The Long Walk Home

This post is not about the movie with the same name. Rather, this post seeks stories about the walk home from school. It is inspired by a previous post of John and Susan and a comment by Shari. Leave comments with your stories and I will update the post to include it. They do not have to be interesting, just memorable to you in some way.

To get the ball rolling, here are a few stories about walks home that I had.

In second grade I found a quarter on the sidewalk and was so excited that I went to a phone booth (!) and called my mom to tell her. She listened to my good fortune, and then explained that the quarter was gone now because I used it on the phone call. I didn't understand that the phone would not give me change back, as phone calls were only a dime then. I was upset the rest of the walk home. Seeing my distress when I arrived home, Mom gave me another quarter. Thanks for your kindness, Mom!

In third grade, Dave and I got stuck at a convenience store for hours when Defender started serving up free video games. Who in their right mind would pass up free video games? The party ended when my dad pulled up in his truck to get us. I think Karla and Shari told him where we were, which is a good thing because we would probably still be playing. I don't recall getting in much trouble over it, so thanks for your kindness, too, Dad!

On cold days, the neighborhood kids would march in a line blowing big puffs of steam, pretending to be a choo-choo train. We also cracked the ice on every frozen puzzle along the way.

Anyone else with stories about the walk home from school?

Proofsheet - G&G 06

The trickle of updates from the rolls of film that Ellen sent continues.


Some of these pictures appeared in the initial post when Ellen sent the rolls of film. Click for a larger image. Let us know in the comments if you would like GAP to post larger images of any of these.

Earth Week Wasp

I've posted pictures of bugs before, but thought this picture of a wasp on a compact fluorescent light fixture was an appropriate post for Earth Week. As my sister Shari likes to say, "Save the Earth!"


This is pretty much the limit of the macro mode on my point and shoot camera.

Proofsheet - G&G 05

Another small update from a roll of film that Ellen sent.


Because only one of the pictures is interesting, here is a larger image of Grandma and Grandpa (click for a larger image.).


UPDATE

Shari writes in the comments:

This looks like the photo they had on display at their 50th Wedding Anniversary party. Remember those sheet cakes they had? And all the people who came to the farm? Grandpa and Grandma are (understatement of the year) troopers.

Thanks, Shari! I don't remember the sheet cakes -- until I found eggless cakes I didn't pay much attention to cakes -- but I would love to get more pictures (and stories?) about their anniversary. And, yes, they are quite the troopers!

Grammar Nerd Question

In the recent post Proofsheet - G&G 04 we wrote "the rest of the roll either exists somewhere else or is lost." We treated "the rest of the roll" as a singular subject and, thus, used singular verbs. Should we have treated "the rest of the roll" as a plural subject and written "the rest of the roll either exist somewhere else or are lost"? Would it matter if we changed the subject to "the rest of the negatives"?

See, kids, grammar is not only important, it's fun!

UPDATE

Craig writes in support and I think I can rest easy now.

"rest" is singular. You are correct. "of ...whatever" is not important to the singularity of the rest.

Whew! Even if the rest of the family members is unsure, we should probably put this to rest. Thanks, Craig!

Dave also chimes in with the rest of the story.

Of course, there are different rules if you are using British English. In America, we would say "Italy has won the World Cup" (or "Italy wins the World Cup!!"), whilst in the UK they would say "Italy have won the World Cup" (or "Italy win the World Cup!!"). We consider a noun that represents multiple items (in this case, the name of a political unit made up of millions of people) to be singular, they regard it as plural.

But of course, they also say "maths" instead of "math," so there's really no reason to take their grammatical rules seriously.

Thanks for the worldview, Dave! I am kind of interested in what the English think of their grammar; the language is called English for a reason, after all. It seems that some people view the resolution of subject/verb agreement for compound nouns as not being so simple. I cannot say that any particular view is clearest, and I do not think the grammar police will arrest anyone for getting it wrong, but in the interest of restoring some manner of prestige to my grammar skills I will continue to wrestle with the issue to find the surest, purest, fairest rule of application. Or, whatever.

OTOH, the use of "maths" seems to be a spelling disagreement more than a subject/verb agreement disagreement. "Maths" is used as a singular, correct?

