Family Archives

September 2, 2013

Grandmother’s Report Card

This morning’s Facebook page for the Advance Hornet Alumni carried a bunch of photos of the 2013 Alumni Banquet. Mother is down in Austin floating around in Niece Kim’s pool, so she didn’t attend.

I was looking through some old Advance scans when I ran across my Grandmother Elsie Adkins (Welch)’s 4th grade report card. Looks like she showed steady improvement every month in everything but spelling. Maybe the words got longer as the year went on.

How do you like that 100% rating in deportment? She was a feisty thing, so I’m surprised she got those perfect scores. Who would have thought the teacher’s photo would be on the report card?

My great-grandfather’s signature changed

Pupils were rated monthly and parents had to sign the card. My great-grandfather’s signature was consistent the first five months, but changed in months six through eight. If her grades had dropped, I might accuse my grandmother of forging his signature.

Elsie Adkins was born September 24, 1892. If kids started school when they were around 6, then this report card would be close to 111 years old. Could that be right? (1892 + 6 + 4 = 1902. 2013 – 1902 = 111. Yep, it all calculates out.)

Elsie Adkins Welch was an extraordinary woman for her time. It’s worth a read.

September 1, 2013

My Flirtation with Crime

This is Charlie’s Cut-Rate-Store in Advance, more commonly known to townsfolk as Charlie’s Drug Store.

The building with the barber pole is where my grandfather, Roy E. Welch, had his liquor store. Dad had a small office between the barber shop and the liquor store. I’m sure Mother had something to do with seeing the town’s teenagers had a hangout in the basement. I mentioned that I still have some wooden “funeral home” chairs from there that I use today.

Crime spree was short-lived

Once day when I was about four or five, I sauntered down to Charlie’s for an ice cream cone.

The ice cream was probably still dripping off my chin when Charlie paid my grandfather a visit. He handed over a counter check filled with my crayon scribbles that I had used for payment.

My excuse was that I had seen customers scribble on the checks, then Grandfather would hand over a bottle of whiskey. I figured if it worked for booze, then it should be OK for ice cream cones, too.

My grandfather made restitution and Charlie agreed not to call the town constable to haul me off to whatever passed as a hoosegow in Advance in those days.

I came by my lawlessness naturally. Check out Mother’s escapade with slot machines when she was barely a teenager. It’s at the bottom of the page.

August 29, 2013

Haunting the Mailbox

I loved to get mail when I was a kid. I’d order a ring that would shoot popped wheat, then spend the next six weeks waiting for it to arrive. Even today, I like ordering from online companies so I can have the anticipation of the FexEx or UPS truck pulling up in front of the house.

Rarely, though, does a box arrive unsolicited. When one does, I remember back to my employee with a stalker ex-husband who terrorized her. One day a box with no return address arrived at the office. When she was afraid to open it, I made a big deal out of putting it on the counter, carefully slitting the taped sides and easing the top up while staying as far back as possible. I peered into the darkness and two black eyes and a forked tongue met my gaze. Even though the cop who took it to the zoo for ID said it was non-poisonous, I look upon strange packages differently these days.

When Wife Lila dropped a small package on my desk this morning, I had those same bad vibes.

THIS box had a return address, but it didn’t make much sense: GFJ + ST L; S. Sprigg / Good Hope (Around Back).

There was a watch inside

Inside the box was a rather nifty watch and the letter above. When I saw the name “McClard,” I remembered a Facebook exchange with one of Wife Lila’s Class of ’66 Classmates, Dick McClard. He had sent me a birthday wish when he confused me with another Ken he was actually friends with.

When I pointed out the error of his ways (quite a list, by the way), he countered by writing, “I bought you a really nice diamond studded watch for $25 from a fella on South Sprigg and he said he would get it to you but I don’t know which carrier. Let me know if it doesn’t get to you by March. I’m not going to risk a trip to Florida with the temp and humidity you described. IT….IS….BEAUTIFUL here today.”

Nefarious plot

Dick and I are on opposite sides of the political fence. I, of course, am a rational, pragmatic thinker and Dick is, well, he thinks Attila the Hun had the right idea, he just didn’t go far enough. He’s a nice enough guy despite that and I treat him like the funny uncle you keep locked in the attic.

When I tried on the watch, however, I was disappointed. It was so small I couldn’t even get the thingie through the first hole.

Either he had underestimated the manly size of my wrist or he more likely hoped the tight band would cut off circulation and cause my left wing to fall off.

Wife Lila has an idea

When the watch was too tight even for Wife Lila to wear, she had an idea. She’d hang it on the wall of the kitchen next to other decorative doo-dads.

I didn’t ask for elaboration

After she finished pounding a nail in the wall to display the watch, I thought I heard her say, “Well, at least something of Dick’s will be well-hung.”

I didn’t ask her to elaborate.

Thanks for remembering my birthday

So, Dick, you were either seven months early or six months late, but I’ll overlook the timing. It is the thought that counts.

I’ll be sure to send you something on your birthday. Oh, by the way, just for your information, snakes get really cranky in transit. That’s something you may need to know.

August 28, 2013

Cat Whiskers and Transistors

F.R. Richey was a tailor I photographed in 1968 in Athens, Ohio. He was in his 80s when I met him. He died at 96, after spending 70 years patching and sewing. This detail shot of his spools and a transistor radio got me to thinking about early radios I remember. If you sew or are interested in radios, click on the photo to make it larger.

I wrote earlier about having a transistor radio that looked a lot like this one when I was delivering newspapers. Looks like Mr. Richey’s radio was a later model that actually had a speaker instead of making you listen through an earphone.

Cub Scout Crystal Radio

My first electronic project was to build a crystal radio set from a Cub Scout kit bought at Buckner-Ragsdale.

A crystal set consisted of an antenna to pick up the radio signal and convert it to electric currents; a tuning coil; a galena crystal that you touched with a fine piece of copper wire (the cat whisker); a ground and a pair of earphones. I used a gutter for the antenna. After getting everything hooked up, I would sit around carefully poking the pebble-sized crystal with the cat whisker until KFVS or KGMO would come flowing in. I don’t remember if I was ever able to pull in the St. Louis stations.

They could be made even simpler. During World War II, soldiers would make “foxhole radios” from a coil of wire, a rusty razor blade, a pencil lead and a pair of headphones. Because they were “passive” receivers, they couldn’t be discovered by German radio detection equipment.

Dad had a suitcase-sized “portable” radio that would shock the bejeebers out of you if you touched any of its metal parts when it was plugged into the wall.