Memories

Now that I am old I have discovered the very back end of my memory bank. There are things in there that I haven’t thought of in years. This one returned to me recently. When I was a child around 11 or 12 years old we lived in the country, and I attended church with my family on Sunday morning, and Sunday nights and all points in between. We prayed. I learned to pray. I prayed for this, I prayed for that. I prayed for rain, I prayed it would stop raining. I prayed for everything I could think of. That is the way I remember it. If anything went wrong I prayed about it.  A knot came up on the back of my hand. It was a small knot. We didn’t know what it was, and it didn’t hurt so it was pretty much ignored. I prayed it would go away. All kids in the vicinity attended a one room school house; it had a building with one side open for those that rode horses to school.  We were playing around that building one recess when a boy my age and I got into it over something. I can’t recall what I did to him, but he picked up a corncob and threw it at me, and I threw up my hand to protect my face. The corncob smacked the back of my hand, and when I looked at my poor hand the knot had disappeared. I said, “thank you, God.” I didn’t thank Ray for it. I’m sure you’ve heard that God works in mysterious ways. He does, even if it takes a corncob.

 I remember Ray Richards, the boy that threw the corncob. We were the same age. He died several years ago in an accident. He was very young. I can’t remember what kind of accident. I know it wasn’t a car wreck. We lived near Glencoe. Oklahoma. Ray had brothers and one sister as I remember. Billy was his sister. His brothers were James, Carl and Buddy. If he had more siblings, I don’t remember them. Maybe someone in the Glencoe area will read this and know who I am talking about. Small world you know.

It’s amazing how you can remember something 75 years ago, but forget to put the ice cream back in the freezer.

The cows finally came home, but pigs still can’t fly.

 We have finally arrived, nothing left to invent or is there. Once upon a time the world was not so complicated; telephones had one purpose, to relay messages vocally. Now they do everything, but pick your teeth. Before phones there was only one way to let someone know where you were or to ask a question. Not so long ago I observed a lot of people shopping in the grocery store, and talking to themselves, until I learned about the hands free method of talking on a phone without a visible phone.  

 Party lines didn’t mean a line to a party. It meant your personal business was being shared by anyone that happened to be on your party line, such as the modern Facebook and many other ‘tell the world about it’ web sites.  If you wanted someone to know something you had to get out the stationary and a pen, and actually write it out and send it by mail.  Wouldn’t it be terrible if we had to go back to that?

My mother was born in 1905, and she once said the one invention that she appreciated the most was the electric washing machine. She was speaking of the first one invented with a wringer attached, and the wringer was not automatic, you had to guide the item through it while turning the handle.

 It wasn’t long until a way was made to make the wringer automatic, but you would still guide the item through it. Finally the spin method was made. Families had large families, mainly because a sure fire method of birth control had not been discovered, and that is very likely the reason I am here. One brother is only two years older. There were eight kids. The Mom of the family did a huge laundry each week with a washtub and scrub board, and then had to hang it on a line outside to dry. The electric dryer was another great invention.

I remember our first radio and how much we enjoyed it, and going from an ice box to a refrigerator. I thought the microwave was a fabulous invention. I would hate to live without one now.

Watching the evolution of the computer age is amazing. We probably haven’t seen anything yet.  I believe pigs will fly.

Similar to the one we had.

A Little Cat Tale

I’ve never been a cat person, I’m more of a dog person. I know very little about the cat, but I am learning that cats and dogs were not created equally, not even close. I have no pets at the present time so when someone asked me to foster a cat for two weeks, I had a moment of insanity, and said okay. That was the second biggest mistake I ever made in my life. Never mind the first one.

It has now been a month, the owner is still ill and unable to care for her. To start with the cat had always been called Kitty. I thought that was rather stupid so I named her Lassie.

It turns out Lassie is pretty big shoes for a cat to fill so I changed it to Sassy Lassie. Sassy fits her much better. She explores everything. If I leave a closet door open she is in there. This morning I heard a banging noise, and she had managed to shut the bathroom door, and couldn’t get out. She jumps or flies upon the washing machine and from there she makes another flying leap and gets on a window sill so she can look out the window. The window is near the ceiling.  I don’t know how she keeps from breaking her neck.

