Vanessa Williams will always be a Miss America to me.

I used to be in pageants when I was younger.  I even had the opportunity to attend a luncheon where Miss America 1984, yes, that Miss America, Vanessa Williams, was the guest speaker.

Everything seemed fine at the luncheon.  She looked beautiful and gave words of encouragement to all of us little misses.  I guess you could say everything seemed as wholesome as a box of cornflakes.

So it's unfortunate that she resigned her title on this day in 1984 due to nude photos of her that were to be published in Penthouse Magazine.  Images of a naked Miss America just didn't fit with the pageant's wholesome, positive and poised brand (even though, ironically, the pageant began as a greedy publicity stunt.)

Even still, Vanessa Williams will always be Miss America 1984 to me because the photos were never published (thankfully) and because who ever remembers the first runner-up's name anyway?

Want the Miss America experience (with your clothes on) or at least just a little connection to where it all began?  Check out the permanent Miss America exhibit at the Atlantic City Historical Museum.  And if you're a diehard fan, mark your calendars for Miss America Week and be sure to attend the Miss America Trade Show and Forum.

On this day in 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.  Not only was it "...one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" but also an intersection of goodwill knitted together by the Space Program, the Presidency and even immigration as seen in the following vintage images.

Letter stated plainly that the lunar landing mission is to be the top priority of the United States.  I like how true leadership, with the support of a nation, including naturalized citizens (re: the next image), emphasizes and makes it possible to reach a focused goal.	Letter from Thaddeus A. Zagorewicz, a former immigrant who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, of San Francisco to President Richard Nixon.  In the letter, Zagorewicz expressed his interest in moon exploration and congratulations regarding the astronauts' first moon walk on July 20, 1969.
The silicon disc containing messages of peace and hope inscribed at the top with:  "Goodwill messages from around the world brought to the Moon by the astronauts of Apollo 11."  Included in the silicon disc is a message from Pres. Johnson from 1965:   "We are determined that space shall be an avenue toward peace and we both invite and welcome all men to join with us in this great opportunity."	Photograph of Astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Jr., Lunar Module Pilot during Apollo 11 Extravehicular Activity on the Moon , 07/20/1969

Take a few more moments to watch The Eagle Has Landed: The Flight of Apollo 11, 1969 produced in partnership with NASA to give the public a first-hand account of the lunar landing space mission.  Imagine what we could do if our nation could come together to give other programs of goodwill the same priority that was given to the space missions back then.

Where did all the Bastille bricks go?

I'm giving another nod to the French today because it's Bastille Day.  But did you know there's no longer a Bastille to celebrate?  Not even a brick.  What's there instead is a public square with a structure in the middle of it marking the spot where the french prison once stood and subsequently where Marie Antoinette lost her head.

• Title: [Place de la Bastille, (July Column) Paris, France]
• Date Created/Published: [between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900]

When I saw this picture, I about lost my head too; well, at least to a little wonderment as I realized how it so closely resembled a structure I had just seen in person on our recent visit to the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, NY.

Title:  Battle Monument at Trophy Point, USMA West Point, NY
Photo:  Nicole Spencer Benge, July 2011

Could there be a connection between these two monuments?

After a few google searches and a few wiki pages later, the answer I came up with wasn't what I had hoped for.  As it turns out, they were designed by two different artists in completely different circles of influence.

Say Happy Birthday to Paris France with a Wave to the Statue of Liberty

It's Paris' birthday!  No, not that Paris, as in Hilton.  But the other Paris, as in France.  On this day in 1951 the city of lights celebrated it's 2,000th birthday, but it was really much older than that.  Read more...

We could try to make homemade crepes or even roll out the dough for croissants to celebrate the birthday of Paris, France. But why should we have to do all that work when we can just look in our own backyard at the Statue of Liberty? Read more on the history of the Statue of Liberty on OhRanger.com.

• Title: [Head of Statue of Liberty on display in park in Paris]
• Creator(s): Fernique, Albert, 1841?-1898, photographer
• Date Created/Published: [1883]

Excuse me, storm coming through.

