Several men dressed like Abe Lincoln will gather on a knoll tomorrow morning, proclamation in hand, and will proceed to yank a fat squirrel out of its heated den. Crowds who have gathered on this cold cold February morning will wait with bated or alcoholic breath, whichever comes first. Will Phil see his shadow? We must know.
Another Groundhog Day, another prediction. Will we have another six weeks of winter or will spring be right around the corner? According to Wikipedia, ” if it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day, then spring will come early; if it is sunny, the groundhog will supposedly see its shadow and retreat back into its burrow, and the winter weather will continue for six more weeks”.The Weather Channel is already telling us we are going to have six weeks of winter. So, why all the brouhaha over a sleepy chubby squirrel?
Ok, a groundhog is not a fat squirrel. I apologize. A groundhog is a member of the squirrel family, but much larger than the ones I see eating out of the bird feeder. Putting that aside, I’d still like to know how the people in a small Pennsylvania town decided years ago they have a weather prognostigator?
“Hey, look at that groundhog! I can see his shadow. Do you think that means something?” I mean, how did this weird ritual start?
And it is weird. Think about it. People drive from miles around to gather in the cold to watch the town leaders grab a sleeping groundhog from its luxury living quarters, hold it up, and then proclaim to the masses if there will be six more weeks of winter. The crowd will clap and yell “hoorah” or moan and go home…or back to the bar. When did we start believing a groundhog? Why not a raccoon? They are smart enough to take the lid off of a garbage can. Surely they too, can predict the weather?
Ok, I know we don’t really believe a groundhog, but how did the people of Pennsylvania believe in it enough over the years to create such a tribute to weather forecasting? I just had to know.
I have written several times about the little varmint Ground Beaver DayGroundhog DayGroundhog Day and a Haiku or Two in the past, but really never took a look at how this event started. I actually have this on my bucket list. Sure, why not drive up there one year just to say I did it?
English: Welcome to Goolers Knob – Groundhog Day 2005. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Well, it looks like Groundhog day began as a German custom in the 18th century in this country. When German settlers arrived in the 1700s, they brought a custom known as Candlemas Day. Supposedly, a custom in ancient European weather lore used a badger or a hedgehog as the prognosticator. Seeing there aren’t too many badgers or hedgehogs in Pennsylvania, I guess the groundhog was the next best thing. It has been celebrated in Punxsutawney since 1886 or so. In Europe, it was the tradition on Candlemas Day for the church official to bless candles and hand them out to the people in the middle point of winter.It also has something to do with Mary and Jesus, but I didn’t want to go in that direction, so I ignored the religious meanings of the day. So, If the sun came out February 2, the mid point of the season, it meant six more weeks of winter. Tomorrow will be Punxsutawney Phil’s 127th prognostication.
Shouldn’t he be dead?
So, when you turn on the Weather Channel in the morning, you will undoubtedly witness the faux Abe Lincolns pulling a fat squirrel out of a den on Gobblers Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. It’s a big deal. And maybe the ground hog will be alive, celebrating its 127th year of forecasting or maybe he is an imposter for the real Phil, who no longer sees his shadow. Regardless, it is a tradition in our country that is here to stay. In fact, there are many “Phil’s” in different parts of the country. Afterall, the weather in Florida is different than Pennsylvania. It is known as “The Sunshine State.” Of course Phil would see his shadow down there. And that surely wouldn’t mean six more weeks of winter in Florida. That means, “Hey, I saw my shadow because I am in freaking sunny Florida.”
Here are some of the other “Phil’s” that will be called upon this February 2:
French Creek Freddie – My home state of West Virginia.
A pissed off French Creek Freddie
North Carolina has five prognosticating groundhogs- Grady, Nibbles, Queen Charlotte, Sir Walter Wally, and Mortimer. ( I fancy the Sir Walter Wally moniker)
Tennessee- Chattanooga Chuck
Georgia- General Beauregard Lee
Canada- Wiarton Willy
New York- Staten Island Chuck
Ohio- Buckeye Chuck
I could go on and on. There are many famous fat squirrels that will be pulled out of their dens tomorrow.
Happy Groundhog Day! (Whatever the hell that means)
All twelve tokens from the U.S. Deluxe Edition Monopoly. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
When I have played Monopoly in the past, I have always reached for the iron as my token. I know for a fact I have never played with another token. I never came across another friend who just had to have the iron too, so I guess that was good because I wouldn’t have played. I guess when you find a right fit you just have to go with that one each time. And the iron and I made our way around to pass Go many, many times. So, imagine the horror when I heard today that Hasbro, the maker of Monopoly, is going to send one of the little steel tokens to jail……and they can’t even pass Go first.
What a great marketing ploy. Hasbro has set up a Facebook page and is letting people vote for which token gets to stay and which one will replace it. I went to the site to see how this was going to unfold. The choices to vote for are the car, thimble, shoe, dog, ship, hat, iron, and wheelbarrow. I wish we could vote for which one gets to go, but alas, we were only allowed to vote for which one we wanted to stay.
It’s funny, but I think baby boomers are going to feel the same way about this that I do. Oh, sure, in the whole scheme of things, I really don’t give a rat’s ass about the impending doom of one of the Monopoly tokens, but yet again, off I went to vote to save my beloved iron.
The options to replace the permanently jailed token are a helicopter, a diamond ring, a cat, a robot, or a guitar. I immediately voted for the diamond ring. It makes sense and goes with the game. What the hell does a robot or a guitar have to do with Monopoly? Ok, I guess an iron doesn’t make much sense either, but you know, whatever.
So, baby boomer friends of mine, what token did you use when you played Monopoly?
I used to watch the Rose Parade every New Year’s Day for years before I was told all the floats were made of flowers. Maybe I just didn’t listen much to the commentator:
“And here’s a float from McDonalds…blah blah blah blah..roses.”
I was hyper when I was little, so maybe I just couldn’t watch and listen at the same time. The floats were beautiful. And it was named after a flower. Hence, the name, Rose Parade. I thought maybe it was named after a woman…….Rose McGillicuddy of Pasadena…..Ok, I made that name up. But why roses, I asked? Why not the Purple Cone Flower Parade or The Natural Material Parade?” I didn’t ask that when I was little. I’m asking that now when I am older and still challenged in so many ways. But, since I love to learn about insignificant things, I headed to google, king of all kings.
So, it looks like The Rose Parade started way back in Pasadena, California on January 1, 1890. The Rose Bowl football game was added in 1902 to help fund the parade. I thought that was pretty interesting.
The whole reason the parade started was to showcase the mild California winters. Many members of the Valley Hunt Club, the organizers of the very first Rose parade, were former residents of states in the east and midwest. One member announced at a meeting, “In New York, people are buried in the snow. Here our flowers are blooming and our oranges are about to bear. Let’s hold a festival to tell the world about our paradise.” I would think the man should have said the oranges were ready to be picked, but I guess that’s how the hell they talked back then.
And so they did organize a little parade to show off how wonderful Pasadena is in the winter and how putting flowers on moving things made the freezing New Yorkers jealous enough to withdraw all of their money and move to their sunny community. What confuses me is the fact there was no television in 1902. People elsewhere would have to read about it in a newspaper. So, in the end, I am thinking the Valley Hunt Club wanted to ride down the street on their horses.
They had horse drawn carriages adorned with flowers. After the parade, there was a chariot race, tug-of war and other games which drew about 2,000 people. After a few years, the parade got too big for the Valley Hunt Club, so the Tournament of Roses was formed and later a football game replaced a chariot race, which was a big deal of the whole celebration.
English: A Tournament of Roses Chariot Race from 1908. The race was later replaced by the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, California (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The floats of today take about a year to construct. According to Wikipedia, “It is a rule of the parade that all surfaces of the float framework must be covered in natural materials (such as flowers, plants, seaweeds, seeds, bark, vegetables, or nuts, for example); furthermore, no artificial flowers or plant material are allowed, nor can the materials be artificially colored.”And this is what bothers me. I mean, it bothers me just a little, but enough to gripe about it. Isn’t this a waste of nature?
I’m beginning to think somebody in the Valley Hunt Club was a florist.
Think about it. I bet you there are more florists in the Pasadena area than anywhere else. Ok, maybe flowers are shipped in from other flowery places. Tulips from Holland, perhaps. Acorns from a forest in the Applachians. I don’t know. But, this has got to be a boon for florist owners and growers. I guess that is a good thing for the economy. But, what happens to the flowers and natural materials after the parade. Do they go into the biggest compost pile in the world?
So, being that my mind is still a bit hyperactive and all over the place, I wondered about other wastes…..like Christmas trees. I have a bit of a problem with cutting down beautiful pine trees, dragging them home on top of a car, sticking them in the corner of a room and putting things on it….only to throw it away come New Years Day. Poor pine tree.
But then again, everything is like that, isn’t it? Chickens are raised only to have their heads cut off so they can be served on our dinner plates. Corn is grown on farms just so we can eat popcorn and cornbread stuffing. I guess I could go on and on. So, in the end, flowers are grown for the Rose Parade. I guess I have to live with that.
That being said, I think it is our responisibility to watch the Rose Parade to see the beauty of Pasadena’s mild winter and of course, the magnificent floats. They are beautiful. Band members nation-wide fund raise their little asses off to be able to be part of the parade. Our very own East Fairmont High School was able to participate in the Rose Parade several years ago. That was a big deal. And it was exciting to watch on tv. I didn’t notice the sunny environment of California, however.
Is this still the objective? Regardless, watch the parade tomorrow. Kudos to the Valley Hunt Club of 1890. They came up with a great idea. Look how many people are now living in California.
English: Bicentennial Mexico ~ Rose Parade January 2010 ~ Pasadena, California Español: Bicentenario de México durante el desfile de las rosas en Pasadena,California. Enero 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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When I got home from teaching today, I decided to skip the gym and be a bum. After all, I had gone to work out four days in a row and deserved to sit one out. I looked at the clock and wondered if at 5:30, it was too early to put on my pajamas.
I usually change from my teaching clothes to my “house” clothes when I get home. My house clothes are generally anything worn without a bra. Mine comes off the minute I enter the house. Well, that was a lie. Sometimes I wait ten minutes. Bras are evil. I always want to utter a sigh when it comes off. Another lie…I do utter a sigh of relief. Guys have no idea.
So, back to putting on pajamas time. When do people put on their pajamas? I would imagine one would hang out in regular clothes and then retire to their bedroom and get changed for bed at bedtime, because, as we all know, pajamas are for sleeping in. So, am I wrong to want to put mine on so damn early? Now, I realize there are some who wear their pajamas all day long…..and to Walmart……and to buy a gallon of milk….or beer. Hugh Hefner comes to mind. I’m not talking about those people who obviously don’t care their pajamas go outside and then slide under the comfort of clean sheets. I think it’s just wrong to wear something to bed that you have worn outside of the home. Am I weird? No, not me. I do have a pile of socks beside my bed that I wear to bed because I can’t stand to go barefoot. I wear socks to bed because my little piggies are always cold. After an hour or so, my feet warm up, and they are flung beside my bed and lie there until I feel like bending over to scoop them up for the washing machine. And no, I’m not lazy. It’s my routine I have followed since I was in junior high. I am a beside the bed sock hoarder. There’s a difference between being lazy and being a sock tossing hoarder.
Anyway, it is now 6:15 and I am still wearing my work clothes. I’m miserable. I’ve been googling “fuzzy slippers 70′s” to find the perfect picture of slippers I wore when I was a teen ager. Oh, to have those fuzzy matted slippers on my feet once again. I loved those slippers.
Ah, fuzzy slippers
I wore those slippers all the time. Do they even sell fuzzy slippers anymore? I want a pair. Those were the one kind of slippers that made scuffing acceptable. You can’t just walk while wearing fuzzy slippers. You have to scuff. I want to scuff again.
In the end, I guess you could say that I really want to put my pajamas on at an early time. It’s now 6:30. I’ve written long enough. I’ve googled some time away. Is 6:30 an appropriate time to put on your pajamas? I guess you can tell I don’t do this very often. Early pajama wearing is normally for sick people. I’m not sick, you know…. physically.
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Ahh, that feels so much better. I love my cranberry fleece robe and my flannel long pajama top. I’m ready to hang out on the couch playing SongPop and watching Big Bang Theory. I love being a early pajama wearing bum. I feel like I’m getting away with something.
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I don’t think my mom had much confidence in me when I was young, as she was always telling me
“When they were passing out brains, you must have thought they said trains, and went for a ride.”
I am certain she told me this more than a hundred times…or maybe twenty, I’m not really sure. I do remember feeling like a stupid train conductor, that’s for sure.
Years later when I informed my mom by phone I was getting a divorce after twenty five years of marriage, and that I was moving out of the house, she replied-
“You know, I thought I raised a smart girl, but you must have been dropped on your head.”
After I hung up on her, I had to laugh. It reminded me back to when I first watched Forrest Gump. He was sitting beside Jenny on the school bus.
“Are you stupid or something?”
“Momma says stupid is as stupid does.”
It made me visualize Momma Gump’s reaction to some of the things my mom had said to me over the years. I’m thinking she would have slapped her. My mom once told me that I would probably study for a blood test. Funny, Mom.
Ok, I am sure we have all done stupid things. Some do more than others…. I don’t know…. I think those are called mistakes. Not all people are stupid. If that was the case, most of the train tracks would still be in use instead of the miles and miles of rails to trails we have across our nation today. So, my question is this-
“Did economics change our use of trains as transportation….or are there not as many stupid people nowadays confusing brains with trains?
I ran across “Yo momma is so…” jokes this morning that made me think of how my mom would basically call me stupid through different expressions. I wish I had some of these zingers to say back to her over the phone after she told me I was dropped on my head.
“Well, you’re so stupid you think a quarterback is your income tax refund.”
“Well, you’re so stupid you put lipstick on your forehead when you were trying to makeup your mind.”
“Well, you’re so stupid, it took you two hours to watch 60 Minutes.”
“Well, you’re so stupid, you went to the YMCA thinking it was Macy’s.”
“Well, you’re so stupid, you stood inside a Subway restaurant waiting for the next train.”
“Well, you’re so stupid, you think Taco Bell is a Mexican phone company.”
“Well, you’re so stupid you spent an hour looking at the orange juice container because it said, concentrate.”
(I’m having fun).
“Well, you’re so stupid, you had to burn down the school to get out of third grade.”
“Well, you’re so stupid you got excited because you finished a jigsaw puzzle in 6 months and the box said “2 to 4 years.”
“Well, you’re so stupid you got fired from an M&M factory for throwing away all the W’s.”
Ok, I’m done.
Would I have used any of those to say back to my mom? Probably not.
She would have just said
“Vickie, are you a dumb blonde on purpose or does it just come natural?”
It’s was just easier to hang up on her.
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Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free. Have a look see. My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.
I notice that animals and their ancestors never learned a damn thing about “looking both ways before you cross the road.” Parents always teach their kids that phrase. I’m glad I did. My son lives in Tbilisi, Georgia, where cars and trucks don’t really obey traffic lights or zebra crossings. It makes me a nervous wreck. My daughter lives in New York City. Need I say more?
So, on my way to work I have come across a higher than usual deceased creature lying on the road. Don’t they know the “side of the road- good. Road- bad?” Are they stupid? I’m thinking they are stupid.
Now, you have to understand that my mind wanders on the forty minute drive to work and most days I arrive in the parking lot and realize that I don’t remember the drive. I have that much on my mind. But, saying that, I still have time to take a look at the lump in or beside the road. And yesterday, I noticed there were too many of them. Did the population increase because we had a mild winter? If the food source is greater on the other side of the road, why the hell would momma raccoons have their litter across the heavily traveled road? Raccoons are smart little terrorists. I call the terrorists because they liked to terrorize me at my former home. I would feed them, and one night while I was outside, standing beside our pool, one went one way and the other went the other way and cornered me. Sure, they knew I was the food lady, but seeing a blop of red eyes coming from both sides does cause me worry. One night I heard my husband yell and one of the damn raccoons swiped one of his flip flops in his mouth and was heading over the hill to the woods. So, yeah, they are smart. But, yet, there were five dead raccoons on the road yesterday. Yeah, I counted them.
That’s the problem. I try not to look, but my eyes go right to the victim. It’s like I’m playing, “Guess That Dead Creature.” I know I’m not the only one who does it. Well, I stopped yesterday after seeing a poor little squirrel, lying on his back, with his arms up in the air. I knew that he would be squished and unrecognizable on my drive home. Years ago some drunk kids stopped and put an empty beer bottle in a dead ground hogs rigor mortised hands on the side of the road. It was funny, but it was not funny, because, well, I like wildlife. Groundhogs are especially stupid.
Groundhogs may know how to build tunnels and eat enough to sleep all winter, but they have decided that eating stuff right beside a busy road is the way to go. Oh, it is the way to go, for sure. I think groundhogs are the #1 road kill in the United States. Groundhogs are already famous with farmers for not being too smart. That’s why they are also called whistle pigs. Farmer would stand, waiting for the crop destroyer with their rifle, and then would whistle. Groundhogs stand up to see who whistled. And then the farmer pulls the trigger. Poor stupid groundhog.
I hate to tell you this, but there is a law in my state of West Virginia that allows people who hit an animal to take it home to cook it. I cringed when I first read that. I mean, West Virginia gets a bad rap as it is. Hey, I know, let’s add a ridiculously red neck law to make us look even more like country bumpkins. Ugh.
I take that back. Deer are the number 1 roadkill animal in the United States. I’m making that up, maybe. I didn’t look it up. I’m assuming deer because they are on every part of my drive every day. My husband (now ex-husband) hit deer more than seven times on his way to work. He drives like Mr. Magoo, so there is a slight chance that he was not on the road correctly to begin with. He always drifted over to the berm of the road. Stupid driver meets stupid wildlife road crosser. The end result can not be good for either.
Who’s stupider…the opposum, the street painter, or me for using the word, stupider? I’m thinking the street painter.
I guess my whole point with this post is to remind wildlife to please look both ways before they cross the road. We are still asking
“Why did the chicken cross the road?”
It wasn’t intended to be a joke, folks. It was more like, chickens asking each other when one of them didn’t come home.
“What the hell was Ruby thinking, crossing the road and all?”
Enjoy this story? Jumping in Mud Puddles is now an ebook that you can download on your Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? No problem. Amazon will let you download their Kindle app FREE…Yes, free. Have a look see. My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.
I admire teachers who have little class pets in their classroom. Well, not really. But, you have to give them some credit for the extra duty contract they take on by hosting live things in their classroom. Someone has to feed them every day. Someone has to change their habitat. And there are benefits. Some children do not have the opportunity to own a pet. And they could, after all, save your life one day, like the little ferret in Kindergarten Cop did. He was hiding in a student’s jacket, and jumped out and bit the bad guy. The little fellow saved the entire school. You know it could happen.
As I walk down the hall each morning, I can see the little habitrails for Mrs. Karr’s hamsters. I don’t know what else she has in her room. I am sure her second graders appreciate having furry little fun. Further on, I can smell the African frog in Mrs. Arthur’s room. She couldn’t find the lttle hopper one morning. An all-points bulletin was put out for him. I have been feeling sorry for the frog for a year or two now. It just sits in a small aquarium, just hanging there, with its face above water. Poor thing. The whole room smells like algae water. Until last week, she finally changed it.
She changed the water and filled it up too high. Somehow overnight, the frog got out of the aquarium via a small hole at the top of the container lid and made a run for it. Well, it made a hop for it. She was shocked. She thought that he should be found dead near the container. I thought for sure it floundered or hopped somewhere in her classroom. The kids would surely find the froggy, dead and covered in dust bunnies. I am positive the frog commited suicide. I mean, if I was that frog, I would have made a hop for it long ago.
It made me think back to Beepo and Geepo. I had always owned weird animals. I had a salamander named Newt. Thumper the skunk joined our household when I was in college. I had Igor the iguana between my hamster Growl Bear and my Guinea pig, Quincy Bozo. I’m surprised my roommates didn’t frown upon the new additions I brought home with me throughout the years. Especially Beepo and Geepo.
Beepo and Geepo were African frogs that I bought when I was in high school. I think I was in high school. My bff Ramaine and I bought them on the same day. I had them forever. One day Beepo died. Or maybe it was Geepo. It was hard to tell them apart. They weren’t wearing collars. They must have been identical twins. My roommate, Paula, started complaining about Beepo/Geepo chirping every night.
“Vickie, your damn toad is chirping. He chirps all night long.”
“Oh, he does not. He is under water. Frogs can’t chirp.” I imagined that maybe he could “blurp.” But, chirp, oh hell no. I also wanted to remind her that there is a difference between a frog and a toad. Get it right, Miss Fairmont State beauty queen.
Well, I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and heard a cricket chirping. Well, I’ll be. Beepo/Geepo was chirping. Aww, he was crying out for his mate. I felt awful for him. So, I made sure that I tapped his glass and paid more attention to him, which is a little hard to do.
I honestly don’t remember how long Beepo/Geepo lived after that. They can live for a long time. Ramaine’s frog lived forever and grew to be the size of a…..baby bullfrog.
So, as I applauded when they found Mrs. Arthur’s African frog alive, I also felt sorry for it. It just hangs there in the water all freaking day…in greenish water with a fake plant nearby. Her class takes turns feeding it and well, that’s all you can do with an African frog. I’m thinking it needs a friend. I’m going to bring that up at the next Faculty Senate meeting. Ok, I sure as hell will not, but dammit, I can’t stand walking by it every day and I know it is lonely. And it makes me think of Beepo and Geepo, circa 1976.
I know that you are probably wondering if I also have class animals in my room, and the answer would be, “Oh, hell yeah.” I have spiders and other crawling things that the kids scream when they see one by their desks. I rescue it with a sheet of notebook paper and put it back on the windowsill. I would not have a class animal because I would not teach. I would be watching that damn rodent going around and around in its wheel. The kids would not be listening to a damn thing I said. I was not attentive when I was a child, so I am sure I would be distracted by a hamster biting at the metal bars trying to get the hell out.
I remember two years ago getting ready to step out into the hall when I noticed something near my feet. Mrs. Arthur also had a damn hermit crab in her classroom that escaped somehow and was walking down the hall. She let the kids decorate its shell, so I could see the shiny sequins as it clawed its way to me. I remember sitting down at lunch, saying, “I almost stepped on Diana’s goddamn hermit crab this morning.” See, it was trying to get the hell out of that classroom. Her gerbil, Digger, escaped for days last year. There is a pattern going on here. I’m thinking pets don’t want to be in Mrs. Arthur’s room and they are planning and executing prison breaks.
I do have a pet panda. I put the Panda Cam from the San Diego Zoo on one of the computers so they can watch the new baby panda. I told them that this was our class pet. They don’t see to have a problem with that at all.
I think about my African frog pets a lot, only because of……….Lonely, the one across the hall. I just named him.
I remember being so nervous when I started fourth grade. I had spent my first three years of school at a private school in Wintersville, Ohio, that was run by a coven of sadistic nuns. (Notice that “coven” actually means “a group of witches.”) I did that on purpose. I hated going to that school. I begged my mom about every day to let me attend Edgewood, our local public school. I was so excited when I found out I was going to switch schools in the fall.
“ Vickie, we are going to let you go to school with your friends this year.”
I loved how she said, “we.” My dad had no say in the matter. My mom was a rolling pin wife and my dad was Wally Cox. He had no spine when it came to her. He hid behind his newspaper and made faces at her when she wasn’t looking. Oh, how I loved him. She would yell at him and he would just take it. Then, he would hop on his little red tractor to cut the grass, and run over her flower bed. And he would look over at me and smile. He knew he was going to get yelled at.
