Mama gets married, and oh yeah, Rabbit Rabbit

Last July I posted this post about my Mama gettin' married. It's a true story. I'm too lazy to write nothin' new, so if you've read about my Mama gettin' married before, go away. Don't go away mad, just...go away.
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Daughter dddragon suggested that I post about my mother. Of course we never called her "mother." My three sisters and I called her Mama all of our lives. Mama was a hoot. She was a tiny little thing, claimed to be five foot one. More like five foot nothing. I was taller than she was by the time I was ten. Probably weighed more too. She weighed 88 pounds most of the time. Got all the way up to 114 before she died. What a tub of lard.

Once when I was visiting my sister Doris, we started talking about how much family information was being lost almost daily, because the older generation was dying off. I mentioned that a friend of mine had been hired by a rich guy in New York to interview his older relatives and to tape those conversations. Doris got the idea that I should go over and interview Mama using a tape recorder. Sounded good to me.

Doris thought that I should start out by asking about Mama and Daddy's getting married. She was particularly interested in the names of the couple who had gone with Mama and Daddy when they eloped. We'd both heard these names before, but neither of us remembered them.

So I took Doris' tape recorder and off I went to Mama's apartment. I'm guessing Mama was about 85 or so then, and time was awastin'.

Mama took to the idea of being interviewed just fine. She was tickled in fact. I started out by asking the names of the couple who took part in the elopement. She told me the names.

Darn tape recorder wasn't working right. Drat. I fool around with the recorder some. Take the batteries out. Put them back in. Like that. I'm amazing with machinery. Real genius. Start again. S**t. Thing is just not working right. I decide to take notes, and come back with the recorder later. You know, get a few things down, in case one of us dies overnight. I was betting it wouldn't be Mama.

Okay, we start again. Mama described the scene. This couple has a car, Daddy doesn't--he's a student at Memphis State College (now University), and he's home on some kind of semester break.

It's winter; they're all in winter coats. Why is this important, I'm wondering? Mama and Daddy are in the back seat. Okay, this seems like a lot of detail. I mean, we're just driving to the wedding chapel, right? They get to the preacher's house. Mama says that she believes that he's probably eating his dinner at the time. Gee, this is a LOT of detail. Get to the wedding.

I'm guessing they had maybe called ahead? This is 1930 -- they DID have phones. Anyway, the preacher comes out to the car, and leans into the opened window, and marries them. WAIT! WHAT?!?

"You didn’t get out of the car?! You sat in the car? You were MARRIED IN A CAR?" I could not believe it! "Mama, you and Daddy got married still in the $%#@ car? You never even left the car?"

Well, I have to say she got a little huffy. Pulled her little self right up straight. Looked a bit peeved. "It's perfectly legal," she said. "You want to see the marriage license? It's right in my bedroom."

Those guys. I have no idea what the names of the other couple were. Lost my train of thought completely.

Oh, shit!

I’m goin’ to tell you a Daddy story. I’ve told stories about my sweet Mama in the past. I don’t have many Daddy stories on accounta he wasn’t around much.

The characters in this true story are my father whose name was Boyd; his father whose name was Bud; and my father’s older half-brother, Herbert. Herbert was Bud’s stepson.

My father’s mom and dad were widowed-with-children when they met and married in 1909. They then had four boys together. The oldest of those four boys was Boyd. The oldest of my grandmother’s first set of children was Herbert.

Apparently Bud showed favoritism towards Boyd in all ways and all things for a long time. Any time Herbert had anything that Boyd wanted, Bud would say, “Herbert, give it to him.”

Now, I’m not kidding when I tell you that these people had nothing of value. They were the poorest of the poor. Dirt farmers. So anything that Herbert would have had couldn’t have been much. Scarce resources make for bitterness I’m afraid.

One day Boyd and Bud were walking down the dirt road that led to their farm when they saw Herbert coming towards them from the opposite direction. I’ve seen this road and I can picture the scene so clearly: the sun is shining brightly on the Tennessee hills, it’s warm, and the boys are barefooted because they can’t afford to wear shoes in the summer. They’re all wearing straw hats. Herbert is around 12 years old and Boyd is about six.

Herbert is carrying something. As they get closer to him, Boyd sees that Herbert has a stick with something on it. He’s holding it out in front of him. It’s clearly something important. Boyd starts running towards Herbert, saying, “I want that!”

That Boyd.

Bud says, predictably, “Herbert, give it to him.”

Herbert obliges. He hands the stick over to my father.

What is it you may ask? It’s shit. Shit on a stick.

My father told this story many times when he was an adult. He claimed that Bud never again told Herbert to hand something over to Boyd. But he acknowledged also that it may have been just that he himself learned a lesson and that he never again demanded things that weren’t his. Certainly as an adult my father saw that both his father and he had been unfair to Herbert for a long time.

My sisters and I used the phrase, “shit on a stick,” often. If one of us said to another one of us, “Whatcha got there?” The answer not infrequently was, “shit on a stick.” Translation: None of your bee’s wax. Hummmm...do people still say that? That means “none of your business,” and “you ain’t gettin’ it.”

