Monday, November 29, 2010

The Fourth Commandment

The Fourth Commandment:
Remember the Sabbath Day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labor and do all of your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work-you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.





Boy, did my Mother ever believe in that! We kids were raised up to believe that we did nothing on Sunday that remotely resembled work. That meant no cutting with scissors, no sewing with a needle, no crocheting, or doing anything like cleaning or working around the house. If you did you were doomed for Hell!

Of course she cooked our meals, fed the chickens and pigs , milked the cows, and if we went to church that took an hour of work getting three kids ready for church!

She always quoted the phrase in the bible--I can't tell you where--which says, in so many words, that if your ox gets in the ditch on Sunday you have to get it out.

In later years I think she somewhat mellowed about all of that, because there are things you have to do on Sunday.

Now people work on Sunday just like any other day of the week. I do think you can avoid some things but others you can't.

I always think of the saying--again I can't tell you the source--that says an idle mind is the devil's workshop. So I do some things on Sunday which she would have cringed at, such as crocheting, embroidering or other fun hobbies. I feel I am only occupying my mind and keeping the devil out!

I do believe people have overdone their work on Sundays and do not even think of The Lord. Mama was right about some things but I think she was over conscious about others.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Golfers








Pictured are Ford and Louie, his golfing buddy. They played golf almost every day when the weather was good. I almost feel as if they both would still be golfing if they were alive! Louie got cancer and died about a year before Ford died. After Louie died Ford never played golf except for a couple of times. He might have played more but about that time he had his stroke, which messed up his memory, and he was embarrassed to go with anyone to play golf because he could not remember much at all. Our neighbor asked him several times to go but Ford just could not bring himself to go.
In the end his golfing was a thing of the past. That was when he started going down because he sat in his chair and got almost no exercise at all.

They had many hours of fun on the golf course. They could get senior passes and play every day for very little money, except for weekends. So they played weekdays.

I hope there are golf courses in heaven--because if there are Ford and Louie are surely doing 18 holes a day.









Monday, November 22, 2010

Ta-da!

How do you like them boots?

This picture was made many years ago--obvious if you could see me now!

Fashion boots were the in thing. I wanted to be in, of course! I had several pairs of boots in different colors.

Also back in those days I made a lot of my clothes. I made the suit I am wearing in the picture. I made a couple of them in different colors. I felt really in style when I wore them. I was in college then and I liked to look fashionable.

I loved sewing and I did quite a lot of it. Now, patterns, materials, notions and other items you need for sewing have become so expensive that it is cheaper to just buy y0ur clothes ready made. Also, back in those days I had a much nicer figure than I have now. I loved the way the things fit me and they looked good. Now I don't like the way I look in anything. So I just grab whatever will fit me in the store and forget about making anything home made.

I hope in the hereafter I will have that figure I used to have 50 years ago!

NOTE: See our psychotic dog, Mickey, in the lower right hand corner of the picture? Isn't he cute?

Saturday, November 20, 2010

My squeamish Family


I have spent a lifetime with squeamish kids. They can't even read about something to do with shots, doctor visits, cuts, bruises or blood without having to go lie down for a few minutes until the faintness feeling passes!



Their Dad was the same way when he was younger but he overcame it mostly after he grew up. My kids are 54 and 59 and they are still that way to a big extent.



Once my older daughter was watching TV when she was just a little kid and they were talking about snake bites and she quickly became nauseated and had to lie down for a while to get over it.



My younger daughter was with me at the hospital when I had my knee replacement. After the surgery I was in the recovery room and I noticed that she was not there. I wondered where she was . After some time she came into the room. I asked where she had been. She replied, "Lying on the floor in the rest room!" She had almost fainted and had to lie down. And she had not even seen any blood or anything that was remotely associated with it but she had almost passed out. Her mind takes over in those situations and she has to go along with her mind!



She was taking her son, Brett, home from having a tooth pulled and while driving she just glanced over at him and saw a tiny spot of blood on his lip. She quickly had to pull off to the side of the road and sit for a while to become normal again.