So, back to me. I couldn’t wait to attend school with my bff, Ramaine. We could ride the bus together and sit by each other in class and everything was peachy keen. Well, except that it wasn’t. I had Miss Emler.
Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) in her kitchen and apron, from “The Mayberry Chef.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Miss Melvina Emler. I honestly do not remember much about her. When I think of her, I picture Aunt Bee from The Andy Griffith Show, but she looked nothing like her. And she definitely didn’t act like her. I just spent three years at the Little Jesus Baby Immaculate Conception, a school with nuns. Oh, not just any common nuns, if there even is such a thing.I’m talking about the evil kind. I wanted to come to Edgewood and see balloons and unicorns and lollipop gardens. Instead, I saw the Dumb Row.
I’ve briefly mentioned Ms. Emler’s Dumb Row before, but it made me think of it yesterday when day-dreaming how wonderful it would be to have a marine standing beside one of my fourth graders to help them listen to my directions so they don’t repeatedly ask a hundred times a day “So, what are we supposed to do?” I frowned though, at remembering Ms. Emler’s Dumb Row. I really tried hard not to be placed in that row for stupid kids.
When I entered the classroom that first day of public school, I was a happy child. I was with my best friend and all the neighbor girls that I hung out with after school and throughout the summers. This was going to be great. But, also remember that I was as hyper as Speedy Gonzales on speed. My mom tried to minimize that by slipping me a mild tranquilizer every morning before school and disguised it as a “car sick pill.” Thanks, Mom. Did it help? I have no idea, but I think that it may. It didn’t help with my car sickness, however. I had no idea that I was being tranquilized every morning. Who does that to a child? My mom.
Anyway, I had my hyper moments, I am sure, but seemed to do well in fourth grade. I stared at that Dumb Row sign daily and never wanted to stit there.The row was never empty. It was one of those old row of oak desks that were connected to each other and bolted to the floor. There were three boys who sat in the Dumb Row almost every day: Nickey, Bert, and Joe. I changed their names so they won’t get pissed it they read their names here. The chances are slim.
These boys lived in the Dumb Row. Years ago, teachers got away with that crap. You could grab a kid by the arm, drag him to a Dumb Row, and then smack the shit out of him. I don’t remember any smacking, but I remember plenty of talking down to students because, well, I was one of those. Ms. Emler apparently thought I was a wise-guy one day and put my ass in the Dumb Row.
It’s amazing how you can remember something that happened when you were in fourth grade but can’t remember what you did fifteen minutes ago. I can vividly recall the first day Ms. Emler put me in the Dumb Row. We were going over our homework for Spelling. We had to write sentences, using each of our spelling words. We were studying compound words at the time. She would say each spelling word, and then pick a student to read the sentence we had for that word.
“Cardboard…..Vickie, read the sentence you have for cardboard.” She stood right in front of me, holding her teacher’s manual to her chest. I would gladly read my sentence, for I was quite creative in my sentence formations.
” I live in a cardboard box.”
I don’t know why she just stared at me. Didn’t she hear me? She must not have. I read it again, this time with feeling. “I live in a cardboard box.” I think I may have sounded like a flaming gay guy the second time. The students laughed. Ms. Emler did not.
“What kind of sentence is that?” Ms. Emler slammed her teacher’s manual on my desk. What the hell.
“Um…..it’s a ……………….declarative sentence?” I didn’t know what she expected from me. I had my homework. I wrote complete sentences. I answered her question correctly. What the hell.
“Vickie, you do not live in a cardboard box! I have been to your house. That sentence is absolutely ridiculous! Go sit in the Dumb Row!
Corrugated shipping container, one type of “cardboard box” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I had never seen Ms. Emler so mad. The only thing I could think of was that she must live in a cardboard box somewhere and the subject was a little touchy. But, that couldn’t be true. Oh, sure, she wore the same five dresses every week, but where would she hang them if she lived in a cardboard box? They don’t have closets. I didn’t get it.
I quietly stood up and glanced over at the empty seat waiting for me in the Dumb Row. I’ve always had this thing about inanimate objects, and I really think that row of seats was happy I was going to sit there for a while. I saw the sign on the first desk, announcing the row. The three goof ball boys looked shocked, which is better, I guess, than the blank look that sat on their face most days.
I burst into tears. I didn’t understand why I had to go sit in the Dumb Row. Dori and Kathleen smiled at each other. They thought it was highly amusing that I was going to sit in the Dumb Row. I stuck my tongue out at them and then continued on with the crying. Not good, Vickie.
Miss Emler thought I was sticking my tongue out at her, behind her back.
“Ok, you can just sit there all week, Vickie. You don’t live in a cardboard box and you should never disrespect a teacher.”
I didn’t understand that last part. How can you disrespect a teacher for crying and walking over to the Dumb Row? I wrote a goddamn complete sentence. I skipped a line. I used my best penmanship. I even underlined the spelling word like we were supposed to. Why can’t I live in a cardboard box? I didn’t understand.
So, I sat and cried all week in the Dumb Row. Every time I looked at Miss Emler I saw Sister Dominica from the Jesus Mary and Joey Immaculate Academy.
And so when I broke out of my daydream, I looked over at my fourth grader who asks for directions immediately after I give directions and write the directions on the board. It happens a zillion times a day. It’s tiring. But, I don’t want to be a Miss Emler. I don’t want to be a mean teacher. I am not allowed to have a Dumb Row.
So, I went over the directions yet another time. I will try not to lose my mind.
It’s really easy to get me addicted to new things. After my divorce, my friends talked me into coming over to Facebook….to farm. I did. Farmville kept me up late at night. Well, someone had to harvest the damn wheat crop. And then Pinterest reeled me in. I have over one hundred boards. Why the hell would I need one hundred boards? Yes, I’m easily addicted. I’m just glad I never started smoking.
Several months ago I started playing Angry Birds. I mean, what the hell is wrong with me? I play one game a day and am in a weekly tournament. And this on top of writing two books this summer. As I look around my living room, I notice that it is neat as a pin. Well, it should be since I have been on this damn computer most of the time. And now SongPop has invaded my life. But, I’m not too happy about this one.
SongPop is my newest obsession. A friend invited me just last week to play them in this fun Facebook game. I didn’t understand how to play at first, so I was already screwed for the week. A friend sends an invitation to listen to a few tunes and then you can pick the answer from four choices. No one told me there was a time limit. Right now I am playing about nine people. And I’m ready to throw in the towel and I will tell you why.
This game is a great test of reaction times. Most of the people I play are about 20 years younger than me and I can’t press the button fast enough. I know a lot of the answers, but it’s like I mosey on over to the button with my mouse. What the hell? This is a sure way to let me know that I am getting old. It’s actually pissing me off, because I am actually really trying and I just can’t ring in fast enough. I’d suck if I were on Jeopardy.
A Facebook friend wrote that she was done with SongPop due to the fact that she feels that she has a neuropathy problem. She is a sarcastic lass like me, and I hope she doesn’t really think that she has a problem. I’m just pissed off that age has robbed us of our rapid fire response finger. We are getting old and SongPop has just slapped us across the face. We can’t play with the big dogs anymore. Well, I guess I should only speak for myself. I can’t play with the big dogs anymore.
But, that’s not all. I don’t know music like I used to. I still know all the words to Aqualung and Hotel California. I know my Disco and Classic Rock. I don’t know a damn thing about Modern Rap or Latin Radio. My daughter was home this week and she sat on the couch playing SongPop and would send me songs in the Latin Music genre. Thanks, sweetie.
The fastest I have been able to buzz in on a song is Ice Ice Baby. How sad is that?
In the end, I guess the older I get, the worse my response time will be. Pretty soon someone will take my car keys away from me for fear that I will hesitate and then pull in front of a truck or something.
But, then again, I always sucked at Hungry Hungry Hippo. Maybe it’s just me.
I’ve been to New York City to visit my daughter several times, and let me tell you, it is exhausting. Every time I come home I am pissed at myself for being out of shape. And people, if you plan to visit New York City, you will walk. Oh, sure, there will be some of you who taxi from one place to the next. That is thesmart thing to do. I am one of the stupid tourists.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I had a great time in New York. I love New York. But, my daughter walked me all over the damn place. And I will admit that I need to lose weight. I was able to lose 22 pounds last year and did pretty well hoofing it around NYC last summer when we went apartment hunting. Oh, hell, that’s a lie. I was ready to have a stroke. Like I said, I’m not very smart. I picked 90+ degree weather to walk around the city. I’m beyond stupid. This year was the same.
My journey to NYC is not quick. First I have to drive two hours to Pittsburgh International Airport. I have to park in the extended long term parking lot, which is not close to the terminal. By the time I make it to the building, I really want to just stand on that people mover thingy. When I hear someone coming up behind me, I will start walking, but I don’t wanna.
After my nice flight with Jet Blue, I arrived at JFK airport. I like airports. Just thought I would mention that. I don’t know why taxi cab men scare me, but I feel like I am imposing on them. So, I head outside to the ground transportation area and buy a $15.50 ticket to ride the NYC Airporter bus. It takes a while to exit the airport, as the bus driver stops at each terminal. I didn’t mind. As long as I didn’t have to drive through New York, I don’t care if I was on the back of a donkey. Again, quite a lie. I would care.
The bus dropped me off at Grand Central Station, where I have to find the 6 Local Uptown train. Again, it’s easy. Well, except that I found out while I was on the subway that the Local 6 was not working this particular day. What? I’m on the local 6. Well, apparently it is allowed to change to be called the Express 6 which bypasses my stop. Someone sitting next to me tells me that I can get off at 125 and then take the local 6 downtown to my stop. What?
So, I get off the stop and walk across to the train going in the other direction and hop on, hoping it is the right one. It was. I then walked a couple of blocks to where my daughter was meeting me for lunch. I could see her smiling at me. I know that smile. I am doing somethig stupid.
“Mom, you are such a tourist. You don’t need to look both ways when it is a one way street.”
We had a nice lunch and walked back to her apartment so I could drop off my carry-on. Our plan for the day was to head to the Brooklyn Bridge and then head over to High Line. We walked the several blocks up the hill to the subway. I had to stop several times on the way up. I am weak. We got off the subway on Chambers Street. I had never been this far south before. So, there was the Brooklyn Bridge. And it was all boarded up on the sides of the bridge for construction. I had no idea we were going to actually walk over to the other side. What?
My daughter on the Brooklyn Bridge
Well, we had to walk over to the other side. I don’t know why. Because everyone else was doing it? There was nothing to see for quite a while. We stopped and wrote our names on some plywood…because everyone else was doing it.
It took us forever to get to the other side. And it was 90 degrees and 2:00 in the afternoon. Where the hell are the clouds? I was complaining a lot. My daughter told me to stop. I stopped.
It’s a 1.3 mile walk, but it takes a long time to walk due to the amount of foot traffic….and baby strollers…..and people like me who take pictures along the way and complain about the heat and stop alot. But, I was glad I did it. Because when we got to the other side, there was a park. And that park had a water taxi. Oh, hell yeah, I was on that thing.
The water taxi cost $25 and takes people around the statue of Liberty, past Ellis Island and Battery Park and up the Hudson. It makes stops along the way for those who want to get off in a different stop. I sure as hell didn’t want to walk back over the Brooklyn Bridge.
It was pretty cool. The taxi was huge and besides those who just wanted to look from inside the air conditioned lounge area, there was an upper berth and lower outside viewing areas. It was nice. We opted to get off at one of the piers on the Hudson, Christopher St., Pier 45 on West 10th Street.
This is also Grenwich Village, which was pretty darn cool. We walked past a Bareburger, where we had an early dinner. After that, my daughter wanted to take me to High Line Park. We had to walk again. I thought she was taking me to a normal park. Boy, was I surprised when I saw High Line. High Line is a park built on an elevated freight line railway. The freight line wasn’t in use since the early 1980′s. It was slated for demolition as it became an eyesore for those who lived in the neighborhood. One man’s crusade led to the development by the city of New York to create this elevated park. It is magnificient. We walked along the park until a storm hit us. That’s not the best place to be when a thunderstorm approaches you. Luckily, there were places for all of us to hide. We then hailed a taxi and headed back to the apartment. We had great aspirations for the next day. We were going to wake up early and head to the local bagel shop for breakfast and then rent bikes in Central Park. However, we ate a huge breakfast and opted to go back to bed for a little bit. We then showered and headed via subway down to visit the Top of the Rock. I’ve always wanted to visit Rockefeller Center and see the ice skating rink and the NBC Studios. It didn’t disappoint. Several blocks are pedestrian only, and it is just a really neat area. We finally found the place where we were to buy tickets to the Top of the Rock. I wanted to see Central Park from the top of this building. It was great.
After we left Rockefeller Center, I looked at my watch. We were late. My daughter wanted to go to the Colbert Report Studios to see if we could get standby tickets to that night’s show. We were supposed to be there by 2:30. So, we started walking. We had to go to 54th Street. We were on 50th Street. The Colbert Report was filmed on 54th Street. We had to hurry. Oh, but wait. We got to 54th Street. Alex asked a doorman and he told her it was about four blocks to the west. What? Four long ass blocks. We walked some more. And walked some more. We passed by where The Letterman Show was filmed. Nope. We kept walking. I was ready to give up. We had to be there in ten minutes. Not going to happen. I really thought she got the address wrong. We were headed into a less commerical area, one that had auto repairs and……nothing else. My daughter was laughing at me. Finally, we found it.
It was 2:40. We didn’t make it. Alex walked up the steps and a guy stepped out of the office. He told her that we needed to go stand by that garbage can. He pointed to….a garbage can. Someone would be out at 4:00 and hand out stand- by tickets if there were any to give out. It was a slight chance that we would get tickets and we had to discuss this.
Well, right by the garbage can was a narrow covered alley and there was a guy sitting there eating lunch. He told us he was in line for tickets. Except he had tickets. Oh. So, we were screwed. We stood there talking to another couple who came to stand in line. They too had tickets, but came to stand in line, because if wasn’t a certainty even with tickets that you could get in. I was ready to give up when the couple told us they had 2 extra tickets that we could have. What? Omg.
So, we sat and stood in line from 2:40 until they came out at 4:00 and took our information from our driver’s license and then left. Now there were two lines…one for ticket holders and one who were stand-by’s.
We were now full fledged ticket holders. They let us go into the studio at 5:50. We had to go through a metal detector and hang out in the lobby for a long time. We took pictures.
So, we got to watch the Colbert Report being filmed. Since, we got there so early, and they took us in after the VIP people, Alex and I were #7 and 8 to be seated. It was great. By the time we got out, it was time to hail a taxi and head to a Thai restaurant in Upper East Side. We then walked to her apartment. I was one tired tourist/mom.
I left early the next morning. I hope to return in the fall sometime when the weather is a bit cooler. I’d like to see the 911 Memorial this time…and Central Park again. I missed it this visit.
I must live under a rock. I have no idea what the hell is going on most days. And then I get laughed at for being such a dingbat. I mean, I’m fifty-five. Is that old? I don’t feel old. Well, I do moan when I bend over to pick things up. Ok, I’m old.
But, I always thought that I was with the times. My mother-in-law used the word “dungarees” for jeans until the day she died. My mom favored, “pocketbook.” I don’t think she ever used the word, “purse.” I thought I understood contemporary slang. Nope. Not at all.
It all started with me overhearing one of my kid’s friends saying something about watching MTV Cribs.
MTV Cribs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I think this was like when it first came out circa 2000. Well, hell, I thought they were talking about singers who had children. Seriously. I really did.
“I didn’t know that Moby had children?” I thought I was really with it because I knew who Moby was. I got laughed at. Then it was explained to me that cribs=homes.
“That’s stupid.”
“You’re stupid.” My daughter laughed at me. Well, I guess I was. It didn’t get any better. I sure as hell had no idea that “hooking up” meant having sex with someone. How casual people are speaking nowadays. I heard this on tv one night:
“So, did you guys hook up last night?” Back in MY day that would have meant “So, did you guys meet somewhere last night and then go to the movies or something?” And yet, my daughter is the one who scoffs at me because I still use the phrase, “Are they going together?” Well, hell, back in the 70′s that meant going steady. What the hell is wrong with that?
So, now I am getting really made fun of at the school where I teach because I didn’t understand “That’s what he said.” WTF are you talking about? Evidently, I often say things that my perverted co-workers laugh at and then insert that comment. I didn’t know why. And that made them laugh harder. I mean, why say that after I talk about the snow fall from the night before. “I only got an inch or two last night.”……that’s what she said. It took me a while.
My biggest misunderstanding came from the History Channel show, American Pickers. Just a few months ago, after talking about heading out to go antiquing, someone asked me if I ever watched American Pickers. I thought that was a pretty random comment, considering we were talking about antiques.
“No, to be honest, I am not a real big fan of Country music.”
Yeah, so they laughed. Hell, I didn’t know it was about guys hunting around barns and whatnot for antiques and collectibles. I thought it was about people playing fiddles and banjos. Seriously.
So, it was no surprise that I didn’t understand my two friends when we were leaving dinner last night and they were laughing and making motions with their arms like a “raise the roof” motion. I drove up to them and rolled down the window.
“Padiddle!” They both yelled and then laughed. “You’re headlight is out, Vickie.” Of course, it doesn’t pay hanging out with girls in their late twenties when I am in my mid-fifties. I realized I have no idea what the hell is going on. So, I just laughed.
So, when they read this blog post, they will laugh again because I am just so clueless about Padiddle. I had to look it up on Wikipedia:
“Padiddle is a night-time travel game with the objective of earning points by spotting vehicles with a burnt-out headlight. You must say “Padiddle” and hit the ceiling of the car as fast as you can, while driving.”
So, Sheena and Erin were laughing because it is a game that is supposed to be played in the car while traveling. I thought they were laughing at me because I just bought this car and it already had its headlight burned out. I guess that makes me feel better…….. No, don’t feel better. I’m still a dingbat.
I don’t remember my kids ever playing “Padiddle.” I sure as hell didn’t teach them. And if they played it and I don’t remember them playing the car game, then I have bigger problems than not knowing what things mean.
I am too old for this shit. Why can’t we just keep playing Slug Bug?
When I was young I am pretty sure that the tv commercials were directed right at me. Now, you have to understand that we only had three channels on our tv set. Thank god we didn’t have QVC or Home Shopping Network then because I would have been grounded for using my mom’s credit card every other day. Well, if we had credit cards back then too. Shit, we didn’t have much back then.
First of all, Saturday morning cartoons rocked back in the 60′s. I got up early and watched them all morning. Well, before my mom shooed us outside to play. I loved Foghorn Leghorn. He was my hero. I would sit glued to the tv set all freaking morning, because the commercials were just as exciting for me. And when I first saw a commercial for Soaky Bubble Bath Time, I was beyond excited. I mean, you could take a bubble bath AND have a prize. The bottle was a cartoon character. This was unbelievable to me. I’m sure I was sitting there with my mouth open. This was an exciting time for this little skinny little seven year old. The year was 1963……. and it was bath time.
Soaky Bubble Bath Time….Wow, what a great way to take a bath. I had to have this. My mom, however, was never on board with anything at first. She came up with an excuse that as a seven year old I could not possibly understand.
“Vickie, I am not buying bubble bath soap………….it will not make you any cleaner…………..no it won’t…………no it won’t……………Vickie, there is so a bar of soap in the bath tub………………………….yes there is………………well, I’ll tell you what, let’s go and take a look…………………………..Ok, where did you hide the soap?”
Ha! I knew she was going to cause me some problems, so I hid the soap before we had this conversation. I was soaky bubble bath time smart. But, then she confused the hell out of me.
“Vickie, I am NOT buying you this so-called Soaky Soapy Bubbles.” Ok, first of all, stupid mom, it was called Soaky Bubble Bath Time. But, I let her go this time, because she was not finished.
“The soap can give you an infection.” What? Sitting in a bath tub can give you bronchitis? My mom was a loon. Oh, but once again, she was not finished. She saw the expression on my face and decided she needed to be more precise with her statement. “It can make your deet itch, Vickie.”
Ok, I have to tell you that I thought everyone in the world called their female private part a “deet.” That’s what my mom called it. When I was young I always had to make sure that I washed “down there real good” when it was bathtime. And of course, I knew when I was quite young that that area was always last with the washcloth. And you know, well, that was always a great piece of advice. But, I didn’t want an itchy deet. But, was she lying? She lied to me a lot.
“Vickie, Dr. Parker said that bacteria in the water can make your deet itch…………………I realize that soap is not bacteria………When did Dr. Parker tell me this? A while ago………………yes, he did…………….yes, he did……….Vickie, I am not going to argue about this. I am not buying bubble bath. I can’t use bubble bath.
Why the hell would my mom use a Popeye Soaky Bubble bath bottle? She doesn’t even watch cartoons. She made no sense. And when she said “no,” that only meant one thing: ask Dad or Grandma.
So, the next time I stayed at my grandparent’s house was the first time I bathed with a Soaky Bubble Bath Time. I have no idea which cartoon character I took a bath with first, but I am thinking it was Elmer Fudd. But, I could be making that up. I can’t remember. Grandma Orpha always thought I was going to drown or she was cheap as shit because she only gave me about 1/2 inch of bath water. Well, it wasn’t up to my armpits like we had it at home every night. I poured in a cap of the bubble bath and played for a while. I loved going to my grandmother’s house. I asked her if I could take Elmer Fudd home to share with my brother and sister. Yeah, like I was really going to do that. Grandma said I could take it home with me. My mom was not amused.
“Vickie, it can’t make your deet itch right away.”
Ok, fruit loop, how long does it take? Well, it didn’t matter. It was already brought into the house and we used it that very same night. I still took a bath with my sister, so we had a good old time. We played “Ethel and Mabel” most nights during bath time anyway, so adding bubbles to the mix made bath time so much more fun. We used up all of the washcloths and put soap in the middle of the washcloths and then would fold the cloth over the soap and then punch it to make the soap spurt out. What fun we had. We stayed in there until our fingers looked pruney. My mom didn’t care. She was able to sit and smoke a few cigarettes in peace while we were in the bath tub.
“Bath time isn’t quite the same without your cartoon buddies!”
So began our soapy bubble bath time. We bought them left and right. We had Mr. Magoo and Popeye, and Sylvester kitty cat. My dad even had a use for Sylvester. He had a huge flagpole in the backyard and somehow the finial blew away or just fell off of the top of the flagpole. So, what did he put up at the top of the flagpole for all the neighbors to see every day? You got it. Sylvester the cat’s head.
Yes, we Mendenhalls were high class, that’s for sure. But, what is for sure is that reports came out years later that bubble baths weren’t so good for girls and women…..and their deets. But, it was already too late. We went through a lot of bottles of Soaky Bubble Bath time soap without any “girl” problems. My best friend, Ramaine, and I would even laugh and say, “deet de deet” and sing it to the Pink Panther theme song when we realized that no one else called it that. It was now our private little joke. Why the hell did my mom call it that?
Just a few minutes ago, here in 2012, I private messaged Ramaine on facebook and asked her if she called her deet anything else when she was little. It’s so funny that I can still ask her stuff out of the blue as bizarre as what we called our deets back in the 60′s and she immediately has an answer for me. I mean, when was the last time we talked about our deets? When we were 13? Her memory is so much better than mine. She reminded me about the “deet de deet” and that in her family they called it “cho cho.” I guess each family may call it different things, like how my mom called my little budding breasts, “mosquito bites.”
