Quote of the Week: 6/24/2013

“I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”
-- Mark Twain

OLD LITTLE BOOKS

Here are some of the books my dad had when he was growing up. I can remember reading them myself, several times, through the years. I have some others, but they do not have a front cover. It's funny sometimes, the things we keep for all of these years.

I have some others that I will post about in a few days. Here is a hint for you guys. Bob cat, wolf, bear. That just might give it away.

WET AND DRY VAC: Ours is not the best.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of you own a wet and dry vac. Ours is a bit different then a lot out on the market. Ours is mostly used in the kitchen, dining room, and sometimes on the patio and, every once in awhile, in the living room.

If it is liquid, food crumbs, or any type of food, it gets sucked up so fast that there is never a five second rule -- or even a two second rule. 'Course, it won't clean up dog hair or dirt. Or suck up water if your basement floods.

But it sure does a bang up job for those spills in the kitchen!

STICKY BUTT

Any of you ever have a sticky butt? I have. Twice. 

First time, I must have been about 4 or 5 years old. I just happened to knock over a BIG jar of honey. And, of course, I didn't move. It flowed all over the seat of the big old patio chair I was sitting in.

Did you know that honey gets into every crack and crevice? And that you should not then sit in sand or near an ant hill? And, that all kinds of bugs and creepy crawlers like honey also? Not to say anything about hummingbirds.

I never knew how fast and how many hummingbirds will attack a honey soaked butt and crotch. It was like the attack of Peal Harbor all over again, except the attackers were much more colorful. My dad could not move quick enough to help me. He was too busy laughing and watching me run around the yard, swatting and dodging, weaving, jumping, and rolling to get away from the hummingbirds!

Then, I made the mistake of running towards our neighbors house. He and his wife were bee keepers. By then, I was really going bonkers. Them bees were worse than the hummingbirds! By then, my dad decided to help. I'm sure he meant well. And, he said, he thought it was water, but it was a 5-gallon jug of sweet tea that he threw on me.

Now, I love my dad, and now I can tell this since he has passed on. I'm sure when my turn comes, he will be right there at the pearly gates, ready to give me what for for telling on him. Anyway, by the time the grown-ups got me into the house, I had ants in my pants, sand and dirt up my butt crack. Hummingbird feathers and bee stings all over my body.

To this day, if I hear a hummingbird I break out in a cold sweat and start for the door. Ant piles are jumped on and destroyed. Bees bring on this uncontrollable arm swinging and running around like a chicken without a head. And forget about me EVER having southern style sweet tea. And my sister in Arkansas wonders why I won't come and see her.

I'd hate to scare the you know what out of her when the nightmares come back. The funny thing is I still like honey!

I think I will tell the other story of a sticky butt at a later date. I swear I can hear hummingbirds outside the window!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: 6/17/13

"Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough. "
--Oprah Winfrey

NEW PHONES FOR EVERYONE

This will take some doing. But, if we all pull together we should be able to get it done.

Okay, first everyone needs to get some soup cans. Make sure they are clean and that there are no sharp edges. We don't want anyone to lose a ear.

Next, we need string. Lots and lots of string.

Everyone should remember how to make a string phone. If you don't, just ask one of us old farts. That will work as long as none of us have lost our childhood memories.

Next, we need tons of wax to smear on all of the strings. Ear wax does not work. Plus, its hard to get the amount that we would need. Then once we all have our soup can phones, we just all connect them together!

And there we have it -- a new phone system. And if it gets hacked, we have lots of string to tie them up with so we can ship them back to DC.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: 6/10/13

"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity."

--Louis Pasteur

POKY STICK

Did you ever have a poky stick? Everyone needs a poky stick.

Poky sticks are real handy to have. You can have them in different lengths. I got my first poky stick, I guess, when I was about six years old. I remember getting it out of a wood pile. It was a couple feet long, and could also be a sword, or a spear, when needed.

It seemed that every kid, boy and girl, had one. But, I never saw any of the city kids with a poky stick. I guess they thought that they just didn't need one. We used them for all kinds of things, like poking them in rat holes or into drain pipes for snapping turtles. And they came in pretty handy, when you found a dead cat or dog along side of the road that had been killed by a car. They were poked. Even some critters that had been hit by the train were good for a poky stick.

We would carry our poky sticks every place we went. You just never knew when you would need it. And we took them home, and had a special place to keep them, so that it was there, ready for you everyday. We used our poky sticks as stick horses, swords, rifles, spears, and just about anything else we could think of. We poked dead bugs, snakes, and hollow trees were fun to poke. And, yeah, we poked one another too.

We would take a old tin can and put it on the end of a poky stick, then fling the can at someone. If you got hit by the can, you were frozen, until some one came along with their poky stick and tapped you with it. We could spend hours playing with our poky sticks. They were good for getting snakes. And for crawdads. And even getting a old bull frog now and then. But, as we got older, we gave up our poky sticks for other things.

Even now, at the age of 57, everytime I go camping or hunting and we have a camp fire, I find me a poky stick. It's good for moving logs in the camp fire or for stirring the embers when you go to put out your fire. And, as from a previous story, to check for mice when you use the potty in winter.

Everybody should have a poky stick. You never know when you might feel the need to poke something!

OOP'S (Maybe)

As Mom used to say, "Oh, feathers!!!" She said that when she had made a mistake or something was not quite right. So, "Oh, feathers!" (instead of my usual choice words). My knee does not seem to be getting better as I think it should.

The doctor said to wait for about another two months, when I last saw him, which was about two weeks ago. At that time, my knee seemed to be somewhat better. I was walking a bit more, and riding a stationary bicycle for about 10 minutes at a time three times a week.

Well, I was limping along, coming up our driveway from getting our mail, when all of a sudden it felt like my knee was about to dislocate itself. Thankfully, Kathi's car was there for me to catch myself with. The doctor said it was all right to walk without the knee brace as long as I didn't try to walk my miles around the lake or get overly aggressive with my walking.

I mean, it's not like I was skipping up the driveway or doing hopscotch. And, I wasn't swaggering. My swagger died years ago. Since jacking up my knee the last of March, I kinda do the Tim Conway shuffle, like he did as the old guy on the Carol Burnett show of years gone by. I sat on my butt for over a month on our couch. (For you younger people, it would be called a sofa.)

I sat for so many days, that I wove a butt grove in the couch cushion to the point that we had to get a new couch. Kathi likes the new one, 'cause her feet can touch the floor when she's sitting on it. Me? My knees are up around my chest and it makes it hard to see our TV. And --  it's harder to get my now fatter butt up off of it.

So, anyway, I'm thinking that when I get back to the doctor, I'll probably be getting an MRI of my knee. I personally think that I will have to have surgery or something. I'm not too happy about it, but whatcha gonna do? I may have to also figure a way to get around to do some fishing. Or, maybe I could just set on my fat butt and work on my tan.

Now, if I could just teach Nugget how to pick up his own poo. And how to mow the yard. Then it might not be so bad.