Steeple cone

Broad Street UMC is replacing their steeple, since it’s been there since 1947 and has begun to let rainwater in.  They took the steeple off and put it down between Circle Street and the circle itself.  When they did that, the ice cream scoop, vanilla, fell out and is beginning to melt.

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The Owl, The Tao, A Squirrel With 3 Ching Coins and a TV News Crew

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And, Lo, I Awoke

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Laundromat, dawn

I like to walk around the town just before dawn.  Sometimes you get interesting pix.

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Stu Can’t Spell

Not only can Stu not spell, he has a misunderstanding of how the old Kingsport telephone numbers worked. (When I visited Kingsport as a child in 1956, I was amazed at the dial telephones.  We still had the operator system in Morristown.  I was such a rube.)
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Kayo #1

This was the Kayo Number 1 gas station on the corner of Industry Drive and Netherland Inn Road.  It sat beside the Ward Feed facility (you can see the silos behind the station building) fronting on Netherland Inn Road.  Both these buildings are long gone now, razed when the City put in the traffic circle.  Surprisingly, the old Chuck’s Drive In building is still there, as part of a used car lot. Back in the ’60s, Chuck’s had the best burgers around.

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1947 Dodge fire truck

It’s Jenkins KY Fire Dept’s old #3.  Check me on the date.  It’s hard to read the faded plate on the right side of the bumper.  I looked on the ‘net and this looked like a ’47.  Like I know fire trucks.  Love to gaze upon them, though.  They and the braves who manned them kept devastation at bay.

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Treasure

This is behind the former (long time ago) Intermountain Telephone Company (often referred to as the “Intermittent Telephone Company”) building in Kingsport.  The arrow points to a basement entrance.

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Not what you think…

 

 

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At first glance, it looks like it’s a person crouched over something.  It looked that way to me when I happened on it and took the picture.  But it’s not.  It’s just a coat over a bag of trash, with just a little bit of a shoe in the background.  Whew.

A frog

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This is a frog.  It’s part of a switch in Kingsport yard.  It’s called a frog, I’m informed, because of its resemblance to a part of a horse’s hoof.  Since I don’t know anything at all about horses, very little about frogs, and only a smattering about railroad technology, I’ll take their word for it.

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Old bridge

This old bridge, overgrown and unsteady, is on an unknown, unused road paralleling US-23 at 36.92224, -82.689321, between Appalachia and Norton VA.  It was built well, with an asphalt bed and solid concrete abutments.

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White #1

India ink analog, colored pencil

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The Devil’s Inn

This is on the highway between Elizabethton and Hampton TN.  Just sitting there, glittering in the morning sun.

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Point Counterpoint

This is the only piece of work I ever signed “Bula”.  It was the name of a business I had at the time with Tom Buchanan.  Boo-Lah.  Oh, well.

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First date

Yup, first date.

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Girl with tail

This lady was an attendee at a Halloween party we had back in the 80s.

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While Lucky Rooster

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Store window, East Jenkins KY

Feedback tells me this was an Army surplus store.  Interesting sign, too.

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Owl Sits in for the King

This was done back when I was playing chess a little and finding out again and again how little I could play chess.  It was also a part of my interest in perspective and a certain fondness I had for putting the owl in unusual circumstances.

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Summer: Morning Shift

I was out walking on a pleasant summer morning, just after dawn, when I saw this.  The windows are steamed up from the early morning prep.  I angled around until the sign hid the sun itself and let the light show through the windows.  I had a paper route in downtown Kingsport not too long after this Pal’s was built in the late 50s.  I delivered the Kingsport Times (the afternoon paper…the News was the morning edition) right after school, before supper. Several of my deliveries were on Shelby Street.  The smell of the hamburgers (still the same today) would remind me how long it had been since I’d eaten.

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