Proofsheet - G&G 04

Today we have a very small update from the film that Ellen sent. There are only two negatives showing preparations for Christmas in Grandma and Grandpa's basement. Because these negatives did not match any of the others in the package, the rest of the roll either exists somewhere else or is lost.


Click for a larger image. Let us know in the comments if you would like GAP to post larger images of any of these.

UPDATE

Ellen posts some information about the pictures and a poem (!) in the comments.

For years, Grandpa and Grandma would fill a Christmas stocking for every child and grandchild in the family. It took a lot of effort and quite a bit of money and the basement would be off limits to family members for weeks. These two pictures were separate from other negatives because I think Grandma used them in her family newsletters. She also wrote a poem about the family Christmas stocking project.

Christmas on Grandpa's Farm

On Grandpa's farm there's a basement door
That's sealed up tight from top to floor
And a great big sign in black and white
Says, "DO NOT OPEN 'TILL CHIRISTMAS NIGHT!"

(My Daddy says, when he was a kid,
He'd crawl under the porch where the windows hid
And try to see through the webs and gloom
What was hiding in that secret room.)

On Christmas morn we'd wait in delight
While Grandpa turned on the Christmas lights,
Then we'd burst through the door and shout with glee
And "Whee-Whee" round the Christmas tree.

On the walls of the room were dozens of socks
One for each person - present or not.
Then we'd pour all the gifts out on the floor
There must be a zillion million or more!

Later that day we'd creep down the stairs
To see if there might be more gifts down there,
But the door to the secret room stood wide
And there wasn't a single thing inside

Thanks, Ellen! GAP can never have too many stories and poems!

Ellen wrote commented again to clarify that, "that poem was written by Grandma Stutz, not Ellen." Duly noted!

Rowan Squires Stutz

Yesterday, April Fools Day, a post went up at the Stutz Barn announcing that Rowan Squires Stutz joined Jeremy, Emlyn, and Big Sister Millie as the newest member of their family. Details are slim -- all we know is March 18, 2010, 7:42 a.m., 7 pounds 1 ounce, 20 inches -- since the JEM show blog is now available by invitation only. At least we get a picture!


We are pretty sure this is no April Fools joke; certainly Rowan's cuteness is no joke. The closest analogy we can think of -- let's be honest: this is a stretch even for us -- is the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag, which started off as an April Fools Joke (Huh?), but turned out to be real (Yeah!), but then turned out to be both very expensive (Yowza!) and very awesome to have (Woohoo!). Congratulations from GAP!

Other Projects - Photo Restoration

In addition to scanning the negatives and pictures that Ellen sent, I have been working on some other projects unrelated to family history. One of the more interesting ones is a photo of President and Mrs. Johnson that I restored for a friend at work.


In these before and after pictures, you can see (click for a larger image) that the original was very faded and retained very little color information. After scanning, and using only Photoshop Elements 5 (I still have not invested in a newer program!), I was able to tease some color and detail out of the picture. The steps I took were:

1. Straighten and crop the picture;
2. Fix and saturate color;
3. Improve the contrast and highlight/shadow detail;
4. Sharpen image;
5. Remove dust, scratches, and other blemishes; and
6. Reduce grain and other noise in the image.

The results are not perfect -- certainly not as as nice as a new picture -- but they are not too bad, especially considering the original image. It took a lot of trial and error, but short of painting on color (which I did not do) the picture is quite usable. I even received a box of cookies and brownies out of it!

I am not trained in photo restoration, and undoubtedly a professional could do more. But, if you poke around at a hobby long enough -- and I've been poking around a digital archiving for a little while -- you can get pretty good results.

UPDATE

Ellen writes in the comments, "Way to go, Rob. That's pretty cool how you can do that." Thanks, Ellen. I enjoy doing it!

Craig then adds, "Now see if you can photoshop grandma next to LBJ."


I'm not great at photo manipulation but, what the heck, here by request is Ladybird Stutz. Now, if you can identify which image Grandma's face is from -- it is from one of Grandpa's slides -- I will be really impressed.

Mystery Picture 100330

Well, we didn't have any luck identifying the kids in the previous mystery picture. Today, though, we have something a little more unusual.