Once Lana had a broken arm and I had taken her to get the cast off. I had to take Carla with me because I had no one to leave her with. As the doctor was cutting off the cast Carla turned ghostly white and we had to lay her out on the table until she got back to herself.



What do you do with kids like that? I hassled with that kind of a problem for years.



They did not inherit that trait from me. I can watch anything and it doesn't affect me in any way. I hate to see anyone suffer but I can handle it without becoming faint.


I really have no one to accompany me when I have a medical problem. They can drive me there but can not be near me to comfort me in my pain or discomfort! Woe is me!



Sunday, November 14, 2010

Mama's Knife


If you can imagine the knife in the picture above with a bunch of copper wire wound around the handle then you can imagine what my Mother's kitchen knife was like!

The copper wire was wound onto it to keep the handle together. It was literally falling apart. She loved that knife. She used it for everything from peeling to slicing and for anything you would normally use a paring knife for.

I want a sharp pointed end on my paring knife to dig into things. Her knife had no pointed end--it was rounded and not pointed at all. I really don't know what kind of a knife it was in the beginning-- certainly not a paring knife. It was not like a steak knife nor a dinner knife. But, it ended up being a paring knife!

She would peel her tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, or whatever with paper thin peelings and slice them neat as a pin. She was very defensive about her knife and made sure she had it at her fingertips when she was preparing a meal.

I even bought her a nice paring knife once and tried to get her to use it but she wanted her special knife. It was a dark kind of metal which could not be polished or made to look good. It was just an ugly old thing that needed to be trashed--for sure. Then to make it even uglier she wound that copper wire on the handle to hold it together. Grease would collect on the wire and make it even more unappealing.

I would like to have that knife now just for a memento because she loved it so much. I have no idea what happened to it after she died. Too bad, I never even got a picture of it but it did look much like the one in the picture above!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Sleeping Positions

The picture above shows my favorite sleeping position. Sometimes I bend up one knee or the other but I would say 99% of the time I am on my stomach.


Ford, my husband, always slept on his right side. He declared that if he turned to his left, or back side he would get extremely dizzy. He could not sleep on his back or his stomach at any time. So he was a total right side sleeper. I think a lot of it was just in his mind. But the mind plays an important part in people's thoughts and decisions. He also wanted to sleep on the left side of the bed so his back was toward the center of the bed, not to the outside edge. That left me sort of limited to the right side of the bed. That didn't bother me because I could turn to either direction in the bed or lie on my stomach.


I can lie on my back or sides but I just don't do it. If I do happen to lie on either side or my back I am only there for a few seconds until I am right back to my stomach. I can't explain why I prefer to sleep on my stomach but I do. Of course I don't stay awake to see how I position myself but whenever I awaken I am always on my stomach, so I assume I sleep that way most of the time.

Most people have a favorite way to lie when they sleep and I am sure there are hundreds of different ways. Each to his own--I say!


Friday, November 12, 2010

INDIAN SUMMER


It is official, we have been having our Indian Summer. The past week has been beautiful with temps reaching the high sixties and even to seventy degrees.
On the weather news today the new meteorologist which we got about two weeks ago said the conditions have been met for an official Indian summer. I knew it was supposed to be warm but I did not realize there was a certain limit for the conditions of an Indian summer.
I googled Indian summer and it said Indian summer normally sees temperatures above seventy and has dry conditions. It normally occurs in November after we have seen our first killing frost or freeze and before the first snowfall. It usually lasts about a week--maybe a little less or a little more. That is exactly the condition here right now.
The origin of the term according to Donna Dell'Osso, on Google, who said, perhaps it was a time when the Indians got their hunting done and growing their corn and other things ready for winter. Then they had a little more summer time to enjoy.
What ever, It is a treasured time for most of us Indiana folks! I look forward to it every fall.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Snuff Dipping




We had a next door neighbor when I was just a kid, actually she was our landlord.
She was a hardcore snuff dipper. You never saw her without snuff in her mouth. If you went into her house she always had a spittoon near her chair and a little elm twig that was chewed up on the end protruding from her lips. She used that to take new dips of the snuff into her cheek. I've been told that elm twigs made very good snuff dippers and were also good for cleaning your teeth. I don't know since I have never touched a bit of snuff.
I can remember vividly the sharp smell that emanated from her breath when she talked. She was a nice lady and was good to us but she did love her snuff. Her snuff bottles looked like the brown one in the picture above. Sometimes she had little dribbles of snuff collected in the wrinkles at the side of her mouth. It made you want to take a tissue and wipe her mouth!
She has been gone for many years. I wonder if God let her bring her snuff with her into Heaven?

