Return to the Index for 2001

On this page I want to put some of the pictures that we took during the year that weren't associated with some trip or event that has its own page in the photo album. The sections will be pretty much in time sequence through the year.

January 27: At Fred's House

Sometimes, when we develop rolls of film from our trips, I end up with copies of pictures Fred has taken elsewhere- at his house or perhaps at his brother's or mother's. Most times, I don't include those here in my own photo album.

But I did want to include the photo at left that Fred took of himself down by his pond. There were a couple of reasons for this. First, I've actually been there (quite a few times), and so the scene is familiar. Second, his pond does not always have water in it, and he likes to record when it does.

Believe me, it looks entirely different in the late summer when all the water has typically evaporated. Below are clickable thumbnails for some more pictures Fred sent me today:

April 25: In My Study

I think I may have taken the picture at left to finish out a roll or at the beginning of a new one, and it probably won't mean much of anything to anyone but me.

It shows the portion of the desk in the study to the left of where the computer monitor is, and you can see that I am in the middle of working on arranging the very photos that I have since scanned for inclusion in this online album.

I find the photo interesting because most of the stuff in it is no longer around (as of this writing in 2014). The software is all out of date now, and I don't use CDs much anymore at all. The set of STRADIS manuals (the Methodology that I used to train people on) has been discarded, since Methodologies themselves are way past their prime. The reason for this is that today's computer systems are usually developed with interactive tools and languages, where developers can quickly mock up what a program should do and then use automated coding techniques to finish the software when the users are satisfied with its simulated operation.

As a matter of fact, on thinking about it, I can only point to a few small items in the entire picture that I still have.

May 1-10: Pictures of Mom's Furniture/Accessories

In this section, I am going to include the pictures that we took of Mom's furniture and accessories just after her move to The Bentley. Mom took some of her things with her, but most of the large furniture pieces were way too big for her apartment there. So after we'd moved here there in late April, we left the rest of the items in her condo.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

Of course, before we sold the condo, we had to dispose of all this stuff, so we took pictures of all of it to show potential buyers what everything looked like. The pictures of the Heywood-Wakefield furniture bore fruit when a retro/antique furniture store in Deep Ellum made a bid on almost all of it, and a few of the other pictures were used to dispose of items on Ebay.

My sister and I took some of the smaller items, and most of the rest was donated to various organizations in Dallas.

These pictures are only of interest to me, but if you want to look at them, just click on the image at left and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

May 19: Some Pictures from Fred

One of the reasons that I like going up to Fred's house is to see his cats. Chip is pretty neat, but then all cats are. So I like to see Fred's cats. Up until recently, he had just two- Calcitinas and Bobbie Lee Maxine. A third has wormed his way into the household, though.

Tanner showed up as a stray cat, Fred fed him, and it didn't take long for Tanner to become thoroughly domesticated. He is a good playmate for Bobbie Lee; Calcitinas is a bit old for much play anymore.

Two other pictures that I got from Fred's camera rolls were taken at Crump's Garden greenhouses where he works. I have been there quite a few times, too, so I'll include them here. The range of greenhouses where Fred grows his kalanchoes is shown in the right-hand picture:

July 4: At Ron and Leroy's in Irving

Ron Drew has moved back to Dallas to take a different position with GTE, and he has brought with him a new partner- Leroy Trehern- whom he met, I believe, in Tampa. They have purchased a house out in Irving, and today have invited Fred and I and Ron Mathis and his partner, Jay Enriquez, out to their house for the July 4th holiday. The map will show you about where their house is, and the aerial view beside it will show you the house itself. Below that is the one picture I took today; left to right are Ron Drew (background), Ron Mathis (foreground), Leroy (background), Jay (foreground) and Fred.

