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  • Wileytown Road in Cocke County, TN.

    Wileytown Road in Cocke County, TN.

    This is Wileytown Road in Cocke County, TN. Grandpa owned most of the cleared land to the right of the road and my mother’s older sisters lived in a house about half a mile on up the road from the camera’s location. They walked another half mile or so to the Southern Railway depot behind the camera for the ride to school. In 1922, when Mama was born, Grandpa built a new house within sight of the railroad as well as the Huff Island bridge over the French Broad River (also built in 1922). The family cemetery is high on a wooded ridge out of the frame on the center left while the side road in the center right leads to what Mama called the “tomato” gate. It separated the tomato field from the pasture. When I was in my pre-teens, I "helped" grandpa haul loose hay from this field on a wagon pulled by his two mules, Kate and Belle.

  • The View from Admiral Farragut Park

    The View from Admiral Farragut Park

    In the distance is a concrete silo from a farm abandoned long ago when the lake was created.. We toured K-Town today,, starting at the Farmers Market on Market Square and ending at Admiral Farragut Park overlooking Ft. Loudon Lake.

  • Writing for the Kindle

    Writing for the Kindle

    I'm learning to write for the Kindle. I started by putting the text into an HTML document using my ancient copy of Adobe Pagemill ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_PageMill ) . Add an anchor before each new chapter and number it. To insert images, I first size portraits to no more than 600 pixels wide by 800 pixels high. Make sure the images are in the same hard drive folder as the HTML file. Now write your table of contents and go back through the text to add proper links for all the chapter and image anchors. Open your free copy of Calibre ( http://calibre.kovidgoyal.net/ ) and convert the resulting HTML document to a MOBI file, then transfer it to the Kindle using the USB cable. Happy reading! This photo has been published here ( http://ideonexus.com/2009/05/ ) .

  • St. John's Lutheran Church

    St. John's Lutheran Church

    St. John's Lutheran Church ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John's_Lutheran_Church,_Knoxville,_Tennessee ) at 344 Broadway NW (Emory Place) in Knoxville, Tennessee, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The sanctuary was constructed in 1913 in the Gothic Revival style. It sits directly across Broadway from the entrance to Old Gray Cemetery. This photo has been published here ( http://wiki.worldflicks.org/knoxville,_tennessee.html#coords=(35.970218,-83.929367)&z=12 ) .

  • View from Cumberland Gap Tunnel

    View from Cumberland Gap Tunnel

    Taken from the rear platform of the observation car Lookout Mountain as she departs for Middlesborough, Kentucky, at the northern end of the tunnel. The South portal of this tunnel is in Tennessee, the North portal is in Kentucky. In the center, the train is 'under' Virginia. This was the first time a passenger train had been on these rails in over thirty years. The boys are retrieving pennies they had placed on the rails. This photo is published here. from an Ektachrome transparency.

  • Volunteer Landing

    Volunteer Landing

    In the background is the Gay Street Bridge, built in 1898 in Knoxville,Tennessee.

  • The Aquarium of the Americas

    The Aquarium of the Americas

    I am flattered that this image has been selected to appear in the Schmap digital travel guide for New Orleans.

  • The Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant (ca 1978)

    The Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant (ca 1978)

