GOOD PAY IN GEORGIA

Story told by Pop about leaving home at age 15 to work in the shipyards in Brunswick, Georgia.

While I was still in high school, I started living in an old house that belonged to the state.  I stayed with Luther Glen.  He was a bachelor and he was a state dairyman.  The state gave me a hundred percent maintenance plus I think it was $25 a month or something like that - which was big money then.  And it was great to even have a job.

Things went to changing.  The war came on, and that put everything to moving.  The farm superintendent at the blind institution, Mr. Boone, lived next door to me.  One of his sons, Roy Boone, had gone to Brunswick, Georgia, to go to work with J. Jones Construction Company, which was building Liberty ships on the river there that came into Brunswick.  He came home one Christmas talking about the opportunities that were down there and how much money they were paying and all that.  He and his wife were going back after Christmas.

There was a big demand for people.  I was small, you know.  At that time I weighed about 118 or 120 pounds, real slim and trim.  And there was a big demand for welders working on ships because they had a tremendous amount of close places to get that bigger people just could not get.  And you had to have a whole lot of skill at the same time.

I didn't put any significance on being the assistant dairyman for the state.  So I asked him, I said, "I'll just go back down there with you."

He said, "You'd be a natural.  They've got a welding school down there."

I told him, "I don't know how to get down there or nothing."

He said, "You can go back with me."  He and his wife had an apartment down there.

So I went home and told Mamma just right off the bat from one day to the next that I was going to Brunswick, Georgia.  She had a pure damn conniption and said I wasn't going.  I said, "Well, I am going."

So I rode back down there with Roy.  In fact, I drove down there.  I drove the whole way.  That was part of the deal.  And the furthest I had ever been away from home was the distance I could ride on a bicycle.  Other than going to Wake Forest to visit my aunt and uncle.  And once I rode with my cousin's husband Jeff to Greensboro.

Lord, I thought I'd gone slam to the other side of the world.  Wrote Mamma a letter trying to remember all the towns we'd been through.  I thought it was something great.  There was umpteen of them or more, and I finally gave up on that part of it.

HALLOWEEN

I didn't think Halloween could get any better, but this year topped them all, thanks to my ten-year-old son Fred.  His main interest was getting the candy!  Lots of candy!  All the candy you can carry!

Fred began creating his costume about two months ago when he purchased two cans of spray paint for his hair.  On Halloween, my husband and I looked at his "normal" hair style and figured he really didn't need the paint.  His rat tail and his too-long flat top, held stiff as a board with mousse, would scare the pants off anyone. 

Five minutes before trick-or-treating time, Fred started on the rest of his costume.  He dug an old shirt out of his drawer, ripped it to shreds, put it on, grabbed a grocery bag, and headed for the car.  I offered to draw a jack-o-lantern on the bag.  "Mom!  No way!" was all the thanks I got.

I picked up his friend Eric, who began struggling to get into his headless horseman costume in the car.  I picked up Jamie, whose grass skirt wouldn't stay on.  Then I drove the punk rocker, the Hawaiian tourist, and the headless horseman into town, listening to their debate about which streets gave the most candy.  Do all the kids in town spend their year planning these strategies?

We drove past some bright jack-o-lanterns and I said, "Look at that!"  Fred and Jamie said, "Wow!" and Eric said, "Where?"  We passed a toddler dressed in a ballerina costume, and I said, "Isn't she adorable?" and Eric said, "Where? Where?"  We passed a familiar looking goblin and I asked, "Who's that?"  Eric's voice again, "Where? Where?"  I realized that Eric had finally gotten into his headless horseman costume and couldn't see a thing.

Later that night, after all the homes were stripped of candy and Fred's belly was full, I watched him sleeping and wondered at his ability to have so much fun after raking leaves, walking six miles for the Cancer Drive, and skateboarding all afternoon.  I guess there's always enough energy left for Halloween!

DON'T LEAVE MY HUSBAND!

Expecting the day to warm up, we left for the festival with a little less clothing than was comfortable.  We got off the shuttle bus and the temperature started to plunge.  Soon it was drizzling; then the bottom fell out.  We hunkered down and ate hot dogs under a tent, shivering and waiting for the next shuttle bus.

By now my husband George was turning into an icycle, so we went to the gift shop and bought a fleece jacket.  Back at the bus stop, our friend (also an icycle) said, "Where'd you get that jacket?"  George walked him to the gift shop.  Pretty soon, the bus showed up.  But George didn't. 

No worries.  The bus driver was real laid back.  He was cutting up and joking with everyone as we boarded the bus, and we were all having a good old time.  Still no George.  I stared out the window.  Just when I saw him coming, the driver closed the doors and took off.

I sprung out of my seat yelling, "Wait, wait!  You're leaving my husband!"  But we kept rolling as the driver continued joking around and didn't have a clue I was having a fit back there.  I lurched forward yelling, "Wait!  Wait!  My husband's coming!"  Everyone on the bus heard me except the driver.  I finally reached the front and he stopped the bus and asked, "Where is he?"

"Back there where you just left him," I said.  I bolted out and started yelling to George to hurry up.  When he got in, the driver, still laughing, asked him, "What are you doing?  You paid me $20 to lose her!"

But I got George back!

