Picture Post, Sunday January 14, 2007

When Lovely Wife and I headed back toward Florida from our Louisiana trip on December 31, we made a stop at the Mississippi welcome center on I-20 in Vicksburg, Mississippi. It was an absolutely stunningly beautiful day. The welcome center is also a good source of information on the seige on Confederate forces at Vicksburg.

The bridge on the left carries I-20 across the Mississippi River. The bridge on the right is for trains.

A wee bit of information of the Civil War seige that occured here.

Fortuitous timing brought a train lumbering across the Mississippi River toward us. Makes the picture much more interesting.

I was intrigued by how the brilliant sunshine of the day cast such a sharp shadow of the train bridge onto the river. I waited a couple of minutes until the tug and its group of barges came into view, to add a little life.

Mississippi has bowed to the earthly god of gambling revenues. This is one of the "boats" that are basically floating casinos. But the red (fake) smoke stacks of the gambling boat are really bright, and made an interesting foreground to the wide curve of the Mississippi River in the background.

I love color for color's sake, and the backlit American and Mississippi State flags were certainly worth a click.

There was a tourist billboard in Vicksbug along I-20 encouraging folks to stay (and drop some cash) by stating, "Stop and stay a while, Grant did." I was kind of surprised to see that, considering that some in The South still have very strong feelings regarding the American Civil War in the 1860s. (For those of you not familiar, General Grant was the Union forces commanding General in the Civil War. He later parlayed this into becoming U.S. President after the War.)

spap oop(s)

Don C.'s younger brother, my Uncle Al, was a really sweet, funny, and generous man.

I loved to go and visit Uncle Al, Aunt T., Scott, and Alesa. My cousin Scott was just a couple of years younger than me and we got along well.

When I was a teen, we visited them in Bossier City, not long after they had gone on a vacation.

Uncle Al told us one of the greatest stories of miscommunication between husband and wife I have ever heard.

I don't know how y'all's families did vacations, but apparently, Uncle Al and Aunt T. did things much like my parents did.

Husband did most of the driving, while Wife rode shotgun, probably choking back panic from near claustrophobia from all the junk crammed in around her feet and legs.

In my parent's case, there was the obligatory bag of snacks which Sainted Mother had control of, but most important to them was a humongous thermos with coffee.

Anyway, Uncle Al says they settled in for the ride, and had been cruising along the highway for a while, when his internal clock told him it was socially acceptable to start munching on the goodies Aunt T. had stashed around herself.

Now this was on the order of thirty years ago, and I don't remember his exact words of their snack conversation, but here is my paraphrase of their exchange:

Uncle Al: Hey T., could you hand me them spap oops?
Aunt T. : What?!
Uncle Al: Could you let me try some of them spap oops?
Aunt T. : I have no idea what you are talking about. (looks at him as if she doubts his sanity.)
Uncle Al: (points) Right there, by your feet, there is a box of snacks labeled "spap oops," could you PLEASE hand me the box so I can try them?
Aunt T.: (looks at box that she had bought herself, and starts laughing)
Uncle Al: What is so funny?
Aunt T. : (picks up box, and turns it around and shows it to him) These are "doo dads"! I had no idea what you were talking about!
Uncle Al: Well, turn the box upside down like it was when I saw it on the floor and read the label.

Aunt T. reversed the box, and sure enough, the label on the box was indeed "doo dads" in all lower case letters.

"doo dads," when seen upside down, spells "spap oop"

Uncle Al had never seen or heard of a snack called doo dads, so when he glanced down while driving and saw the upside down box, he rightly asked for the spap oops!

It was funnier to hear him tell it though. Aunt T. really thought for a minute that he had gone bonkers.

doo dads were made by Nabisco, and was kinda like chex mix, but different enough to be unique.

---

Just for grins and giggles, here's one of the photo scans I made while in Louisiana. That's my Uncle Al on the left, with Don C., my Dad, in their navy uniforms.

The whole upper right corner was missing, and I kinda recreated it using some of the tools in Photoshop Elements. It doesn't look that great up in that area under close inspection, but overall the photo looks much better now that it isn't torn.

I Tought I Taw A Puddy Tat!

I hate not being able to verify things I know that I have seen.

