Heritage



Grandma Eva's Painting

 This painting has been in my parents possession for as long as I can remember. They had it before we moved to Michigan so I must have been 2 or 3 years old. Maybe my Grandma [On Dadio's Side] gave it to my parents as a wedding gift before I was even born. I need to find out more about this. I never really noticed this painting until my family moved to Gilletts Lake in may 1962. Momio would hang this picture in various places in the house. For a while it hung in the kitchen, then in den and also in the living room before finally staying in my parents bedroom. Momio had paintings for each season of the year she would hang. We even had paintings in the hallway from the living room to the kitchen. They all looked so nice and made the home feel like a minature art gallery. As a kid I would get up real close and admire the brush strokes. Momio was also a fair artist and also did caligraphy and intricate embroidery. I also liked to draw but for some reason never kept it up much. I suppose my chess playing took precesence but chess is kind of like art if you look at all the beautiful positions that can arise from chess. Now as I get older I'm very curious about when my Grandma painted this picture, when she gave it to my parents and if there are others she gave to her other children. It would be nice to see them.

The Local Watering Hole

Jacks' Place - Food*Fun*Spirits



Tracy's Tavern

 I'm not sure where the term "Local Watering Hole" came from, but it's the place where people "Wet Their Whistle". These two photos display a small Tavern and Bar in my town. After work some of the nearby local people would stop in to have a few drinks and some food, perhaps a snack or a light dinner. They would play pool or watch people trying to play pool. Play darts and listen to music. Might even catch a few Lovebirds dancing in the corner to Frank Sinatra, Patsy Cline or James Taylor. You can even watch TV or play the Lottery. A Bar is named for the "Bar" that people "Belly Up" to and the Bartender serves them their drinks. A Tavern in older times served alcohol and food but also some of the patrons could spend the night in sleeping quarters. A Pub was usually owned by a Brewery which liked to feature their particular brand of beer. What I like about these places is they let local musicians  try out their material on the customers. Karaoke night also is great for seeing which local resident can sing and who can't, which can be even more entertaining. According to my phonebook there are 32 Bars/Pubs/Taverns in Jackson but  this is just the surrounding area. Many more in the entire county, that's for sure.

Graffiti meets Advertizing

Custom Finishing

As I was Pedaling down Mechanic Street I noticed some Graffiti and thought some gang put it there but as I got closer I noticed it seemed to be a sign for this guy's business. Its a neat idea. Put your own graffiti on the wall not only to advertize but to fool graffiti artists into thinking some gang already put some graffiti up. I think graffiti artists will usually respect each others works and will probably leave it alone. So this business guy needs not worry. "Fight Graffiti with Graffiti". Very ingenious. Lets just hope the City doesn't clean it off his door by mistake thinking it's gang Graffiti!

Dog Day Afternoon

A Neighborhood Hotdog Stand



Busy Fixing Up the Dogs

 This is the entrepreneurial spirit which helped guide the USA to its #1 World Power Status. The Hot Dog Stand. A person working by the sweat of his/her brow with only a few rudimentary pieces of equipment and a large bag of hot dogs can turn a hefty profit. Location is also a nice added feature when garnering customers. This Hot Dog Stand is near the Hospital which employs a lot of people and to the west and north are other small shops and factories with very short lunch breaks and workers with a carnivorous taste for hot dogs fixed up many different ways. Add to this no other Eateries in the nearby area and this makes a recipe for a howling success!

Recreating the Past

Abe Lincoln with Lady Admirers

If you have never been to a Civil War Muster, by all means try to see one. My town has one every year and they do a different Battle each time. The Uniforms are very authentic looking and they use real cannons and muskats. The campsite looks amazing also with tents pitched up and soldiers playing cards and chess. Sometimes there is a military band playing on old brass horns. These soldiers even sleep in the tents overnight. There is also now a town like section with a jail,post office and other buildings with women and men doing things they did back in Civil War times while wearing perfect period time clothing. Sometimes entire families will participate in these events. I wonder if they do Revolutionary War Re-enactments? Even WW1, WW2, Korea or Vietnam re-enactments would be interesting, tho the Tropical setting of Vietnam would be difficult in some areas of the USA. At our Civil War Muster they will setup tables to sell old artifacts like pistols, muskats, knives, uniforms, old coins and homemade candles and baked goods they make on site. Bring a camera and record a recreation of history. I did and will never forget it.

I do Declare: It is a Hot One!