NOISY COMPUTER

I, the owner, have the oldest, most rickety computer in our business.  I brought it home a few months ago.  It was old then and it, like me, is creaking louder every day.  It's so loud that I can't use the speaker phone on my desk.   I work upstairs, and it's so loud that I can't hear my husband call me from downstairs.  It has a DVD drive that works when it wants to. Sort of like the cat. 

But now!  At long last!  I have a 'better" computer!  I haven't taken it out of the car yet.  What's the hurry?  The old humming computer still has some spunk left in her.

I also have a "better" desk for this better, younger computer.  Half of the desk is upstairs now.  The other parts are in the garage waiting for someone to get a burst of energy.

Sure, I'm excited about the better desk and computer.  But I kind of like my old humming, creaking, not-retired-yet friend.  It knows more stuff.  This young whipper-snapper needs a lot of information uploaded into it.

CATS DON'T ADAPT

Mojo doesn't like changes in his world.  We bought him a fine new crapper (litter box) with a swinging door so the litter would stay in and the cat could get out. 

For the first twelve hours or so, I figured he was just holding it in.  I told myself that he would have to go eventually.  Thinking the swinging door might have him spooked, I removed it but left the cover on the contraption.  Surely he wouldn't mind stepping through the large entrance to his throne.  After another twelve hours, I thought he might be constipated.  Then another twelve hours or so went by and I caught him going in the closet.

I took the lid off the crapper and am now sweeping up kitty litter again.  Mojo gets his way, once again!

COORDINATED

A friend said to me the other day, "You're always so coordinated."  I asked her if she meant my clothes or my feet.

We lived in Geneseo NY when Susan was a baby.  There's a lot of snow there.  I can't skate or ski, and I don't do well walking in snow, either.  Every day I had to walk to the car with Susan in my arms.  One day the inevitable happened.  I slipped and Susan went flying, landing face down in the snow.  Praise God she wasn't hurt, but her little face was covered with the icy stuff and she was not a happy camper!

I never fell with her again after that day, but whenever I slipped and almost fell, she grabbed me like a little monkey holding on for dear life!

ZIG ZIGLAR FOR PRODUCTION PROBLEMS?

Why am I reading Zig Ziglar's "Secrets of Closing the Sale" to learn about persuasion techniques?  Who's the boss here?  I'm the mom, the president, and the owner.  (Of course, it's really my husband and me, but he's on my side.  I think.)

We have set up our shop so that there is one corridor through it.  When an obstacle gets in that path, it separates production tables from materials, sawing room from tools, work stations from bathrooms, vehicle wrap area from the vinyl to wrap it, and (God forbid!) work areas from smoking spot!

Five weeks ago our new, expensive 54" printer was assembled and placed in that corridor.  My son doesn't want to move the printer to a safer place for a dozen legitimate reasons.  We're in a standoff.  Stay tuned for the rest of the story!

BUNCHING BEES

In the business world, you run into all kinds of obstacles. Our latest was honeybees. Jason installs vinyl outside, and the heat this summer has caused many difficulties. About the time the weather eased up, the bees came. They apparently got the notion that there was some nectar somewhere (vinyl nectar?) so they started looking for it in Jason's hair, clothing, toolbox, and on the vinyl he was installing.

Jason was at his wits' end. The insect repellents he had tried didn't repel honeybees, so he had resorted to squirting them with alcohol. (He uses that to install vinyl.) He worked a little, swatted a little, and squirted a little. He was as busy as a bee, so to speak. He looked at us forlornly and pleaded, "Can't you do something?"

We went to Lowes and looked at the flying insect killers, but there weren't any for bees. We figured that, since the insect repellent didn't repel bees, the insect killer probably wouldn't kill them. We decided on a bee trap, and it worked. Jason's happy - and productive - again!

George calls it "Bunching Bees." I never heard that term, but every day I find out how much I haven't heard of!

PEANUTS

I have always taken excellent care of my car - except for the peanuts. I was driving my twelve year old son Grumpy (aka Fred) to Florida. We were within three hours of our destination when I spied a roadside peanut stand. Fred wasn't too happy about it.

Back in the car, I got a hankering for those peanuts. I looked at Fred and he looked at me, and I said, "Your dad isn't here. Let's make a mess!" He grabbed the bag and we dug in. We started shelling, and throwing peanut hulls everywhere, including out the window.

We traded the car last week, and I think it still had some peanut hulls in it!

BATHING A CAT

I did not try this at home. You have to be out of your mind to attempt to bathe a grownup cat - unless you're that lady on TV who demonstrates all kinds of tortures on a cat that she has previously drugged.

My daughter told me that she would throw her two cats in and close the door and they would jump around to get wet and then she'd take them out and put soap on them and throw them back in, shut the shower door, and they would jump around to rinse.

My sister's story is, " I remember that Sam and Midnight could walk up the tub wall!! That is when I stopped bathing cats."

No thanks. Not for me!

If you've got some good cat tales, send them over and Hugh Mouse will include them in one of his stories! J

NEW CAR

“You made me love you – I didn’t go to do it! Didn’t go to do it!
You made me love you – and all the time you knew it. I guess you always knew it!”

I drove the car ten feet and fell in love. The salesman reluctantly let us give - er, trade - him our beloved twelve year old baby. (What's that in car years?) It looks and smells SO NEW! We park it where it can't get dings. We've had it 13 days now and I have only tried to get into a stranger's car three times so far.

However, it isn't easy being putrid green (I think it has another name at the dealership). But, as with marriages, there are some things you have to learn to love.

