Family Photos

Everyone gets a little curious about their lineage at some point in their life, and well... I did too. Digging around on the wide wide world of the internets, trying to find some trace of my family heritage. Lord have mercy, did I hit the jackpot! Not only history of my family but pictures!

Make sure and click the pictures to make 'em big!

I'll give you a short little tutelage of the kind of folks that I sprang from the loins of.

Here's my great Grandma Beatrice (on my Mother's side) out at the clothesline. She ran her household with an iron fist. In this picture she's just taken little Uncle Rodriguez's favorite toy away from him. "Bucket" They didn't have much, but boy that sure was a fine bucket. Look at Uncle Rod pouting. LOL what a stitch.



And of course as the years went by, things prospered. They moved up to a swell treehouse. Here's a pic of some friends of theirs sitting around just smoking and getting drunk. Ha.. good times, good times... those were the days eh? Watch that first step Uncle Louie, it's a doozy!




And of course to go along with the new digs (up in Oak Tree Mansion, as Grandpa liked to call it) they scraped together enough jingle to throw up a swell vacation cottage. My mom says she remembers picnicking in there as a little girl. Mmmmm mmm nothing like a good egg salad sandwich in the old vacation cottage down by the lake. Ha ha, look at the sign that Grandpa painted on the door. I don't know what the "lid" is, but you sure don't want flies on your sandwich now do you?





Oh and in the backroom off the southeast corner of the vacation cottage, Grandpa was all cutting edge and stuff... put in a media room! Grandma spent hours trying to get a better picture on that damned radio. Grandpa finally snapped one night and smacked her in the head with his newspaper. Looks like he's 'bout ready to let go here! LOOK OUT GRANDMA!





And then there was my Great Uncle Harold. Harold was all about teaching self defense with the trombone, but no one took him seriously because of those stupid pants he insisted on wearing. Pull 'em up a little higher there Uncle Harold, your armpits must be cold!




Having failed at getting folks enthused with his trombone defense classes he sorta snapped and according to what Aunt Esther wrote down, he build a weapon of mass destruction to destroy the world and everyone on it that laughed at him. He called it "The War Tuba". Unfortunately the only thing he destroyed was the vacation cottage. Don't have to worry 'bout leaving the lid up anymore huh?





The explosion from the whole War Tuba episode left him nearly deaf, so with parts left over from that thing he built himself a hearing aid. The cool thing is that the damned thing actually worked, the old guy could hear a gnat fart at 50 paces. Unfortunately my 3rd cousin Ernie tossed a cherry bomb in there one day and it was "So long Uncle Harold" Those boots are still in the family possession... it was the only thing left. Great boots though! Ernie later became the Governor of Arkansas.




Some of my family were gifted apparently when it came to sports ability. Here's a picture of my cousin Cletus (circled in red). Somehow he garnered the nickname "Crazy Crotch Cletus". Go figure.




And of course old Uncle Bob. LOL He desparately wanted to play basketball, but at 4 foot 3 he didn't have a chance. Here he is handing the ball off to a normal sized player just out of screenshot. Give Uncle Bob a belated round of applause for giving it the old team effort!




Mom said when Grandma didn't have chickens in that crate, the kids used to fight over who got to ride in "the caboose". You just don't see kids having fun like that these days, do you?



And finally cousin Gustaff. Came home from the war and after having a tank run over his head... just wasn't quite right, as Grandpa put it. He spent years building this thing in the backyard out of an old propane tank and some pipe. Then according to family history he just sat in it for the next 30 years screaming "RATTA TAT RATTA TAT RATTA TAT" every time he saw a chihuahua on the sidewalk. No one could figure out why he pinpointed that breed. Uncle Bill said they shaved the cat so it'd look like a chihuahua just to hear Gustaff go at it. Kinda sad, but the good part was they didn't have problems with door to door salesmen.





*sigh*