Help! The House Is On Fire!

Way back when....




Is it any wonder that when a fire burst out, that the whole city would burn down?

How totally frustrating it must have felt to see someone's home be devoured by hungry flames and have just a trickle of water and not enough of it to boot?


I was raised tagging along to auction sales with my mom because you see, both sides of my families were burnt out and had no heirlooms! We cherish what we do have, but they only go about a generation back!

 What do you have right now in your home that could be the next generation's heirloom?
Is it a piece of sculpture that you bought from some starving artist, or something simple like the jug you brew your sun tea in?


...A couple more pieces from the permanent display at The Henry Ford!


These photographs were shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.

The US Mail

Neither rain nor sleet nor threat of night can stop the US Mail!

This basic wagon was in service delivering the mail.

Imagine finding something like this in a barn or shed!

 The whole surface is covered with signatures!

 I'm so glad they preserved it!

These photographs were shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.

A Lady In And Out Of Time!

Time... A constant thing.... Tick... Tock...




Does time ever stand still or....




Is it a live and energetic thing?

Can someone be stuck in time? 
....Or can two "times" exist in the same space?


 A contradiction?

 Or a conundrum?

.... Can you always believe what your eyes see?




These photographs were shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.

Freedom

Our freedom is taken for granted....


 I want to honor some of the people who gave so much!

The horrid contraption was an actual slave collar. 
I'm sorry if I upset you, (my stomach contracts when I look at it.)

The wide arms were meant to catch in tree branches to slow a slave down if they ran.

 I walked up to the display inside the Henry Ford and I was drawn to the glass! My hand involuntarily reached out towards the piece of metal and I laid my palm flat against the glass. My eyes filled with tears. I gave a silent prayer to live where I do and in the time that I do. I am so lucky!

 This woman knew pain and suffering and she did what she could to help.


 Could I also do what she did? Would I have been that strong?


Gosh! I hope I could have done something!


These photographs were shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.

Wieners Rule!

It takes a certain sort of person to have a certain kind of sense of humor and whether it was Henry Ford or Clara or one of their many employees who thought of this theme for their cafe in the museum, I don't care!  It is funny!


 Let me introduce you to the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile Cafe located inside The Henry Ford Museum!

During our visit, we were again peckish in the middle of the afternoon and just happened to be more than half way through the museum. A hot dog and drink and a little sit down were in order and so over we went!


Cafeteria in style, you can buy all sorts of gourmet hot dogs and Dick ordered a Chili Dog and me, well, I just had a Cheese Dog.  Num! Num!

 Has anybody seen this vehicle for real? What fun!
And of course it's right there in the Museum! 
There were only six of these vehicles built.



I am humming the Oscar Mayer theme song as I type...

My Balony has a first name,
It's O - S - C - A - R ...


My Baloney has a second name,
It's M -A - Y - E - R...


(Come on! What's the next line?)

Oh! I love to eat it every day,
And if you ask me why I'll say....

(Big breath now...)


Cause Oscar Mayer has a way,
With .... B - O - L - O - G - N - A!


Here's the link to a YuTube page of the little guy singing it!

 

Oscar Mayer Wiener Jingle

Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener!

That is what I'd truely like to be...

'Cuz if Iwere an Oscar Mayer wiener,

Everyone would be in love with me!

We couldn't help but laugh as we saw this commotion around this display! Giggling and laughing!

I would love to meet the person who thought this up! 
The children were having such fun!


  ... And no, Oscar Mayer didn't, nor did anyone else compensate me in any way to post this! I just love the whole concept! 
Brilliant Marketing and I 'm just jealous I didn't think of it! 


These photographs were shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.

Camping is the Holiday Inn!

I was lucky, because I traveled a bit as a child. Not big, grand tours or anything, but always a road trip in the car with my mom and dad and sister.


 We would 'motel it' and I recall my mom would always ask for the keys to go see a room before she would rent it for the night.

 It was so cool to see new places and things ...

...And I've never gotten over that.

 How many of you stayed in a room exactly like this one?

 I think this is one thing that blows me away about the Henry Ford Museum! They have rebuilt this motel room inside the museum and it is exactly like what I remember!
I bet there's still more than one out there in the mid-west somewhere that still looks like this?


These photographs were shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.

Ross Carriage

The pictures will tell the tale...

Ever seen anything like this before?

 Amazing carriage!

 Looks like a Cinderella coach?

The buggy is 'hung' with leather straps for shocks!

What amazed me is that they still have the traces intact!


 On display at the Henry Ford Museum!


These photographs were shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.

Honor Amoung Thieves?

 Imagine just simply taking something because you wanted it or it was left within arms reach and you could just reach out your hand, wrap your itching fingers around the thing, clutch and then slide the item right into your pocket?


 Imagine just walking into bank, shooting off a couple of rounds of exploding, raucous bullets, presenting a formidable figure with legs spread apart, rifle in the crook of your arm, a jaunty smile or your seriously cute face and demanding:

 "Everyone hit the floor! This is a stickup!"


 Imagine.....


 Knowing...


 Just knowing that you are the one in complete control of that bank full of townsfolk. That they all know your name and fear you....  that you hold their very lives in the palm of your hand to do with as you wish...


Knowing without a shadow of a doubt that you would walk out of that building with a big cotton sack stuffed with bills and coins and that nobody would even dream of lifting a finger to stop you...




