Elks Lodge, Johnson City, Tennessee, September 1, 1972
Colonial Heights, Kingsport, Tennessee, September 2, 1972
Dad sneaked me a few slides to have scanned in the run up to his and mom’s anniversary — these are some of my favorites from the festivities. Perfection.
…that my parents got married! If you’ve been following along for a while, you might recall that they were debate partners and high school sweethearts. Here’s their prom picture from 1966, my mom’s senior year, to jog your memory:
This weekend my siblings and I threw them an anniversary party, which you’ll read more about in coming days. In preparation for the event I spent a lot of time digging through the basement, scanning photos and hunting for video, and I managed to turn up a reel of super 8 film that my mom’s uncle shot on the day of their wedding. I had it converted, then edited it down (read: removed the really, really dark parts) and made a little movie to show at the party. It’s a bit fuzzy, but it’s a fun watch — especially if you know my family. My mom has, apparently, always been a total ham. Enjoy!
Laura & Jim, September 2, 1972 from Kathleen Poe Ross on Vimeo.
The camp/friend reunion over the weekend was super awesome (and super hot, even up in the mountains of Western NC). Here are a few pictures from the trip accompanied by one of my favorite quote/poem things that I read as a camper:
This is the land I love, these pine-clad hills
and ancient granite peaks, cloud-rimmed above.
There is a peace up high among these hills,
a solitude of soul, and God is nigh.
The valley down below may call to some;
but mountains beckon me, and I must go.
Yeah, it’s a little cheesy, but it holds up. Hope y’all had a beautiful weekend too. Bring on the mid-week holiday!
Posted in deep thoughts, friends, love, nerdery, nostalgia, things southern, travel
Now that it’s been a month since our second anniversary, I should probably post about it, huh? Last year’s celebration was a multi-day hit-and-miss affair; this year we decided to keep things low-key (and relatively inexpensive), particularly since it fell on a school night, so to speak.
Because Jon is forever a little kid when it comes to presents, the day started out with exchanging gifts. It’s possible I was still in bed when Jon brought me mine. The traditional gift for your second anniversary is something cotton; I love the challenge of sticking to a theme. Jon gave me a band t-shirt, and I gave him seersucker pants and a gift card toward a custom dress shirt. (I later noted that we each got the other their favorite form of cotton clothing. Good job us!) I also got Jon this awesome card: 
(He studied saxophone in college and now plays for the dog on occasion.)
That night after work, we got fancied up and had a lovely dinner at Empire State South. They didn’t have an appetizer I had seen and lusted after on the online menu and our waiter was kind of pretentious and inattentive, but the food was delicious and the meal didn’t totally break the bank; we counted it as a win. Besides, any meal that ends with phatty cakes is bound to be a triumph.
Pleasantly full, we left and drove around the block to the W Midtown, where we had lodged and afterpartied the night of our wedding, for a nightcap. As we entered the lobby, the doorman said, “Welcome back!” How did he know?
We ordered drinks in the lounge area then went in search of the secret cave beneath the staircase where we and our friends had spent a couple of hours once we left the clubby bar. I forget now who discovered it, but we were apparently quite lucky to have landed it that night, I was recently told; normally it’s a first-come-first-serve battle for those in the know. It was somewhat less lively with just the two of us, but it was cool to be back in that space and confirm that it was not merely a figment of our collective imagination.
Once we finished our drinks and marveled at how frickin’ weird W hotels are, we headed toward home, stopping on a whim at our friendly neighborhood Kroger to buy some scratch-off lotto tickets. None of the $10 worth of tickets we bought was a winner, alas. I’m gonna start playing our lucky/magic/sentimental numbers in the real lottery and see where that gets me…
But I digress. It’s hard to believe our amazing wedding was two years ago already, and that we’re, like, old married people. I was 26 when we got married! Now I’m almost 29!
Where does the time go? I have no idea, but I’m glad I get to spend most of mine with this guy.
Since today would have been my maternal grandfather’s 91st birthday, I’ve bumped this week’s Old-Timey Tuesday, which is drawn from the Abernathy archive, to Wednesday. When we were in Tennessee over Memorial Day for a family feed, my mom and her brothers were given a shoebox full of letters and photos from their parents that their cousins found while cleaning out their late parents’ home. It’s another goldmine, of course. The coolest find is the letter Grandpa Fred wrote to his mother sharing news of his engagement. Below are scans of the pages and the text of the letter. It’s pretty much the best thing ever.
Sept. 15, 1946
Dear Mother,
As I told you when I called today, I’m now engaged. Her name is Jean Reeves. She’s twenty years old, 5 ft 1¾ inches tall, weighs 101 lbs., brown hair, brown eyes, and a beautiful smile. I took some pictures today and will send those along as soon as they’re developed.
