Mamaw and Papaw's 50th - Odie's View

As Dad already told you, Saturday evening June 15th we celebrated the love and marriage of my grandparents Martha and Eugene Boggs. They have been married for 50 years. It is a huge milestone!!  We are all proud to be apart of their family!!

Many friends and family joined us to celebrate. Thanks to all of you for coming!!  Thanks to everyone for coming and for your calls, card, text and emails. 

We had a beautiful day for a party. It all began with a chair wash. Thanks to the family for helping clean the chairs. I think the black chairs added a pop to the decor. 

Sis. Amanda Alexander came to be photographer for the evening. It was great to have her there snapping the camera. I'm looking forward to seeing her images. Thank to Regan Morris for getting most of these shots with my camera for me. 

Now for the pictures

Us

June 12th 1963

April 2013

The History of Wartburg, Tennessee

While we were in Tennessee, Bro. Ray Riggs, a regular reader and commenter, asked a great question. He wondered in a comment about the history of Wartburg, Tennessee. With a name like Wartburg it is bound to be interesting.

Well, twenty years ago if I had wanted an answer to a question like that I would have went to the country store in Wartburg and asked the oldest person I saw. If that did not work I would have ask another person or went to the local library. If none of that worked I would have asked my brother Steve and he would have probably known.

Today....we have Google.

Wartburg was settled in the 1840's and was incorporated in 1851. A land speculator by the name of George Gerding bought up large tracts of land in the area in hopes of establishing several German communities in the area.

The settlers arrived by coming up the Mississippi, Tennessee and Emory Rivers from New Orleans. They named the community Wartburg after Wartburg Castle in Germany. Wartburg Castle dates all the way back to 1068. That is almost 1000 years!

Internet Photo

Wartburg Castle is remembered by many German Christians because Martin Luther was taken there when his life was in danger from the Catholic church. He lived there for nearly a year. While there Luther translated the New Testament into German.

Pretty interesting history. There is lot more to tell but I do not want to take all of the fun out of it for you.

Hope you have a great day.

Davy

The Story of Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Oak Ridge, Tennessee is one of our favorite towns to visit. We first found out about the history of this beautiful city when we visited the American Museum of Science and Energy in 1989.  While in Tennessee a few weeks ago I spent a few hours wondering around in my favorite museum again.

We visited the museum as a family in 1989. It is a great place with all kind of exhibits and information about all types of energy with a focus on nuclear energy. The films, lectures and hands on exhibits are all top notch. We have been back several times since then.

On that first visit I became fascinated with the Oak Ridge story. Of course, we had no internet then so my knowledge was limited to what I could glean from a 3-4 hour our visit. They have a whole area dedicated to telling the story of Oak Ridge and the critical role the city played in developing the Atomic bomb and winning WWII. It is an amazing story.

They call Oak Ridge, Tennessee the Secret City. It is certainly not a secret now but for the first few years of its existence it was definitely a secret. Oak Ridge was built in a hurry as part of the Manhattan project in WWII. 

A beautiful valley that had contained four small villages populated by about 3000 people became a city of over 75,000 people with everything they needed to live in just a few short months. They built three huge plants to separate enough Uranium for the atom bomb and to try to manufacture plutonium. Every thing was done in absolute secrecy with only a few men in the whole country knowing the real reason for Oak Ridge.

It was totally fenced in and guarded 24 hours a day with nobody going in or out without permission. There were signs every where cautioning the workers not to talk to anybody about the work they did. They knew they were working in the war effort but had no idea what it was about until the first atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

They initially estimated the city population would be about 13,000 but they realized very quickly it would be much more. They constructed houses of all types, dorms, camps and even brought in thousands of trailers to accommodate the people.

One type of house designed for the workers of TVA a few years before was used in Oak Ridge. It was a modular home called a Flat-Top. There were thousands of these built in Oak Ridge as well. Many of the Flat-Tops are still being used as homes in Oak Ridge today but they have been modified and enlarged through the years.

One of them was auctioned off in 1948 and was transported to Tazewell, Tennessee and used as a families summer retreat for decades. A few years ago that family donated their Flat-Top to the museum and it is now set up outside. It was amazingly close to original condition right down to many of the original fixtures and lights.

It was restored and is now on permanent display. I think it is pretty neat.