In October of 2004, I had a spinal fusion of the bottom three vertebrae in my lower back. They removed the L5-S1, and L4-L5 disks. I have some metal rods and hardware in there that creates quite an interesting x-ray.

It was a couple of months before I could ride in a car just for the pleasure of getting out of the house. I had to go to the Dr., and to physical therapy, but the ride was painful.

But by around February or March of 2005, I could ride with enough comfort to just simply get out and enjoy the wonderful Florida weather.

Lovely Wife would take us over the closest causeway to what is known around here as "beachside", the barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and the mainland of Florida. We would get on A1A and head south.

This became a favorite thing for us, we've always been Sunday drive type people, only we didn't require a Sunday just to get out and drive around.

On one trip, we went all the way to Vero Beach, about thirty miles, or about 48km, south of Palm Bay. There are a surprising amount of dirt roads in the area, new roads, of course, but some are roads that have been there for decades but never paved.

In this area is Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, America's first National Wildlife Refuge.

On this particular day, we kept going on the road that takes you to Pelican Island's parking area, instead of just going back the way we had gotten there, to A1A.

This road is one of the old roads in the area that is still not paved, but it is wild looking, old Florida terrain. Lots of small oak trees and palmettos and scrub.

We continued on this dirt road, even after crossing one of the other paved main roads in the area, just to see how far this road went, and to see what we could see.

On the other side of the main road we had passed, we started coming across new neighborhoods. Huge, expensive properties, but seen from their backsides on our little dirt road.

Also the road went along the water on the Intracoastal Waterway (the Indian River Lagoon) some as well.

In all, very pretty areas, and interesting to see.

In one stretch of this dirt road, that was between newly developed areas, still thick scrub, palms, and palmettos on both sides of the road, we could see a big dog in the road ahead.

Or so we thought.

As we got closer, the thing turned it's head to look at us coming, and loped off at an angle away from us, across the road. It was unmistakably a HUGE cat. It ran just like any house cat in casual mode, only this thing's head would have easily come up to my mid thigh or even my hip. I'm just guessing here, because we only saw him for about 20 seconds, but he was around 3 feet, or 1m tall! I would estimate it at 80 pounds.

Lovely Wife and I talked to one another about what we saw, just to make sure neither of us was insane. I mean, this was an area with a good number of homes and condos close by.

As we passed the spot where he had crossed the road into the far side brush, I didn't have the presence of mind to ask her to stop and let me see if I could see his tracks. But that's probably a foolhardy thing to have done anyway, he might have been just inside the tree line, waiting for a big, slow, juicy morsel like me to stumble around in easy killing distance. My walk fairly shouted "damaged goods!" and I would have been no match for a panther.

Anyway, we kept driving around the area, enjoying the day and talking about the cat, and eventually started heading back home.

But of course we had to go back down that portion of dirt road one more time, but alas, no more panther sightings.

There was however, an older lady walking her little bitty doggy, about 50 yards from where we had seen the panther cross the road.

We stopped and told her what we had seen and offered her a ride, but she didn't seem too perturbed, and declined our offer. Looking back, a strange couple offering you a ride is a lot more scary than any panther story you don't know the truth of, so I don't reckon I blame her.

I never heard of a panther attack after that, so I can only assume she and Fido made it home safely.

Having looked up information on the Florida panther, I would think the one we saw was a female. I was surprised too, to find that they mainly only exist in southwest Florida, a long way from where we are. But I do know what I saw, and photos of them that I have seen are close to the cat I remember from that day.

But I had no camera with which to collect proof of what we saw. Gyah!