We had a huge afternoon thunderstorm today that flickered the lights a few times.  I'm thankful we didn't lose power - not because I'm afraid of the dark, but because I'm afraid of not having air conditioning!  Sitting here sweltering would not make me very happy, to say the least.  But in between the lightning strikes and thunder claps I found a few vintage images from the past depicting storms and their damage.  Looking a little deeper, one might also see that we can't always let a little storm stop us from our daily lives.

"Farmer and sons walking in the face of a dust storm"; Cimarron County, Oklahoma, ca. 04/1936	Dust Storm at Manzanar War Relocation Authority Center, 07/03/1942
Dust storm in Amarillo, Texas. FSA photo by Arthur Rothstein., ca. 1936	B-26 Night Intruder. These light bombers, carrying out "Operation Strangle," hit Communist troop supply lines every night in all kinds of weather. ca. 01/1952
Michael McNelis just recovered from his second attack of pneumonia. Was found selling papers in a big rain storm. Philadelphia, Pa., 06/12/1910	"Dear Mr. Roosevelt, Darkness came when it hit us. Picture taken from water tower one hundred feet high. Yours Truly, Chas. P. Williams." Photo: Massive Dark cloud approaching village in forefront. 04/14/1935
Dust storm, 05/1972	Sun streams through storm clouds at Grafton Cemetery.  05/1973

Working that Workout Outfit

I'm starting a new fitness regime AGAIN.  For the past ten years I've started, stopped and restarted various exercise routines including The Firm, Winsor Pilates, Gilad's Bodies in Motion and various workouts that I find in Women's Health magazine or on the internet.  Most of them, well, actually, all of them worked.  But I could easily find an excuse not to workout, including not having anything appropriate to wear to the gym.  Imagine how easy it would be for me to get out of working out if I had to wear these stylish workout outfits.  Also, I couldn't resist adding captions to some of these because they're just too silly looking not to.

Female students exercising with dumbbells, Western High School, Washington, D.C.

(Are they in a dumbbell cheering competition?)

(Could this be the very first Curves franchise?)

Living vicariously through vintage wedding photography.

My cousin is getting married today.  I'm really looking forward to both the ceremony and the reception because I get to live vicariously through her wedding because I did not have one.

Oh, I'm definitely married.  We had a shotgun wedding - without me being pregnant.  We chose to get married when we did because, aside from loving each other of course, we viewed our life circumstances with a healthy dose of reality.  Brian and I had been dating for over a year.  We were both in our thirties.  He and I were driving two hours each way every weekend (and sometimes during the week) to see each other.  His living situation included roommates and his lease was about to be end.  I had just lost my job, which was the only reason I was even living in the city that I was living in.  New base housing had just become available to married families only.  I didn't even want a huge princessy wedding dress anyway.

So, we took the opportunity to get married so that we could take advantage (rather than wallow in the disadvantages) of all the life circumstances that we faced.  Almost two years later, we're still happily married.

I wonder what circumstances and thoughts these couples faced in the days leading up to their nuptials?

Miss Hedejar[?] and Mr. Lang wedding at St. Andrew's Church. Wedding group in front of blue tiled archway with Mr. Hamburger

A colorful diplomatic wedding took place at St. Matthew's Church today when Senorita Graciela Trucco, daughter of the Chilean Ambassador, Don Manuel Trucco, became the bride of Don Fernando Illanes of the Chilean Dipolomatic Service. The best man, Alfonso Frez, Chilean Consul General in New York, and the Maid of Honor, Senorita Marta Trucco, are near by, with her attendants in the background, 2/19/38

Kennedy wedding--Jackie throwing the bouquet

Vanderbilt-Szechenyi wedding, NYC, Jan. 27, 1908: H.P. Whitney and Dorothy Whitney

Am I crazy to think John Hinckley Jr. descended from a doctor of insanity?

It's been thirty years since John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate President Reagan.  There have been numerous articles written about the case, about the legislation created from it and about the conspiracy theories surrounding it.  I'm not interested in commenting any further about that stuff.  I'm interested in his family tree. (See my recent obsession with genealogy.)

I came across this photo of the Hinckley family of New York and wondered if John Hinckley Jr. of Texas could be of any relation to them.  If so, it would seem that Hinckley's verdict of not-guilty by reason of insanity would be completely ironic given the history of the Hinckley males in this photo.

