MINUSCULE PROBLEMS.

A couple days ago, I had to have a dead tree removed.
The guy had it down and cleaned up very quickly and I thought, better than having 25 dead deer in your front yard.
Jan and I visited the Butte Fire recovery center and placed what we could donate on a board in front of Senders Market. When Jim and I visited the burn area Sunday, that board was gone. But, Sara Watson saw it in that short period of time and found my list of stuff to give away. She called me last night and I am happy to have found a home for my stuff. I guess that is serendipity.

The board of supervisors was leery of allowing people to move back on their property for fear of people getting sick from the ash and suing the county.  They finally voted to allow it and give people two years to rebuild if they sign a waiver that they assume all risk.  Seems practical to me.

From what Sara told me she has two families in mind for my stuff.  Families without insurance get around $30 to $39 in settlement monies. Tough to build living quarters for your family on that. Another family has 25 dead deer in their front yard. My problems seem pretty minuscule.

Jim has told me people would trade problems with me any day. One task I've set for myself is scanning all my family pictures to digitize on-line. He did my old family photos for me and since I met him, I have not had  pictures developed and printed. I have about 19 albums to go. It seems daunting, but...it is minuscule.

A PICTURE PROJECT.

It rained most of yesterday, pleasantly. Jim and I took a walk between raindrops, but mostly I worked on my picture file. After having tossed all of my pictures and getting most of them back, I’m disaster shy and decided maybe I’d like to publish some of my blogs in a book like they advertise on Lulu or Blurb or half-a-dozen other outfits. The save-to-disk feature was difficult and having one of those outfits print your blog for you is a somewhat complicated organizing task. I ended up buying, online, a new laser printer instead. It  will print my stuff out very professionally for less than the publisher could do it.  All of this explanation to get to a bunch of barn pictures that had been lost, now found. The ivy covered silo above caught my eye on a rainy day, somewhere in the east in 2010.

Eastern barns, because of winter weather, are much more substantially made. These were taken with my old camera, and I notice it very much when I prowl around old files.

In fact, most of them were taken through the window while moving down the road.

I continue to think of barns as endangered species, so I expect I’ll keep getting as many pictures of them as I can in my travels. There is a website I used to visit often of a woman who chose barns, gas stations, bridges, signs, I can’t even remember all of the subjects she chose. She would say, “…oh, don’t get me started on another subject!”  She would travel around the U.S. with one subject in mind to preserve it in photos. Her photos will probably be famous some day. That is not my aim, but I think it is a fun idea.  She actually pinpointed where each barn or beach or sign was located and gave the exact date she was there.

If I went back and read my blog for March 2nd or 3rd  in 2010, I’d probably know where I was. Does that make sense?

This barn resembles a California barn and may be a picture I stuck in the same file. I think I’ll  go back to my project and call it a day.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN NATIONAL BIRTHPLACE PARK

Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin County, Kentucky  on Feb. 12th, 1809, which is near Hodgenville, Kentucky. The National Park that commemorates his birthplace has a huge monument, cabins of the type he lived in, and a great film about the family.  Lincoln often credited his mother with his inspiration but his father, Thomas Lincoln, pictured above, must have been a strong influence on Lincoln. Thomas, as a 10 year old boy, watched his father die at the hand of an indian arrow and stayed with the body while his brother kept shooting until the war party left. Thomas learned hard lessons, and survived a hardscrabble life and worked at farming, carpentry and any job he could find to help out at home.

The typical cabins of the time on the site which we viewed through the pouring rain.

Typical fencing of the time as well.

The film emphasized that Thomas Lincoln worked hard, built up a bank account, could apply for community service and take on responsibility. He was then allowed to buy land and established himself before marrying Nancy Hanks. The family grew to include children thus Abraham Lincoln does not remember his birthplace home, but the Knob Creek area home northeast of Hogdenville where he lived from about 3 years to 7 years old in the crumbling cabin pictured below. It might have known fancy furnishings like the replica above.

The film explains that the Lincolns were upper middle-class and not poor.

The monument on the site has 56 steps, one for every year he lived, and no elevator, so we didn't venture in. It holds a replica of the house before it completely disintegrated.

We moved on to Hogdenville which has a Lincoln Museum. It is housed in this beautiful old building with tin ceilings and wonderful old hardwood. A perfect setting for everything Lincoln.

The Museum has life-sized dioramas of Lincoln that I didn't care for, but there are some very nice old documents like this one of the death-bed. Wrinkled and crinkled and probably from an old magazine or perhaps a picture. Plus, under glass and difficult to photograph.