So be careful out there. What looks interesting and important from a distance may be shit on a stick.

Talking trash

Radio question of the day:

One in 25 dads do this, and aren’t aware of it…what is it?

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Lainey tagged me to write six weird facts/things about myself on my blog, and in her comments section, and then to tag six more people. You guys! Relax. I don’t tag folks. But I’ll do the tag for her. I’m sure I’ve been tagged with this before, but I’ve got weird stuff to spare, so I’ll do it again.

1. Right now it is raining hard. It’s blowing against the windows in the room that I’m in. We need this rain. I like rain okay. But I’m very agitated right now because I just washed the windows and rain makes them dirty. Is that weird or what?

2. I eat ice. Lots of it. I love ice.

3. Apparently I’m a cleaning freak. Frankly, my house never seems clean to me. But other people think I’m a cleaning freak.

4. I have a system for “disappearing” my husband’s old stuff. First I pack it away in a spot that I can get to quickly if he asks about it. After it has been packed there for at least six months, I store it in a more remote location in the house. (We have a full basement and a full attic. When people in this area say that they have a “full basement” or a “full attic,” they mean that the basement area and/or attic area is as large as the house is wide and deep.) After it has been in the harder-to-get-to location for a while, it just disappears. Poof. Out to the trash. Or in some cases, out to daughter 3D’s trash. Like a complete set of old encyclopedias. That was too obvious to set out to our curb. And no, he never missed it, but never, ever would have agreed to throw it away. Have you tried donating old encyclopedias? Don’t bother. The Goodwill, et al, will not accept them.

5. I walk for exercise, but try to park as closely as possible to the entry to a store, or mall. Why? Doesn’t make sense. I should park a distance away and therefore get more exercise. I’m working on this.

6. I love the television show, Monk. The weird part of that is, I am a little, teensy tiny bit like Monk. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

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Answer to the radio question of the day:

Raise someone else’s kid.

Whoo boy! Why did Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes pop into my head just now? I’m sure that Tommy can father children...

Spring Cleaning

Radio Question of the Day:

A recent poll asked: During my Spring-cleaning, I'd like to throw out all of my significant other's _____...what was the most popular answer?

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I'm busy with Spring-cleaning. Yuck. Housework is like stringing beads…without putting a knot at the end of the string. Everything you do just has to be done again. And again. And again. Like beads dropping off onto the floor.

Where does dust come from anyway? Turns out that dust is made up of all kinds of stuff. Some of it comes from you, some comes from the ocean, and some even comes from space! Anything that is dry and light enough to be blown around and carried by a light breeze can be called dust. The grossest stuff that is a part of dust (it seems to me) is tiny insect bodies, but dust is also soil, pollen, and dead skin cells from people and animals. Dust is other disgusting junk that I don't want to think about. Don't get me started on dust mites. Shiver. They show those on television sometimes. Gross. I asked you nicely not to get me started on them! You guys.

So a lot of what is dust and mess in general is of course, caused by people. There might be one-too-many people livin' in this house. Problem is, which one?

My answer to the question of the day would be books and magazines and pamphlets and just paper stuff in general. But the most popular answer was clothes. My husband's belly grows at a rate that prevents most of his stuff getting that old these years. He used to keep clothing forever, but it's not a big problem these days. His memory is a big help too. That Niks. He doesn't have much memory left. If I don't like something, I disappear it. He forgets he had it. Works like a dream for clothes. Not so much for books. *sigh*

Got get back to work here.

This and that and the other thing

I just filed our Federal Income Tax Return on Friday. We usually owe a couple of thousand dollars, but only owed a little over a thousand this time. If you're about to brag about how much your refund was, all I can say is that your refund was your money to begin with. I just kept my money longer than you did. And no, we've never had to pay a penalty. I was an accountant before I retired. I know the rules.

It's about 3 AM now. I just now filed our State Income Tax on-line. It's April 15, but this year I could have waited all the way to the 17th. So, I was early on it.

I don't mind paying taxes. Honestly. If we didn't pay taxes, then we wouldn't have libraries, street lights, and paved roads and all those wonderful things. We wouldn't be able to afford to invade other countries either. But that's a different rant.

I watched a Monk re-run tonight while stalling on finishing the State Income Tax. That Monk. He's so neurotic that he makes me look sane. Almost. I love that show.

I have just washed all the windows in the house, inside and out, and that's a big job. My fingernails are shot to hell because of it. Naturally if you wash the windows you also take down and wash the curtains or other WTs. That's window treatments for you WT dummies out there.

I was sick today, or actually it's tomorrow now, so that was yesterday that I was sick. Anyway, stop distracting me here...like I said, I was sick, so I was in bed on-and-off all day. Slept a lot. So now I'm wide awake at 3 AM, which means that tomorrow, or actually that's today now, I will be tired and sleepy, and so I will probably sleep a lot, which will mess up the day-after-tomorrow, which is actually just tomorrow, since today is the tomorrow I was talkin' 'bout before you started messin' with my mind here.

You just read the Meme that Puppytoes made me do to you. So, blame her, not me. She's sweet an' all, but I don't mind pickin' on sweet people. They don't usually hit back. NOTE TO PUPPYTOES: that was not a challenge.