Hinckley family, of Albany, New York, full-length group portrait, including Dr. John Warren Hinckley, his wife, a son, and daughter Isabella 1853(?)

John Warren Hinckley, the older man in the picture, was a doctor, who's father was also a doctor.  The younger male in the photo, Livingston Hinckley, grew up to be a doctor as well.  His son, Livingston Hinckley Jr., was a doctor too.  I'm going to take a guess here and say that they were probably a very healthy, if not wealthy, family.

As history would have it, Dr. Livingston Hinkley (pictured as a boy in the photo), graduated from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1878 and went on to become assistant physician and acting superintendent of Blackwell's Island Asylum for the Insane.  He was a well-known psychologist who established a private practice sanatorium and acted as an expert in criminal cases involving the question of sanity.

I find it so ironic and downright amazingly interesting that a man who attempted to kill a President may have come from a family of doctors, of which one was a leader in the field of psychological disorders who was an expert for the State in determining whether or not someone was sane or insane.  Imagine the outcome of the trial if the good doctor could have been around to help his own great-great grandson.

Regrettably, imagining is what I'll have to rest with.  I still don't know if John Hinckley Jr. is actually related to anyone in the archival image because I can't find his family tree on the internet.  But even if Hinckley Jr. isn't related to Hinkley the psychologist, I still had fun thinking about the possible connection.

One night in military lodging without A/C counts as an entire space-a trip.

I mentioned I just got back from Arkansas to visit my husband while he was at 1stSGT's school.  Normally I wouldn't say the trip was a space-a trip in the classic sense as neither one of us flew on a military plane.  However we did stay in two different military lodges.  So, I'm going to say that this trip counts as a space-a trip - especially since in one of the lodges we didn't have any air conditioning and it was 80 degrees that day.  Part of a space-a trip is being willing and able to rough-it a little and I definitely consider no a/c, in that kind of weather, roughing it.

Here are some great pictures from our time in Little Rock, AR and Memphis, TN.

This is the high school made famous by the "Little Rock Nine."

We even got to meet Minniejean Tricky, on of the "Nine."  She's not in this picture though; but she does have a commemorative bench nearby.

The best Memphis BBQ in the city - Jim Neely's (as in Cooking with the Neely's on FoodTV) Interstate Bar-B-Q.

Brian had the chicken and pork ribs platter.  I had the smoked turkey dinner.

On the world-famous Beale Street in Memphis, TN.

If Beale Street could talk.

Having drinks at The Peabody Hotel in Memphis, TN.

cool dogs at The Peabody Hotel

The Lorraine Motel - site of Martin Luther King Jr. assassination.

It all happened where the wreath hangs.  The motel has been converted into the National Civil Rights Museum, except for rooms 306, 307 and 308 which have been kept as they were since the day of the assassination.

The other "king's" home:  Elvis Presley's Graceland Mansion

Elvis' parents bedroom.  I actually really liked this room.  Everything was so plush and so clean.

The kitchen - complete with wall-to-wall carpeting and yellow appliances.

The stairway down to the basement was fully covered in mirrors.

Elvis' yellow and blue room where the latest in technology could be found (three tv's, an 8-track and reel-to-reel equipment.)

The billiard room even had textiles on the ceiling.

The Jungle Room - gross.  It just felt sweaty in there.

One of his Grammys.

Continuing through one (there are two) of the trophy rooms.

What a dreamy and ethereal portrait.

Priscilla's wedding dress.  I love that it had sleeves.

A plaque with the names of the charitable organizations that Elvis supported.

The sunken lounge right outside of the racquetball court.

The racquetball room converted into a another trophy room.

Elvis' horses.  They look pretty good for their age. ;)

Am I in Rio?

The fountain with the Presley family tombs surrounding it.

This is nice but nothing compares to flying space-a.

This is Elvis' personal, leather-bound copy of the script from that cool tv-special that airs sometimes on PBS.

This reminded me of the stalls (rooms? i don't know what they call those things) that silhouette dancers dance in.

Larger than life-size mural from the side of the building.

Fort Campbell, KY is where we stayed for our one night in military lodging.  This picture really brings the trip full circle.  The troops that were called in to assist the Little Rock Nine with integrating Central High School were actually from the 101st Airborn Division.