Thursday Thirteen #22

Thirteen Of John's Random Thoughts 1. My hearing isn't very good. Too long working around jet airplanes. But when I was sick recently, my hearing took a real nosedive. But after being on meds to clear me up, I'm happy to report that I'm back up to being merely hard of hearing again! 2. Who were those guys who showed up Monday night in Phoenix in Ohio State University football uniforms? I mean, in all honesty, it didn't matter much to me, I graduated from University of Louisiana - Monroe, and Louisiana Tech, neither of which are in any danger of winning the 1A football crown within my lifetime, but the few times I saw OSU play this year, I was amazed at what a juggernaut they were. Florida showed up to play, and play hard, Ohio State phoned in their perfomance. 3. Related to #2 above. I live and work in Florida. The company I work for hires lots of University of Florida and University of Central Florida engineering graduates. I saw every type of University of Florida shirt imaginable on Tuesday at work. At least the guys (and the few women engineers) I work with are all really great people, otherwise this next year would be hard to take. I feel sorry for the few Ohio State graduates I work with. They still look stunned. 4. Related to #3 above. Now that I mention it, why are there so few women engineers? There are SO many great opportunities for women engineers. Companies are hurting for engineers right now. 5. Related to #4 above. I work with a woman engineer who finished her engineering degree at the age of, get this, seventeen! She wanted to work for the company I work for, and you must be at least 18 because of government contract work we do, so she worked at a minimum wage job for a year until she turned eighteen and they could hire her. Needless to say, she's stinkin' brilliant. #6 Related to #2 above. Did you know that the University of Central Florida, which most of you have probably never even heard of, is the sixth largest university in the United States? Both University of Florida and University of Central Florida are in the top ten largest universities in America. UCF is in Orlando. #7 For most of my life, the passing of one year into a new one would make my head spin just to contemplate. All the possibilities, etc. Now, it's just more days. No big whoop, ya know? I kinda miss being pumped about the new year. #8 Ever have days when everything you type has oodles of mistakes? Today is just such a day for me. I type slow, and usually am very accurate, but I keep putting my hands in the wrong place and end up typing "dyigg ;olr yjod", instead of "stuff like this." #9 There was a lady on Jeopardy! the other night who talked about her 400 bottle wine collection. I am always intrigued by these people. See, I don't like wine or any other alcoholic beverages. To me they just taste bad. I drink the true "elixir of life", sweetened ice tea, by the gallon. (Dear Lord, I thank Thee for Splenda, without which, I would weigh 500 pounds. Amen.) I mean really, they make beer look so good on the commercials, and do you remember your very first sip of beer? Yuck! Now I'm not cutting her down, or anyone else who likes to drink adult beverages, I just realized while she was talking, how completely different our lives and concerns were. Why doesn't she collect something cool and useful, like Hotwheels? ;) #10 I'm still riding a bit of a high from our trip to Louisiana a couple of weeks ago. It had been almost six years since we had been there, and you just can't beat real live hugs from your loved ones and some good home cookin'. I just wish I hadn't been so sick the whole time, it makes the whole trip seem like a dream. #11 You know how, when you complain about your head or something hurting, and someone jokingly offers to stomp on you foot to make you forget about your headache? There's a lot of truth to that. Now that I'm getting over my sickness, my back is hurting like crazy again. Bummer. #12 I know so many people I would love to help out financially. Like most folks, we live a paycheck to paycheck. I don't play the lottery either. I once had a pop quiz in a college math class, and all we had to do was compute the odds of winning the Powerball Lottery. The way it was set up at the time, it's options have changed some over the years, you had a one in one hundred fifty five million chance of winning. I got the answer right, and consequently no longer buy lottery tickets. Not so much from a moral standpoint, but I could no longer ignore the odds because I computed them myself. That dollar has a bigger impact on my life when I buy an ice cold Coke Zero. I still wish I could financially help family and friends though. #13 While on our trip to Louisiana, we passed the 3000 photo mark on the Nikon D70s we bought in June. The up-front cost of a good digital camera hurts, but the upside is that you can just shoot, shoot, and shoot, without worrying about the amount of film you have or the cost of developing it. If I average 3000 pics every six months, I'm gonna need a new hard drive. We already have two, a 120GB and a 160GB, that are both almost full. Sigh. The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

What Fun!

I've posted about a zillion pictures on this blog.

And I've talked about the old family photos I scanned on our trip to Louisiana right after Christmas.

And I've talked about how fun it is to manipulate photos, to correct them and whatnot, using Photoshop Elements.

The photos of my Dad in the Navy, that I posted yesterday, took a good bit of work to correct. They aren't perfect, but one was torn, and they just weren't in good shape.

But the difference of the photos from before and after has me totally hooked on the process of making them better.

For me, this is like having a new color photography darkroom. Only without the mess and chemicals.

The pics of my Dad from yesterday took a while to work on, but the difference from what they were as originally scanned is quite dramatic. It's fun, and the final output makes the whole process worthwhile.

In fact, it's quite addictive.