LOWE'S HOME IMPROVEMENTS

I looked around at Lowe's for a sales clerk and the lucky winner was a really nice guy who didn't roll his eyes when I told him my plan, didn't walk away presumably to find help, and didn't laugh when I asked if the things that hold PVC pipe together are called couplings.

I drew him a picture. He pulled out nine 10-foot long 3/4" PVC pipes. I told what length to cut each one. You've been in Lowe's. You know how they have state-of-the-art cutting tools for everything, whether you need a length of chain, a set of blinds, or a board. This guy pulled out a hacksaw and laid the pipe across the shopping cart. He was good. Must have done it a thousand times. Another employee peeped through the shelving from the next aisle over and asked what he was doing. "Working on this lady's project."

He was cutting the ninth and last PVC pipe when I said, "You know. We should have written the length on each one." He looked at me. I said, "I guess I should have thought of that earlier." He put every pipe back across the shopping cart, measured, and wrote the length on it. And he smiled. I wonder if his wife sees this side of him.

FIRST MUSIC LESSON

I decided that every child should memorize the books of the Bible in order. It's one of God's most important gifts to them, and most kids don't know what's in the package. So I wrote two songs using tunes children would know. The Old Testament is "Frosty the Snowman" and the New Testament is "London Bridge." I planned to teach them to the children at our church. Was I delusional? Every time I've tried to teach young children, it has been a disaster. Maybe this time it would be different.

I volunteered to do it. No one took me up on it. I volunteered again the next year. Again, no interest. I wonder if the Sunday School leaders had heard me sing. Then the next year, they bribed me. I could do it if I helped teach a class. The class had six children. None of them had ever heard of London Bridge! Or maybe they just wanted me to quit singing.

The next year, I sang my songs to the Sunday School teachers and they said to go for it. They suggested I go more slowly so the kids could understand the words.

My big day came. I stood before 40 kids who started talking as soon as they saw me. Another more skilled teacher got them to quiet down, and I proceeded with my schpeel about the Bible, and then the song. They loved it! Of course, I had prayed frantically all the way to church that morning!

ORDERING FROM THE PENNEY'S CATALOG

Back to school. Everybody's shopping. When Susan was going into sixth grade, she took the Penney's catalog to her room. When she reappeared, looking distressed, she was carrying the catalog, a pen, and the tear-out order form. She pointed to a description of a shirt and asked, "It says here, 'state color.' What if you don't want your state color?"

I've never in my life had such a hard time stifling a burst of laughter. Knowing how brutally I would hurt her if I let on that her innocent misinterpretation was the funniest thing I'd ever heard, I managed to explain the finer points of ordering from a catalog - while keeping my shaking voice under control.

LEARNING ABOUT COMPUTERS

When we started our business, I knew nothing about running a business. But I did know how to use a computer.

When our family got our first Apple computer in 1986, I thought I had met my Waterloo. A few months went by. My children used the computer. I procrastinated. After all, I had a typewriter. I found a gazillion excuses not to learn it. The instructions were confusing. The disk drive was too slow. The kids weren't at home during school hours to answer my questions. Finally I set aside a whole month to tackle the thing.

The computer and I were not on friendly terms. I kept thinking about the woman who got so mad that she attacked her computer with a butcher knife. I wasn't going to get mad at a machine. It was merely a tool and couldn't think - although my son insisted that it could at least think better than I could.

I did learn to use the contraption. It's now 2010 and I'm pretty good at it, but it hasn't stopped infuriating me. I keep thinking about that butcher knife!

CITY MOUSE AND COUNTRY MOUSE

Back in 1985 we moved from Raleigh to the tiny town of Green Lake, Wisconsin. It was like living in the 50s again. When we bought our house, the owner couldn't find the keys. Children were safe riding bikes on Main Street - except when the ducks were crossing! I could leave my car running while I zipped in to the Post Office, unless it was closed for lunch.

In Green Lake, neighbors looked out for each other. In Raleigh, we got together to organize Community Watch groups.

In a Raleigh movie theatre I didn't dare let my children go to the lobby for popcorn alone. In Green Lake - well, they didn't have a movie theatre - but I could drive them to the next town and drop them off.

In Raleigh my children went to dance lessons with one group of friends and Scouts with another. In Green Lake, everyone did everything together because there wasn't that much to do, anyway.

In Raleigh my daughter confessed that when the fifth grade teacher left the room, the kids break-danced on top of their desks. In Green Lake, let a kid get out of line and the parents knew it before the kid got home!

I wish everyone could have a Green Lake for just a little while. I'll be fair and tell you the other side of the coin in another story. But for now, as a great author once said, "We must let Uncle Wiggily and the Littletails and Nurse Jane sleep quietly. For tomorrow will be another day."

SNAKESKIN

I Samuel 16:23 And whenever the harmful spirit [another translation calls it the "tormenting" spirit] from God was upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand. So Saul was refreshed and was well, and the harmful spirit departed from him.

Snakes are part of God's plan. But to me, they are a bad part! In fact, I guess I'd call a snake a "harmful spirit."

I was in fifth grade. A friend had come home with me to play, and we were playing cowboys and Indians. (I liked that better than dolls. Or maybe it's a tie.) Anyhow, the cowboy was after me, and I found a hiding place in our garage. This garage had no doors and was under the house where snips and snails and puppy dog tails roamed. Tired and sweaty from running, I flung myself into a lawn chair that was down there. Panting, I leaned my head back, opened my eyes, and there, directly above my head, was a snake hanging from the ceiling rafter! You can imagine the pandemonium that took place after that.

