Molly and me

Taken this month by Rita Henry with the new type of Polaroid instant camera.  I scanned the photo printed by the camera, as opposed to using the digital version directly. 

Lynne Trulock Ravellette, 20 Sept. 1952 -- 17 Aug. 2017

 

Lynne was my only first cousin. My mother had no siblings and my dad had only one, my Uncle Leo. Leo married Suzanne Dickens from Texarkana after meeting her when they were both students at Hendrix College.  Lynne was  their first child.  Three others were  born, but they either died very soon after birth or were stillborn. Now comes a further sadness due to a death in the family, as of about 7:30 this morning.  Lynne was fighting metastatic breast cancer (it began as inflammatory breast cancer) for going on four years.

My mother took this picture in 1990.  She was having some event at our house honoring Lynne. After the picture was framed (see info below), it sat in the area behind Lynne's left shoulder in the photo. The book on the marble coffee table is a local book of oral histories compiled by Pat Rhine Brown about her father, T. E. Rhine, M. D., a country doctor in the area around Rison and Kingsland (Cleveland county, just southwest of Pine Bluff) during the early part of the 20th century. 

Sheppard Island clouds & new bridge August 1997

Taken by either me or Deborah when we were at Sheppard Island park at Lock & Dam # 4 on the Arkansas River in August 1997. Traveling on Rob Roy Road we noticed a new road and followed it. It turned out to be the unopened road leading across a new bridge (not yet open but being used by local traffic) constructed over the lock and dam.  Before crossing the bridge and going back into Pine Bluff, we stopped at the park.  I've been there often since then. Great sandbar!

Recent Hotel Pines photos

A group of Little Rock photographers was given access to the Hotel Pines on Sunday July 9th, 2017, and I went along with a camera.  We had to sign a liability waiver and wear hard hats but were otherwise given free run of the hotel, which is what we had in the past before the hotel was bought this year.

Parts of the hotel have been cleaned up, including the lobby and basement, so that renovation work can begin. Most importantly, structural stabilization has been done.  The fact that the hotel was still a viable building after 104 years of existence and many years of neglect and weather damage is not quite as miraculous as the fact that the nonprofit group Pine Bluff Rising will be spending $33 million to restore the it.

The sparkly, shiny, metallic-flower-like thing is apparently a peeling-off of the inside silver surface of the mirror.

 On the roof, facing northwest, with part of Lake Saracen (center) and the Jefferson county courthouse (right) in view.

 Not of our doing.

 Elevator equipment room on the roof.

View from the roof looking south along Main Street.

 Lobby has been cleaned up considerably since we were in the hotel last July.

The above effect serendipitously happened. The lower part is a separate photo from upper part.

The angel has survived, but has now fallen (on her side). Can't tell if she's blocking the elevator to Heaven or the one to Hell. Someone scrawled "heaven" and "hell" on the elevator doors a few years ago, as documented (a few years ago) by the Blue-Eyed Knocker photo group I was with on this day.

Dining room, ground floor.  My father's investment business, Trulock & Company, was located in the building next door, outside the windows on the right, during the 1960s and early 70s. In the early 60s, we sometimes ate Sunday dinner in this dining room, where a "smorgasbord" was available.  That's what they called it, not a buffet.

See the last two photos in my Hotel photo post of July 26 last year. An otherwise homeless person had made his home in these two rooms during the early part of 2016.  We didn't encounter him.

Bayou trail photos: snakes, turtles, insect

I'm not sure what the top snake is--probably a non-poisonous water snake, but could be a cottonmouth with a seasonal coloring different from the usual dull coloring.  I didn't want to get close enough to find out. The bottom snake is a racer, also known hereabouts as a blue racer, a non-poisonous land-dwelling snake.

I didn't set these turtles up for this photo, they were caught in the act and being shy about it.

Dead locust.

Early April farm photos 2017

Half moon and clouds.  Clouds at sunset, with woods where coyotes hang out in background, and nothing planted on the lower 240 yet. Soybeans, rice and maybe corn are supposed to go in soon, but they won't be planted by the "gentleman farmer" shown here in the area where the black families once lived (the Quarters), with a portion of Trulock Road shown in background next to area where the farm headquarters shed and the farm work bell on a wooden tower used to be.

Living room with desk

I moved my desk into the living room-dining room area so I'd start using it more, which I actually have done.  But I still mainly sit at the cluttered dining room table.  There's a 5-inch reel-to-reel tape playing on the Pioneer RT-1050 with my 1970 segued song collection on it. I used a regular 7-inch reel to record the first side of the 1970 collection ("side" meaning one side of a 90 minute cassette tape, which corresponds to one 7-inch reel tape running at 7.5 inches per second), but Radio Shack only had one of those so I used two 5-inch Radio Shack blank tapes to record the second side.  I used the reel tapes as master tapes and made copies onto cassettes to send out to family and friends. Yeh, I still use the reel-to-reel and even got adapters so I can play or record on 10-inch reels (the professional size) but alas have nothing currently that I want to record.

At the corner of Pullen & University Ave

For y'all who know a little about Pine Bluff, the chain link fence shown on the right is the southwest corner of St. Joseph's Catholic Cemetery.

Community, Saenger, Hotel Pines

West 2nd Avenue, looking east toward Main Street traffic lights in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, mid-afternoon 24 February 2017. This is the marquee of the restored Community Theater, advertising an upcoming appearance of a couple of magicians: a magic show.

The stabilized (roof replaced a few years ago) much larger Saenger Theater is shown on the right.  Pat Calkins and I went into the Saenger in 2011, when it was open to the public for a day as a fund raising effort (I'd already contributed some money). It was in terrible shape, with a big hole in the roof.  Although it is not in imminent danger of collapse and has been "saved" for the time being and is now owned by the City, there is still the big question of how it could be put to use.

On a happier note, the Hotel Pines was recently bought by a non-profit group, Pine Bluff Rising, that plans to renovate it, with something like $35 million in funding, provided the building passes a structural analysis assessment.

Pat Calkins' birthday

He liked to say he was "birthday impaired," meaning he didn't remember people's birthdays, but he had a memorable birthday himself, since it's the same day as the U. S. presidential inaugurations every four years.

Pat having breakfast in Fayetteville on July 1, 2015, with Rita and me at Pete's, otherwise known as Ozark Lanes Cafe.  The letterhead stationery is from 1971, when Jim and Pat had a record shop in the back room of The Hut, a hippie haven for buying blacklight posters and incense on Cherry Street in Pine Bluff.  The Hut is still there, and could be considered an old hippie haven now.  It sells smoking accessories and adult novelty items. I'm pretty sure my face turned red when I went in there earlier this year to find out what they were selling.  The kind lady behind the counter told me her mother-in-law bought it 45 years ago from Meigs Brainard, the original owner. 

Christmas card from 1966-67