In the end, I am just glad I never went the bath salt route. Because, we all know what happens when people use bath salts. An itchy deet would be the least of their problems.
I am beside myself. My book, Jumping in Mud Puddles, just went live on Amazon. This is my literary debut, so I really don’t know what the hell I am doing. I do want to mention to anyone who is thinking about going the ebook route that the formatting is very easy. I mean, I did it, and I can’t find my way out of a sack. I even made my own cover because I am too tight to pay someone else to do it.
So, I guess I should know what I am supposed to do now, but I don’t. My book is just sitting there among the thousands of other books. I just left it there and went for a chocolate ice cream cone. Oh, hell, that was a lie. There was no way I was going out of the house today. It is 102 here in West Virginia. Anyway, I feel like I did when I drove my kids to college for the first time. I dropped them off and left them. I’ve nurtured this book for a very long time now and now I’m done.
So, my blogging friends, if you get the chance, go take a look see at my literary debut. Wow, I’m a real bonafide author sort of maybe. And If you are feeling generous, leave me a thumbs up or a review. And then more people will say to themselves, “Hey, people are reading this little book. Maybe I should, too.” I’m sure that’s what they would say.
I guess I should mention what my books is about for all of you who may stumble upon this post. My book is a memoir about my childhood and how I was just a little bit off center. Most of my blog posts are in the book, changed or tweaked in one way or another. The book has 44 chapters and I curse a lot, which I really don’t mean to do, but those damn nuns that I write about are to blame. They really are.
Anyway, like I said, I don’t know what I am supposed to do right now. I guess I should walk around the place and see what other “authors” are doing to promote their book. I’d rather just sit and take a deep breath, and rest a while. It’s just too damn hot.
Update: It’s the morning after publishing, and I made a top 100 list already! Yehaw! #70 in Kindle Store-ebooks-Humor-Essays. And, the book is on the Humor-Essay page as a “Hot New Release.” I don’t know how long it will stay there, but I’m a happy camper.
When I was young I watched a program on tv about Sasquatch. Scared the hell out of me. Of course, this program talked about the Canadian hairy guy, so I didn’t think that he could cross the border and head south to find me in West Virginia. But, I had questions for my mom, nontheless. She was, afterall, from Sasquatch country. She was born and raised in Spokane, Washington. Sasquatch was right across the border.
“Vickie, Sasquatch is in Washington and Oregon too……….people out in Northern California have been calling him Bigfoot………Well, they have a name for him all over the world…….”
Say what? Bigfoot could be in my backyard? This was not good.
It was bad enough that I watched that tv program, but the next year, 1967 I believe, a guy by the name of Patteson had evidence. I sat with my eyes glued to the tv set as a home movie camera recorded Sasquatch walking in the woods. Dear God, he is real! And he crossed the freaking border. I was eleven years old and impressionable.
This was not good, especially when a neighborhood cat suddenly disappeared one night. I immediately blamed it on Sasquatch. He supposedly smelled like rotten eggs and had a howl that could put chills down your spine. So, of course I heard the blood curdling scream the very next night. I rushed into my parent’s bedroom.
“…….Vickie, what are you doing up? It’s past midnight……………………You did not hear Sasquatch………Vickie, I am not getting up……………….Vickie, no I do not smell rotten eggs………..He couldn’t make it to West Virginia that fast…………He is probably in Montana……besides, he can’t cross bridges………………….because he is afraid of bridges.”
I went back to bed but heard Sasquatch seven more times. I cracked my bedroom window so I would be sure to hear him if he was in the neighborhood.
“Vickie, I don’t want to see your window opened at night again. Do I make myself clear?”
Well, hell, I won’t be able to hear him coming then. “Can Sasquatch disappear like the Indians believe?” Hey, I asked my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Garrity. She told me a few Indian beliefs.
My mom nodded her head, lighting up a cigarette, amused by something. She laughed, “Vickie, your eyes are darting back and forth so fast. Stop it.”
My mom had neglected to mention that my Uncle Don, her brother, had seen a Sasquatch when they were little and he was fishing with some friends out in the wilds of Washington state. That meant Sasquatch was an old Sasquatch then. I felt relaxed.
“The Indians believe that Sasquatch appears and disappears and that’s why no one can catch one of them.”
Ok, shit, my mom just said, “them,” like there is more than one of them. This can not be good.
Sightings of Bigfoot in USA based on information from the BFRO Geographical Database of Bigfoot/Sasquatch Sightings & Reports (accessed 2009-04-08). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Well, since we only had three television stations and the internet wasn’t invented yet, I didn’t have a way to keep tabs on the big guy. I was obsessed for maybe a week and then I moved on to something else. But, Sasquatch was kept on file in my head.
So, when I had children and Al Gore finally invented the internet, one of the first thing I searched for was “Sasquatch.” Well, the very first thing I searched for was wooly worms. I know, I’m a strange bird. But, the internet put me in touch with a data base that included sightings of the hairy ape man. There were thousands of sightings. If the internet was around when I was ten or eleven, I would have had a child ulcer. I was worried about one old Sasquatch in the Pacific Northwest when there was a sighting in Pocahontas County in West Virginia when I was six. Thank God I didn’t know about it.
So, when my daughter had to make a Social Studies project for school and she really didn’t want to do it, I gave her a suggestion; “How about Bigfoot?” She didn’t care so I started finding information for her. I emailed a Bigfoot expert in Montana by the name of Dr. Jeff Meldrum and he responded to her. I chuckle when I see him being interviewed on almost every Bigfoot documentary ever made since that time.
Alex won the school’s Social Studies fair and went on to the county fair and won first place. We then drove down to Charleston, our state capitol for the state competition. That was fun….for me. I was like a Social Studies stage mom. Alex did not care at all. But, I did. I put a lot of time and energy into her project. She even had a large map with pins indicated where there were Bigfoot sightings. She had a tape recorder to let the judges hear a Bigfoot scream. We made a model cast of a Bigfoot’s footprint. She was ready and I won Honorable Mention. I mean, she won Honorable Mention. Big foot scored.
I am still a fan of the hairy creature. Do I believe in Bigfoot? Absolutely. I saw one in the McDonald’s parking lot one night, so I know he is real. I took this picture of him. Or I could be lying.
I woke up tired this morning. Oh, not just tired, but tired tired. I didn’t go to bed too horribly late. So, it had to be the phone dream I had all night long that has made me so tired. Why can’t a person just go to sleep and then wake up hours later, feeling refreshed and ready for a new day? No. Not me. I have to dream all freaking night about the strangest things on the planet. Sometimes I wake up to a racing heart. I’m going to die in my sleep sometime, I am sure. And it is not monsters chasing me or Ann Coulter talking to me or anything really frightening like that. It’s toilets, or college classes or stolen purses that occupy my dream land. Figures.
There are several dream scenarios that I seem to have. The first are the dreaded, “I have to pee” dreams. I am dreaming that I have to use the bathroom, but good luck finding one that actually works. One time I did find one, but it was right in the middle of a room where people were hanging out, talking. Another time it had water all the way up to the rim of the toilet. And yet one night I found one, but it had a rat sitting in the corner, just staring at me. The toilet was there, and I had to pee. Well, how bad did I need to go to the bathroom? I could go on and on with the “I have to pee dreams.” And when I wake up, I really have to pee. I’m sure that’s why I have those dreams. Why can’t I just freaking sleep like you are supposed to?
It’s always something that prevents me…
I thought it was bad enough to have dreams where I thought I was still in college. Well, except in these dreams, I have forgotten that I have had a particular class all semester that I just forgot to go to for some reason. I can’t find my schedule and there’s a final coming up. I’m embarrassed to go to the class because, well, I haven’t been there all damn semester. Sometimes the whole dream begins with trying to find a parking spot and then looking for a particular building that a class is in. I have those dreams about once a month. Those dreams just suck.
Is my class in this building? Where the hell am I?
In my phone dreams, someone has stolen my purse. Now, if you know me at all, you will know that I am completely OCD about the whereabouts of my purse. If I go to a party at someone’s house, I just can’t leave my purse on the host’s bed. That would just ruin my night, worrying that someone was going to steal it. Of course, none of the people at that party would ever dream of stealing their friend’s purse, but I don’t know. Maybe I just can’t be separated from all my important items.
In my phone dreams, like the one I had last night, I first can’t find my purse. For some God forsaken reason, I have left it unattended somewhere. Last night someone found it sitting on the floor in a hallway somewhere. Just because I found it, doesn’t mean that it is intact. So, I look inside, and find everything missing. Everything. This is probably where my eyes start darting around in my sleep because I have pretty bad eye strain this morning. Stupid phone dream.
After I realize that some really bad person has stolen every card in my wallet, but for some reason has left me the wallet, I try to call my credit card company first. Well, it won’t work. I don’t know why. So, I go to another one. It isn’t dialing the numbers correctly. I could go on and on, but it is always the same scenario. None of the damn phones are working. The black rotary is missing its stop, so it just goes around and around. When I press on another phone, letters show up on the screen instead of numbers. I’m just freaking tired.
Finally, probably hours into my dream, I tell myself that it is just a dream. I do this all of the time. Why I have to wait so long to push myself out of a dream is beyond me. But, dreams are ridiculous sometimes. I am sure that Lewis Carroll had a dream about Alice in Wonderland. It had to be a dream or the guy was on drugs. Or maybe he was very imaginative and I should give him some credit, but dreams are pretty wild.
I had planned on writing a really funny blog post this morning about some of my family vacations, but I can’t now. I’m just too damn tired.
Plus, I need to call and report that my visa card has been stolen and that may take a while. Wait……?
I just got back from taking my son to the Dulles airport. I wrote earlier that Adam was moving to Tbilisi, Georgia, which is pretty far from West Virginia. And he decided to take his cat, Atticus, with him.
This wasn’t an easy feat. First Adam had to make a flight arrangement with an airline carrier that would permit a cat on board as carry-on. I guess some frown on letting a mewing cat hang out under a seat. Turkish Airlines would let Atticus travel with them. But, hold on. They looked through the reservations, as they only permitted one cat or dog per flight. I guess that makes sense. I wouldn’t want to travel with five barking dogs on one flight. But, as my son pointed out, crying babies are just as bad. So true, Adam, and they don’t have to be put into a carrier and shoved under the seat. Not yet.
There are too many reports about animal deaths and loss after being checked as baggage. I would have let Atticus stay with me if Adam couldn’t keep him on the airplane. Most cargo compartments are kept unventilated. Delta Airlines doesn’t permit animals in the cargo area during the summer or winter months. Sometimes dogs or cats get loose somehow during transit. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 224 dogs were lost, injured, or killed during airline travel between 2005 and 2009. Airlines currently do not have to report the deaths, so that number could be much higher. So, checking Atticus as baggage was out of the question.
So, Adam was able to book a flight for he and his cat for June 19. Well, that was easy. Oh, but Adam had only started. There were so many procedures that Adam had to follow:
1. Quarantine or No Quarantine- Each country has a different protocol for pets entering their country. Adam had to first find out if Atticus would be warmly welcomed or thrown in the slammer for a certain amount of time. Adam found out that Georgia would welcome Atticus with no problem, whatsoever. But, he also had to make sure that since he had a layover in Turkey that Atticus would not be taken into custody and thrown into a Turkish kitty cat quarantine for a while. Adam had to have the vet examine Atticus, however, and sign the proper health certificate that he was a healthy cat. It was his passport, so to speak. He also had to have a USDA endorsement on the health certificate, I think.
2. Vaccinations and shit- While Atticus was at the vet’s office, he also had to have entry-required vaccinations that were quite expensive. I am sure one was the rabies vaccination and another may have been a feline shot. Throw in a prescription for kitty cat Xanax, and he was on his way.
3.. Pet carrier- Adam couldn’t just shove Atticus into the carrier that most people use. You know, the metal white carrier with the door and bars on the front.
Wrong one
No, Atticus had to have an expensive one that could be put under the seat on the plane.
Right one
I really liked the pet carrier Adam purchased. There was also a zippered compartment where he could put Atticus’s leash and Xanax..
4. I can not stress the Xanax enough. The vet wrote a prescription for Atticus. It was a “real people” Xanax that would calm Atticus down. Because, he had quite the adventure ahead. First of all, we had to travel by car for four house from West Virginia to Dulles Airport, outside of Washington, D.C. Adam told the vet that Atticus freaked out in the car just to get to the vet’s office. After the drive, there would be a 2 1/2 hour wait for his international flight. The fight was then twelve hours to Istanbul, Turkey. There was going to be a seven hour layover before boarding again for another 1 1/2 hour flight and then the drive to the university. So, yeah, Atticus needed to be knocked out, or at least given an anti-anxiety drug. Hell, I would need to be knocked out for an itinerary like that.
5. Pretty blue harness- Atticus could not wear just any collar. He would be able to slip right out of a collar. Some people have their pet microchipped. That probably would have been a good idea for Atticus. I don’t think he had any identification on his body whatsoever. That probably wasn’t a good idea.
5. Animal diapers- Oh yes, Atticus was going to have to wear a diaper. It was going to be a long day. Adam quit feeding him right before we left for the airport and gave him 1/2 of a Xanax right before we left.
Ok, so we were ready to head to Dulles. Atticus was given a Xanax and Adam put the blue harness on him. He had a hard time walking with it on, and I have no idea why. We put the kitty litter box in the far back of the car since we were going to let Atticus hang out inside the car. I was going to drive while Adam played baby sitter to his cat.
Well, he was fantastic. The Xanax just made him mellow out and he sat on Adam’s lap the entire trip, listening to music and letting the air conditioner hit his face. He really enjoyed the air. When we pulled into the parking lot, Adam put a diaper on him, which was hysterical, because Atticus just lay on his back and let Adam put the damn thing on him. There was a hole for his tail. It was too small, so I am sure it came off during the flight.
Adam put Atticus in the cat carrier and we were on our way into the airport. I left as soon as he checked in with his airline and he was headed to security.
I drove the four hours home and while I was driving, got a text from Adam. I pulled over to read it, and smiled. Adam had to take Atticus out of the carrier and lead him through the x-ray machine at the security check-point, diaper and all. I hope someone was amused. Adam said the cat was excellent.
Adam has arrived in Tbilisi and sent me a Facebook message that they got in safe and sound and that Atticus did great. Of course, I read where there were only two pieces waiting at the baggage claim for Adam, instead of three. I sure hope it isn’t lost forever.
Because it could have been the suitcase that had Atticus’s kitty litter box and food.
In the end, if your pet must travel with you, make sure he will be comfortable. There is no way that Atticus could have gotten through everything that he had to go through if he was not doped up. Just sayin.
You tore up my couch and terrorized my cat, but I’m going to miss you, you little shit.
Well, school is out and I have decided to work all summer on writing my first book, Jumping in Mud Puddles: A Memoir of a Picky, Hyper Big Fat Liar.
Something like this but not really
I have wanted to write a book ever since I first picked up a pen and wrote Ma and Pa Kettle stories a few weeks ago. Ok, kidding. I wrote all of the time when I was little. I’m pissed off at my mom that she didn’t realize that she was living with an Ernestine Hemingway at the time, as she never saved any of my creations.
I was forced to go to a private school when I was in first grade because I was stupid and didn’t pass the early entrance exam. I missed the November 1 cut off by several days. My mom wanted me to go to school, so I had to endure a few years of Sister Maria, that evil nun with sensible shoes. In third grade, I started writing stories about Sister Maria and wrote in a composition book. I don’t think it was a work of fiction. I think I may have been spying on her. I don’t remember specifics, but I have the book somewhere. I just don’t know where the somewhere is right now. But, she inspired the writer in me. I wrote about Ma and Pa after I was able to leave that horrid little convent school.
When I was in seventh grade, we had to bring in a simple fact every Friday in Science class: Facts on Friday. I think that’s what it is called. Miss Caldwell would go around the room and we had to read our fact. Most of the time we would just cut out the little filler facts from our hometown newspaper, the Weirton Daily Times. For example, one Friday I might bring in-
“Roger Smith, a carpenter from Dayton, Ohio, was struck by lightning three times at the same spot.”
Something like that. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not also had great facts that were slightly bizarre. So, after a few Fridays, my bestest friend Ramaine and I would sit down and make up our own facts. They were “retarded,” our favorite word in the late sixties/early seventies. We may have changed the above fact to read:
“Roger Smith, an electrician from Bombay, India, was struck by lightning at the same time he was turning on a light bulb three different times and lived to tell about it. The electricity was captured in his stomach and he now glows. He no long needs a light bulb.”
Our Friday facts became so popular that we became Friday fact writers. It was like our first writing job. Everyone wanted our facts or maybe we just passed them out on pieces of paper and the kids read them. We would crack up at some of them because they were just soo out there. I remember my weirdest one:
“In Bombay, India, two caterpillars. walking towards each other from opposite directions, met and crawled up each other and turned into a flower.”
I don’t know why we did this one, but there was a kid in our class named Joe, who we ended up writing about in most of our facts. He was a quiet kid who loved our facts, so we asked him if he would like to be in one of them, and it then sort of snowballed and turned into Facts on Friday with Joe or something like that:
“A woman in Bombay, India (we liked India and China facts for some reason) had twenty children in twenty years. Joe, the youngest, was retarded.”
Ok, remember it was around 1969 when I was in seventh grade. No one was politically correct back then. Anyway, we had a blast and continued to write strange facts. It just recently dawned on me that Miss Caldwell never called us out on those ridiculous facts because she wasn’t paying any attention. She was using that as a planning period, I just betcha.
I continued to write as I got older and was a feature writer for the Babbling Brooke, that riveting high school newspaper that grew in membership when both Ramaine and I jumped on board. Ok, maybe everyone in the school got the paper free, but you know, we made it worth reading.
I wrote an unflattering poem about Donny Osmond one time and we would make up horoscopes that were hysterical. Well, they were hysterical to us:
Scorpio- This will be the worst week of your life. Stay indoors and don’t drink the water.
Taurus- This will be the best week of your life. Go outdoors and drink lots of water.
Other times we would write a tv listing of the shows that were going to be on that week. The following is just something I made up right now, but similar to the “retarded” things we would write:
“The Brady Bunch Friday-8:00p.m.-Carole Brady decides to get her hair cut and lets her daughter, Cindy, cut it with pretend scissors. Carole is now wearing an ugly, shaggy hairstyle and Mr. Brady won’t sleep with her.”
One of the best times I had in high school was in typing class. Ramaine was in the class with me, so you know it can’t be just a normal typing class. We would arrive every morning, take the covers off of our typewriters, and start typing whatever assignment was on the board. Well, that is fine and dandy, but makes for a boring class. So, Ramaine and I began typing notes and would get to class early and put them under the covers of specific “victims.” One may have read, “Watch out. This typewriter is watching you.” Oh, the fun we would have. Sometimes we would put them under our covers so no one would suspect us. High school was just so awesome.
In college, I started writing ala Sylvia Plath- just- kill- me- now- poetry after my boyfriend, Rick, and I broke up. I still have those poems and they are actually quite good. I mean, if you want to die because life just sucks.
I was a Speech and Drama major and English minor, so I was still writing and acting and pretending to act throughout college. After I married and had children, I continued to write. I mostly researched a lot for a book of names I wanted to write. Not just any baby name book, but I would scour newspaper obituaries for old names, like Zella, or Bathsheba, or Candy and started collecting first names. I had more than 40,000 names. This is about the time I started drinking. Ok, kidding, not a drinker. But, I still have that mound of names somewhere. I know where that somewhere is. Maybe someday…
So, here I am, in my mid-fifties and I’m going to write a book. I’m not going to hunt for a literary agent and publisher. No, I’m going to take the short route and write an ebook and put it on Amazon for Kindle. I hope all of you will want to download it when it is finished. I really don’t care if I make money. I just want to one-up my ex husband. He just married a really pretty younger woman and all I have is a bad hair style and a 16 year old cat. So, I’m going for a best-seller and fame since I would rather put a needle in my eye before getting married again. Well, I would change my mind if Tim Matheson, my all time dream man would buy my book and then ask me to marry him. You all remember Tim from Animal House and the West Wing, right? Well, I love him. I really do.
The writing is shaky because he signed his picture for me on a subway in NYC. Or I am lying.
I have given myself until August 1 to finish the book and hope to have it on Amazon by September 1….of this year. I will do it. I will.
My dad was a remarkable man. At least I think so. He died in 1989 when his heart basically blew up. He was in his truck and managed to pull over where paramedics were called. And so was I. I rushed to his bedside, but I was two hours away and two hours late. No one met me at the hospital. But, that’s not the part I want to remember. I want to pay homage to a guy who adopted me when I was born, who taught me how to frame a great shot, who taught me how to fish, reluctantly.
He was also the guy who would quietly mow down my mom’s flowers after she bitched at him for something that really didn’t matter. She was a rolling pin woman. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. He would also smile at her when he would go to leave the house. “Where are you going?” my mother would demand. “Up Mike’s ass to get a milkshake,” he would always reply. I just loved that guy.
Elwood Arthur Mendenhall was his name. It was a pretty goofy name, I thought. It was a bit weird that his first cousin was also named Elwood. I mean, what were those women thinking? Most of his close pals called him Mendy or Gomez, or Omar. But, for the most part, people called him Elwood. I just called him Dad.
The following is a reblog of one of my first blog posts that was originally published August, 2010. I thought that I would share it again since it is Father’s Day.
Miss you, Dad.
Love, Your Favorite Daughter, Vickie
~***~
What can you say about a guy who walks into the kitchen wearing a plaid shirt with striped shorts and socks with his sandals? “Well, (sounding just like Ronald Reagan), there is blue in the shirt and in the pants.” I would roll my eyes. “Dad, it doesn’t match. You can’t wear stripes with plaid. It is against the law in West Virginia. You have to wear a plain top with striped shorts.” He would smile and go back into his bedroom and come back out with a yellow shirt on, never mind that there was not a speck of yellow in the shorts. “Good job, Dad.”
Dad parading around
My dad was a realtor and wore suits every day. He usually kept his suit on in the evening. He was always dressed up when we were young. He had places to go and people to see. He belonged to every club you can imagine. I have all of his membership cards. He belonged to the American Legion, the Masons (shhhhh, double double secret club), The Elks, The Moose, the Photography Club, The Shriners, and many others. I think a couple of the clubs were suspect, like the Skunk Club. (I can’t even print what was on that card.) So, Dad was rarely home through the week. In the summer he was in a lot of parades because he was a clown with the Shriners. He even had a motorcycle with a sidecar for a while. We used to go to the Shrine Circus in Wheeling often. I loved to watch the Flying Wallenda’s. They were and are a family of famous circus performers who do daredevil, death-defying stunts high up in the air without a safety net. Even when I was young, I thought how foolish they were to not use a net. And I was not a bright child. They must be a family of nit-wits. Anyway, my dad wanted a make-up mirror for Christmas one year so he could put on his clown makeup. How many dads ask for a make-up mirror? Life was never boring with my dad.
When we were small, we weren’t supposed to answer the phone in the early evening because my dad received a lot of client calls. People were always wanting to see houses for sale in the evening. Dad had a cut-off for client calls. After 8:00pm, Dad would answer the phone, “Duffy’s Bar, Daffy Speaking”, all the time. We knew then, work was over for Dad.