The Meme was to tell 6 things you didn't need to know about me. I could go on and on, 'cause you don't need to know anything at all about me. And you don't even care, do you?

*goes off in a snit*

Blogger doesn't love me anymore

Blogger wouldn't let me comment yesterday. I was able to get into a couple of sites, but slowly, and a couple of times it let me comment, but then .... I was frozen out.

It just don't love me like it used to do. Dunno why. My hair's still curly and my eyes are still blue. Has it been dropping hints that I missed? Was there a memo that I missed?

I'm a Nashville Star!

I've been busy. Becoming a country star.

Click the link below to watch the video:

I'm a Nashville Star!

There's no stopping me now.

Strollin' in the park

Radio question of the day:

One out of ten people can claim that they have had one of these for at least ten years... What is it?

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Yesterday I took a cancer patient to Hershey Medical Center for her chemotherapy treatment. I take her every three weeks. I stay with her for the first hour or so, and then I go and amuse myself in the town. Hershey is a sweet little town.

At Hersheypark, there is an area called Chocolate World. Chocolate World has a buncha stuff. There's a free ride, which explains how the chocolate that we eat is produced. At the end of the ride they give you free candy. Naturally, I frequently take the ride and the candy. It's fun, and they've just "re-done" the ride so I had to check it out.

Also inside Chocolate World are all kinds of souvenirs for sale and food, etc. I had a hot fudge sundae. I'm getting all goose pimply just remembering it.

It was a beautiful day. Sunny, warm, just right. So I decided to walk towards the amusement park itself. I walked around the edge of it and lo and behold, a side gate was wide open. So I just strolled my brassy little self right in. There were a fair number of maintenance people working: testing the rides, planting pansies, just generally being maintenance people.

No one bothered me. No one challenged me. I expected the amusement police to speed up to me at any moment, but nothing. It was awesome being in this huge empty amusement park just walking around. I took some pictures on my cell phone, but I'd have to read the instruction book to figure out how to e-mail them to my blog, and I'm too lazy. The best photos I took were of the carrousel. It's an all-wood carrousel, with moving and stationary horses, that spins counter-clockwise when it's running. A Wurlitzer roll-sheet plays military band organ music. It's a nice carrousel.

I called daughter 3D to crow that I was inside the park. Naturally she said: "Blog about it! " So that's what I'm doin' here.

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Answer to the Radio Question of the Day:

A pair of underwear.

Oh, yeah? I bet each and every one of those "one in ten" is male. Those men.
Oh, unless you count women who have a sexy pair of undies which they have never worn. Given to them by a man of course. GUYS: get a clue. If you give a woman sexy underwear, you are giving yourself a gift. It doesn't count as a gift to her.

Inner Loser

The picture above is for all you losers who failed the simple Sunday quiz. You guys!

Radio question of the day:

According to a new study, what are the top two occupations when it comes to germ infestation?

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It's now about 9:30 AM. 'Course it's really only 8:30 AM. Daylight savings time isn't the real time. I'm remembering my Mama. Whenever we were on daylight savings time, she would correct you about the time. If you said it was eight o'clock, she'd say, "Well, it's really only seven o'clock." Now she's gone, so I have to keep you folks advised of the real time.

Mama also rounded up a lot. If it was 8:31 AM, she'd be apt to report that the time was "going on 9 AM." That worked for ages too. I aged fast as a kid. If, for example, I was three months past 9 years old, well, in Mama-time I was going on 10.

In Mama-time, people "pulled" ages too. If someone said that a person was "pushing 60," Mama might correct them and say, "She looks more like she's pulling it." That Mama. Sweet little thing.

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Answer to the radio question of the day:

Number 1 is teachers... (Well, sure. It's those snot-nosed kids they hang with.)
Number 2-- bankers... (Filthy lucre I guess.)
Number 3-- accountants...(Huh! I useda be one! I'm clean. I swear!)
radio D-J's come in at number 4, followed by doctors...

This study was done by Clorox by the way. Heck, Clorox is my middle name.

Sunday quiz

World's easiest quiz. Passing requires only 4 correct answers ...

1) How long did the Hundred Years War last?

2) Which country makes Panama hats?

3) From which animal do we get catgut?

4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?

5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?

6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal?

7) What was King George VI's first name?

8) What color is a purple finch?

9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?

10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?

All done? Check your answers below!



1) How long did the Hundred Years War last? -- 116 years (Huh!)

2) Which country makes Panama hats? -- Ecuador

3) From which animal do we get catgut? -- Sheep and Horses

4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? -- November

5) What is a camel's hair brush made of? -- Squirrel fur --fersure

6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? -- Dogs

7) What was King George VI's first name? -- Albert (Well, Doh')

8) What color is a purple finch? -- Crimson (Everyone knows that.)

9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from? -- New Zealand

10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?--
Orange, of course. (I guess black would be too hard to find.)

What do you mean you failed???????
You guys. Sad.
It was so easy!

I'm late, I'm late....

Rabbit Rabbit! I'm so late in posting my rabbit rabbit, that I may need to say tibbar tibbar!

Whew! That was close.