Wedded Bliss

When I was eighteen, World War 2 was going full blast and my mother decided to leave her

responsibilities to me and off she gleefully went to another state to work in a munitions plant.

She took her widowed sister-in-law with her and left me with my two younger sisters and my father to cook for.

So I figured as long as I was a cook, a housekeeper, a child-sitter, a laundress, a shopper and all the rest, I may as well get married. So without much thought, I did.

I married a young man that had been discharged from the US Navy because of his sleep-walking episodes. He had throw a navy guard over his shoulder and knocked him cold. He was unaware of what he had done of course. I, again, didn't give much thought to what he would do to me during one of his sleep-walking episodes, but I found out later.

Without any advance notice my mother came back home soon after we had tied the knot, and of

course, I had been planning that we were going to live in my parents' house. I was glad to be

free of my mother's duties, but now we needed a place of our own to start our journey of wedded bliss.

I found two rooms on the third floor of an old house very close to main street. Furnished! It

consisted of a bedroom and a kitchen. At least the landlady called it a kitchen. There were no

cupboards, no sink, no stove and no refrigerator. Well, that was not exactly true...... there was a

sink out in the hall that was shared with the other tenants, there was a shared bathroom, too.

To cook anything, there was a two-burner hot plate with a portable box called an oven that you

put on the hot plate if you wanted to bake a pie. A former clothes closet was fitted with shelves to store food and things like that. The ice box was a cubby hole under the eaves. It was winter in Northern Minnesota, so the food was kept nice and cold.

I cooked a lot of macaroni and cheese because meat was rationed. Butter was rationed. Coffee was rationed. Gee, I think even chocolate was rationed!

I used to walk a few blocks to the grocery store to buy our food supplies. There was a nice young man behind the butcher's counter that used to slip in a little extra meat for me as I would discover when I got home and unwrapped the meat package. That was so nice of him!

After a couple of months of this we packed up and went back to live with the folks.

Was I Mistaken for a Terrorist?

I have taken quite a few trips by air, and one or two are especially memorable. It was about nineteen years ago, and I was more on the young side than the old, but as soon as I got off a

jet at the Minneapolis airport, alone, on my way home from Illinois, I was commanded to sit in a wheelchair by somebody (?) with power! So I although I balked at sitting in a wheel chair for no obvious reason, she insisted that I had to, but wouldn't give me an explanation. The attendant wheeled me where ever I wanted go, true, but I couldn't understand why they thought I was either decrepit or a danger to other passengers.

When we arrived at my intended gate, I was told to stand up, which I did, and a female (thank heaven) attendant frisked me up and down and sideways. Well, after that ordeal, I wanted to have a smoke. (I quit smoking quite a few years ago) So the attendant wheeled me outside where I polluted some Minneapolis air. I also visited the ladies' rest room and the attendant waited patiently for me to get back in the wheelchair. She never passed the time of day with me or was friendly in any way.

I was the only passenger that was treated this way, as far as I could see. So all I can think of is

that I had a very suspicious look about me! Maybe I shouldn't take the next trip I was planning by air!

Bah, Humbug!

Not really! The blizzard kept me from having a Christmas dinner with my family. I opened a

can of spaghetti and meatballs and that was my feast today. But I didn't shed even one tear because I know how lucky I am in spite of blizzards.

But I am plowed out now and I can get to my garage thanks to my son-in-law.

I can't wait to see my granddaughters tomorrow. I hope!

One will be on her way to those islands (galapagos) off the coast of Ecuador in a few weeks. There she will be studying birds and basking in the warm sun. I heard that there is a bird called the blue-footed boobie that makes its home there. I wish she'd capture one and bring it home to me for a pet! It would be fun to have a boobie around the house!

I hope anybody who is reading this had a wonderful Christmas Day.

Grapes and Math

Grapes are $4.00 per pound today! I bought over two pounds! I shelled out $8.50 for a bag of grapes! I must be nuts.

I eat grapes everyday. They do me good, and I really like them, so I never want to be without grapes. Seedless, of course.

But grapes do not keep very well even in the fridge. So I Goggled to find out if you can freeze grapes. I do not want to ever throw grapes away again.

Yes, grapes are freezable!!

Here's what you do. Wash them. Get out a cookie sheet. Put some waxed paper on the cookie

sheet. Spread the grapes out on the cookie sheet. Put cookie sheet into freezer and freeze them solid. Remove grapes from freezer. Transfer frozen grapes to plastic bags and seal. Put the bags back in the freezer.

When you want grapes, just take out a few and enjoy them even if they are frozen. They are a

great treat when they are frozen. I'll bet little children would like them better than candy.

I think I froze about 200 grapes. If I eat 10 grapes a day, they will last me for 20 days. I think

these grapes cost me about $.04 per grape. That really is outrageous.

But, what the heck, I really like grapes.

Civilian Conservation Corps

Commonly known as the CCC, this program put to work hundreds of unemployed single young men during the Great Depression. I knew only one. He came home from the CCC camp occasionally in his khaki uniform looking like a soldier on leave.

I think he really liked living and working hard in the forests of Minnesota even though when he

came home he would sing....

"I don't want no more of the CCC,

I only want to go home.

The coffee that they give you,

They say its mighty fine,

It's good for cuts and bruises.

It tastes like iodine.

I don't want no more of the CCC,

I only want to go home."

Why don't people start demanding that the government, using its infinite wisdom (?) and its unlimited (?) power, start this program again and keep it going? Our forests need help, our

wild habitats need help, and there must be many other things that these young men could do, and they would feel good about helping where help is needed in our country. I'll bet they would

feel better than they do today after going to a gym for a workout. I'll bet they would be happier and healthier and I'll bet they would be leaner in many cases.

Even as a young lady, when I worked hard outside, I felt good. I suppose it was what today you

call a "high". I hope that there would be a CCC for young single ladies, too.

The new CCC could have a slogan. " Join the CCC and get a natural high!"

Well, this is all for now, I think I'll go and wash some walls or something.

Down in the Dumps

When I was very young and times were very tough, the town dump came in very handy for some people.

Our little town had a wonderful dump where people brought the stuff they didn't want and I knew people who wanted that very stuff. Some people made a hobby of visiting the dump every week. I suppose it is more sophisticated now as it is called dumpster diving.

Even my aunt's husband came home with his little treasures rescued from the dump. Getting something for nothing always made a person feel good.

I remember having a neighbor who furnished their whole house with stuff from the dump.

The chaise lounge was especially interesting, upholstered in real leather! Who in their right mind would throw that away? Who ever it was they knew someone would find it and put it

to good use.

These neighbors were in the process of building a house next to my folk's home. They had lived in a caboose before moving in. Yes, it's true! I don't know how a caboose came to sit right in

the middle of a residential section of town. And somehow it disappeared after the neighbors moved into the house next door to me. Something about zoning, I suppose.

Our new neighbors were quite interesting. The mom played the piano by ear. They hadn't found a piano at the dump yet, so she would come over and play our piano. She was the mother of two teen-agers. The girl could jitterbug really well and skate with one leg held up in the air behind her and was a champion swimmer. Such talent was awesome. The boy played the guitar and got expelled from high school for a spell. Not because he played the guitar, but because he skipped school so often, I guess. The war came along and he enlisted in the Navy and made it a career. When he got out he became a executive in the McDonald company, owned a beautiful

house in Las Vegas and came to our neighborhood reunion in the sixties and danced with me. So I always tell people I danced once with a McDonald big shot (who once lived in a caboose).

Vacation Fun

Two weeks had gone by since we first arrived in British Columbia. I was so glad it was over and we could get back to normalcy, whatever that was. But my husband had changed to a new wallet for the trip and forgot to put his driver's license in his new wallet. His mother realized (through her alcoholic fog) that we might not get back into the states without the proper ID. So we went to an attorney to swear out an affidavit regarding his legal citizenship, and paid fifty cents in American money for this service.