And the really fun photos to work with, are the old ones that are basically in good shape physically, but have shifted colors over the years. These photos only take about 5 or 6 different steps to make vast improvements in them.

Plus, if there isn't much to repair, like scratches, or marks, or tears, each photo only takes 2 or 3 minutes to generate a totally shocking change.

So today, I'm gonna leave you with two before-and-after photos from my childhood, that literally only took about 5 minutes to repair them both. So when a photo is in decent shape, just color shifted, the rejuvenation is quick as it is dramatic.

Don C. In The Navy

My father came from pretty humble beginnings. Neither of his parents had a high school education, and he was born in the depression. He told me that, looking back, they were pretty poor, but since everyone else in the area was in the same shape financially, he never really thought of them as poor.

They hunted and grew gardens and by his admission, they never went hungry. They didn't have money for any luxuries, but they had plenty to eat.

He told me that he went to the closest Navy recruiter on his 18th birthday and joined up.

He and Sainted Mother were married and he went off to the Navy.

He went around the world twice, though he never talked about it very much. Not that he was traumatized like someone who had seen combat, but he was a quiet man and the subject of his service in the Navy didn't come up much. As close as he came to combat was during the Korean War, when the destroyer he served on shelled the mainland from way off shore from time to time.

I had asked him when he joined, was he drafted or what, but he told me he just joined of his own accord on his 18th birthday. There weren't many job opportunities in LaSalle Parish in 1952.

When Lovely Wife and I were in Louisiana right after Christmas, I scanned these three photos of Don C. in the Navy. These represent about 45 minutes work on each photo to get them into this presentable condition.

He was a gunner's mate and worked in one of the big guns on his ship. He told me he also had the responsibility of grabbing a .22 rifle and heading upstairs to fire upon any sharks that might surround any man who might fall overboard. It never happened, but they had drills and he once got into some minor trouble for once firing a few rounds around the dummy they threw overboard.

He said he grew up without being hungry, but he sure was a thin man when young. Sainted Mother said he had a 28inch waist when he joined the Navy. She claims he could easily hide behind a telephone pole. (I had a 28inch waist about the time I was in the fourth grade. :)



I really like that "secret agent man" look he has in the final photo.

I'm so glad to have these photos of him on his ship, in action, so to speak.

A Christmas To Remember

When you look at old photos, the date on them refers to the time of development. Many of my 35mm slides have dates on the mounts, but they have nothing to do when the pictures were actually taken.

When I scanned a bunch of prints while we were in Louisiana, I noticed that several years of Christmas pictures had the same "DEC 71" date on the edge of the photos.

Bummer.

My memories of that time aren't clear enough to remember in what order we got certain things on whichever Christmas.

I think it was due to either the film sitting unfinished in the camera and taking two years to finish, or that the finished film sat in a drawer somewhere and built up until several rolls were finally developed. Probably the latter, I've done that myself many times over the years.

On to the story

Of course, I'm not sure exactly which year this was, we'll call it 1971, since that's what the photo has printed on the edge.

I distinctly remember the family going into Natchez, Mississippi to Sears. This was a HUGE deal to me. Vidalia, Louisiana, where we were living at the time, was a small town with just local stores for the most part. We had to go across the Mississippi River to Natchez to go to big stores like Sears, Woolworth, and so forth.

On this particular visit to Sears, I remember Don C. asking questions about which bicycle I liked.

Jeesh. So many to choose from!

I remember then looking up and seeing a bicycle that had been hung from the ceiling of the store to display it especially. It was a stingray style bicycle in metal flake green.

The bike had "high rise" handlebars and a half "sissy bar."

I fell in love instantly.

The bike was so cool, it had a name: Gremlin.

THAT'S what I want for Christmas. I remember going and looking at other things in the store with the family, but also my Dad asking casually to make sure of my views on the bicycles they had.

So, Christmas morning, weeks later, Big Brother and I get up and...

Side note, I just realized that this had to have been Christmas of 1970. Younger Brother was born in 1970 and he's in one of the Christmas pictures, looking at my bicycle, and he's obviously in that "just learned to pull up, and about to walk stage." So this HAD to have been Christmas of 1970. I was 8.

