Lost and Found ,, Beck's Father's Coat

In sticking with my promise to myself to NOT post political junk on this site, I would like to make a disclaimeer here.. This is  NOT a Political Post, but it is a segment from Glen Beck's TV show.  The subject is about a young single mother and her story about finding Glen Beck's father's coat.

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"Open That Jar of Pickles"?

Open That Jar of Pickles


“Let me open that jar of pickles for you”.

Twirling around , hopping, in the kitchen must have been part of a magical dance to somehow help herself loosen the lid atop the jar of Mt. Olive dill pickles.

“I want to do it myself”.

With this kind of determination, always called for wrinkled eyebrows in sort of a “pout” and the heightened concentration by sticking her tongue out. With this, she had not changed since she was old enough to walk.

“Daddy, Daddy, come look. I can do it”.

At first I felt a bit of a shock. A parent can instantly see signs of pain in the face of their children. I had been occupied all morning building a storage shed in the back yard to put extra boxes that we had yet to unpack. Dust and dirt covered her little five year old face. Each cheek sported horizontal “clean” streaks resembling cartoon war paint. It was easy to recognize the knuckle smears where the backs of her hands had wiped the tears, and the dirt, from her eyes and cheeks over and over again.

“I can do it. I can ride my bicycle”.

By accident, we had moved a small 12” child’s bike that had belonged to a friend, when we moved to South Carolina from Texas. I remembered distinctively that it was not equipped with training wheels.

“Come watch me. I can ride it”.

Little, short, running strides could barely keep up with my normal walking gait. The bicycle had about as many scratches as she did. The knees of her blue jeans were almost worn throw and her tennis shoes were on their last leg. Snatching the frame upright on to its two wheels, she stood on her left tip-toes in order to throw her right leg over the seat.

“Don’t bite your tongue off”.

That was the only instruction that I had to offer. She was forever sticking her tongue out when she was wrestling with some type of obstacle, whether animate or mental. I stepped back to watch. Pushing off, she started down the driveway. Wiggle, wiggle, and then with speed, the travel line began to straighten. I positioned myself at the end of the driveway so I could stop her before she rode into the main street. I was a slight incline going toward the street. There had been no need. Applying the kick back brake, the rear tire locked up and place another signature along with the other black I can do it skid streaks.

Snap, a grunt, and a twist and the aroma of pickles filled the kitchen. The cartoon war streaks were not there but I still got to see that smile and determination.

“I told you I could do it”.

“Yep, you did, along with forty eleven dozen thing along the way”

We finished with our song…

(All my girls and grandkids had their own little song that we sing. This one was a pee-wee cheerleader so we developed hers into sort of a “yell”. This will stay up only a short time because,, well, that is just the way I am,,) I start, she picks up, I cut in, she pick back up ‘til after the clap and then sometimes finish in unison.

With a cadence:

Cortney Wortney, she’s my honey,

She is cuter than the Easter Bunny.

And, Like Brear Rabbit, who love the thicket,,

I lubbbbb my Cortney, (clap and stomp) Now that’s The Ticket.


Now, you have heard about the "whole bunch"  and a few have asked about pic.  This will be up for a short time only, but now you know who my baby girls are and Yep, The Boss.. lol

"Net"

As an Old Country Codger, who is also a parent, you wonder sometimes what you might have taught your young’uns. Yesterday I didn’t wonder. I relaxed. Not for myself but my youngest Baby Girl. She received the news that she passed her BAR EXAM.


We hear a lot about “net” these days. I don’t mean the kind you catch something in but where one bunch is compared to another bunch and compare which bunch is the biggest. That difference is the “net” of something.

I have “net’ed” a lot more “taught” than I dispensed. My Middle Daughter called “The Boss” yesterday after she got the news from the younger, and asked “How does it feel to be the parents of a new lawyer”. I haven’t had that conversation with the Middle one yet but it gave me a lot of thinking opportunities. It feels like happiness and humongeous pride for the youngest one’s accomplishment. She worked herself to a frazzle during college and her internship with the State Department,, just like the Middle One did while she worked herself through school, internship with the Center for Disease Control, set up her own business, with two kids 3 and 2, Big Paw’s Baby Girl and Baby Boy( Big Paw’s baby boy being brought from Russia), and the Oldest worked herself through college, who now is in the midst of raising Big Paw’s Big Boy-9 years old, (who was born 3 months early and weighed 1 ½,, yep one and one half pounds at birth, three months in intensive care in the hospital) while she teaches school and helps her husband with their business. – all one sentence?,,I know.

