Lisa's Lounge

That's about all I can say about the photo cd's I just received from the Savannah branch of the Williams family, Uncle Warner. Ben fell asleep last night to me saying "Oh my Gawd! Look at this one. No, look at THIS one!" Hundreds of old photos, most of which I have not seen ever, or at least not in about 30 years. When I was 12, this home - known as Casa de Mobiley #1 - flooded. We were right on a river bottom in Garfield, (that's due east of Del Valle, west of Bastrop) and one morning just before Thanksgiving in 1974, the Colorado River came calling. We lost pretty much everything - including a lot of photos. Most importantly, a lot of photos. So, as I mentioned in a previous post, Uncle Warner got all the old Williams photo slides from Granddad's garage in May. He has them all digitized now, and what a treat! It was so exciting to look through them all, then go back and look at them all again. There are photos of Old Faithful, Mount Rushmore, Coulee Dam, even the Eiffel Tower. My Granddad was in the Air Force, so they spent a lot of time overseas. Some of the photos are 40 to 50 years old. Since they were in Europe a lot, they had fancy cameras that took color slides. Not a black & white one to be found in those oldies. My parents were very young (18 and 20) when they married and started a family. I'll share a few here. The rest are here. I hope you enjoy them even one hundredth as much as I have. A very very special thank you to Uncle Warner!

This is a favorite, just because I like the way it looks. That's my grandmother, Omi, and my two uncles, Sammy & Warner. (You may know Sammy as Baby Cuzzin's Dad)


Here's my parents with my brother a couple of years before I showed up...


And this one cracked me up! I was a chow hound even then!


Okay, one more ... that's me in the carrier, so this was probably in late March, 1963

My Ben. That's who! Taco Bueno is one of our favorite junk food places, and since the closest one to us, in Georgetown, closed in 2001 - we have to be in Dallas to get it. I don't get to Dallas much, but Ben the Rock Star does. Today on his way home he stopped at the Bueno just south of Dallas - and asked of them a special request. Our favorite item is the Crunchy Potato Burrito with chicken. Wouldn't keep well from Dallas to P'ville. So he had them put all the ingredients in separate containers, and brought them home to me!!!! *sigh*

The ingredients..................


And the results...................

Vega$ was fun if not taxing on the bank account! I figure I still spent (lost) less than we spend when we go to Disney - and I got to visit with Mike & Otis! We really had a fun time. Nothing exciting, just hanging out and gambling like fools. It was so incredibly hot... about 110 degrees plus. I got to visit Fremont Street for the first time. I may even stay down there next time. Although, we gambled in lots of different casinos and got "players cards" in each one hoping for some freebies. Going downtown was especially poignant because when Ben went on his boys trip last October, they had the misfortune of witnessing some poor guy die at the Four Queens Hotel & Casino. (probably a heart attack) I took photos of the hotel for them in case they wanted a reminder. A few of my photos are posted - we really didn't take many. We just played and played the whole time. And ate. And drank. We did go see a really good show, called "Legends". It is at the Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino which was two quick monorail stops south of our hotel. It is an impersonations show of entertainers. "Jay Leno" hosted, and we saw Tina Turner, Prince, The Temptations (AWESOME!) and I think it always ends with ... Elvis. The Elvis was good, but he looked like he was 19 years old. And they didn't say "Elvis... has left the building". It was a very good show though, and a welcome break from gambling a/ka/ losing money. PLUS One free drink per person. At first glance that may not be such a big deal... except that Mike and Otis don't drink. *smile* We stayed at the Las Vegas Hilton, which you may remember from last year (scroll down a bit - that post was before I set up my archives properly), when Alison and I went for a visit. I received coupons for 3 free nights, two rooms, any time. So Mike, Otis, and I jumped on the free-ness! You may see some of those ghastly date stamps on the photos. I loaned my camera out to someone (whose initials are Alison Barclay) and the date stamp was added... I didn't notice it in time to turn it off. Ick. But, I got some great photos! Here ya go:


Here's the 3 of us at the Legends show...

Looky Looky ! ! ! It will be here before I know it... and I'll be broke even faster! :-)
I'm really looking forward to visiting with Mike & Otis, even though I won't see
Ben again til next Monday. Rock Star. harumph.

edited to add photo

I've posted this before, but since it's so funny to look at Mike and me from 26 years ago... thought I'd share again. This photo was taken in June of 1980, when I went to visit the Willies in Wisconsin for Mike's high school graduation. We had a blast! I was 17, Mike was 18. He finished high school in a typical small town - Wisconsin Rapids. His parents still live there, in the same house his dad grew up in.

Ben, along with Tim, Jon, and Brent, attended the Poison & Cinderella show at Starplex in Dallas this past Friday. They all got great seats and back stage passes, thanks to Chop Shop Drums. (Hopefully Ben's name will be on the artist list soon...) Anyway, boys being drunk boys, someone - I'm thinking Jon, since he's always quick to say "If you do this I'll give you five dollars" - suggested that Rikki Rockett, the drummer for Poison, should autograph Ben's shiny head. So he did! Ah, the rock star lifestyle. I want Ben's job. Guess I need to take some type of music lessons though...


Rikki Rockett of Poison signs Ben's head