So I packed our luggage and was about to close the suitcases, when I realized that my little 17 month-old toddler needed a diaper change. Again. We didn't have disposable diapers those days, so I changed her, wrapped the soiled diaper in newspaper, put it in the suitcase and closed the lid. We would be home in just a few hours, so that wasn't a big deal.

We hopped on the bus with said luggage and made our way to Nanaimo where we had a rest stop. The bus driver said, "Be back on the bus by 1:30." So we had some tomato soup and crackers in the bus station which was also the train station. We didn't know that the bus was on daylight savings time, and the trains were on standard time. So we sat there impatiently for an hour and a half because we went by the clock on the wall.

Then we went out to get back on the bus. But it had left an hour before!

Oh, God! Now what do we do? We found a taxi and the driver said he could drive us to Victoria which was about 60 miles down the road. Luckily, we still had some American money in that nice new wallet, because this was going to cost us.

My little girl got car sick on the way and suddenly threw up the tomato soup all over the back seat of the cab. The taxi driver was the kindest person on this planet. He did not complain and he helped us search for our luggage when we arrived in Victoria. We found out that the bus driver had left our luggage at the bus station where we had that soup. So we left for home without luggage.

We managed to board our DC 4 after gaining a legal entrance back to our wonderful United States of America. We had an uneventful trip back to Minneapolis, Minnesota and my father was there waiting to bring us back to Northern Minnesota. Bless him.

We had to wait more than two weeks for our luggage to arrive by train. It came to Duluth. We lived 60 miles north, so we had to drive to the customs office in Duluth in order for

the luggage to clear customs. While there, the customs officer opened the suitcase in which I had placed the soiled diaper more than two weeks before, and I was frozen with fear as he went through our luggage looking for contraband or something. Instead, he found the diaper!! My mind goes blank at this point.

TREES

One heathen superstition I can't get rid of is the practice of knocking on wood for good luck.

The heathens believed that powerful spirits lived in trees. So they took notice of the power these spirits had and tapped on the tree, hoping that acknowledging that power would bring them good luck. Or so one legend has it.

Joyce Kilmer wrote a beautiful poem entitled "Trees". Then somebody put that poem to music and it is a song high on my list of favorite songs. I got acquainted with this song when I was a young teen and had a boyfriend that used to sing it as we walked down the road. Once we found a big tree, climbed up it and sat together on one of its strong branches. What fun!

Every Christmas season in days gone by, my sisters and I used to harmonize on one of our favorite songs "Winds Through the Olive Trees".

When I was about three, my father made me a swing that hung from the tree in our back yard. But I soon learned to avoid it because huge, ugly, bright green worms would fall from that tree, sometimes on little me. Something like that happened even after I grew up. We had a beautiful Mountain Ash whose branches extended over our back steps. This time the offending worms were little yellow things that would fall on the steps and in my hair! Not only

that but this Mountain Ash was leading our visiting birds to moral destruction as in late fall the red berries fermented. The birds couldn't fly a straight line after sampling those berries. So, with sorrowing hearts, we cut down that tree and planted a lilac tree in its place.

On the other hand, I saved a tree once. My husband had planted an apple tree in our yard and a

few years later a terrible windstorm split the little tree right down the middle. As by now, my

husband had departed this earthly life, it was up to me to try to save this badly injured tree. So

I fashioned and applied a splint or two with duct tape wrapped it round and round, hoping this was the right thing to do. The tree trunk grew back together as time passed and through the years has produced many, many pounds of really good apples. I have given many bags of apples to strangers and I have had many dozens of deer enjoying a feast on the fallen apples.

Trees give us lumber to build our homes, fruit to feed our bodies, beauty to feed our souls, shade to protect us from a hot sun. Trees are the source of countless blessings.

Trees deserve to be hugged!!

My Neighbor Ellie

I had a neighbor once that you wouldn't believe. These are some memories this poor soul who was born on April Fool's day and was buried on April Fool's day seventy years later.

One day, Ellie came into my kitchen, opened my cupboard doors and began searching for food. She explained why she was doing this. She said she had just gotten company and she had nothing in the house to give them to eat. Well, my cupboard didn't yield anything for her to feed her guests, so she went home empty-handed and probably disgusted, and I just stood there in wonderment.

Ellie was deathly afraid of lightning! Ellie had a deep faith in the goodness of God, but she constantly feared that He was going to strike her down sooner or later.

One afternoon I was having coffee with my mother and an aunt in my kitchen hardly noticing that there was a teeny bit of lightning in the western sky. Ellie comes to my house, figuring she

would be safer at my house than in her own home. So I invited her to have a cup of coffee, but she said, "No, I'm going to sit on the steps that lead upstairs". So while we gabbed and drank our coffee, Elly sat alone on the stairs. After about half an hour she came back into my

kitchen looking very upset. "You people should have come and sat on the stairs with me!" she

barked and left. That was Ellie!

Ellie found it hard to part with anything she owned. Even her garbage. What she could part with, she would put in a cardboard box, tie it with string and place it on the flat bed of her husband's truck. And her husband would then put it where it belonged. She couldn't even part with her junk mail. She had a table in her living room that became the storage area for her junk mail. The mail was piled high on this table. I might mention that her kitchen table was also piled high with stuff. I might mention that her bathtub was also piled high with cleaning supplies which she seldom used, but she couldn't resist another Stanley home party.

If Ellie bought a new piece of furniture like a couch, she just couldn't get rid of the old couch, so

she would put the new couch in front of the old couch. The same with a console TV. One TV in

front of the other. Her decorated Christmas tree stayed up until sometime in April. It finally got to the point where there was only a narrow path through her living room. She'd invite us neighbors in for coffee and served us using the seat of a wooden kitchen chair as a table.

Ellie smoked cigarettes. That's what killed her. It wasn't getting struck by lightning after all.

The strange thing was----everybody liked Ellie. I know I did.

Home is Where the Heart Is

They have always said, "Home is where the heart is" but that phrase means different things to different people. Dorothy Gale was so glad to be back home after her trip to OZ that she kept saying, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home." She loved the Kansas farm with the pigs and the goats. I always wondered why she didn't have a horse to ride when she ran away from home. All my daughters had horses and we didn't even have a farm.

Home is where you hang your hat. And you'd better hang your coat up too, or you'll hear about it.

I remember watching Scarlet O'Hara whip that poor stolen horse until he collapsed and died, all in a frantic desire to get back to her home. There wasn't much left of the Southern Mansion, but it was home, blessed home. The Yankees at least left some green velvet drapes hanging on a couple of windows and Scarlet and Mammy whipped them up into a beautiful gown for Scarlet to wear to Atlanta to get money so that her home wouldn't be snatched from under her. You'll do anything to save your home.

My son has spent the last year and a half building a new home, much of it by himself with the

help of his son. There's nothing like the feeling you get when you build a home with your own

two hands. His heart is really in that home!! It looks beautiful in pictures, and I hope I get to

see it next summer.

On the other hand, there are people that have no home. My heart goes out to them, but it comes right back here to this home of mine. There was a time when my childhood family did not have a home. Ma and Pa had bought a home, and then found out that the seller had no right to sell it because it wasn't his, so we had to get out right away. My mother said "No more of this moving! We are going to build a house". So they did with hardly any money. So we lived

in a tent in my uncle's yard. His house wasn't big enough for all six of us. It was a happy day when we got to live in our own home, unfinished though it was.

Dorothy was so right. There's no place like home.

Up the Down Staircase

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to attend a meeting which was being held in a different place than usual. The meeting was to be on the second floor of a Senior Independent/Ass't Living building. We were so happy that they permitted us to meet in a room on the second floor even though we were not residents. But we are Senior Citizens. (in my day people like us were referred to as "the old folks".

I wanted to play it safe and get there early. I entered the building through the main door and spotted an elevator and pressed the button to take me to the second floor. There I was greeted by a nice lady asking if she could help me. I told her about the meeting and she said, "Oh, that is on the other side of the building".

