Saturday, July 04, 2015

Independence Day Weekend



Construction is quiet for the weekend as we celebrate our national holiday.  All the tonka toys are quiet waiting to rumble again come Monday.


Looks like they managed to get the whole sewer line filled in before leaving Thursday night.


Our last dirt storm had some pretty strong winds that blew all the pine needles around.  Landscaping crews have been busy picking up the loose debris to keep the park neat even in the summer.....knowing by the time it is cleaned up, we'll likely have another storm.  All their work is deeply appreciated.



Our dedicated pickleball players take it upon themselves to keep the courts ready for play.  Here's Larry Gray and John Hennessey with hoses and brushes in the action.
Photo by Avis Gray
Over 20 players showed up at 6:00 a.m. for morning play.  They certainly love the game.  

Avis Gray & Steve Alexander posed for the camera.




Why stay home to play cards when "Magic Mike" hits the box office.  We were the first car load to arrive on opening day!  We were ready for the action!  :)

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Saturday, July 4


Today we were treated to a typical Independence Day cookout.  Even Lisa Harold was wearing an apron and helping to serve.  From Left to Right:  Donna Cox, Kathleen Heckel, Lisa Harold, MaryAnn Brown.  We had great big hamburgers with all the trimmings, cole slaw, french fries, and dessert.  Thanks!

Our summer crowd seems to be growing as today over 80 tickets were sold for lunch!


Tables looked nice and festive.


Have a great SAFE weekend!  
A bit of history
 
 
Us older folks remember him well, had even been party to inscribing on our school desks, books, just anywhere at all.
 
 KILROY WAS HERE !
 
 
 
He is engraved in stone in the National War Memorial in Washington, DC-
Back in a small alcove where very few people have seen it.
For the WWII generation, this will bring back memories.
For you younger folks, it's a bit of trivia that is a part of our American history.
Anyone born in 1913 to about 1950, is familiar with Kilroy.
No one knew why he was so well known- but everybody seemed to get into it.
 
So who was Kilroy?  
 
 
In 1946 the American Transit Association, through its radio program,
"Speak to America ," sponsored a nationwide contest to find the real Kilroy,
Offering a prize of a real trolley car to the person who could prove himself to be the genuine article.
 
Almost 40 men stepped forward to make that claim,
But only James Kilroy from Halifax , Massachusetts , had evidence of his identity.
 
 
 
'Kilroy' was a 46-year old shipyard worker during the war who worked as
a checker at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy . His job was to go around
and check on the number of rivets completed. Riveters were on piecework and
got paid by the rivet. He would count a block of rivets and put a check mark
in semi-waxed lumber chalk, so the rivets wouldn't be counted twice.
When Kilroy went off duty, the riveters would erase the mark.
 
Later on, an off-shift inspector would come through and count the rivets a second time, resulting in double pay for the riveters. 
 
 
 
One day Kilroy's boss called him into his office.
The foreman was upset about all the wages being paid to riveters,
and asked him to investigate. It was then he realized what had been going on.
The tight spaces he had to crawl in to check the rivets didn't lend themselves
to lugging around a paint can and brush, so Kilroy decided to stick with the waxy chalk.
 
He continued to put his check mark on each job he inspected, but added 'KILROY WAS HERE' in king-sized letters next to the check, and eventually added the sketch of the chap with the long nose peering over the fence and that became part of the Kilroy message.
 
 
 
 
Once he did that, the riveters stopped trying to wipe away his marks.
Ordinarily the rivets and chalk marks would have been covered up with paint.
With the war on, however, ships were leaving the Quincy Yard so fast that there
wasn't time to paint them. As a result, Kilroy's inspection "trademark" was seen
by thousands of servicemen who boarded the troopships the yard produced. 
 
 
 
His message apparently rang a bell with the servicemen, because they picked it up and spread it all over Europe and the South Pacific. 
 
 
Before war's end, "Kilroy" had been here, there, and everywhere on the long hauls
to Berlin and Tokyo . To the troops outbound in those ships, however, he was
a complete mystery; all they knew for sure was that someone named Kilroy had
"been there first." As a joke, U.S. Servicemen began placing the graffiti wherever
they landed, claiming it was already there when they arrived.
 
 
Kilroy became the U.S. Super-GI who had always "already been" wherever GIs went.  It became a challenge to place the logo in the most unlikely places imaginable (it is said to be atop Mt. Everest , the Statue of Liberty , the underside of The Arc de Triomphe, and even scrawled in the dust on the moon. 
 
 
 
As the war went on, the legend grew. Underwater demolition teams routinely
sneaked ashore on Japanese-held islands in the Pacific to map the terrain for
Coming invasions by U.S. Troops (and thus, presumably, were the first GI's there).
On one occasion, however, they reported seeing enemy troops painting over the Kilroy logo! 
 
 
 
In 1945, an outhouse was built for the exclusive use of Roosevelt, Stalin,
And Churchill at the Potsdam conference.  Its' first occupant was Stalin, who emerged and asked his aide (in Russian), "Who is Kilroy?"  
 
 
 
 To help prove his authenticity in 1946, James Kilroy brought along officials
from the shipyard and some of the riveters. He won the trolley car, which he
gave to his nine children as a Christmas gift and set it up as a playhouse in
the Kilroy yard in Halifax , Massachusetts . 
 
 
 
 And The Tradition Continues... 
 
 
 
EVEN Outside Osama Bin Laden's House!!! 
Share This Bit Of Historic Humor
With All Your Friends! :)
 
 
 
God Bless you World War II Veterans!