Wednesday, April 30, 2008

My Expensive Chicken Dinner!

I bought a fried chicken dinner at the Deli recently. It cost me $4.99 at the time. However, in the end it cost me $135 and the loss of a tooth!



I was eating a piece of the chicken and accidentally chomped down too hard on a piece of bone. The bone was sort of hidden in the meat. It hurt me when I did it but I thought I had just bruised my tooth. I waited about a week and it was kind of sore but it didn't get any better. After about a week I could not eat without it hurting me afterward for an hour or so.



I decided that I must have done more than bruise my tooth. So I got up early the next morning and called my dentist for an appointment. I was lucky enough to get in that afternoon.



As it turned out I had a crack in one of my teeth and the dentist said it needed to be pulled. It was a wisdom tooth and he said I didn't really need that tooth because it was so far back in my mouth and it was not used that much for chewing anyway.



So he pulled the tooth and my pain was gone as soon as the numbness was gone from my mouth. So I am out a tooth, and $135 dollars. I will be extremely careful when I eat chicken from now on. I think $135 is way too much to pay for a chicken dinner--don't you?

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

My Cowboy Boots

You surely know that if you live in Texas you have to have had a pair of cowboy boots at some time in your life! I was born and raised in Paris, Texas. I lived there until 1946 when I moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana.


When I was a sophomore in high school I saw these white cowboy boots and I set my mind to getting them. They were expensive even for that time. I finally begged my mother long enough that she broke down and let me buy them.


I wore them to school and I found out that they were not the most comfortable shoes I had ever worn! But I looked up to date and western and that was what mattered.


I felt very chic in the boots and loved them in spite of their toe-pinching and heel- rubbing pains. Gradually, I adjusted to the pains and I could wear them without too much hurting!


After the novelty wore off and I found out how much white shoe polish and how much elbow grease it took to keep them looking their best I did lose the zest for wearing them all the time. Eventually, they found their way to the back of the closet where, in the end, they were forgotten. I had had my 15 minutes of fame with my white cowboy boots and I returned to my comfortable old loafers!

Monday, April 28, 2008

My Uncle Frank

I often think of my uncle Frank, my dad's brother, and what a tragedy his life was. However, he always seemed to be as happy as anyone else.



First of all, he had polio when he was about two years old. He was left with a limp when he walked. His left hand and arm were left mostly useless. Since he was so young when that happened he did seem to adapt well to his defects and could do almost any thing everyone else could do.



I know he was very unhappy about his limp and he did go to several doctors to see if anything could be done about it. I assume nothing could be done because nothing ever was.



Secondly, He had a bad marriage which did last a few years but eventually was absolved. There were no children from the marriage.




Then in his later life my Uncle Frank worked at a gas station where he was in a serious accident from a gas can explosion. His injuries were serious and he was unable to work for many months. Throughout his adult life he always had a job. So he was ambitious despite his handicap.





As God would have it he finally found a woman who was really nice to him and they were married. Sadly, they were not married very long before he developed lung cancer and died. I surely hope that Uncle Frank finally reached the Promised Land because he certainly lived a Hell on Earth! (That is my view of the situation, maybe his view was better than mine!)

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Tonsillectomy

When I was about six I had my tonsils removed. I was having sore throats, gland swellings and earaches all the time. The doctor said I needed to have my tonsils taken out. Not only was he going to remove my tonsils, he was also going to remove my adenoids. Since school was starting very soon my mother wanted to get it done before school started.



So the surgery was set up. My mother took me to the doctor's office very early one morning. Since a clinic was right there at the doctor's office that is where the surgery would take place.



I can remember very well when they put me to sleep. The doctor told me to count backwards from 10. I started out 10, 9, 8, 7... and that is about as far as I remember. The next thing I knew I was lying on a bed in a darkened room and my mother was right there by the bed. I remember feeling so strange and woozy.



After I recovered a little from the anesthetic my mother told me that the doctor said I could have some ice cream when I felt like I could eat it. Of course I was ready then! Eating it was not as much fun as I had thought it would be because my throat hurt when I swallowed. Anyway, I spent most of the day at the clinic and then we could go home. I don't remember having any problems at all after that and I did start school on the first day, which was a couple of weeks after my surgery. That was the end of my sore throats, gland swellings and earaches. My surgery was a success!