So I set out to walk to the other side of the second floor, but she stopped me and told me that

I had to go back to the first floor in order to get to the other side of the second floor. There are

no steps visible to a newcomer to this building, so I took an elevator down to the first floor.

There I was helped by another lady who guided me to a "hidden" elevator that would take me

to the second floor again, but this time I would end up on the right side, which was really the

left side of the building as you enter.

I found the meeting room with the help of this nice lady but no one was in the room, and the nice lady said "There is no meeting this morning."

I couldn't believe my ears! I knew there was a meeting scheduled. But then another person who came to attend the meeting appeared as if out of nowhere and said, "Yes, there will be a

meeting this morning"!

And there was....... attended by a group of confused "old folks".

I would love to get a look at the blueprints for this building.

The Comic Strips

When I was a kid, my folks would buy a Sunday copy of the Chicago Herald Examiner if they had some spare change. The funnies were great in those days. The thing that caught my eye printed near the heading was a quotation that read "What Fools These Mortals Be".

Shakespeare, who coined the phrase was no fool, though.

I don't know if he would have approved or disapproved of the comic strips of those days before and right after WW2.

I was forced to read some of Shakespeare's plays in high school, and I don't remember much of what I read, but I still remember some. For instance:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

Who struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more.

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

signifying nothing.

Wow, how depressing is that?

So it was a very good idea to read the comics everyday to keep your spirits up. "lil Abner might

have been a fool, but Daisy Mae loved him. When the citizens of Dogpatch felt depressed, they

dragged out a jug of Kickapoo Joy Juice and had a good time.

And then there was this character that had a little black cloud lingering over his head all the time, and where ever he went, something bad happened. That was the comic strip fellow who

inspired Dr. Norman Vincent Peale to write "The Power of Positive Thinking" as an antidote to

negative thinking. And many writers have jumped on that band wagon through the years.

But old William gave us an uplifting idea when he wrote "......sleep that knits up the raveled

sleeve of care, the death of each day's life."

So goodnight, Gracie.

Frogs-Continued

I've been doing a little research on buying a pet frog. It seems that getting a frog is a lot like getting a husband. In some countries, you have to get a license to keep a frog as a pet. They are

not easy to take care of. They eat a lot. Sometimes they eat so much that they get real fat.

They are sloppy. You have to clean their cage a lot. Yes, in some ways they remind me of having a husband.

If you go out of town for a few days, you have to get a frog-sitter. Sometimes they out-grow the bug diet and you have to feed them mice. You probably would never find a sitter that would be

willing to feed mice to a frog, even if you paid them.

Besides I read that in a few thousand years, frogs may be extinct, and some of the blame goes to

people that buy frogs to keep as pets. Why? I don't know.

My daughter in rural Florida has a pond with many little tree frogs living in it. Her cats try to bring them into the house as playmates. But sometimes they escape the cats and lose their lives by getting in the way of a shutting door. I ran over a frog with my lawnmower once. I felt

like a murderer.

I don't think I want a frog, after all.

Facinating Frogs

I don't know why I like frogs, I just do. They are ugly. They have very small brains. They eat bugs. They talk funny. Kind of like some people I used to know.

But a frog sitting on a lily pad is a wondrous site. And they make cute little babies called tadpoles that wriggle and swim so entertainingly that children the whole world over go to the neighborhood pond and scoop them up in a jar and hope to watch them change into real frogs. I know I did. Actually, I think all the little tadpoles curled up and died in my jar, though.

In tenth grade Biology we had to skin a frog. That white meat looked pretty appetizing, especially the legs. I have yet to eat a plate of frog legs. They just don't sell them at Super One.

I don't have a dog or a cat anymore, but I was thinking about getting a frog for a pet. I can just

picture him jumping from note to note on the piano. Together, we might even compose a song or two.

When one of my granddaughters was going to school in Prague, I wrote a little poem and sent it to her. It went something like this:

Once there was a little frog

Who sat on a log

in a bog in the fog

in Prague

but along came a dog.

That was the end of the frog. He croaked.

No Guns Allowed on Premises

They should have had the above sign on the door of the corner grocery store where I bought food for the family so long ago.

Why (?) you may ask. Give a listen.

My little boy was presented with a gift from his doting Grandma one summer day, and decided to

take it along when we went to the corner grocery. The gift was a toy machine gun!

We entered the store and were greeting by one of the clerks, Mr. Bloomquist, who held up his

hands and said to my little boy, "Shoot me!"

So the kid shot him! Mr. Bloomquist got a face full of water! Mr. Bloomquist was not happy!

I still have this picture in my mind of Mr. Bloomquist taking up his long white apron and wiping the water from his face.

But he asked for it, didn't he?

Smoke Alarms

Yes, I have smoke alarms. One special one is way up on the ceiling over the stairs that lead to the basement. It's been lurking there for over twenty years. And it still works!

How do I know?

Because it not only picks up the scent of smoke, it picks up other scents, such as the scent of a carpet spot remover, and bread coming out of the oven.

No kidding!

One day I sprayed some spot remover on a little piece of my kitchen carpeting and left the room to wait for it to do its work. About three minutes later, the alarm sounded that horrible ear-piercing noise all through the house. I tried to remain calm in order to find out where the

fire was. I went upstairs and down, but no fire was found.

I realized that it was the spot remover scent that set the alarm off. The high-pitched noise almost drove me crazy because it wouldn't stop and I couldn't stop it. But it mercifully stopped before I totally lost my mind.

I figured the batteries had by now died, but I got fooled.

Just the other day, I was taking a loaf of bread out of a very hot oven when that darn alarm went off just like before. I checked throughout the house, of course, but no sign of smoke or fire. Hirkimer smelled the bread! This time I opened the back door and let some fresh air come in and Hirkimer stopped. I call him Hirkimer because he IRKS me.

Moral of my story: put your smoke alarm in a place where you can reach it so you can turn it off.

P.S. To my dear children: do you recall when you were very, very young and misbehaving, I used to warn you that Hirkimer was watching you through the window? I don't think that

threat did much good, though. And so Hirkimer got his revenge on me.

Toe Dancing

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a toe dancer. I was always going around standing on my toes.

In the school swimming pool, it was easy to do this, as the water buoyed me up. (that's why Esther Williams did her ballet movements in the water!)

One day my mother went to an auction. She came home with a trunk that she bought the contents of without knowing what was inside said trunk. I remember a lot of law books and "The History of the World" set of books which she placed in a bookcase but which went unread for the most part.

But in this trunk was a correspondence course in BALLET! Even illustrations showing you how to

turn your feet into very painful positions. You were supposed to have a bar with which to practice your exercises. Needless to say, I did not have a bar. I also did not have a talent for ballet, I realized. I knew, too, that we could never afford a pair of toe-dancing slippers. So the ballet course went into the fire and I went back to just standing on my toes once in awhile.

But fate came along in my old age and gave me two granddaughters that had a talent for the ballet. One granddaughter even starred as Marie with the Minnesota Ballet production of The Nutcracker! At the curtain call at the end of the performance, the audience gave her a wonderful ovation and the tears in my eyes were from sheer pride and joy.

Sometimes your dreams do come true, but not in the way you expect them to.

Ghosts and Goblins

I woke up at 12:03 last night because this ghost came to visit me, uninvited. "Who are you?" I asked.

"I am the ghost of Christmas Past, and I have come to make you feel guilty." it replied.

"Are we talking about one special Christmas or all of them in the past?" I inquired.

"I'm referring to that Office Christmas Party back in the seventies, where you had such a good time."

"I don't want to talk about that!" I exclaimed. "And why do you think it is any of your business,

you are just a ghost, a nothing. Why don't you just float out of here and go haunt somebody else?"

With that, the ghost began to cry. "Boooooo hooo, boooooo hooooo." "I'm just trying to do my

job, and I've failed again."