Later, I got the nerve to tiptoe to the garage and peek around the corner. The snake was still there. He wasn't moving. I tiptoed closer, and soon I was close enough to see that it was a snake skin. You learn many lessons on the path of life, and that day I learned not to necessarily believe what appears to be true.

1 John 4:1 "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world."

EMAIL I ALMOST SENT

I emailed a friend today saying I hadn't gotten anything done, and she emailed back that she was glad I got a little rest time. Here was my reply:

Rest? I talked to an insurance man 1 hr, a church lady (very "chatty") 1/2 hour, worked with George on numbers 1 1/2 hour (which isn't easy), looked at all our charge accounts, filled out some paperwork, went to Cokesbury & BJs, & I'm tired and haven't gotten anything done! :(

Just wanted to complain and bitch and moan a bit! --- and just before I hit "send" I noticed that I was about to reply to our preacher's email instead of yours! Wow!

Today is August 13, 2010 (just to leave a record in these historic documents I'm writing) and it has been close to 100 degrees for a long, long time. Days. Weeks.

Our sign guys have been installing vinyl on vans, trailers, and ambulances throughout this hellacious weather. Vinyl seems to change to chewing gum in this heat. And people change to zombies. We don't have a garage. Just an asphalt parking lot and a couple of trees. (We didn't know that vehicle wraps were going to turn out to be our best seller when we rented this retail location.)

I went to the shop today to see how things were going. Now you tell me - what is the first thing you think when you see a box fan sitting in the back door of an air conditioned building blowing cool air out? I thought for a while, certain there was a good reason for this strange spectacle. There were a couple of dogs inside the shop. Maybe the guys were giving them a view of outside.

Pretty soon I went to the back again and the fan was off and the door was shut. Turns out they had been sawing wood (literally, not snoring) and blowing the smell out the door.

I guess their zombie brains hadn't turned to chewing gum after all!

I love Steven Slater! How many escape chutes have we all needed at some time or other! The guy didn't want to hurt the lady. (I don't think the word he used was "lady.") He just wanted to not do what he wanted to do to her! So he found a harmless way to explode.

I have mentally strangled people, thrown them out windows, and hit them with baseball bats. At times I have screamed at them and had to apologize. Even worse, sometimes I've boiled for years. And, without exception, I've re-done whatever it is I did a hundred times in my mind.

I wish I could say I had done something crazy, uninhibited, and just plain fun like Slater did, but I all I can think of is the time I stormed out of the house and walked around cursing to the neighborhood for an hour.

If any of my readers can remember something crazy you did, please email me. I'd really like to know there's more creativity out there in the world! -- And let me know if I can post it in this blog!
              
                            hughmouse@bellsouth.net

HE JUST TOOK DRUNK

Every now and then Tom Jones (I called him Uncle Tom) would take a notion that he wanted to drink something, and he was going to drink it if it hairlipped Hell.

I wasn't old enough to drive. Uncle Tom would have somebody else drive, and we'd stop at Bookie Poole's Service Station for Ruppert beer. He'd go in there and he'd tell the man, "I want six bottles of Ruppert beer." They had it on ice then. It was buried in icy water and it was really cold.

The first time it happened, the man behind the counter said, "Are you going to carry it with you?" He says, "No, I'm going to drink it right here." And he took the first bottle out of the box and popped the top on it and set it up on the counter. Uncle Tom drank that bottle of beer before the man could get the next bottle out of the box and take the top off of it and set it up there.

We'd go on down to the farm and do what we had to do - tend to the livestock, whatever was down there. And we'd head back. He wanted six more. He'd drink twelve beers in one afternoon. By the time he got home, he was lit. And just as soon as we drove in the yard and parked and the driver got out, Annie, his wife, she'd stick her head out the back door. She knew just as good what had happened. Uncle Tom would go out to the barn or somewhere.

"You devil!" she'd say to me. "You done took him off and got him drunk again, ain't you?" I'd say, "No, Aunt Annie, I ain't done nothing to him. He just took drunk somehow or another."

"I know damn well you did. You took him by Bookie's."  I'd say, "No, I didn't. I've been riding." She'd say, "Well, you'd better stay here until he goes to bed."

After I was grown and married and moved back to the area, Annie would call me sometimes to come up there and see if I couldn't do something with him.

He was an amazing man in this world. He went through the worst part of World War I. He told me some hair-rising things. He respected me tremendously, and I thought the world of all of them.

MAKING A NAME FOR YOURSELF

I watch my son Fred design the graphics to wrap a vehicle, then print the vinyl, then help put it on. If ink spatters, he reprints. If the installer gets it crooked, Fred reprints. A well done vehicle wrap is more than a customer's advertisement. There's a feeling of pride, a sort of ownership when Fred looks at the finished creation.


I remember when he was five years old and first establishing his place in this big old world, looking for something to be proud of and leave his name on.

Uh huh. He left his name real good. Fred and his little buddy Lodie found a can of spray paint and had a blast painting Lodie's brick house. When Lodie's dad called and told me what Fred had done, I wondered how he knew it was Fred. But of course, Fred had painted his NAME on the wall!

Yes, my son has been making a name for himself ever since!

