Sky & Kitty

There is no magazine with that title: SKY & KITTY.

I walked out in the back yard this evening after work to grill steaks, sit on the patio, and look at the sky. There were some really nice clouds and colors up there, so I snapped a few shots.

Lilly had been out with us playing in the grass, but she didn't have her collar on and we were afraid she might stray so we put her back in the house. This bothered her tremendously and she pawed at the screen door. She was also very vocal. I think this is the first time I've seen her get angry.

Let me out OUT of this damned place!

This is where I lived between the ages of eight and eleven. Well, actually the house was torn down and now there's only a playground where the house once stood. It was a great house with a granite foundation and a huge granite fireplace and granite stone in other places around the house. Good, old Stone Mountain granite. Many of the houses in the area were also built with that stone.

The happiest years of my childhood were spent in this house. I had lots of pals when I lived here. I loved going to school right next door at Oakhurst Elementary, and I loved my summer breaks. I read jillions of comics when I resided on Mead Road. There was an old-style drug store at the corner where I could buy a milkshake or a drink at the fountain and read comics (even though my dad had 250K of the things). The local libraries soon introduced me to Hugh Lofting and my mom helped me discover Ray Bradbury. I explored all around the area, finding streams filled with salamanders and fish and tromping through great patches of woods where my buddies and I hid out and pretended to be on undiscovered islands filled with dinosaurs. It was a great place to be a kid in those days. The house were I lived is gone, though. After we moved out it became a Boys Club location and then was sold and torn down and is now a playground. Strangely, every house I lived in between the ages of seven and fifteen has been demolished. Four houses all gone to memories only. Ah, the way of the Earth.

Oakhurst Elementary School in Decatur, Georgia. It hasn't changed a bit since I went there in the 1960s. Look at the granite foundation. Sometimes I think everything in Decatur was made out of bits and pieces of Stone Mountain.