Levi's Dedication

One year old Levi had his dedication today at the Eastwood Christian Church in Nashville. Later in the day he is to have his first birthday party.

Matt, Lindsay and Levi at the front of the church. 

Rev. Jay Hartley performing the ceremony. The christening gown was made by Matt's grandmother.  Now I am by no means a seamstress, but I can tell you that this gown is a work of art. All hand stitched, it must have taken many, many hours to make. It has been used many times for these occasions including Matt's dedication and maybe all of his cousins and nephews. 

I know it looks a little feminine for a boy, but picture will be priceless when he becomes an adult. 

Visiting Our Nashville Family

Our youngest grandson turns one year old on October 14. This time we decided to fly to Nashville rather than making the 10 hr drive. On this trip we plan to attend young Levi's christening and his very first birthday party. We also hope to get in a little sightseeing and maybe some music on honky tonk row.

Our oldest daughter Kristen and Becky's sister Janis will be coming out for the weekend. 

A visit to East Nashville would not be complete without a stop at the Sweet 16th bakery literally 300 ft from Matt and Lindsay's front door.  Sweet 16th has great breakfast and lunch items as well as delicious sweets. I didn't get there until almost 1:00pm and they were almost sold out. 

Sweet 16th has been featured in Southern Living twice. It is not a big place but a great place to satisfy your craving for a sweet treat. 

Lindsay dropped me off at the Olive and Sinclare chocolate factory on her way to the grocery store this afternoon. We passed a filming crew for the series "Nashville" about six blocks from her house so I took a picture as we drove by. There must have been 15 production vehicles and 75 people in the crew. 

 

I don't watch the program, but Becky swore that she recognized one of the stars. He is the guy on the left in the white shirt with his back to the camera. If any of you watch "Nashville", you may recognize this house in one of the future episodes. 

2014 North Carolina Seafood Festival

It gets bigger every year. Unfortunately, that means more traffic and a larger crowd. We were able to drive down Bridges Street and across to the port terminal where we parked without a lot of difficulty. If you were coming into town on Highway 70, it was a different story.

Once we parked at the terminal (free), it was a short walk to the trolley where they would carry you on a short ride to the festival. 

In addition to all the food, rides and entertainment, there was a tall ship docked at the terminal. The El Galeon Andalucia, a replica of a late 16^th century Spanish galleon, was open for public tours Saturday and Sunday.  The ship is 170 feet long, weighs almost 500 tons and is the only galleon class vessel sailing the world today. Morehead City is the fourth official port-of-call in the Sail to Sunny tour of the East Coast. 

This was an impressive ship. We got an up close look at it from both the water and the dock though we did not go aboard. The pictures do not do it justice. 

Ruddy Duck (my favorite) had a tent on the sidewalk where they served gumbo and fish (wahoo) taco's. I got the taco's and boy were they good. 

There were lots of rides and Evans Street looked like the midway at the state fair. 

I think I will skip the fair this year. 

Finally Caught a Fish

This year has been very bad for my fishing.  Hardly caught anything all year. I'm not sure if it is me or that there are no fish to be caught. I have a small fishing boat and am only able to fish the sounds and rivers unless the weather is good in which case I may go a few miles out into the ocean or up to Cape Lookout.

Well, I finally caught some fish on Friday when I was invited to go with a friend offshore. We didn't really mop up, but we did catch fish. The weather was overcast in the morning, but cleared up in the afternoon. The ocean was 1 to 2 feet and the wind was 5 knots...almost perfect. The boat ride was worth the trip even if we had not caught any fish. 

The sun rising over Cape Lookout. 

Caught seven mahi of average size. The largest was about 36 inches.

We only had to go about 60 miles offshore and burn 400 gallons of diesel at $5 per gallon. Not a bad deal when you consider that we caught about $100 dollars worth of fish. As mentioned earlier, it was all about the boat ride!  The fish was just a bonus. 

2014 North Carolina Seafood Festival

If you like seafood and good entertainment, Morehead City is the place to be October 3 thru 5. The NC  Seafood Festival has all of that...food, live entertainment, amusements, rides, arts and crafts and lots of people. I think it is better than the state fair and it is free, except for the food of course.

I 

Following are a couple of photos I took last year.

Following is a shot I took off the web.

There is great live music all three days with a well known NC feature band each year. This year it will be the Embers. 

Check out the following link for the full schedule. 

http://ncseafoodfestival.org

If any classmates or friends plan to come, give me a call. 

The Oldest and the Youngest of Our Class?

