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On the morning of December 5th, 1957, a major natural gas explosion occurred in the basement of Berry Pharmacy in Villa Rica, Georgia here in the United States. The blast was so large that it leveled an entire city block, killing 12 people and severely injuring 20. It was the largest disaster in Carroll County Georgia’s history, according to the historical plaque located outside the restored pharmacy building. Here is a brief YouTube video of a 1957 newsreel played in many movie theaters at the time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpe9V4pzUVY.

On December 5th, 2007, my wife Norma and I drove over to Villa Rica from the neighboring city of Douglasville to attend and capture the 50th anniversary ceremony in remembrance of this great tragedy. A large number of people still connected to the disaster appeared that chilly December day and participated in an exceptionally somber yet joyous celebration. This slice of Villa Rican history illustrates the strength, spirit and soul of a small town with timeless integrity.

Here is the front panel from the 54 minute video created by ArtonDisk.com. You may order a High Definition DVD of the 50th anniversary ceremony if you would like a permanent copy. The link will take you to ArtonDisk.com where you should click in the right sidebar to purchase the DVD. It will be sent to you in about 5 business days or less. The video includes a copy of the program from that day’s events.

Throughout the ceremony, the speakers are backlit and appear as mournful silhouettes. While this effect is the accidental result of working with a new high definition video camera set on "automatic," it lends itself to the overwhelming sadness and deeply felt meaning of the event.

The celebration inside the new Berry Pharmacy immediately after the ceremony was overwhelmingly joyous. I’ve never liked the word "closure" but there was a sense of framing the past and creating new beginnings for Villa Rica that day. 

We hope you find tremendous value in this 54 minute video. Thank you to all who participated that wonderful day.   Richard and Norma Nichols

Thursday, July 23, 2009
Filed as Villa Rica
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Sponsored by the Cultural Arts Council of Douglasville/Douglas County and the Douglas County Department of Parks and Recreation, Pioneer Days is a very charming autumn highlight in West Georgia.

Pioneer Days  is a two day family festival which takes place each fall just west of Douglasville, Georgia in celebration of the early history of Douglas County. The bucolic pastures in scenic Clinton Nature Preserve serve as the backdrop for an assortment of "back to your roots" experiences including a Cowboy Campfire, Cowboy Poets, local artisans showing off their quilting, quilling, pottery making, wood turning and other traditional crafts. This is just the beginning . . . 

Reptile Man enthralls the audiences with his dangerous over-the-top performances with exotic snakes, alligators, lizards and turtles. His combination of showmanship and scientific information proves to be quite memorable. He often meanders through the crowds wearing a huge snake or encouraging people to pet one of his alligators.

The Cultural Arts Council has partnered with the Southeastern Blue Grass Association to present its 3 hour Annual Bluegrass Concert. Last year the very polished and talented bluegrass band Peachtree Station appeared and gave a top notch performance. The video embedded above lasts for about 17 minutes and serves as a small sampling of their music.

According to Peachtree Station’s MySpace page:

Peachtree Station is one of the most exciting bluegrass bands in Georgia. This band performs regularly at The RedLight Café in Atlanta, as well as regional festivals. Peachtree Station is a band whose music offers traditional and contemporary bluegrass with influences of newgrass, folk and rock . . .   

Peachtree Station also has an AOL Hometown website.

This year’s Pioneer Days takes place on Friday, October 17th from 6 to 9 p.m. and on Saturday, October 18th from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. For more information, read the .pdf document located here. 

Saturday, October 11, 2008
Filed as Douglasville Celebrations, Music Concerts
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You may listen to 4 of Ilja’s original songs on his My Space page. Mr. Moston also plays 5 more of his extraterrestrial compositions on his "Alien" My Space page where his byline is "Music not from this world." He lists his services as: "Piano performance, classic and jazz harmony, jazz arrangements, and jazz improvisation." 

Ilja mentions that he is "a non-singing piano/keyboardist, arranger and composer from Lithuania, currently residing in Hiram, GA." Ilja Moston is available to play for weddings, receptions and other important events in the Atlanta Metro Area and beyond. He also teaches the piano to aspiring musicians! Ilja can be reached at 770-845-5834.

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Filed as Music Concerts
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On Saturday, September 20th, 2008, the Cultural Arts Council of Douglasville/Douglas County, in their "Concerts on the Plaza" series presented Tommy Dean and Swami Gone Bananas in concert at O’Neal Plaza. For almost two and a half hours, SGB played a great psychedelic concert of music from the late ’60s and early ’70s.

The band describes its music as "retro-hip psychedelic rock influenced by an encyclopedic esoteric assortment of musicians." There are many highlights but the music and the band speak for themselves. I have broken the concert up into flash video segments, some with more than one song. You will need a fast connection to the Internet for certain, and hopefully you will find the quality much better than YouTube. Unfortunately we don’t have time or skills to edit the raw video, and we don’t own a fluid head video tripod yet . . . More songs will be processed and uploaded as time and permissions allow.

Turn up the volume and Enjoy!

Song 1: Going To California

Thursday, September 25, 2008
Filed as Music Concerts
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Every year Douglasville has an outstanding fireworks display to celebrate Independence Day. In 2007 the event was delayed until Labor Day due to the devastating drought in this region. This spring and summer we have had much more precipitation. We photgraphed the fireworks from the front west parkinglot at Arbor Place Mall looking towards Hunter Park.

This 16 minute video was created with our Panasonic HDC-SD1 AVCHD high definition video camera with Dolby 5.1 surround sound. The software used in converting the movie for the web is Moyea Flash Video MX Standard.  The Moyea software created a Flash video (.FLV) file for the web which was 27 times smaller than the original .AVI file. In turn, the .AVI file was converted from the 1.6 gigabyte AVCHD format file created by the camera using Pinnacle Studio 12 Ultimate video editing software.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Filed as Douglasville Celebrations
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