"Well, I guess you don't stand a ghost of a chance with me, so amscray!"

And it was gone.

Kicked off the Team

Why did the fifth little piggy get kicked off the baseball team?

Because he went wee wee all the way home!

Original joke by me.

Dreams

My then seven-year-old grandson, Thomas, came up to me one day and remarked,

"Grandma, I'm afraid to dream!"

"Oh, my goodness, Tom, are you having bad dreams?" I asked him.

"No", he replied, "but Martin Luther King had a dream, and he got assassinated!

The Bread of Life

I'm talking food here. Bread. When I had a family of seven hungry mouths to feed, I baked seven loaves of homemade bread each and every week. I mixed the dough in a big oval dishpan. I kneaded it until I thought my arms would drop off.

Even the aroma of hot apple pie can't compare with the aroma of a loaf of homemade bread coming out of the oven.

Then after cooling it a little bit, the bread is sliced with care. Real genuine butter is slathered thickly on a piece of bread warm enough to melt it somewhat. What could taste better? Those days, we weren't concerned with putting on weight or that enemy called bad cholesterol.

Children these days miss out on so much. Very few kids experience the thrill of tasting warm homemade buttered bread at least once a week. They think pizza is wonderful. But its only because the crust is sometimes made with a thick crust that resembles hot homemade bread!

A few years ago, I bought a bread-making machine. The resulting breads were nothing to brag about and I gave the machine away. So I went back to my old way of baking bread, but I only

made two loaves at a time and I didn't like the results. In order for me to be successful, I guess I have to make seven loaves at a crack. No way.

Today I watched a TV program where a lady used a bread machine to make beautiful bread.

After watching that program, I went on the net and ordered myself another bread -making

machine. I made sure to order from a store that would take it back locally, if I was dissatisfied.

I'll bet I won't be satisfied with it, but the store-bought bread I like best costs $2.68 for a one-

pound loaf. That is too much.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Lost and Found!

My daughter called me one morning to tell me about an amazing experience she had recently, that knocked me for a loop.

A benefit was being planned for one of her co-workers who was battling cancer. So my dear daughter volunteered to go to various local businesses and ask for donations. The Holiday Gas Station told her to come back later for the donation which they would be happy to make. So a few weeks later in the pouring rain she re-visited the Holiday Gas Station. She noticed a flyer posted on the wall concerning two lost dogs. Two very expensive lost dogs, a male and a female.

My daughter is an animal lover, so she was hoping these two pets would soon be found.

When she got back to her home in the country, she couldn't believe her eyes! In her driveway were those very dogs!

She managed to get in touch with the owner, who asked her to try to keep them in her garage.

My daughter managed to tie up one dog, but the other dog ran away.

The owner immediately drove out to pick up the one dog, and started searching for the other dog.

My daughter prayed hard that night that the dog would be found. The next day she drove around in her area looking for said animal. She was going to drive down a certain road when

something told her "No, take the other road."

So she did, and she spotted the lost dog!

She contacted the owner and the owner was able to find the dog in a short time.

My daughter refused to take a reward, but she told the owner that there was going to be a benefit dinner for her co-worker in November and the owner said she would give the reward to

the benefit. The benefit is going to be held at a certain restaurant in West Duluth, and here is

the unbelievable end of this story. The restaurant is owned by the people that own the dogs!

A Bed is a Bed is a Bed

My bones are old, and my bed is hard. Old bones do not like hard beds. So I decided to go out

this morning and buy a new bed.

You've no doubt seen those ads where Lindsay Wagner, whose bones are not very young anymore either, is touting the wonders of the bed that you can adjust from firm to soft all at the touch of a button. You pump air into it or you deflate it---that's the secret!

The salesman invited me to sample the bed while lying down. He was tall, dark and rather nice looking so I accepted his invitation. "No, not that side", he said, "come over to this side." Always willing to cooperate, I walked around to the other side and assumed a horizontal position.

"Why do you have to have a computer for this?" I asked, innocently.

"There's a kind of a camera in the mattress", he said.

"Oh Lord", "Am I going to be pictured on the computer?" I wondered.

Well, yes, there was a picture of me, in a way, showing how much weight I put on various areas

of the mattress. It was an infra-red picture, like those pictures that show heat.

The color red meant that's where the most weight came in contact with the bed. Of course,

I could see that the middle of me was the heaviest. How embarrassing!

I have slept on a great variety of beds in my lifetime, from cardboard laid across 2x4's up in an

attic, a water bed, a BeautyRest mattress, and believe it or not, a mattress that was completely stuffed with goose down. Now there was a mattress---a wonderful hunk of pure heaven.

I hope and pray this new mattress might be just like that. There is a thirty day trial on this bed.

If I don't like it, I get my money back except for certain fees that may amount to about $300.

Yes, I sure hope and pray I will like it.

Mrs.Kleinschmitt

At last! I am 17 and through with school and now I can start to live! Or so I thought when I was

at an age where you know from nothing.

My brother, Fred was living in Minneapolis going to the U and renting a room from an old widow lady who rented out rooms in her home because it was so convenient to the campus. When she heard that I was looking for a job, she invited me to come and stay with her until I found one.

Wow! How could I refuse? Free room and board until I found a job!

So I got on a Greyhound bus one day, said goodbye to my mother, who was wiping away the tears,

much to my surprise. (my mother was not the crying type)

Those days the bus from the Iron Range to the Twin Cities took many hours, and I finally arrived in Minneapolis at 11:00 PM. Now I had to call Mrs. Kleinschmitt and tell her to tell

my brother to come and get me. I had never seen a dial phone before! But I figured out how

to dial and my brother hopped on a streetcar and came downtown to meet me.

We took a streetcar back to his place of residence.

Then I met Mrs. K. I'll never forget this experience.

She had rented out all her bedrooms and even had converted her living room into a bedroom in

order to make a living. She also did alterations on wedding gowns.

So her dining room was now her living room, and this is where I would sleep. I wondered where Mrs. K would sleep. She only had one room left for herself----her kitchen. So each night

she would set up a folding bed in her kitchen, and that is where she spent the nights, at least when I was occupying the day bed in the "living room".

"I don't allow anybody in my kitchen!" she exclaimed that first night, "Except you!" It was no wonder. Under her kitchen gas stove with the long legs she had stored all her spices and canned food and other items right on the floor. She really needed more cupboard space.

The next morning she made me a fried egg and toast breakfast which I ate in a tiny eating space in the kitchen. After breakfast I wrote a few lines to my mother on a postcard which Mrs. K insisted upon reading before I could send it.

She said I couldn't use the upstairs bathroom because I might get a terrible disease. All those

college boys used that bathroom and heaven only knows what I might catch.

So she arranged for my bathing to be in her basement standing in a tub, soaping up, and pouring water over myself. I hoped nobody was peeking in the basement windows!

Then she looked over the few clothes I had taken along and told me what to put on that day.

She insisted that I should start smoking because she was going to introduce me to a crowd and

smoking was the "in" thing to do. I told her it was illegal to smoke at my age, and so she relented. She decided when it was time for me to take a little rest. She would me allow five minutes lying on the day bed. She actually timed me. I wasn't even tired!

Almost every evening Mrs. K would drag out the card table for a game of bridge with my brother and another student. She accused my brother of cheating. One night, I woke up to

hear her exclaiming, "That damned brat!". I thought she meant me and I was petrified. Then

she said, "I'm going to hitch hike to Houston!" She had a daughter who lived in Houston, so

I figured I was off the hook.

I found a job at Warner Hardware in downtown Minneapolis and Mrs. Kleinschmitt found me

a boarding house to call home. It was a big old mansion, owned by her friend, in walking distance to the loop.

The food was wonderful, but I was put up on the third floor with just a bed and a chest of drawers. It was dormitory style. No privacy, no nothing. And somebody stole my underwear.

So I had to get out of there.

