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With the recent cold weather making the news, it made me think of another cold spell that happen just over thirty five years ago. The cold spell that just passed was more of a event for the northern part of the country since we didn't really see any really cold weather from it. The event from thirty five years ago happen right here in this area. It was Christmas Eve 1983, which some say is the coldest Christmas Eve on record for North America. I remember it so well because I along with two friends were crazy enough to go camping during this...
This time of year a lot of us turn our attention to hunting and camping. When you go hunting in addition to the regular safety rules like make sure of your target before you pull the trigger, always keep the muzzle of your gun pointed away from others and always treat all guns as if they are loaded here in this part of the country we have pests to watch out for almost year round. Yes, I'm talking about bugs and snakes, in particular. I've seen snakes on days when you would swear it was way to cold to be seeing them. One of my first experiences...
I got interested in genealogy at a young age and remember sitting around listening to my grandparents and great-grandparents talk about the old folks. With this in mind some of the best advice I ever got was to take a tape recorder with me and record the conversation I had with the older members of the family, of course at that time tape recorders were the size of a medium size suit case and usually came with wheels and had to be plugged into a wall socket. Now most people carry a recorder in their pockets in the form of a cell phone, making...
At our last meeting of the Alger Sullivan Historical Society we had a guest speaker who is originally from our area, he now lives in West Virginia but has spent a great deal of his life working all over the world and gave a very interesting talk about it. I'm talking about Howard Green and his wife Becky, hopefully we will be able to have him as a guest speaker again in the future as he has said, he could talk all day on each country he has worked in. With September here this brings to mind two things of interest to me, football and camping....
I'm going to stray from the normal here and write about people still living. I usually don't write to much about people still living, but will make an exception here because of special circumstances. This month at the Alger Sullivan Historical Society meeting on August 21, Howard Green who was raised in Bluff Springs will be the guest speaker. Howard and I along with Bill Cox spent our early years exploring the Escambia river where we had a few memorable adventures. Bill is a few years younger than Howard and I and that being the case we may...
One of the best things that I ever participated in as a young person was becoming a Amateur (Ham) Radio operator back in the early 1970's. It was one of the best things a younger person could take up, it was educational since there was a test that you had to pass before you would be allowed to get on the air with a ham radio. The test go from pretty easy for the entry level class of Technician to fairly difficult for the top level class of Amateur Extra class. Today there are three classes of license, beginning with the Technician class, then...
I got interested in genealogy at a young age and remember sitting around listening to my grandparents and great-grandparents talk about the old folks. With this in mind some of the best advice I ever got was to take a tape recorder with me and record the conversation I had with the older members of the family, of course at that time tape recorders were the size of a medium size suit case and usually came with wheels and had to be plugged into a wall socket. Now most people carry a recorder in their pockets in the form of a cell phone, making...
Since it's June already that means that several seasons either begin or end with this month. I guess one of the ones we pay great attention to along the gulf coast is hurricane season, which began the first day of this month. Also the first day of the month saw the beginning of the meteorological summer, some what different from the astrological summer most of us go by the meteorological summer runs from June 1 until August 31, whereas the astrological summer that most of us go by runs from mid June until mid September. Some sports seasons are...
Our major event for the year has come and gone, Sawmill Day and the car show. We had a good crowd this year, if you have never got around to making it to Sawmill Day you should try to make it one year. We have all day music with arts and crafts along with historical displays. The car show is always a great thing to see if you like older and classic cars. Sawmill Day is held on the first Saturday in May. It looked like for a few days before hand the weather might be a problem as rain was in the picture for that day, but as it turned out the...
I first got interested in tracking my family roots back during the 1970's, at that time it was all done with paper and pencil. I was able to have some success with running down my ancestors with trips to various libraries. Having a full time job as well as other things that needed attention left very little time for my family research especially since most of it required hours spent in the previously mentioned libraries. A friend and I went to the library in Pensacola one day during the early 1990's, and when we were in the part of the library...
With the weather still somewhat cool for this time of the year, it makes me think back to when I was about ten years old. What I'm thinking about would later become known as the year without a summer, which was the year of 1816. I first heard of the year without a summer not from history books in school but from my grandmother (1888-1983) and great-grandmother (1858-1964) they had been told about it by their parents and grandparents, their grandparents actually lived through the year without a summer. Here I will say if you are in the least...
Lights, especially strange lights, ones that appear suddenly or in places lights have never been seen usually draw a lot of attention. My first encounter with a strange light happen at a young age on a camping trip on the Escambia river just up the river from Mystic Springs. I was probably no more than ten years old at the time, so this would be in the early sixties. We were on the sandbar fishing when a fire ball appeared in the sky coming from the south headed north. This thing looked just like someone had taken a piece of paper and rolled...
With the change in the weather especially with the temperatures during the day getting into the eighties and with the trees and flowers along with the grass starting to wake up, I think some of us have spring time on our minds along with spring time activities. For most this means fishing and for some of us it's also spring turkey hunting. I remember when I was young spring was my favorite time of the year, not only because of the fishing but it also ment the summer break from school was much closer. Fishing with my dad is one of my favorite ch...
Thinking back on just how far we have advanced with technology makes me wander what we might see in the next twenty or so years. If you think about it we have made tremendous advances in transportation and communications along with other every day items. When I was a youngster in the late fifties and early sixties, believe it or not there was still a couple of people in this area that their main form of transportation was a mule and wagon. Of course the roads were really narrow by today's standards, even highway 29 was really narrow and...
If you have any interest at all in your family history I suggest that you start talking to the older members of your family, they will be the one best sources of your family history. Along with talking to family members and using the tools available on the internet such as websites and computer programs, also try the DNA. If you do try the DNA besides doing the test on yourself you might want to get others in your family tested. I got my mother a test after I did mine and her results are a good bit different from mine. I was able to find severa...
