Third Curtain.... Rain Forest Wild-Clickers, Unite! 3 Clicks

anita...

I can't begin to tell you how happy I am (we are), that you're here! I think that you'll enjoy these Rainforest threads - as you'll see, we talk about all kinds of things here from what's going on in our personal lives to major world events. It's an incredible group of people who've gathered here, and we seem to do a pretty good job of keeping each other, um, entertained.

I'm so glad that you've joined us! Welcome back to the Rainforest and to A2K!


(In case you hadn't already, be sure to click on the "Turn on e-mail updates" link at the right top or bottom of the page. You'll need to do that for each thread you join in order to receive e-mail updates. If you don't receive any for a while, you may want to check the thread anyway because sometimes (for unknown reasons) the e-mail link gets turned off and you have to turn it on again. Also, if you click on the "Your Posts" link at the top of any page, you'll be taken to a list of all of the threads that you've been a part of and can check to see if there has been any activity on them.) Took me a while before I caught on to that stuff here.

ehBeth,
I don't know what the leaderboard is showing. We now have 37.966 acres. That's according to the figure you posted.

ehBeth...

Thanks for the stats update. I'd taken a look at the leaderboard earlier today and thought it looked a bit strange to say the least.

danon...

Love the picture and story of your great-grandparents! And, they're smiling in the picture, too! I have recently had some really old pictures of my husband's family come into my posession - pictures taken of his mother's family before they came to America from Russia. There is one picture where there is a family portrait and they're posed almost like the Romanov's, and it's so old. I'm going to have to ask one of his aunts in California if she knows who the people are in it. But, even if we never find out, it's a great picture and I know that the people in it are related to my kids so it's a treasure to have. (Fortunately, my husband's siblings seem to have no interest in these kinds of old family pictures. They seem to only be interested in the pictures where either they are pictured or they know/knew the people who are. Their loss!


Piffka...
Whenever Stradee talks about Auburn, I always think about the little city that's just a few miles away from where you and I live in WA. There seem to be a lot of Las Vegases around, too. I do find it very interesting that there is a Dallas, Georgia and an Atlanta, Texas...Wonder how that happened

clicked in. Hi everybody. Here is an advent calendar from Ul.
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/collection/features/advent/default.htm
Enjoy.

Hi all, clicked........

Matrix,
Atlanta was incorporated in 1874 - after the Civil War and was initially a water stop along the Texas and Pacific railroad. If you notice, there are small towns situated approximately every twenty miles along the old railroad systems. This came from the days of steam engines which had to stop and refuel with wood, coal and water about that distance - at least in the beginning they did - the stopping distances increased after the turn of the 20th cent. I lived on the T&P railroad as a kid and remember the big mainliners stopping to refuel. Quite exciting for a kid.

Atlanta got it's name from Atlanta, GA. The original settlers being from that area.
It was a very pretty town when I was young, but has begun to have that decayed look that uncared for towns develope. I recall from the late 1950's that Atlanta had the highest number of millionaires per capita than any other town in America. There were eleven and the towns population was below five thousand. Since then it appears that the descendents have lost much of that wealth. But here one can never really tell by looking - take for instance the man who installed my water well when I started building our home. He drove around in an old beat up truck wearing a tattered straw hat and bib-overalls. He lived in a simple 50's style house along the hiway and a couple of years ago when the traffic became too bad - he had built another home exactly like the first one away from the hiway - said he was just used to the floor plan. He is a multi millionaire. There are quite a few of those guys around here. One of the doctors had a French chateau shipped from France and reassembled stone by stone here in Atlanta. Another had a Frank Lloyd Wright home built.

I guess the main thing Atlanta is known for is that it is the birthplace of Bessie Coleman, the world's first African-American licensed female pilot.

Oh yeah, and last year our high school football team became the Texas State Champions.

Other than that - the 5700 pop and quiet nature of the town and it's central location for world travel is what attracted us to live here in retirement.

Also, Ellen Degeneres went to high school here.

danon - it's great to hear your tales of America. I've learned so much from them over the years. Thanks so much for sharing them.

Did you mean that the square feet I posted matched the acres for team #1 on the leader board?

wayfarer...
That's a beautiful calendar! Thank you, and please thank Ul for sharing it with us.


Beth...
Have you been able to find out what's up with the leaderboard? A couple of the other ones are messed up, too.