Anyhoo, Big Brother and I are jazzed with our bikes. His had a three speed shifter mounted on the main top bar of his bike, and it was purple. It hits me as I write this, that the shifter is probably a big reason he chose that bicycle. Even later when he drove a car with automatic transmission, he would shift the gears himself as if it were a standard transmission. He loved doing that kind of stuff.

So there we were with our new bikes. And "Santa" had even added a rear view mirror to each side of each handlebar on both bikes. Cool stuff for 1970.

Later, after all of the gifts were opened, we got dressed and our friends, Guy and Johnny, from the next street came and wanted to show us their new bicycles. Spiffy.

So we finally were all ready, and headed out from our house, went around the corner, and onto Guy and Johnny's street.

Uh Oh. Here comes a car. I panic and move to my left, right into Big Brother and his bicycle. I wreck, right there on the edge of the street, not even a half mile from home. After my running into Big Brother, he runs off the street into a ditch and wrecks in the grass. No harm done to either Big Brother or his bicycle.

But me? I tore a hole in my jacket where my left elbow scraped the pavement. And BOTH mirrors on my bicycle are broken. Oh the humanity!

That was a hard thing to do, when we went home, to show Don C. that I had already broken both of the mirrors on my brand new bicycle.

But other than a couple of scrapes and bruises, I was unhurt, and we probably put a zillion miles on those bicycles that Christmas day. I also remember that I enjoyed looking at my bicycle. It just liked to look at it, I couldn't believe it was really mine.

The rear tire was a Cheater Slick that, when you used the coaster brake and skidded the rear tire, would squeal loud and sharp. I loved that, and quickly developed a dramatic arrival whenever I met a friend on the street, complete with the back end of the bike skidding around and accompanied by my trademark tire screech.

I rode that bicycle for years, and of course had others as I grew larger, but that green Sears Gremlin was the bicycle of a little boy's dreams.

Despite the wreck, I remember being so happy that Christmas.

Picture Post, Sunday January 7, 2006

Neville High School in Monroe, Louisiana

The school opened in 1931. This school year, they are celebrating their 75th anniversary.

Big Brother graduated from here in 1977, I graduated from here in 1980, and Younger Brother graduated from here in 1988. We have no sympathy for Big Sis and her sons when it comes to the annual Neville-Ouachita football game. Big Sis works at Ouachita Junior High, and both of our nephews, her sons, went to Ouachita.

I enjoyed my time here, and still have friends I keep in contact with from high school.

But I have to confess, that I wasn't nominated for "Most School Spirit." I haven't been to a Neville football game since 1979.

I am proud to have gone to Neville though. I joke on this blog about having gone to Louisiana public schools, but in reality, I do just fine as an engineer along side my coworkers from Penn State, Purdue, Georgia Tech, MIT, Ohio State, etc., etc., with my Neville High School and Louisiana Tech educations.

This campus, and the building you see here are so pretty. The red brick and the center tower and the little design details in the building make it look even more beautiful as time goes on.

This entrance is into the school's auditorium/theatre. The three carvings above the doors fascinated me in high school. I remember taking photos of them from the third floor windows when I was a photographer for the yearbook my senior year. Miracle of miracles, I found those old photos. You can compare. I was getting artsy-fartsy in the school's darkroom, trying to make them look like ancient old photos.

This area out in front of these doors has several memorials to former students who have passed away. It's a really pretty part of the campus that always had little traffic.










These huge old oaks are just to the south of the auditorium entrance, on the least used side of the campus.





This photo is looking back out toward Forsyth Avenue which runs in front of the school. It's really nice in early summer when everything is green and the trees have leaves.





And what southern high school is complete without a football stadium? I still think of cool, crisp, fall evenings as "football weather."

Things Change

My time at University of Louisiana - Monroe in the early eighties was a fun time for the most part. I lived in Monroe and went to high school there, and didn't really consider going to another college with one right there in town. The campus was kinda pretty with the bayou running through it, and all the old trees and such, but many of the buildings were built in the 50s and 60s and were completely squared-off, with no adornments whatsoever. In short, many of the buildings were out and out ugly. I am so happy to report that many of the buildings from that period have been torn down and replaced with new ones that are simply beautiful. The older, original brick buildings still look great, because they were built with design flourishes that make them look pretty and stately at the same time. The campus is now a nice mix of beautiful new architecture and still-lovely old architecture. Prospective students coming to this campus will see a completely different school than the one I attended. That's a good thing.