Through all of their adventures, they supported each other as well. One looks out for the other and we all look out for each other. A tiny blog post cannot even touch what I could write, so I think it all come down to strength. Comparing “net” strength or “net” taught, with them and this old 6’2, 275 lb. Old Codger, look in the dictionary under “Short End of the Stick”, and you will see my picture.

Through it all “The Boss” molded and shaped when the situation needed “molding and shaping” and I take bragging rights kind of shyly – but I take them, so sue me. I got a great lawyer

Congratulations to my Baby Girl.

Has Anyone Signed Up?

Has anyone signed up for the NaNoWriMo thingy?  Did anyone participate last year?,,and how much time did you have to devote to it.. Seems like a survey don't it?

Writer's Litmus Test

This is one of the most “amazing” things, to me, and I have never seen it. Well, I see this picture just as you do and it is still amazing, but to see it “live” could only be a guess at its magnificence. I wonder sometimes that what we think we see is not what we are looking at.

Nope, this is not a travel post. It is a writing post. OK, I will try to unravel my direction here. I was sitting in Barnes and Noble (one of my favorite places) and while I was sitting in one of the three available reading chairs, thumbing through a “writing” book. I looked up and thought: “Look at all these books”. What must have been going through the minds of all these people? Somebody had to write each and every one of those books. I wonder how many authors had “hands on” experience with each topic written about in thousands, perhaps millions, of words on all the pages in that building.

One of my worries about writing is having the correct information and background. That you have to be an expert about everything you write. That it is the truth. Maybe not completely but at least be authentic and true to the history of the article. I don’t think I am alone in this thought or there wouldn’t be so many “how to“ reference books on the market. My true nature, I think, is to not just make shit up but sometimes I get enjoyment out of doing just that. I am a great fan of the old TV series Twilight Zone so I know how important it is that a person be careful to keep the distinction between fact and fantasy clear in their mind.

But would anyone want to hear all that? I don’t know. I do. Maybe. There are a lot of other rules. Another post yesterday alluded to maybe rules are just guidelines anyway. I like that and maybe fact from fiction is just a guideline too. I suppose the reader will eventually let you know, I guess everyday is a survey for response within its self. Everyone has their own aspirations whether it is writing or reading or ‘rithmetic and how they apply to society and an audience is varied as there are number of personalities.

I bought that book. During one of the segments, the author was listing a few guidelines or hints that would indicate the readers’ interest or aptitude for being a writer. One of the things he mentioned that a writer, as a youngster, as having the characteristics of a storyteller. I am not sure I am a storyteller so I changed the interpretation of what he was saying to someone, as a youngster, enjoyed to “play-like”. Did you ever use the phrase; I am going to “play-like” I am a pirate, or let’s play school and I will be the teacher. Some of you may have read a past post of mine, Oh Me,,No Wii , where Davy Crockett and I were great partners in adventure. Suddenly I remembered, I had been to the Grand Canyon, but it was in Nacogdoches county, close to a small community called Traywick. Which incidentally, is where Hank and Billy Ray (Pork Chops and Collard Greens) used to play ( refered to as Satersville ) when they were little boys at the pulp wood yard. Back to the Grand Canyon story. This was the REAL Grand Canyon. It had to be. It was a deep gully and had a small stream running down the middle of it, and I had a miner’s pan, which was actually the top of an old fashion coffee can, and I sifted through tons of ore panning out the golden nuggets that were going to make me rich and I would buy a horse, no,, a whole western town, and I would trade it all for a new Roy Rogers guitar with an authentic rope strap and real plastic guitar pick with a picture of Roy and Dale on it.

While at the bookstore, I looked and looked for a book on “Writer’s Litmus Test”. I didn’t find one so I made up one of my own. I took it twice to see what it would tell me. I passed so from that I decided: I am gonna be a writer…

Not really just “play-like”.

Newspapers,,Times are a'changin'

Newspapers convey to us words from around the blind corner: from places we can’t see or hear. News. I suppose that is where they got their name.


The evening newspaper. The end of an uneventful day. Time to read about events and people he didn’t experience while going about his daily activities. He didn’t see me seeing him as he sat down on the park bench. A folded newspaper clutched under his left arm. His right steadied a walking cane propped against the armrest of the bench.