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Bantam Chicks

My uncle Frank once gave my sister and me a Bantam hen and rooster. Banties were what we called them. They were the cutest little pair of chicks you ever could see. We had a small chicken coop that we kept them in at night. It was made with a detachable floor, or base, so it could be easily cleaned.



The Banties were pure white and with their red combs they were adorable. We had them for about a year and were very attached to them.



My grandpa one morning had removed the coop off the floor so he could clean it. He had finished the cleaning and was replacing the coop back on the floor and the little hen tried to get in it and got her head caught between the coop and the floor. My grandpa didn't see her so she was caught by the neck and it killed her instantly! We were crushed. The little rooster was also crushed. He ran around like he was the chicken with its head off. He was so lost for a while. But time heals all wounds so he eventually got over it. I think we had him for some time after that before he met his doom (I can't remember what his doom was!).

Friday, April 25, 2008

Shirley Temple

Shirley Temple and I have something in common--We are close to the same age. That is about it as far as the things in common go!


I remember the very first movie I ever went to was one of her movies. I think it was "Little Miss Broadway." It was in color and I was fascinated by that movie.


My Aunt and Uncle took me to see it. I didn't even know where we were going when they picked me up. After we got to the movie and were standing in line to get the tickets I told them I wasn't sure Mama would want me to go to the movie. That was back when some people thought movies were "sinful." Mama was one of those people. My aunt said, "Oh don't worry about that." However, we did see the movie and I assume Mama never said anything about me going .





I have seen quite a few Shirley Temple movies since then, new ones and repeats, but none of them ever quite enthralled me as much as that first one did. We have never had another Shirley Temple since her and probably never will!




Thursday, April 24, 2008

Butter Rolls

I promised a post about Butter Rolls so here it is. Butter Rolls were a delicious little invention of my mother's. They were fought over at school for trading for other students goodies at lunchtime.



My mother would take pie dough and roll it out into circles and then put in a filling of butter, sugar, and sometimes cocoa if she wanted to make chocolate ones. She would then fold the dough over and seal the edges. She then put them in a skillet and let them fry on one side, turned them over and let them fry on the other side. While they were frying she would take the spatula and press down on them and squeeze the melted butter and sugar out and it would caramelize and stick to the dough and make a delicious sugary crust over the whole outside of the roll. They were mouth-watering delicious. I could trade them for most anything else another kid had. However, it had to be something extra special for me to trade them away because I liked them so well myself!



My mother made them always out of real butter. I think that is why I cannot make one now that comes out the same as hers --I use margarine instead of butter. But I have tried a few times with real butter and I just can't make them to taste as delicious as hers. That might be another example of a taste change on my part.



I really long for just one mouthwatering bite of my mother's scrumptious Butter Rolls!


Wednesday, April 23, 2008

A 25 cent Lunch!

How would you like getting a regular size pimento-cheese sandwich, with an olive and potato chips on the side, and a large coke for your lunch for only 25 cents?


That -- 25 cents-- is what I paid for my lunch many times when I was in high school (1939-1942). We had Palace number I and Palace number II drug stores that were only about two blocks from the high school I attended. Many days when the weather was good several of my friends and I would go to one or the other of the two stores during the hour we had off for lunch. Both stores had the same menu and prices for their lunch items so we would decide which store we wanted to delight with our presence for that day and head out for the lucky one..


For the 25 cents you got a regular size sandwich with a generous amount of pimento-cheese, lettuce and tomato on it; a large olive on a toothpick stuck in the top of the sandwich; an equally generous amount of potato chips on the side, and you got a large coke or whatever to go with it, all for one quarter (oh, for the joy of that time again!). The Palace also had other sandwiches to choose from but the meat sandwiches were a little higher priced-- about 50 cents, maybe-- still unbelievable!



These days you can't buy any sandwich at our fast food places, or any where else for that matter, for less than one dollar -- that is for the smallest size (and forget the olive and potato chips!) and drinks are also at least a dollar.


With our family's small budget at that time I still could not buy my lunch every day even at those prices. Some days I had to make my sandwich at home. My mother would make fried pies, cookies or butter rolls (I'll tell you about butter roles in another post!) for me to take in my lunch. Everything tasted so much better back in those days (or has my taste changed?).

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Who Was I Fooling?

