NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

I found these New Year’s Resolutions that I wrote down when my kids were ages nine and eleven:

These truths are held to be self-evident – evident to anyone who has attempted to raise a kid. No family has ever been or ever will be a democracy. THE PARENT HAS THE LAST WORD

With that off my chest, let me make a few New Year’s resolutions. I resolve that, under my roof:

• No one will sass his or her mother
• Everyone will eat his or her veggies
• Mom will get the computer upon demand
• People who make obnoxious noises at the dinner table will be cast into a dungeon, not to emerge until said dungeon is cleaned up. (That last part’s just a perk for Mom.)
• Changes in any routine must be cleared in advance with the monarch of this kingdom (i.e., Mom)
• Freedom of name-calling is hereby removed from the Freedom of Speech U.S. Constitutional amendment.
• Name-calling will be punishable by anything handy.

These are laws that must be accepted for survival, kind of like the law of gravity. My point is this: A FAMILY IS NOT A DEMOCRACY! Someone has to have the last word. If it’s the child, odds are that the child will grow up unstable, and the parent’s odds of going insane become dangerously greater. If it’s the parent, then the child has better odds of growing up. Period.

Cooking for Thanksgiving

My niece says the Thanksgiving meal is hard to cook when you only have three people because you have to cook everything yourself.

May I add this: Cooking for eighteen or so (I lost count) is a MESS! Don’t get me wrong. I love to cook, and I love to get the family together. But here’s the deal.

On Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I had to re-arrange the house. This forced me to clean it. Then I got all my stuff in the kitchen laid out and ready, and found I had to go to the store for more stuff.

The dinner went well. There were lots of leftovers. I sent food home with everyone. There were still leftovers. I stuck two pies in the freezer for Christmas, then put all sorts of food in pans and finished stuffing the freezer tighter than the turkey.

Next I cleaned gravy pots and potato bowls, stuffing pans and bread pans, four cranberry sauce dishes (one per table and one for the feeding line), relish dishes, butter dishes, etc etc etc.

On Friday I put the house back the way it was before the big event. It seemed like I had forgotten something, but everything looked spic and span.

Saturday I found the turkey roaster on top of the refrigerator, with all the grease and gunk still in it! It's a good thing I enjoy Thanksgiving.

TOASTMASTERS

I’m a pretty old mouse and have conquered lots of public speaking challenges in my life, like teaching, and leading discussions. But many years ago I was so shy I couldn’t lead a bunch of two-year-olds at a birthday party. So I joined Toastmasters, and, surprisingly, I loved it! (I’m very competitive. You can be shy and competitive. Or at least you can if you’re Hugh Mouse.)

Every time I went to a meeting I leapt over a new hurdle. The first was the night I finally remembered to address my audience. I stood proudly and said, “Mr. Table Topics Master, Fellow Toastmasters, and Guests.” Then I launched into my statement – which fell flat, of course.

The next hurdle was when I made it to the green light at Table Topics time. That means I gave a full one-minute answer. You can’t just stand up, answer a question and sit down. (That would be more interesting sometimes.) No. You have to talk for a full minute. Stretch it out. BS your way through it – which I have never learned to do. (Could have learned from my daughter if I had really worked on it. It just comes naturally to her.)

We had a vocabulary word at each meeting, and everyone who had an opportunity to speak tried to use it. It isn’t easy to cleverly figure out how to use THE WORD when you have a couple dozen eyes focusing on you and you are trying to control your pounding heart, sweating palms and racing voice. I remember the night I did it. I zoomed into the driveway threw open the door, kissed all my family (who were glued to the TV) and proclaimed, “I said THE WORD! ‘Foible!’ Isn’t that a great word? Foible?”

Oh well. It was big to me.

MEMORY DRUGS

Here’s a story I wrote in when I was 48. Now I'm 63 and, unfortunately, no better!

I read in the paper, in three different articles, that they have come up with a drug to enlarge brain cells, one to shrink prostate glands, and one to make cholesterol disappear. Gee, I hope they don’t mix them up.

The one about the brain cells was supposed to help the memory of us aging mice. How in the world do they know if a mouse’s memory improves? Do they ask him what day it is, and who the president is?

The mice who made a nest in our air conditioner compressor had good memories – good enough to scurry back to the nest hundreds of times to build a big mess! They chewed through wires and fuses, shorted out a capacitor and coil, and made the transformer burn out. I guess their memories were impaired after that!