You can find out much more about the museum and the story of Oak Ridge on the American Museum of Science and Energy website. It is a great museum with a great story to tell. It used to be free but it is still only $5 even without student and senor citizen discounts. It is well work the money.

Most sculptures are not my thing. But the sculpture outside of museum was interesting. It is a memorial to the World Trade Center Twin Towers made from scrap. It is pretty neat too.

Hope you have a great day.

Davy

Anti-itch Meditation

I have been reading a preacher's blog for a few years and I have only shared him with a very few close friends. His name is Jeff Weddle. He is funny, smart and mixed with a splash of sarcasm. I can only take sarcasm in very small doses but this is the correct amount. He is not right on every thing but he freely admits that and I find that very refreshing.

This is an excerpt from a great post he put up a couple of weeks ago. You can read the whole thing HERE.

Kids are dumb and this cannot be changed. All a dad can hope for is that their dumb is released in better ways than the dumb that kids will come up with. It is my contention that if you do not show kids how to be properly dumb they will be in jail very soon.

At the same time a dad gets on a kid’s level, dads are also supposed to raise kids to a higher level. Again, God is my example. God knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust, so what did He do? He became dust like us.

But His purpose for getting on our level was to raise us to His level–the heavenly took on an earthly body so we in the earthly body might be made heavenly. Kids need to see how an adult acts and handles consequences of dumb.

But please, please, please adults, understand that the Kingdom of God is filled with those with childlike faith. Being mature and an adult does not mean we don’t do crazy stuff–it means we do totally awesome crazy stuff.

Isn't that great?

I read a whole lot of good stuff that I would like to link to but ultimately I do not because I do not want to lead millions of readers with impressionable minds to blogs and stories on sites that also contain lots of incredibly rotten doctrine. That's not the reason I have not shared this guy. I kept him to myself because even I have selfish moments.

I hope you enjoy Anti-itch Meditation.

Davy

CD Cover Design

Yesterday I posted about our pictures for the CD from Imprints Photography by dee. She did a super job with the subjects she had to deal with and we appreciate it so much. We had to have good pictures in a short  amount of time and Dee came through.

But that is only the first very important crucial step in the process.

The second step is to translate those pictures into some kind of workable design. The cover needs to look sharp, catch the eye, contain the right information without being crowded, sell a million CDs and hopefully have a little fun in the process! (Selling a million CDs would probably be pretty fun.)

All of that is way above our pay grade. So what to do? The only thing a person could do is turn to the resident expert in all things photography and design, Julie Stephens from Calotype Photography in Neosho, Missouri.

For all the reasons I explained yesterday, we were working against an impossibly tight schedule but thankfully Julie waved her wand and made it all work some how and some way. In just a little while she was sending us amazing creations and we were staring in wonder at what she had done.

Folks, I am not exaggerating when I say that Julie Stephens is one of the most gifted and talented persons I know. She has applied herself to learning her craft and she has learned it well. I am sure she might object to all of this praise but I am trying to convey much more that mere flattery. She really is that good.

It is true that we consider Julie and her husband John as very good friends. They are dear to us and we love and appreciate them so much. We love preaching revivals in their home church and love getting to spend time with them in and out of church.

But these compliments are more than blind friendship. Julie really is awesome. Thank you, Julie, for putting your heart into what you do. It really comes through in your work and we get to benefit from it. 

I am going to post a few examples of ideas that Julie came up with. None of these are a completed project but they offer ideas of what can be done. To my eye every one of them would work perfectly on our new CD. Like I said, Julie is awesome. Visit the website of Calotype Photography and see for yourself.

One of these below is the design that we chose for the CD cover. It has some slight changes but it is very, very close to the one we sent to the printer. Can you guess which one we chose? What is your favorite? I feel a contest coming on. You ready for a contest?

If you choose the correct design for our new CD cover I will put your name into a hat, have Odie draw out a winner and send you one of the very first new CDs we receive. (We should have them by August 1st at the latest.) You must make your selection in the comments below this blog in the next 3-4 days to be eligible to win.

Now, a few of our regular readers have already seen the design we chose. Sorry, you can not win but you will probably end up with a free CD anyway.

Well, what are you waiting for? Start guessing. 

Davy

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