Sister Missy and Cousin Kim keeping cool



Neighbor Cathy, Sister Mindy and Cathy's Mom Janet




Mindy, Jimio, Cathy and Momio

 We may be having a heat wave these past few days but I remember heat waves past and without Gilletts Lake to cool us off, I don't know what we would have done. We had no air conditioning back then, not even in our cars. "Michigan is too far north for A/C", people would say. You know it had to be hot when Momio and her friend Janet went swimming. In fact this was such a rare event that photos had to be taken to verify this momentous occasion and they did it in style. I remember one time I was riding my 1966 black Schwinn Racer over in the motorcycle trails by Warriors Hill and it was so hot by the time I got back I had a heat rash and I jumped straight off my bike into the lake. That was so refrshing.

Nothing Like a Down Home Local AutoRace

Driver we Sponsored winning a Race

This picture is of a Driver Dadio and I sponsored. He won Rookie of the Year in the Detroit Iron Class. Going to the race was a fun experience. This was a small local racetrack not like Nascar. Half the fans knew each other. This race was 19 years ago and things have changed a lot since then. Back then you could bring bottles and alcoholic beverages in the stands. People brought Coolers with their BBQ rib left-overs and put their plates, knives and forks on the wooden benches. They were not going to be denied a picnic while watching the auto-race :-]  Kids would run all over the place and stand right down near the track behind an old wire fence. Over the loudspeaker a person would yell out the raffle numbers that were on your ticket to recieve prizes. In between races the loudspeaker would belch out old country tunes. One thing I saw that was groovy was when I looked up in the sky, it had this purple color to it. I suppose all that auto exhaust had something to do with it. Some weird chemical reaction I guess. This Racetrack was so local, I had to drive down 2 miles of dirt road to get to it and park on grass. It gave a kind of down home feeling but that was dissapated quickly by my fear of getting a flat tire. These local races are very entertaining to watch because they would have a crash every 2 laps. This guy would come on the track with a pickup truck and sweep the broken auto parts into a big shovel and toss them in the bed of the pickup. Another guy would spray any other oil and debris with a hose. If a racecar could not move off the track, 3 or 4 guys would come out of the Pits to push the car into the infield. Sometimes 2 drivers would get into a fight over a wreck. What was really cool was the little homemade stand with steps they built for the guy to wave the caution yellow flag, the warning red flad, the green go flag and the checkered winning flag from. It was fun watching 3 or 4 different races. One race had little tiny cars and some races had pickup trucks racing. They even have bus races but never saw them. Here's the Website of the Racetrack I went to.  http://www.springportmotorspeedway.com/ and the wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springport_Motor_Speedway

Are Books Going Extinct?

The Book Exchange

We have a used bookstore downtown that has been there 12 years but Im afraid business will really slow down due to digital ebooks on Kinder devices and such. Hopefully Im wrong and that the desire to collect the physical books will bring in new business. The Book Exchange even takes money off the selling price if you bring in another book for the store. With Kindle and other e-reader devices, readers can have books in seconds anywhere they go. Still the cost of a Kindle varies from $114 to over $300 and you still have to buy the book online. Going to the library offers a free option but the selection is not always good and the hassle of going there plus the gas and time spent cuts into the free part somewhat. Garage Sales somtimes will have a few books at very cheap prices.  I need to add to my book collection desperately. What few books I have are screaming for more friends.

An Old Idea Takes Root

Jackson Victory Garden Downtown

Will the Victory Gardens of 2011 save the Economy? Probably not but we are still early in our recent catastrophy. During WW2 people grew Victory Gardens. In a 1943 Comic Book Superman and Batman grew a Victory Garden together. There were Government Poster of Victory Gardens: "Will you have a part in Victory? Every garden a munition plant" "Plant a Victory Garden - A garden will make your rations go further" "Uncle Sam says garden to cut food costs" "Dig On for Victory" Many people took photos of their Victory Gardens and photos of the whole family digging in the Victory Garden. They even had newspaper articles about the Victory Garden of '43 or the Victory Garden of '44. Books about how to plant Victory Gardens and where and when to plant them. People even made creative signs at their gardens. People with no yards planted gardens on city property. Even had Victory Gardens during WW1 and Germany also grew them. Growing Victory Gardens helped save food for the troops thus saving the military money. Saturday Evening Post and Life Magazine did stories about Victory Gardens. People bought 66,000 pressure cookers in 1942 and that grew to 315,000 pressure cookers in 1943. People grew about 20 million gardens during WW2 and harvested around 10 million tons of food, so the Victory Garden program was a success. http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/crops_02.html But in Oak Park Michigan this year a mother of 6 tried to grow a Victory Garden after the city put in sewer lines and tore up her front lawn. She was fined and charged with a misdemeanor for noncompliance with a city ordinance that says only suitable materials may occupy lawn space within the city's boundaries. http://www.blogher.com/forget-victory-gardens-theyre-now-misdemeanor?wrap=blogher-topics/food/locavores&crumb=106887 No official definition exists of suitable materials. When they asked city officials what suitable materials meant, they said shrubs bushes and flowers. Those seem not very tasty to me. I have not seen too many Victory Gardens yet. Have seen a few Herb Gardens and some Ivy gardens so people dont have to mow their lawns!

