Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Automobiles Did Your Ancestors Own?

It's either "everything old is new again" or a flash of déjà vu this week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, as another blogger contributes a topic that Randy Seaver has covered previously.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

1.  What automobile models did your ancestors have?  Pick an ancestor and share something about his cars.

2.  Share your information about your ancestor's car(s) in your own blog post, write a comment on this blog post, or put it in a Substack post, Facebook Note, or some other social media system.  Please leave a comment on this post so others can find it.

NOTE:  I can use ideas for different SNGF topics.  Please e-mail me (randy.seaver@gmail.com).

Thank you to Lisa Gorrell for this week's SNGF challenge topic.

Randy asked us about family cars on November 25, 2017, and I wrote a very detailed post about our cars then, with comments from my father about even more cars, including many of which I had no memory.  That post is here.

Since then I have not added any new vehicles, although I do keep thinking about finding another motorycle for myself.  Maybe this summer I'll do that.

I have followed up on one thing my father wrote:  He and my mother rode to Death Valley (who was taking care of my brother and me?) with the Norwalk Centaurs motorcycle club.  I discovered that they still exist and have a Facebook page!  I have contacted them and asked whether they have any photos of the 1963 or 1964 trip to Death Valley.

My father took photographs of cars everywhere he went.  My guess is that any car that looked interesting to him, he would take photos.  You can see some of those photos and read more about my father and cars by clicking here.

I really need to take a photo of my current car, the Toyota RAV4, for the family archive.  Since I haven't done that yet, I'll include a photo of my brother and sister sitting on the Indian that was in my 2017 car post.

Mark and Stacy Sellers, probably in La Puente, California, 1967

Happy Birthday, Mark!

It's my brother's birthday!  And I've managed to put together a short (random) timeline of photos from over the years.

July 1963

Circa 1964-1965 (with me)

1967 (with me)

1971

1990's

2001 (with our father and sister)

Early 2000's (with our stepnephew)

Circa 2010's

Circa 2010's (with our father)

2016

2018 (with his son, wife, daughter, and me)

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday, Baby Brother!

It's my brother's birthday!  So I decided to celebrate by posting this black and white study that our father took of him.  This was at our father's house in Mary Esther, Florida, but I don't know what year (maybe Mark will know).  Since it's in black and white, Daddy may have developed it himself, although I don't remember him having a dark room at this house.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

Researching Some Family Photographs

I have written about the digital photo bonanza that I received from my sister and how I have been trying to identify as many of the photos as I can.  I've posted some of them on my blog and asked other family members for assistance in filling in details.  We haven't been doing very well.

One of the photos that has been discussed is this one of my mother standing in front of a red car.

Some of the questions:  What kind of car is that?  (My brother commented that the details on the car are blurry, but that's how the scan looks.  My sister has not weighed in with any comments based on the original.)  Was it my family's car?  Where was this photo taken?  California?  Nevada?  Where are the three of us kids?  (My aunt insisted she can see us in the back seat, but I'm not buying it.)

I went back through the photo scans and discovered three more dated Apr 70 that seem to have been taken around the same time.

My father (photo apparently taken by my mother)

My mother (same clothes), my brother, and the same car

My mother (different clothes) staring off into the distance

After some diligent and focused online searches, the car has now been identified as a 1970 Toyota Crown Station Wagon.  It helped that my father told me in 2017 that we had a 1970 Toyota Station Wagon at one point, but the clincher was finding a press photo from when the 1970 Crown was released.  The details match the car in the first photo exactly.

Of course, some questions remain.  Where were the photos taken?  The picnic table makes it look like some sort of campground.  I remember that we used to go camping occasionally, but I remember almost nothing about the places we went.

Why do my sister and I not appear in the photos?  Are there additional photos from this trip that I haven't run across yet in the files that were sent to me where we do show up?

And since when did my family own a new car?

But I think great progress has been made.

National Bowling Day

Even though I lived in California and my brother lived in Maryland, I used to be guaranteed I would see him at least once every three years, because he would travel to Reno, Nevada for the big amateur bowling tournament that took place in the National Bowling Stadium that was constructed for that very purpose.  I would reserve my timeshare in Reno so he would have a place to stay, and I got to see my brother.  Pretty good deal, if you ask me.

Now that he's married and has kids, I guess he doesn't have the same amount of time for bowling.  On the other hand, I don't live in California anymore, nor do I have the timeshare.  But I looked forward to seeing him and watching him bowl.

So to celebrate National Bowling Day, here's a photo of him bowling.  I don't know what year it's from, unfortunately (maybe he does).  He bowled left-handed, just like Earl Anthony.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's . . . .

Today is April 15, now probably most famous in the United States for being Income Tax Day, the deadline to file one's federal (and often state) income taxes, or at least make your payment while you extend your filing date for six months.  The date was codified in 1955 and varies sometimes depending on holidays, weekends, and events such as the COVID pandemic.

In 1912, the RMS Titanic sank on April 15, after having glancingly hit an iceberg the night before.

And in 1865, President Abraham Lincoln died, succumbing to the gunshot wound inflicted on him by John Wilkes Booth on April 14.

But even more important than any of these events, April 15 is my little brother's birthday.

Happy birthday, Mark!

Me and Mark, about 1964–1965

Wordless Wednesday

 

Fishing with My Father

Today is not only Father's Day, it's also National Go Fishing Day.  I figured I could cover them both by writing about fishing with my father.  Brilliant, right?