Which I did. She got mad and wouldn't speak to me anymore, and raised my brother's rent.

I shouldda stayed home!

Life after Death?

I was just reading about another person having a near-death experience. It was pretty convincing.

I have never almost died (except all those times I almost died laughing!) so I haven't had an

out-of-body experience to tell about.

But I would swear that two people who had died visited me. One, my sister, and two, my husband.

A few months after my sister, Nancy died, I was just sitting and relaxing, thinking lovely thoughts, when it seemed Nancy whispered my name right behind my left ear. That's all. Just my name. She had a way a pronouncing my name different than most people did. She didn't drag my name out, she

just stopped abruptly at the end of the last syllable. Well, I was startled to say the least. But I

just knew it was her and she was in another dimension, well and happy.

But my husband came to me in three quick flashes during my sleep. These were not dreams, because dreams have more to them than just a flash. My husband had eczema on his hands that

caused him a lot of grief for years in spite of doctoring for it. The first flash was a picture of him in distress with the emphasis on his hands. A few nights later, the second flash was almost the same. But the third flash was a quick picture of him with no problem with his hands. And that was the end of those "messages". So I think he was trying to tell me he finally got his healing for that skin problem and all the other problems that caused his death.

Whether these happenings were the real thing or if it is a way your subconscious tries to bring some comfort and peace to you, I don't know, but I'll accept them either way.

Bosses I Have Known

I've had quite a few jobs and every boss I had was unique. One of my first bosses was the

kindest person I ever knew. He was in the insurance business and I did the office work while

he went out looking for more business.

He was of the Jewish faith, but at Christmas he sent out Christmas cards and gave presents to

people. He sent the insurance money in to the insurance companies even if his customers had not paid him yet for their insurance. I remember one local family had a house fire that killed one person and other family members were jumping out of windows, but he had paid the insurance for them before they wrote him a check. Who would do that today? I don't think a solitary soul would be so kind and trusting.

Sometimes, when I only worked part time, he would pay me for full time. He was fatally injured when his car hit a bridge abutment because he had fallen asleep at the wheel. The whole front page of the local newspaper was taken up with praise for all the good works he

had done in his lifetime.

Then I had another boss who was just the opposite. Stingy, egotistic, judgmental and I found

it hard to sit in the same office with him, so after a year I found an excuse to quit. I was doing

twice the work for half the pay I should have gotten, so he didn't want to lose me. Of course.

Later I worked for our local newspaper in the composing room. I got the store ads ready for

the press. I loved the work. I also did art work when they needed some done. The foreman was a very nice man, but the production manager used to turn the air blue when he was on the

phone telling somebody off. One night when I was out having fun, he came walking down our

main street, a little on the "happy" side with his arm around a woman who was not his wife.

He was transferred to another paper in another state after I left the paper. Somebody murdered him!! He was driving his car when somebody took a pot shot at him and got him right in his chest. He hit a light post and died at the wheel. That murder was never solved. I always liked to think he was carrying on with some other man's wife at the time. Maybe?

My last full time job was as a fashion illustrator for a downtown ladies clothing store. My drawings were picked up by the newspaper and appeared in the ads. That isn't done anymore.

The boss was a nice man to work for, but his business wasn't doing well. I watched him becoming a nervous wreck as his business was failing. He was married to a beautiful lady, but he was paying a lot of attention to one of his employees. So what happened? He went bankrupt, both he and his employee divorced their spouses, married each other and left town.

Oh, how I miss the days of the working woman!

The Ghost of Finn Town

I lived in a neighborhood that was called Finn Town when I was nine years old. It was an exciting place to live, with lots going on most of the time. This is where I lived at the time I saw the ghost!

It was in the dead of night when something woke me up and in the dim light I saw a male figure clad in a night shirt and a night cap approaching my bed. He had a dagger in his hand. He had murder on his mind, no doubt.

I screamed and both of my parents came to see what the matter was. The ghost has crawled under my bed by the time my rescuers came and I warned them that the ghost would stab their bare feet!

They had pity on me and took me to their bed for the rest of the night.

Earlier in the day, a few of the older neighborhood girls had put on a terrifying play up in

the empty large attic floor of a two- apartment building. The admission charge was one cent.

Luckily, (?) that day I had a penny. In this play one of the characters was a robber and a murderer who was dressed in a night shirt and a night cap. (shades of Dickens!) He came to steal precious jewels from a trunk full of them. Where these girls got this jewelry is beyond me, but it sure looked real as the lights were low. The dagger was probably made of cardboard.

Obviously, I was so impressed with the play that I dreamt my own terrifying version that night.

But, gee, it was so real!!

I Meet My In-Laws

Here I was in British Columbia visiting my in-laws for the first time. It was 1949. We had traveled by plane, ferry and finally bus to get here, but the two toddlers, my husband and myself finally arrived with only a few mishaps along the way.

Grandma James lived with this family as she couldn't take care of herself. She was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's, but there wasn't yet a name for it. It was usually called, "second childhood". She was on a waiting list to get into a government nursing home.

We were sitting at the kitchen table one day having coffee, and had invited Grandma to come out of her bedroom and join us. I asked her, "How old are you Grandma?". "Oh, about 35." she answered. In reality she was 82.

One afternoon she packed two shopping bags with some of her clothes, put on mismatched shoes, and sat waiting for "someone" to come and take her "someplace". Of course, no one was

coming for her, but she wanted to get away from these strangers (us) who had invaded her home.

My husband stayed up later than I did in order to visit with his family. We were given the big bedroom with a double bed and a single bed. Considering that the original house had burned to the ground a few years before and was not insured, this was a very nice comfortable house they had managed to build. I took the big bed for myself and the two toddlers, as mother-in-law hadn't thought of borrowing a crib for my youngest. My husband then had to take the single bed. So I put the kids to bed and locked the bedroom door and went to sleep.

I was awakened by a pounding on the door. I got up and let my husband in. He was upset!

"Are you afraid of my family?" he demanded to know. I informed him that his mother, in one

of her saner moments, advised me to lock the door because of Grandma.

"Well, we aren't locking any doors in this house!" the boss exclaimed.

And with that, he crawled into his little bed and fell asleep.

Some time later he was awakened by a little old lady trying to climb into bed with him!

Of course, it was Grandma.

You can be sure he always saw to it that the bedroom door was locked from then on.

Baby Marion is Kidnapped!

My grandmother was only 29 years old when she lay dying of tuberculosis in 1910. She was the mother of two boys and four girls, the youngest being only four weeks old. The baby was named Marion. A kind nurse was caring for my grandmother during her illness, and when grandma died, the nurse cared for all the children until Grandpa decided to go back to the "old country" and get himself a new wife. In only three months, Grandpa was on his way to marry his cousin who was a widow with two children. Greta's husband had been killed by a train.

Grandpa couldn't take all those kids with him, so he pawned off Al and Helen to neighbors and the nurse took baby Marion. My mother, her sister and a brother were going to be left in the "old country" and Grandpa would bring back his new wife and her children. But, the relatives did not accept my mother. So back to the USA she came! She was seven years old.

The families who had cared for Al and Helen decided to legally adopt them. But the nurse couldn't give up that darling baby, so she and baby Marion fled to another state. They call that kidnapping!! But nobody did anything about it. Three more children were born to this family.

and then the Spanish Flu hit hard. Greta was one of the victims. So Grandpa figured he would

send for the two kids he left in the"old country" as the older girl was now old enough to take care of all these kids.

Years passed. Grandpa was helping his friend harvest potatoes one sunny September day, when

he was felled by a stroke and died.

The family had a notion that if they advertised in a Chicago newspaper, Marion would see it and

be reunited with her biological family. It worked! Marion had been a registered nurse and served in WW2 right on the battlefield! She was now the fourth wife of an entertainer.

Eventually, everybody was reunited and kept up a correspondence with Marion for many years.