She plays crazy games, one is to chase an invisible mouse. She catches it, and it gets away so she runs and grabs it again. I bought some cat toys and they have disappeared. I was on my hands and knees yesterday looking under the beds and furniture for them. I can’t find them. She can get on the window sill in the living room and watch for things on the street and in the yard. She was raised with a dog, and has picked up some dog habits. She can make sounds that sound like little quiet dog barks. She does it when she sees a dog. She also barks at birds. She always wags her tail when she does the barking sound.

She thinks her God given assignment is to keep me awake. She attacks my toes in the middle of the night. Most of the time she sleeps on a corner of the bed, and I don’t even know she is there, but I get my toes chewed on and clawed at nightly. This applies to naps as well. The only remedy is to wear my shoes to bed. She gets on the window sill behind my chair and makes another flying leap to the top of my chair and it catches me off guard, and I jump 10 feet in the air. It’s either me or the cat. One of us has to go and I’m pretty sure it won’t be me.

Sassy Lassie

A quiet moment.

What can I get into now look.

My goal is to be a big mean dog.

This spot used to belong to Minnie Pearl (my former dog)

Save it for Last

Senior retirement homes should be called Half-Way houses because that is what they are, half of a house, half as many rooms, a bathroom in half the space, half a kitchen if any at all, a living room with enough room for a chair with a TV in front of it, half a closet. No front porch, patio, lawn, garage or flower bed. When you graduate from that, you go to The Senior Hotel. You have rooms and hallways, and valets and maids to turn your bed down at night. You even have maids to help with the bath. Meal time is fine dining with all your friends, served tomato soup with delicious cat food sandwiches. Who could ask for more?

Not many can afford this fine living, it is not cheap, it runs around $50000 or more a year. You work a lifetime to pay for a home so you will have something to bequeath to The Senior Hotel.

 That is the  long and short of it, but it isn't all gloom and doom.

Now for a few words about the teens.

Teens have a lingo all of their own,

and they always have.

Adults:                                          Teen:

Call or phone                                Text

Visit                                              Hang out

Aced it                                          Smacked it

Old or antique                              Teek

Good friend                                  We’re tight

Not going steady                           Single

Clean your room                          It’s not dirty

Just Because

My mother was a natural born seamstress; she could look at a picture and make a pattern. This didn’t just apply to clothes; at one time she made a crib for the baby in the family. She had very few tools to work with, but it was very well made and lasted a very long time. Even though I was a kid at the time I was impressed.

One time when I was about 5 years old, I came downstairs from a nap, and my mother handed me something. It was a homemade doll; she had made for me while I was outside playing and before I woke up in the mornings.

I have never in my lifetime been so excited and happy over a gift. It wasn’t my birthday, it was a just-because gift. It was made from a white flour sack, with cotton stuffing. It had arms and legs, an embroidered face and brown yarn hair. Mom said the hair was the color of my hair. It was my prized possession, and I carried it around and took great care of it until one day I accidentally left it outside. One of those Oklahoma gully washer rain storms came up and my poor doll was pounded with rain. It was rather limp and lumpy after that, but I loved it anyway. I still love dolls, and have a couple on display, but none have ever meant as much to me as that rag doll my mother made just for me, just because.

 Maybe that event inspired me to make dolls. I have made a few. 

 Here are some of the dolls I have made:

I had a few Granddaughters.

I had a few patterns.

I tried to create an elephant, but it looked more like a pig so I added wings and a curly tail. I sent it to Laura because she is the one that always says, "when pigs fly."

I had so many of these little people made, that I gave them to the trick or treaters.They liked them.

The Cleaning Fairy, Me.

