorry for indulging in a little more family history than I had intended.

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