I met her in 1954. She was very attractive and had even been a clothes model in a Chicago store. Her husband Bill entertained us with a little dance.

And that was how it was.

Dieter's Delight

One day I thought about a cake my mother used to make during the Great Depression. It was

called "Eggless, Milkless, Butterless Cake".

I wondered how she managed to make a cake without those ingredients. So I Googled. And, boy,

did I find a wonderful recipe, probably the genuine thing from so long ago.

It uses only two tablespoons of shortening, one cup of sugar and lots of various spices. Some

people said it taste like gingerbread. I love gingerbread!

I haven't tried the recipe yet, but I did read many of the reviews and people really raved about this cake.

I plan to top it off with Redi -Whip.

Janey, if you are reading this, I hope you will try it and tell me if you liked it.

Extra, Extra!

I noticed that the movie "Iron Will" is playing on the Hallmark channel today. I could have been

an extra in that movie. It was made near Two Harbors on the North Shore of Lake Superior, 25 miles from where I live.

My daughter and I were sauntering through the Target store in 1993 or 4 and as we passed a table that was set up with people recruiting extras for this very movie, I said to one of the recruiters, "I don't think my coat would be suitable for the movie." He replied, "Oh, yes, it will do fine." The outdoor scenes were filmed in cold, snowy weather which is what we have a lot of here.

I said to my daughter,"With my looks and talent, I just won't work for minimum wages!"

Patty Duke's son, Sean Astin, starred in this movie. Patty had starred in "You'll Like My Mother" which was

produced right here in Duluth using our very famous old mansion named Glensheen. It is a

great tourist attraction, now owned by the U of M, Duluth Branch. I have toured it twice. The first time we were not allowed to visit

the third floor or the attic. So I had to visit it in my dreams, literally. (Patty Duke was filmed on that floor as she hid her newborn baby from her mother-in-law.) I kept dreaming while

sound asleep, that I owned Glensheen and I was inspecting the attic. Finally, the Glensheen tour included the third floor and the attic. Oh, happy day!

The third floor was rather interesting. They had a room where the children of the family that

originally lived in the mansion were kept when they were sick. But the attic was a big disappointment. Attics should be full of wonderful interesting things from the past. This one wasn't.

Some people think the mansion is haunted by the lady that lived there alone except for her night nurse. Her servants probably did not live in. She was in her 80's when someone broke into the house and murdered both her and her night nurse. It was big news around here as the case was being solved.

I have a commercial copy of "You'll Like My Mother" and I think I'll view it tomorrow. It was one of the scariest movies I've ever watched. Its like taking another tour of Glensheen.

It Was a Crime!

I had a neighbor named Betty who was married to Jim and they were the parents of a four-year-old boy. Betty was about 25 or so, and I was 20. We became good friends as she was cheerful and hospitable and very likable. She seemed very happily married.

But Betty was saddened by the fact that she couldn't have any more children. So she cooked up a plan with a friend of hers in a neighboring state.

This friend had been married, but her husband left her because she had had an affair and became pregnant by this illicit lover of hers. She desperately wanted her husband back. He was willing to take her back, but he wanted nothing to do with another man's child.

So the plot was hatched.

The friend, who probably had no pre-natal care, would enter the hospital under Betty's name when the time came. Betty eventually showed me the birth certificate with Jim and her as the parents. There was the baby's footprint on this birth certificate.

So Betty brought this little baby boy home. It wasn't working out very well. Betty did not bond

with the baby at all, and I was appalled sometimes when she would ignore his heart-breaking crying. Jim even said to me once as he was tying his fishing flies, "I don't begrudge the baby a

little milk!"

It was 1946 and diaper flannel was almost impossible to find. I found a few yards of it to make my expected baby some diapers, but luckily I received lots of diapers as gifts and didn't have to

make any myself. So Betty wanted to buy my flannel for her new baby's diapers. She would pay

me later, of course, but------

Betty and Jim suddenly left town without as much as a goodbye. I heard later that they got

a divorce.

I never knew what happened to that poor little baby. But I fantasize that a loving couple adopted him and when he grew to young manhood he found his biological father. I don't know

whether I want him to put his arms around his real father or if I want him to shoot him dead in my fantasy. What would you fantasize?

My First Kiss

Oh, boy, this ought to be good! I haven't even told this story to my kids. Enjoy, kids!

Art was a young man that worked summers on a farm that was quite close to the area where I lived. It was a pleasant hike to this farm if the weather was nice. I remember walking to

"Hooker's Farm" (honest!) at least once. I remember sitting on the grass with my hiking friends and watching a bull being led by a rope that was attached to a ring in his nose. That was a little scary. Art used to come to our neighborhood riding on a white horse and he had a

barn aroma around his being, but he was kind of cute- especially astride that horse.

Art was Margaret's boyfriend. Lots of boys liked Margaret. She had big blue eyes and long curly

eyelashes and golden-brown hair that glistened in the sun. She also had freckles and tiny feet. She was always complaining about her hair, and I suspected she was fishing for compliments, which she got, of

course. She was older than I was, being about fifteen.

I don't have total recall on how Art and I happened to be together, but Margaret wasn't there.

Art said to me "What would you do if I kissed you?"

Being in total shock at such an idea, I replied, "I'd die!"

I guess he didn't care if I died, or even fainted dead away, because he planted a big wet sloppy

kiss on my innocent little mouth. (well, innocent, yes, but not so little)

Yuk!!!

Every time I see Bette Davis wiping her mouth in disgust after that actor kissed her, I think of Art.

My Brother Fred

Actually, we called him Fritz! He was a kid that built his own movie projector from scrap, scrounged up old 16mm films to entertain us. Built his own bow and arrows and even a target made from straw firmly coiled with wire. He used to stand on top of our chicken coop and shoot the rats that came to steal the chicken feed.

He built up a paper route for the Minneapolis Star so big that the manager made him give up half of it. He almost froze his feet once while out delivering the paper in the evening. I can remember my mother trying to bring back the circulation in his feet.

Then Fred worked at the Italian Bakery in Virginia, Minnesota and would bring home his lard-soaked aprons every week for my mother to boil. That's the only way you could get the grease

out. He would also get some of the day-old bakery to bring home, but not much, as these were

depression days.

The war came, Fred tried to join up, but he was too thin, so he was rejected. He worked his

way through the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis, every bit of way with no help from any source. He made friends with the guy who trucked the Minneapolis Star up to the Range, and would get a free ride home with him quite often. But he hitch-hiked back, I think.

He was selected by the government to work on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago where they were secretly working on plans for developing the first atomic bomb.

Then he went to Tennessee where the work was continued at the National Laboratory in a brand new city named Oak Ridge. You couldn't enter without a pass. The story goes that once he dropped some plutonium on the floor at the lab, so that part of the floor had to be cut out. His shoes were now radio-active, too, so he had to part with them.

Fred worked at the Oak Ridge National Lab for many years where research was done on many projects to help humanity. He eventually went into buying and developing land. He formed the Emory Valley Corporation and built many houses and

office buildings. Fred has been gone now for four or five years, and the company is managed by his family members. For information about that company you can use Google.

He certainly was a brother to be proud of.

Food

When I was still living with my parents, my father said to me, "When you grow up you will be

eating nothing but canned pork and beans and baking powder biscuits!"

I have no idea what prompted him to predict such a thing. But he didn't realize that two of my

favorite foods were pork and beans and baking powder biscuits.

Well, I just now looked at my food supply because its lunch time and there was nary a sign of pork and beans, but I have a whole bag of Schwan's baking powder biscuits with cheese and herbs in my freezer compartment of the refrigerator. They are pretty good, but not as good as "made from scratch".

My father was a cook's helper in the first World War. That was good because he was a tender-

hearted man that had trouble killing a chicken much less a man. But he was a whizz at baking it after he killed it. I saw him once basting a chicken with white wine while it was roasting in the oven.

