Today I designed and ordered a set of calling cards for our upcoming trip. It will have all of our pertinent information, including the address for this blog and our various telephone numbers. Here's the photo I put on it:
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Calling Card
Today I designed and ordered a set of calling cards for our upcoming trip. It will have all of our pertinent information, including the address for this blog and our various telephone numbers. Here's the photo I put on it:
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
The Burtons of Tisbury, Wiltshire County, England
My father's mother's people were Burtons and lived in and around the village of Tisbury, near Salisbury, in the County of Wiltshire in England. Tisbury is in the Dunworth Hundred. Here's a piece I clipped from the web on Dunworth:
Chalke and Dunworth hundreds are in south-west Wiltshire on the Dorset border. The parishes of Chalke hundred were united by being part of Wilton abbey's estate before the Norman Conquest, but most of the hundred is homogeneous. Long and narrow parishes lie north and south across the river Ebble and are characterized by extensive chalk downs. Until farmsteads were built on the downs in the 19th century, nearly all settlement was in small riverside villages. From the Reformation to the
19th century the earls of Pembroke owned most of the eastern parishes. Sheep and corn husbandry and more recently arable and dairy farming was the pattern of agriculture in all the parishes except Semley where there is a remarkable survival of common pastures. Dunworth hundred is largely in the Vale of Wardour, and land in most of its parishes belonged to the Barons Arundell of Wardour as successors to Shaftesbury abbey. It is an area of broken landscape and mixed farming in which only Tisbury has grown larger than an ordinary village. Except at Tisbury, there has been little manufacturing in the area, but Portland stone has been extensively quarried at Chilmark, Teffont Evias, and Tisbury, and greensand stone has been quarried at the Donheads. Partly because of its stone, Dunworth hundred is notable for its secular buildings. The castle at Wardour is the only one to survive in Wiltshire; Fonthill Abbey in Fonthill Gifford was the most remarkable house of its day in England. Among the many farm houses of local stone which survive from the Middle Ages is Place Farm at Tisbury, which was frequently visited by the abbess of Shaftesbury and has the largest medieval barn in England. Except for Sedgehill parish and part of Donhead St. Mary parish both hundreds are in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty: the exceptions are in a Special Landscape Area.
Chalke and Dunworth hundreds are in south-west Wiltshire on the Dorset border. The parishes of Chalke hundred were united by being part of Wilton abbey's estate before the Norman Conquest, but most of the hundred is homogeneous. Long and narrow parishes lie north and south across the river Ebble and are characterized by extensive chalk downs. Until farmsteads were built on the downs in the 19th century, nearly all settlement was in small riverside villages. From the Reformation to the
19th century the earls of Pembroke owned most of the eastern parishes. Sheep and corn husbandry and more recently arable and dairy farming was the pattern of agriculture in all the parishes except Semley where there is a remarkable survival of common pastures. Dunworth hundred is largely in the Vale of Wardour, and land in most of its parishes belonged to the Barons Arundell of Wardour as successors to Shaftesbury abbey. It is an area of broken landscape and mixed farming in which only Tisbury has grown larger than an ordinary village. Except at Tisbury, there has been little manufacturing in the area, but Portland stone has been extensively quarried at Chilmark, Teffont Evias, and Tisbury, and greensand stone has been quarried at the Donheads. Partly because of its stone, Dunworth hundred is notable for its secular buildings. The castle at Wardour is the only one to survive in Wiltshire; Fonthill Abbey in Fonthill Gifford was the most remarkable house of its day in England. Among the many farm houses of local stone which survive from the Middle Ages is Place Farm at Tisbury, which was frequently visited by the abbess of Shaftesbury and has the largest medieval barn in England. Except for Sedgehill parish and part of Donhead St. Mary parish both hundreds are in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty: the exceptions are in a Special Landscape Area.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Forty-five Days and Out!
Today marks the forty-five day point in my countdown to retirement. It's hard to believe that just six weeks from now I'll be joining the ranks of the unemployed, really for the first time in my life. My employment history started with my working summers for Sam Trubo at his concession stand in Brookside Park near the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. That would have been about 1963 when I was fourteen years old. I made snow cones and dispensed Coca Cola into waxy cups for the park's thousands of visitors.
About 1965 I started working in the grocery business, first as a meat department cleanup boy, then as as boxboy, and finally as a retail clerk. By the time I went in the Navy in 1969, I was a journeyman clerk for Alpha Beta working out of their Hill Street Pasadena store. In those years I was not only working twenty to thirty hours a week, but going to college taking a full load as well.
Once out of the Navy, I continued working and going to school for a time. In 1973 I got a job as a crewman on a yacht in the Mediterranean for a year. That adventure came to an end in 1974. Finally, starting in August of 1974, I began working a 40-hour week and have been doing so ever since.
On August 15, 2008, I will have worked 25 years with the State of Nevada, most recently in the Department of Public Safety. Since Nevada allows you to "buy" retirement time, I actually will be retiring with 30 years of service. It's sometimes hard to believe that I have, for the most part, got up and gone to work every day since 1965, over forty years.
Most of my co-workers believe I won't will be able to find enough to do to keep busy. On the contrary, I have a million interests. Everything from writing to photograhy, from traveling abroad to working on home projects, from genealogy to collecting, from attending college classes to driving antique cars are favorite things to do. I've never had enough time to persue any of my interests in the past. Hopefully, now I will.
About 1965 I started working in the grocery business, first as a meat department cleanup boy, then as as boxboy, and finally as a retail clerk. By the time I went in the Navy in 1969, I was a journeyman clerk for Alpha Beta working out of their Hill Street Pasadena store. In those years I was not only working twenty to thirty hours a week, but going to college taking a full load as well.
Once out of the Navy, I continued working and going to school for a time. In 1973 I got a job as a crewman on a yacht in the Mediterranean for a year. That adventure came to an end in 1974. Finally, starting in August of 1974, I began working a 40-hour week and have been doing so ever since.
On August 15, 2008, I will have worked 25 years with the State of Nevada, most recently in the Department of Public Safety. Since Nevada allows you to "buy" retirement time, I actually will be retiring with 30 years of service. It's sometimes hard to believe that I have, for the most part, got up and gone to work every day since 1965, over forty years.
Most of my co-workers believe I won't will be able to find enough to do to keep busy. On the contrary, I have a million interests. Everything from writing to photograhy, from traveling abroad to working on home projects, from genealogy to collecting, from attending college classes to driving antique cars are favorite things to do. I've never had enough time to persue any of my interests in the past. Hopefully, now I will.
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