Here it is - Christmas time again, and Hamill Street in Oil City is aglow once more. We post pictures every year, and this is our 2007 contribution. We wish you could all visit in person!!
Thom & Bobby
THE ENTRANCE WAY.
The "FANTASY" tree.
Uncle Eddie and Auntie Pat.
With our friend Hillary Tyler.
The "garage sale" Santa collection year 45.
The Hosts -- -- THOM & BOBBY
The "Parlor" tree.
The TV room Mylar tree (year 2).
Carol Schmidt Margaret Bateman and Coe Haygood of Oil City
The 2007 MICHAEL'S group picture.
Deck from street side.
View to pool house.
Rear deck, from pool.
At the pool.
Front view, center.
Front view, Southeast
View Northwest.
Saturday, July 28th was the big surprise day. It began on Thursday actually, when Thom's Mom and sister Diane and her husband Roberto arrived unexpectedly in Oil City. Of course Bobby had orchestrated this entire weekend flawlessly to be a wonderful celebration of that fateful day in 1947 when the heir to the 303 Hamill Street, Oil City Louisiana estate was ushered into this world. The next day Thom's other sister, Jenny, and her husband Jeff and kids Ben and Aaron appeared, after setting up housekeeping in their RV on Caddo Lake. (Later to be invaded by local ants!!) The party began promptly at noon on Saturday with folks arriving from Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida. There were a couple of really special surprises, especially Stan and Edna Squires from Florida, and Darlene and Tom Walloch from Wisconsin. Thom had gone to grade and high school with Darlene, and only in the past few months had they re-established contact after nearly 40 years. The East Coast contingent included Mary McGarrigle, the Aunt to Thom's late partner Kevin, along with his Mother Fran, Mar Lou Lenti, and Denise Hutnik, the arrival of whom was a very emmotional moment to be sure. The catering was typically southern with catfish, hush puppies and jambalya, all excellent. A truly enjoyable and terrific time was had by all, all thanks to Bobby and his excellent planning.
Well, as most of you know, we here in this part of Louisiana have had a very wet summer to date. Usually by this time of the year, we are searching the skies for rain clouds, watching the grass and plants wither in the mid summer heat. This year has been a real exception, as we have had tropical, almost monsoon like storms since the spring. We went for a period of 35 days where it rained for 29 of those. We are still in that cycle, but the daily chances of rain have gone from 60% - 80% to 30% - 40%. We literally had to pump out water from under our pool fence, and instead of the grass dying from LACK of water, it is drowning from TOO MUCH water!! We planted a couple of potted tomato plants, and they grew to over seven feet on our deck and were producing 3-4 tomatoes per day until they just petered out at the end of last week. What follows is a series of pictures I took this morning of our yard as it looks after this wonderful period of rain and sun. The the growth spurts have been phenomenal.
Our little Oil City cottage -
Our front cactus garden is being overgrown with the grasses this year.
We travel to Marshall Texas each spring to get the Boston ferns from a special grower. They always do very well in this area. This year, we have a bird family in one of them, with the little ones getting ready to leave soon we think.
This is the usual picture we show of our front entrance way. Everything is especially healthy this year.
