Serious Stuff Sent In By Readers
On a serious note: As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast, and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back.
(Thanks David!)
I grew up in the fifties with practical parents -- a Mother, God love her, who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. She was the original recycle queen, before they had a name for it...A Father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones.
Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away. I can see them now, Dad in trousers, tee shirt and a hat and Mom in a house dress, lawn mower in one hand, dishtowel in the other.
It was the time for fixing things -- a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress. Things we keep.
It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy.
All that re-fixing, reheating, renewing, I wanted just once to be wasteful.
Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.
But then my Mother died, and on that clear summer's night, in the warmth of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any 'more.' Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away...never to return.
So...while we have it...it's best we love it.....and care for it.....and fix it when it's broken.....and heal it when it's sick.
This is true.....for marriage.....and old cars.....and children with bad report cards.....and dogs with bad hips.....and aging parents.....and grandparents.
We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it. Some things we keep. Like a best friend that moved away -- or -- a classmate we grew up with. There are just some things that make life important, like people we know who are special.....and so, we keep them close!
(Thanks Paul!) This is an amazing picture....
The picture is of Europe and Africa when the sun is setting. Half of the picture is in night. The bright dots you see are the cities lights. The top part of Africa is the Sahara Desert. This was taken by the crew on board Columbia on its last mission. This photo was taken via satellite, on a cloudless day. Note how the lights are already on in Holland, Paris, and Barcelona, and how it's still daylight in London, Lisbon, and Madrid. The sun is still shining on the Straight of Gibraltar, and the Mediterranean Sea is already in darkness. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean you can see the Azores Islands; below them to the right are the Madeira Islands; a bit below are the Canary Islands; and further south, close to the farthest western point of Africa, the Cape Verde Islands. Note how the Sahara is huge and can be seen clearly both during daytime and nighttime. To the left, on top, is Greenland, totally frozen. Fantastic!
http://www.smokersclubcomedy.com/rimages/sunset.jpg
(Thanks Sam N.!) Five lessons to make you think about the way we treat people.1 - First Important Lesson - Cleaning Lady.
During my second month of college, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions, until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?" Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. "Absolutely," said the professor. "In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say 'hello'. I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy.2. - Second Important Lesson - Pickup in the Rain
One night, at 11.30 p.m., an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rainstorm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her, generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960s. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxicab. She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his address and thanked him. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man's door. To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A special note was attached. It read: "Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes, but also my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband's bedside just before he passed away. God bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others." Sincerely, Mrs. Nat King Cole.3 - Third Important Lesson - Always remember those who serve.
In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10 -year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked.” Fifty cents," replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it. "Well how much is a plain dish of ice cream?" he inquired. By now more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she brusquely replied. The little boy again counted his coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies. You see, he couldn't have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.4 - Fourth Important Lesson. - The obstacle in Our Path.
In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the King for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand! Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.5 - Fifth Important Lesson - Giving when it Counts.
Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes I'll do it if it will save her." As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheek. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away". Being young the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood in order to save her.
(Thanks David!) Ahhhhhh.......a moment of nostalgia.....
I'm talking about sitting on the curb, sitting on the stoop...about hide-and-go-seek; Simon says and red-light-green-light. Lunch boxes with a thermos ...chocolate milk, going home for lunch, penny candy from the store, hopscotch, butterscotch, skates with keys, jacks and Cracker Jacks, hula hoops and sunflower seeds, wax lips and mustaches, Mary Jane's, saddle shoes and Coke bottles with the names of cities on the bottom.
Remember when it took five minutes for the TV to warm up. When nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids arrived home from school. When nobody owned a purebred dog. When a quarter was a decent allowance.
When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny. When your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces. When all of your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done everyday and wore high heels.
Remember running through the sprinkler, circle pins, bobby pins, Mickey Mouse Club, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Kookla, Fran and Ollie, Spin and Marty...Dick Clark's American Bandstand ... all in black and white and your Mom made you turn it off when a storm came.
When around the corner seemed far away, and going downtown seemed like going somewhere. Climbing trees, making forts, backyard shows, lemonade stands, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, staring at clouds, jumping on the bed, pillow fights, ribbon candy, angel hair on the Christmas tree, Jackie Gleason, white gloves, walking to the movie theater, running till you were out of breath, laughing so hard that your stomach hurt...remember that?
Not stepping on a crack or you'd break your mother's back ... paper-chains at Christmas, silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington, the smells of school, of paste and Evening in Paris.
What about the girl who dotted her i's with hearts? (that was before that stupid smiley face)! The Stroll, popcorn balls and sock hops?
Remember when there were just two types of sneakers for girls and boys Keds and PF Flyers, and the only time you wore them at school was for gym. And the girls had those ugly gym uniforms.
When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking -- all for free -- every time! And, you didn't pay for air either, and you got trading stamps to boot!
When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box. When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.
When the worst thing you could do at school was flunk a test or chew gum. And the prom was in the gym or the lunchroom and you danced to a real orchestra. When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed -- and did! When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home.
