Today's Verse




Monday, May 12, 2008

Living In Black and White

Someone emailed this to me and I loved it. I hope it brings back memories for you too.


Black and White
(Under age 40? You won't understand.)

You could hardly
see for all the snow, spread the rabbit ears as far as they go. Pull a chair up to the TV set, 'Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet.'


My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning. My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice-pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli.



Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then. The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE ... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are
now.

Flunking gym was not an option even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym. Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.



We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything. I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be
proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were
without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations. Oh yeah ... and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that
bee sting? I could have been killed!


We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked. Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.


We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got spanked there and then we got spanked again when we got home. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that we needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA, AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T; SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING.




Saturday, May 10, 2008

Western Heritage Classic Parade

Thursday night, we went to the Western Heritage Parade. Mattie May just loves parades. This one is fun because it is at night. The weather is usually nice and it is just a lot of fun. Chris, Nikki, Lindsey and Caleb went with us too. I hope you enjoy the pictures.



The Western Heritage Classic combines a lot of different activities into one fun weekend. There are chuckwagon cookoffs, bit and spur shows, competition for the kiddos, and the ranch rodeo. It is all a fun time. WHC is always the same weekend in May as Mother's day. Come check it out some time.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

I Won!

Remember the contest I told you about here? Well, I won! I get a magazine subscription on log cabins. I am so excited. If you get the chance, pop over to Shelly's blog and check out her new log home. It will make you drool!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

More Zoo Pictures

Ok, I have more pictures of our zoo trip last week. This is a new program that I am trying out. Please let me know what you think!

Click to play Trip to the Zoo
Create your own scrapbook - Powered by Smilebox
Make a Smilebox scrapbook


Hope you enjoyed my little "scrapbook". Please leave me a comment so I will know what you think.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Zoo Trip

Mattie May, Katie and I went to the zoo last week. I have been trying something new before I posted pictures but I am having trouble getting the program to work. Most of the pictures look like all the others that I take at the zoo, but there has been a new sculpture placed near the turtles and it is really cute. Here is Mattie May on the sculpture doing her imitation of it. She is such a ham.
If you have not had a chance to see all the new things at the zoo, now is a great time to go. The weather is not too hot! They have moved all the reptiles to the new "Creepy, Crawly Center" and are working on some new exhibits. The new (almost year old) entry and zoo store are great. I hope you get the chance to go.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Happy Birthday Traci!

Today is Traci's birthday! Yeah Traci! What can I tell you about her that I have not already told you? She is a great Aunt to Katie and Mattie May and my sister that I always write about. I am always so proud to tell everyone that she is the principle at her shcool and she is working on her doctorate. I can't wait 'til she finishes so I can say we have a Doctor in the family! Happy Birthday Traci - I Love You!


Post Script - It is difficult to find pictures of Traci, because, like me, she is always behind the camera, not in front of it. Of the few pictures I have found, I am having trouble getting them scanned. I will keep trying though.