| I was born right here in Lebanon, Marion County, KY so 50 something years ago. I've lived in Campbellsville, KY, Menlo, GA, Atlanta, GA, Bedford, KY, Taylorsville, KY, Irvine, KY and Lexington, KY before moving back to Marion Co. When I lived in Atlanta the airport was WAY out of town.
Sometime after graduating from high school in Taylorsville, KY in '65 & getting married in June of '68 I went on a government all expense paid trip to Southeast Asia. I have a page that tells about some of my experiences there. In between I started to work for IBM in Lexington. I worked for IBM for 26 years and then took a Leave of Absence (LOA) for 4 years & retired from IBM in the fall of '96. I didn't take the LOA because I wanted to.
I married Nancy Arnold from Irvine, KY. in June of '68 & we have 3 wonderful children who live in Lexington, Kentucky. Wes, Amy & Seth. Wes and Seth married two wonderful gals who are Medical Doctors(MD). Wes works for Averitt trucking and Seth is a licensed landscape architect. Amy works for Lexmark and her husband works for IBM. Wes has a son named Jakob. Seth has to daughters named Riley and Avery.
I opened a photography studio in February of 1993 on Main St., in Lebanon. Nancy & I bought almost 4 acres of land on Lovers Lane & built a new home. I have a lake with 2 bridges, a deck in the lake. The house is surrounded on 2 sides by trees and our closest neighbors are about ¾ mile away. The studio is now located at our home.
I started working for IBM in '66 packing typewriters for shipment. In early '78 I started working 2d shift in computer operations. When I left IBM I was a senior systems programmer - performance analyst. Which means that I was a systems programmer who knew something about large system performance. While working in that capacity I also worked with the Candle Corp., Los Angles, Ca & their system monitoring program named Omegamon®. I wrote the specs for a program to monitor Omegamon® that finally came into Candle's product line as Status Monitor®;. With one terminal I could monitor 40+ computer systems or applications at one time. I understand that IBM has bought up the Candle Corp.
My first 'real' camera was a Canon AE1 with a 50MM lens. Later I had 3 Canon A1's with about 10-12 lenses. As I began to do professional work I purchased 2 Bronica ETRS 645 Medium Format cameras & a variety of lenses. Now I'm using a Canon 5D with a variety of lenses including a 17-35 F2.8 "L" lens, 24-70 F2.8 "L" lens,a 70 - 105 F4"L" lens, a 70-200 F2.8 "L" lens and a 300MM "L" F4 lens. I've just recently started using a Canon 5D.....and I love it. Most of the images on this site were taken with a Canon 20D or a Canon 5D. Previously I have owned a D30 and a D60, both very fine cameras at the time.
The last IBM computer I had was an AT 339 with a 286 CPU that ran at 12 mhz. I paid $3300.00 for it and that was at a 50% employee price. It came with a CGA monitor, a Pro Printer, 512K RAM & a 30M HD. Haven't things changed in the last 10-12 years in the computer world? That 339 had 512K of RAM. Today my computer has 2 ghtz of RAM and 2.5 TB of disk space. I have more computing power sitting under my desk than we had in the 158's, 168, 3033's & the 3090s that I learned to operate n the late 70's. While at IBM we believed in living on the 'bleeding' edge of technology. We were the first site outside of NY to be able to run multiple operating systems on the same system. We ran the VM OS and MVS with JES2 & JES3 running under the MVS.
I loved that life but paid a high price for it. My children grew up without me being there for them. I started having health problems and then IBM didn't need or want me anymore.
Nancy and I moving back to Lebanon was one of the best moves we've ever made. We looked in Lexington several times for a new (to us) home. When we moved back home we found a piece of property that no one else wanted. As soon as we saw it, we could see the potential the property had. Some of our friends thought we were crazy for buying that worthless piece of wetlands and swamp. Today the swamp is the lake that is full of fish. It's almost like having a 750,000 gallon aquarium. Watching the fish is quiet relaxing and it's a lot of fun to catch a few of them. I feed the fish almost daily and as I get near the lake I see these big wakes coming to me.
I joined the Marion County Veterans Honor Guard. We perform military rites for veterans. Unfortunately the military will only furnish 2 guys and a boom box. Their flag folding skills are very minimal.
Marion County Veterans Honor Guard was founded in 1996 buy 3 men here in Lebanon. At the time they wore blue suits with their American Legion or VFW hats. Today we furnish each member a full dress uniform. We have 2 Marines, 3 Navy, and 24 Army veterans. Our membership is 28 men and one woman. (She keeps us in line after all she is a Navy CPO.)
In 2001, when I joined the Marion County Veterans Honor Guard we had 65 funerals. In 2008 we had 97 funerals. We have had as many as 3 funerals in one day. One year I figured up the "man hours" that we put in. I was very surprised that we had put in over 7,000 man hours.
The Marion County Veterans Honor Guard only serves Marion Co. & surrounding counties. All of the funerals we have had are for WWII, Korea, Vietnam and Gulf 1. If it weren't for the Marion County Veterans Honor Guard these vets would be buried with out the military honors due them.
I've been asked what we get paid for doing these funerals. My answer is that the rewards are more precious than money can buy. You ask how we operate. We DO NOT charge for doing these funerals. We do accept donations. We are a true "Band of Brothers"
That's about it.... Drop in and visit my genealogy web site......FarmerFamily.org
Lynn....
Lynn Farmer
Lynn Farmer Photo
400 East Lovers Lane
Lebanon, KY 40033
Phone 270-692-6979 |