Being a mouse myself, I shouldn’t be so hard on the little guys. Especially when their memory goes. Mine is already going. Last week I saw a note on my calendar (in my own handwriting) that said “Wednesday, 11:30, Eye doctor.” I knew I did not have an appointment yet because I distinctly remembered they had said they would wait and call me for an appointment when my contacts came in. I figured this must be an appointment I had made for my husband. However, I did call my eye doctor to ask when the contacts were coming in, only to learn that the contacts had come, they had called me, and I had made the appointment. The gal on the phone laughed, “Your memory’s good. It’s just short!”

So if there’s a memory drug for aged mice, maybe I can apply for it – if I remember to.

DIGGY

DIGGY (Written in 1986)

Our sweet little black dog ran away this year, but our grouchy little black dog stayed. The dog is a pain in the neck.

The dog claimed our house as his stopping place about five years ago. Diggy (I don’t know how he got his name) had no home and had befriended all the neighborhood kids and my husband. One rainy day he squeezed his little body against our back door and my husband said, “Let him in.”

I asked him, “Why do you want to keep an ugly dog like that?” I asked my kids, “How can you love a dog that bites your friends?” I asked the dog, “Can’t you go scratch your fleas somewhere else?” Finally I told myself, “Well, he’s so grouchy that I’m sure he’s a pretty old dog. Probably has arthritis. See? He even has gray hair on his face. He won’t be around for many years. I guess I can stand it.”

The vet said, “That’s not gray hair. That’s silver. And this right here is puppy hair. This dog is about six months old.

I said, “No.”

As time has gone along, I have gotten accustomed to the mutt’s weird habits. He barks at things he doesn’t understand – like grocery bags. Sometimes he barks at a plaque hanging in my kitchen. It’s always the same plaque, and it always hangs in the same place. It doesn’t move or make noise. It just hangs there. The dog gets mad at it or something. Who knows?

One day this week the TV and radios were blaring, my daughter was singing, and my son was playing a drum in his bedroom. Diggy started barking. Not at the drums. He was barking at the drum case sitting on the bed.

When the school bus rounds the curve in the afternoon, Diggy whimpers, moans, cries, and gasps. Click click click go his toenails down the hall. Clatter clatter clatter go his toenails in front of the door. Thump thump thump go his feet through the kitchen. By the time the kids come through the door he’s dancing the WahWahToosie on his hind legs.

I admit he is cute. He has even quit biting our friends. And how can you not like someone who sits on your feet when you’re typing?

Daylight Savings Time Warp

Let’s see. October. Spring forward, fall back.

Sunday and Monday went fine, but Tuesday morning I got up early and did some paperwork, cleaned up the kitchen, showered, ate breakfast, glanced at the clock and - Wow! The morning was just starting. This was great! Nancy was coming at 2:00, so I still had plenty of time to run errands and get back for a quick sandwich.

I hit the gas station and grocery store. Why was my watch showing 8:15? Oh yes. Daylight Savings time. I must have set it back instead of forward. (Somehow, I had reversed my understanding of “spring forward, fall back.”) That meant it was really 10:15. Didn’t seem quite right, but hey, who’s arguing? I still had time to go to the drug store and bank.

All finished with my errands, I looked at the car clock. 12:30. Hmmm. I knew I hadn’t reset that one yet. I’d better go ahead and push that little hour button one hour forward to 1:30. Oh my gosh! I needed to get home quick before Nancy got there at 2:00.

At home fifteen minutes later, the kitchen clock showed 11:45. I did reset it Sunday, didn’t I? I decided to check my cell phone. It’s the one clock I can rely on. OK. It really was 11:45. I had plenty of time before 2:00. I put away the groceries, made chicken salad, and had a great lunch.

The doorbell rang. I looked at the kitchen clock. It was almost 1:00. Nancy? I had forgotten we had changed the appointment to 1:00. I looked at my watch again - 8:15. I finally realized it wasn’t moving.

The next day I got a new watch battery. I thought it was interesting that the guy that replaced it set my watch one hour ahead. And he didn’t even know me!

Emails Aren’t Frivolous

I sat at my desk with the Business White Pages open, dialing numbers in hopes that someone would need a sign or a car wrap or a banner or something. I was still in the A’s. My 50-calls-a-day goal was fading fast.