Inside the folds of the cheap print paper tales of intrigue and current events waited patiently to spring forth and enlightened the gentleman. The evening sun added golden highlights to the silver mane that had been neatly combed even though time could be nearing for a barber’s tool. A brightly colored automobile stopped for the red light, one of those new “hybrids” he had heard and read about. Pedestrians waiting for the “walk” light to indicate “go” for the foot traffic. A countdown clock,,4,3,2,1, and tiny LED lights formed an outline of a walking man gave the signal to “walk”.

“My goodness, times have changed”, his words heard only by one of Shorty’s descendents. Shorty had been the park mascot, a small fox squirrel that had been adopted by the park visitors a few years earlier. A squirrel can be easily bought with a steady supply of peanuts.

“I wonder what the stock market did today”? The bank across the street once had a “ticker tape” billboard on the front façade, but now long gone. He rarely let a day go by that he had not charted the up and down graphs in his mind as he spoke to his broker by phone that actually had a coiled wire hooking the receiver to the body of the telephone. “Oh well, things worked out OK”. The stock market had been a minor hobby of his. The sales and marketing opportunities had allowed for his family to be sheltered in a modest home and all his sons and daughter had gone to and graduated from college. He made a mental note to check and see how they were getting along. Getting them through college was his major goal and worry as they grew to adulthood. He often worried that their opportunity would not be as fertile as when he got out of college.

“Shorty Junior, do you have lots of ‘hickornuts’ stashed away for the winter?, might be a long hard one.” Shorty junior didn’t to seem to care much as he reached and took the peanut from the silver haired gentleman. A sudden click and buzzing sound of a starting street lamp sent Shorty Junior scurrying into the hedge bushes. The wind stirred with a dry chillness as the smiling gentle spoke to no one . “Guess it is too late to read about the weather”. Remembering the newspaper under his arm brought another chuckle without an audience.

“Yep, times are a’changing, but I hope they don’t stop printing newspapers. I sure hope it don’t rain”. The unfolding rustle of the newspaper as he spread it to cover himself from the night dew, echoed against the bank’s brick wall.

Post "POST",, After the first two comments, I see that I have missed the mark on this one.  I suppose this might need further explaination.  lol.. There was a local news story about the downtown area making a fuss about the homeless in the park.  This was meant to be a different view in the fact that we never know what the history of these visitors is.  The "man" is ok with his situation because he has done what he had set out to do before this period in time.  I supposed I interjected my worry of getting my girls out of college into the story and it landed soundly out of place.  Both he and I are "fine" with the children situation. lol. You folks sure are great.. lol

When Ya Get Old..

When you get old your Saturday's are "different".  You have read the story about "The Boss" and me going to Greenville and then on to Denton where we lived when we first got "hitched".  Spur of the moment.  Well, we do movies that way too.  We have breakfast around lunch time, (This week it was at the EGG and I,,maybe I will get a complimentary ticket for that plug) and then we could think of no place to run off to so we decided on a movie.  Saturday tickets are at a discount.  Six dollars each.  That makes twelve dollars for entry fee, but I always outsmart "The Boss".  I drop her off at the ticket booth and go park the van.  See, that way she is tricked into buying the tickets.  I park and we enter the gate and she runs off to the "powder room" while I get refreshments.  They are a bargain at our movie house.  Two Icee's, a box of Milk Duds and a sack of popcorn only came to twenty two dollars and sixy three cents.  Good thing they were out of bottled water, it is only 5.25, but it is a pretty good sized bottle. I wonder who out-smatz who on this deal. reckon?

Anyhow, by not doing a lot of researech on the movie hunt, the movie we choose may not always be as entertaining as we had hoped.  This week we ventured into see RED.
"Retired and Extremely Dangerous".  I have posted a link so I won't go into all the characters that are involved, I will keep this short.

This was fun.  Pure and simple.  Not a whole lot of "cussing" and no neckedness, just fun.  The best I would describe it if I was down at the feed store would be that it is a cross between "Die Hard" ( It does have Bruce Willis in it ) and the "Pink Panther".  Neither of these movies were a big draw to me but the combination made me laugh a little.

If you don't like going to the movies, I doubt it will be too long before this thing is available on Netflix or DVD.  I am not much of a movie critic, but I am hard to please with plot and acting.  It doesn't much matter here, because the fun was laced through out, in my Old Codger opinion.

 http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810143371/info

      click to view trailer