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.