Matrix, I sent a note to the care2 help desk a while ago about the leaderboard. As great as they've been about answering other questions, that one never got a response.

Oh well, let's open this up, have a cup of joy and a nosh

danon...

That's interesting how those towns got started and how they got their names.

When my husband's sister and her husband were up from Texas a couple of months ago he was explaining to me about the history of the "FM" in their address. Your description of the steam engines needing to stop at towns every 20 miles apart, or so, made me wonder if you have special references to them on maps of the area.

On Abuzz, you once posted some pictures of the area around Atlanta, Texas, and it looked to me to be a very pretty area. I was quite amazed at how many trees you have around your property. My niece (daughter of the above in-laws) was totally blown away a couple of years ago when my son took her up to the University of Washington so she could see the campus - she's a native Texan and had never seen so many trees (let alone flowering trees) in her life. Where they live, there aren't so many trees - lots of cattle and horses, but not so many trees...

I enjoyed your story about the water well guy in bib overalls. Two of my grandmother's brothers were self-made millionaires. One of them owned an insurance company, golf courses and real estate, and the other one owned the largest potato and onion farm in Washington state. His family still does. There is a story about this second brother going into town many years ago to buy shoes at one of the better stores. When he entered the establishment, one of the girls who worked there noticed that he was dressed like a farmer and "politely" suggested to him that he might be more likely to find something "more to his liking" in one of the lesser stores down the street. My great-uncle aparently let her know that he would be glad to take his business to the other store but requested that she go get her manager first. He then proceeded to let them know that with the amount of cash that he was carrying around in his money belt would have been more than enough to buy not only their whole store, but also the the other store which he was now going to go give his business to. He let the girl know that she should never judge a book (or a farmer) by their cover(alls). I've heard that story for as long as I can remember...btw, he didn't live in a home that I would consider in anyway the home of a wealthy person, either. It was a nice farmhouse, but nothing really big or special.

Oh, my, Beth...LOL!!!

You're a well of great stories, danon. Just great. Your story of the overall-wearing millionaire immediately made me think of John Chisum, "Cattle King of the Pecos" for much of the early days of New Mexico Territory. A millionaire many times over, his favorite uniform of the day was a pair of hog-washer coveralls and rope sandals. Visitors to his ranch headquarters at the Bosque Redondo who hadn't met him would sometimes mistake him for one of the field hands on the property. And he hardly ever wore a gun. If that doesn't seem so strange, we need only remember that he was one of the central figures in the Lincoln County Range War, which fracas made Billy the Kid a household name. Billy used to date Chisum's niece at one time, later fell out with the uncle and even threatened the older man's life. But ole John felt he was safer without a sixgun at his side. Someone might goad him into trying to use it.

Since tou're such an expert on Texas place names, d'ye happen to know where the name of Albany, TX came from? Town grew up around old Fort Griffin [sp?] and when the Army closed and abandoned the fort, the town voted to change its name to Albany. I have no idea why. Do you?

Hi MA, Matrix and all,
I don't know about Albany - but, it sounds like some Northerner from NY state dreamed it up.

Speaking of New Yorkers - Billy the Kid was a wild on the streets of New York city hoodlum when he went West for adventure. His real name escapes me - Mc something or maybe Irish. It wasn't Wm Bonney - he got that from somewhere in New Mexico.
By the way, the old West Army post towns had several things in common. First out the gate was a barber shop, then a saloon, then a whorehouse. (grin)

ehBeth,
NICE layout!!! Let's Party!!!
No, the square footage you gave me did not match the acerage posted in the #1 position on the leaderboard.

Henry McCarty (no h) aka Wm. Bonney aka Billy the Kid. Irish hoodlum, all right. His mother was an Irish immigrant girl.

Gosh, great stories -- thanks Danon and all. Beautiful Advent calendar (please forward thanks to Ul) and an interesting look at the lives of millionaires.
--- Ellen DeGeneres, Danon? Cool! --- She's so funny!

Matrix -- You'd be surprised at how many of the names of little towns we know around here were originally Scots. Fife comes quickly to mind, but there are loads more. Auburn though... hmmm, a burn is a Scottish brook.