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

SMOKING




I was raised up to think that if a woman smoked she was doomed to hell. My mother believed that that was just the way it was. It was OK for a man to smoke--but not a woman!
My Dad smoked a pipe, and sometimes cigars, for as long as I can remember. That was fine with my Mother. But if a woman smoked it disgusted her to no end.
I remember my mother even asking one of my aunts to please not smoke in our house because she didn't want her girls to see it. I think the aunt was offended but she didn't walk out or anything like that.
I can't explain why she thought it was OK for a man to smoke but not women. In later years I think she became a little more tolerant of smoking women but she still thought they were doomed to hell.
It was not for health reasons that she believed it was wrong but for religious reasons. In our time now you can understand why people think it is wrong to smoke because of all the scientific proof of damage to the body because of it. But back in my Mother's day they had not discovered all of the things they now know about smoking. So her reason was strictly religious.
I am glad I never started smoking. I certainly could not have smoked at home because of her objections. After I married Ford he didn't approve of it either. So I never really had the chance to start the habit.
I think I am much healthier because of it. But I never have known why she thought it was OK for a man but not a woman.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Copper Bracelets





Somewhere or somehow Ford got the idea that a copper bracelet would help the arthritis in his hand. He may have read about it or maybe someone told him about it. Anyway, He bought a copper bracelet and started wearing it. He swore that it did help his hand. It did seem to take away the swelling.
The bracelet he bought looked much like the one in the picture above. He wore it faithfully 24 hours a day. You can see the bracelet on his hand in the bowling picture above.
You wouldn't believe how many times he lost that bracelet but then he would find it again. It was lost on the lawn while he mowed but the next day he found it in the grass. He lost it getting out of the car one day and we found it the next day while getting back in the car. It was uncanny how many time he lost and then found it again.
However, he did finally lose it for good. He had been wearing it for several years. His arthritis was much better so he never did buy another one.
I don't really believe that the bracelet was the cause of his arthritis getting better but he believed it with all of his heart, Whatever, the bracelet did no harm and it was not expensive so if he thought it helped then maybe it did. Who is to say? I have read that the skin absorbs copper which is why it heals the arthritis. Maybe it is true.
I would give my right arm to have that bracelet back again. I would treasure it just for a memento--not for any arthritis problem.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Public Toilets




Can you imagine sitting a small child on the toilet seat pictured above? Or sit on one like that yourself?
We have done a lot of traveling in our days and most of the time with two young girls. I would have never thought of letting them sit on a toilet like that. While that one is an extreme example, I have seen some not a lot better than that. I always held my children about their chest and had them rest their feet on the stool. Or if the toilet was not too awfully bad I would put strips of toilet paper on the seat for them to sit on. But I would not expect them to sit on something that I would not sit on myself.
People who leave the toilet seat in that condition probably are not a lot better at home. I always leave a toilet as clean as it is when I enter it, or even cleaner. If everyone would do that you would not see toilets like that above! YUK.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

THE COMMON CUP




Many years ago I can remember seeing at stores, gas stations and other places an ice water keg out in front with a tin cup sitting there on the top of it for everyone to drink from. Some had separate cups for colored or whites.
I never drank from them because my Mother strictly told us not t0. Many people did use the cup. At some places, such as the banks or other stores they would have little paper cups in a holder that you could use to drink with. But a lot of places just had the tin cups.
Now we have nice drinking fountains, which even now are cited as a source of germs. I always make sure I don't let my mouth touch any part of a drinking fountain when I drink from one.
I can't imagine anyone drinking out of a cup which many other people have used before you. Not only because of just plain dirt from someone else but because of so many communicable diseases.
I would use the palm of my hand first!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