    I grew up working here. We called it the Oak Ridge Gaseous Confusion Plant and sometimes The Bomb Factory. When it was completed as part of the super secret Manhattan Project in the mid 1940s this building (code-named K-25) was the largest in the world with floor space of 44 acres. The power house in the background (see notes) was capable of generating enough power to light the city of Boston and could provide that power at five different frequencies simultaneously. To combat sabotage, transmission lines from the powerhouse to the gaseous diffusion cascade were enclosed in underground tunnels. Most of the highly enriched uranium used to fuel 'Little Boy', the Hiroshima bomb, was produced at our sister facility Y-12 in neighboring Bear Creek Valley since K-25 began enrichment operations late in the war. 'Fat Man', the Nagasaki bomb, was an implosion type using plutonium from the Hanford, Washington, site. The Cold War, and later civilian reactors would be the main purpose of our output. All but three units of the K-25 and K-27 cascades were shut down in 1964 and the entire plant ceased uranium enrichment in 1985. The powerhouse was dismantled in the 1980s and the K-25 building is currently being razed.* K-29 is already just a concrete slab. Activists attempted to save the northern section of the K-25 building (lower right) as a museum - to no avail. There was one gaseous diffusion 'cell' located near the Central Control Room (CCR) that was painted and labeled elaborately for visiting VIPs. It was called the President's Cell but no president ever visited it. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter did visit a running cell in K-33. Now It Can Be Told by Leslie R. Groves. UPDATE: On December 19, 2013, the 47th anniversary of my Company Service Date, the south wall of K-311-1 became the final portion of the K-25 "U" to be demolished. The DOE-Oak Ridge Flickr stream documented the destruction here. from an Ektachrome transparency

  • SR 4501 Emerges from the South Portal of Cumberland Gap Tunnel

    SR 4501 Emerges from the South Portal of Cumberland Gap Tunnel

    My favorite lady 'The Green Machine' pulls her train on a railfan excursion from Knoxville to Middlesboro, KY in the mid seventies. It was the first time a passenger train had been on this route in 33 years. This portal is in Tennessee, the north portal is in Kentucky, and the center of the tunnel is 'under' Virginia. Apologies for the quality. You can't make a silk purse out of a Polaroid SX-70 print. This photo is published here.

  • Sunsphere Observation Deck

    Sunsphere Observation Deck

    In April, 1982, there was an open house for the Sunsphere before the opening of the World's Fair in May. Funny thing, I was never in the building during the fair. The nice folks at Knoxify have chosen this humble image to include in their 2009 calendar. Thank you so much for this honor. View On Black from an Ektachrome transparency

  • Sorghum Reduction at the Museum of Appalachia

    Sorghum Reduction at the Museum of Appalachia

    The Guenther Family of Muddy Pond, Tennessee, has displayed the method for making sorghum syrup at the Fall Homecoming for many years. Here is a short segment on a recent episode of Tennessee Crossroads about the Guenther family's sorghum syrup. This photo has been published here.

  • Pocket Pies

    Pocket Pies

    Alton Brown did an episode of "Good Eats" ( http://www.foodnetwork.com/good-eats/index.html ) that featured fried pies. Inspired with his efforts, I tried my hand at these apple pocket pies. They are really quite easy and soooo good. I'm happy to announce that this photo was published by the Canadian Council of the Blind ( http://www.ccbnational.net/Wuzzy/ ) in their new cookbook which includes two recipes from each country in the world. Order your copy of Kitchens of the World here ( http://www.ccbnational.net/Wuzzy/index.php/fundraising-opportunities/kitchens-of-the-world ) Congratulations for a wonderful job!

  • Palm Reading

    Palm Reading

    A wonderful way to settle down with a good book. The book is The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina--the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Storm-Hurricane-Katrina---ebook/dp/B000Q9J0PQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1350614423&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Storm:+What+Went+Wrong+and+Why+During+Hurricane+Katrina--the+Inside+Story+from+One+Louisiana+Scientist ) by Ivor van Heerden. This is a Palm TX. Unfortunately (or not) it developed a problem with its touch screen. Touching here would be interpreted as a touch over there and the calibration could never be corrected. Fortunately, this led me to buy my first iPod Touch so the TX is now in the bottom of the junk drawer.

  • On With Roosevelt

    On With Roosevelt

    This 1936 campaign button belonged to my uncle who was a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps. It is a bit less than one inch in diameter.

  • Poll Tax Receipt

    Poll Tax Receipt

    My mother never threw anything away.