Then I got a bite. Someone said he was thinking of ordering stickers. I started working on a quote and had to email Susan. She’s my daughter and salesperson and she is at her computer 24/7 and she answers fast. (Just like in person, come to think of it.) I asked her how to figure a price on stickers and she replied, “How many colors?” I emailed back and we continued the discussion which, with Susan, turned out to be a lot easier than a person-to-person discussion because she wasn’t able to interrupt me.

Between emails, I made another call. I was approaching the half-way mark on my goal.

Then Susan sent a funny email and I laughed and dialed another number, left a voicemail, then got a voice prompting me to “press one for a company directory.” I dialed another one, and shot a quick email back to Susan while I waited through several rings. She emailed back and I laughed again. I started sending emails a lot. I needed some laughs.

I used to think Susan was goofing off when she was alone at her computer laughing at what I called her “frivolous” emails. Now I’m a salesperson (or maybe a wannabe) and I know the rest of the story!

Steak? What Were They Thinking?

Our church is starting a soup kitchen for the homeless, and the committee asked a sign company (not my son’s) to design a sign with some food clip art on it. One of the pictures was a steak! Nope. We’re not planning any steak dinners that I know of.

If only the committee had known about my son’s sign company. He’d get it right.

They asked me to critique the proposed sign layout. I said, “Change the steak. Change the font. Change the color. Change the heading. Change the background. And tell them you need it tomorrow.” Hey! I know what drives sign guys crazy!

Adrenaline

I’ve got some bad carma going on. It started yesterday with my electrical outlet that I plug my iron into it. I don’t use it too often. But when I do take a notion to iron something, I have to wrestle to get the plug out of the outlet. It takes dynamite to dislodge it. I reached my boiling point and yanked the thing out with one of those explosions of adrenalin that kids get when they have temper tantrums.

Last night I threw out supper and this morning I threw out breakfast. With a loud bang.

At lunch I dropped soup on the floor. Most days, I would have just cleaned it up and fussed a little. Today I threw the soup bowl (plastic) into the sink, doused a towel with water and slung it on the floor.

A few minutes ago I looked at my calendar to see what day it is (the day not to get out of bed, apparently), and the lamp was blocking my view. I held my temper and decided just to move the stupid thing. I pulled the nail out of the wall, leaned over the desk to hammer it into a new spot, and it fell into a pile of computer cords. I screamed that it was the perfect nail for the calendar, the hole in the calendar fit over it easily, and I would never find another nail the right length with the right size head in my messed up nightmare of a tool box and of course it fell because I always drop everything I touch.

I did find another perfect nail. Let’s see, there are four more hours until bedtime…..

Happy 63rd Birthday

Got a happy birthday email from my son today. He wrote out the “Happy Birthday to You” song, and wished me a relaxing birthday today.

I hope I have a relaxing day, too! This week I've cleaned the attic 2 days, dug grass to enlarge gardens one day, transplanted a rose bush one day, gone to the dentist, and we've had brain and balance training an hour a day, plus homework. Hey, I'm 63. This is too much!

I plan to RELAX today - right after I cook a roast for the church, do laundry, go to Meals on Wheels, and finish my paperwork. I’ll spend tomorrow morning packing. We're leaving to visit friends tomorrow for the weekend. I’ll drive 3 ½ hours each way. First, I have to drop off the roast at the church.

I'll rest Monday, after I unpack. I cancelled going to my Class Reunion Saturday because I thought it was too much for my sick husband right now. I've been working on giving him less to do, so HE can relax. What's wrong with this picture?!!!

Washer/Dryer Repair

Our daughter’s washer and dryer are sitting in our garage while she is renting a set. (Simply another illogical situation in our family.) When she moved, the person helping her (brother, boyfriend, friend – who knows?) broke the dryer panel off – the one on top with the controls and wires – and cut the pipes to the washer because the valve wouldn’t unscrew. Hearing this, the repairman said, “I guess a knife is easier if you don’t have a wrench.”

He said he could probably check them out in the garage. I asked for a week to get them uncovered. He showed up that day.

We drug the abused machines out from under a heap of stuff and onto the driveway. He checked out the dryer. All the wires were intact. He said, “You got lucky there.”

Next he hooked up the washer’s water lines with a garden hose. Then he plugged it in with an outdoor extension cord. For a moment, he thought it went caput. Turns out our fancy pantsy extension cord had a breaker that shut it down. “I used to have one like that," he commented. “I threw it away.”

As the repairman left, he told us to call him the next time we need him. He said to remind him when we call that we’re the place where he worked on a washer in the driveway. He said that’s so he’ll remember us. I think it might be so he can dodge us!