This old train bridge over the Ouachita River in Monroe looked old and rickety twenty something years ago when I was in college the first time and took pics of it for one of my black and white photography courses. Look at the section I photographed years ago in black and white, and notice that there's a ram-shackle building built into the bridge. This old room or whatever fascinated me back then because of how derelict it looked. Now the wooden room is gone. When I was taking these photos, much to my surprise, a train came across the bridge. I thought the bridge was pathetic in 1983; I half expected the train and bridge to collapse into the river. I thought the same thing about a bridge I photographed here in Melbourne this past summer, and I've since seen many trains on it. You'd think they would have to sand blast and repaint train bridges just like they do bridges for cars and trucks.

Indian Mound
I've talked a bit on this blog about how I'm a very laid back person; definitely not the extreme sport kinda guy. But since I was a child, whenever I get on a bicycle, something happens inside me. I am pretty much fearless on a bicycle. When I was a teen, we used to ride our bikes to the levee beside one of the bayous in a nearby neighborhood. Between the levee and the bayou was woods and a horse pen. There was a trail there that would allow us to straight down the side of the levee and on into a huge natural ditch and up the far side of the ditch and get seriously airborne. As soon as you rode across the levee, you felt like you were in a different world back there in the trees by the water. When we were driving around Monroe last week, I freaked out when I saw that there was a paved road across the levee. There is a small neighborhood of very nice homes back there now. This photo is of an old Indian mound that the builders weren't allowed to touch. It was a shock to see that people had built these incredibly expensive homes on the bayou side of the levee (seems rather dumb to me) and also that, as many times as my friends and I rode our bikes in those woods, I never knew this mound was there. This was the first time I laid eyes on it.

This area, between the levee and the Ouachita River near Forsyth Park, was mainly dirt roads when I was in high school. They had a boat ramp and paved parking areas, but the nicely paved road and parking area I'm standing beside to take this photo didn't exist. It's now a nice set of paved roads, pavilions, and picnic tables. Very park-like. This was where the rich kids I went to school with used to bring their nice four wheel drive trucks to go mud hoggin'. It's really nice back here now, though I know it will flood when the river gets high.

But thankfully, some things don't change.

Johnny's Pizza House, McKeen Place
This is Big Sis, Sainted Mother, and Lovely Wife, just moments before the gnashing of teeth began. These, friends, are Johnny's Pizza House's Sweep The Kitchen pizzas. This is this the one thing you want to buy and eat when you go home. Everyone has a favorite hometown food. This was a little bit of heaven on earth.

Burger Barn, Olla, Louisiana
Big Brother and I loved the hamburgers at the Burger Barn in Olla, Louisiana. Any time we were in LaSalle Parish for any reason meant taking time to get a couple of burgers from the Burger Barn. They taste like home made burgers. Since Big Brother died, and we went to his and other's graves to put new flowers on them, we bought one Jumbo Burger and shared it in Big Brother's honor. I know he would appreciate it. The few times I got down there and had a couple of burgers while he was in Utah, I'd call him and tell him about it, just to hear him moan. All in fun though. The burger was awesome as always. Nice to know they're still putting out great burgers; this place has been there as long as I can remember.

Sportsman's Paradise

When I was a kid growing up, the Louisiana car tags had "Sportsman's Paradise" written on them.

Now I thought this was highly suspect for two reasons: 1. The only sport team in Louisiana that played on a national level was the New Orleans Saints, and they always stunk to high heaven, and 2. I was too young and ignorant to know that "sportsman" was a term for folks who like to hunt deer, ducks, quail, and go fishing and so forth.

When I learned what they meant by Sportsman's Paradise, I could understand it, I guess. Because there's sure enough a lot of fishing and hunting to be had in just about any part of the state. I saw more camouflage hats and clothing in four days last week than I've seen in ten years in Florida.

But going back to Louisiana after so long an absence, it was Louisiana that seemed strange to me.

For a long time after moving to Florida, it seemed wierd to see clumps of palm trees in horse and cow pastures. Oleanders and hibiscus blooming year 'round. Things like that, that I thought I could never get used to.

But this time, I was looking around Monroe and northeast Louisiana with new eyes.

The beauty is there if you look for it.