Back when my husband still worked he wanted his meal on the table when he got home at 5:00 PM. I usually tried to have it there for him.


Once in a while I would get involved in something that kept me too busy to start preparing the meal on time. When that happened I would hurriedly set the table and get everything ready and then start cooking whatever I was having. I would put the drinks on the table, the bread and anything that we were having that was ready to eat. The table would look all ready for eating except for the main entree which would be maybe just starting to cook. Sometimes it might be as long as a half hour before it would be done but at least it was cooking!

Most of the time that would satisfy him into thinking supper was about ready and he would not be so impatient. I don't know if I was fooling him, or myself, but it did seem to work.


After he retired he was much more mellow about things and was not so demanding about his meals. I suppose if I had worked 8 hours and had not had a meal since 7:00 AM I might have been demanding too about my meal being ready when I got home. After all, I didn't work so the least I could do is have the meals ready on time!

Monday, April 21, 2008

Mackinac Island--Lost and Found

We visited Michigan's Mackinac Island when our children were little. Our money was scarce at that time in our lives so it was a problem to come up with the money it cost to get there. A very nice ticket agent gave us a hint on saving some of our money on the trip. She advised us to park our car on the mainland and ride the ferry over to the island and then pick up our car when we got back to the mainland. That way we saved one ferry trip cost which was much higher than the fee to park the car for a day on the mainland. That is what we did.



Mackinac Island is a fairyland. We took a horse and buggy ride around the island and saw all of the highlights. Of course there are no cars allowed on the streets so the horses and buggies had full range in the streets.



While we were there we visited some of the gift shops. In one of them we saw a camera lying on a counter which was obviously not one for sale. We looked around and no one was anywhere near the camera. So we took it to the clerk in the gift shop and turned it in as a lost camera. We thought nothing more of it.



Later on the ferry back to the mainland we heard some other passengers talking among themselves and we heard them discussing something they had lost. We asked them if they had lost something and they said, "Yes, our son lost his camera." We related to them that we had turned in a camera that we had found at a certain gift shop . Fortunately, we remembered the name of the shop. When we got to the mainland they called that gift shop and asked them if they had the camera. The clerk said "Yes we have it right here." They gave the gift shop their name and on the next ferry arriving the ferry person had their camera for them. They were much relieved that their memories on film had been saved.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Car Sick!

When My youngest daughter was a baby she used to get car sick if she was in the presence of a car! Fortunately, she outgrew that phase of her life before too many years. At first she couldn't go even a short distance in the car without throwing up. Since we went on long trips frequently, it was a great disadvantage.



Once we were going to Texas as we did at least two times a year. Of course we were all clean and set for our trip. We did not even get to Huntington, which is about 25 miles away from our city before She did her act! She sprayed me good and I smelled terrible the rest of the trip. I had extra clothes in the suitcase but they were in the trunk and not handy to get to. We finally learned to prepare for the problem by taking wet washcloths and paper towels along with a plastic bucket whenever we got into the car. I am sure she felt worse than we did because she was the one who was sick!



When she was older there was another problem. She would not move her head if she was sick and therefore soiled the bed when she threw up. I would say, "Can't you please just turn your head so it goes on the floor instead of in the bed?" I think now that she has had children of her own she has begun to understand what I meant!



She was just bragging to me recently that her grandson was sick one night and she said he just got up; went to the bathroom; threw up; washed his hands and face and went back to bed. She was certainly not the role model for that!

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Earthquake!

I lived through an earthquake this morning. The earth quake that hit Illinois and Indiana awakened me this morning about 5:30. At first I thought someone was shaking my bed. Then I looked and could see no one in the room. Immediately I thought earthquake! The bed shook a couple of times and then stopped then it did it again and I definitely felt the bed shaking.



I could hardly wait until morning to turn on the TV and see if I was right. They were talking about it on the news. I knew it was an earthquake before I heard them saying it.



It all happened so quickly that I really didn't have time to get frightened about it. Now, if the shaking had been more severe or lasted longer I would have been very upset.



People in California are so used to these kinds of earthquakes that they wouldn't have been excited at all. But here in Indiana we have very few. This one was a 5.? something which did little or no damage even near the epicenter. Our last earthquake was in 1988 and was about the same as this one. I don't even remember it.



I hope I never have to be in a worse one than this one was.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Daddy Could Really Dance!

