the purge, cont'd

sorted out little stuff today --- including a nice gold coin and the smallest piece of scrimshaw that angela ever did --- wound up with all the small detritus of my life quarantined in two boxes that slide up under my bed --- four boxes of paper files are now three --- a large amount of paper and whatnot is left to be recycled --- douglet is happy to carry off anything i give him --- and i can luxuriate in the reduced size of my collection of extraneous stuff 

redecorating the big room

 the orchids worked for a while and the muniz worked for a while but basically i was tired of looking at it and grandma lee so i went back to the original sparse look

stuff

got a late start on the road race this morning on account of the mexican food last night ---

but the rest of the day allowed me to assemble some four boxes of stuff to be de-accessioned forthwith --- very satisfying --- and surprisingly easy to toss such things as my tablets from the first grade in 1955

the contents of the box there, which included all the stuff my ma had saved from my grammar and high school days, has been culled down to the envelope in the foreground --- i did the same thing with a box of my dead brother's stuff, also with a provenance to ma

quite a few of these, given to my ma by her sister for many years in the 1970s and 1980s, but ma didn't really like them so most of them are in their original package 

washington with the safety patrols in 1962

too much paint

we checked out some of the painted walls that are part of the "outer space project" --- some of it is good, some of it not so much --- the "living walls" of previous years had better art --- the city's efforts to control the content, after baptist outcry in 2015, is not helpful and is probably the reason living walls is going to buford highway this fall

notwithstanding the art, such as it is, there are a number of historic brick buildings that have not benefited from all the paint

more paint

more painted walls is not gonna fix summerhill, and whatever GSU does to gentrify the area, generations of poor people for which the neighborhood was home won't benefit --- they've been crapped on for the sake of professional sports since the 1960s, in spite of unrealized promises of "urban renewal"

FDR and Pine Mountain

the state has definitely over-developed the site with a big-ass visitors center and I don't know what all --- the celebrated "unfinished portrait" is no longer displayed on the easel in the living room where FDR died but has been moved to a very lame "legacy exhibit" in another building --- his '38 ford, which used to sit in the garage, is now in the museum

but the view of pine mountain valley from dowdell's knob on pine mountain (elev. 1,395') remains the best --- kind of a shame the state felt a need to fill roosevelt's grill with concrete, which was probably its idea of "preservation" ---

remembrance of things past

i had not been in callaway gardens in decades, and i purty much didn't recognize the place --- trees and what not grow a lot in fifty some years --- the chapel has aged well, i think --- it was dedicated by dr. norman vincent peale in 1962, but i have yet to discover the architect ---

the stained glass, which is thoroughly non-denominational, is fantastic --- credited to atlanta painter and former dean of the atlanta college of art joel clyde reeves (1917-1973)

a landmark

the covered bridge over red oak creek in meriwether county is a great relic from the 1840s, one of the last remaining of the great african american bridge builder horace king --- it's had a lot of work over the years, including a new roof structure, foundation, and probably most of the siding and approaches --- some idiot drove a truck through and took out a bunch of the struts along the sides, but i think those were added and might not have been needed anyway --- i'm always glad to see that it is still there

a field trip

robt had the day off so we had a field trip to pine mountain and callaway garden, mainly to see the butterfly house, which was purty great --- the conservatory was excellent, made better by being surrounded on the outside by a gorgeous butterfly garden

 

more sky

over the last couple of days, the unsettled weather has continued to produce some spectacular skies, culminating in last night's sunset--- in between staring at the sky a lot, i'm trying to organize 16,746 digital images that i've taken over the last ten or twelve years --- working mostly into the past from the present, i am now into 2015 --- the random images of midtown bldg construction might be an interesting collection

catching a breeze

i used to see red-headed woodpeckers a lot, but not so much of late --- this one stopped outside jwh's house in college park this morning ---- a nice start to the day

what's left of tropical storm cindy is rolling up into the ohio river valley, but we feel the backside, with nice steady breezes the last day or so, changing direction as the storm moves, and occasional lines of big thunderstorms ---