Some Old Scanned Pictures

Today while going through my Pictures file, I came across some scanned pictures of my dad, George Reely and my grandma, Elva Shaffer..After I left home in December 1975, 6 months after graduating High School, I had a lot of angry feelings toward my dad…A lot of people do not know how I was treated by him when he was with other women…When he was by himself and it was just us and him, the times we had were great…But after my son was born in 1977 and we moved back to the Baltimore area, I felt that I needed to get over my anger towards him and let him see his grandson…There weren’t to many times that we saw him…Most of the time he wasn’t home…But as I look back now, I wish that he was still alive so he could enjoy seeing his great grandchildren and grandchildren…I know that Brandi and him would have gotten along great cause they both like to play pool…A lot of summers I spent time with my grandma up in the Heights on Boston Street…I had a lot of good times there..Family was always nearby…I could play with my cousins when we all were out of school…I also found some old pictures of my dad…He looks like a gangster…Wanted Dead or Alive…The pictures aren’t all that great and not straight when I had scanned them…I believe I must have been in a hurry to just get them scanned…

The top row of pictures are his gangster looking photos…I came across these in some old photos that he had…The one to the left in the second row is my dad and his brother, Uncle Ted…He was my favorite uncle out of my dad’s 8 brothers and sisters…The one to the right on the second row is my dad, Grandpa George, and my son, Josh…This was taken approximately in the summer of 1978…The bottom row was taken at the Inner Harbor, Baltimore and I have no idea what year it could have been and the bottom right is before my dad died in Sept. 1989..

These photos I have no idea of when these were taken…As you can see the second row on the left, that was taken back in the late 1950’s about the time of when I was born or early 1960’s…The one to the right, second row, is a Thanksgiving dinner sometime around 1972 with my dad’s girlfriend, Ms. Em…She was a very nice lady from time to time…My dad loved decorating up the yard for Halloween…It was always spooky when he would dig a hole in the ground for a vampire box and come out of it to scare people…He would always dress up as a vampire to give the awesome effect…The beatnik to the bottom right is my dad…I found another picture of me as a baby and him dressed the same way, so this picture had to be taken summer 1958..As you can see, my dad was skinny as a rail and who should I take after, my mother…Drats!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These pictures to the right are of my grandma…She lived in a not so good part of Baltimore City…She was on food stamps and we walked every day down to the grocery store or to the corner drug store to get a fountain soda…Then we would walk back up the hill to her place and rest along the wall so she could catch her breath…We, my brother and I, would spend the whole summer with her from the time that I was 9 years old until about 13 or 14 years old…She would curl my hair with a curling iron that had to be heated up on the stove…We would play cards all the time and watch tv…but when I was bad, I had to go to a bush and pick out a switch that was going to be used on my butt…Of course, like all kids, a small switch would be picked out…Needless to say, that didn’t work…but it was rare that she would use one on us…I don’t know what happened to the relationship we had but all I remember is that she had to go live with my aunt…and then I remember being told that she died…I’m fortunate to have a few pictures of her…This grandma is my dad’s mother…I don’t have any pictures of my mother’s family except for a few pictures of my Uncle Rick…As for grandparents or another uncle, there are no pictures that I have…I have memories of a grandfather on his death bed and he would not pass until he saw my brother and I…We talked to him and then he passed…I remember crying…

This is my house on 1919 Tyler Road…I do not know the year of this picture but I know that it changed a lot after I was born and was growing up..My dad worked with drywall and he knew how to build walls and tear them down…I never knew what my house would look like when I got home from school…but I do believe that this house was in the late 1950’s, after I was born, or around the early 1960’s…Tyler Road was one of the President streets not far from Dundalk High School..Up the street was Minnicks Bar and Lounge and a little corner store where lots of goodies could be bought cheap…The house was next to the railroad tracks…The train would come through every night but I would sleep right on through the night…The garage in the background in the second photo was turned in to a recreation building with a bar, pool table, bumper pool table, ping pong and darts…I had a lot of fun playing pool and other games back there…My dad built a cement above ground swimming pool when I was about 10 or 11 years old…That was very interesting..I hope to one day find some more pictures of my house and how he changed it…The upstairs wall didn’t have a window but he put one in and that was where my bedroom was while my brother’s room was on the other side of the house upstairs…Unfortunately, I have  a lot of good memories with a lot of bad memories within this home…

My dad had a slew of brothers and sisters..I think about 9 or 11 in all…so I had lots of cousins…It’s a shame that I never really was able to stay in touch with them…Someday on Facebook, if I can remember their last names, I may be able to get in touch with them…or I can just ask my brother, Philip…There was one uncle that was my favorite…but he went to war over to Vietnam and when he came back, he was never the same…It was such a shame and I missed him terribly and how he was before the war…

I’m very lucky to be posting these pictures…To all of you who keep in touch with relatives, keep it up…I now wonder if I should try a little harder to speak to my brother…It’s been years…

Brianna’s Visit of 4 Weeks – 9.28-10.25.09

Richard and I were lucky enough to be able to bring Brianna, our 4  year old granddaughter, back to VA with us for a few weeks.  We have been very lucky to have a daughter who enjoys that we like to bring one of the granddaughters with us to wherever we are at.