July 21: With Mike Racke on Lake Texoma

This Saturday, Mike Racke has invited Fred and I up to his house to haul his boat over to Lake Texoma for an afternoon on Lake Texoma, the large artificial lake on the Red River; it forms the boundary between Texas and Oklahoma. Below is an aerial view of Mike's house in Luella (on Luella Road), and beside that a small map showing where Lake Texoma is in relation to both Fred's house and Mike's:

Fred and drove up to Mike's house following back roads- just to see if we could find our way without going out to US 75 and then all the way back east when we got a few miles north.

When we got to Mike's house, he and a friend of his had gotten the boat hitched up to his truck and were ready to head off to the lake. On the way, we had Mike stop so we could contribute some gasoline and sodas to the outing before reaching the put-in spot on the lake.

Mike's done this before, so he got the boat into the lake quite smoothly. We spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening cruising around the lake, and covered quite a bit of ground (or water). It was a lot of fun, and the picture at left was taken late in the afternoon, just before we pulled the boat out of the lake.

We stopped at a local restaurant on the way home, so we could take Mike and his friend to dinner. We were very appreciative of the outing, the second or third we'd taken with Mike and his motorboat.

August 11: Guy Blair Visits Dallas

This weekend, we've prevailed on Guy Blair to come up from San Antonio for a short visit to Dallas.

He came up after his services on Saturday to have dinner with us. There is another priest in San Antonio who can cover the one Sunday service that he conducts. So we spent Sunday at the Arboretum and out in Las Colinas. We wanted to show him "The Mustangs"- a large sculpture installation in front of Williams Center out there.

It was nice to get Guy up here for a change, and he stayed into Monday, even though Fred had to head on to work early that morning.

December 8: At Mike Racke's Mother's House in Irving

This morning, Fred and I have driven out to Irving to the house that Mike Racke lived in before he moved up to Luella last year. His mother still lives there, and Fred and I wanted to take her a picture that we had taken a year ago out at Possum Kingdom Lake and which Fred had arranged to have transferred to canvas.

Fred did this to commemorate our relationship with Mike, and to give his mother a remembrance of him and us. Mike died in September.

About three in the morning on September 11th, I got a call from a very good friend of Mike's, to tell me that he had just received a call from one of Mike's other friends who lived near him in Luella that Mike had been killed in a motorcycle accident just after midnight.

Even now, no one is absolutely sure what happened, but as near as anyone can figure, Mike had taken his bike out to go to the store to get something very late on September 10th and had, apparently, lost control of the bike on his way to the store. We presume he was on his way, for nothing save Mike and his bike were found at the accident scene. That location was a particularly bad intersection north of him that has seen a number of accidents over the years. No other vehicle was nearby when Mike was found, so no one is sure exactly what happened.

My friend told me that he was getting ready to drive up to Mike's house where his friends were gathering; since I did not have any business travel planned for that week, I told him that I, too, would head up there. I called Fred to tell him the news, and Fred asked me to represent us both that morning; since it was a Tuesday, Fred had to go in to work.

I arrived at Mike's house about five in the morning to find a good many people already there. The gathering had turned into an impromptu wake for Mike, as we were all trying to learn exactly what happened.

That morning will be forever etched in my memory not only for what happened to Mike, but also for the other events that occurred that morning. Someone had turned the TV on that morning, but had turned the sound way down. Sometime around eight, I came into the living room and happened to notice what I thought was a movie on the screen, for I was looking at what I thought in the first seconds was a Hollywood special effects creation of a tall building on fire. But in the next seconds, I could see the CNN logo and the news crawls on the screen, and so went to turn it up. It was in this way that I, and everyone else there, found out about the events in New York City.

These events had a direct affect on the plans that Mike's family made for his funeral and services. Since planes were grounded until later that week, and schedules thrown into turmoil for days after that. The service for Mike, held at the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, did not happen until Monday, when his mother and sister were finally able to get to Dallas.

Fred and I have enjoyed very much knowing Mike, and are saddened that he is gone.

That completes the miscellaneous pictures for 2001. You can use the link below to return to the 2001 Index and, from there, go elsewhere in the photo album.

Return to the Index for 2001