  • Little Gino

    Little Gino

    Rottweiler puppies are so sweet. I was looking around at Barnes and Noble today when I came across A Portrait of the Dog by Andrew Morris. I picked it up and thumbed through it. Then of course I looked in the index for Rottweiler. There on page 218, I saw Baby Gino looking back at me. Of all the Flickr pictures of Rottie puppies in the world, Mr. Morris chose my little boy. I'm biased but I've said all along that he's more handsome than any of the pictures I've seen on the Rottweiler calendars I used to buy. Thank you sir for this honor.

  • Gino's Swimming Hole

    Gino's Swimming Hole

    But Gino is gone ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/cheneworth/4074964827/ ) . View On Black ( http://bighugelabs.com/onblack.php?id=4159958651&size=large )

  • Miss Lulu Makes the Colbert Report

    Miss Lulu Makes the Colbert Report

    Last week I wrote a short article for our local blog, KnoxViews, about the Republican National Committee's ridiculous survey aimed at young voters and asking them, in effect, what costume they will have to don in order to get their votes. Well, last night Comedy Central's Colbert Report featured this screen grab of my article to illustrate their own poke at the survey. I was thrilled; Lulu not so much.

  • Knoxville Utilities Board

    Knoxville Utilities Board

    And you think your electric bill is enormous. I came across this in Mama's old cedar chest full of photos and keepsakes.

  • Getting Dennis' Goat

    Getting Dennis' Goat

    I am flattered that my goat photos have been published here ( http://www.nowpublic.com/world/goats-slip-past-security-fence ) .

  • Asa Jackson's Perpetual Motion Machine

    Asa Jackson's Perpetual Motion Machine

    "ASA JACKSON'S FABULOUS-PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE, WHICH HE DESIGNED AND BUILT IN THE MID 1800'S TO PRODUCE ITS OWN POWER AND RUN FOREVER... According to local legend, Asa kept his invention hidden in a cave during the civil war, and took it apart when it was unattended, so that if it were discovered, no one could understand how it worked. Asa Jackson (1792-1870) lived on a farm in that beautiful and pristine countryside near Lebanon, in middle Tennessee, a few miles from President Andrew Jackson's home. (Some family members say they were related.) It is not known how or why Asa became interested in a perpetual motion machine. Stranger still is why he thought he could succeed in designing such a device which had been pondered and studied for hundreds of years by some of the greatest scientific minds of the world (including the great Sir Isaac Newton of the 1600's), and they generally had concluded that it could not be done. I first saw this most amazing and intriguing contraption in October, 1994, hanging from the ceiling in Jack Jackson's workshop in Lebanon. Jack Jackson, whose remarkable story as a pioneer country musician and as an inventor is presented elsewhere in the Museum, was the great-grandson of old Asa Jackson, and he acquired this odd contraption from his father, Jonas Asa Jackson. For 55 years it had hung in his shop behind his modest home, and after he died in August, 1994, his two sons, Doug and John, sold me the piece (or pieces) so it could be preserved here for all to see. They had always heard that old Asa Jackson, one of eight children, spent most of his time and resources working on and perfecting the machine, even to the point of not properly tending his farm and caring for his family. Family tradition has it that someone (perhaps the federal government) had offered a million dollar reward for anyone who could invent such a machine. In order to secure his work, Asa, it is said, took the machine to a cave near Murfreesboro during the Civil War. He never left it, the story continued, without first partially taking it apart so that if it were found, his secret could not be stolen. Asa did get the machine to running, according to oft told stories, and it is said that it ran for a month or more. One of the people I interviewed, other than family members, was Alfred T. MacFarland an interesting, colorful and most impressive retired country lawyer who practiced his profession for 48 years in the Lebanon area, and who had served as the Commissioner of Revenue for the State of Tennessee, and as a member of the powerful interstate Commerce Commission in Washington for several years. I visited him at his home on his large, rolling farm located near historic Castalian Springs, at the end of MacFarland Lane, in late October, 1994. In addition to his accomplishments in various fields, he was obviously a student of history -- at least of the human interest type of history. He had indeed heard of the Asa Jackson's perpetual motion machine. He said, in part: "I started following my father around, down in the Leeville Community, when I was about 4 years old; and one day we passed the place where a young boy named Jackson had recently been run over and killed by a mail carrier in a Model-T Ford. That reminded my father of the story about old Asa Jackson, whom I believe was a relative to the boy who had beer killed. "He said that he had always heard of tree strange and mysterious contraption that old Asa Jackson had built, called a perpetual motion machine. He apparently spent many years trying to make and perfect it. In this connection, John and Doug Jackson showed me a copy of an old promissory note in which Asa Jackson borrowed $75.00 from his son, William Henry Jackson, dated December 12, 1861. MacFarland continued with what his father had told him about Asa Jackson -- sketches of stories which had lingered around that part of the county for generations. "Such a machine, I understand, is against the law of physics, but maybe Asa got the law repealed," MacFarland joked, "because they said he finally got his self-powering machine to running, sometime during the Civil War. He was so afraid that somebody would copy his invention, or perhaps steal it in its entirety, that he hid it in a cave near Murfreesboro. It's right across the road from where the Joe L. Evins Veterans Hospital is now located. "This machine which supposedly produced its own power as it ran, drew state-wide and even national attention -- college professors and people like that. It created quite a stir." At this point the reader is about as well informed as is the writer relative to the perpetual motion machine. Asa died in 1870, and it is assumed that the contraption passed to his son William Henry (1830-1891), then to his grandson Jonas Asa (1865-1935), thence to Asa's great-grandson Jonas Asa Jackson (always called Jack Jackson), who kept it until he passed it on to his two sons when he died in August, 1994. It was from his sons, John and Doug, that I acquired it. Tim Beets, of the Museum staff, and I designed the frame from which the two wheels are suspended. The churn was added to illustrate how the power produced by the machine might have been used. I would be much obliged for any information relative to additional history of this contrivance, and I'd welcome definitive or speculative comments as to how the machine might have worked. John Rice Irwin The Museum of Appalachia Mr. Jackson's invention is featured in this article at the Murfreesboro Post, which also sports this photo on the cover.