COLLATING

I was allowed to do various jobs in my parent's newspaper office in the 60s. One of them was making pads of invoices, receipts, etc. The pages (several hundred of them) were printed on a manual press and cut on the monster guillotine cutter. I was forbidden to go near that machine. Not a problem!

Then the little pieces of printed paper were turned over to me. There should have been a note on top of the stack saying: "Warning! Do not attempt this job if you have heart problems." The job wasn't stressful. It was the mistakes! I had to collate those things. I'd put the white page #500 on top of the yellow page #500 on top of the pink page #500, then a set of 499s and a set of 498s and so on. It's bad to get half the stack wrong and have to un-collate and re-collate them! I learned right fast that an ounce of prevention is truly worth a pound of cure.
Sometimes I perforated them on a foot pedal machine that only punched maybe 15 to 20 sheets at a time. Then I got to help glue them. (I wasn't trusted with this job alone.) We stacked them on a platform and screwed down a heavy wood clamp then painted gobs of glue on one side of the stack. The next day, the glue was dry and we separated the pads. Voila!

Nowadays it's all automated.

MODERN VIEW OF GOD

Monday's headline was, "Pastor Sticks Up for Modern View of God." Sounded interesting, so I started reading. I don't think this man gives ordinary people much credit. He says ministers have a more nuanced understanding of the faith than their congregations. He says ministers speak in literal terms that are actually metaphors. They assume their "more sophisticated" members will understand this. Is he implying that most Christians are barbarians? (Well, I won't pursue that.) Anyway, he says it's a charade.

Baloney! Now you tell me - What does he think ministers understand that traditional Christians don't? He doesn't believe in a God on a sky throne. Hey - bulletin! Most people don't! He believes God is a "process of mysterious cosmic creativity that makes for greater love and justice…a force working within human beings and nature." Well, duh! The most literalistic, indoctrinated Christians also give God credit for that!

I'm thinking this guy is missing the boat. He takes his theory to the brink of a big sea of truth and knowledge, takes a look at the abyss, and turns tail and runs!

Here's a metaphor for you: There was another headline recently about a bullfighter in Mexico City. He describes the moment when he saw the bull charge: "I felt a deep fear, and I decided no, no, and no." He turned and ran, dropping his cape on the way and jumping over the ring's wall. "I decided that was it. Let somebody else who has the ability and the courage take the opportunity."

DIGITAL BILLBOARDS

I'm on my soapbox today. Sorry, guys. My family owns a sign shop. We sell signs, and Barry Saunders (a News & Observer columnist) wrote about my favorite topic - signs. It seems the Durham City Council has once again unanimously voted down digital billboards. This is not good. We sign guys have seen too many businesses lose money because of city ordinances. I guess none of the city leaders uses signs.

God bless Barry Saunders for covering what he calls a "civil-despite-lasting-more-than-four-hours debate." (And he doesn't even own a sign shop!)  One city employee apparently reasoned, "The current ordinance has stood the test of time." Gee. I've never heard "Get lost. We've always done it this way," stated so eloquently.

I admit that digital signs do distract motorists. But doesn't that mean they work? And doesn’t that means they sell products? So let's find good ways to use them - not outlaw them completely!

TOOL BOX

We have a work van. A Dodge Ram. We removed the seats, so it's just a shell, albeit a very big shell. We haven't customized the interior yet (hey, we've only had it six years) so our tools are stored in boxes and satchels - or just loose - on the floor of the van.

A friend saw this, took pity on us, and gave us an old beat up metal tool chest. Our workers were very happy to have it and were planning to bolt it to the floor of the van. But they left it on the back porch of the shop overnight and it got stolen.

There's an internet joke that says, "You know you're stressed if you begin speaking in a language that only you and Channelers can understand." I decided not to comment when they told me about the tool box.

MO AND THE BIG EXIT

Yesterday in Sunday School I turned off the "Mo and the Big Exit" Veggie Tales DVD before it was over. There was a little break in the plot, and I just turned it off. Eleven kids looked at me.

I told them I would tell them the rest of the story myself. Truthfully, my idea didn't go over and the final result wasn't too memorable. But this is what I did anyway. I let them stand up and move around after 1/2 hour of watching TV. (I'm not completely stupid.) Then I told the story of how Moses ("Mo" in the movie) and the Israelites fled from Egypt and crossed the Red Sea, and God made the sea open up for them. (This was the "Big Exit" from Egypt, which the movie represented as some place in the Wild West where the Israelite slaves had been digging the Grand Canyon.) The point I was trying to make was that it wouldn't have happened if it had been left up to Moses, and that it was a God-sized miracle.

They didn't get it. One little girl kept asking, "When are we going to watch the rest of 'Mo and the Big Exit'?" This was the point at which I decided to stick with leading adult Bible studies from now on.

Maybe the end result wasn't quite the lesson I wanted to teach, but I sure as heck wasn't about to let them leave that class thinking the Veggies crossed Death Valley on a magical bridge of snow! Good grief!

UNCLE TOM'S PIPE

One of my father-in-law's stories.

Every now and then Tom Jones (I called him Uncle Tom) would have somebody drive us to Bookie Poole's Service Station for Ruppert beer. We'd be sitting in the back of the truck, the wind blowing, and he'd be striking matches, trying to light his pipe. Had nickel boxes of matches then. Old country matches. I'd tell him, "Uncle Tom, you need some tobacco in your pipe."