Daddy used to like to fish for bass, but I wasn't that crazy about eating bass.  I liked fishing for catfish.  There's something about catfish and the steaklike texture of the fillets that I just love.

Since we were freshwater fishing in Florida, we would catch mud cats, apparently more properly known as flathead catfish.  They're scavengers that live on the bottom of creeks and rivers, ergo the mud in their nickname.  I don't remember what we used for bait, but the Wikipedia page about them says live bait is preferred, so it may have been small fish or possibly worms.

One of the interesting things about catfish is their skin.  They don't have scales.  Instead their skin is kind of like leather.  Like scales, you don't eat it.  Unlike scaling a regular fish, however, it's necessary to peel off their skin.

That was something I always left to my father.  I had a great time going out fishing with him, and I was always happy when we caught catfish.  But he was in charge of skinning them.

The way he did it was to nail the catfish's head to the porch and then, wearing heavy gloves, use pliers to peel the skin off the body.  I freely admit it was not something that I wanted to do.

Then we would have yummy catfish fillets for dinner.  I think my mother lightly fried them.  They were always delicious.

Another fun thing about catfish is that I was always told that their spines are poisonous.  I don't think it's supposed to be enough to actually kill you, unless maybe you're just a little kid, but I guess enough to make you sick.

One time when we had catfish for dinner, my brother was put in charge of taking the trash out afterward.  The spines and nasty bits of the catfish were on the bottom of the trash bag.  He took the bag out, dumped it upside down, and mashed it down so that the trash can lid would close — and stuck himself with a catfish spine.

He ran into the house screaming, blood spurting out of his hand.  My mother, who didn't deal well with blood in general and especially not her children's blood, became hysterical.  I had to tell my sister to get her out of the room because she was just freaking out.  I got my brother to sit down and I bled out the wound as best I could.  And now that I think of it, I don't remember my father being there.  Hmm, where was he?

I also don't remember if my brother went to the doctor the next day or did anything to follow up, but he didn't get sick, so I guess I did a decent job (or maybe the spines aren't actually poisonous after all).  He developed a small lump in his palm where the spine had stabbed him, and years later he finally had to have it removed.

photo by Bébéranol

Used under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: 20 Years Ago

The topic for today's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun was somewhat expected.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) Today is September 11, and the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States.  Where were you, what were you doing, and how did it affect you?

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

On September 11, 2001, I was working for the Seismological Society of America in El Cerrito, California, Pacific time zone.  I usually went in early, around 7:00 or 7:30 a.m.  I did not hear anything about the attacks until I was already at work, because I didn't turn on a TV in the morning.

I don't really remember, but I don't recall that anyone else who came in to the office that day (a small staff of four people, including me) knew either when they arrived.  Apparently we were a rather insular bunch.

Sometime during the morning we found out.  I think that someone outside the office told me, and I told the others.  We didn't have a TV in the office, but we were able to watch some news videos on the computers.

We didn't talk about it very much, and I don't remember us leaving the office early.  Like I said, we were rather insular.

I lived by myself, so when I got home after work I had no one to talk to other than my pets, who never were big on conversation.  I turned on the television for company.  I had seen the CNN footage several times already, so I tried to find something else to watch, even if just for a new take on the attacks.  I went through the entire line-up of channels I had available, probably 40 or 50 at the time.  Every network but two was replaying the same CNN footage.  The only two that were not were Food Network and Comedy Central.  Food Network, which is based in New York City, had posted a static slide expressing sympathy for everyone who had suffered a loss.

Comedy Central was the only network that was airing programming unrelated to the attacks.  I watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for the first and last time in my life.  The guests that day were John Linnell and John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants.  I watched not only because there was nothing else on but because I have actually seen them perform several times and have met them.  I learned that they have been friends with Stewart for a long time and that they apparently know each other from New Jersey (along with a friend of mine, who used to be one of the band's managers).  Or something similar to that.  I'm a little fuzzy on the details.

Somehow, on a very surreal day, it seems appropriate that I watched two guys known for their surreal lyrics and absurdist take on music.

Addendum:

People rarely write, or are asked to write, about what happened in the days following the attacks.  I remember that my brother and several of his work colleagues were in Los Angeles for a conference.  They all lived in the Washington, D.C. area.  Air travel was cancelled indefinitely, so they were told to keep themselves amused in Southern Califorina.  They went one day to Disneyland and commented that they had never seen it so empty; they were able to ride all the rides they wanted to multiple times.  As fun as that was, however, they became bored quickly and decided if they couldn't fly home, they would drive.  They found a rental car and made it across the country in an extremely short time.  I think my estimate was something like an average of around 75–80 mph for the trip.  My brother said he could neither confirm nor deny the results of my mathematical skills but did concede that they had been trading off driving shifts so as not to need to book any hotel rooms on the way back.

Happy Ninth Anniversary!

Today is the 9th anniversary for my brother and my sister-in-law, who were married in Elkridge, Maryland.  They chose November 12 as their wedding date as they wanted to honor my deceased mother, whose birthday was November 11, but did not think it appropriate to have the wedding on her actual birthday.  Ergo, it took place the day after.

The traditional gifts for the 9th anniversary, per the lists on Wikipedia, are pottery or leather goods in the United States (or copper in the United Kingdom).  Those sounded kind of blah to me, so I figured a blog post commemorating their special day was a nicer gift.

Happy anniversary!

Wordless Wednesday