Wrapping Paper in the Attic

Sometimes I need to give a gift all wrapped up and pretty, so I squirm through my attic to the Wrapping Paper Box. It’s a big cardboard box on the floor with everything I need in it – somewhere.

Today I organized The Box. I didn’t even know I had any gift tags, but sure enough, they were organized like confetti in The Box. And wow! I found that tissue paper I ironed. It had disappeared into the caverns that had just sort of happened in there amid the mashed bows, tangled ribbon, two rolls of wrapping paper (one for Christmas and one for a girl baby shower), and gift bags. I had no idea how many gift bags I had accumulated.

I don’t use The Box very often, and when I do it takes me several trips before I am able to produce an attractive, color-coordinated gift wrapped package. Can’t seem to get it all at once.

Today I had a eureka moment and realized I didn’t have to put up with that big, bulky cardboard box. I bought a big basket and a hook and put all that stuff in it and hung it up. Now I can easily carry it out of the attic!

This is a lot of trouble for someone who doesn’t give gifts very often.

Boxes of Boxes

Boxes! They come in a WHOLE LOT of shapes and sizes, and there’s one of each in my attic. We moved here seven years ago and the attic was practically bare. Today I have to weave and squirm through it. I don’t even try any more, since I’ve forgotten what’s in the back anyway.

I’m not a pack rat. But I do like to have the right size box whenever I need it. Therefore, I save every box that comes through my door. Let’s see – seven years – that’s about 700 boxes. No, I’m sure there weren’t that many today when I broke them down, even though my back says different. I put the broken down boxes into boxes. Tonight there are about five boxes of boxes. There’s a box of flat boxes, a box of liquor store boxes, a box of small boxes, a box of large boxes, and a box of boxes that were so good and strong it would have been a shame to break them down.

If you ever need to pack anything, just give me a call!

Found Stuff

While cleaning out the attic today I found a sofa bed mattress support. It was folded and neatly wrapped. Hmm. Last time we had a sofa bed was in 1988.

I found a guitar stand. George gave his guitar away a few years ago.

I found two plastic things that I finally figured out must be arm rests for the van we used to own.

I threw out a very large, flat box that had contained our daughter’s dog crate. I’m glad I only threw it as far as the bonus room, because pretty soon I found the crate, too.

And this was just my first day!

List of Notes From To-Do List

About a “To-Do” list, British author Mark Forsterof (Do It Tomorrow) says it’s natural to panic and enter “triage mode.” Great word, “triage.” I love to triage. I can put off a To-Do list for at least a week by organizing it into subcategories. Maybe I should just cut to the chase and call it a “Put-Off” list.

Even though I’m constantly marking things off my To-Do, it still grows until I have to do something about it. That’s because there are things I don’t want to forget but I don’t know where else to write them down. Things like, “Wendell Farmer’s Market is open Wednesday afternoons.” It’s something I want to remember in case the opportunity arises. Where would you put that?

Then there’s, “Mailed letter to insurance company on July 10.” I could mail it and just forget it. But I have to check (at some random future moment) whether the matter was taken care of. Sure, I have a copy of the letter filed somewhere. But how will I remember to look at the letter?

I’ve invented a new list. I call it my “List of Notes From To-Do List.” I’m going to patent the concept some day. I’ll make a note to do that.

Elephant in the Church Parlor

“I see it as two elements, with a clear line between them.” (Did he mean “elephants”?) “There are the people who don’t want to be homeless, and then there are the murderers, alcoholics, and everything.”

What a statement! I’d bet it’s the thought in everyone’s heads, and no one has the nerve to say it. No one except my man George. I say, “And then there’s the third element.” Pause. “There’s the mentally ill. Also, there are those who want to be homeless but are good people. And maybe another element of good people who do want to be homeless because they just don’t know how to cope with the real world.”

“If we start a soup kitchen,” he said, “What kind of people will be drawn to it?”

“Hungry people,” I answered.

We talked about the “element” of people who have lost their jobs, who have lost their homes or their places in mental hospitals, who have become addicted to drugs and can’t fight it. He said, “This is the greatest, wealthiest country in the history of the world….” “and we don’t take care of our people,” I finished.

We agreed that there’s an element of criminals that will be drawn into the walls of our church via the proposed Soup Kitchen, and that could be dangerous.

It a subject that has to be broached. It’s on our minds.