Basically, we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat. But we survived because their love was so much greater than the threat.
Remember when a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car --used to cruise, peel out, lay rubber, scratch off or watch the submarine races. When people went steady; and girls wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped Band-Aids, dental floss, or yarn coated with pastel-frost nail polish so it would fit their finger.
When no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the car and house doors were never locked!
Remember lying on your back on the grass with your friends and saying things like "That cloud looks like a....." And playing baseball with no adults needed to enforce the rules of the game.
Remember when stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals, because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger.
And, with all our progress, don't you just wish, that just once you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace...and share it with the children of today?
So send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Belle, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk... As well as the sound of a real mower on Saturday morning, and Summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, bowling, visits to the pool ...and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar from the palm of your hand.
There, didn't that feel good? Just to lean back and say: "Yeah...I remember......."
(Thanks Lee!)
Were you a kid in the Fifties or earlier? Everybody makes fun of our childhood! Comedians joke. Grandkids snicker. Twenty-something's shudder and say "Eeeew!" But was our childhood really all that bad? Judge for yourself:
In 1953 The US population was less than 150 million... Yet you knew more people then, and knew them better... And that was good.
The average annual salary was under $3,000...Yet our parents could put some of it away for a rainy day and still live a decent life... And that was good.
A loaf of bread cost about 15 cents... But it was safe for a five-year-old to skate to the store and buy one... And that was good.
Prime-Time meant I Love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet, Gunsmoke and Lassie...So nobody ever heard of ratings or filters... And that was good.
We didn't have air-conditioning... So the windows stayed up and half a dozen mothers ran outside when you fell off your bike... And that was good.
Your teacher was either Miss Matthews or Mrs. Logan or Mr. Adkins...But not Ms Becky or Mr. Dan... And that was good.
The only hazardous material you knew about...Was a patch of grassburrs around the light pole at the corner... And that was good.
You loved to climb into a fresh bed... Because sheets were dried on the clothesline... And that was good.
People generally lived in the same hometown with their relatives... So "child care" meant grandparents or aunts and uncles... And that was good.
Parents were respected and their rules were law.... Children did not talk back..... and that was good.
TV was in black-and-white... But all outdoors was in glorious color....And that was certainly good.
Your Dad knew how to adjust everybody's carburetor... And the Dad next door knew how to adjust all the TV knobs... And that was very good.
Your grandma grew snap beans in the back yard...And chickens behind the garage... And that was definitely good.
And just when you were about to do something really bad... Chances were you'd run into your Dad's high school coach... Or the nosy old lady from up the street... Or your little sister's piano teacher... Or somebody from Church... ALL of whom knew your parents' phone number...And YOUR first name...And even THAT was good!
REMEMBER....
Send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel &Hardy, Abbott &Costello, Sky King, Little Lulu comics, Brenda Starr, Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Belle, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk as well as the sound of a real mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike rides, playing in cowboy land, playing hide and seek and kick-the-can and Simon Says, baseball games, amateur shows at the local theater before the Saturday matinee, bowling and visits to the pool...and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar, and wax lips and bubble gum cigars.
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, Yeah, I remember that! And was it really that long ago ? If you were too young to remember, please accept our sympathy, for it WAS a great time!!
(Thanks Georgia!) "All the food was slow.""Hey Dad," one of my kids asked the other day, "what was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?" "We didn't have fast food when I was growing up," I informed him. "All the food was slow." "C'mon, seriously.
Where did you eat?" "It was a place called 'at home,'" I explained. "Grandma cooked every day and when Grandpa got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it." By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I, had to have permission to leave the table.
But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.
My Parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer.
I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed,(slow).
We didn't have a television in our house until I was 11, but my grandparents had one before that. It was, of course, black and white, but they bought apiece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day. Some people had a lens taped to the front of their 10" TV to make the picture look larger.
I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza. It was called "pizza pie." When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.
We didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that, the only car in our family was my grandfather's Ford. He called it a "machine."
I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line (called a Party Line).
Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers. I delivered a newspaper [The Indianapolis Times], six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get up at 4:00 am every morning. On Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.
Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did, in the movies.
Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them.
If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust out laughing.
(Thanks Georgia!) Cannot Believe We All Survived ... Amazing
Well, you're about fifty or over if you get this. You lived as a child in the 50's and 60's or before. Looking back, it's hard to believe that we have lived as long as we have ...
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint, and no padded crib protectors to keep us from sticking our heads through the slats. We could sleep on our backs, our sides, or our stomachs. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking as a young kid!)
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. Horrors! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. No pagers. Unthinkable!!
We played dodge ball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We got cut and broke bones and broke teeth and there were no law suits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?
We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. And sometimes make up and become best friends. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight .... We were always outside playing. We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one died from this?
We didn't have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X Boxes, video games, 699 channels on cable, video tape and DVD movies, surround sound, personal cellular phones, personal computers or Internet chat rooms ... we had real live friends. We went outside and found them. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it?
