Paris, Tennessee (A Fishingest Friday Postcard Fish Fry)

The back of this postcard from the 1960s is printed with: "Greetings from Paris, Tenn. Home of the world's biggest fish fry. Paris School Band traditionally leads the colorful parade of this most interesting spring festival of "The Fishingest City" on Kentucky Lake. Crowds of some 25,000 tourists and "home folk" enjoy this gala occasion yearly. Fresh fish from Tennessee River (Kentucky Lake) is prepared by Community Clubs of Henry County and served to guests in truly southern style."

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Yes, this fish fry still occurs, and it is this weekend (April 23rd). Click here for the web site. The fish fry tradition lives on, but I don't think the word "fishingest" ever really caught on, did it? Though Florida does have a Fishingest Bridge. Paris is in northwestern Tennessee.

This next postcard in Winona, Minnesota shows a little bridge made just for fishing:

A Calvin sticker you will never see....

No, this is not an April Fools joke

Well, maybe this is the last winter storm of winter. And spring is almost one third over.


I took this photo a couple of hours ago. It's an unused fruit orchard of some kind; cherries or apples.

Recognizer over Detroit (Improbable Postcards #1)

Postcards from way beyond the edge....
This 1987 postcard view shows downtown Detroit, Michigan. Seen in the sky is a rare view of one of Detroit's police recognizers on patrol. The administration of Coleman A. Young pushed hard to get a whole fleet of recognizers to add to the city's police fleet. They contracted with the Chrysler Corporation, which ended up constructing only three "Dodge Overlord" brand recognizers to provide to the Detroit Police Department. The recognizers turned out to be difficult to pilot, and were subject to frequent breakdowns, and the program was discontinued in 1989. The three recognizers were acquired by Omni Consumer Products. Eventually, two of the recognizers were broken up for scrap, and the remaining one was donated to the Henry Ford Museum in Greenfield Village, where it stands as a gateway at one of the entrances.
(Delayed from intended April 1 posting date)

Macy Sky #2

I return again to Macy's, which can be picturesque at times. It's at the "Far end of the mall", which seems to have a lot less activity, and the parking lot near Macy's is often near empty. Here on Sunday night, Macy's was all closed, so there was no one at all.

It was pretty close to sunset, and the sky was a gorgeous blue. The place looks more tomb-like than ever, like vast mausoleum or something. And you'd almost expect to see tumbleweeds blow by in the second photo.

"Press Rewind" - Alan Parsons

This song came to mind after reading Tara's comment at "What Fresh Hell Is This?"

So, I figured I'd find it on Youtube. One of the two presentations of the song is to Doctor Who clips, so of course that is the one I chose:



This song is by the Alan Parsons "solo" act, not the famous Alan Parsons Project. Well, it's not really solo. The solo act included a lot of other musicians, but not Eric Woolfson. It's from the album "The Time Machine" which has cool CD cover art including photos of those famous time machines, the Delorean, the Enterprise NCC-1701-D.... and yes, of course, the TARDIS from "Doctor Who". The cover artist should have included a pylon, but you can't have everything.

The song is about the idea of going back and doing things all over again:

...If you could press rewind and do it all again
Would you change your mind, would you change a thing
Would you make it easy, would you make it hard
Would you play the game under another name
Or ask the dealer for one more card...

Sounds like this might be a good idea. Does anyone have a pylon I could use?

Vaderday Saturday - Darth Vader Clown

Villains are supposed to be scary ans un-admirable in general, but often it seems sci-fi and comic-book villains get a reputation as being really cool.

Well, a lot of people really really hate clowns. Clowns give them nightmares. So what better way to make Darth Vader really scary again than to depict him has a clown? I ran across this photo searching Google, and here it is.

Friday Postcard Fish Fry - Ozarks

Well, I won't Lent pass by without at least one Friday Postcard Fish Fry. The above postcard is a Curt Teich (Curteich) postcard from the mid 20th century.

I don't celebrate Lent more than any other non-Catholic Christian, but I have always lived where there are a lot of Catholics around, and I hear them talking about Friday fish fries (fish fry's?) and I see them advertised a lot.

I spent a memorable day once, almost 20 years ago, at Bull Shoals in the Ozarks in Missouri. Bull Shoals is a fake lake, created by a dam; a reservoir impoundment. I have some pictures of it, somewhere. Maybe you've not heard of the Ozarks? But you have probably heard of Branson, Missouri, which is in the area, and also the comic strip Snuffy Smith, about an Ozark hillbilly. Snuffy, as you recall, was a dirt-poor cousin of Barney Google. I don't recall off the top of my head why Barney Google was rich... but all I know he was a visionary who made his 1920's fortune off of internet search engine futures, beating out rival tycoon Hyram Altavista. But I digress...

While we are in the subject of Lent, don't forget to check out this old blog post of mine from four years ago.

And make sure to check out the Blog of the Ozarks, which has a real fish photo in it.