His mother was from Norway, so of course, he had to cook Lutefisk every Christmas. It was tolerable with lots of melted butter on it. He also loved pig's feet and herring. You won't find

any of those things in my larder! He had a big jar of hot pickles and I wanted to taste one. He

warned me! I didn't listen, but went ahead and bit into that very hot pickle. WOW!! Father knew best.

Now what else should I have with my biscuits?

A Friend in Need

Shirley, age 14, really needed a friend because she had no mother. Her father it seems was a

little dim-witted and her older sister was married and not living at home anymore. So no one

looked out for Shirley back in 1939 and there-a-bouts.

I used to walk home with her in the extreme cold weather when we missed the bus. I could see

she didn't even have all the underwear she really needed. Her daddy probably was too embarrassed to buy her a bra. And she really could have used one. She was well-padded, so I

guess that helped to keep her warm.

Well, Shirley got a mastoid infection and was in terrible pain, so she was taken to the hospital.

Surgery was performed on the mastoid infection, but she died on the operating table they told me.

I went to the funeral home to view the body. I was shocked!! Here was this young girl who had

never worn as much as a pat of powder on her nose, made up to the gills with bright red rouge, lipstick and eyebrow pencil! It was awful. That's when I made up my mind to be cremated.

The Hypnotist

In the class ahead of me in Roosevelt High, there was a guy named Sanford Berman. I did not know him at all, but years later I almost fell under his spell. Yes, he became a professional hypnotist and changed his name to Dr. Michael Dean. He did earn a Doctorate at a University, so he was entitled to be called a doctor. But he wasn't a medical doctor. He was into words and their meanings----something called semantics. He wrote books and taught classes and such, but he wanted more.

So he became a nightclub hypnotist.

Time passed and my daughter was attending Roosevelt High just like I did so many years before.

Dr. Dean came back to his old school and put on a show for the local people, but not in a nightclub, but in the Roosevelt auditorium, the proceeds going to a scholarship fund for students.

My daughter was picked to be a participant in the show along with a few other students. I sat in the audience. Dr. Dean did remarkable things like suspending a boy between two chairs with

nothing between to hold him up. Another boy was put upon him, but the hypnotized boy was as stiff as a board and was undaunted by the heavy weight he had to bear.

Dr. Dean told the volunteers that they were naked. The audience really enjoyed watching the kids trying to hide their illusionary nakedness. I felt a little sorry for my daughter. He also told them that they were good dancers. My daughter didn't have a good sense of rhythm and I thought she looked silly. Young John Eide was told he could sing just like Andy Williams, so

he put his heart and soul into singing "Night and Day". But he wasn't very good.

Dr. Dean faced the audience and began to move his arms very slowly up and down. Up and down, up and down. I was beginning to get very sleepy. I realized I was being hypnotized even

though I was sitting in the audience. I fought it with all my might. I don't think I went under.

It makes you wonder if there are people walking around in this world under one kind of spell or another. Maybe I'm one of them.

stiff as a board

Cod Liver Oil

My grandchildren seem to like my stories of growing up during the Great Depression, even though there was nothing great about it.

I looked like a GD kid should look. Skinny, sallow-skin, stunted growth, dish-water- blond hair color. And I walked like a duck.

In school they took one look at me and ran for the cod-liver-oil bottle. They forced it down my

throat whether I liked it or not. Have you ever tasted cod-liver-oil?

Ovaltine, the well-known chocolate drink was available even back then, and the company ran ads in many magazines. The ads always had a nervous, painfully thin little girl presented to the public in a comic strip style. I always read these ads and I identified with this pathetic little girl.

Of course, after drinking Ovaltine for awhile, she blossomed into a beautiful, rosy-cheeked, healthy child with nerves as strong as steel. I think my mother bought some Ovaltine once,

but I didn't like the taste of it.

On the other hand, here were the Campbell Soup kids. They were fat and rosy-cheeked with

faces glowing over the thought of Campbell's soup. I don't know for sure, but I think the soup

company killed them off some time ago.

And one day my beautiful gym teacher took me aside and told me to train my feet to walk straight ahead. But these days when I see my footprints in the snow, I think I still walk a

little like a duck.

The Wax Museums

You haven't lived until you have visited a wax museum. Mark Twain sat in a rocking chair wearing his white suit, "smoking" his beloved cigar looking like the real man. Florence Nightingale bent over a wounded soldier, his knee a bloody mess, his chest heaving up and down, as he fought for life. Somehow they pumped air into his chest to make him look like living, breathing human in great distress. It was very moving to me.

I saw Richard Nixon's wax head just sitting there, waiting for the rest of his body, I guess. Jimmy Carter had been finished and he looked good.

Human hands made of wax are a thing to behold!

So beautiful that they are displayed alone---just the hands. Under glass.

Barbra Streisland looked so tall and lovely in a long green gown that you expected her to burst

out in song. Laurel and Hardy looked like they were still having fun.

But at another museum I saw what I thought were wax fetuses in various stages of development from a few weeks to full term. As I looked closer at their faces I realized these were for real!

I was viewing preserved human babies who had somehow lost their bid for continued life outside the womb. It gave me an awful feeling.

But I thoroughly enjoyed seeing an Egyptian mummy!! He was probably about 3,000 years old and here I am------ looking at his toes, even!

I saw a hologram, too. Truly amazing! It was a glass of wine and if it wasn't behind glass, you

could swear you could take hold of it, but it was an illusion. Durn!

A Dog's Life

I don't know where this Beagle hound came from, but many years ago he decided to live in my

part of the neighborhood. He wouldn't let anyone come near him, but he wasn't vicious, just plain scared.

Month after month, people who lived on the four corners of this intersection put food out for him. But as time went on I could see him sitting on the neighbor's steps so cold that he looked like he was starting to sway. I think he was flirting with hypothermia. And one day he could only walk on three legs. He held his front leg up as he walked and it dangled.

I had a back entry where the door opened inward instead of outward. (I have replaced that storm door) So I put a heavy old coat in the little entry for him to sleep on at night. I don't know how animals know things, but this Beagle knew that he could sleep there and so he did.

But this could not go on forever because we didn't know if he could become a danger to the

children in the neighborhood or contract some disease and die alone in agony.

So I contacted the Animal Shelter. They borrowed a tranquilizer gun from the local zoo, and

set out to catch this poor homeless creature. But he eluded them time after time.

Then one cold night he crept into my back entry and accidentally pushed the door closed.

In the morning I realized he was trapped there! I called the shelter and a man came out in record time! He entered through my front door, through the house and then opened

the back kitchen door and quickly got in the entry with him. The Beagle put up a struggle, but

was subdued with mace.

I had mixed feelings. I was glad that poor dog was going to be put out of his misery, yet I did

not care much for the part I played in bringing his life to an end.

The Lonely Housewife

The lonely housewife back in the 40's and early 50's had some really dear friends that made her

life much easier to bear. They were called " radio soap operas". There were so many, and I can remember "The Romance of Helen Trent" and the announcer asking "Can a women over 35 find

love and romance?" What a laugh!!!

And then there was "Our Gal Sunday" and the announcer asked, "Can a girl from a little mining town in the West find happiness as the wife of a wealthy and titled Englishman?" Hey, why not?

And Oxydol's Own Ma Perkins. She was a friend to all and came close to being a fairy godmother. The harried housewife felt a little better knowing that there were people like Ma Perkins in the world.

And there was "This is Nora Drake". She was a nurse in a hospital and probably had all the doctors falling for her.

And so the lonely housewife lived vicariously through the soap opera heroines. And it was good.

Little Annie Fights Back

All my life, I have been described as "sweet". In tenth grade history for instance Miss Simons asked me "Annabelle, sweet Annabelle, is this your day of silence?"

My neighbor told me I was sweet. The teller at the bank said the same. It gets sickening.

Because------I really am not sweet!

