Exploring what's possible with punctuation.
Since you clicked, I will divulge some information. My name is Holroyd Hammond, sole proprietor, owner and caretaker of this site. I post as “the editor” for security purposes. You never can be too careful.
Here are some pictures of a 1979 Blue Bird Wanderlodge that I wish I could buy. The WanderLodge was (and is) a top-of-the line moterhome and this one is equipped with all the bells and whistles that were available back then. It sold for $115,000 in 1979! This one is in mint condition and ready to roll.
Meet Baby Girl, my daughter Robin’s sweet dog who is staying with me for a while. Ain’t she cute?
When I was a kid growing up on military bases I used to know some guys who had a lot of stuff. One guy had monster models. These weren’t like the little action figures they have now, but they were plastic models that you put together and painted and they were about 8 to 10 inches high and stood on little scenery stands. He had Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy, the Werewolf, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and ones like that. The models stood around in his room like grotesque. silent sentinels.
Other guys had AMC 3-in-1 car models. These were neat because you could customize them all different ways and paint them and put on decals and things. They always had empty model boxes with paint, glue, decals, extra parts and stuff in them.
One guy built plastic model airplanes and military models like tanks, half-tracks, and jeeps and had them all around in his room. He even had planes hanging from the ceiling on strings in authentic attitudes of flight.
Another guy knew how to make gunpowder and he made homemade guns and miniature cannons that would shoot. One was a replica of a Napoleonic era cannon. We’d build dirt fortifications and put army men in them and shoot them with the cannons. This guy’s dad was a Marine and the guy was kind of like a Marine, too, and he really wasn’t one of those that had a lot of stuff but I thought I’d mention him anyway.
The guys that really had a lot of stuff would always have their own rooms and their rooms would be full of their stuff. A lot of them even had sort of a theme to their rooms and the stuff would be a part of the theme: you know, one guy with a monster theme, another with a car theme, another with planes. They usually had a lot of neat stuff in their drawers, too.
My brother and I didn’t really have a lot of stuff like that; not that we were poor or anything – we were military kids – but we just didn’t: usually a bed and somewhere to put our clothes and maybe an Ouija board and a Monopoly game. We didn’t decorate our room with themes.
Some of the guys back then had crystal radios and a few even had transistor sets. The crystal sets were neat because the transistors and crystal and wires and stuff were just on a board and you would try to tune a station and it would scratch and whistle and sometimes tune in to something that sounded like it was coming from outer space. Cool.
We were all military kids. That’s how we grew up. Some of the guys had been to Okinawa or somewhere in the Orient and had those silk looking jackets with dragons and stuff on them and their parents had a lot of Oriental stuff in their houses.
We played guns a lot: you know, army. Even with this some of the guys had all kinds of army stuff: web belts with canteens and ammo pouches, and those toy rifles that were replicas of the M1 and had wooden stocks and bolt actions and everything. My brother and I usually just shot with our fingers. I killed a lot of guys that way.
We used to play dieing: you know, see who could get shot and die the best. Once I got shot and died and fell out of a tree. The guys all thought I was a good die-er. My favorite was to charge a machine gun nest and get cut down.
But, anyway, back to stuff. Stuff is important. Most people have a lot of it. Some people will even kill or at least fight real hard to protect their stuff. I have a lot of stuff myself, now. Mostly books and stacks of paper. Sometimes I spend time organizing my books and moving and re-stacking my stacks of paper. When that’s done I sometimes feel that I’ve accomplished something. Once in a while I’ll go through the stacks and try to throw some stuff away, but most times I don’t.
Stuff can get in the way, too, such as when you’re dusting, vacuuming, or cutting the grass. It can be a problem as well, such as deciding what to take if you have to evacuate your home or something. But the guys on Wall Street, especially, are really into it, in-the-way or not. See, the more stuff we buy the higher the stocks go and the more stuff they (the guys on Wall Street) can buy. Stuff really makes the world go ’round.
It’s almost like everywhere you look is stuff. Everywhere. Especially in, say, a Wal Mart or something. There’s a lot of stuff in a Wal Mart. Sometimes it’s hard to see other things for all the stuff.
Yeah, a lot of the guys I knew when I was a kid had a lot of stuff; heck, they probably still do. Anyway, I didn’t have a lot of girl friends back then, but I would like to have seen what kind of stuff they had.
Cliff and Millie were married on Saturday, October 24, 2009 at the chapel at The Cliffs. The Cliffs is an beautiful residential community situated atop a 3,000-foot plateau on the side of Glassy Mountain in northern Greenville County, South Carolina and the chapel sits alone at the very top. The view from there is breath-taking. The wedding and reception later at the club house were simple yet elegant. It was a beautiful and happy occasion.
If you have ever driven down Highway 501 on the way to Myrtle Beach, you have probably seen the signs advertising Sparky’s near Marion, SC. The signs appear every few hundred feet for ten miles or so as you approach from either direction. The thing that caught my eye the other day is the proclamation on some of these signs that “Sparky’s Got It All.”
Something about that bothered me. See, Sparky’s is the name of the place, so “Sparky’s Got It All” just didn’t sound right. I wasn’t sure whether that meant that Sparky’s (Has) Got It All or that Sparky’s Has Acquired It All. In all fairness I assume and am reasonably confident that the saying “Sparky’s Got It All” simply means that there is an entity called Sparky and he/she has a lot of stuff and that the writer of the ad is not too concerned with precise grammar. I decided that the next time I went by there I would stop and see if Sparky’s had or had acquired it all.
Here’s what I discovered:
Anyway, here’s some of the stuff that Sparky’s has:
Here’s some of the stuff Sparky’s doesn’t have:
Well, there you have it. Next time you’re down that way stop in and check it out. You might even see Sparky.
I remember first hearing this song back in 1968 and thinking it was one of the neatest songs I had ever heard; it still is. This video is very entertaining, too, and epitomizes the stylized videos of the era. Worth a watch.
And here are the lyrics:
We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
but the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray.And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face, at first just ghostly,
turned a whiter shade of pale.She said, ‘There is no reason
and the truth is plain to see’
But I wandered through my playing cards
and would not let her be
one of sixteen vestal virgins
who were leaving for the coast
and although my eyes were open
they might have just as well’ve been closed.
I move through a world of light and shadow; of breezes scented by wet oak leaves and pine; of forgotten roads and lost highways; of deserted buildings and towns with no names.
I dwell on a road leading down to the sea, in a yellow cottage with white trim. A walk leads up from the road, through a gate and to the front door. Tall grass waves in the summer breeze and girls in cotton dresses bend over to pick the wild flowers.
I haunt disused pastures and shady country lanes. I walk beside old fences and rest in sun-dappled spots of shade and feel the stillness of midday in a quiet, lonely spot.
I walk down lonely roads and empty city streets; see faces unknown but strangely familiar, never stopping to speak, moving on.
I commune with ghosts and spirits of loved ones passed as if I were in their world or they in mine.
I visit here fleetingly in dreams but once I may never come back.