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we didn't put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade ... Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason. Bad behavior at home, at school, or in public was rewarded with corporal punishment, such as a smack or a paddling. We walked to school or at the very least to the bus stop without our parents taking us because it rained or snowed.
We had people who didn't like us because of our religion, color, ethnic origin, where we lived, who we hung out with, and so forth. We survived. Our actions were our own.
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years has been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. Family and friends were the most important things in our lives. And you're one of them.
Congratulations! Please pass this on to others that have had the luck to grow up as kids.
Girlfriends: FROM THE HEARTI sat on the porch overlooking a beautiful mountain lake on a summer day, enjoying a glass of wine with my Mom. Older than me, mother of four, experienced and wise.
"Get yourself some girlfriends," she advised, swirling the wine in her glass. "You are going to need girlfriends. Go places with them, do things with them."
What a funny piece of advice, I thought. Hadn't I just gotten married?
Hadn't I just joined the couple-world? I was a married woman, for goodness sake, not a young girl who needed girlfriends.But I listened to my Mom and I got back in touch with my old girlfriends of years long gone. As the years tumbled by, one after another, gradually I came to understand that Mom knew what she was talking about.
Here is what I know about them:
Girlfriends bring casseroles and scrub your bathroom when you are sick.
Girlfriends keep your children and keep your secrets.
Girlfriends give advice when you ask for it. Sometimes you take it, sometimes you don't.
Girlfriends don't always tell you that you're right, but they're usually honest.
Girlfriends still love you, even when they don't agree with your choices .
Girlfriends might send you a birthday card, but they might not. It does not matter in the least.
Girlfriends laugh with you, and you don't need canned jokes to start the laughter. Girlfriends pull you out of jams.
Girlfriends don't keep a calendar that lets them know who hosted the other last.
Girlfriends will give a party for your son or daughter when they get married or have a baby, in whichever order that comes!
And girlfriends are there for you, in an instant and truly, when the hard times come.
Girlfriends listen when you lose a job or a husband.
Girlfriends listen when your children break your heart.
Girlfriends listen when your parents minds and bodies fail.
My girlfriends bless my life. Once we were young, with no idea of the incredible joys or the incredible sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each other.
(Thanks Georgia!)
Shall I bore you with our childhood...IF you had a TV, it was black and white with an awesome 9" screen...The signal came through an antenna, precariously mounted on your rooftop...the channels were (in total) 2,4,7 9, 11 and (that outcast) 13. When you wanted to change channels you actually had to get off your butt and turn a knob.
Our idea of a video game was "Interactive TV", which consisted of you putting a piece of SaranWrap on the screen and following the "clues" they gave you on TV and drawing with a crayon (yes, a crayon, no such thing as a magic marker) to solve the "puzzle".
Cartoons, definitely, by tradition, were Saturday morning.....Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger (and to be politically correct, Tonto), Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and Sky King (exceptional, because He could FLY A PLANE!!!) were your heroes. We all knew the names of their horsees and every kid alive thought they wanted a horse in those days, and it wasn't a Mustang...The good guys always wore white hats (takes the guess work out of the drama).
School? ESL? Accellerated Learning? Disabilities? "Gifted" (which meant you got more than one present at Christmas)...Everyone stayed in the same classroom all day long, with the same teacher whose first name you NEVER knew...even your parents didn't know. The only conferences with teachers were when you were being "suspended" for being "unruly" ...Report cards were hand written and brutal. It definitely paid to suck up to the teachers then.
Sorry, we did, in fact, get 50 cents an hour to babysit....regardless of the number of children, the date (New Year's) or how they behaved...extra, a tip? Forget it! Five hours later, you emerged with a whopping $2.50...and, no, it didn't buy squat.
Music...ah, yes, the good old 45 LP, but then you don't know what a 45 is or even a 33 1/3.....I'll let you figure that one out. Please don't mention the word "stereo"....no one will have had any idea what you were talking about.
You talk Porn? "Slightly" topless ladies appeared in Playboy or, sometimes artfully posed, in Esquire. Nipples? NEVER! If you wanted Porn, you had to grow your own or go to Sweden...or Tijuana, whichever was more convenient.
You worry about "call waiting"....Ever hear of a "party line"? Your choice (it truly saved serious money, probably $2 a month)...you could share the line with some anonymous individual who could listen in to all of your calls....or vice-versa...(notice "vice" is part of this description). How about, if you were country, two longs and a short? Cell phones? Only in Dick Tracy.
Onward to the theatre...You have never seen a "double billing" at the theatre...two shows for the price of one? Of course, your butt was seriously in need of a transplant after one full-length feature, newsreel (like you never read the paper) at least ONE cartoon, sometimes two (Bugs Bunny and yes, the good old Roadrunner, which was pretty good) and, by the way, you STAYED and watched, then, finally, the second full-length feature. 5 straight hours of torture in under padded, make that "unpadded", fold up chairs, with your feet stuck to the floor and your teeth clenched with Jujubees cementing them closed.
But, you know what, I somehow miss all that stuff............