Unfortunately for Brianna there wasn’t much going on here at the campground.  All the festivities have gone astray since Labor Day weekend.  All the kids went back to school and during the week, it was just Brianna and I in the crafts room.  Every day I had to make sure that I took some dvd movies that she would enjoy watching, over and over.  Her favorite dvd movies to watch were Shrek and Shrek 2, Alice in Wonderland and sometimes Tinkerbell.  Most of the time she would watch Shrek 1.  Crafts was another one of her favorite past times.  During her stay with us, I think she must have done over 3o suncatchers to take back home.  Brianna did a couple of wood projects and she made a paper plate pumpkin that we could show other guests how to do for little ones.

Another one of her favorite things to do was to play Candyland, Dora Candyland.  Bri got it for her birthday and we brought the game down to the campground with us so that we could teach her how to play.  It was always fun to play cause when she didn’t get the “ICE CREAM card”, she thought one of us (whoever was playing with her at the time) was cheating.  Had to explain every time that the game is according to how the cards are flipped over and that there was no cheating allowed in this game.  She would get disappointed and say I don’t want to play anymore but we always finished out our game.  Richard and I would play 2 games each with her and just have a blast.  I do miss playing Dora Candyland with her.

Brianna, as always, loved going for her golf cart rides.  Every morning she would wake up and the first thing she would ask her Poppy is "Can we go for a golf cart ride?”.  Here it has been cool and damp in the mornings so there was no chance of going first thing in the morning.  After the sun came out and around noon or so, Brianna and Poppy would go for their golf cart ride.  According to Richard, he would take his camera sometimes and he would try to get a picture and all he would hear is “Poppy” and then she would knock his arm.  It took him a while to realize not to take a camera with him.  But they did make a  stop once or twice at the playground.  Brianna knew exactly where the playground was located and she knew where all the roads led.  He would ask her where she wanted to go and she would always point the way to the playground.  How smart is she? 

Brianna loved to help out the guests on Saturdays of October.  She enjoyed watching guests do tye dye shirts or socks.  As a matter of fact, she always wanted to help them work on their shirts or socks.  Brianna would help me give the guests paint brushes and water.  What a great help she was.  For the Halloween weekends, we had to do some decorating.  One of our things to do was to put up window clings on the big windows up in the crafts room.  What a great help she was. Brianna put up most of the window clings.  Then we worked on the orange & black streamers.

The best thing that I liked about Brianna is that she was very friendly.  She also knew her way around the crafts room, the spider room, the cafe, the store/office  and the comfy room areas.  I had no fear of where she would go.  She knew not to go out the doors.  She could also watch the big screen tv downstairs in the movie room.  The thing she always did was to get herself a miniature golf club and a golf ball and hit the ball around.  The unfortunate part of her stay was that we never got a chance to play miniature golf cause the weather was always so bad.  Too cold, chilly, rainy or damp.  It sucked.  But we will have next summer when the girls will be here for a whole week staying in a cabin. 

The one thing we did do was go north on the Blue Ridge Parkway from Rte. 52 south in Va. We stopped by the Lakeview Restaurant right next to the Parkway ramp.  It was lunch time so Richard, Bri and I had a good lunch before going north.  We had a little bit of fun in the restaurant booth.   After lunch, we headed north on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We were hoping to see the beautiful foliage that every one was talking about.  We drove for miles and really couldn’t see too much foliage that was beautiful.  Most of the trees were already losing their leaves and colors.  But every once in a while, a beautiful tree would come in to view along with the landscape of the houses, barns, or other buildings.  The one place we were going to go to is Mabry Mill.  It use to be an old farming place and was now turned in to a tourist place.  The day was beautiful, sunshine, and no rain.  We all got out of the truck and started walking.  Brianna was having fun outside.  All over the field, there was old farming equipment, an old barn, an old mill, old house and other older buildings.  There was even a moonshine area.  After walking around and getting all the pictures we wanted, we stopped by the restaurant.  The first thing that Bri sees is the ice cream freezer box and on the front of it is a push-up cone.  She goes outside to ask Poppy is she could have a push-up.  So we waited while she ate her ice cream.  We finished our walk back to the truck and got more pictures.  Now it was time to head home. 

On Sunday, 10.25, Brianna went home.  We did take the girls out for breakfast to the Lakeview Restaurant.  After that, we came home and started to get her things packed up and in the car.  The girls spent a little bit of time in the crafts room finishing up some crafts or doing a few crafts.  About 1pm, it was time to pack the girls up and all their stuff.  Everyone came back to the rv, the girls got a freezie pop before leaving.  It was time for them to drive off.  We waved goodbye and after they got up the road, Richard and I headed to the deck of our rv.  We both were crying cause they were leaving.  Sure do miss them.  We can’t wait until next summer for the whole week of them staying.

We Love You All and Miss You All.  All our hugs and kisses.