Karen and Lynn's 70th Birthday - 12/14/13

 Final click - new house in Belmont is launched.
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Jay living in the moment.

Karen and Tom. She had to dress him.

Karen, Tom, Lynn and Jay. Nobody is saying who is grabbling whom in background. Jay might have gotten Tom by mistake (?)
Mia and Nishi (who gets more attention than birthday girls).

Aunt, daughter and mother.

Character # 1

Character #2

Laurel and Mia

Birthday Twinkies.

Cousins

Toe River Road to Blue Ridge Parkway

We bounced in Piggy up the gravel Toe River Road to the Parkway then to Mt. Mitchell. It was less that 40 degrees on Mt. Mitchell with some sleet. In Charlotte it was 60 something. As we have done several times in the past we ate at the little restaurant on 226 just off parkway. You can see Mt. Mitchell from the balcony. (This is also where Mr. Bob and I meet Ladley Burn who lives near here on Humpback Road. Now scattered we all came from the Center Of The Known Universe.)








Ocracoke - Fall - 2013

Ocracoke is an irregular town with no straight lines and many unexpected levels.

Karen on Swan Quarter ferry.

Possibly a joke

Dog on ferry.

 
Preening
 
Together but seperate

Entropy - wounded pelican

Government shutdown

 Karen likes beach, remembers growing up in Florida

Little sea skulls?
 
 Eccentric Ocracoke dog
 
Near our B&B
 
One of many levels - to our cupola
 
Unexpected side trip to Plymouth - old Episcopal church (1851?)  

 Old man and old replica of Confederate ironclad that sunk a number of Yankee ships in battle near here
 


Reclining something
 

Waves
 
Infant's grave
 
 
 

Our Cemeteries


Documentary - with a few asides.

1) Zion Baptist cemetery. In Cleveland county, five miles or so North of Shelby (center of known universe). Maybe the oldest cemetery in the county. Dates to revolutionary times. I could not find my great grandfather Sydney - although I did when I was here before - around 1970 with Brenda. But there were a number of Weathers. (I am pretty sure Brenda was here before hauling Pansy Fetzer around looking for Confederate graves.)

Maybe a related Weathers (actually all are related - this is a resting ground for Weathers and Golds and Cornwells - all the mythical names.) .

Cemetery residents are grouped by class and wealth.

Our lineage might actually include a preacher and a mason.


Little black cemetery I mistakenly visited when I got lost. A kindly black man showed me the way to go.



2) Ross Grove Baptist cemetery on edge of town. Found grandmother Dora Justice Weathers and Isaac Yancey Weathers. I never knew I.Y., He was a sharecropper - a big strong stern man according to my father. Grandmother Dora was a disembodied voice reading to us. Near the end she became a jolly crazy woman who tried to eat some napkins and wrapped turds in other napkins, storing them in her chest. When I was little I went to dinners on the ground at Ross Grove - eating cakes and ham and pies and biscuits.

Isaac and Dora.



3) Sunset cemetery in Shelby. This is center of the town that is the center of the universe.

Where my Grandfather Bishop Kendrick Parris, Grandmother Molly Parris and three babies are buried. Brenda, Mickey/Mary/Michal, Big Henry and I got the sexton to look at maps and found the spot. At that time, the graves were marked with little rocks.  All but maybe one of rocks are gone now. None of us knew any of these people. But it is I my understanding that they died very young.


Maybe one of rocks.


Brenda's mother and father, Curtis Polk Moser and Isabel Lackey Moser. They were screwed up although Isabel's last few years were not so bad. And Yancie has fond memories of sitting in the bed with Granda Bell watching soap operas and eating sweets.



My mother. Eva Parris Weathers. She went for 10 years without a marker until my sister and I shamed the old man into doing it. I don't think he was indifferent - probably just the opposite. Like his son, he had a wonderful capacity for ignoring stuff. Watching Casablanca the other night I remember people saying my mother looked like Ingrid Bergmann. Henry, Yancie - this is your grandmother. She was the dark mysterious one. To a greater or lesser degree she is in us.


My father, Thomas Gold Weathers Sr. I wanted his epitaph to say he liked cloud but Mickey said everybody likes clouds. Finally in an exasperated manner she said to put whatever I wanted. "Generous Man" is both true and a bit of a joke.


"Grandmother" Letha Branton Weathers. My father married her a year after my mother died. He needed somebody to look after us and she needed to get out of her brother-in-laws house. The trade worked out well. She was a good mother to my sister. The old man was married to her longer than he was married to mother. In the end I was the one the hospital called when she went crazy. My father's young girlfriend and I looked after her. He was getting confused. I think I got her tomb stone.


The placeholder stone for Brenda and me. She is scattered here and various other places. I will too. But as I have written and Mr. Bob has said although you've got to have a beginning and an end it is the middle that counts .


Note: This picture taking session was a bit of an adventure. I got rained on; the two toes rubbed raw from yesterday's hike stung; my shoulder hurt from the fall at Karen's; I got tuned around looking for Zion Baptist and headed west instead if east and I pissed on the side of a rural road. As Henry has said, looking for pain is masochism, but still as a distraction you can't beat it. Dawn would grin and say that I am a romantic.

Eagle Park - Belmont

Alley behind original lot

Original lot
 
Raised bed-Swiss Chard

Walkway between streets & mailboxes
 

Fenced in yard with raised beds and composter
 
Model of Clover without bonus
 
Looking down street to Mt. view

Better Mt. view

Small park across from 1st lot

Large park -opposite end of street than corner lot

Future expansion sites

Seven lots for future

Knightdale we looked at

See basis for slab

Corner lot with 2 real estate agents - Tom note - realtor with nice ass to right (Jay see this)  

Purple house

Inside Knightdale-note column