The According to Facebook, we have two classmates celebrating birthdays this week. One is going to be 70 and the other will not.

Circa 1963

Marvin's birthday is September 21 and he may be the senior statesman of our class. 

Dottie's birthday is September 23 and is possibly the baby of our class. 

Circa 1963

Happy Birthday to both of our dear classmates. 

If any of you know of an older or younger classmate, let me know. 

OOPS!!!

Just discoverd that Cecil is older than Marvin. 

Cecil was born July 12, 1944. Is he the oldest?

Winston Salem Airshow

I had the opportunity to take my two oldest grandsons to the Winston Salem Airshow this past weekend. The weather was nice and I think they enjoyed the trip. 

There were the usual attractions with lots of people. The main attraction was the Memphis Belle. I'm not sure if it was the the original Memphis Belle or a B-17 restored to look like the Memphis Belle. In any event, it is not often one gets the chance to see a vintage B-17. 

And No I didn't pay $450 for a ride!  

Flying no longer is a large part of my life. I have been to many air shows and have flown many hours in my own airplane.  I enjoyed ever minute, but no longer have the desire I once had. As one gets older, new priorities come along. As a result, I decided to sell the airplane that I owned for 28 years. It is hard to part with something you have owned that long. 

There she goes on her way to her new owner in Texas. This picture was taken in May. Hope she found a good home. 

Angier Chemical Company

We recently stopped at the J R Moore and Son Store on highway 421 on our way to visit our daughter and her family in Winston Salem. The store was opened in 1935 and is located just west of Sanford in the small community of Gulf. We have passed it many times but never stopped.  The store has been featured on one of the WUNC programs some time back. I can't remember the name of the show but I do remember seeing an old wooden crate on the show that piqued my interest.  

I decided to stop to see if I could find the crate. 

Well, I found the crate. I was hoping to find some tie between the name of the company and our home town. A quick Google search indicated no tie. What a shame. It would have made a nice story. 

"

 

Angier's Emulsion was a cough mixture made from petroleum and hypophosphates that had been used since 1892. Manufactured by the Angier Chemical Company Limited, based in London it also claimed to be effective in cases of bronchitis, consumption, all lung affections, stomach and bowel disorders, ulcers, chronic indigestion, diarrhoea, dysentery, nervous dyspepsia and constipation. The firm used to advertise heavily and had a promotional magazine called 'The Angier idea' that ran from the early 1900s through to at least 1936.
The leaflet shows a young woman in a red, fur-trimmed, hooded cape carrying a basket and a bottle of Angier's Emulsion along a snow-covered road. When she encounters the billboard advertising her purchase - "It has no equal as a lung healer" - she can rest assured she's "got the right one"!
'Cure-all' medicines were very common at the time. Whether they actually lived up to all their claims is doubtful."

If you are ever in Gulf, pay a visit to the J R Moore store. They have lots of cool stuff, a little like Mast General Store. 

Cooking Fish at the Beach

We have been talking all summer about cooking the fish that Herbert had in his freezer.  Well, it finally happened this weekend and it was so good.  There was dolphin, wahoo and spanish mackeral.  There was cole slaw, pasta salad, hot blue collard dip, and Barbara's mexican cornbread.  What a Feast!!!

The first batch is in the fryer.

Herbert and his son Adam caught the mackeral, the wahoo and the dolphin are courtesy of one of his neighbors.

The Millers have a perfect place to have a fish fry.  It is outside with plenty of shade and there seems to always be a cool breeze.  

Herbert.  When are we going to do it again?

Labor Day

Most of us seniors have paid our dues and are entitled to celebrate Labor Day. When I was growing up, Labor Day meant that you were probably in the tobacco field priming tips, getting in the last of the crop so that you could go back to school. There certainly was no celebrating. I'm not complaining. That was the way it was and that was all we knew. I had to work in the fields because my parents worked in the fields. When I was old enough to touch the peddles of that old Ford 8N tractor, I was helping with the farming. I didn't necessary like it, but now I am glad that I had to do it.

Today, many high schoolers don't know what labor is. They don't know what it is like to do backbreaking labor in the hot sun for very little pay. Now all of that is done by migrant laborers. Though farming has changed tremendously in the past 50 years there is still quite a bit of manual labor involved as it is in other occupations. 

My hat is off to those who harvest our food, build our houses, flip our hamburgers, or do the jobs that we can no longer do. Hard work didn't hurt us and hard work will not hurt them. Maybe when they get to be 69 or 70 years old, they can look back and say that they have paid their dues.