I loved listening to my dad talk to people on the phone. He had no idea he was doing it, but he would talk exactly how the people on the line talked. We knew when he was talking to his Irish friend, because Dad had an Irish accent. We knew when he was talking to his friend, Jimmy, because he would curse. His Italian accent was so funny. So were the conversations when he would use poor English. “We was gonna go, but it started rainin….I ain’t goin. I’m too tard (tired).” He really had no idea he was doing this. I think that is a reason I love dialects so much and had a blast when I took a dialects class as part of my Speech degree in college.
Of course, when you are a teen-age girl, you are embarrassed to be seen with your parents. That’s a given. I don’t know why, but those couple of years before you are allowed to drive are miserable. So, my dad understood this, and took every opportunity to drive me crazy. One example, a Brooke High dance when I was a freshman. I think Ramaine’s mom took us and my dad was going to pick us up AFTER the dance. Not before it was over, Dad, but right when it is over. I wish I would have specified that, or lied about the time it was over. I am pretty sure I did. He always had an ornery, “Ok, Vickie” smile. Wild Cherry played at our school dance. Yeah, the famous Wild Cherry pre-Play that Funky Music group. They used to play at pool dances and school dances often. Anywho, about 20 minutes before the dance was over, a member of the band spoke over the microphone and said, “Vickie Mendenhall, your Daddddddy is here to take you home” and then they put a damn spotlight over by the door and my dad was standing there, waving like Forrest Gump. That one ranked.
A favorite thing that my dad loved to do was call me back when I was walking down the street to Ramaine’s house. I’m not sure, but I think there were like 9 houses that separated our homes. “Vickie, come here,” he would wave me back. I’d get right in front of him and he would simply say, “See how far you would have been if I hadn’t called you back?” After many times, (he was always so believable that maybe this time he really needed me..) of falling for his little prank, I just kept walking back just so he could get one over on me. I knew as I got older, that he was not happy with my mom. How could you be? He got yelled at for just looking at her wrong.
When I was a freshman in college, my dad had a bad heart attack. I guess any heart attack is bad. He had to have a triple heart by-pass. Freshman weren’t allowed to have cars at my college, unless there was a pretty good reason. I got to keep my car because of all of the traveling home. So, I thought I was pretty special. My dad was in a hospital in Pittsburgh. The doctor’s said it was such a success because the veins in his legs were very strong. He played tennis in high school and was pretty athletic, so that was good. They hadn’t done very many triple heart bypasses at that time, but they thought he would make it through. It also helped that an elderly Italian looking lady dressed in black walked up to my mother and said that she prayed for those who entered into surgery that day and that “your husband will be the only one that will survive.” And then, she turned around and walked back to where she was sitting. Well, hell, that meant that the person she was waiting for was going to die? Good grief, rosary-clutched woman. What are you??? But, she was right. Or so my mom said. I had to go back and forth to college. My mom got to know the people who were on the same floor with my dad.
Well, the “Let’s embarrass Vickie” era continued. I briefly dated a guy in college named Tommy, and we had planned to drive to Pittsburgh to watch Pitt and Notre Dame play football. My parents invited us to stop by and eat before the game. So, of course, while we were sitting at the table, my dad, blurted out, “So, Tommy, I had open heart surgery,” and proceeded to unbutton his shirt, pulled up his t-shirt, and exposed his heavily bubbled scar. ”See.” Yeah, we see it, Dad. I was ready to slide under the table, with the dog. He really was proud of that scar. At least the day wasn’t a total wash. We saw Joe DiMaggio in a crowd outside the stadium and I stepped on his foot by mistake when I went to stand beside him for a picture. “Um….sorry, Joe….. 1…2….3…. Say Cheese.” Well, not many people can say they stepped on Joe DiMaggio’s foot. I can. I’m quite special. Come to think of it, I don’t think either one of us had a camera. I really think we both just went and stood on either side of him, smiling, like someone was going to take our picture.
After open heart surgery, Dad had a pace maker and had to make a phone call weekly and put the phone to his chest. Gotta love the technology of the 70′s. Well, the years flew by. I got married, and was lucky to have my dad walk me down the aisle. I stayed in Fairmont and had 2 children he got to meet and hang out with for a short while.
My wedding, October 1983
My dad had a boat load of pills he had to take. He had one of those pill compartment thingys (that I now have), but he still forgot to take some of his medication. My mom said he was getting mean, and with one swoop kicked my brother and my dad out of the house. Or, maybe my brother left on his own before that. So, my dad, ill as he was, packed up some stuff in his truck and left the house and stayed with David. My mom and sister were alone at the house.
On November 5, 1989, I was called to come home as soon as I could. My dad had a massive heart attack while driving his truck and was in the hospital. I hurried and packed, kissed 4-year old Adam and 2 year old Alex and drove like an idiot on the 2 hour journey home. (I didn’t leave them alone, just in case you were wondering.) Three weird things happened to me on my way home. It was an overcast day, and I was amazed how the clouds opened up and the light shined through like a flashlight beam. It was beautiful. For some reason it made me cry. The second thing was when a red-tailed hawk flew right in front of my car like it was crossing the interstate, and then went up in the air into a tree. I had never seen one so close. The third was eerie. I passed a hearse that was driving slow and I looked over, and the guy gave me a sad, sad, smile. It was like he knew I was on a sad trip.
When I reached the hospital, noone was there. I mean, no one. A nurse had to take me aside and tell me that my father had passed away. I asked what time he died, so she went to his chart and when she told me, I burst into tears. It was the same time that the hawk had flown by my car. I had noted the time of each of the three weird incidents in my mind, because I believe in that shit.
I was soo upset that no one stayed at the hospital to wait for me to arrive. It would be just like my mom to just drive home and forget about me. When I first entered the driveway and got out of the car, my brother was there. We hugged, crying, and I said into his ear, “She killed him.” And that is how I have felt to this very day.
We buried my dad on my birthday. That sucked. It was a cold November day and he had Masonic last rites or whatever they call it at the grave site. I felt like I was watching an episode of the Flintstones and a meeting of the Water Buffaloes. And dad was the Grand Poobah. They did this hand shake stuff that made me giggle, and then the next thing you know, I was silent laugh shaking. My dad would have expected me to laugh, so I did.
My mom informed me that she had no intention of visiting my dad’s grave. “I believe that if people aren’t nice while they are living, why visit them when they are dead.” I think that she may have been talking about my grandfather, because he didn’t like my mom. I also think she is confused. Dad was a great person. Sure he gagged when he saw a hair in the bathroom sink all the time. Sure, he put on a yellow raincoat when he gave the dog a bath. Sure he always offered us a quarter if we could eat a sour pickle without making a face. And wearing those socks with his sandals was unbearable to look at as a teen age girl. But, he is now in peace. Only his name is on the headstone. Good job, Dad! He is next to my grandpa and Grandma, and no room for my mother. Maybe he knew that witches don’t die. Karma, Momma, Karma.
We built our house on 13 acres and my husband cut the grass with an old 1949 Farm All Cub that my dad gave him. I am telling you the truth when I say that the first time Jay cut the grass on that tractor (it had a stupid smiley face on the front that my dad put on years before), I had gone down to take him a drink of water, and I heard this “Caw” and looked up and there was a red-tailed hawk flying in a circle above us. I smiled for hours afterwards.
I sure loved my dad. When I see an old hoot wearing socks with his sandals, I realize that teenage girls waste an awful lot of time being embarrassed by their fathers.
I really loved being in high school during the 1970′s. It was a great time. I went to Brooke High School in Wellsburg, West Virginia. The school had a large population for our area, so the school was divided into four smaller schools under one roof. They were called centers. I was in center 4.
There were many clubs and activities one could join at Brooke High School. Some of them included Future Teachers of America, Student Council, Ski Club, Chemistry Club and Spanish Club just to name a few. I tried to be active and joined a lot of clubs, but none were as fun as the Drama Club. And it was when I was in the Drama Club that I decided to try out for a play.
To tell you the truth, I can’t remember what the hell part I tried out for. The play, Up the Down Staircase, was made from a best-selling book about an inner city high school English teacher.
I just remember that it was a large cast. I did play one of the high school students, but that is all I can remember about the part. And I don’t remember the cast party that was held after the play ran its course, because, um, someone spiked the punch.
I was a sophmore in high school at the time of my very first night of punch drinking. The cast party was held at the home of one of the girls who was in the play. Glenda also happened to be a relative of some sort. She was a senior at Brooke High and was two years older than me. When doing some genealogy work this past year, I was finally able to see how one of the branches in our family tree swung over to her family. I guess we were cousins, after all. I don’t remember ever talking to her.
Since I was only fifteen at the time, I wasn’t a driver. And to tell you the truth, I have no idea who dropped me off at the party or if our parents did the drop off and pick up routine. All I know for sure is that I don’t know much about that evening. I got there, I drank a bunch of glasses of the best punch in the whole world, and the next thing you know I’m at home, unloading the dishwasher while my head is pounding.
I guess I was having so much fun that I told my friend I came with that I had another ride home and that I was going to stay a bit later. That part was true, I guess. I was having fun. I have no idea if I had another ride home or not.
The only visual that I can remember is a large punch bowl sitting on what appeared to be a pool table that was covered with a huge table cloth or sheet. The punch had floating ice in it and it was a pinkish color. There was food on plates on the pool table, and that’s where we all hung out. The food was delicious, and director of the play was happy because everyone who attended the play was giving great compliments. Well, they had to, most of the people who attended the play were our parents and grandparents. Bravo.
Well, I was eating and drinking and having a good old time. I didn’t know that someone had spiked the punch. I was lucky if I only weighed 90 pounds at the time, so I didn’t have much meat on my bones. So, I imagine just one glass of the stuff would have knocked me down. I was told that I had at least three, because I kept telling people how great it tasted. Oh, there had to be a sinsiter high school boy who was snickering right about now.
Now, I have to admit that it is a bit strange to write about something that you don’t remember. That would make for a very short story. But, my mom was able to fill in most of the hazy memories of that night. And she reminded me of it for days, weeks, and months after wards. I guess I was the life of the party.
I still don’t remember who drove me home that night, but my mom was standing at the door with her hands on her hips. I vaguely remember that, but I have no idea who drove me home, other than it was a car load full of people. A guy and his girlfriend were in the front seat, and I am pretty sure I kissed a guy that I was sitting in the backseat with right before I got out of the car. I don’t know for sure. I was a tramp. Or I was going to be a tramp. My mom used that word a lot after that night.
I have to depend on my mom about the rest of the night. I guess I gave her a big hug when I finally made it to the top of the outside steps that led to the front door. The kids in the car couldn’t get away fast enough. I guess my mom was furious, but I was too happy to notice that. My mom said that I kept hugging her and telling her what a great time I had and how they had the BEST dog in the world. My mom said it was useless to reprimand me that night because I was, as she repeated over and over and over again, “Two sheets to the wind.” I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. I had a feeling that my mom was drunk that night, because what the hell did a couple of sheets in the wind have anything to do with the fabulous cast party?
Ok, so no, she wasn’t drinking. I guess I was the one who had been drinking. I wish someone would have told me that. My mom said that I could not quit laughing and I was talking a mile a minute, ALL about what a great job I did in the play, sitting there in the “classroom,” remembering my lines and delivering them loud and clear. I was a great actress. She said that I was messing with my little sister, who I shared a room with. My parents were in the process of remodeling the basement and adding a bedroom down there for me. I guess this was one of the last nights that I would be spending with her and I just had to tell her what a fantastic sister she has been to me.
I guess my mom was so pissed at me that she just guided me to my room and that was about all. She said that I took down the covers on my bed, and plopped myself in my bed to go to sleep. I guess I then remembered that I was still wearing my clothes. I guess one shouldn’t go to sleep in their jeans and flip flops. I was still talking and laughing when the first flip flop came flying at my mom. I was still having so much fun. The other flip flop hit her in the leg. I guess I thought that was the funniest thing in the world. The last thing my mom saw before she said, “Good-night, Vickie,” and turned off my lights, was me taking off my jeans and swinging them in the air. When she checked on me ten minutes later, she said I had one foot on the floor and was out cold.
I DO remember my mom coming into my room the next morning at 7:30.
“Vickie, get up. I need you to take the dishes out of the dishwasher.” I opened my eyes, but that’s all I could do. My head was pounding. Wow, I must have the flu or something. I sat up slowly, and my mom was just standing at the doorway, staring at me. What? Why was she staring at me? I was getting up. I looked down and there was a pair of jeans lying on my chest. I was wearing a top and not pajamas.
“Vickie, did you have any idea that the punch you were drinking was spiked with booze last night?” My mom looked at me and told me that if I did that again I would end up being a ”lady of ill repute.” What? First of all, mom, I have a freaking headache the size of a….large guinea pig. That’s what I told her. A guinea pig. Ok. Second of all, I had no idea what she was talking about. She told me to get up and unload the newly fixed dishwasher.
I got up and tried to put the jeans on that were lying on my bed. “Don’t put those back on Vickie. I think you vomited on them.” What? I didn’t vomit. I went to a cast party and came home and went to bed. And all of a sudden I was being called a lady of ill repute and a vomiter. The rest of the weekend was just going to suck.
Well, I finally got to my bedroom door, tripped over some flip flops that my sister was stupid enough to leave in the hallway, and made it to the kitchen. My dad was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee, wearing a huge smile. ” Good morning, Drunky.” He burst out laughing. What?
I guess my mom didn’t really want me to get up that early to unload the dishwasher. She wanted to put me under the light and question me like the police do on those police shows. I was so confused. My brain was not wanting to work. She hounded me and asked me a million questions:
”Who brought the booze for the punch?” What booze?
”Who drove you home and who did you kiss in the backseat?” What? I kissed someone?
“What are their phone numbers?” Who? I don’t know who drove me home. Wait. I kissed someone?
The questions did not stop. My mom had called my cousin’s mother who hosted the cast party and she repeatedly told my mother that she and her husband and a few other adults chaperoned the cast party and she had no idea that the punch was spiked. She said no one was drunk. No one. My mom didn’t believe her.
“….and she said no one was drunk or acting drunk. But when you got home, Vickie, you kissed whoever you were sitting with in the back seat as you got out of the car and you were swinging your jeans. You were as drunk as a skunk.” God, settle down, Mom. Besides, when have you EVER seen a skunk that was drunk. I mean, really. Who is the drunk one here?
Well, my mom finally was able to recreate the whole evening because I think she talked to everyone who was there. Everyone. I was grounded until I was thirty. Or until I went to her the next night.
“Mom, I didn’t get drunk on purpose. Someone spiked the punch and I found out from Cindy that I was with her most of the night and I only had two glasses of punch.” My mom ungrounded me.
I can’t look at a punch bowl without thinking it should only be for a spiked beverage. That cast party was a great time.
These must be those ladies of ill repute my mom was talking about.
I was the pickiest child in the whole world. And if I didn’t want to eat something, there was nothing my mother could do to get me to eat it. It wasn’t going to happen. You could plop a new puppy with a big pink bow around its neck in front of me as a bribe, but I still wouldn’t eat those damn peas. I could sit in my chair for hours to no avail. I wasn’t stubborn. But, I felt that if I didn’t want to chew and swallow disgusting peas, I shouldn’t have to. You eat them.
So, it was not pleasant sitting at the Mendenhall dinner table when I was very young. Our dinner conversations usually centered around my not eating.
“Eat your carrots, Vickie……. They are good for you……..Vickie, are you listening?…….Eat your carrots, Vickie….. Don’t wrinkle your nose up like that to me…. It will freeze and you will have wrinkles on your nose like that forever……Vickie, why are you smelling the carrots? …………No, they don’t smell funny……..They are cooked carrots…….They are from a can………No, they are not old……….Because there is a date on the can………….Vickie…..Eat your carrots……….How do you know you don’t like cooked carrots? You’ve never tasted cooked carrots before…..What?…..Bugs Bunny is not real, Vickie….No, I have never seen rabbits eat cooked carrots……..You are not a rabbit, Vickie….People eat cooked carrots….Yes, Vickie……..kids are people…….What? No, Vickie, you cannot have a rabbit……. Ok, you know what? I’ve had enough…Go to your room…………..No, you cannot have a twinkie.”
Every night it was the same thing. I don’t understand why my mother just didn’t leave me alone. I wasn’t going to starve. As long as I had bread, jelly, peanut butter, and pumpkin pie, life was grand. Of course there were other foods I would eat, but dear God, do not spread peanut butter with the jelly on the bread. That is abnormal and I would not touch it.
It was twice as bad when I was old enough to start school. The nuns at Immaculate Heart of Crazy Nuns Academy would not leave me the hell alone. It was a constant barrage of inspirational messages directed at me to make me feel bad and eat. Stupid nuns. You can’t fool me. I’m unfoolable.
“And so why are you not eating all of the food on your plate, young lady?” Here we go. She was standing beside my tray, hands on hips. I don’t know why people stand with their hands on their hips. It didn’t scare me. It reminded me of getting ready to sing, “I’m a Little Teapot.” I just hated those damn nuns anyways. I did not want to be at that private school. And I don’t know why they kept referring to it as a private school. All my friends knew about it. I looked up and answered the creepy lady clad in black and white.
“I’m eating.” I looked at her. I couldn’t even fake a smile. And she didn’t scare me at all. Nuns were like clowns. They both wore goofy clothes and just weren’t funny.
“You need to clean your plate, Miss Mendenhall. Think of all of the starving children in Biafra.”
Shit. I mean, I am sorry about the starving kids in Biafra. And the ones in India. And the children who are freezing AND hungry in Outer Mongolia and Siberia. What the hell did that have to do with me not eating peas in Wintersville, Ohio? I was tired of this bullshit at school and at home. You know what? I didn’t give a rat’s ass about all the starving kids in the world. I was eight years old. Get the fuck off of my tiny back.
It was at that moment, in third grade, that I decided to start hiding my food.
After I got home from school, I decided to have a conference with myself about how I was going to hide my food at school, starting the next day. But, I had to get through the dinner routine at my house first. My mother started at me again. Shit. We were having peas. I really thought she was doing this to me on purpose. Lady, I am not going to eat peas. Not going to happen.
“Vickie, eat your dinner……………peas are good for you……….yes they are…………they are not mushy………..Vickie, eat your dinner…….I don’t know why they aren’t orange like carrots……It doesn’t matter, eat your dinner…………..Vickie, quit lining the peas up on your knife………..Ok, they are all over the floor now……Vickie, the dog is nowhere near you. She did not bump into you. You had them on your knife…….Because I have been watching you not eat your dinner……….Vickie, you are going to sit there until all those peas are gone, do you understand me? If they are not gone, you will not be allowed to go to your Blue Bird meeting this evening.”
Oh, I was going to go to my bluebird meeting. I hid my peas in my glass of milk. I drank most of the milk, and then dropped peas down in the milk. I was surprised how many peas could hide in milk. I smashed some of them on my plate because my mother would become suspect if there were no peas left on the plate. I figure she would still let me go to my blue bird meeting if she saw that I gave it a good old college try. I put three peas on David’s plate while he was talking. Cheryl and my dad also got three. I was a damn good pea sneaker.
And that’s how my food hiding career began.
The next day at school, we had salisbury steak, green beans, and mashed potatoes. I remember this because of the incident. Well, there was no way I was going to eat any of this bullshit. Salisbury steak was shit on a stick to me. I despised green beans just as much as I hated peas. I did like mashed potatoes immensely. But, and there was always a “but” with me, if they had lumps in them, I would gag until my eyes watered. So, at most, it was an iffy meal.
First, I asked my lunch table friends if they wanted my salisbury steak. I had to work fast as the lunch Nazi was on her rounds. I thought that I would at least think of the Biafran kids and try to give my food away before I hid it. The boy across the table had already devoured half of his shit on a stick. He said he would take mine. I picked it up with the fork and sort of whipped it toward him. It landed on his plate. This was going to be fun. No one really wanted my green beans, so, I put some of them in my napkin, left some on the plate, and put the others under my tray. Well, just until she walked by. My plan was to retrieve the green beans after the nun lady walked by.
My Operation Hide Yucky Food was working. My mashed potatoes didn’t have any lumps, so I was able to eat that with no problem. Just in time, too, because here came Sister Potato Head.
“Well, well, well. Look at this. Miss Mendenhall, you did a pretty good job today. I am surprised. Go ahead and take your tray up to dump.”
Uh oh. I just sat there. I had at least six green beans smashed underneath my tray. I wasn’t ready to take my tray up until I hid more in another napkin. But, I made the mistake of having everything done by the time she came by, so there was no dilly-dallying during lunch time.
I stood up, picked up my tray and walked slowly to the dumping grounds. Sister Stupid Face was busy talking to others at my table and wasn’t watching the green beans peel off the bottom of my tray and fall to the ground while I was walking. I almost made it there when I heard a big black and white thud. I didn’t even need to turn around. I knew what happened. Sister Goof Ball Head slipped on my green beans and wiped out on the floor. I turned around, expecting to see her shoot me with the gun I was sure all nuns hid under their black dress, when I saw a boy from another table, lying on the floor.
The gun-toting nun was helping Jacob get up and yelling at him at the same time. “If you would have finished your green beans, they would not have been able to fall off of your plate as you were rushing to dump your tray. Get up. You’re ok.”
So much for hiding food. As I walked back from taking my tray to the cooks, I kicked each green bean out of the way. I had made a straight line of dropped green beans on the floor. I escaped certain death this time. I would remember never to hide food under my tray again.
In the end, I was able to become quite creative with my food hiding both at home and at school. It helped that I had a dog who was discreet while sitting beside me at dinner. I just talked louder when we had dinner that required the dog to slurp.
As summer approaches, I try to come up with a travel plan. Last year, I went to New York City twice and Cancun, Mexico. This summer, I am reminded of the great Dorothy Gale quote from the Wizard of Oz:
“…and if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.”
Dorothy was a smart girl. I think I will follow her advice. I think I will braid my hair, grab a dog and a little picnic basket purse. and travel around my home state of West Virginia.
It’s funny how people live close to something so wonderful but don’t even notice it’s there. I’m guilty of that. I live close to Prickett’s Fort State Park and hate to say that the last time I had been there was about fifteen years ago when we took our children there. So, I went there a few weekends ago to take pictures with my new camera.
Prickett’s Fort is about ten minutes from my home. I should be slapped. On approach, the first thing I came upon was a creek full of Canadian geese and three honking white geese.
The atmosphere of the creek (I pronounce it crik, because that’s how we talk in Weirton), made me feel calm and mellow. The area is stocked with picnic tables for those who want to picnic with about twenty pooping Canuck ducks. It’s not so bad further away from the geese. I hung out there for awhile, talking to the geese and just taking in the beauty of the area. This was fun. I was by myself, but that doesn’t equate loneliness at all. It was fun. After about ten minutes, I hopped in my car and headed to the state park. But, wait, on my right was a very old cemetery begging me to visit. So, I did.
The Prickett’s Fort Cemetery is an old one indeed. The Prickett family is buried here. The founder of Morgantown, a fellow by the name of Morgan, is buried here too. Morgan Morgan was supposedly the first inhabitant in what is now known as West Virginia. This guy had to be a relative, but I am just way too lazy to research that right now. But, the cemetery was a bit eery, even in the morning.
I then pulled into the parking lot of Prickett’s Fort. The visitor Center is really nice and since I am fifty-five, got a discount on my entrance fee. There is also a museum and nifty time line of the fort upstairs. On the right of the visitor’s center is a bathroom and amphlitheather where plays are performed. The following are pictures I took of the fort and fort area.