This picture was from today's proofsheet post. I would assume they are atriplex seeds, but, well, I know what some of you might say if I did that. So, let's put the question out there. Does anyone know what these are and why there is a picture of them?

Proofsheet - G&G 03

As we slowly add more proofsheets to GAP, here is from a roll of film that Ellen sent.


Click for a larger image. Let us know in the comments if you would like GAP to post larger images of any of these.

Poll - John, the Complete Man

GAP proudly presents its first family poll.

John's recent comment that he "would have been a complete man if only Mom and Dad (Grandpa and Grandma) would have bought me the coon skin hat" followed by a laundry list of his childhood heroes got us thinking. Hmm, there must be something we can do with this.

In Which Hero Costume Would John Look Most Like a Complete Man?

Vote early, dip your finger in purple, and give thanks that you live in a democracy!

Rippin'est, Roarin'est, Fightin'est Man the Frontier Ever Knew!

Fess Parker died today. He is not family, and his television fame as Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone predates me. In fact, I would not have noticed his passing had I not come across his name earlier in a family picture.

When I was scanning some of Grandpa's slides a few months ago I became curious about this picture of John and Susan playing in the snow (developed in April 1967). What was John holding?


I opened the largest scan I had, zoomed in (click to see the big picture), and made out the words "Fess Parker" and a picture of a frontiersman.


After some poking around on Wikipedia and eBay (thanks, interwebs!) I found a better picture of the lunchbox and some history about Fess Parker.


And now I'm curious. What other Fess Parker gear did John have? For that matter, what other childhood heroes were people fans of?

As I look at the family pictures, I sometimes wonder about the details in them and the stories they hold.

UPDATE

Susan writes in the comments "wow, now that's a blast from the past" and John adds:

That lunch box was one of my favorite treasures including the matching thermos inside. I would have been a complete man if only Mom and Dad (Grandpa and Grandma) would have bought me the coon skin hat. In addition to Daniel Boone, I had my eye on Flash Gordon, The Lone Ranger, Jungle Jim, Zorro, And of course Super Man. Oh the good old days....!

Thanks, Susan and John!

Shari also writes, "You guys must have been walking home from school. :)" Ah, the fond memories of walking home from school. I should do a post on this, because in my memories I did enjoy the walk home. Thanks, Shari!

Proofsheet - G&G 02

We are making our way through a couple of projects right now, so the postings have been (and will continue to be) quite sparse. Things are moving along, though! We did get a chance to add Merissa to our Facebook link list (Hi, Merissa!).

The following is another proofsheet of a roll of film that Ellen sent.


Click for a larger image. Let us know in the comments if you would like GAP to post larger images of any of these.

Proofsheet - G&G 01

The following is a proofsheet of a roll of film that Ellen recently sent.


Click for a larger image. Let us know in the comments if you would like GAP to post larger images of any of these.

Found On The Interwebs - Bloody Tongue, Bald Head, and a Budding Political Future

Tyrel, Karla's oldest, not only made the second round in the Wyoming state wrestling tournament this past weekend (as a freshman!), he also was featured in a Casper Star-Tribune picture with the bloodied mouth he endured during a first round match.


Woohoo, we're proud of you, tough guy!

Former wrestler, and Tyrel's grandfather, Joe appeared recently in a Billings Gazette video about about his employer, Alternatives Inc., which provides treatment programs for inmates.


Joe's the old man at the end who looks like his nose is two inches from the computer monitor. He said that he was actually looking through the window, not at the monitor, and I'd probably tell people the same thing, too.

Lorna, Joe's wife, was featured several years back in a Billings Gazette article about her work at a "Congress" held by her company, Aware Inc., which provides services to persons with disabilities.

The Congress, which operates in much the same way as a state legislature, adopted 23 measures including one co-authored by Stutz that would provide flexible hours, more part-time employment and refresher courses in handling administrative chores. Aware delivers services for persons with challenging mental health, emotional and/or physical disabilities who otherwise would be served in a more restricted setting or not served at all.

Is that a political career I smell brewing at the Stutz household?

If anyone has other stories from around the Interwebs to post on GAP, send them our way!