I’ve never seen anything like it, but our sink started to shatter. Nothing big, but the pieces were all over the counter top. So I took a picture to show management.
They dutifully changed out the entire sink for us. It also happened to make a great monochrome.
Janet has a similar black and white and some thoughts about how black and whites can sometimes seem the same using a great analogy about Scotch and whiskey that I really appreciated.
All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons, 2021.
Who owns who? Sadly, we let our cell phones rule us.
All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2021.
We had to wait. I told the boys that we were going kayaking on the Brazos two weekends ago, and it turned out the Waco Paddle Co., was closed, due to the river being too high. Can you imagine the disaster waiting to happen when amateur kayakers getting swept down the river by a swift current? It was good they were closed.
They were open this past weekend and I made reservations. However, this time, weather forecasters were predicting thunderstorms around 10:45 a.m., and it looked like they might be right. Our reservation was at 10 a.m. I called and to see if I could cancel. They said I could. But I decided, since we were already in the car, to see if we could get on the river nonetheless. We could, and we did.
For two hours we paddled, raced, relaxed and enjoyed the wildlife. Andy even pointed to a duck sitting on a log, and said, “Hey Dad, a sitting duck,” literally. All the while, the clouds looked foreboding and it lightly rained. We actually enjoyed the threat of a gully washer. It was part of the adventure.
As we headed for the car, the heavy rain finally hit and didn’t let up for several hours. We would spend the rest of the day staying dry.
All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2021.
Spotted this mobile boutique at the Waco Chalk Festival and thought it was a great idea. Not sure that I would ever use something like that, but I imagine the rent is cheap.
All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons.
From Randy’s Chicken Ranch.
I like this corner…
Joining the Brashley’s Mid-Week Monochrome.
All images are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2021.
All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2021.
Seems like an odd piece of farming equipment to me.
All photos are copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2021.
I finished drinking my iced tea that my wife makes for me every day, and went to fill the cup with some Bubbly. I noticed she left me a surprise in the tumbler.
I’m always a bit nervous when I hop in the car with my camera. I think this is why I take my boys with me. I like to have them along for the ride, and for the extra set of eyes. It was no surprise that we all saw these doors, or lack of doors at the same time. How could you miss it? There, on one end of an empty field, was the remains of an entry way to some kind of building. I had to stop and take pictures. It was perfect for Thursday Doors, only, it’s more of a case of Thursday Missing Doors, since the doors were gone, and all that still stands is an entry way.
That is all there was for the Sanger Avenue Grade School. There has to be a story. Without looking, I imagined the school was built by the WPA during the depression, and didn’t wear well. I’m sure it had plumbing that didn’t last, walls full of asbestos, a heating system that was dangerous, along with a complete lack of air conditioning. I can remember days during the 1960s when I sat in a school room without air conditioning, so it’s hard to imagine this one had any at all. In central Texas, that can mean long, drowsy days, with a lot of unproductive learning sessions. Kind of like our Covid days now.
But the door itself is a bit misleading. According to a history page for Waco, the school was actually built in 1904. There were renovations in 1930, which led to the only lasting remnant for the building. There were plans to turn it into something worthy of the building until money ran short, and arsonists hit in 2008. Even then, the building stood for a few more years. It was bulldozed in 2010. Sad. You can read the history here.
I’m glad I find the courage to go looking for things. It was neat to discover something so filled with history and mystery, and sad to think of its demise. I hope you enjoy the photos.
Joey asking, “where is the rest of the building?”
All photos copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2021.
I forgot this one… Alice doing time… waiting to learn to walk!
Shared by Jessica.
These photos copyright © Jessica Turner 2021.
And only one? Indeed, it is lonely.
Photo copyright © Timothy J. Hammons 2021.
I was letting Andy have a few dark chocolate peanut butter cups from Trader Joe’s on Sunday, because he was with us without his brother. I wanted him to feel special. This is the first time that we have had one boy without the other.
Given that, I was trying to get him to savor the chocolate. We don’t normally let the boys have the Trader Joe’s chocolate because we have to drive to get it, and I can’t eat most normal chocolates. Or I should say, I won’t eat most normal chocolates. Trader Joe’s does not use high-fructose corn syrup in their chocolates. High-fructose corn syrup is to candy what MSG is to Chinese food. It is in all the major candies and the reason that a one-pound bag of M&Ms is never enough. Satisfaction with these candies is an allusion.
Not so with Trader Joe’s. Satisfaction can be had. There is a point where enough-is-enough.
But back to the main issue. I wanted Andy to savor the chocolate because it is so much better when eaten slowly, and allowed to dissolve on the tongue. He wasn’t really having any of that, and just ate it.
That is when Heidi said: “well there is more than one way to skin a cat?”
It was appropriate for the moment. Andy didn’t want to eat the chocolate the way I eat it, which was fine. But what delighted me was the Andy immediately responded: “why would I want to skin a cat?”
Not that he was the first to ask that question, but that he asked the question at all. That shows that he is thinking, which is a hard commodity to find in people these days. Most people don’t want to think.
I saw an example of this last week while talking to a woman about having to wear masks. I am opposed to them because of the data amassed before our current pandemic. It all pointed to the uselessness of masks in preventing the spread of such viruses. There is plenty of evidence currently on the internet, and I shared it with the woman. She was having none of it. She just wanted to do what the government and Dr. Fauci said to do. She didn’t want to think about it.
It was disappointing.
I don’t want my boys go grow into men who don’t want to think about things, especially religious truths and politics. I want them to think about these things. I want them to be self-consciously Christian and conservative in these areas. I want them to have a Biblical worldview, because they have given these issues thought and because they don’t listen to the voices of our leaders, but listen to the voice and Word of our King. Yes, we are to give our leaders the respect of their office. But we are never to check our brains at the door and blindly follow them.
So yes, ask the question: “why would anyone want to skin a cat?”
Andy and I went hiking in a nearby park on Sunday, and the following are a few of the pictures we took.
Walking the rails…