It isn't like the mountains or the ocean with a knock-your-socks-off immediate sensation. It's more like the desert, in that, at first look, you don't see much to look at, but if you look closely you see the beauty.

I had forgotten how pretty spanish moss hanging from so many of the trees is.

I had forgotten how green the winter plantings of rice were against the otherwise rather bleak landscape.

I had forgotten how lazy and beautiful the bayous and rivers were, with the cypress trees growing way out in the water and draped with spanish moss. Not to mention the way fog looks hanging low over these bayous and rivers.

Most of the houses there are brick, so they tend to look the same, even after many years; the trees and plants around them were just bigger. Neighborhoods built in the fifties and sixties still look pretty good, especially in the nicer neighborhoods.

It was neat to get to drive around a bit and see the sameness as well as the town's growth and differences.

I guess I could talk about that more tomorrow.

One thing I can say for certain; it was SO nice to be asked questions and thanked, even at drive through windows at fast food restaurants in Louisiana and Mississippi. Heck, they even were nice in northern Florida. Fast food restaurants in Palm Bay and Melbourne, all of central Florida really, would do well to send their employees to The South for training. We have the surliest, don't care workers down here. The difference was striking. (End of rant.)

Photo Information:

First Photo: Bayou DeSaird looking toward the ULM campus.

Second Photo: Spanish moss in the cypress trees along a bayou.

Third Photo: Train crossing the Ouachita River in the rain and fog. (Don't be afraid to take your camera out when the weather is bad. Just take basic precautions.)

Fourth Photo: Private homes and boat docks along Bayou DeSaird.

Thursday Thirteen #21

Thirteen Photos From Our Louisiana Trip Last Week Give 'em a click, to see them in all their glory. On our way to Louisiana, there was a beautiful sky and clouds in the afternoon. This was in north Florida and the evening sun made a roadside view of the trees and sky look pretty. To me at least. This is the house in Monroe, Louisiana that I grew up in. From ages 12-21, anyway. I was glad to see that magnificent oak tree still alive and getting bigger and bigger. I have an old slide of it from the early 1980s I scanned and posted, at the bottom of the post HERE. This is the front of Neville High School in Monroe. I graduated from here in 1980. Neville is celebrating its 75th anniversary in the 2006-2007 school year. They just don't build pretty red brick schools with character like this much any more. The campus is beautiful, with lots of monstrous old trees. This photo looks along Bayou DeSaird which runs through Monroe, and here it's running through the campus of the University of Louisiana - Monroe. I earned an Associate degree from here in 1983. Of course, then, it was Northeast Louisiana University. And they've torn down many of the old 50s and 60s era square yellow brick buildings and have replaced them with stylish and beautiful new ones. It's as if a totally new school occupies the space of the old one. Looks great though. This is Baxter, Big Sis and Long Suffering B.I.L.'s yellow Lab. He's in their front yard fetching the toy we brought for him. He's such a sweet dog. This is Younger Brother with his Yorkie, Chester. Chester is giving him a love bite. This is a pic of some horses in a pasture, in LaSalle Parish in central Louisiana. Lovely Wife took this on the fly as we zoomed down a rural road on the way to Aimoch, where my Dad and Big Brother are buried. This pic looks great for a 50mph snap shot. We don't have these signs in the part of Florida I live in. This is Lovely Wife, Big Sis, and Sainted Mother putting new flowers on the graves of my Big Brother, Dad, and paternal grandparents. That clear cut area behind the cemetery was formerly a beautiful pine forest. It almost broke my heart to drive up and see it had been clear cut. They'll replant it, but it will be twenty years before it starts to get pretty again. Bummer. It was a beautiful day though. This is the church that the cemetery is adjacent to. This is the Wilbanks Cemetery, just a few miles from the one pictured above. One of my paternal great grandmothers is buried here. That's Big Sis, who walked around the whole cemetery and determined that there is NOT ONE Wilbanks buried in the Wilbanks Cemetery. A mystery. This is our Christmas gift to Baxter, after only two days. He's kinda rough on toys. As we headed home to Florida, we stopped in Vicksburg, Mississippi at the welcome center, on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. I liked this shot of the canons, flags, and the tugs and barges in the distance. Another beautiful day. Sorry I'm so late with this. I've had a heckuva time getting the photos uploaded. The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!