When I was a kid, my daddy was in our kitchen one night doing something and a little mouse ran up his pants leg. He was dancing all around trying to get that mouse out of his pants. I am sure the mouse was more frightened than he was. Daddy was doing every dance step that was ever invented without even knowing it! Finally the mouse did escape from his pants and both were relieved.





Daddy used to set the mouse traps and even some rat traps. We were fascinated when he would put that cheese, or peanut butter or whatever bait he was using, on the little plate of metal that was there for it and draw back that huge, heavy metal spring to set the trap. I was deathly afraid of mouse traps and even more so of rat traps. But I guess I would have been even more frightened yet if I had encountered a mouse or a rat in our house! Thankfully, I have never seen a mouse in my house (I'm a poet and don't know it!) and I hope I never do! I could never set a trap if a mouse were to somehow get inside my home.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Lovemar

Before I was married we lived on North Main Street in Paris, Texas. Right across the street from us was a small drive-in restaurant named the Lovemar. We referred to it as "the hamburger joint." The Hamburger Joint had a juke box and its music was piped to the outside of the building.


I went to sleep every night to the sound of all the popular music of that time. It was not extremely loud but loud enough that we could hear it even in the winter when the windows were closed. It was sort of my lullaby music. We heard all of the favorite country hits and other popular songs of the era. When I went to bed at night I loved hearing my favorite songs. Best of all, other people paid for my music!



If I stayed somewhere else overnight, as with a friend or a relative, I had trouble going to sleep without my juke box music.


These days even a clock ticking bothers me when I am in bed trying to sleep! But then I was much, much younger --in body and in mind. Now I take my music during the daylight hours!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

I'll Take Mine Well Done!

Many people like their meat rare. I do not like even pink meat on my plate. However, in New Jersey they eat raw hamburgers--at least they did in 1944.


I was there during WWII while my husband was stationed at Trenton, New Jersey at an army camp. We went to some of the restaurants to eat and we began seeing these people ordering hamburgers and when they came they were raw meat. We could not believe our eyes when they ate them completely raw. They were on buns just like other hamburgers but were not cooked at all. Later we were told that many people there liked the raw meat.


Another thing we found was that they did not take the insides out of their chickens before they sold them. We bought chickens at an outdoor market and when we got them home we found that all the entrails were still inside --and they smelled bad! That was back in 1944--I am sure that today they surely cannot sell them that way.


Those two incidents left me with a bad impression of New Jersey.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Japanese Tea

We once went with friends to Takaoka Of Japan, a Japanese restaurant in our city. The food is all prepared right at your table by an expert Japanese chef. You sit in a semi circle around the chef as he does his cooking, frying and all the fancy slicing and cutting that Japanese chefs are known for.





At each place setting there were the tools and dishes needed for the food and a small cup of yellow liquid that looked like melted butter. While we waited for the food we had some small snacks or hors d'oeuvres at our places to eat.





When we got our food, some of us had lobster and some had other Japanese delicacies, we started eating. I began dipping my chunks of lobster in to (what I thought was) the melted butter. Later, someone told us that the yellow liquid was tea! However, I had already used most of my tea for dipping my lobster. None of my group knew that it was tea so none of them knew that I was making a faux pas. I am sure the chef was amused at my strange method of eating lobster.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Have You Read the Complete Bible?

I am ashamed to admit that, at my age of 81, I had never read the complete bible through until a couple of years ago. I had read parts of it and randomly skipped through at times but I had never actually read the complete bible. I decided that if I were ever going to do it I should begin now!



I purchased a set of cassette tapes with the complete bible recorded, old and new testaments. I started out listening to one side of a tape, 45 minutes, each day. I did miss some days but I tried my best to get one side in every day. I can't remember just how long it took but I did finish the whole bible in a matter of a few months.




I really had to discipline myself while listening to the tapes. I found if I didn't really concentrate I would catch my mind wandering. I just considered that 45 minutes part of my worship for the week.



Then I started listening to the tapes the second time. The second time I began to get a little more out of it. I probably got about half way through and I saw a commercial on TV for a DVD with the bible recorded on it. I did not even have a DVD player but that sounded more appealing to me than just listening to the cassette tapes.


