Random Photo Monday: Shore Leave

This is beach week (hooray!). We’ll be heading for Rehoboth, DE tomorrow on our annual trek. Don’t know how much blogging I’ll be doing for the next few days. A week without blogging or email seems pretty traumatic and maybe even un-American, but we’ll just have to see how well the hotel Internet access works. Oh, well – at least I’ll get lots of reading (and shopping!) done.

Here’s a shot from one of our previous trips. This guy seemed really interested in my photo-taking, and posed for a very long time while I hassled with camera, beach bag, hat, and various other paraphernalia. But our neighbors on the beach that day were handing out French fries to all the shore birds in the vicinity – so maybe he thought the camera might actually be a treat-dispensing machine of some sort. No such luck from me, I’m afraid. I learned my lesson in that department from the pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

Random Photo Monday: Events in August

Monday again, and time for another Random Photo post. Actually, two Random Photos today. You can see them on my other blog, Joysweb. And thanks for visiting!

Random Photo Monday: TV Musings

For today's Random Photo Monday offering, see my other blog (Joysweb). And thanks for visiting!

Random Photo Monday: More Snaps from Shenandoah

New photos for Random Photo Monday are up on my other blog (Joysweb), right here.

Random Photo Monday: Bear With Me

This week's Random Photo Monday offering is up now, on my other blog (Joysweb). I'd love it if you'd stop by and take a look. So would Kayla and the bears!

Random Photo Monday: Picnic with Ms. Palmer

Random Photo Monday has moved to my other blog, Joysweb. It would love to have some visitors - please take a look here.

Random Photo Monday: The Tonys and the Shrew

For today's Random Photo Monday offering, take a look at my other blog (Joysweb). And thanks for visiting!

Random Photo Monday: Summer and Hogarth

Random Photo Monday has moved to my other blog (Joy's Blog). To give it a look, go here.

Random Photo Monday: Summer Fun

Random Photo Monday has moved to my other blog, Joysweb. Hope you'll take a look!

Random Photo Monday: Rebecca and John

Random Photo Monday has moved! It can now be found on my other blog, Joysweb. Hope you'll check it out.

Random Photo Monday: Book Line-up

These are some (most, I think) of the books that have come into our place since the first of the year. I know the photo is a little blurry, but then I'm feeling a little blurry myself this morning.

The group doesn't include several Library of America editions we've received, and a few books M. bought and took to his office or filed away in his study.

Altogether about forty books, I believe. Not an unreasonable number, but way more than we should be acquiring right now. With M's retirement and a move back to Texas right around the corner, we really should be narrowing our library down - not adding to it. But books just seem to follow me home (honest they do!).

Random Photo Monday: Rain, Rain, Go Away!

This is not what I'm seeing in the sky this morning. But it's what I wish I were seeing. Yes, we probably need the rain, but we could do without the floods. My seasonal affective disorder is revving up into high gear!

Random Photo Monday: Sidewalk Café

This past Saturday we had nearly perfect weather – the only thing that could have made it absolute perfection would have been a little less pollen in the air (achoo!). So M. and I took advantage of the odd situation by having lunch at a nearby Mexican food restaurant, where we were able to sit at an outdoor table and watch the world go by while we enjoyed our tamales and enchiladas.

This is not a photo of that restaurant. But since I don't have a photo of that particular restaurant, I'm putting up a shot of my favorite sidewalk café instead.

The restaurant in this photo is Casa Rio, on the river in San Antonio, Texas. I haven't eaten there in many years, although every time we're in town we go take a look at it. I have many fond memories of Casa Rio from my childhood – it's where we always ate when we went downtown to shop. Usually me, my mother, and my Aunt B. and my cousin MLB. My cousin and I would stuff ourselves with chili con queso and guacamole, and then inevitably go home with tummy aches. But only after finishing off a couple of sugary pralines for dessert. Ah, happy days!

Random Photo Monday: Family Group

Not my family this time. This is actually a photo of the family of M's (maternal) grandmother - she's the tiny girl, third from the right, holding a large baby doll. She was born April 24, 1905, and would have been about 5 years old here.

Her mother, Louisa, is to her left. Her father, Henry Fest, stands in the center of the shot. The other young people are three of her four older brothers and her older sister.

The photo was taken around 1910, on their farm in San Antonio, Texas, on what became San Pedro Avenue.

M's grandmother is no longer with us, but if she were, I don't think she'd be too surprised that I'm a little late with my birthday tribute.

Random Photo Monday: Wedding Day

I know this isn't a very good photo - it's a really old copy of the even older original. But it's clear enough to see that these two don't look very excited about having the photo taken. Probably had to hold that pose for many uncomfortable minutes.