Her home is Taylors, S.C., about 8 miles from Greenville, S.C. Her father works in a textile mill there. She has one brother, younger than she is. She graduated from Winthrop College last June and came to work here on June 24. I met her a couple of weeks later but didn’t start dating her until Aug. 14. Since that time I’ve seen an awful lot of her. She rides to and from work with me and we eat breakfast out at the cafeteria every day.
We got along wonderfully right from the start and last Friday night [things] came to a head. I haven’t gotten her ring yet, but she’s wearing my pin, which means just as much to me as a ring. Guess those are the main facts about her. I know you’ll have a million more questions, and I’ll try to answer them as soon as I can. No definite date has been set for the wedding as yet and won’t be until we can find a place to live. That’s going to be a problem since there’s still a housing shortage around here.
I hope we’ll be able to get married on my vacation and if we do, we’ll come to Oklahoma on our honeymoon. We’re going to Greenville next weekend to meet her family. Wish you were close enough so I could bring Jean home some weekend. She’s a wonderful person, and I know you’ll like her very much.
A few more facts about her — She’s a Methodist, too; she is the secretary to the asst. division supt of my division. However, her office is quite a distance from mine. Dal and all the rest of my friends here approve of Jean very highly, and she’ll fit into the bunch wonderfully. Guess the most important thing is that I love her very much and she loves me. We both have about the same likes and dislikes, the same tastes in food, clothes, and recreation. I wish so much that Daddy was still alive so he could know her. I know he’d approve very highly. I hope you can be here for the wedding, but if you can’t, we’ll be home right after it. I’ll let you know as soon as the date is set.
I know you’re going to [be] real proud of me for picking a girl like Jean, Mother, after you get to know her. Guess that’s about all for right now. Any questions you want to know, fire away, and I’ll answer them the best I can. Give Frank my congratulations on pledging. I’ll write him as soon as I can.
Your loving son,
Fred.
Posted in family, love, nostalgia, Old-Timey Tuesday, social graces, weddings
Alliance Bank Stadium, Syracuse, New York, July 28, 2006
This is the first buddy-photo Jon and I ever took together. (By this point, three weeks into grad school “boot camp,” we all had been in lots of class and group photos taken, but weren’t super chummy yet.) Somehow I knew that Jon would be up for getting a picture with Scooch, the oddly nondescript SkyChiefs mascot, with me. It was the start of a beautiful friendship, in spite of Jon’s dragon t-shirt.
Posted in love, nerdery, Old-Timey Tuesday, sports, style
Evanston, Illinois, May 21, 2005
Tomorrow is Little Man’s seventh birthday, so tonight’s OTT is dedicated to him. This was taken the day after Little Man, a graduation present from my parents, arrived in my Evanston apartment. Was he not the cutest kitten of all time?
Posted in love, nostalgia, Old-Timey Tuesday, pets
Montreal, Quebec, May 2010
One of my Facebook friends posted photos from Montreal this week, which is what made me think of these pics. We were on the second leg of our honeymoon — the first being Quebec City — and as we drove into Montreal in our rental car, both of these tags grabbed my attention. I noted the street names at the fromage-loving intersection so we could pass by later while we explored the city on foot. Clearly these were photo opportunities not to be missed!
Smaller versions of these could be found all over that part of town, as it turned out. Who knew I had kindred spirits in the graffiti artists of Montreal?
Posted in art, love, Old-Timey Tuesday, travel
Room 501, 1835 Hinman Ave, Evanston, Illinois, September 2001
Ten years ago this week, I started college. We had planned to fly up on Thursday, September 13, but given the events of the preceding Tuesday we packed the Explorer and, with my two Northwestern-bound high school friends, caravanned from Atlanta to Evanston instead to get to New Student Week on time. (The upside of this was that packing for a car is much easier than packing for a plane.)
Earlier in the summer I had received a letter with my future roommate’s name and mailing address. I immediately wrote her a letter about myself, told her what my yahoo email address was and enclosed a picture of myself from senior prom (with my then-boyfriend cut out of it). When she referenced Tommy Boy in her emailed response (which I no longer have. Drat!), I knew we’d get along just fine.
This photo was likely taken on Sunday the 17th as our parents were about to leave us on our own for the first time and head back home to Georgia/Michigan less one child. Our equally enthusiastic cheesy thumbs-ups show that we were a match from the start — our folks didn’t have to worry about a thing. 501 4evr!
Posted in HUZZAH, love, nerdery, nostalgia, Old-Timey Tuesday