The inside of the fort
I won’t go into detail about the fort, but it was used by the Prickett family as their primary home. They have a wonderful website that explains all that is Prickett’s Fort. When word that Indians were in the area hunting, neighbors would quickly ride to the fort and stay with the Prickett family. If you happen to visit this lovely park, you will meet people dressed in period clothing, and watch them work at their craft.
But, what is great about Prickett’s Fort State Park is that it is also a great place to park your car and head to the Rails to Trails on foot or on your bike. Many people use this popular trail, known as the Mon River Trail.
And if you don’t feel like walking or riding your bike, then bring down your boat and enjoy the Monongahela River.
I had a great morning at Prickett’s Fort State Park. And it is in my own backyard. Yes, sometimes the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and you need to travel and explore what lies beyond your local boundaries. But, if you don’t have that wanderlust and want to stay nearby, just look around you. You maybe be surprised at the sights that are in your own backyard.
I couldn’t leave things alone when I was little. I couldn’t sit still and I couldn’t quit thinking and asking questions. So, yeah, ok, maybe I was a bit hyper. I guess the Cricket moniker was appropriate. I am so not like that anymore. I would be a female Richard Simmons (???) if I had continued on with my hyperness. And yes, “hyperness” is a word because I just made it up.
During the warm to hot summer months, the Mendenhall kids played outside about 98% of the time. It didn’t lightning and thunder in Woodland Estates because my mom forbade it. She also had power over the ice cream truck that drove into our neighborhood every afternoon during our nap time. The nerve. Mom somehow stopped that too. He came later, after we were refreshed after our nap or pretend nap. She pushed us out the door, back outside, money in hand for an ice cream cone.
So, I had plenty of time to take in the sights and the sounds of every neighbor and every child on a three block radius. We lived on the corner of Crystal Lane. My bestest friend, Ramaine, lived on Crystal also, at the end of the street. LeeAnn lived next door to Ramaine. So, since I walked down the street all of the time, I knew everything about the neighbors. One lady scrubbed the street in front of her house almost every day. We called her Bungy. Maybe that was her name. I don’t think a woman would be called Bungy, but who am I to judge. I lived in a family with crazy names, such as Orpha, Elwood, Wilma, and Zella. Bungy was normal.
LeeAnn’s brother, Ralph, was in a league all by himself. Can’t explain him, but I did get a chuckle with the things he did on a daily basis. One day, for no particular reason, he put rocks in everyone’s mailbox. And then put up the flag. That was brilliant.
Fernwood Drive was a long road that ran right the other side of my house. There was an empty lot across the street that my dad once had a big black barn on, but that was later torn down. I think we still owned that property and the creek and woods that ran down the street across from the houses on Crystal Lane, so the world was our playground. And believe me, we went on adventures daily.
We decided to make a cabin in the woods one summer. Oh, it wasn’t really built with wood. Girls don’t need a real live cabin. We just pulled weeds around the little locust trees and made “rooms.” The trees were the walls that separated the rooms. Girls have such a great imagination. So, we would then give ourselves new names, like Mabel and Ethel, and begin living in our cabin. Until some little shit neighbors came upon us.
I don’t even know who these little rugrats were. They had to be visiting grandparents who wouldn’t play with them or something. OR, they were not from the two block radius. Which would be unacceptable. And these strangers wanted to play with us. It was like the story, The Little Red Hen, all over again.
Who will help me gather the wheat? Not I, said the pig. Not I, said the duck….etc. etc.
Who will help me play in the cabin? Oh, we will, said the little urchins from outside the neighborhood perimeter.
Yeah, I may have only been about eight or nine, but I knew a sham when I saw one. They waited until all of the work was done, and then strolled on in to play. Not going to happen.
Now, you have to understand that in order to build a cabin, you needed to cut stuff and dig. So, most of my mom’s butter knives and spoons were at the cabin. I did try to remember to sneak them back into the house right before dinner, but my mom somehow noticed the utensils in the sink. And believe me, there were always dishes and stuff in the sink to be washed.
“Vickie, why is there dirt on these spoons?” Damn. I only had half of a brain.
“I dropped them on the floor.”
“Vickie, my floors are not dirty. You took my good silverware outside to dig with again, didn’t you? I know you did it, so don’t lie.”
I don’t know why I was always the one that got in trouble.
But, let’s get back to the strangers. We were getting ready to play restaurant when they came upon us.
“Can we play?” they asked. We all looked at them. And then we looked at each other. It’s like they read my mind.
“Sure!” we all exclaimed.
I explained to them that they would be the customers. They sat on tree roots that came out of the ground and gave a great seating area in the cabin. I can’t remember who was going to be the waitress this particular day, so I will just say it was my sister, Cheryl. Ramaine, LeeAnn and I would be the cooks. Yes. The cooks.
Here, eat this tent caterpillar.
Since I can’t keep my hands off of anything, I was always smooshing or taking apart plants and weeds when I was playing outside. I’m still pissed that I can not whistle through a blade of grass. Damn thing gave me a paper cut on my lip one time, however. Never did that again. I knew where the berries were and wild pears, if there is such a thing. And I knew where the pepper was.
But, the dandelions were my favorite. Dandelions morphed, and I liked that about these flowery weeds.
Now, there are parts of a dandelion that can be picked apart and they look like great pretend food. So, a dandelion would be great for our cabin in the woods restaurant. Of course, how would we know that most of the dandelion can be eaten nowadays.
Ok, so, the menu was limited at our restaurant. We had creek water, pears with pepper sprinkled on top, dandelion and several types of berries and mushrooms. Thank God we really didn’t feed them the mushrooms as I would probably be behind bars today. Hell, we didn’t know some mushrooms were poisonous.
Everyone should have this book if you plan to have a restaurant in the woods.
So, in the end, the kids ordered dandelions and pears with pepper sprinkled lightly on them. And this is the part I really remember, because Ramaine and I were laughing so hard when we watched that one little girl bite into a wild pear with pepper. Now, you have to understand that in the past we ate everything we played with. I tried a wild pear. I tasted the white milky crap that came out of a dandelion, and although I cursed the briar bushes as they raked the shit out of my legs as we macheted our way through them, I tasted the berries too. And we still lived.
So, what the hell is the problem with having a kid eat a wild pear with some dirt sprinkled on it?
I mean pepper.
I never got in trouble for that one because I told the kids my name was Ethel. And I was Ethel when we were in the cabin. Or Mabel. Can’t remember. They didn’t ask where we lived because we told them we just moved into the cabin.
The moral of the story is to never leave your two block radius unless you are prepared to eat dandelions and pears with pepper lightly sprinkled on top.
It’s just our way to welcome you to the neighborhood.
I have laryngitis. So, at bedtime, I rubbed a generous amount of Vicks Vapor Rub on my throat and under my nose and went to bed. Ahhhhh. I love this stuff. So, I am thinking that it is probably bad for you if it feels so good. I mean, isn’t that how that usually works?
Image of a container of Vicks VapoRub (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
If scientists came out with a study that reported that using Vicks Vapor Rub over time causes all kinds of medical problems, I am sure I would be the first to die. First. to. die.
My use of Vicks Vapor Rub goes way back. Back to around 1958. I’m guessing.
My parents adopted me at birth. I was the apple of their eye, the reason for their living, the ying for their yang. But, they then decided to go and adopt another baby. I am sure I was all they needed.
David came home right before I turned two years old. My mom said I was like a little mother. I was always standing beside his crib, talking to him in my two year old gibberish and giving him stuffed animals. My mom was so happy that the introduction of a baby brother did not appear to raise any jealousy issues with me. “Appear” is the operative word here.
Oh, no. I guess my Rhoda Penmark impression from The Bad Seed reared its ugly head at a very early age.
Some people refuse to have children after watching this movie. photo via wikia.com
She found me one evening in my brother’s room, sweet talking to him while smearing Vicks Vapor Rub all over his face. My mom said the poor little baby was blinking his eyes like crazy. I guess that was my first whipping.
There, there, David. Let me go get some Vicks Vapor Rub.
Now, I can’t defend myself because I was two years old and I can’t remember what I did when I was that young. But, I just bet I heard him sneeze and was playing nurse or something. My mom was always a big Vicks Vapor Rub user. Maybe she smeared it on me and I felt better and I was just trying to pay it forward. I am thinking this way because of the Susie the dog incident a few years later.
I loved Susie the dog. She was a terrier and followed me all over the house. She was an expert lap sitter. If you were sitting down, she was in your lap. But, I also put Vicks Vapor Rub on Susie’s nose when she sneezed once.
It was the first time I had ever heard a dog sneeze. I didn’t think dogs sneezed. She must be sick.
Must get the Vicks Vapor Rub.
I guess it isn’t meant for dogs. Susie the dog went ape shit. She ran around and around a few times, and then kept licking her nose. I guess that made it worse, as something scared her and she ran through the house and under my mom’s bed.
“Aw, come out, Susie.” I think I grabbed one of my dad’s white tank top undershirts and wiped off Susie’s nose. I didn’t think that maybe it should then go down the laundry chute after that. The shirt, not the dog.
Ok, so Vicks Vapor Rub doesn’t do too well on dogs.
But, it does great when added somehow to a vaporizer. My mom was big on using a vaporizer in our rooms when we were sick. I am not sure if there was a Vicks vaporizer in the later fifties or not. If not, my mom made it into one, because I remember that great smell in my room at night.
Looks sort of illegal
As I got older, I had a hard time getting to sleep. I was a kid with a lot on my mind, and then diagnosed with hyperactivity when I was seven or eight, or maybe younger. I was given the nickname, Cricket,by a family member much earlier. I just hopped all over the damn place I guess. So, Cricket couldn’t sleep at night.
If I put Vicks Vapor Rub under each eye, that would make my eyes stay shut, right? So, I went into my mom’s room, got the little jar, and headed back to my room. I smeared a little dab under both eyes and laid down.
Can’t sleep. Can’t sleep. So, I opened one eye. It made my eye burn like hell. Tears were streaming down my face. So, just like you aren’t supposed to touch wet paint because of the “DO NOT TOUCH WET PAINT” sign, I had to open my eyes over and over again. Dear burning mother of God. It burned. So, the idea worked for part of the problem. Now I was wide awake and couldn’t open my eyes. I was in a coffin. But, then I fell asleep. I was a future Vicks Vapor Rub addicted genius.
So, I had a pretty great idea. OR….maybe, just maybe, my mom did this to me first, and I was claiming it as my own idea. This makes so much sense now. If she secretly slipped me a mild tranquilizer when I was in fourth grade and called it a “carsick” pill, she would be sinister enough to douse my eyes with Vicks Vapor Rub when I went to bed to make me go to sleep at a very early age. Too early to remember sinister acts. Hmmmmm.
I mean, I do remember calling out to her numerous times at night. I had questions, after all.
I bet the loon put the Vicks Vapor Rub under my eyes to make me go to sleep.
She smeared it under my eyes and then went back to her National Enquirer and Salem cigarettes and coffee nightly ritual.
My grandma Orpha had chicken scratch handwriting. Well, that’s what my mom called it.
“I can’t read this recipe…Crazy chicken scratch.”
I didn’t know what that really meant at the time. My mom was always speaking in tongue. I visualized a chicken scratching in the dirt on a farm. So, I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. The only thing I cared about was getting my hands on those molasses cookies. If my mom didn’t know how to read, I was going to have to settle for Nilla wafers. Life was so unfair.
It wasn’t until I was older that I really took a look at my grandmother’s penmanship. It really sucked. It looked like she wrote a recipe down on an index card while she was riding on a roller coaster. And that visual made me laugh out loud. Grandma on a roller coaster. Writing down a recipe. I still have the recipe for “rheumatism medicine” which included whiskey. Yeah, grandma would so ride on a roller coaster.
I really tried to have nice penmanship when I was little. I really did. But, it was ugly. I know that because Sister Maria told me so.
“Vickie, that’s a very ugly capital V. You would think it would be pretty since it begins your first name.”
I really really hoped that she would trip over that outfit she wore every day. I hated going to that private school. The Immaculate Heart of Mary Academy just ruined my attempts at pretty penmanship. The letter “V” can not be pretty. It is just not pretty. An “L” is a pretty letter.
I was happy when I was able to transfer to public school. But, Miss Emler wasn’t much better. She told me all of my letters were made correctly, but they weren’t pretty. Come on, people. I’m a teacher, and I would never tell a student their handwriting was not pretty. I tell them it sucks. Ok, just kidding.
Plus, my bestest friend, Ramaine, had the prettiest handwriting in the whole world. It was, and still is, beautiful. Her dad was an artist, and she inherited his wonderful artistic genes. If ever I write a children’s book, I would want her to be my illustrator.
So, yeah, I never won a penmanship award or medal. And as I grew older, I realized that my handwriting was ugly. It was boring and ugly. So, I doodled in high school, making fancy letters in the margins of my papers. I was practicing, perfecting the art of ugly penmanship.
Years passed and when it was time to get married, I decided to address all of my invitations in calligraphy. Yep. I bought a calligraphy pen and learned how to print fancy-like. There were 350 people invited to the wedding, and I don’t remember how many envelopes I addressed.
Sister Maria, who art in heaven by this time, wasn’t invited. I should have sent one to the convent so the other old nuns who were still there would marvel over how little Vickie turned out ok, handwriting wise.
So, yeah, my handwriting growth was stunted because of a nun’s opinion. What the hell do nuns know anyways? Who said they should be teachers?
That would be like ….letting a jockey be a veterinarian.
In the end, it is not going to matter one damn bit. Technology is going to take away our last bit of handwriting practice: check writing. In a few years we will all have a microchip imbeded in our left wrist and we will just scan ourselves at the local Walmart. We won’t have to write anymore.
Unless you want to copy down my grandma’s rheumatism medicine recipe.
Memorial Day, like most holidays, has changed over the years. Christmas had morphed into one commercial bonanza with a bearded red suit leading the way. Easter is all about jelly beans and scruffy looking man-bunnies waiting at malls for kids to climb onto their laps.
Mom, how the hell could you even let this happen? lol
I’d say Thanksgiving is doing ok since we had the first one. Thanks, pilgrims, for making pumpkin pie. It’s a fine tradition. I am thankful.
But, Memorial Day began as a solemn rememberance of those who served and lost their lives while fighting for freedom. In 2012, it has turned into a three day weekend. Today there is no garbage pickup and the banks and post offices are closed. Everything else is open for business. Sure, families have picnics and if it is warm enough, pools are opened.
Yet, there are many who know too well what this day clearly stands for. It is a day to reflect and remember those who lost their lives while serving and defending our country.
When I was growing up, my dad was the one who instilled in us what Memorial Day truly meant. My dad served in World War II, stationed in Alaska while building airstrips and in Okinawa.
My dad
Later on, he belonged to the VFW and the American Legion, among other organizations. He was in every parade every year, dressed in uniform, carrying the flag, representing the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was one real live proud veteran. And he made us aware of what war could do to a nation and how soldiers should be shown every day how proud we are that they put their lives on the line for us. Some never made it home. How sad.
It’s funny, but my dad never really told us what he did in the war. A lot of dads were like that. I was told he was a typist, then he build airstrips. And that he had to have his appendix taken out while stationed in Okinawa. Was never told what he did in Okinawa.
We had a flag pole in our backyard and every Memorial Day, Flag Day, Veterans Day, and Fourth of July, we would march like little soldiers up to the flag pole. My brother David really got into it. He would salute the whole way from the back porch to the flag pole. My dad had us stand across from each other, as we all unfolded the flag. My dad would then raise the flag and we would salute. Dear God, don’t let the flag touch the ground. That was a hard rule to follow when you are little. Dad said if a flag touched the ground, it would have to be burned. I thought that didn’t make any sense. I just looked it up and it is an urban legend. My dad would be amused.
photo via Wikipedia
I don’t remember how old I was when we did this, but I do remember for some reason my dad put a Sylvester puddy cat head from a bath bubble bottle at the top of the flag pole. It sat there for years…on top of the flag pole. I think the metal finial that was once there either fell off during a wind storm or time rusted the little silver topper, but Sylvester is what he found as its replacement.
Bubble bath soap bottle. Unscrew the head and put it at the top of your flag pole.
Years later, after my dad had passed away and we built a house out in the country, I met our elderly neighbor, Ada.
And every Memorial Day, before I even think of my father who was a veteran, and before I think of those who lost their lives serving our country, I think of Ada.
I don’t know why, but Ada always comes to mind. Every year, first thing that pops into my head.
Ada, who lost her love during World War II.
They were engaged and he just never came home. And she never ever talked about him. I had to hear it from another neighbor.
“She was young and in love and they were going to get married right before he left, but they ran out of time. And he was killed.”
And that just broke my heart. Here was this woman, who lived in this small, wonderful home, full of antiques and memories, with no one to share it with, other than her precious dog, her faithful companion. Her sister lived with her until her death, but for the most part, she was always alone after her love never was able to return home. I was told she never wanted to marry.
And so Ada lived on until her memory of him and everything else faded. I remember helping her hunt for her dog when she said he was lost. My son and I searched the neighborhood, frantic, looking for Sam the dog. When I checked back in with her, Sam was sleeping on the couch. She told me, “Oh, not Sam, the other dog.” The other dog had died some twenty years earlier. It was a long goodbye and I missed talking to my neighbor after she died.
So, yes, Memorial Day is a “day to reflect and honor those who have given their all to service to their country.” Yet, it is Ada I think about first today. Her loss was profound, yet she lived a long and independent life. I wrote this poem when I was in college after a break up, but always thought it would be pertinent for a loss of any kind.
Time flies
and with each morning sun
comes the thought of you
and the smiles left behind.
Tears will dry
and wounds will heal,
but memories linger on.
In the end, I think Americans do a pretty good job at remembering what this day stands for. Sure, like I mentioned, it is a three day weekend full of outdoor activities with the family. It is also a day for memories of all those who we love who have passed. And that is great, too. But, above all, it is a day to reflect upon what sacrifice truly means and to honor all those who have served our country. My thoughts are with them and their loved ones.
When I was little, my dad used to take me fishing at the Paris Sportsmen Club. I actually hated the whole process of fishing, but felt I should be there to talk my dad and brother into releasing the poor little fish after catching them. It was bad enough they had a hook in their mouth. I just didn’t get it. I guess if you liked the taste of fish and your mom fried them up upon arrival, that is one thing. But, to catch fish for sport? I thought that was stupid.
I worried about the hooked fish. It had to hurt them. If I was hooked in the mouth, I would be screaming. I would still be screaming about it, forty some years later. I just knew that fish had feelings and shouldn’t be hooked in the mouth, dragged to shore, and then shoved into a bag like thingy until they died from being out of the water too long. Where is PETA when you need them?
But, after I realized that my dad was a real fisherman, there was no talking to him. He went fishing all the way up to Canada. North Bay, and more specifically, Lake Nipissing. That name cracked me up when I was little. I still laugh at how I laughed. But, if there was a place to throw a pole in the water, he was there. He went fishing under the Freedom Way bridge that led from our Weirton to Steubenville, Ohio, home of Dean Martin. I would go fishing there with him a lot. He caught a lot of fish there and would put them on a chain like thingy and let them flop around in the water while he caught more. One time I pulled the rod out of the muck and they all floated down the river. Oops. Fish on a chain.
Now, the Paris Sportsmen Club was just a little bit creepy for me. Creepy in that there were high weeds here and there surrounding the pond. Someone needed to pull on some rubbery wading pants and go pull some weeds. Cattails were immense. But, among the weeds and cattails were unseen creatures, I feared. Bullfrogs used to scare me to death. And I saw a snake swim by one time. Of course, I told my mom he crawled beside me while I sat on the bank. I was such a little story teller.
But, above every thing else, I was the most wary of the flying machines. You know, dragonflies.
Dragonflies at the Paris Sportsmen Club were evil. I swear one chased me on purpose. I would run one way and it would fly across the pond and head me off at the path. Ok, well, maybe there were more than one and they were just flitting around, but I didn’t see it that way. Their intent was to sting the shit out of me. They approached me like helicopters hovering over the Viet Cong and the rice paddies. Ok, I’m using my imagination. Also, the club was on Devil’s Den Road. What’s that tell ya?
I never really understood their purpose, but I watched them enough to know that they seemed to rule the roost. Birds eat worms. Snakes went after baby frogs. Who the hell wants to mess with a dragonfly? Dragon fly. I liked the name, but it evoked fear. Could it spit fire at me while it chased across the moors? Yes, I’m in Great Expectations and I’m Pip. Run, Pip, Run. I realize I had not heard of Great Expectations when I was little, but you get my point. I would make scenarios up in my head as we traveled to the Paris Sportsmen Club each time we went.
I would stand by my dad for a while, because the dragonflies didn’t come near my dad. He had a hat full of fishing crap on his head. I always wondered why he put lures and hooks and little bobbers on his hat. Who knew that fisherman were stylish? But, anywho, the head dragonfly this particular day, aka winged monkey dragonfly was going to leave the great Oz with the fishing lure hat alone because he was oh so great and powerful. No, they were coming for me, aka Dorothy, from West Virginia. My house landed on my mom and I had to put on red tennis shoes and find Oz. Red pom poms on my shoes would have to do. So, I couldn’t be standing near Oz to begin with if I was going to play Wizard of Paris Sportsmen Club, now could I? I would have to head down the side of the pond and see what I could find to represent the scarecrow. My mom headed us off that morning before we left.
“Vickie, you can’t take Susie with you out there!” She grabbed my little terrier from my arms.
Damn, caught. I tried to take Susie the dog, aka Toto, to the Paris Sportsmen Club with me that morning. How the hell can you play Wizard of Oz without a damn dog? She just pissed me off. That’s why the house landed on her that day.
Just great. We were only there for about thirty minutes when it began to rain. I was just starting to make a scarecrow out of sticks and cattails when I heard Oz (I mean Dad) call for me. We ran to the car and drove home. Those damned winged monkey dragonflies would have to wait another day.
I did find out something interesting that day. My dad told me while we were driving home that dragonflies can’t bite or sting.
I just stared at him. The hell you say.
I had been going out to the Paris Sportsmen Club with him for as long as I could remember, and he just got around telling me this crucial piece of information when I was like eleven. Thanks, Dad. Although actually, I think he kept that to himself. He had to watch me talking to myself, making up role-playing games while he fished. The dreaded dragonfly would have become just a bug, and perhaps I would have become bored while waiting for him to hook yet another poor little fish. That was an interesting ride home in the rain.
So, when it would rain and we would be stuck in the house, I would sometimes draw pictures of dragonflies. I couldn’t draw worth a shit, but they were dragonflies nontheless. I admired them but feared them. I just knew that the next time we went to the Paris Sportsmen Club, a huge, dragonfly monster was going to rise up out of the cattails in the creepy part of the pond and pick me up with their wicked fly claws and carry me away. Or drop me over the middle of the pond, where another water creature would be waiting for me. Like the gigantic fish with the whiskers. Don’t let the name “catfish” fool you. Catfish were evil too.
The Paris Sportsman Club 2012..The damn cattails are still there.
Well, I guess I got a little older and I was just too cool to go with my dad to the Paris Sportsmen Club anymore. I never went fishing after sixth grade or so. But, the dragonflies weren’t done with me yet.
Several years ago, we had just finished dinner, when my son called me out onto our patio.
“Oh my God!” I could not believe my eyes.