A collection of cards from his centennial celebration.

A collection of political memorabilia.

The museum has copies of many, many pictures of Lincoln, because photography was popular then. Through the pictures we watch him age.

A statesman with maturity.

And the ravages of the responsibility of the Civil War.

There were many paintings here. Some copies of old paintings, and other current, modern efforts to capture the man. This tender scene with his son Todd is my favorite.

And this modern painting of Lincoln with blue eyes. Is their authentic information that suggests his eyes were blue?  I don't know. It surprised me because I always thought of Lincoln as a brown-eyed man with his craggy looks and seropis personality and dark hair.

There are other items in the museum that reflected the times, furnishings like this yarn winder, clothing, quilts and other nice things. A good museum to visit.

We then moved on to a third site, where the Knob Creek farm was located. The rebuilt cabins stands where the dilapidated old structure was located. The visitors center here was closed. It was still raining and we didn't stay long. It was here that Lincoln as a boy would see slave traders making their way along the river.

The Lincoln's were Baptists and the differences over slavery split the Baptist Church between slave protectors and those who found the practice abhorrent.

The Thomas Lincoln family were firmly sided with non-slavery. You don't find the vast history of the man without reading a good book. My self-educated father was a serious Lincoln scholar and I've admired this president above all others most of my life.
The Lincoln family moved on over serious land issues with the Kentucky territory, first to Illinois and later Indiana. I was also impressed with this area of Kentucky on Highway 31E, of all the historic monuments, parks, and things to see. We are moving through it quickly and can't see it all. But, it is well worth taking a trip on the back roads. Besides, we are staying at a Moose Club. I dutifully changed my clothes to items I don't care about getting smoked up only to discover our first club from Brownsville, Texas to Hodgenville Kentucky without cigarette smoke.

And, I couldn't let this photo from the visitors center go by without mentioning Lincoln Logs. My brothers, sister and I grew up playing with them.

PICTURES ONE LOAD AT A TIME.

Picasa claims it solved its picture loading problem on March 26th. It isn’t fixed. No auto load. After considerable effort, I was able to load my Easter Photos. Or, at least that is what I entitled the folder. I took pictures the day before Easter and the day after. I was elated when I saw them loading. I erased them from the camera, and then?  Only the first days pictures loaded into the folder. So, my Easter Sunday pictures are gone forever. Bummer.


Kind of past the point, but I got pictures of the kids coloring eggs.


And son-in-law Cedric making the beautiful Easter Bread he baked on Sunday.


Ken and Virginia discussing the bike route they planned for Easter morning.


The bouquet of lilacs that hid a purple egg.
I dug up an older photo of an Elks dinner I attended.


The Chaplain was fascinated by my Faberge Egg Purse.


And I made a sandwich that tasted so good, I made another and took a picture. I sautéed a Portobello mushroom in a scant touch of oil. Both sides, flattened it with a spatula til it was good and hot and juicy all the way through.  I put a half slice of good sour dough french bread on top of the mushroom covered it for a minute to warm it. Then I put a 1/4 inch thick slice of mozzarella cheese on top, covered it again until it was soft and melty. Scooped it out of the pan intact and covered it with a handful of water cress, the hydroponically grown kind from the store. It would be better with the spicier type you can pick yourself in the creek. Yum. I liked it so much I tried it again with sesame seeds in the cheese and added mustard. It tasted like a hot dog, the mustard overpowers the subtle flavors.
Got my taxes delivered to the tax man, yesterday. Brian, my computer guru has been sick all week, so I’m hoping within the next few days he can help me repair this indispensable torment of a computer and figure out how to get Picasa working again.

HAPPINESS EVER AFTER.

This is jokingly called a coonass microwave. Inside is a hog being roasted for a wedding shower at the VFW Post 9822  where we stayed at Duson for a week.  They rent out their hall for receptions, weddings and other special events. I spotted it  mid-morning before going out for the Jam on Saturday.

Folks at the post invited us to attend a wedding shower, but we  returned to the motor home figuring a wedding shower is a personal event and I was about to fix dinner when Richard, on the right,  came knocking at our door and insisted we should join the festivities. It was late and most of the afternoon guests had left by then, so we walked over and joined them.
Here then is the groom and bride to be.  The young people were having fun.

I asked one of the bridesmaids-to-be if this was a tradition.  “Well, yeah”, she said as she smiled and crossed her eyes.

Happiness was evident everywhere.