I have my own story of a very wealthy lady from out here, long-dead now. She was very down-to-earth and used to sell "raw" land which is very odd for a woman, especially in the 50's & 60's -- her heydays). She'd drive on the worst dirt roads imaginable in her rose-pink Cadillac -- this was when sales people always took the clients in their own car. It was said that she scared her clients into buying land with her driving, but I think she just impressed them with her personality. Afterwards, she'd often enter a restaurant dressed for walking acreage... scuffed boots, wet jeans & a rough coat. She occasionally had trouble being seated, but most people knew her as she was a striking woman -- tall, slender & gray-haired. She had one of the coolest waterfront homes I've ever seen -- it had been a small ship -- and retained most of it's nautical feel including their dining table which had a cutout in it for the mast, little windows but lots of them, and decks all the way around the house. Their waterfront was zero-bank, so the ship had just been pulled up at a very high tide and then winched a few feet up above the high watermark. They never had a bulkhead (something I really admire) and had a year-round creek that sparkled down their hillside. Beautiful native landscaping, second-growth timber. I wonder who lives there now? Martha Kriegel was her name, the daughter of a baker for the main Frederick and Nelson department store in downtown Seattle... she'd make us wonderfully delicate cookies at Christmas. (Just a little paean to a lady I used to know.)

Click.

Good story Piffka,

Here's a first hand short story - the doctor above who had the French chateau moved to Atlanta had a lotta land and cattle around town. One of my best friends in high school (who's dad was one of the millionaires) and I would occasionally go out to the pastures and give the doctors cattle some hay. We would do this in the doctors Cadillac which had the rear seat taken out to make room for the hay. So, there we would sit - in the doc's Cadillac watching the cattle feed on the hay while smoking real honest to god Havana Cuban cigars.
True story.

ehBeth, and all,
The leaderboard today shows AKTeam's current standing = 38.026 acres.......................

1 Aktbird57 .. 952 38.026 acres
2 935 35.989 acres



don't know who is right behind us - but they are right behind us.


Cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick !!!

That's a funny image, Danon. You must have thought you were truly living it up. Two young bucks feeding cattle out of a Caddy and smoking cigars. Was the chateau on a hill above you? I'm imagining it that way.

ehBeth, probably Carolyns team!!!!!!!!!!

Piff, the Scottish brook town of Auburn located west <about 14 miles along the I-80 Corridor> from my township. I'm at about 2100 ft above Auburn - the Sierra foothills. The next town <with a population of more than 300 folk> is Lake Tahoe <about 40 minutes east>

Your stories are so cool you guys! Where I grew up in San Francisco, there wasn't much farmland to speak of, however, just over the hill from my house was a small ranch owned by Mr and Mrs Rierdan. The neighbor kids and I visited the ranch often, and I was fortunate to have landed the job of taking care of the horses on Saturdays. After all my chores were completed, I was allowed riding one of the horses. There were three - Ginger, Tuffy, and Warboy. Ginger was my favorite of the three. Our house was the typical SF Victorian - only we also had three acres adjoining the house. The acreage was once used for raising chickens when the property was first purchased. At one time we had a variety of chickens, ducks, and a pair of adorable racoons residing in one of the pens. The horse fit in very well with the rest of the menagerie, so my parents didn't mind the animal sitting in the yard until my home chores were completed. On one occasion when bringing Ginger home to the ranch, I met a boy who was attempting to train Warboy for the local ropeing competitions that were held at a small ranch not far from where I lived. We chatted some, exchanged pleasantries, but because he was from another section of the city, there wasn't an occasion for meeting except when working with the horses. When I became engaged to the kids dad, we were chatting about the old neighborhood, and wouldn't ya know! I was marrying the boy i'd met years ago at Mr and Mrs Rierdens ranch. We were able to locate the couple who had moved and retired in the Northern CA town of Petaluma, and before their passing, organized a wonderful reunion dinner for them and the neighborhood people the couple had lovingly shared their hearts, home, and horses with.

You and your 282 friends have supported 1,656,985.8 square feet!

Marine Wetlands habitat supported: 53,113.7 square feet.
You have supported: (33,666.9)
Your 282 friends have supported: (19,446.8)

American Prairie habitat supported: 32,019.0 square feet.
You have supported: (9,129.5)
Your 282 friends have supported: (22,889.5)

Rainforest habitat supported: 1,571,853.1 square feet.
You have supported: (158,054.1)
Your 282 friends have supported: (1,413,799.0)

1 Aktbird57 .. 952 38.035 acres

2 935 35.989 acres


I'm gonna grab what I can from the leaderboard, when I can.