Now, you have to understand that we had an in-ground pool and a pond. Several neighbors had ponds. We were used to an errant dragonfly or two, hanging around. By this time, they were beautiful to me and my favorite insect. Everyone has a favorite insect, right? I had a dragonfly shower curtain in our pool house and dragonfly hooks for the towels. I was all about dragonflies.
But, what I saw made me smile, nervously. There were thousands and thousands of dragonflies heading toward us. And they didn’t stay high up in the sky, like the Canadian geese do when they migrate. Was this a migration or was this a swarm? Like a swarm of Paris Sportsmen Club descendants finally coming for me.
I mean, that’s what had to be going on, right?
Ok, kidding. But, what a sight!
We stood on the patio and watched them fly through. It was remarkable, but eery at the same time. Was it the end of the earth? Would some of those flying beasts have the face of a lion? Revelations and all that scary stuff. A dragonfly apocalyse.
Some of them hung around for a day or two. Stragglers came for a few days afterwards. So, of course, I went right to the internet and found out that green darners, among other species of dragonflies, migrate in swarms through our area toward North and South Carolina. I had lived on that hilltop for sixteen years and never saw such a sight. I am thinking maybe they were a bit west of their normal path perhaps.
photo princeton.edu
Perhaps.
So, that brings me why I am writing this today. I am wondering again about dragonflies. It seems that there are dragonflies in the parking lot of our local Walmart. I’ve noticed them for a few years now, and they are back again today. Why a Walmart parking lot? Maybe there was a pond at one time where this stupid Walmart was built a while back and by instinct they come back here. Nothing else makes sense. A parking lot is a stupid place for dragonflies to hang out.
As I unlocked my door to put my groceries in the back of my car, a dragonfly flew right in front of my face.
My parents never took me to the beach when I was little. I really don’t know why. I’m sure my mom had something to do with it. Three kids were too much for her. But, then again, she said we couldn’t have a real Christmas tree because she was allergic to pine needles. After I grew up and had my own kids, she laughed and told me that she wasn’t really allergic to pine needles, just picking up dead pine needles all over the house. The bitch.
So, yeah, I’m thinking that the reason we never went to the beach was because of my mother. I guess I can understand why. I would be off into the ocean, trying to make friends with a stingray. Cheryl would get mad and march off into the beach sunset, never to be found again. David would just sit and play with a toy truck in the sand, smiling all the while. David would have been a great beach person.
So, we just took trips around the state of West Virginia. Sure, we also ventured down to Tennessee to visit my mom’s best friend or over to Virginia to visit my cousin, Jackie. We went to Canada and watched my dad fish. But, other than that, we stayed in the WV, Pennsylvania, and Ohio perimeter. Which was ok. I didn’t know about how much fun people were having at the beach.
And therefore, I also didn’t know that people could build stuff out of sand.
What??? How cool would that be? If I saw something like this when I went to the beach when I was little, that’s what I would want to do for a living. Yes, I would then want to grow up to be a sand sculpturer.
photo pinterest
If I saw this on the beach I would not go in the water. I would first stare at this for about 30 minutes, and then I would want to create my own.
Ok, yeah, I would get frustrated at first. My mom would have handed us buckets and shovels without involvement. She would just stand over us, looking around. My dad, who would have been filming us as he always did, would hand my mom the camera and would show us how to build a sand castle.
But, that wouldn’t be good enough for me. I mean, I just saw a freaking alligator/dragon sand sculpture. I would want to make something special. Bucket forms in a circle with a shell on the top of each one was not creative enough now that I saw art.
Pure art.
How about something like this, Dad?
Or this.
Oh, yes. I would have given up my smoking actress employment route and taken up sand sculpture for a living. But, alas, my parents never took me to the beach when I was little. I never got to make sand castles with little plastic buckets. I never got to dig a hole and cover up my mother.
I had to wait until I was older. When I had my own kids. Well, not to cover up my mother.
Since I wasn’t able to go to the beach until I was in college, I tried to make up for it by going about every summer. We first started by going to Ocean City, Maryland, where they had wonderful beach sculptures. But, most of the ones we saw were religious. I just didn’t care if the guy worked on it for forty days and forty nights, I just was not into religious stuff. Give me a freaking dragon/alligator or something like this please:
I would love to see this. Young Vickie and older Vickie. I would have stared at it for thirty minutes and then would take the kids to build our own.
Well, except, that since my parents didn’t take me to the beach when I was little, I developed no talent or skill for sand castle making. Actually, I sucked. We did bury my son one year up to his neck and made him into a mermaid without his knowledge. We would giggle as we molded breasts for him and told him we were making him into a beachy strong man with big arm and leg muscles. It was a pretty good mermaid.
But, other than that, no skill. I wouldn’t let the kids use the formed buckets. No, we were going to make a castle with just our hands. Well, not like this one-
This was done by someone whose parents took him/her to the beach when they were little.
Even this one was done by a former beach child I am sure. This kid’s parents owned a beach house. I bet I am right. He probably sculpted this with his eyes closed. That’s how good kids can get at sand sculptures when their parents take them to the beach for vacation. Can’t sculpt out of sand when you are in car heading to Canada to watch your dad fish.
No, I will admit when I have no skill set. So,we were going to make drip castles! I watched someone make drip castles when I was pregnant with Adam. That was the summer that I wore a bathing suit that was green and red with black specks. At seven months pregnant, I looked like a damn watermelon.
So, I learned all about drip castles. I was ready for kids. They would go to the beach every summer, damnit, and learn to sculpt.
So,I found that the sand at Ocean City, Maryland wasn’t as good as the sand at Myrtle Beach for some reason. The first time I started scooping up sand, I was in heaven. I turned into a kid and would sit on the beach all day making the best drip sand castle ever. The one above, no offense, was nothing to the ones the Pellillo family made every year at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We would sign our creation before we left for the evening and put a big WV beside our name. Yes, I was finally able to make a sand castle! Yeehaw!
It wasn’t until my kids were a bit older, and I realized that they had given up after an hour or so of drip castle building, that I found that I was all by myself. I was sitting in a water hole in my Mickey Mouse t-shirt, dripping away on fantastic spires, when I looked at some women that were parked nearby. They were sitting with full make-up on, sun visors on perfectly coiffed hair, with their bright, long, red fingernails resting on the beach sand chair arms. They were my age and they were watching me.
I felt stupid. My kids abandoned the magic family drip sand dripping castle making and went into the ocean with their boogie boards and their father. I didn’t even know they were gone. Adam was working on one of the many bridges and Alex was working on making the roads throughout the kingdom while I sat in my water hole scooping up new wet drippy sand to create yet another forest tree. But, alone I sat. I had my hair pulled back into a ponytail and was wearing a freaking Mickey Mouse over sized t-shirt.
Wasn’t I supposed to be behaving like the golf widows right beside me? Wasn’t I supposed to be sitting in a beach chair, reading a book and watching people walk by?
I guess my drip castle making days were over.
I never made another drip castle. Oh sure, I made some right beside my chair, like the sad looking starter kit that I made in 2010, when I took my kids to the beach after my divorce.
Adam joined in for a while, which made me happy. But, for the most part, we were over drip castles.
Time to read books and watch people.
Until the grandkids come along. Grandma Vickie will explain to them how a drip castle is made.
One of my students had her tonsils and adenoids removed this morning. I really need to write down the things she says in class, because she is so funny. Her biggest concern was that she had to be at the hospital at 6:00. “Ms. Mendenhall, I have to be at the hospital at 6:00. I mean, I don’t have to leave my house at 6:00. I have to BE at the hospital at 6:00.” Isn’t it funny what kids are concerned about? I would have been afraid of strange doctors in my personal space, hovering over me and asking me questions.
“Did you eat anything this morning, Vickie?”
“Um…. I had Sugar Pops for breakfast.” I wanted to say, “Get the hell out of my space. Don’t you see that box around me? Stay on the other side.” Not a fan of space invaders.
My student’s mom just told me on Facebook that K. wore her jammies to the hospital. She told her mom, “I look a mess, but it’s not like I’m going to be on tv.” I love that kid.
It also took me back in time, like everything does. It took me back to when my son, Adam, had his tonsils and adenoids removed.
I wrote about this a long time ago. But, I combined it with snow days, breaking out in chicken pox, and my cabin fever as a result of all of those happening in sequence. Stick a Fork in Me Cuz I am Done It was a weird spring.
When Adam was little, he seemed like he was sick all of the time. He had pneumonia several times. There is nothing worse than a child with a 105 degree fever. I had “mother judgement calls.” You just never know how long is too long before you load them off and race towards the emergency room. He was sick almost every Christmas.
He had drainage all the time. It was so bad that his second grade teacher sent me a note that his continuous clearing his throat was driving her crazy. Well, she didn’t write that, but that is what she meant. And when he would clear his throat, he would quietly utter, “Oh yeah,” which I think was his way to check if he could speak correctly. Like “Check one-two. Check.” Sound system ok. I felt so sorry for him.
So, after NUMEROUS trips to his pediatrician, who I swear put him Augmentin 300 times, I took him straight to an ENT, who announced that his adenoids were so huge, he could see them. I guess you aren’t supposed to be able to see adenoids. His tonsils had to come out.
When I took him back to his regular pediatrician and told him that I took him to an ENT, my doc looked at me like he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. We never saw that doctor at that practice again. I’m still pissed at him for letting my son go that long. If a kid is in 3rd or 4 th grade and has had several bouts of strep throat and numerous colds and congestion, get his damn tonsils taken out. I know that I am not a doctor, but I pretend to be one. I’m just saying that the difference is sudden and remarkable.
The scheduled surgery was right when it looked like school was going to be back in session after the perpetual snow event of that winter. Figures..
Adam’s surgery went well and when he came home I made him a bed on the couch in our Hearth Room so he wouldn’t have to go up and down the steps for awhile. I also made the HUGE mistake of giving him a bell to ring for me. I wanted him to rest, so I thought that if I gave him a bell, that he could just tap it when he wanted something. Ding Ding! He wanted paper and a pen, so he could write me notes. Smart kid…Ding Ding! He wanted his Lego’s. Ding Ding! He wanted his stuffed animal, Bear. Ding Ding! He wrote that he wanted his stuffed animal penguins, Preston and Prescott. Freaking Ding Dong!
I better warn K.’s mom not to do the same. I walked in after only two hours, and quietly snatched the bell away from him. So, the mute improvised, and started tapping his pencil against his glass of water. I created a tonsil-less monster.
For the love of sanity, don't give her a bell.
I really don’t remember how long he stayed home from school after he had his tonsils taken out, but I think it may have been 6 months. Ok, not 6 months, but it felt like that. His tonsils were healing nicely and he was ready to go to school. Well, that would have been nice, but that’s not what happened. He woke up one morning, and said he didn’t feel well. I felt his forehead and he felt a bit warm. I noticed that there was something on the tip his nose. At first I thought it was a booger. Kids wear boogers sometimes. I hurried and raised his pajama top. Shit. “OH MY GOD!” I said out loud. I never cursed in front of the kids, but if I did, I would have said something like this-” Are you shitting me?…… Damnit!”
Yeah, Adam was breaking out with chicken pox.
And then his sister broke out with chicken pox.
And that’s how I started drinking. Ok, just kidding, but minus the damn chicken pox mess, having Adam’s tonsils removed made a huge difference.
A lot of people have big problems with particular sights or smells. When I was young, my dad had a huge problem with an errant hair lying in the bathroom sink, smiling up at him. We could hear him gag. I really don’t know what it was about a hair in the sink, but it troubled my dad to no end. I would always blow dry my hair in front of the sink after my shower, so it’s not like it was dirty or anything. But, it never failed. Gag.
I, on the other hand, always had a problem with smells. Sights of gross or yucky things really never bothered me. When I was in fourth grade I would sit and watch a kid pick scabs off of his arms or legs and eat them. He was a booger eater too. As I got older, sight still never bothered me. When I had my wisdom teeth taken out, I asked to watch the procedure by looking through overhead mirrors. But, smells were a completely different animal. Completely different.
I can’t handle smells. I never could. I think the first smell that really bothered me was the smell of someone’s feet when they took off tennis shoes that were worn without socks. Just really bad. But, it really hit me hard when I was pregnant with both of my kids. Why do smells bother pregnant women so badly?
Women in their first trimester usually notice a heightened sense of smell. Bodies are changing and doing weird things to us. We have morning sickness, we crave crazy food, and we gag with smells. What fun!
I went around my school and asked a few people what smells bothered them when they were pregnant. One said “coffee.” Another said, “boiled chicken.” Mine were “pork chops,” among a hundred other smells. It then made me think of my friend, Jeanie.
When Jeanie was pregnant, she got very very sick while watching tv. It was a Karl Malden commercial for the American Express commercial, “Don’t leave home without it.” She wasn’t sure if there was a particular trigger to one of her senses that sent her running for the bathroom, but she told me that after that, every time that damn commercial came on during her pregnancy, she would vomit.
When I was a pregnant, smells drove me crazy. It didn’t just last the first trimester. It lasted until, well, today. But, I especially remember one day in particular.
I was standing in line at the grocery store. It was busy that hot, July day. I was standing in a line with about six people and their filled carts. I had two people in front of me and two behind me. There were just as many people in the aisles to the right and to the left of me. And dear God, someone smelled.
I was stuck. I could have lost my mind and asked people behind me to back up a bit, but I thought I would just breathe through my mouth. I could do that and not smell a thing. Well, except that I had a lovely summer cold and couldn’t breathe out of my nose that well. I was stuffed up. So, I had to smell the smell. So, I put index finger under my nose, which does not help whatsoever. My eyes started watering. My stomach started churning. I was ready to start gagging. The man in front of me kept looking at me. He was probably worried that I was going to throw up on him. Surely he could smell the smell.
I finally made it to the conveyor belt and was seriously considering bolting out the door. The body odor was that bad. As I was putting my grocery items on the belt, I just happened to glance out of the window into the parking lot. The man who was in front of me was putting his items in his car, when all of a sudden, he looked around, as if he was looking to see if anyone was in the parking lot. He then raised his right arm and smelled his armpit. He did the same thing to this left arm.
That poor man thought he was the culprit. It made me laugh. I finally made it out the door and on to my next smell.
I haven’t had a cold in a long long time, so whenever a bad smell comes at me, I can just breathe through my mouth. I only have time for the great smells out there. Like the smell of the wild garlic/onion grass after the grass is cut. Like the smell of homemade bread, waiting for me. And like the smell of hazelnut cream candle. Good smells.
So, pregnant or soon to be pregnant women, prepare to smell like you’ve never smelled before.
I really didn’t want to get snow. It is April 23 for God’s sake. What is wrong you weather people? We can’t have snow this late. I watched the Weather Channel off and on all Sunday, watching them adjust the predicted snow amounts.
First it was 4-6 inches of snow, with up to a foot or more in the higher elevations. After it was all in done with, we could see much more. We were going to lose our electricity because of the weight of the wet, heavy snow on the newly leafed trees. We were told to go to the store and buy a generator. But, whatever you do, don’t place it inside your home. Purchase batteries for your flashlights. Get some candles, because, well, we may not have electricity for days. If you stay home, make sure you have plenty of blankets. Drive to your local supermarket and buy milk and bread, as you may be stuck in your home for a few days.
A friend on Facebook feared it was Zombie Apocalypse time. I agreed. Something was not right. It had to be the Zombies. Or weather men who, despite their expensive techno gear and capabilities to forsee the weather future, still can not pinpoint a damn thing for us. So, although some areas of Pennsylvania and West Virginia got some snow, we did not get the anticpated snow. Actually, none and all.
We got rain. That’s it. Rain. And now, at 5:16, the sun is shining. Bravo, Weather Channel. I’m glad I didn’t go out and buy provisions.
Like I did for the blizzard of 1977.
Ah, the blizzard of 1977. I remember it well.
I was in college, attending Fairmont State College. Now, you have to understand that our college president, Wendall Hardway, would never postpone classes for a weather event. If a bomb dropped on the campus, he would not have postponed classes. I remember two days when the campus did not have water. Honey Badger Hardway didn’t give a shit. Go to class dirty. Stick a scarf on that greasy head. Classes were NEVER postponed or cancelled. Even when the blizzard was approaching.
At the time of the big blizzard of 1977, I was living on View Avenue, in a big white house with four other girls. Paula and Jeri were expecting their boyfriends for the weekend. It was Friday. We all got up that morning and got ready for classes. We had heard about the approaching blizzard, but not really. Now, you have to understand that we didn’t have the Weather Channel back then. We didn’t have the internet that would let us have our very own personal radar screens to check every hour. How cool would that have been? No, we had channel 12, WBOY, and their little studio only had half of a weather map. You could never see what the weather was like out west, because there wasn’t enough room in their little studio for a full sized map. The camera never panned over that way. I know this to be true…… Or maybe it was WDTV. Regardless, we had those stations and the big Pittsburgh stations letting us know that there was a blizzard in the making.
The National Weather Service was predicting a huge winter storm to hit West Virginia. Emergency announcements were being made on the radio stations.
But, we knew school would never be cancelled. Never. I drove my little rusty car, Rusty, up on campus, parked her, and started to walk from the parking lot down the hill to the student union when I saw National Guard trucks driving onto the campus. I will exaggerate and say that there were ten vehicles because I really don’t remember how many there were. I didn’t know why they were there. Maybe it was National Guard Day and they were having a ceremony in the ballroom of the student center.
It didn’t take me long to figure out that something was up. Students were either laughing or upset, scurrying by like little mice trying to find a mouse hole. I stopped a boy who was walking passed me, smiling from ear to ear.
“They are here to shut down the college!” And that’s all he said.
What???
Well, I found out soon enough that Governor Jay Rockefeller had sent in the National Guard to shut down Fairmont State College because Wendell Hardway refused to close the campus. A freaking historic blizzard was on its way and Rockefeller didn’t want anyone traveling home for the weekend in the midst of it. He didn’t want anyone on the streets. National guardsmen were holding bull horns and were driving slowly, telling everyone to go home. A blizzard was coming and the college was shutting down.
The hell you say? I just stood there and stared. Well, this was surreal. This is stuff you see in the movies. Big Jay Rockefeller sent in the big guns to shut down our fair little campus. I bet the honey badger was really pissed..and did give a shit.
Well, I obliged, but first went into our student center, The Nickel, to talk the situation over with everyone. The place was buzzing, but emptying out at the same time. There was a National Guardsman in the Nickel. Wow.
So, I drove home. As soon as I got in the door, my roommate Pat looked at me and said, “We need to go get provisions.” Provisions. Wow. It even sounded serious. There was a freaking historic blizzard racing towards us. Of course we had to get provisions. We immediately hopped in my car and went to the local Dairy Mart.
Well, others must have thought about this too, because the place was jammed. Luckily, we must have gotten there early because there were still a couple of loaves of bread on the shelf and milk in the cooler. So, Pat bought a couple of packs of cigarettes and some pop, and I bought pop and some potato chips. We were ready to be snowed in for weeks. Oh, hell, let’s drive to McDonald’s too.
When we arrived home, our other roommates were beside themselves because their boyfriends were supposed to be on their way. They lived about 2 hours away and were traveling on Interstate 79. Cell phones were not invented yet, so they didn’t hear from them for quite a while. They were supposed to be there by now.
Meanwhile, Pat and I sat on the couch, waiting for the blizzard, looking out the picture window. I was visualizing the boys, Joe D. and Donald, being blown off the interstate by the blizzard. God rest their souls.
The boys never made it. Governor Rockefeller had shut down the interstate. The National Guardsmen, who were everywhere throughout the state that day, had turned them back.
“There’s a blizzard on the way. You better turn back and go straight home.”
The boys turned around and called from a phone booth at the nearest gast station to let Paula and Jeri that they would not be arriving in Fairmont. More provisions for us.
It was early evening by now and we were watching the news. Everyone in the mountain state were off the roads. We braced for the blizzard of the century. Charleston, our state capitol, was a ghost town. No one was on the streets. Rockefeller made sure we would be ready and that the road crews would not have to contend with stranded motorists. The newly inaugurated governor was making his first executive decisions. This blizzard was going to be brutal.
According to WSAZ television:
“It is important for people living in the following counties to understand that throughout this night, they will be on a blizzard alert tonight,” said Rockefeller in 1977.
Blizzard alert. Dear God, there is going to be snow piled up past our doors. Thank goodness Jeri and Paula had bought food for hungry boyfriends or we would starve.
Well, the massive blizzard never came. The wind picked up a little, and perhaps a dusting of snow lay on the ground. I sat on the couch for hours. awaiting its arrival. My mom called to make sure I wasn’t “stupid” and would not venture out in the blizzard. I was not going to drive in a blizzard. I was, however, planning to go outside so I could say I witnessed a blizzard. But, it never came.
1977 Blizzard. Hit everywhere but West Virginia
Our governor took a ribbing for many years and the blizzard is now called “The Rockefeller Blizzard.” The state of West Virginia actually shut down. The National Guard learned from this mistake and since then does not mobolize until the storm actually hits.
The only one I think that loved the result of the whole blizzard scenario was Fairmont State President, Wendell Hardway. I could just picture him chuckling over the outcome. And I thought of old Wendell when this storm was supposed to hit us this morning, April 23, 2012.
But, you know what? When I heard about the storm approaching, I hopped in my car and went to the Dairy Mart for two- 20 ounce Cokes.
I guess there are a lot of things that just grate my nerves. I already wrote about the whistler that was following me in Walmart. I loathe people who chew their food and make that disgusting smacking noise. Keep your mouth shut please. And I want to be a teacher and hold out the palm of my hand to all gum snappers. You know who your are.
I would have to say that gum snapping ranks in my top 5 of “Things That Make Me Want to Slap Someone.” I really can’t stand it.
Years ago, while I was sitting in church, I heard a woman behind me snapping her gum. I looked behind me and gave her a look. Oh, it was just a fake smile kind of look. I wanted to connect the sound to the face to see if I could take her. Gum snappers have no place on this earth. Well, she must have just put the Dentyne in her mouth (I saw the wrapper) and she just really went to town on it. My daughter, also a gum snapper hater, gave me a look that rivaled mine. I was impressed and proud. But, the church gum snapper lady would not stop. No one else seemed to be bothered. Gum snappers remind me of cows chewing their cud. And this cow had to stop.
The church I belong to is not one of those raise your hands in the air and talk out loud kind of churches. But, I wanted to turn it into one of those that Sunday morning. I wanted to raise my hands in the air, sway them from left to right and then stand up and exclaim to the congregation-
“Dear people…. the lord just spoke to me!…… (Gasps from the crowd I am sure) And he told me that this woman (pointing to the gum snapper) is going to be struck down by a Mack truck…..this afternoon….if she does not stop her gum snappin ways.”
I could only dream. Well, I stopped attending church and so I don’t have that problem anymore. Yes, I run away from my problems. It’s hard to do when you are on a plane, however. Yes, there was a huge gum snapper in the airport while we were waiting for our flight to Cancun last summer. There was no way I was going to sit with a gum snapper in a closed in space for a couple of hours. It was not going to happen. I would have to shake and then slap her. I moved from where I was sitting at gate whatever and could still hear her. Shit. Thank God she ran out of gum and even told her husband she was out of gum. She was going to hurry and buy some before boarding the plane, but her husband told her no. She looked like a drug addict waiting for withdrawl. I was pleased.
So, imagine my surprise when I was looking at images on pinterest last night and came across a photo of a gum wrapper chain. Wow, I haven’t seen one of those………..since I made one in the early seventies. Completely forgot about those things.
