The Terrible Catsafterme

Even if you don’t know Arline and Carl, you should appreciate these two photos from my vintage slides series. However, I do know them so they are even more special to me. Arline is my Dad’s first cousin, the daughter of Bessie, my Grandma Range’s sister. Carl, of course was her husband. He passed away in 1994. The little boy in the photos is their only son John Shirk. The bottom photo was taken in 1959 and the top one presumedly in 1960. These photos emit a strong sense of nostalgic Christmas’ past. We still see Arline often, especially around the holidays.

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My Grandparents, Harold Murphy and Loretta Murlin met around 1941 at a roller skating rink. At first they were only acquaintences, then friends. She was dating another guy and they were not getting along well, so my Grandpa made an obvious and friendly suggestion: “quit dating him – and better yet, start dating me”. And so it began…

Of course, being war time and my Grandpa being eighteen, he was drafted into the service. Read the rest of this entry »

Tonight we celebrated Thanksgiving in grand style at my place. Now that everyone is gone and everything is cleaned up, I miss wandering into the kitchen and snacking on pieces of cold turkey and a forkful of one of the nearly ten pies we had on hand. I was talked into hosting this event because my dwelling was the most likely candidate to fit everyone into one area to eat. Jim and Jan usually host but they were unavailable this year. Read the rest of this entry »