My grandson had a DVD player that he was not using so he gave it to me (maybe he loaned it to me!). For Christmas my daughter gave me the Bible on DVD. Now I had all I needed to read and listen to the bible. It is much more meaningful to read and listen at the same time. Now I am well on my way to reading the bible the third time. Each time I read through I remember more and get more out of what I read. The tapes or the DVD were not really that expensive and you can use them over and over again, I am not really anxious to die but at least when I do I can say I did read the complete bible-- can you say that?

Sunday, April 13, 2008

The Child Beater!

Our Aunt Lizzie and her two girls, our cousins,occasionally used to spend the night with us. They had arrived this one day and planned to stay overnight.

One of the cousins had to be awakened at night to use the bathroom. Aunt Lizzie had come to the bed in the darkness and gotten her girl up and was having her use the pottie. She had not turned on a light because she didn't want to arouse anyone else. After some time we could hear Aunt Lizzie urging our cousin to use the pot! Some more time passed and she still was demanding the child to hurry up and use the pot! After a little bit longer she was spanking her and really being adamant in getting her to go. We didn't hear a thing out of our cousin, only Aunt Lizzie getting more and more insistent on her using the pot.


Soon, we heard Aunt Lizzie saying, " Mary Ruth! Why didn't you tell me it was you?" She had suddenly discovered, through feeling the clothing, that she had gotten my sister up instead of her own girl. The girls were both about the same size. Through it all, my sister had not said one word even though Aunt Lizzie had spanked her and was getting pretty rough with her.


We asked my sister later why she didn't say anything and she said she didn't know why. Aunt Lizzie was so sorry she had treated her the way she did before she realized it was not her girl.


My mother said, as she was lying in bed hearing all of the goings on, she was thinking, "Boy, if that was my kid she would use the pot!" When all the time it was her kid! All of this story took place in the dark. We still have a good laugh about it every once in a while.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Pipe Cleaning

My dad used to smoke a pipe. You hardly ever saw him without a pipe in his mouth. He would also occasionally smoke a cigar, but never smoked cigarettes. He did finally quit smoking the pipe or anything else after he had a stroke and couldn't handle the pipe very well.

He always kept a package of pipe cleaners handy to clean his pipe every so often. I would beg him to let me clean his pipe. You took the long fuzzy pipe cleaners and poked one of them into the mouthpiece of the pipe and then pushed it clear through and out the other end of the pipe stem. This ugly brown, yucky stuff, which was the nicotine, would be pushed out by the pipe cleaner. You did that two or three times and then the pipe would be clean. I loved doing that.


I think that when Daddy died he still had most of the pipes he had ever owned! For some reason he never threw away an old pipe. I don't think he ever went back to an old pipe to smoke but he did like to keep them. He had an old round Prince Albert tobacco can out in his little shed and he kept all of his old pipes there.



After my Dad died we put his old pipes in a garage sale and some young kid bought every one of them. He collected pipes. Daddy would have been pleased to see that his old pipes had brought in a couple of dollars. He would have happily added that to his bank account!

Friday, April 11, 2008

An Old Wives' Tale

When one of my sisters was born she developed a common ailment among new born babies, called "Thrush." Thrush is actually a yeast infection, or fungus that occurs naturally in the mucous membranes of the mouth and on the skin. The use of antibiotics during pregnancy promotes the overgrowth of yeast by killing off the 'good' bacteria that normally keep the yeast from multiplying too quickly. During pregnancy, yeast infections are more common because high levels of estrogen lead to elevated levels of sugar and yeast feeds on sugar making you more susceptible to yeast infections and Thrush. The mother can also have Thrush.

All that being said, my mother had heard this old wives' tale that if someone who had never seen his, or her, father-- if their father had died before they were born--would blow his breath into the baby's mouth it would cure the Thrush. How unbelievable!



Anyway, my mother was at her wit's end to get rid of the Thrush in my sister's mouth. She happened to know a man who was eligible to cure the Thrush. His father had died before he was born. So she and my dad went to him and asked if he would perform the procedure on my sister. He did so.

Miraculously. the Thrush went away in just a day or so! Perhaps not miraculously, but coincidentally. The information I read said that Thrush could go away quickly and possibly even without treatment. So I am sure that was the reason for the Thrush going away and not because someone blew his breath into my sister's mouth! Of course You would never make my mother believe anything except that he had done the miraculous cure!