  • Getting Dennis' Goats

    Getting Dennis' Goats

    I am flattered that my goat photos have been published here ( http://www.nowpublic.com/world/goats-slip-past-security-fence ) .

  • Getting Dennis' Goat

    Getting Dennis' Goat

    I'm not sure I trust anyone who parts his hair in the middle. Dennis Fox at the Fruit and Berry Patch in Halls has a petting zoo, sort of. I am flattered that my goat photos have been published here ( http://www.nowpublic.com/world/goats-slip-past-security-fence ) .

  • Getting Dennis' Goat

    Getting Dennis' Goat

    I am flattered that my goat photos have been published here ( http://www.nowpublic.com/world/goats-slip-past-security-fence ) .

  • Early Voting at Downtown West

    Early Voting at Downtown West

    I took Lulu with me as she needs to learn the importance of the right (and duty) to vote. She would make a far better State Senator than Stacey the Clown. We expect Bill Haslam to be the next governor. Not my first choice, but we could definitely do worse. We got back home just before the monsoon set in. This photo has been published here ( http://storify.com/jacklail/election-night-2010 ) .

  • Dad in His first Wife Sybil

    Dad in His first Wife Sybil

    in the late 1930s. The tower is located on a mountain above Brushy Mountain State Prison, James Earl Ray's home away from home for so many years. This photo is published here.

  • Horse Drawn Sorghum Mill

    Horse Drawn Sorghum Mill

    The Guenther Family of Muddy Pond, Tennessee, has displayed the method for making sorghum syrup at the Fall Homecoming for many years. Here ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q87lUGW-G0 ) is a short segment on a recent episode of Tennessee Crossroads about the Guenther family's sorghum syrup.

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    Volunteer Landing
    The Aquarium of the Americas
    The Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant (ca 1978)