This is a wedding photo of my grandfather and grandmother, my father's parents. They were married in April of 1902 - April 15th, so I missed the date by a few days. He was 20 and she was 19 at the time. And although they don't look happy here, they were married for 30 years (until his early death at age 50) and had eight children. She outlived him by 42 years and never remarried.

Random Photo Monday: Siblings in Sepia

Last Friday would have been my mother's 87th birthday. This is a photo of her and (I believe) her younger sister, my Aunt Bette, taken around 1924. Since Bette looks to be about a year old, Mamma would have been around three. Check out those snazzy shoes.

Mamma had two sisters (my Aunt Linnie came along nearly five years later), and until my mom started putting on weight later in life, they all looked very much alike. In fact, in photos of the sisters in their teens and early twenties, if there's no note on the back, I sometimes have trouble figuring out which sister is my mom!

Random Photo Monday: In Old San Antone

Thought I'd just put up a few photos from our last trip to San Antonio TX, back in 2006. My home town. Strange to be playing tourist in a place I once knew so intimately.


The first two were taken on the Riverwalk, which is a really lovely, colorful place to spend an afternoon or have a great meal - many restaurants and bistros to choose from. Also art galleries, shops, and historic sites. Nothing like it was when I was growing up in SA, back in the Dark Ages. Back then, the "river" was mostly just a large drainage ditch meandering through the middle of downtown. But after many years and many civic improvement campaigns, San Antonio is now the Venice of the Southwest! Who would have thunk it? Just shows what a winning basketball franchise can do for a town (Go, Spurs!).

The third photo is a shot of part of the old Main Library in downtown SA. At the time we took the picture, the library was all closed up – not sure what they've got planned for it or if it's still there today. Note the window-unit air conditioning and the fallout shelter sign. The quote carved above the door is from William Ellery Channing and reads: "In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours."

It was a great old building and an excellent library, and I spent many hours there, doing research for school projects and papers. They also had a surprisingly good selection of old phonograph records – I heard Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, and Ma Rainey for the first time on recordings borrowed from their collection. Wonderful place.

Random Photo Monday: Let's Play Dolls

I have a large doll collection. Well, "collection" is a really tame word for what I have. I have a mass of dolls. All kinds and sizes. Dolls from my childhood, and dolls I've acquired since I've been old enough to know better. Hoping that Will Rogers would forgive the misquote, let's just say I never met a doll I didn't like.

Most of my dolls are in storage now, patiently awaiting their chance to come back out and see the light of day once again. For ten years or more, I was an active collector, living in a frenzy of doll shows, doll auctions, doll books, and doll web sites.

Alas, that all had to end when I realized that if I brought one more doll into the condo, the two humans living here were going to have to find a new home.

This photo was taken a few years back, when I was in the process of filling up a new display cabinet with some of the dolls. Ostensibly, I was dusting and arranging; in actuality I was just having a great time playing with my dollies.

Random Photo Monday: Family Group

Looking back over my family history files, I noticed that my great-grandfather died March 22, 1942 – sixty-six years ago this month. I never met him or my great-grandmother (my father's grandparents); they both died before I was born.

This is a (not very clear) photo of the two of them with all their children, taken sometime around late 1905. Most of the pictures I have of my father's family are copies of copies of copies, so not the best quality.

My g-grandfather, Frank Grohman, is the one with the mustache, on the far left. His wife, Mary Anna, is in the middle with their youngest child on her lap (that would have been Great Uncle "Veste," short for Sylvester – yes, that's a boy).

My grandmother, Emma Mary Grohman, is standing in the back, second from the right. She would have been about 22 at the time and probably pregnant with my Aunt Emma, her second child. She had married my grandfather in 1902. Her youngest daughter, my Aunt Ella, looked just like her; and so does Ella's daughter Jane. And the older I get, the more I'm starting to resemble her, too. Strong genes, I guess.

Random Photo Monday: Kayla

OK, I know this is weird. But I have a travel doll, who goes with me on most of the trips I take. She's tiny, so she fits in any purse or suitcase quite easily. And she's always a very enthusiastic traveler, as you can see. Her name is Kayla, and she's a member of the Barbie family.

She always wears the same outfit, whether she's at the beach or in the mountains, or relaxing in a big city hotel room. Sort of like Waldo in the "Where's Waldo" books. She has a tiny pair of black-rimmed eyeglasses, too, but she's always losing them.

I think here she was on her way to or from Chicago, a few years back. Wasn't it nice of Amtrak to provide a cup that was just her size?