He'd say, "Well, son, fix my pipe for me then."

I'd take that pipe and dump it out. Then I'd take a Golden Grain sack of tobacco out, and I'd go to putting it in that pipe. I'd pack it just like it was a hay bailer. Man, I'd pack it in there tight!

Then I'd say, "All right, here you go, Uncle Tom. Hold your mouth here." And I'd deliberately put it everywhere except in his mouth. He'd have his lips poked out, just a poking his mouth everywhere, looking for that pipe! I was playing with him. He wouldn't ever get mad.

Finally, I'd let him get it in his mouth. Then I'd strike a match and hover it over the top of it. But he couldn't get any air through it. "God!" he'd say. He was a sucking. His lips just a whistling around the stem of the pipe. And I'd just get so tickled I thought I was going to fall of the back of that truck. I'd tell him, "Uncle Tom, you've got to suck now if you're gonna get this pipe lit. Suck hard!"

And he'd just go at it. He'd finally catch on to the game, or was going along with it, I don't know which. He'd tell me, "Son, you packed that thing too tight! I can't get no air through it! You've got to do something."

Then I'd say, "Well, let me see," and I'd stir down there a little bit with one of those country matches and put the excess back in his bag of Golden Grain. Then I'd say, "Try that, Uncle Tom," and I'd go through that same thing again trying to get it in his mouth. I'd worry with him like that until we'd get home. That poor soul never got a good drag off his pipe the whole damn way!

GOING TO PRESS

These memories hopefully give a snapshot (kid's eye view) of what a small town county newspaper office was like in the 50s - The Duplin Times.

We had a large flatbed press, and under the press was a pit similar to the pits in some car service stations. The pressmen went down there to ink the press, and you didn’t go near there if you didn’t want to get printer’s ink on you from the large barrels of ink. That ink smelled good. They say you get printer’s ink in your blood when you work on a newspaper. I don’t know about that, but I had black smudges on my feet a lot. If I had on sandals, I took them off and it still looked like sandals were on my feet!

The Duplin Times had two pressmen – Amos Quinn and Mose Cooper. When it was time to “go to press,” Mose climbed up onto the printing press and stacked the huge pages of newsprint onto a platform that was near the ceiling. These sheets of newsprint were large enough to hold four pages of a newspaper, called a “four-page spread.” Mose stood up there inserting one page at a time into the jaws of the press. Static electricity built up, and sometimes Mose would lift a page so that it got sucked up to the ceiling. What a sight!

The flatbed press had a huge roller that rolled forward, pressing newsprint down on an inked bed of type. Then it rolled back and did it again. One page at a time, the newspaper got printed. After all the pages were printed on one side, Amos and Mose flipped them, changed the type in the press bed, and began printing the back side of the pages. This created eight pages, so if the newspaper was bigger that week, another batch had to be printed.

My sister Beck recalls the day it “pied.” (This is pronounced like Pie.  It's printers’ slang for a mass of type jumbled together.) Mose and Amos forgot to tighten the bed of type. This type was made of about a million thin bars of metal strips about 1.5” tall, as I remember, and just the width of a printed letter and the length of the line of type in the column. There were a lot of them. They were laid out in a frame, line after line, column after column. Then – barring any lapse of sanity – the frame was tightened to hold up against the weight of the huge metal roller. On this particular day, it didn’t go as planned. Mose and Amos rolled the press. The roller moved about half way across the bed of type, pushing all of the type forward. About half of it hit the floor before they realized what was happening. They quickly shut down the press, saving what was left of the type pretty much intact and still in the frame. It was at that moment that our dad walked in. Beck says, “They were all scared to death! All Daddy said was, ‘Put it back together.’” This self-control is what impressed my sister. I don’t think our dad was typically that calm!

After printing the newsprint sheets, Amos stacked them on the folding machine. He inserted them one at a time, and the machine’s wheels and belts pulled the page through intricate turns, cutting the four-page sheet into two two-page sheets, then folding them and trimming off the edges. The strips of newsprint fell to the floor in a pile, and the piles were moved and piled on top of piles until there was a great mountain of them to play in.

It all sounded like an orchestra. A LOUD orchestra! The roller on the press rolled forward and backward, the gears turned, large metal rollers rolled smoothly then clanked and rolled again. The folding machine’s multitude of belts and tiny rollers created their own rhythm as they moved the newspapers through the machine. One machine clanking and the other clicking, and I think there must have been some compressed air somewhere because I remember some swooshing sounds, too. It was a concert that played way into the night. I played in the paper strips until I could play no more. Then I would try to sleep in them, but I’d sink to the bottom, like my dad said he did in a feather bed, and end up on the cold concrete floor. So I moved over to the mailbags with their odor of newspaper and canvas. Delicious when you can’t keep your eyes open! A cord ran through grommets to seal the bags at the top and was secured by a clamp – which made for some interesting lumps in a pile of bags. But other than that, those canvas bags felt as soft as a mattress to my tired body. Pretty soon, someone would need the bags and I’d have to find a new place to sleep.

I suppose you're sleepy too, by now. I'll wait until another time to tell you about the race to get the newspapers on the bus and the night rides through the county.

SHOTS

I read that Penicillin was invented during my lifetime. Must've been real early, because I remember those penicillin shots! The doctor came to our house (yes, I guess that was a long time ago), and if I needed a shot, he and my parents had to hold me down - all 40 pounds of me. He had big old hands with lots of black hair on them. I hated those hands!