Things are not always as they Look

What does this picture tell us?

Take a look at this picture. There is a man seemingly smoking a cigarette. This man looks amazingly similar to c'est moi. Alas it is but the true nature of this photo is deceptive. Yes, there is a cigarette in my mouth and of course you can see it is burning and the ashes are about to fall off. This is where the visual senses end and the mystery behind the photo begins. I was the subject of a dare, for you see, my friend Gario bet me I wouldn't smoke a cigarette. I retorted back that I could on one condition. I did not have to inhale this foul evil leaf rolled up inside a paper tube. Well as I was conducting my dare, the webcam accidentally went off and camptured [ha opps "captured"] this embarrasing moment. We were setting up to shoot a few camshots of us playing chess. So you see, not every picture tells a story accurately,but they do tell a story, sometimes mistakenly to a first time observer and without forhand knowledge of the actual participant at the event during the time of its occurance. Jimio's true Musing and I'm sticking to it!

Big Brother: Friend and Body Guard

Brad in Europe

Brad growing a Hemingway Beard

It's nice to have a big brother. They can take you places in their car when you are too young to drive yet. They can even teach you to drive their car but dont get too close to the mailboxes! My Big Brother Brad would even take me to the Dome to get a hamburger, fries and ice cream for dessert. The Dome made their own ice cream and had beautiful girls bring it out to your car on roller skates. We ordered the food with a intercom system they put on your door, sorta like the ones at the Drive-In Theaters. Very High-Tech in those days! I liked cruisin the ave with Brad. We saw some pretty powerful muscle cars. 496 cid Chevys and 489 Fords with these Glass-pipe exhaust, Thrushes and Cherry-Bombs, man could they scream. At a red light 2 musclecars would sit at the front side by side then the light turn green and they spin those tires. We'd be right behind them [but not trying to keep up,Brad's car a 1963 Ford Galaxie was not  built for racing though the 351 cleveland motor did 120 mph on the highway] One time this car was reving his motor up like crazy and when the light turned green he just sat there while the other car took off. That was pretty funny. I loved the Barracudas and Challengers with the huge rear tires and all jacked-up high in the back. Some even had chrome differentials [Rear wheel drive to you youngsters] Brad was a bigger than me so when anyone even thought about bothering me, one stern stare from Brad and they would sit back in their seat on the bus. Even I never would think of picking a fight with Brad or hiding something of his. Thats why we got along so well. He didn't tease me and I didn't hide his things. Big Brothers can also drive the motorboat when you want to go skiing or take out the raft to get to that spot with all the reeds growing in a horseshoe shape where all the big bass hang out. Man I can still taste them bass,perch and blurgills we caught. We'd fry them in a pan in the kitchen or grill them when Dadio was cookin burgers or steaks for a picnic. As I got older, I did my own thing and Brad did his, but if I ever needed help he was there. When Brad retired from the Navy we would see a few movies and eat at some good restaurants after he helped me out at the oil change shop. We still keep in touch by Facebook chat and swap pictures so Big Brother is always watching me!

A Bicentennial 4th of July

Bicentennial Flag



Our Patriotic Mailbox



"Spirit of 76" Raft

I'll never forget our Bicentenial in 1976. It was a warm sunny day. Steaks on the grill. I probably caught a few bluegills, sunfish,perch and bass to cook on the grill also. A few games of badmitten and some water skiing to round out the fun on a great holiday. My Mom being the artist that she was decorated the raft in a patriotic red white and blue Bicentennial look complete with flag and Eagle stickers. The entire lake knew we were patriotic! Momio also extended her artistic touch to the mailbox, making sure the mailman knew how we felt. [Plus any passing motorist] One of my favorite pics is the top one with the Bicentennial Flag on the lamp post. Simple yet elegant. The red geraniums below and the 65 Mustang behind the garage. Later that evening we saw the fireworks display over Gilletts Lake while the fireflies were doing their own displays.