Wow. I made a gum wrapper chain. I forgot about that. I made one either in junior high or high school. I hung it in my bedroom, running it all around the perimeter of my room. Sort of looked like a narrow little border. My room was about 13×13, so it was a long chain. And I made it. So, was I a reformed gum snapper? I had to think back.
You know, reformed people are the worst kind. Former cigarette smokers are judgemental. They will tell you to your face how bad cigarette smoking is for you. Well, some of them are. I don’t want to piss anyone off here. Some people who never wore their seat belt until they had an accident now won’t start the engine until everyone is fastened up. And some people who didn’t attend church and now found God will let you know all about it. So, was I a gum hater because I once was a gum snapper?
I don’t know how I came across making gum wrapper chains, but I was all about making one. It was easy to learn. Not so easy yesterday, when I tried to make one on my own. I forgot how it was done. Luckily, the interneter gods have photos and videos all about making a gum wrapper chain.
First, you need about a thousand gum wrappers. I remember asking my friends for their empty chewing gum wrappers. Throw away the silver inner wrapper and give me the outer one. I also remember chewing a lot of gum for the gum wrapper chain.
I don’t remember how long it took me to make the chain. I wanted to wrap it around my bedroom. And I refused to stop until I was done. I kept it as one long chain, so I am sure I kept standing on my bed to see how far it had made it around my room. I realize that I could have just laid it on the floor and run it around the same way, but I was an airhead, so I did it my way.
I never made a pattern with my gum wrapper chain like the person did in the above photo. I had no time to be colored coordinated. It was like one of those pot holders I weaved. Random colors. I was all about being random. My OCD anal ways didn’t rear its ugly head until much later.
It’s funny how memories can be supressed. I now remember my mom yelling at me to stop snapping my gum. Dentyne to be exact. It was the most snapable gum. Really. Dentyne.
So, I was one of those………..Wow.
I don’t chew gum so much anymore. I only chew it when I fly because that’s what I was told to do so my ears wouldn’t explode. I was fine this last trip to visit my daughter in New York City. And I didn’t sit by anyone who was a gum snapper either.
I wish I would have kept my gum wrapper chain. I remember taking it down when I went off to college when my little sister took over my room. I simply threw it away. I spent hundreds of hours making that damn thing and I just threw it away.
Maybe I didn’t want to be remembered as a gum snapper.
There are only a couple of things that are great about being 55…..Thinking…Thinking….Ok, there is one great thing about being 55.
I don’t have a period anymore.
Ok, guys, some of you are going to quit reading now. And that’s ok. But, if you have daughters, you should keep reading. Because you are going to hear her speaking in a language you don’t understand. You are going to think that she is doing something she is not supposed to, because she is talking in code. But, the lingo is geared to not let dad’s, brothers, or boys to understand what is going on. It’s “Period speak.”
Ok, yeah, maybe I made up that phrase, but it is alive and well. “Period Speak” has been around since, well, women have been having periods. It shouldn’t be a secret, but we think our code is just for those in the female persuasion.
Now, the whole reason I am writing this post is because I heard a teen-age girl on her cell phone yesterday. She was standing beside some dork who I assumed was her boyfriend, because I heard the code.
“No, I don’t feel like doing anything. I’m just going to go home and lie on the couch….Yeah…. my friend is visiting. Giggle.”
I had to chuckle. She heard me chuckle. She could have flipped me off for eavesdropping, but she smiled at me and then looked at her boyfriend. He was clueless. Maybe he thought he was the friend and was going to go home and lie on the couch with her. He would have been fine with that.
Most girls use the “my friend is visiting” scenario when talking about their period. So, you are probably wondering, “Why the hell can’t you just call it your period and be done with it?” Well, because we can’t. It’s against the laws of puberty. Or something like that.
When I started my period for the first time, I remember to this very day, going straight to my mom, scared to death. She was sitting in the kitchen. My dad was in the family room, and I did NOT want him to hear what I had to say.
“Mom, George is visiting.” She just stared at me. So, I said it again, this time out of the corner of my mouth. “George. is. visiting.”
“Vickie, what is wrong with you. Gen and George are not here.”
Ok, we had a friend named George. A real person. Not a period. Obviously, my mother had never had a period.
Shit. My older friends who had their periods told us on the bus to say, “I can’t. George is visiting.” Every one of them used “George” as their code phrase for their period. I was just doing what they told me to do. Hell, I didn’t know. It’s scary to go to the bathroom and see that you are bleeding to death. My mom never explained a damn thing to me. Still pisses me off.
So, I tried the other code phrase. “Mom……It’s that time of the month.”
It took her a few seconds and then she got it. She told me to grab my sweater and we would go to the store and get some napkins.
WTF? Napkins? My friends all wore pads. Back in the late sixties, we had to wear a white belt-like apparatus around our hips. A sanitary “napkin” belt. There was a metal thingy in the front and one in the back to weave our pad ends through them. I am terrible at explaining this. Regardless, she had to take me to the store. Why the hell didn’t we have any in the house? It just made a better case that my mom must have never had a period.
“Elwood, Vickie and I are driving to the drug store. She started her period.”
I stopped in my path. You didn’t just say that……to my father!! Oh my God, Mom. I will never be able to look him in the eyes ever again. I will have to go live with my bff Ramaine or something. I almost started crying. I thought that we were supposed to talk in code so males would not know that we are on our period. We were never to use the word “period” in front of them. I was beside myself. I was bleeding to death and mortified. Plus, the stupid loon of a mother could have easily told me to put some kleenex in my underpants until she got home. But, hell, no, I had to go with her. Hello, Mom…Um, period….flow…..needs…to…..stop. Shit. This just sucked.
Well, time went by and I finally learned that you don’t need to change your pad every ten minutes. My mom was pissed when we had to go back to the drug store the next day. Well, shit, Mom. It sort of would have been nice if someone explained to me that we had to sit in that disgusting pool of George.
I began to use my code phrases around the male family members and boys in school. I used the “I can’t. George is visiting.” Or I would say, “I can’t. My friend is here.” I think those are the only code phrases I used. I was not imaginative. Oh, if I would have heard someone else say another phrase, I would have surely used it. The girls in Weirton, West Virginia, used “George” for the most part.
So, it made me wonder what other girls would say. I have a feeling that the girls today just say it without embarrassment. “I can’t go. I’m on my period.” Boys get it. They probably got it back then, but we had to hide it. That’s just how it was back in the day.
So, I went looking on the internet and found some interesting code phrases for having a period. I found these on a yahoo forum from three years ago. Here are some of them:
“I had a roommate that would always tell me her unwelcome friend came for a visit. Sometimes I refer to it as Aunt Flo. And I’ll never forget the movie “Clueless” where they refer to it at “surfing the crimson wave.”
“Ha! When I was in 7th grade my girlfriends and I use to call it “Our Cat”. I forgot how we developed such a title-but there was some reasoning behind it. I just call it my period now. I guess I’m too old to use pet names.”
“I don’t remember how this came about. but me and my friend say were going to china. we hang around guys alot and they have no idea what were talking about … its hilarious when they ask and were like uuuhhh …. nothing inside joke.”
“Me and my friends have this thing we say “our leg hurts” and if we need to ask someone for a pad/tampon we say we “need ice for our leg” i don’t no how we came up with this though:)”
“dont remember where this came from but me and my friends refer to it as George, i feel bad for any guy with that name now though.” Ah, that girl must be from Weirton.
“….The volcano erupted….My redheaded cousin is in town…..I got my car…”
Here’s a creative one.. “China time (Asian flag has a red circle and I taught my daughter to refer to that part of her body as her “China”) But,um, isn’t that the Japanese flag?
Japanese flag, not the Chinese flag. I wonder how old they will be when they realize they have been calling their period the wrong country.
It sort of matters.And here is what the flag of China looks like.
photos via wikipedia
I bet that woman knew my mom. Unless you are quite talented, I don’t see how your period would form five points…and be yellow, unless you are tremendously jaundiced. Just sayin. Let’s continue.
“When I was in school my friends and I called it TOM…..TimeOfMonth.”
“It’s red week…or Aunt Flo is here visiting.”
“I say I’ve been cycling. No one realizes I don’t currently own a bike.” That’s a good one.
There are other phrases, such as “My curse,” the easy lie, “I can’t. I’m sick,” and for those who never did care who knew, “On the rag.” I always felt that those were the girls who would grow up to be sluts. How could you look a boy in the face and tell him you can go swimming because you are on the rag? I would shudder at the thought.
No, it would be better to obey the rules and never let them know when you are on your period.
Remember when you were very young and you were given shapes and had to put them in the holes of the same shape? Well, you shouldn’t, unless you played with them when you were eleven. But, most of us have played with those little shape finders. Some kids were stared at by some guy with a clipboard, clad in a long white jacket to determine how long it took you to put the circle block in the circle hole. If it took too long, then you were retarded. (Sorry, my word in my generation.) Regardless, we had to fit things where they belonged.
And now I am doing that again with an addiction called Pinterest.
Pinterest. It’s going to what gets me fired from my teaching job. I haven’t gone to Pinterest from school yet. But, I want to. But, for those of you who have not received your invitation yet, you are probably wondering, “Vickie, what exactly is a Pinterest?” Hell, I don’t know how to explain it.
It’s like gathering and sorting and putting things in their places. Things we like. And we put them in little squares and rectangles. And then we give those little “boards” names, like “My Style” or “Bucket List.” You see, Pinterest is for pinning our interests. Hence, the name Pin terest.
Say you like cats. Well, there are cute little images of cats that other pinteresters (my word) find on the web and upload onto one of their little boards. And then someone might see it and smile and think, “I like that, and then you would re-pin it, which means steal it in a way. Someone is doing the work finding an image online and you can take it for your own little categorized board. And then maybe your friend likes that picture and takes it from you. Oh, they don’t take it, per se, but copy it. And it goes on and on. It’s all the rage.
Being that my explanation sucks, let me say that lot of well known people have pinterest. Martha Stewart, Ellen DeGeneres, and Maria Shriver, to name a few. Maria Shriver is now following me. Yeah, you can follow people if you like their boards. You can even see if someone repins one of your pins. Doesn’t this sound fun?
So, as mentioned so precisely, a board is where you put everything from one category. Here are some random boards that people have on their pinterest:
Recipes to Try Travel Furry Friends Quotes My Style Christmas
Humor Sweet Tooth For the Birds For the House Products I Love Fall
You can have as many boards as you want on Pinterest. Some people only have five. Some have hundreds and thousands of followers. As of today, I have 70 boards. I am following 74 people and I have 50 followers. And right now I need to wash clothes. But, here I am, writing a blog post on my wordpress addiction about my new Pinterest addiction. I’m so glad I don’t smoke or drink.
I do worry about myself when I look at some of my board titles. I have some “normal” boards, but then I have weird ones. I mean, I have one titled, “Ventriloquist Dummies Creep Me Out,” where I have repinned a bunch of disturbing scary wooden people.
“Nuns Scare Me” is another board. Because, well, they do scare me.
And then I followed it with some food. A board just for dips. “Dip It, Dip It Good.” I liked that title.
Here’s a list of some of my other boards. Well, just in case something may catch your eye. And then you could say, “Hey, Vickie likes that too!”
1. My Blog-Jumping in Mud Puddles
2. Wanderlust
3. I Love Central Park
4. Favorite Movies
5. Quotes and Written Stuff
6. My Fascinating People
7. Hang it On a Wall
8. Animals I Like
9. I Dont Think So…
10. History Dork
11. Funny
12. Bare Ware
13.When Pigs Fly
14. Saturday morning Cartoons
15 All Things Mendenhall
Yeah, I could go on for another 55 titles, but you can see my sampling and the things that “pinterest” me. Don’t you want to be a pinterester too?
Katie Couric just pinned a bunch of pictures for one of her boards, “Best Advice Contributors.” Pretty interesting selection. Or perhaps I should say pinteresting. She’s getting into it, I can tell.
All in all, pinterest is a lot of fun. I’ve tried new recipes and now know that I can use tootpaste on a pimple.
WordPress, please don’t be jealous. I have several categories just for you, “Photo’s For My Blog” and “Blogs I Follow.” Writing is still my passion. But, pinterest is my obsession this month.
And that’s how easy it is to put a round peg in a square hole.
My crazy grandma Orpha used to have the best saying when I was little. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.” I had no idea what it meant at the time, but I liked the way she said it. Crazy people don’t know they are crazy. Or, in this case with a turnip truck, naive. So, when she said something like that, with such conviction, well, it always made me smile.
My grandfather was not allowed to drink coffee in “her” living room. I don’t think he ever spilled coffee to be banned from bringing it in her perfectly coiffed room. It is what he did to her that banned the dark wonder in a cup. Her living room was spotless. She had a light pinkish carpeting that we would draw circles in to use while we were playing marbles. Nothing was ever out of alignment.
But, when Grandpa would be allowed to have his after dinner coffee, he would mess with her. He would pretend to spill it.
Much worse.
And that’s when she would yell it from the kitchen. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, Arthur!”
One time, though, when she let me bring him an after dinner coffee to his chair in the living room, he smiled and winked and then whispered to me, “Run in the kitchen and tell Grandma I spilled the coffee.”
Not giving me a chance to say anything, Grandpa yelled out, “Oh, no, Vickie!!! Hurry, go get a wet towel!”
And I ran.
I ran right into Grandma Orpha, coming around the corner. Damn, she had the best hearing of any old lady anywhere.
“Um, Grandpa spilled the coffee.”
At hearing this, Grandma Orpha sort of brushed me aside and entered the living room, horror on her 1960′s OCD face. And that’s when Grandpa said it.
“Looks like Grandma finally fell off the turnip truck.”
Oops, we lost Grandma a mile back.
Well, Grandma didn’t get mad at Grandpa. She got mad at me. Crazy people don’t like when there is a conspiracy. She called my mom and I didn’t get to stay at their house that weekend. Grandpa went back to reading his paper and drinking the “spilled” coffee. He did wink at me as I left. I wondered who the crazy one really was.
Naive. That’s what it means, you know, falling off the turnip truck. And naive means, “gullible,” which my mother called me every chance she got.
“Oh, Vickie, you are sooo gullible.”
“Eat shit, Mom.”…………….. Ok, I didn’t say that. Oh, how I wanted to say something.
Ok, so, perhaps I was a bit naive about things…. A space cadet…… An airhead…… A blonde.
Yeah, maybe just a little.
That means I must have fallen off the turnip truck at some point.
So, years later when I decided that I wanted to be a writer, I joined wordpress to start the ball rolling. I was going to be a blogger. I wrote and read other people’s blogs, and wrote and read comments. It’s been wonderful.
But, I didn’t expect this spam nonsense.
I had thirty five spam messages just this morning, waiting for me.I rarely read them. Such a pain in the butt. I have just one question for spammers?
“Do you think I fell off the turnip truck?”
When I first joined wordpress, I began reading some messages that were in my spam filter. And I realized that they wanted me to think that they actually read my blog post. You little shits.
I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.
Here are some of the spam messages that I received in the past day. They are so well written that it is easy to be fooled. Really.
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Not realizing that they fell out of the turnip truck.
In the end, riding in the turnip truck at fifty-five is a great accomplishment. Oh, sure, I occasionally fall off.
But, for the most part, I am driving the damn truck.
My mom never really sang my virtues. No positive traits here. I remember when I ran for all-school treasurer for my senior year in high school. I was sitting on the floor, making posters, when my mom looked at me sadly, and said,
“Vickie, you sure are making a lot of posters………I don’t want you to get your hopes up….. You are probably not going to win.”
You have no idea how that statement pissed me off. I decided to try even harder. I had a couple guy friends even put my posters in the boy’s bathroom for me. Then I put them in every stall in every bathroom.
Psssst!
While you’re sitting here in this stall
Think about voting for Mendenhall
My name had great rhyming potential. I made up little posters out of copy paper and huge ones for the main halls. In the Music room:
Just a little “note”- Vote for Mendenhall
I did this all over the place. A message in the Spanish class, which was also my homeroom. I was a creative little shit, where others just had the generic, “vote for…” posters. And I won. Even had a full size picture in the yearbook of the class officers. Mom did congratulate me when I told her.
Me on the right
“I won, Mom.”
“You did? What a wonderful surprise! Congratulations!”
Wonderful SURPRISE. She always had to add something that stung me like a bee. And she is the one who always told me:
Sticks and stones
may break my bones
but words will never hurt me
Bullshit.
Fast forward many years. I have two wonderful children. We lived two hours away from my mom. So, of course, if you have good news, you would naturally call your loved ones to tell them. So, I would call my mom.
“Mom, the kids both won the county social studies fair and get to compete at the state level.” I was excited. Adam did his on Prohibition and gangsters and Alex did her project on Bigfoot. They were in middle school, a year apart. My mom thought that was great. When Adam won first place at the state level and Alex won honorable mention, I called her again.
“That’s great….. You know, you three kids did a lot of great things in school too…… I just never believed in bragging.”
I was pissed.
“Well, Mom, if informing you about what great things your grandchildren are doing in school is bragging, then I’m bragging. I’m very proud of them. And why the hell would I need to “brag” to my mother?…..I have to go.” And I hung up the phone.
Bragging. I had to think for a moment. Do I brag on my kids? Bragging. I remember looking it up in the dictionary, just like I did again right now. “To assert or talk boastfully” “in an arrogant manner…”
I guess for some, there is a fine line between being proud of accomplishments and bragging. I’m a proud mom. I think bragging is more about arrogance and a “Here’s another way I am better than you.” But to be proud and want to share that with others? I don’t think that is bragging.
Both my kids are very modest. Very humble. I remember when Alex won for Prom Queen. She told me with a sigh. I congratulated her with a “You are beautiful on the inside and on the outside. What a wonderful compliment! I’m so very proud of you.”
I didn’t call my mom.
Well, when we went shopping for a prom dress, I was just giddy. My daughter was prom queen. But, before we went into the first store, Alex looked at me and said, “Do NOT tell anyone that I am Prom Queen.” Well, stick a pin in my balloon. I did anyway, when she would be in the dressing room. “She’s prom queen at her high school.” Well, I can be proud. I wasn’t bragging. Right?
Now, as my children are in their mid-twenties, I am so very proud of them. Alex doesn’t want me to talk about her on facebook. Well, hell. She’s a humble little duck.
So, that made me think. Since I never really got stroked when I was little, am I over compensating with my own children? Did I brag too much? I surely hope not. Pride cometh before the fall and all.
Proud as one of these
You know, we were raised to be proud. Proud of our home. Proud of our children. Proud of our country. Proud of ourselves. If you think someone is bragging, then maybe the person talking is an idiot to begin with. I know mothers who go on and on about how smart their kid is. Hello. Parents are supposed to be proud of their kids. Proud of their first steps. Proud that they pooped in a real toilet or are wearing big boy pants. Proud that they got their first A and hang it on the refrigerator. Those are proud parents. Braggers talk like this:
“My Joey said his first word when he was two months old. He is going to be sooo smart. Your kid isn’t talking yet, right? And he is ten? Wow, Joey is really going to be smart.”
Now, that is bragging.
When Adam was a baby, and learnining to talk, I did something to piss my mom off. You know how parents always show their baby off? I call it, “Show me.” Show me your eye. Show me your nose. etc. etc. All parents do this. Don’t tell me you didn’t. Well, when they start verbalizing, parents then play, “Tell me.” Parent: “What is this?” Kidlet: “Nose.” Kids were now verbalizing their body parts. Well, I took it one step further and taught Adam where his clavicle was. “What’s this, Adam?” “Clav i cle.” And then I cracked up. I was basically making fun of the whole process, but my mom wasn’t amused. I didn’t want her to be amused. I wanted her to say something. I gave her my “Go ahead, make my day” look. She didn’t open her mouth.
In the end, I think mom’s need a “brag pass.” We should be allowed to brag if that is what you want to call it. I call it pride. Sure, some mom’s are idiots. But, they were idiots before they were moms.
So, the next time your child signs up to run for office or tries out for cheerleader, and you secretly don’t think they have a snowball in hell kind of chance, lie. If you can’t lie, then confuse them. I have a great line, stolen from the Hunger Games:
Technology has come a long way since the sixties. We now have personal computers, cell phones, and video games. Our cell phones are also personal computers and video games. Our personal computers are also movie theaters and music venues. We have many choices. Back in the sixties, we had a tape recorder.
Oh, my, what a newly purchased tape recorder can do for a kid. A tape recorder, also known as a cassette tape, or compact cassette, was originally designed for dictation. Secretaries all over the world were now able to just push a button instead of sitting across from their boss, steno book and pencil in hand, furiously writing in shorthand. Life was good.
photos via wikipedia
Philips invented the compact audio cassette in 1962, and the first compact cassette, creatively called Compact Cassette, was available for purchase. By 1966, over 250,000 recorders had been sold in the U.S. alone. And guess who had one of them? That’s right, the Mendenhall family.
Now, you have to understand why I was salivating. We really didn’t have much in the way of new fangled technology of any kind. Pong wasn’t even invented yet for use on our television sets. I don’t know if we even shortened the word television to T.V. yet. Our telephones had cords on them, attached to the wall. Oh, yes, I was salivating.
I quickly learned how to use our new Compact Cassette. I believe I was about ten years old at the time. Fourth grade was a memorable time, and now, Dear God, I had a tape recorder.
The excitement was just too much. My mom told me that I could play with it the next day, so I don’t think she was too happy that I woke her up so early.
“Mom, can I use the cassette recorder?”
“Vickie, it’s 6:00 in the morning. Go back to bed.”
Shit.
“Mom, can I use the cassette recorder now?”
“Vickie, stop it. It’s only 6:30.”
Stupid mom. Birds were up. I heard them chirping. Mom’s were supposed to be up early.
“Hey, Dad, can I use the cassette recorder? It’s 7:00.”
“Sure.”
Good Dad. Bad Mom.I was already dressed and ready. I don’t know why I had shoes on, but maybe I would run outside and let the world know that I recorded a message. I ran into the kitchen.There was a little plastic tri-pod that the microphone would sit on. I positioned it close to me. I remember that I was a nervous wreck I put the cassette in the player, and hit the record button. My first recording was thought provoking and highly imaginative.
“Testing. Testing, 1-2-3″…..giggle giggle giggle. Voila!! History was made.
I couldn’t wait to replay it and listen to my voice. I had never heard myself talk before. I looked at my mom, who was fumbling with the coffee pot and mumbling something about killing me.
“That doesn’t sound like me.” I sounded like a little girl. I mean, I was a little girl. I guess I wanted to sound, well, like a newscaster.
“That sounds exactly like you.” my mom replied. She lit her first of 88 cigarettes for the day. She sat in her housecoat at the table, waiting for her coffee to percolate. She wanted to try recording her voice. That pissed me off. I mean, shouldn’t she be in bed?
So, the rest of the Mendenhall family had to go and use MY cassette tape recorder for most of the morning. I went into the living room and watched Casper the Friendly Ghost on the television set. Actually, I have no idea what the hell I watched, but I did watch a cartoon, because our cartoons rocked back then.
Well, the unimaginative family members had their morning of fun with the newly purchased Cassette Recorder and went about their Saturday morning.business. I sat quietly, like a buzzard waiting for a groundhog to get hit by a car. I had plans for this tape recorder.