Knowing that your honey lady was waiting....


Gunning the motor of the last car you stole in the last town, just after the last bank job...


 Knowing that when you reached that car with your sack stuffed full of bills and coins and that when you jumped onto the conveniently wide running boards that your honey lady would pull the clutch and that the shiny black Ford would successfully screech away from the scene of the crime and barrel off down some country road to oblivion and safety...


Knowing that there were a hundred other Fords just like this shiny black one in the country and that the cops wouldn't really know which one was yours and which one was not....


...And having the balls to write the man who built the shiny black Ford to tell him how happy you were with his product....

I will type here what this letter says verbatim, just in case you can't read the writing:


Tulsa Okla
10th April
Detroit Mich.


Dear Sir,
While I still have got
breath in my lungs I
will tell you what a dandy
car you make. I have drove
Fords exclusivly when I could
get away with one. For sustained
speed and freedom from
trouble the Ford has got ever
other car skinned and even if
my business hasn't been
strickly legal it don't hurt any
thing to tell you what a fine
car you got in the V-8.
Yours truly
Clyde Champion Barrow


This letter is stamped as received on April 13 in 1934 and is on display at the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan.
Who says there isn't honor among thieves?

Bonnie and Clyde in March 1933, in a photo found by police at the Joplin, Missouri hideout.

I wonder if they would have ever thought they'd make it to a museum?


This photograph of the letter was shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.

I Carried The President Of The United States!

I am Lincoln and I have carried the President of the United States.

Richard M Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George Bush.


I am the last Presidential parade vehicle that will be given to any museum because the Secret Service will destroy all future presidential vehicles so that the complex electronic and security devices will remain confidential.

How sad is that?

 Born in 1972,  I was one of three cars used by Lindon B Johnson and I'm known as The X-100. I was was stretched to 22 ft (7 m), outfitted with armor plating, bullet resistant glass and powered by a 460 cubic inch (7.5 liter) V8 engine mated to a C-6 3-speed automatic transmission.


Years later, President Richard Nixon replaced my famous large, one-piece glass roof with a smaller, safer glass area and a hinged roof panel.
I also had several alterations over the years including a replacement of front end piece to update it to a 1978 grill. 

I retired after the assassination attempt on President Reagan and am happy to take my place in the museum for all to see, the last of my kind to be so honored
!
 We are some of the cars that carried Presidents and we lived, breathed and had life of our own!

These photographs were shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.

I Carried The President Of The United States!

My name is SS-100-X Car and I carried The President of the United States!


John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter

 November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas:  We were on parade and I was carrying my precious cargo: The modern president that held the world in the palm of his hand.


Firing!
Jackie screaming and reaching back across my trunk lid for the secret service member... "Help!" I can feel her still and hear the terror in her beautiful voice!


Oh! What could I have done?

I am a 1961 Lincoln Continental Convertible and I came equipped with a Plexiglas bubble top in the event of inclement weather. I was delivered in Midnight Blue and I was a gorgeous sight if I do say so myself!

After John F. Kennedy's assassination, I was brutally stripped down and was custom re-built in Cincinnati, Ohio by Hess and Eisenhart and the rebuild was reported to cost a whopping $500,000.00! My regal navy blue was covered with black and I was slung with armor plating, (1,600 lbs worth, increasing my overall weight to 10,000 lbs. )

Solid aluminum rims inside the tires to make them flat-proof, a permanent sedan roof, a new interior, an improved, two unit air-conditioning system with the extra unit in the trunk, my fuel tank was filled with porous foam to prevent an explosion in case a bullet penetrated me, electronic communications equipment, bulletproof glass and cosmetic alterations to remove damage incurred during the assassination. They also beefed me up with a more powerful motor with 17% more power.

My rebuild finished in May of  1964, I was placed back into service and carried President Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter before thankfully being retired in 1977. My odometer showing over one hundred thousand miles!

I have done more than I ever thought would be asked of me, but isn't that how a life of service is?

These photographs were shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.

I Carried The President Of The United States!

My name is Bubble Top  and I carried The President of the United States!

President Harry Trueman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B Johnson


I am a 1950 Lincoln Cosmopolitan and was one of two identical delivered.


 President Trueman was my first! I was delivered to the White House with nine other shiny, closed roof limousines because the existing fleet was quite out of date. The President felt it was a modern age and he should have modern vehicles.

 President Eisenhower was the one who had my Plexiglass bubble top made and installed so he could see out and be seen. Before that, I was a convertible. 
See the window panel just where he stood in the back seat that would protect him? 

I was especially built as a Presidential car and had many security features right from the start with a wide, rear bumper and platforms for the Secret Service men to ride on. No hand holds though! Yipee!


 Many artful touches were added making me fit for the President, such as gold plating, reading lights and letter desks. Advanced electronics were also installed, providing such features as a two way intercom between the passengers and driver and full power windows. The President could control them all right from his comfortable seat.

My driver sat exposed to the elements though... Oh Well! That was his job!
He could play my radio and he had air conditioning!


 Born in 1950 and finally, after seventeen years of service to my country, they let me retire in 1967!


Only 18 cars like me were built and nine of them went to the White House where they shipped the other 8 around the United States to places Truman frequented. They remained closed top cars though.


These photographs were shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.