Molly and Dr. McDermott

Molly the beagle in downtown Dermott, Arkansas, viewing the city park and mural of Dr. Charles McDermott.

World War I Museum Kansas City 11/11/17

I went with Rita's dad--WWII veteran 92 years old--and her brother-in-law on Veteran's Day 2017, which was the official opening of the newly renovated museum, officially known as the National World War I Museum and Memorial.

East Feliciana parish school bus

Taken Friday, August 11, 2017, when I was on my way with Rita and her parents to New Orleans by way of Greenville and Highway 61 in Mississippi, and East and West Feliciana parishes in Louisiana, seeing occasional beautiful plantation homes and almost constant ugly poverty while avoiding Baton Rouge and traveling east to I-55 by way of backroads. The bus was moving when I took this photo. I was in the back seat of Rita's parents' 2015 white Impala, Rita was driving (we shared driving duties), and I quickly pulled out the small Kodak digital camera I had with me. Didn't actually take many photos on the trip.  Rita took a lot.

Walker Percy's fictional parish in his novel The Moviegoer, which is set in New Orleans, is called Feliciana.  In his disclaimer at the beginning of the book saying no real people (except actors) or real events are referred to, he acknowledges the existence of East and West Feliciana parishes but says he knows "not a soul" in either one.  Dr. Charles McDermott  (1808 - 1884) was born in West Feliciana parish, and would have been someone Dr. Percy might have liked to know, but McDermott was long dead by the time Percy (1916 - 1990) was born.

KVSA 1220 AM in the Arkansas delta

Wishbone, the couch dog in the front office, has one blue and one brown eye. He's supposedly a mix of catahoula hound and beagle. This dawn-to-sunset AM radio station is on Highway 65 in Arkansas, halfway between McGehee and Dermott, which is about eight miles off of Highway 65, but the eccentric owners of the radio station live there, so the station advertises itself as being halfway between there and McGehee.  The station went on the air in 1955, and conducted an interview with Elvis Presley in 1956, the day after he appeared during the intermission at a Dermott High School talent show.  (Elvis was not asked to come back the next day as planned to perform for the entire student body, maybe something to do with the way he moved his body at the talent show.)  Except for accumulating many, many 45s and albums, and some but not all new equipment, and a lot of dust and hoarding-type detritus, the station hasn't changed much since it went on the air.  The coke machine is still in use.  The woman who inherited the station from her parents is an MD and works part-time in the Dermott emergency room.  There are two sixty-something male DJs at the station, and one younger guy learning the trade.

This is the booth where Elvis was interviewed, using this very microphone. The view is looking into the control room where the station owner is standing.  Tapes of music that could be called easy listening and oldies were playing while we were there on a Sunday between one and two pm, so no DJ is at the microphone in the control room.  He only talked into the mic once, at 1:30 to give the station ID.  We heard him on the radio giving the national and local news at 2 pm just after we left. Local news includes obituaries read out loud. Earlier in the day, there was a Bible-thumping preacher giving a sermon from the station.  

Community Theater says thanks for donation

Repair work to fix damage from termites and water leaks has been done on the Community Theater in Pine Bluff.  A $10,000 donation this year from the Jefferson County Historical Society helped pay for the work.

Pine Bluff headstones' differing views of mortality

Inez is buried in the newer part of Graceland cemetery in Pine Bluff.  Graceland itself is a newer subdivision of Bellwood cemetery on Pullen Street.  The cemetery and the street can be seen from the Martha Mitchell Expressway.  Bellwood has a large Jewish section, where Sol Dante is buried.

Yellowstone Park July 11, 2018 (and some June 1968)

Waiting for Old Faithful on the old observation deck of Old Faithful Inn, Steven in green shirt.  He and I were here with the rest of our family in 1968, 50 years ago, and the photo below shows Greg, Jeff and me (and maybe Arch in front of Jeff) watching Old Faithful.

 Just before Old Faithful erupted (back to 2018 now), a crow landed on a  roof-pole at the Inn and cawed.  You can see same poles in 1968 photo.  No crow though.

 Yellowstone Lake and West Thumb Geyser Basin

The ranger stations at the entrances  to the park hand out these fliers along with a map and other info.  One fellow who was in the park about three weeks after we were didn't heed the warning due to being drunk and disorderly, like he had been earlier at Grand Teton Nat'l Park and was again later at Glacier Nat'l Park.  The rangers, not the bison, finally got him.

Bison along the highway north of Jackson.. Traffic was stopped briefly because some of them were crossing the road.  The Snake River is nearby on the other side of the road.

Dad managed to get some up-close bison photos in '68.

Steven with camera, 1968.

Rest of family, except Dad who of course took photo.  I got a tiny piece of rock in my right eye while we were riding horses on a trail in Yellowstone during this trip. An optometrist in Cody, Wyoming used tweezers (and eye anesthetic) to get it out.  I wore an eye patch for the rest of the trip, but we were finished with our vacation by then and were just driving back to Pine Bluff from Wyoming, no doubt stopping somewhere to see something but there aren't any photos after Yellowstone.