Watch out for those OLD WIVES' tales!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

The Penny Pincher and the Spendthrift

It was a well known fact that our Daddy was a penny pincher and our Mother was a spendthrift!

Daddy saved every dime he could and Mama spent every one she managed to get her hands on. They never actually fought about money but there was friction there when Mama wanted to buy something new and Daddy wanted to save the money.

In their later years Daddy would keep his money in the corner of a drawer in their bedroom. Of course Mama knew he kept it there. One time when I was visiting them Daddy was counting his money. He looked at me and said, "You know, every time I count this money I come up with a different amount." Mama gave me a strange look. Later she told me that she had taken a bit of the money for something she had to pay for. She would never call that stealing but that is really what it was! She believed the money was as much hers as it was his. That was why Daddy's money count was always different!

Mama's dirty little secret was never revealed to Daddy. He probably would have never believed that Mama was the culprit. I sure hope he didn't suspect me!






Wednesday, April 9, 2008

My Little Gold Mine!

I once ran into a little gold mine. There was this small discount store which sold items which were discontinued, package damaged or cans without labels. The first time I went there I was in seventh Heaven. They had all these cans that had lost their labels and there was no way to know what was in them. They were selling them for 5 cents apiece!


I grabbed all of the cans and placed them in a box. I didn't care what was in them! Actually, when I got them home and gradually opened them almost every one was a can of something that we could use--maybe corn, soup, peas or some other useful thing. I only remember a couple of times I got something which could have been dog or cat food--no way to know-- so it was tossed out. We had a surprise vegetable or fruit for almost every meal for some time.


Once I opened one can which was full of a liquid of some kind containing whole peanuts in the shell. It was pitched too. Later I heard from someone who said that down in the South somewhere they did use those for something.

Sadly, the next time I visited that store they had raised their prices on the label less cans to 10 cents instead of 5 cents--which was still a bargain!. Then even sadder was when they eventually closed the store. They were selling their "stuff" too cheap!


So, I lost my little corner of grocery Heaven.






Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Fig Bars

When I was a little kid my favorite kind of cookie was fig bars, also called fig newtons. My mother would go to buy groceries and most of the time she would come home with a bag of fig bars. Back then they came in bulk and you paid for them by the pound, or maybe by the dozen-- I don't remember. She usually bought them at a small store she passed as she walked home since she thought their fig bars were better than the grocery store's. I would rush to look at her purchases when she returned with the groceries. There would be my precious bag of fig bars somewhere among the sacks.


Today, I still buy fig bars occasionally but somehow they never taste as good as I remember them tasting back in those days. I am not sure if they really are not as good or if over the years my tastes have changed. One thing I am sure of is that they now probably cost about 4 or 5 or maybe even more times as much as they did back then!

Monday, April 7, 2008

What a colorful neighborhood!

When we moved into our first new home , in 1952, We had neighbors living within our one block area that had the names of Green, Black, White, Brown and Blue. We wished for a Gray but never got one!



We lived there for quite some time before any of the so named people moved away. We had Greens living directly across the street from us; we had Blues living right next door to us on one side; we had Browns living on the other side right next door; we had Whites living directly behind us and we had Blacks living two doors down from us.



I think that is quite a record for colorful names in a one block area. Too bad our name, Ford, could not have been a color. Maybe I will look for car names the next time I move!

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Bird's Eggs

My friend and I one time found a bird's nest. There were three or four eggs in it. Not doing what we should have--leave the nest and eggs alone--we took the eggs out of the nest. We decided that we wanted to see what bird's eggs tasted like. So we asked my mother to let is fry the eggs!



She argued that we should not eat them but put them back in the nest. We were so persistent that finally she said, " OK." She got us a small skillet and put some oil in it. We broke the eggs and put them in the skillet--we were lucky that the embryos had not formed yet. We ate them but it has been many years ago so I don't have any memory of what they tasted like. We could not even fly after eating them! Now, I would never in a million years eat a bird egg! ( Isn't a chicken a bird?) I can't imagine that my mother let us eat them but I guess she figured that was easier than protesting against us.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

The Big Spender!

When I was about 4 or 5 years old we lived very near a grocery store. My mother would occasionally send me to the store for various items. I did not have to cross any streets and with things being much safer then than now, she felt it was OK for me to go alone.