Maybe it was then, or maybe it was at the health department, that I learned not to look at the needle. I hated the health department, too. Back then (yes, I guess I am old) I only had one smallpox shot and three polio shots. (The sugar ones came along the year after I finished my series.) But those yearly typhoid booster shots went on, and on, and on. People reminded me how lucky I was to have those wonderful vaccinations.

I was paranoid. Right after I got a typhoid shot, I started dreading the next one and built up a year's worth of fear. My cousin loved to pick on me. He was studying to be a doctor and should have been more humane, but he pulled out a needle one time and chased me into a corner of the house and laughed at me as I went ballistic.

I got brave enough to look at the needle when I was a high school graduate and had to have a blood test. I fainted.

But I conquered the fear (with a lot of divine help) and can watch the nurse draw blood without even flinching. After all these years, I still feel proud as a pumpkin, too!

NORTH AND SOUTH

There are accurate answers and there are right answers. When our daughter was about three or four, we were on an airplane. She was sitting in her dad's lap and he was entertaining her. Pretty soon I saw him point out the window on the left saying, "That's west," then the right window saying, "That's east."

They played for a while, and I heard words like "north" and "southwest." Pretty soon he decided to quiz her, knowing she had caught on. He asked her, "Now which way are we going?" Without a blink she pointed to the front of the plane and said, "That way!"

She was right!

LIMERICK

.


     Legs like a battering ram,
                            
     A lunge and a quick body slam,

                       Eyes wild with a demon,

                       Blood curdling screaming --

          

         For eardrops, cats don't give a damn!


.

SPEEDY THE GOLDFISH

Written when my daughter was 12.

I bought a goldfish for Susan four years ago, and she has changed the water in the little round fishbowl weekly. So for her birthday this year I got her one of those new-fangled aquariums. Very small - just big enough for one goldfish.

We assembled the aquarium and I found some seashells to put in it instead of the recommended gravel. The fish started turning black. Within a week, he was ready for intensive care. I took a water sample to the closest pet store, which was 1/2 hour away. I came home $30 lighter with ten capsules of medicine for the black fungus growing on the fish, two bottles of something to treat the water with, and a bag of gravel - with strict instructions to get those salt-water seashells out of the tank!

A week later, I took another water sample to the pet store. "How much do you feed this little guy?" the clerk asked. I answered, "Oh, we just throw in a pinch or two of fish food whenever we pass by the tank. The fish loves it. He practically taps on the glass when he sees us coming." The clerk said, "Well, you'll have to stop feeding him so much. One flake of food every day or two is enough."

Another week passed, and I took another water sample. The fish's fungus had cleared up and he was livelier than ever. But the water was still saturated with decaying food. "How often do you change the water?" the clerk asked. "Never!" I replied. "I bought this fancy new aquarium so Susan could stop changing the water." "No good," he said. "Your filter aerates the water, but the food still decays. You'll have to siphon a couple of inches of water out every week and add fresh water."

I came home with a plastic tube and showed Susan how to siphon water. She said she wouldn't suck fish water out of that tank for all the gold in China. So I did it. A week later I took another water sample over to the pet store. The clerk said at the rate I was going I might have the tank water freshened up in oh, say, a year. I'd better break the whole thing down and start over with fresh water. I did it last week, and the fish is lovely. I have to go to the pet store to test this new water today. Anybody want to buy a goldfish - cheap?

SIGNS, SIGNS, EVERYWHERE A SIGN

You must understand - I'm a sucker for puzzles. Not just jigsaw and Sudoku, but anything that needs figuring out. Like when I plan a big dinner. I figure out every detail and write it down (then I hide my list because people have been known to laugh at me). I plan which night to make the jello, when to put the watermelon in the fridge, when to thaw the chicken, what time to put the potatoes in the oven to bake, what time to cut down the heat and put the chicken in the oven and what time to cut it up again for the rolls, what time to put the casserole in the microwave, what time to get the pickles out, and when to take the butter out to soften.  I just love these challenges.

So it was inevitable that I would get excited about naming the signs for a program we are planning at church. My fellow committee members don't know what's coming because they don't know me too well yet! So far I have come up with more than thirty signs. YIELD for Christ was the easy one. I've heard it before. But I got some good ones:

BUS STOP - "Wait for the Lord."

WATCH FOR FALLING ROCKS - "For I am about to fall."

SLIPPERY WHEN WET - "The law of his God is in his heart; his feet do not slip"

CAFETERIA - "Taste and see that the Lord is good."

U-TURN - "Return to me and I will return to you."

Do you want to hear more? Never mind. There's no time left. I have to go make a list of places to call about a new printer and update my To-Do list.  So I'll be back to tell you another story tomorrow, as Uncle Wiggily says, "if the rooster doesn't crow and wake me up before I have time to put a clean dress on the lollypop so it can go to school."

HAPPY’S OBIT

In the ‘60s, there was a vacant desk near the door, and my dog Happy slept under it much of the time. At that time, Ruth Wells was writing for the paper, and in her column, entitled “Well! Well! Wells,” she wrote the following obituary when Happy died:

“The Times Office will never be the same. Happy is dead! Happy was Margaret’s pet dog, but she was also much more than that. About press time, Happy was usually at the office. She came to the front door and gently let her presence be known. Always entering like a lady, she came in to the ‘run of the shop.’ After making the rounds to see just what everyone was doing, she usually stretched out to take a nap in the hall, the most out-of-the way place she could find. Nor did she desert, no matter how late the midnight oil was burned. I hope there is a newspaper shop in the Happy Hunting Ground. If so Happy is at the front door, taking a nap and standing guard at the same time.”