A frame is set up and a table with costumes is available for everyone to play with.

Mother of the groom was up and tapping her feet,  and half dancing while visiting with family members.

After we ate a marvelous meal with asparagus, dirty rice, green salad with pecans, scalloped potatoes, the roasted pork and more, the pans were just about empty.

Beautiful cakes for dessert with fresh flowers. It resembled a wedding, rather than a shower. A long table spread with gifts and all the elements of a wedding except for the preacher. Wow!

I didn’t get any names, well, I got them all but don’t remember. The guy on the right is from California and he enjoyed talking to someone who knew California. His dad was in the Contra Costa Co. Sheriff’s department so we had a lot in common. He loves Louisiana, but misses his old stomping grounds. Camping at Big Trees, skiing at Kirkwood, and Bear Valley, fishing at New Mellones.

Richard is the grandfather of the bride-to-be.

It was a lot of fun and just another feature of the friendliness of people in Louisiana. (Me, dancing with the commander.) All about us was the message “HAPPILY EVER AFTER.”  To every bride and groom I impart the same wish:  “May you have as much happiness in your marriage as I did in mine.”

As I leave the Motor Home of Fun, I can only say, “I wonder what’s around the bend?”

FRED'S LOUNGE, MAMOU.

At Fred’s Lounge, you arrive early if you want to sit. It opens at 7:30 and we were there. In the back corner was a couple we recognized (right) from our visit in 2010. They’ve been coming here every Saturday morning “forever” to dance. No one sits in “their” corner. He taught me the Cajun step in 2010. He told me then, it’s unfair, but the woman dances backward almost the whole time. His wife confided she has a bad knee and doesn’t dance every dance anymore. I have no idea of their age, but their warmth and affection for each shows as they dance. They are a treasure.


This  very informative guy was my seatmate. He is Lewis Landreneau, a regular who knows all the band members and most of the people who come in. His uncle, Cyprien Landreneau played Mamou’s lounge at one time. He showed me his picture on the wall. He was an 18 wheel truck driver and doesn't play music.


He looks like a fun character with a seegar in his mouth.


We watched the band set up.


The drummer has a handful of sticks in his right hand and a case of others to choose from. What do I know? I thought a drummer had one set of sticks and a couple of spares in case one broke.


Everywhere you look, the lounge is covered with pictures. It is fun to look at them, even if you don’t know who they are.


Tante Sue made a pass through the bar after visiting with her “rest home” friends. She is a volunteer at a local rest home and makes her rounds every day.  In the bar they spell auntie Tante. On the wall of ovations they spelled it Tauntie? Everyone likes to have their picture taken with her and she enjoys her legendary status.


Later on, when the bar got really busy, she came back to lend a hand. She plays her accordian on her shirt, and she wears her signature holster from which she sips and wipes the bottle and hands it around if anyone wants a sip. In 2010, when she sold a bottle, she would taste it before passing it on to the customer. And, later still she sang (in French) with the band, talked on the radio, and reiterated her rules for the lounge. One I forgot to mention in my blog yesterday, is the NO MOUTH KISSING. That’ll get you thrown out of the place. You can kiss on the cheek while dancing, that’s it.


She passed around cooked boudin sausage, which is seasoned pork and rice in a casing, wonderful stuff to eat. We took one piece and she insisted we get a napkin and take four more pieces. We normally don’t eat pork, but in Southern Louisiana, all such dietary rules are tempbypassed.


The accordion player is Don Fontenoc according to Lewis. The band is Friends Of Louisiana. His accordion has the signature crawfish design of Martin Accordions, a place we visited and enjoyed in 2010 as well.

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I enjoyed watching the band, the dancers and the people. I took a couple of pictures before the dance floor got too crowded.


This old bow-legged cowboy comes roaring through the door dancing and makes hardy round of the floor before he grabs a brew. A regular, his name is Herman and he really whoops it up. He dances with all the women, young and old and there is no doubt he is having a grand time. When he does a jig I tried to get a video, but about the time you get it started, he’s done with the jig.


After awhile the bar gets so loud you have to shout, even to get a drink. This cute bartender was working our last visit. What a fun time to be sipping a bloody mary, enjoying the music and the circus going on all around you. Loved it!  Thank you Tante Sue for your wonderful hospitality.


Then as we were leaving Mamou, a couple of riders were passing the motor home, just like in my hometown of Murphys. We moved on to Eunice to see a show with new friends from Lake Charles. I’ll blog it tomorrow.