One day she sent me to the store and told me to get 25 cents worth of beef steak (it isn't a joke, at that time she could get enough steak for our meal for that amount!). So I was off to the store. I came home with about the right amount of steak and my mother cooked it.


Later, when she talked with the store owner he told her that I had asked for a dollar's worth of steak. He said he realized that she never bought that much at one time so he asked me if 25 cents would be OK. He said I answered, "Yeah, I guess that is OK." Since she had her groceries put on a bill for charges she really didn't know how much the steak had cost. I don't know why I said I wanted a dollar's worth, maybe I was extra hungry!

Friday, April 4, 2008

The Black Doll

When we were little kids our Uncle Gola came visiting us one Christmas Eve. He was unpredictable so we had no idea he was coming. He had a sack full of gifts for all of us. I don't have much memory of what all the gifts were except for one, which really stands out in my memory.



He brought my sister a little black baby doll. Why he picked black, I have no idea. Anyway she was thrilled with it and took it to bed with her at bedtime. The next morning she got up and was covered with black marks all over her face, arms and hands. The paint on the doll had melted and came off while she slept-- probably from her sweating and rubbing on it. We all had a good laugh at her expense. She was not too happy. We told her she was part black now!

I can imagine that the paint probably had lead in it, but that was before lead was a big concern as it now is. Uncle Gola was apologetic about the whole thing but the damage was done. I think maybe the doll ended up in the trash bin!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

A Snake in the Car

Back in the olden days I had an uncle who lived out in the country. He had a boy my age. We visited them quite a bit and I had a chance to play with my cousin.

There was a vacant field that was very near them where many old cars had been abandoned. My cousin and I liked to go out to this field and play "cars" there. We would pretend to drive them. Our parents had always told us to make sure to look in the cars first and make sure there were no snakes or other animals hiding there before we got into them. We had never before seen anything in the cars.

This particular day we had gone out to play and I had picked a car to be mine. I said to my cousin, "Go check it out for snakes first for me." So he went and looked and immediately he yelled, 'There is s huge snake in there! " I just assumed he was kidding me and was just trying to scare me. However, I went to take a look for myself. Sure enough, he was not kidding, there was a snake about 5 or 6 feet long all coiled up in the back of the car. By that time my cousin was half way back to the house running. I ran after him.

My uncle brought his hoe out to the car and killed the snake. He looped it over the hoe handle and carried it back to the house for the rest to see. All the way back to the house the snake was vomiting whole eggs out on the ground. It was a chicken snake. They eat chicken eggs, apparently whole. A few minutes later we looked out and the snake was still able to crawl a little so my uncle got his shotgun and finished it off. My aunt had some sheets hanging on her clothesline to dry. Snake blood and bits went all over her clean sheets and she had to launder them all over again.

We never, ever played "cars" again in that field.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

We Didn't Even Get Charged Extra!

Once I visited my Grandmother for a couple of days. She and my uncle lived near Cooper, Texas where he operated a gas station. They lived in the rear of the station and every day my grandmother would make lunch for my uncle and us.



This particular day she made lunch and my uncle came in to eat between customers. I don't remember the menu for that day but I do remember we had green beans.



As we sat down to eat and the green beans were passed around I looked in astonishment at my plate. There in the middle of my green beans was a huge green WORM! It was about the same size as the green beans and of course was the same color. I pointed to it and my uncle looked at it and said, "Golly Bum!" My grandmother was flabbergasted and grabbed the plate and tossed the contents into the garbage. I don't remember what the brand of the green beans was but I do remember that I didn't eat green beans for some time after that!

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Cousins by the Dozens

I would wager that few people have more cousins than I do! My mother had 12 siblings. My dad had 6 siblings. At last count, if I am correct, there were 52 cousins from both my mom's and my dad's sides of the family.


I have not met some of them but I was very close with many of them. Several of the siblings moved away to other cities or even other states so we did not see much of them and their children in later years. Others of the family lived right in our home town and we saw them a lot. We had family reunions many years and we saw some of them there. But over all, I had about 10 or 11 cousins that we remained close with. In fact one or two of them, along with me, fought out our childhood lives together.


Sadly, now many of them are no longer with us and many, we are not sure if they are living or dead. My best calculations are that we have about 24 cousins still living. More than half gone! They range in age from approximately 87 to about 50 years old. Unfortunately, I am in the upper range of that age spread!