More worries


As if I don't already have enough problems to worry about, I have adopted a new worry!
The house in the picture above is across the street from me. The people who live there moved into the house about three or four years ago. There is a man, a woman and three children in the family.
I have been told that the woman has the three children by three different men. A boy about 14--a guesstimate--a girl about 9 or 10 and a smaller girl about three. The youngest girl is the child of the man who is now married to her. They are married but I am not sure if she was married to the other men or not.
Things seemed fine until about six months ago. The man suddenly stopped being there. He may show up about once a week and stays for maybe an hour then he is gone again until another week or so.
Different cars show up and pick up one of the kids each time several times a week. I assume it is their biological fathers taking them for a visit. The older boy is there most of the time although sometimes he must be living with his father part of the time because about every other week he does not get off the school bus for that week.
The one girl in school also does not get off the school bus every week. So I assume she is staying somewhere else for that week. The mother probably works because she goes and comes in her car at different times of the day. It is a hectic mess there, I can tell!
I think at night when I can not sleep how sad it is for those children. They do not have a stable home. One week here and one week there. It must be heartbreaking.
I do not have a talking relationship with the family although the man does shovel me a path to the mailbox when it snows. I have talked to him some but not since this problem has arisen. I only have a waving relationship with the woman.
So, what can I do? Nothing but lie at night and think about the problem and pray for them. It is mainly bad for the children. They did not ask for the problem. The man and woman made their own problem and only they can work it out. I think about them a lot and hope that things improve soon for the sake of those children!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

BETTY WHITE


I have always enjoyed watching Betty White on the many shows she has been on over the years. On the many game shows and on the Golden Girls.

I have never heard of any scandals or trouble she has been in. Not that maybe she hasn't had them--I just don't know of any.

However, just last Sunday in the PARADE magazine she was featured on the front cover with her story inside. She really lowered her image in my estimation with the final quote at the end of the story.

The deal was someone threw a piece of bologna at someone else in the cafeteria and it accidentally hit Betty White in the face. Without missing a beat she peeled it off, shook it at the thrower and said,"Don't you know I'm a goddamn star!" And then she laughed.

That put her down at the bottom of my list as far as being one of my favorites. She could have left out the curse words. If she were a young person I might have excused her but at age 88 she could be a little more choosy in selecting her words.

I will be praying for you, Betty!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

SPIT CURLS

Some examples of spit curls



















Above are some examples of spit curls. Later they were called pin curls. I think they got the name, spit curls, because the women used spit to wet the curls and then put them in place.

I never put spit on my hair, yuk! I always used water to wet my curls. Actually, I never even put that kind of a curl in my hair. I used hair rollers. I think spit curls were out of style by the time I was doing my hair. But I do remember seeing older girls make spit curls on their hair. Mostly they were along the temples and forehead.

You must remember, I am OLD--83 to be exact. So I can remember a lot of things that some of you younger people have never even heard of, and spit curls may be one of them.
I am glad that spit curls went out of style. Water works much better.


Monday, November 1, 2010

More about the Neighborhood Bad Man


This story reflects back to the young man in my last post. It is another example of why he was considered the neighborhood bad man.

The young man usually had no job but for a short time he did work for the City Highway Department, which was where my Dad worked.
My Dad related this story to us one day:

There was a family of about seven people who lived in a rundown shack of only two rooms, which was located in a cow pasture about a half mile behind our home. The family was of a questionable reputation. The man was in and out all the time and the woman was home most of the time. The kids were in and out all of the time during the day. Some of them were in school. I know about their comings and goings because they had to walk very close to our house to get to the main street when they went anywhere, sometimes very late at night.

Our bad man told his coworkers that he had gone to the house one afternoon--why, he did not say--and knocked on the door of the shack. The woman called out to him that the door was unlocked and she was taking a bath but he should just come on in anyway. He said, "Even if you are taking a bath?" She replied, "Yes."

One coworker asked, "Did you go in?" The bad man replied, "Yeah, I did!"

We can only imagine what happened after that! I just hope that any kids that were home were taking a nap.