Oh, the fun I had. My first item on my tape recording agenda was to tape record sounds. I turned on the recorder and rang the doorbell. I slammed a door. I followed the dog around, trying to get him to bark. He wanted no part of me. I called my bff Ramaine and asked her to call me back so I could tape the telephone ringing. I taped anything and everything that I could make a sound out of . What a great weekend.
I had my bff, Ramaine, walk up later in the day. She was even more creative than I was. She would think of something we can use with the newly purchased Cassette Recorder. I do not remember how this was decided, but the next thing you know, we were singing the definition of ‘lima bean” into the tape recorder. I am sure no one else has ever done that before. Ever. We were highly imaginative. We then opened the dictionary again, pointing to a word and singing that definition, too. We laughed and laughed at our choice of leisure activity. She could sing. I, on the other hand, sounded like a drugged up back-up singer for Janis Joplin. Fun time with my bff.
Saturday evening was spy time. I put the recorder beside the couch. I realized that one side of the tape was only 30 minutes long, so I had to think of a way to push the button so my parents wouldn’t see me doing it. I was going to tape record things my parents talk about after we went to bed. What fun!
I waited until my mom went into the kitchen and talked loudly while playing with my dog so my dad wouldn’t hear me press the button. Success! I went to bed and could hardly sleep. I was so excited to spy on my parents. I began thinking bigger, like taping my teacher while we were at lunch. That may have been tricky, as we didn’t have back packs back then.
I woke up on Sunday morning, and ran to the living room. It was 6:00, so I was sure that the fam was still asleep. I re-wound the tape and waited, impatiently. This was going to be so much fun. I loved spying. I hit the play button. It was my mom’s voice. This was fantastic!!
“Vickie, the next time you try to tape record someone without letting them know about it, it would be a good idea to sneak back in the room and turn it off before it makes a loud noise turning itself off……You will have plenty of time trying to figure out how to do this while you are in your room. You are grounded.”
Shit.
Well, all in all, I had a blast with our newly purchased Cassette Recorder. I interviewed neighbors and friends, taped the sounds of grass cutting, and the Mr. Softie truck making his rounds through the neighborhood. I taped my sister having a temper tantrum. Life was good.
It’s the little things in life that make such a big memory.
And that’s one for the record books…or in this case, tape recorder.
The year was 1965. It was late fall, in the sleepy mill town of Weirton, West Virginia. Sitting in traffic with her three children, Georgiana Mendenhall was becoming agitated. This was a daily occurence on Cove Road, and Mrs. Mendenhall was in a hurry.
“This is ridiculous. I bet there is an old hoot up front, driving like a snail……I bet when we get where we can pass, there will be an old geezer up there. I betcha.”
Her daughter, Vickie, aged nine, took note of her mother’s words. This wasn’t the first time her mother had exhibited road rage. Vickie was sitting in the front seat, unprotected, and unaware that if her mother wrecked, Vickie would most likely go crashing through the windshield. Most likely.
Traffic was creeping. Vickie wished that she was in the backseat with her brother and sister. They were fighting, as usual, but yet it was always fun trying to avoid the sweeping slap that came from her mother, trying to swat at them to quit fighting while she was driving. Alone and seatbeltless in the front seat, made Vickie very aware of her situation as her mother’s road rage increased.
“Damnit the hell any way. Why are we moving so slowly. I NEED to get home.”
Georgiana Mendenhall did not NEED to get home. The woman was out of cigarettes and was slowly edging toward her next smoke. She was closer to her home than to a cigarette store. Of course, there was no such thing as a cigarette store in Weirton, West Virginia. Had there been, Mrs. Mendenhall would have worked there. She needed her Salem cigarettes, those cancer sticks in a green and white package.
Mrs. Mendenhall had no idea that she had left her pack of Salem cigarettes on the coffee table in front of the couch where she sat, inhaling the magic into her lungs. She smoked from the time she woke up until the time she went to bed. She smoked while cooking. She smoked while ironing. She smoked while smoking. She was indeed, addicted. The traffic was creeping, just as the hairs were creeping up on the back of Georgiana Mendenhall’s neck. She was ready to hit the car in front of her.
“Dear God, what is going on up there? If there is an old geezer causing this, I am going to ram him.”
Georgiana’s daughter was frightened for her life. For. her. life. She spoke not a word, however, because it would not make the situation any better. She just smiled to let her know that it was going to be ok.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Vickie?” Mrs. Mendenhall decided to take her edginess and point it right at her oldest child. “Do you think this is funny? I need to get home to fix dinner.” Vickie noted that her mother took grip of the steering wheel as if she were the Boston Strangler. The need for a smoke was becoming intense. Vickie later described the emotional turmoil in the automobile.
“Mom was falling apart. The Traffic jam was too much for her. I tried to joke with her, asking why it is called a traffic “jam” since you should be able to get through jelly. I thought it was funny, but she was having no part of it. She was ready to convulse.”
The children sitting in the back were blind to their mother’s growing need for a cigarette. They made matters worse by yelling at each other. Cheryl claimed that David was looking at her. David stated that he was not. Cheryl claimed that he was looking at her again. David stated that he was not.
And that’s when Georgiana Mendenhall lost her mind.
She began honking her horn. It wasn’t just a “beep beep” as in the Road Runner cartoons that her children loved so. It was a blare. Future writer Vickie noted the sound in a menagerie of synonyms she learned in fourth grade:
“It was a constant barrage, a cannonade, a unrelenting reverberation, vociferation, cacophonous,and dissonant.”
This did not make the traffic jam disband or hasten its agenda. Traffic was as slow as molasses on a summer day in the desert.
Vickie looked over at her mother. Georgiana Mendenhall looked like she was holding a pretend cigarette in her right hand. Beads of perspiration were falling from her brow. The horn blowing continued. The person in the car in front of Mrs. Mendenhall threw up his hands in exasperation. It was not his fault. It was probably an accident that was making the traffic move at a snail’s pace. They were in traffic for a long, long time, perhaps ten minutes. Too long for a short fused, cigarette craving murderous mom.
The traffic seemed to increase in velocity when the road turned from two to four lane. Mrs. Georgiana Mendenhall put her foot on the pedal and accelerated. She moved over into the passing lane and approached the traffic jam culprit, lingering in the right lane.
“You son of a bitch!” growled Vickie’s mother. She put her hand on the horn and the sound blared as they passed the accused. Vickie looked over at the driver. He was an old man. He was driving a purple Cadillac. A very large and long purple Cadillac. She knew the car well. She rolled her window down and waved at the driver as they came beside him.
“Hi Grandpa!’ Vickie mouthed over to the old man. He didn’t take his eyes off of the road. His hands were stationed at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel, an intense look on his face. Afterall, a crazed road ragian was trying to run him off of the road.
“Mom, it’s Grandpa you called an old geezer.” Vickie laughed.
Georgiana Mendenhall did not say a word. She was not fond of her father-in-law, and he was not fond of her. He was a big name in this sleepy steel mill town, and he could make her disappear if he wanted to. He was the same man who put his crazy wife in a “rest” home every time he took a cruise or flight to Florida. He could make life miserable for his daughter-in-law. He may drive slow, but his actions in his business dealings were swift. But, he sure loved his grandaughter, Vickie.
“I’m going to tell Grandpa that you said he was a geezer,” Vickie glanced at her mother. Her mother looked ashen. Perhaps it was the want of a Salem cigarette physically making her sick. Or perhaps it was her daughter’s nonchalant way of bribing her mother.
Georgiana Mendenhall arrived at home and reached for her beloved Salem cigarettes. Ahhhh…….. Vickie, of course, had no idea at this age what an orgasm was, but noted that her mother lit a cigarette after she smoked that cigarette.
And three hours later, Vickie and her siblings were summoned to the kitchen, where they found newly baked whoopie pies, sitting in a pile on the kitchen table. “I thought I would make your favorite, Vickie.”
Vickie knew that her silence could be bought. Whoopie pies were an impressive purchase. She also learned that traffic jams are not necessarily a bad thing.
And she learned at the tender age of nine that life is nothing more than one big bargaining chip.
When I was little, I had to look up words to see what they meant in a gigantic red dictionary my mom kept alongside our World Book Encyclopedias. I was never able to look up phrases like we can today on the internet. I was so curious about everything. But, you know, I used to have to be nibby and ask people about things I was curious about. I would have never met most of our neighbors if I had the internet and all the answers to my childish questions. “Mrs. Jones, why does that man drive into your garage in the middle of the night almost every night and then leave right before I get on the bus? Is that your brother?” Ok, just kidding, but I could have just looked up “What is an affair” into the google search engine that would have answered all of my questions. But, how lonely that would have been for me. I would have salivated over the opportunity to travel all over the freaking world without leaving my chair………. Um, like I am doing now at age 55…….. Shit. I am a loser.
I have to admit that I really enjoy reading all of the search terms that pop up every day on my Word Press dashboard. For those of you who don’t blog here, we bloggers are able to see what search engine terms brought people to our site. For example, I wrote a blog about a monkey, and tagged the post with words such as, “monkey,” “fun,” laugh,” and ”pet store.” Meanwhile, some stranger in Internet Land typed in the Google search bar, “monkey poop,” and it showed up as a search engine term. That internet person would be able to read my blog post if he wanted to, or just say to himself, “Well, hell, this is about a monkey on someone’s head. Monkeyshines Where’s the monkey poop?
Of course, I didn’t know the monkey poop question poser was from. But, since I have started blogging, I have seen bizarre search engine terms pop up. I’d like to share some of them with you. And my blog posts that brought them here.
1. Was Helen Keller black slave- This poor person has no idea what is going on in life. I wrote One Tough Cookie about several strong personalities. Helen Keller was one of them. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a black slave. I also wrote Play Time, where I discussed how my bff, Ramaine, and I used to play Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan. I always got to be Helen. Bad Karma. My hearing is shot nowadays.
2. How old is a 1 year old pig- I got this one yesterday. I just don’t know where to start with this one. I guess a one year old pig is different ages. Maybe the searcher wants to know how old a one year old pig is in human years. I have no idea, but here, pig googler, read one of my pig blog posts. And This Little Piggy…., Guinea Pig Children and an early post, Feeling Like an Oinker-Pig
3. Billy Joel fat ugly- Aw, that is just so not nice. Where you looking for a picture of Billy Joel? Because what you got was this. Lies That Bite Back
4. Fish guts stains your teeth- Um, okay…I wonder what this guy has been eating. Evidently his teeth are now black. Or some color. I just shuddered…again. My story is about fish guts, but someone was wearing them, not eating them. The Fish Head Story. It is also the second hardest I have ever laughed in my life. That’s right. I have them numbered.
5. Can nuns carry guns- Uh, oh, someone is in trouble or planning to make a hit on Bingo night at the church. I have a lot of posts about nuns. I am afraid of nuns. I do think they carry guns. They keep it in a thigh holster. I’m pretty sure. But, while you are contemplating robbing Sister Betrille, sit awhile and read about my nun stories. Snakes, Gasoline, and a Nun, Vickie With an E, Edgewood, and one of my favorites, Bring Back the Nuns Arrrgh!
6. I have mosquito bite boobs 15- Oh, honey, I can relate. This blog post will not help whatsoever. But, I once was a mosquito bite boober. Sigh. Mosquito Bites
7. dirty potato- What was this person thinking when he searched for this? Maybe he forgot to wash potatoes before cooking and now thinks maybe bugs were all over them? I’m sure he is going to die. If you take your lap top to the Emergency room, you can read these posts while they take an x-ray of those dirty veggies in your stomach. Rats! is about how we fed a rat in our apartment to keep him from coming upstairs and eating our faces while we slept. Or try, Old Wive’s Tales, where you need to know the importance of washing behind your ears.
8. boogey man just called me- Ok, let me get this right. The boogey man just called you, and you get off the phone and google, “Boogey man just called me.” Wow, you are a brave soul. I would have run upstairs and hid under my bed. Which would probably not be a good idea, because that’s where the boogey man is. Dear God, I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight. I Killed the Boogey Man
9. Wont be fooled April 1- I used to be the Queen of April Fool’s jokes. But, someone finally got me. Got me good. So, April Fool’s Day google searcher, read this post and feel for me. D-I-V-O-R-C-E
10. catsup is catsnip- Ew, and my God you are stupid. The whole Ketchup/catsup scenario is mind boggling I know. I wrote a post on ketchp sandwiches, which is not the same as catsup sandwiches, which is somehow cat related, I was told. I should google it. Ketchup Sandwiches
So, those are just a random sampling of some of the search terms I receive each day. I really like the idea of how tagging can bring more traffic to my blog. It’s a great idea. But, the next time you want to search for something and you don’t want anyone to know about it, just know that we know.
Here are some more search terms that are just weird as hell:
*What is it when I have white stuff on my gums near my molars.
*pee in my snowsuit
*video girls in mud
*vomiting hid in nightstand
*the longest poop in the world
*ant bit lips
*detergent poison how to poison
*green snot infection
*stuck his tongue down my throat
*is eating paint chips still bad
*Hitler had son Jimmy Hitler
*armpit smells like garlic
*pet dead dog infreezer til ground thaws out bury
Yes, search terms are interesting, that’s for sure.
I remember the very first thing I did a search on when I got the internet……Wooly worms. Do you remember what you searched for?
I was a little bewildered today when I went to Walmart. For one, there was a guy standing in line in front of me and he was only wearing a white t-shirt. It’s cold outside, so I immediately judged him and quietly labeled him a “moron.” Not that I check out every Tom, Dick, and Moron in Walmart, but since he was right in front of me, I also noticed that when he reached to scratch his arm, he had a scar on his upper left arm. It was pretty damn big. Then, I realized it was “the” scar.
For those of you who were born before 1970 or were in a military family, you should know what I am talking about: The World Health Organization’s Smallpox Eradication program.
So, go get a mirror and look at your left arm. You may just have a scar from the smallpox vaccination.
Are you back? Ok. Let’s move on.
Smallpox has a history of being one of the worst diseases known to man. According to the World Health Organization, WHO, “The incubation period is followed by the sudden onset of influenza-like symptoms including fever, malaise, headache, prostration, severe back pain and, less often, abdominal pain and vomiting. Two to three days later, the temperature falls and the patient feels somewhat better, at which time the characteristic rash appears, first on the face, hands and forearms and then after a few days progressing to the trunk. Lesions also develop in the mucous membranes of the nose and mouth, and ulcerate very soon after their formation, releasing large amounts of virus into the mouth and throat.”
During the 1950′s there were more than 50 million cases of smallpox worldwide….each year. It killed as many as 30% of those infected.
And it is the only disease that was eradicated because of the vaccine. From the information that I have read on the subject, (historyofvaccines.org) smallpox was a problem worldwide for centuries. In our country, there was a colonial epidemic in 1633. In 1736, Benjamin Franklin lost his son to smallpox. He did not have his son innoculated and with remorse, wrote the following:
“In 1736 I lost one of my Sons, a fine Boy of 4 Years old, taken by the Small Pox in the common way. I long regretted that I had not given it to him by Inoculation, which I mention for the Sake of Parents, who omit that Operation on the Supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a Child died under it; my Example showing that the Regret may be the same either way, and that therefore the safer should be chosen.”
— Benjamin Franklin, quoted in Franklin on Franklin by Paul Zall
In 1776, 10,000 soldiers with the Continental army in Canada were struck down with smallpox. There was a rumor that a British officer sent infected soldiers into battle to deliberately expose the enemy. This caused the Continental army to retreat, keeping the northern British colonies together.
John Adams wrote, “ Our misfortunes in Canada are enough to melt the heart of stone. The smallpox is ten times more terrible than the British, Canadians and Indians together. This was the cause of our precipitate retreat from Quebec.”
— John Adams, quoted in Ian Glynn and Jenifer Glynn, The Life and Death of Smallpox
The timeline marches on.
In 1781, future president Andrew Jackson, contracted smallpox. His brother, Robert, died of the disease.
In 1796, Edward Jenner came up with a vaccine. He tested it on a boy (well, guinea pigs didn’t get smallpox) and it was a success. After that, many countries began innoculation programs. It was brought to our country in 1800.
Fastforward to 1862. During the Civil War, several pockets of the disease popped up.
A hospital was built in Richmond just for smallpox. The Smallpox hospital lost more than 100 patients in one week. During Christmas in 1862, the hospital admitted 250 patients. Only 140 survived the outbreak.
Medical historians assert that Abraham Lincoln sufferered from smallpox, coming down with the disease hours after he gave the famous Gettysburg Address.
smallpox victim, circa 1912
Fast forward once again to 1922. By this time, the United States has put in place mandatory innoculation. Children would not be permitted to attend school until they received a smallpox vaccination.
In 1967, WHO, the World Health Organization, implemented a worlwide smallpox eradication program.
I don’t remember how old I was when I had the smallpox vaccine. I was born in 1956. I think I was around ten or eleven, but I’m not sure. My mom and dad both had scars on their upper left arms. Both of them were pretty large. So, imagine my anguish when I found out I was going to get the smallpox vaccine. I remember standing in line to get it. I am not positive, but I think I was at school. The guidelines were to innoculate anywhere between birth and three years of age and the booster was given 5-10 years after. The first one was more like a scraping.
The mass vaccination strategy did eradicate smallpox. You were lucky if you were only left with a small vaccination scar. The scar was supposed to be no bigger than the size of a dime. Mine was the size of a dime. Many people weren’t so lucky. But, they were lucky they didn’t contract smallpox.
The scar left behind looked like a bunch of little craters.
After receiving the vaccination, after three or four days, a red, itchy bump developed at the site. After the first week, the bump became a large blister, filled with pus, and then it began to drain. During the second week, the blister began to dry and then a scab formed. In theory, by the fourth week, the scab was supposed to fall off, leaving a “small” scar. For some. For others, it left a huge scar that looked like a bunch of little craters. I used to look at people’s arms just to see if they had a huge scar. I was scared to death. I was sure my skinny little arm would be one huge scar.
My mom took care of it though. I think it was hard for boys to take care of their blistered, filled with pus, scab. And I will tell you why. They used to give each other a little quick punch on each other’s arms. Why? Because they were retarded. Well, that’s the word we girls would use back then to describe boys in general anyway. I believe that some are worse because of the itching during the healing process. I didn’t itch mine. I didn’t touch mine. I was not going to have a gigantic swirl of scars on my arm.
The last epidemic of smallpox in the US was in Texas in 1949, seven years before I was born. The last worldwide case was in Somalia in 1977. The US officially stopped vaccinating the general public against smallpox in 1972 but continued to vaccinate certain military personnel until 1990.
So, after staring at the moron in Walmart today and coming home, curious about “the” scar, I learned a great deal.
The most important thing I learned is that I am innoculated against one of the most evil diseases known to man. That’s a good thing. The bad thing is that my children aren’t. Most of your children aren’t.
Let’s only hope it never rears its ugly head again.
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Remember the tongue twister, How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Well, no one bothered to tell me when I was little that a woodchuck was actually a groundhog. And a ground hog was also a whistle pig. I think that the tongue twister guy had a hard time with How much wood could a ground hog chuck….. so he gave the critter a new name.
But, then again, although it does live in the ground, it is not a hog. And I don’t even know what the hell a woodchuck would be. They don’t eat wood and they don’t chuck…which is the same as “upchuck”, right. And that was just a phrase given to the first kid who ever threw up many years ago…”It’s ok, Chuck, just get it up..Chuck…” Upchuck. (I made that up.)
In some parts of the country, the ground hog is called a “land beaver”, which makes sense until you look at a beaver’ s tail. A ground
"How are we going to steal from moose and beaver?"
hog actually belongs to the group of large ground squirrels called marmots. Think about it. On the cartoon, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Rocky was supposed to be a squirrel. But look at the picture. Rocky is as big as Boris. Squirrels aren’t that big. I’m thinking that Rocky was either a beaver or a groundhog. This is a very important discovery.
Ground beavers (my new term..use it. Embrace it) usually live only 2-3 years, sometimes up to 6 years in the wild. There was one in captivity that lived for 22 years. It was probably one of the poor things that they used as Puxitawny Phil. The heaviest recorded ground beaver was 31 pounds, which is quite scary.
Although I hold a fascination for all animals, I learned about the ground beaver (See, getting used to that name, aren’t you?), at a very early age. I knew two things. It was bad if you were bitten by one of them, and they don’t come when you call them.
My grandfather used to live in a stone home at the edge of a pine forest. It reminded me of a fairy tale cottage. I loved visiting that house. My grandfather had a small fruit orchard and on one side of the house was a patio with square cut pieces of colored slate and a bird bath in the middle of it. My grandmother used to get so pissed at Grandpa because when I would visit, he would cut some of the flowers in her flower garden and decorate the pine tree with them. But, the main attraction, was the ground beaver hole on the edge of the patio.
Grandma wanted to put a hose in the hole and drown the poor creature. Grandpa wouldn’t let
I really don't think he is real.
her. It was his buddy. He named it Gus, which is funny, because in Pennsylvania, it is the character’s name of the “second most famous groundhog in Pennsylvania” for the Pennsylvania lottery. When those commercials would come on, it always reminded me of my grandpa.
Anywho, I would sit for a very long time, calling for Gus. I had a sweet voice, I don’t know why the hell he wouldn’t come out of his hole. I worried about Gus. Was he getting enough food? Was he lonely? Could he see down there? My grandpa patiently answered all my questions. It wasn’t the same, however, when I got home. My mom didn’t see things the same way.
I had asked my dad if I could use his fishing pole. My thought was that I would put a piece of lettuce or apple on a string and lower it down Gus’s hole. And just like a fish, I would reel Gus in when I felt a nibble. I went fishing with my dad enough to know what I was doing. It made so much sense.
“Vickie, who is Gus?……………Grandpa has a pet groundhog?……………..You’ve seen it?……………Vickie, stay away from it. Do you understand me?…….Because if you get bit by a groundhog, you will have to have shots in your stomach for rabies and they will cut the head of the groundhog off and send it away to make sure it doesn’t have rabies……………..How do you know it doesn’t have rabies?…………….It is a wild animal, Vickie………….A hamster doesn’t count…..Because it doesn’t count………………..Because it doesn’t………..You know what? Just go to your room.”
That’s how it always ended. Except that day I stopped and got the Letter “G” from the World Book Encyclopedia to learn all about groundhogs…(I mean, ground beavers.) This creature would not bite me.
Well, I never got to fish for the ground beaver. My mom must have phoned my grandfather.
“Vickie, your mom doesnt want you near Gus, so we can’t go outside when Gus is walking around out there. But, we can watch from
Come on out little fella
the window.” He said this in front of my Grandmother, who then walked back into the kitchen. I cried. “But Grandpa, I love Gus.”
Over the next year, I was able to get closer and closer to Gus. Grandpa and I made a secret pact. We would tell no one that we were playing with Gus. I sure loved my Grandpa. I never got bitten and I didn’t need a fishing pole. We just put food up at the top by his hole and would look out later to see if it was gone.
So, on this Ground Beaver Day, I would like to pay homage to Gus and then to Mrs. Daegle, White Hall Willie, Miss Piggy and all the other groundhogs that have dug holes on my property. My husband knew before we built a house in the country that he was never allowed to kill a groundhog. I even made him pinky swear.
So, whatever you call them, just know, they don’t really answer to you. But, they will answer to a whistle. They will stand up and look around.
I need to re-think this ground beaver moniker. Perhaps a whistle beaver is more fitting.
A pissed off French Creek Freddie
My literary debut….. Amazon.com for $3.99. It’s sort of funny.
following me home
photo pinterest
8. Animals I Like
smallpox victim, circa 1912