To prove it, I'll relate what happened to a poor girl back when we were in ninth grade. It was a

very cold winter and we had to wait outside of the school for the school bus to take us home. Every day I would get to be first or almost first in line. Big Barbara would come along and shove me to the back of the line and take my place.

One day, I decided enough was enough and when she started to push me, I doubled up my sweet little fist and slammed it into her stomach. From then on, she let me keep my place in line.

Moral: Don't push "sweet" people too far.

A Cat Brings a Gift

Once I had two pregnant cats, Serena and Tootsie. Tootsie had her kittens first and I kept them in a box in the living room. Tootsie wouldn't let Serena near her kittens for love or money. Serena was heart-broken. She begged and begged Tootsie to let her come in the box and lick her little kittens, but each time she got hissed at and boxed.

One evening, a bunch of us were sitting out on my front steps with both Tootsie and Serena. Serena had an idea! Off she went in search of a mouse. She came back with a mouse in her

teeth and dropped it at Tootsie's feet. When we all went back in the house, Serena jumped in the box with the kittens, heart filled with love and joy! Tootsie just sat there, probably realizing that now she had a trusted baby-sitter.

That was long ago, but recently I noticed a new cat in the neighborhood and sometimes in my yard. She wore a collar, so I was sure she wasn't a stray. One morning I looked out on

my back- step platform and much to my surprise I saw an almost dead mouse. It moved a bit, but it was surely dying. Every few minutes I would go back and check. It was moving itself

slowly down the four steps and within a half an hour it was on the cement walk. I took a snap

of it to prove my story. The next morning before dawn, I turned on the outside light to see if

anything was going on in the back yard. There on the steps was this new cat looking up at me.

I really think she had offered me a mouse because she wanted to live with me. I shook my

head "no" and I haven't seen her since.

The Plumber

I know this will be almost impossible to believe, but it really happened about five years ago.

One day I heard some water dripping in the basement. I, of course, had to call a plumber, and

I asked for a free estimate. My wish was granted. Later, he arrived and I took him down to

the basement and pointed out where the drip was. He grabbed my hand. Even five years ago I

was classified as an old lady by the experts. He wasn't going to let go of my hand as I tried to pull away. So I said, "It's cold down here." He let go, probably thinking that I preferred a place warmer than the basement to carry on what it was he had in mind. We proceeded up the stairs and as his shoes were in the front entry, he had to go through the living room on his way out.

But he made a stop. He decided to sit on my couch. I sat in a chair. He started talking as if he

were just a new neighbor that I had invited in. I really didn't know what I should do.

Then the phone rang. The phone was in the kitchen at the time, so I left him sitting there while

I answered the phone. He couldn't hear what I was saying, but I think he got nervous. I hung

up the phone and went back to the living room. He was in the front entry putting his shoes back on. Then he left, but eventually I received the bill for the free estimate. Almost $80.00! This man must have been really mad!

I wrote to the company and straightened that out and they cancelled the billed amount. I

didn't tell them what happened as I had no witnesses and who would believe it anyway? But it

really happened.

Gregory Peck and me!

Gregory Peck came to town to promote his latest movie and he didn't want any publicity except for appearing on the local TV stations. I was determined to hunt him down, so I called a TV station and got some lowdown as to where he was.

So I grabbed my movie camera (this was in the early 70's), got one of my daughters to come with me, and drove to KDALTV. We saw a limo sitting there with the driver waiting for him to exit the building. Then he appeared!!

I was a nervous wreck, but he posed with me while my daughter took a movie of us together.

He wore dark glasses so I couldn't see his eyes, but I took a really good look at the rest of his

handsome face. There was no doubt about it. It really was Mr. Peck. He spoke!

He said, "It looks like we are going to make a movie together."

This trembling idiot replied, "Do you think we will both fit ?"

What was going through my mind was that he was so tall, and I was so short, that maybe the

movie couldn't capture us both. But it did. And I got his autograph, too. I might sell it on

E-Bay.

A starry night

Mars has always intrigued me. Our grade-school science books showed photos of the canals on

Mars. There had to be life there! Anything you wanted to know could be found in the children's library, I assumed. I was really disappointed! Nobody on earth knew anymore about Mars than

the man on the street knew. There was a man named Orson Wells that imagined things really well, so this genius wrote radio scripts and when they were aired, some people in America thought Martians were actually invading New Jersey! I think Orson got into a little trouble for that!

Being born under the Zodiac sign of Taurus the Bull, I was a stubborn little cuss, and I promised

myself that I wouldn't leave this world until I knew for sure that life did or did not exist on Mars.

Today CNN's Web site invites us to look at brand new photos of Mars. There are 95 pages of

photos. There are more than 1500 photos. Nothing very startling there, I'll bet!

Of course, long ago when I thought of life, I pictured human or human-like creatures. We are

pretty sure that there are no such critters inhabiting Mars now. But life on Mars doesn't have

to walk around on two legs to be considered as life.

What really scares me is that one of those machines might have a warped sense of humor and

drop a copy of LIFE magazine on Mars and therefore put an end to my quest.

Mice are not nice

My favorite mouse of all time was never Mickey, it was/is Jerry. I love the Tom and Jerry cartoons because I like to see the little underdog (undermouse?) outsmart the big, mean

brutish cat. It was a love/hate relationship and always exciting, like some human marriages.

My first encounter with my own personal Jerry was in the middle of the night as I lay sound

asleep only to be awakened by something moving on the back of my neck. I put my hand over

the little creature and realized it was a mouse! I was about 10 years old. So what does a ten-year-old coward do when presented with such a terrifying situation? She screams bloody murder and her father comes to her bedside. What does a grown man do in such a situation? He takes the innocent little creature by the tail, opens the living room coal- stove door, and tosses it in.

I suffered a little bit of guilt over my part in this, but then realized that that little thing was not

so innocent after all because he chewed up one of my favorite pieces of sheet music-----would you believe it was entitled "Kamenoi Ostrow"? Honest.

The Good Old Days

When I was ten years old, I lived for a short time with my uncle and his family on the edge of town. Very close by was a very lonely road leading to another section of the town. The road led

to the Olcott Park where children could play and watch the caged animals.

There were no buildings on this gravel road named for President Hoover except some shacks built by poverty stricken, alcoholic men. We called it "Hoover Camp".

I remember walking alone on Hoover Road when a car (probably a ModelT) came along and the

driver offered me a ride home. I had been told by my mother not to talk to strangers, so I refused to get in his car. "I know your father." he said.

"Well, then he was not actually a stranger, was he?" my little mind reasoned. So I got in his car and he dropped me off at my uncle's house. That was it!!

But sometime later there was a terrible happening at the Hoover Camp. Two of the men got

some wood alcohol and drank it. They must have gone raving mad! One man put his head

down on the chopping stump and the other man chopped off his head with an axe.

Well, Hoover Road is now civilized with many commercial buildings and those terrible

Depression days are over. We hope.

Just Beginning

This is my first attempt at blogging. I intend to tell stories of events that have happened to me

in my life time. I can remember being in kindergarten with the little green chairs and brown tables. The tricycles were of special interest to me because I always wanted one, but never had one. Well, I tried to make my own trike when I was three years old. I had received a buggy as a present. I didn't want a buggy! I wanted a tricycle! So I tried to take the buggy apart in order to transform it into a trike. That didn't work at all. The trouble with the first semester in this kindergarten was that the teacher was a monster. She hit the kids with a ruler at times. She

even broke a ruler over little Bobby's head once. If you raised your hand for permission to go

to the little girl's room, she wouldn't let you go. Well, she was let go! Yes, she was an alcoholic and she was dismissed. The replacement teacher was an angel in disguise. She must have sensed my fear and she was especially nice to me. We didn't just draw pictures with crayons, no, we painted watercolor pictures standing at artist's easels! I remember painting a picture of a big gray elephant with colorful flowers around him. She had me take my creation to some of the other classrooms to show them what I did. That was very good for my fragile little ego.