Mechanically Challenged

I’m listening to Car Talk – Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers. The caller thinks he can fix his squeaky brakes by going in reverse real fast & slamming on brakes. His solution reminds me of when I was first married. I was so mechanically challenged that, when my mother-in-law told me that all my sewing machine needed was some oil, I asked, “What’s that?”

I never forgot what a good job that oil did on my sewing machine. So, when my brakes started squeaking, guess what I told George they needed? Yep. Oil.

You see, I grew up with parents who were mechanically challenged. When my mother visited me in our new house early in our marriage, she looked at the unfinished ceiling in the laundry room and asked me why they had taken the ceiling out! At that moment, my life passed before me and I understood why my Aunt Margaret had always gotten so busy fixing things when she visited our house, and why the nails I used in my child-size record player scratched my records, and why the only screw drivers in the house were fancy ones that came inside a little metal hammer.

My husband has taught me that any job can be done with the right tools. I’ve discovered Phillips head screw drivers. I’ve stripped many a screw in my life with a flat head screwdriver, or with a penny or a dime! Drills are wonderful things, too. Now I don’t have to start a hole with a large nail, hammered in and then removed. And as for studfinders? God’s gift to man! Or woman. Or mouse.

Now, at age 62 I use good tools. But if push comes to shove, I also know how to “make do,” with what’s available. That’s what Mom would say – God rest her un-mechanical soul.

CCF LETTER

My husband and I support some children through Christian Children’s Fund (CCF). Their teachers make them write us a letter now and then.

You can tell sometimes that they really don’t want to write a letter. Here’s one I received recently. I couldn’t stop laughing:

Dear Maggie and George,

Greetings to you all. I received your letter and photos of you and your family and I was happy to see your family photo and reading your letter. School is great. We just finished our end of term exams. I am looking forward to getting some good grades. I like to help with the house chores. School will be closed for summer on the 8^th of July. I still like science and mathematics. You have beautiful children and they are all adults. That’s all now. Bye.

Ya think this kid was happy to get finished with his letter?

Bullseye

I read an article about how to change your outlook on life from negative to positive. It said to pause at the end of each day and think of three things that went well that day. Isn’t that like shooting a barn full of holes then painting bulls-eyes around them?

OK. Here goes…

#1 - The cap was easy to get off the paint tube today.

#2 – The yellow paint came out of the carpet easily.

#3 – The cat didn’t kill me.

SALT LICK

To say that my husband likes salt would be an understatement. He puts salt on dill pickles! I’m thinking of giving him a salt lick for Christmas. (Does anyone know what that is any more?)

I like salt too. I don’t put it on corn or cantaloupe or, God forbid, dill pickles. But I do heap extra showers of it on my popcorn. I even rub my fingers on the bottom of the bowl and lick the salt off, causing unquenchable thirst the “morning after.” I guess I can’t say much about his dill pickles, can I?

Black Tea

OMG
Black Tea
It has made a mess of me!
I woke up and had a cup of the new tea I had bought. It was designed for mornings. Innocently, I gulped two cups down, and pretty soon I was at warp velocity, running around the house in a frenzy, mind racing and mouth yapping like a 45 rpm record at 33 1/2 speed. One day I’ll learn!

TRAILER PARK LOT

When my husband and I were engaged, he picked me up one day at the school where I was doing my student teaching and handed me a slip of paper with something scrawled on it. It was our new address! A small shady lot on a corner in McSwain’s Trailer Park in Cary. Now how much more romantic can you get? This marriage thing was starting to look real. That was forty years ago.

Recently we were driving through Cary and I said, “Let’s go see if that trailer park is still there.” Sure enough, it was. He pointed to a lot and said, “That’s it. I think.” I said, “No, I think it’s this way. Let’s look for the one with no back yard.” We didn’t have steps in the back, but you could exit by jumping out the door if you needed to.

Eventually we identified our lot by the retaining wall beside the driveway where I knocked off a hubcap. Sweet memories. The lot didn’t look too good that day. But then, neither do I after forty years!

GREAT AMERICA THEME PARK

We spent a bunch of money to get into Great America, then we asked the kids what they wanted to do first. “Find the Arcade!” they cried, as I felt a sharp stab in the pocketbook.

They found the arcade, and my husband and I found the pizza. Then the ice cream. Then the Nachos. The kids spent dollar after dollar shooting water at bubbles and such stuff. We eventually lured them from the arcade to the popsicle stand. Then they wanted to go to the arcade again. We made them eat fried chicken and corn for lunch. Then we went to another arcade.