My sister and brother-in-law's dog TG went to the Happy Hunting Ground today. TG stands for TGIF, and we called her "Teej." She, like Happy, gently let her presence be known. She'd walk over to you to be petted, never licking you or jumping on you. Her tail was a little dangerous, but you got used to that. She didn't exactly "beg" at the table, but you knew she was waiting. Although she survived many family cats in her lifetime, she did have a problem the day they brought home a life size concrete dog and put it on the front porch. But she learned to live with him, too.

I'm sure Teej and Happy have met by now in the Happy Hunting Ground and are running around like puppies again!

Suth'n Tawkin'

When I lived in Wisconsin, I could genuinely say, "When I speak, people listen." Unfortunately, it was because of my Southern drawl, not my wisdom. I'd be paying my bill at the grocery store and if I said anything - just one word - everyone around turned to stare at me. I felt like an alien!

Then we took a trip to St. Louis. At a gas station, someone saw our license plate and asked, "Where in Wisconsin are you from?" I told him, "Green Lake,” but he looked at me kind of funny, like I had some 'splainin' to do. So I'd say, "I talk funny because I'm really from North Carolina."

We went on to Alabama. A waitress there asked, "Can I take yawls'es order?" Right on! Yesss! I let my barriers down and started slurring vowels and stretching syllables, and soon forgot I had ever been a vocal misfit.

Driving back to Wisconsin, we stopped at a hotel in Kentucky. Warm air and leafy trees made me feel I was still in the South. I ordered a drink at the bar, then headed for the pool. Later, my husband ordered a drink at the same bar and the bartender said to him, "Your wife was in here a few minutes ago." The vacation was over. We were a pair of vocal misfits again.

TEMPTATION

My Bible study book says, "Temptation distracts us from being what we are meant to be in God's eyes." Yep.

I think I am meant to be part of our church - a contributing member of a group of awesome people. So when there's a church picnic (I love picnics) you'd think I'd remember it! Nope. I had a garage sale instead.

I also believe I am meant to be a writer. So when our website is getting designed, not only do I push aside my sewing group (awesome people at church I want to get to know better), but I also skip writing this blog for a few days. Missing rungs on my ladder to fame.

Maybe I'll learn to face those temptations head-on one day, recognize them as what they are - distractions - and quit taking the bait! But, as Lane Olinghouse said, "Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address."

And if you want to find out who Lane Olinghouse is, stay tuned. I'm still trying to find out myself! So I'll leave you with a quote from good old Uncle Wiggily, who said, "Next, if the gum drop doesn't fall down stairs and break the lollypop's stick, I'll tell you about Sammie and the eggs" - or in this case, Lane Olinghouse.

MOVING

(This was written in Green Lake, WI, in 1988.)

Yes we're moving again. We just got here three years ago and I'm just now becoming familiar with this state and town. Now here we go to St. Louis. Did you know that Wisconsin has some of the lowest car insurance rates in the country?!

Moving means having a garage sale AND an open house. Now you tell me - how in the world can I do both? I'll clean out the closets first, then I'll find a place for the junk (magically) until the garage sale, then I'll clean up and get ready for the open house.

Meanwhile, I have to go to St. Louis again to look at the school systems, house hunt, work out a new budget, and make decisions about insurance. And as if my life weren't complicated enough, I had to buy TWO new sets of tires last week, plus shocks. (The car's shocks, not mine!)

As school draws to a close, our children look forward to summer camp. How in the world am I going to get one child to a Wisconsin camp in June and one child to an Ohio camp in July, when I don't know when I'll be in Wisconsin and when I'll be in Missouri?

If we move to an apartment in Missouri temporarily, there's the family dog to consider. Perhaps I can lose him at the garage sale, or at least en route between camps or something.

GARAGE SALE

I went to bed Friday night wondering if I should participate in the neighborhood garage sale Saturday morning beginning at 7 a.m. I had some furniture in the garage to sell, but did I have anything else? Before midnight I had thought of at least twenty more items I could part with, so at 5:30 I dragged George out of bed to help move furniture from the garage to the sidewalk. He kept fussing, "Let's just call Good Will and give it away."

Not being one to take the easy way out, I proceeded with my project and hauled about twenty loads of stuff out of the attic, through the house and garage, and down the driveway. Thank goodness it was all downhill! By 6:30 I was filthy & sweaty, and the crow I was beginning to eat wasn't so good either.

George, sweetheart that he is, insisted on sticking this out and stayed with me on the driveway all morning. But he was still fussing about the furniture not being worth a dime. I said it was worth at least $100 for each piece. He bartered me down to $100 for the two large ones and $50 for the two small ones. Long story short, by the end of the sale, I was down to "Make me an offer." George knew to keep his mouth shut.

Our neighbor took pity on us old folks and helped us haul it back into the garage at noon, at which point I was filthy and sweaty again. We made $38.50, and it took me two showers, the loss of a chance to sleep late on Saturday morning, missing a church picnic, and sore muscles. But it was worth it (I justified to myself) because I got some good photos of the furniture so I can sell it on Craigs List.