Grassfire. 30 second video.

Does Eat Place. Two Cities. Four Years. One Inspection Team.

Four years ago in January 2011 Roger Shelby, John Roebuck, Skip Russell, and the old Prunepicker drove 145 miles to Greenville, Mississippi to eat and inspect the steaks at Does Eat Place. Does is truly a unique place to eat. It was founded in 1941. Still operates in the same building. Because it is located in a tough part of town there is an armed guard at the door.

See the guard to the left. Through the front door is the kitchen. The steaks are cooking under fire to your immediate left.

Inspection Team as of 2011. Before beard.

Everything was so good. This was actually our second trip to Greenville. I had not started blogging before the first trip. (Probably made first trip around 2008)

This year a Does franchise opened in Monroe. Only an hour drive. The Team decided to inspect the Franchise.

Inspection Team as of 2015. John had on the same shirt. 

Our assignment was to compare and grade the two Does Eat Places. This is my opinion. The Monroe Does is an excellent steak house with excellent service and nice decor. But I missed the entrance through the kitchen and the 1941 decor. There is something about the Mississippi steak that is a wee bit better.

Before I make a final decision I am going to have to inspect the Greenville Does again. (Four years?)

Lunch in charming downtown Swartz, Louisiana.

Here is a picture of the Hart's Corner Convenience Store where I had lunch yesterday.

Greeting me at the door was Rhonda and Jasper.

If you like sweet lovely ladies you will love Rhonda.

Rhonda and her Mother Miss Rosa. A wonderful pair. Hard working people.

View from the dining area. I had a pork chop plate lunch. Delicious! Hot plate lunch served at noon seven days a week.  Stop by. 

I have nine great grand children.

Isn't that wonderful? I feel truly blessed. I love them all. Here is a recent picture of the five who live on the West Coast.

The five children in the front row are; Charlie Shafai, Holly Wrock, Winter Wrock, Max Shafai, and Jack Shafai. Jack is the only redheaded Persian that I know. He is also the only redheaded Choctaw that I know. The Wrocks live in Woodenville, Washington. The Shafais live in Corona, California.

Here is a recent picture of my four great grandchildren who live in Louisiana.

They are; Ethan Newberry, Christian Newberry, Johnny Miller, and Ross Newberry. They had been told to look lovable. Didn't they do a good job? The Newberrys live in West Monroe, Louisiana. Johnny Miller lives in Franklinton, Louisiana. 

I am one proud great grandfather!

Cathryn Buckley gave highlights from her book on Shiloh, Louisiana.

Cathryn was the speaker at the meeting today (3-8-2015) of the Northeast Louisiana Genealogical And Historical Society. It was a great talk on the the history of Shiloh in Union Parish. Cathryn has been collecting data on Shiloh for fifty years. I enjoyed her talk and gained a better understanding of the history of North Louisiana.

First Baptist Church of Shiloh, 1849.

Shiloh is located about an hour north of Ruston. The town was scheduled for great things but a fire burned and destroyed almost the whole downtown area. The scheduled railroad moved west to Bernice and bypassed the town. Many of the prominent early citizens of Shiloh moved south to Ruston.

Shiloh and Ruston share a lot of cultural history.

I am falling apart!

My heart, lungs, and swallowing is hanging in there, but I am falling apart above the neck. Tuesday at the VFW breakfast I touched my glasses and a screw and a lens fell out.

Richard Jones performed a paper clip repair job that held the lens in so I could drive home. I have a spare set of glasses at home. However by the time I had taken the glasses to the repair shop I had lost the lens!

Tuesday at lunch I bit into a granola bar and two teeth fell out of my uppers. Good thing I did not swallow them.

I have a spare set of uppers so I can eat. They do not work as good as the damaged set. But I can still eat popcorn. (at the basketball game last night)

I do not hear well. My left ear is waxed up almost solid.

I am working on it until I can get the ear irrigated. I have an appointment at the ear clinic at the VA next Thursday.

1. Glasses fell apart. 2. Teeth fell out. 3. Hearing kaput. What next?

Fifty Shades Of Grey.

You do not have to settle for just fifty shades of grey. Look at this sign on California Street in Ruston, Louisiana.

Lisonopril cough and vital signs.

I have had a cough for many years. I have been taking two medicines for heart pressure since my heart attack in 2005. They are lisonopril and atenolol. Over the years the dosages has been changed to modify my blood pressure. My dosage of lisonopril has been severely reduced due to my complaints about my cough. Well, a couple weeks ago my Doctor cut my lisonopril dosage to zero. Dr Carter said if my blood pressure goes over 130 to double my atenolol dosage. Hooray! my cough is gone. And my blood pressure has not gone up.

The columns in the table below are date, steps/weight, high bp/low bp-pulse, and temperature.

It feels so good to shake the cough. The cough would really come on when I went to bed. I used several cough drops to get to sleep every night. Not now.

Good by, lisonopril cough!

Baseball is cool!

This last week baseball was really cool. It was even cold. Here are some pictures (even a selfie) taken during one of the three games that Tech played with Oral Roberts University at Ruston. We won two of the games.

The old prunepicker was dressed for the cold except for his feet.

This gentleman has two hats. His wife has zero hats. I guess that he took her hat from her?

It was getting warm for this guy. Snow man by John Adams.

10 minute film of the Munson Family Reunion to honor the 350th Anniversary of the arrival of Thomas Munson in Connecticut.

Here is a picture taken at the reunion. On the grounds of Yale University.

A cousin took a film at the reunion. He has placed it on youtube. Here is a link to the movie. Anniversary Movie It is ten minutes long and I am sure it is of minimal interest to many of my readers. My family may be interested. It is ten minutes long. The first half of the movie is of a gathering at the Grove Street Cemetery at the headstone of my 8th great grandfather Thomas Munson. The rest is at the gathering where the above photo was taken.

At the time of the reunion I knew nothing of all the many Munson/Monson relatives that I had. Or that my genealogy could be traced to England. Where Thomas was born in 1612. When my wife Jackie passed away 8 years ago I started to do some genealogy work. And I found a bunch of Munson/Monsons.

Guess what? While RVing, after my retirement, Jackie and I drove through Connecticut several times. Even weirder is the fact that in August 1987 we were camped at North Bergen, New Jersey. We were at the end of a trip with two of our grandchildren. We put them on a plane home and we went to Michigan. North Bergen is only 79 miles from the reunion in New Haven.

I have always been sorry that I did not get to the reunion. If I had taken up genealogy sooner and had known about the reunion we would have attended. Only an hour and a half away! I wonder if they missed me.