Once during the day the kids agreed to go on a ride. They wanted to get wet. The sun was going down, but that didn’t have any meaning for them. We headed in the general direction of the wettest ride. I felt a shower of water when a drenched little girl passed me and shook her hair. My son said, “I know we’re near the water ride. I just felt some drops of water from it!”

After the water ride, we got in line for the Whizzer, and we watched it stop right on top of the first hill. (I figured out where it got its name!) Three maintenance men walked up and gave it a push. With that, the coaster catapulted down the first dip of its two-minute course. I heard someone in the crowd utter doubtfully, “It’ll never make it on just one push.”

My husband and I wanted to see the parade and fireworks before heading for home. We entered another arcade and the kids watched another kid play an arcade game. (Their money was gone.) My husband got in line for coffee while I watched at the entrance for the parade to start. There it was! I ran to the game where the kids were hovering to tell them. They glanced over their shoulders and said, “Yeah.” I waved to my husband and pointed to the door. He peered from his place in line. By the time he got to the door to look outside, the parade was over.

The fireworks were next, so we joined the mob of people exiting the park. I squeezed against people on my left, protecting my right hand, which held the full cup of steaming coffee. We burst into a clearing beside the exit gate. No good. No view of the sky. We ran to the parking lot. My husband alternately looked into the sky and searched for the car. I said, “Whoa!” as my coffee and I landed on the pavement.

Patriotic music and static blared across the parking lot. Bursts of voices (both laughter and arguments) blared back. Everyone - Americans, foreigners, kids, teens, babies – did his own thing while the fireworks proclaimed party-time USA. I thought, “We should be more reverent.” Then I thought, “This is America – the good, the bad, and the crazy. And the free.” I smiled and thanked God I was in America. I thanked Him that I had some coffee left, too.

SNIFFING CHICKENS

The smaller the chicken, the better it tastes. We’ve found a place to buy small chickens. It’s a little gas station/hardware/grocery store out in the country.

One day I purchased a chicken, and when I opened it that night a bad smell hit me. No barbeque that night! The next time I went to buy a chicken, I picked one out and took it to the counter. I explained what had happened and asked how I could tell if these chickens were fresh.

He told me to just open the bag and sniff. God bless the small business owner!

Eight Foot Step Ladder

I’ve been wanting a ladder for a few years and yesterday I got one. I have a vine up on a trellis which I can’t reach, and its tentacles are aggressively probing for a grip on something. Not me, I hope. I think it’s morphing into “The Blob.” Remember that movie? I also need the ladder to change a ceiling light bulb without risking my life again by standing on the top of a four foot ladder. I’m too old for this!

My new ladder is aluminum. My husband said I should get a fiberglass one, but I asked him when he planned to use it and informed him that I knew exactly what I wanted. Enough said.

I had to postpone the climbing/reaching/pruning exercise because I woke up with a crick in my neck. Do you think maybe my husband twisted it accidentally in his sleep?

Graduation Day

Do you like graduations? I don’t. Heck, I didn’t even like my own. Everyone else was sentimental, with tears and hugs, while I was grinning from ear to ear when I shook the president’s hand, grabbed that diploma, and trotted off the stage squelching a scream.

It’s a ceremony. A ritual. And such a pain! My great niece graduated the other day, and her mom’s email said it all: “The graduation was LONG, LONG, LONG!!! Being a ‘B’ for Briscoe, our daughter’s ‘walk’ came up fairly quickly. But after that, I thought it would never end! With nothing else to do, I actually had time to count (twice for accuracy) the 2,300 graduates sitting in their chairs. Apparently many parents had gone through this before, because they had brought rather large books to read!”

To graduate from college is indeed an honor. You’ve accomplished a major undertaking. So put on your robe and mortarboard and do your thing. Just don’t ask me to sit patiently - because it ain’t gonna happen!

BIONIC TOOTHBRUSH

My husband has found this scary looking gadget he calls a “bionic toothbrush.” It is a bristle-covered wire. He pokes it between his teeth. My teeth are too tight to do that because my mouth is small. Physically, that is. It’s often too big. Just ask my husband. Ask anyone, in fact.

Some people have big mouths and some have small mouths. But everyone has a mouth. Especially the guys on Fox News.