This morning I went into a cleaning frenzy. It only takes one episode of ’Hoarders’ to do it.  There is no way in hell or any other place that I will allow piles of garbage and other wonderful collector items to stand between me and my table or bed. I even have a favorite chair and couch that fit into that category. I had to empty the canister on the vacuum cleaner. That is a challenge that boggles the mind (that is, if you have a mind). You cannot just set it back in there, it has to be adjusted with exact precision or it won’t work. It finally happened and by now the adrenaline is running in high gear so the job was a breeze. This included floor scrubbing and dusting furniture. Now I am exhausted and thirsty so I am having an ice cold can of aspartame, phosphorus, potassium benzoate, phenylketonurics, sometimes known as diet Pepsi.
It is a beautiful day on my little part of the globe. I think there is rain heading this way. It will first hit the coastal area and then we get the tail end of it. The weather prophet said there could be snow in the mountains. It’s summertime, when is it going to stop snowing?

Photo's of the Little Ones

Granddaughters, Leah and Chloe now three and the personalities are developing. Chloe is giving her Dad the evil eye for taking their picture. Leah finds it rather amusing.

 

Chloe going on a bike ride with her Mom.

This was taken several months earlier.

I think this was taken at Christmas time.

Taken last September

Wheels of Progress

When I got my first computer back in the early 90’s I had barely seen a computer, but I had a burning desire to find out what all the hullabaloo was about. The office I had worked in had joined the computer world before I retired, and I had some knowledge of them. I didn't know anyone that owned one so the only way I was going to find out was to buy my own. I brought that thing home and read the instructions and miracle of miracle I got it up and running. It was an MS DOS 305 or something like that. That probably is not the exact name of it, but I was able to get something on the screen and I didn't know how to close the page.  I knew you guided the mouse around, but I didn't know about the X in the corner. I joined AOL and it was a phone hookup, and you had a certain number of minutes or you had to pay more.I learned about email and they had chat rooms and they were even fun back then. They had web sites where you could find friends, and I found many friends that I exchanged email with. Everybody was sending the corny joke’s to each other. Everything was free, now you have to join things if you want to be a part of it.  What fun. I kept the "How to books for dummies" in business for a long time. I started hearing words like defrag, ram memory, windows, and floppy disc. Haven’t we come a long way? The following is one of those emails that had been forwarded to me. 

Most of my family live in Oklahoma so this is for them.

You might be an Okie if:

1. You can properly pronounce Eufaula, Gotebo, and Chickasha.
2. You think the people that complain about the wind in their States are sissies.
3. A tornado warning siren is a signal to go out in the yard and look for a funnel.  (No kidding! This really happens)
4. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.
5. You’ve had to switch from A/C to heat in the same day.
6. You know that the true value of a parking space is not determined by distance from the door, but the availability of shade.
7. Stores don’t have bags, they have sacks.
8. You see people in bib overalls at funerals.
9. You think everyone from a big city has an accent.
10. You measure distance in minutes, (“I’m about five minutes away.”)
11.  You refer to the capitol of Oklahoma as “The City.”
12. It doesn’t bother you to use an airport named for a man that died in an airplane crash.   (Will Rogers)
13.  You go to the lake instead of the ocean.
14.  You listen to the weather forecast before picking out an outfit ti wear.
15. You know someone who has used a football schedule to plan their wedding date.
16. You have known someone who has a belt buckle bigger than your fist.
17.  A bad traffic jam involves two cars stopped at a four-way stop, each determined to be the most polite and let the other go first. (It has never, ever happened in this State)
18.  You know which State “Miam-uh” is and which State “Miam-ee” is.
19.  You know cow pies are not made of beef,
20.  You aren’t surprised to find movie rental, ammunition, and bait all in the same store.
21. Your “place at the lake” has wheels under it.
22. A Mercedes Benz is not a status symbol. A Ford F350 4x4 is.
23. You learned how to shoot a gun before you learned how to multiply.
24. You actually get these jokes and are “fixin: to send them to your friends.
25.  Finally, you are 100% Oklahoman if you have ever heard this conversation:  “ You wanna coke?”  “Yeah”  “what kind?”  “Dr Pepper”