DRIVING IN RALEIGH IN 1942

(This is another one of Pop's stories. He left home at age 15 to work in the shipyards in Brunswick, Georgia. He was driving in Raleigh before that age.)

I didn't know anything about driving licenses back then when I left for Brunswick, Georgia. Didn't know you were supposed to have one. Hell, I'd owned a car by then. I bought an old '31 Pontiac from a fellow back there in the woods. Way back in there. The damn thing would run. So that's all that needed to be. I paid him thirty-five dollars for it, something like that. If it ever had a title to it I don't remember it. I finally sold it to somebody for seventy-five dollars.

But I wasn't even aware of the fact that you were supposed to have a driver's license or that there was supposed to be a license on a car. There weren't but about thirty-five patrolmen in the whole state of North Carolina. And the speed limit was 55 back then, and there won't no way in the world you could hardly find anything that would run 55 miles an hour. If you did, you couldn't have stayed on the road.

That first streak of highway out of Raleigh, old 70 highway from Raleigh to Clayton, was the first road that was paved in North Carolina. And they paved it just the way the hog path went. It was so hilly and crooked there won't no way in hell you could run 55 miles an hour. But all along, you'd see the speed limit sign, 55. And finally, on Water Creek Hill, they put a sign at 45 miles an hour. That was a big joke, because there won't no way in the world nobody could run 45 miles an hour. Didn't have nothing strong enough to run up that hill that fast. Everybody thought they were going to get tickets because they couldn't run 45 miles an hour.

Peach Mush

A fresh peach tastes like nectar of the gods. OK. I believe in one God, but it’s a good phrase.

The grocery store (I won’t call names) should be ashamed, embarrassed, and mortally humiliated by the poor excuse of a peach I bought. MUSH! Peeling them was a challenge. They squashed between my fingers. Those peaches were only edible when I buried them in lemon and sugar and baked them in a pie. Peach mush is OK in a pie.

I went to a peach farm once, and they said you can’t pick them ripe to sell them because they’ll be over-ripe in a day. So you pick them prematurely. So they’ll ripen on the shelf – and then turn to mush.

Freezer

My freezer is almost empty. Yessss! I have worked hard on eating all the stuff in it. I can’t throw food away. When you open a can of Cream of Mushroom soup and only use half of it, do you throw the rest away? NOT. How about black olives, tomato sauce, or enchilada sauce?

I label the keepers with a Sharpee. My Cool Whip containers look like graffiti. For example, on one I wrote “Soup” and drew a line through it and wrote “lasagna” and drew a line through it and wrote “squash casserole.”

One day I looked into that over-stuffed mystery hole and thought, “What’s in there?” I pulled it all out and inventoried it. For several weeks, I kept up with what I took out and what was still in, noting it on a legal pad. I found recipes that let me cook my inventory - and now there is one bare shelf!

My sister told me that when I’ve begun inventorying my freezer and working on a Quality Control system, it’s time to get a life.

Tomato Spatters

White clothing attracts tomatoes like sirens lure sailors. Even for careful people. But I’m not one of those, so I really shouldn’t speak for them.

Whenever I get near anything with a SMIDGEN of tomato in it, my clothes send radar that unlocks a force field that sucks up tomato sauce. You can bet the farm on that. The whiter the fabric, the stronger the suction.

If I could just patent that, I’d be a rich mouse. I would design a force field that pulls cheese to mouse fur. Or snow to hot playgrounds. Or rain to parched lawns. Or tape to politicians’ mouths. 

BOILERMAKERS UNION

I was working at the shipyard making liberty ships in Brunswick, Georgia. Then this fellow that I got to knowing that was working in that yard got to talking about going to Oakridge, Tennessee. They were building something up there. Nobody knew at that time what it was, but they were paying humungous wages. I didn’t have any ties, and I was ready to go anywhere. So we went to Oakridge, Tennessee.

We left Brunswick, Georgia, and drove on down to Oakridge, Tennessee, to look for work. They were building the atomic bomb at Oakridge. The only way you could get out there to the project was to ride a bus. The security was so tight they wouldn’t let you drive. So we rode out there. They wanted to charge us something like $350 or $450 to join the boilermakers union. It was a closed shop.

I told them I hadn’t ever heard of a union in my life, and I didn’t know nothing about paying nobody to work. All I knew how to do was work, and if they wanted me to work I’d go to work, but I wasn’t paying nobody nothing.

He said, “Well you ain’t going to work here then.” So we left.