The True Story of the Naughty Nutcrackers, by Joann Shipley

Little Jack loved playing with the nutcrackers on the back hall table. He called them Fracks.

He liked to take a Frack and pull the handle to open the nutcrackers mouth and then he liked to insert his little pointing finger of his left hand. Right then he would peer at Grandpa or Grandma with a disconcerting look on his his face and say "Uh, ohh! uh, ohh! This is a naughty naughty nutcracker!

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Little Jack would then explain to Grandpa or Grandma that the nutcracker had bitten his finger. "Ouch, ouch, ouch!" Little Jack would exclaim and so then Grandpa or Grandma would kiss the "ouchy" on his finger to make it all better.

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Then Little Jack would tell his grandparents that Frack needed a timeout for being a naughty, naughty nutcracker. So then Little Jack would remove the naughty nutcracker from his playgroup buddies and solemnly carry him to an empty room where Frack had to sit all alone by himself on another table. Little Jack would leave and go talk to the other nutcrackers and explain that Frack would be back when he had made up his mind to be good and stop biting little fingers.

Story of the The Naughty Naughty Nutcrackers

The Story of the Naughty Naughty Nutcrackers

I will post the story tomorrow.

Today I am heading out with Jack to a NARFE Christmas party because I've been

a good little girl this year. Santa told me so. Jack however may find a bit of coal in his Christmas Stocking. Oh, oh, dear!

Once Upon A Time......

Once Upon A Time Part 2

Once upon a time in the Commonwealth of Virginia there were these bunnies living on Sudley Road in Manassas, Virginia. The littlest bunny was called Precious because she was so precious and cute. One day Jack and Joann drove to Sudley Road to see the white bikes. When Joann got out of the car to take photos of all these white bikes she pulled her camera out of her purse and in doing so dropped her business card with her blogspot address. Well, little Precious found that business card and learned that there was something in the world called the internet. She talked her father Peter Rabbit into getting a computer for their bunny hole so she could find out what the internet was all about.

Precious soon discovered what fun the internet could be. Why she learned that she could visit Joann's blog and from there travel to different blogs like Old Man Lincoln's Bird Blog and Fishing Guy's Critter Page. With just a flick of the wrist she could visit Wanda in California and Linda in Washington and June in Michigan. And Precious soon learned that she could learn a million things by surfing the web or by doing a little bunny search. She discovered that there were Bunny Hops in the '50's and that DJ's would play Pat Boone's April Love for the dancers. Precious also learned that dancing kept changing. Bunny Hops became Sock Hops and then Twisters and then Disco Mania Events with John Travolta wannabees. Why there was even something called Hip Hop and something else called Break Dancing.

Precious loved the internet but she wanted faster service so she talked Peter Rabbit into getting her a notebook computer that she could use at Panera Bread and Starbucks. Boy that sure was fun. Then Precious told her Momma Patty that she needed her very own Blackberry as well her very own I-Pod. Then one day when Father Peter Rabbit wanted go for a bike ride with Precious, Precious told him she didn't have time to pedal her bike because she had so much surfing and text messaging to do on her Blackberry. Could Father Peter Rabbit put her bike in his bike basket and she could ride along and text message her friends at the same time. And so that's what happened. (See second photo above where Patty Rabbit is getting ready to help Peter put Precious on the little bike in Peter's basket.)

And then one day when Momma Patty Rabbit asked Precious if she wanted to hop next door and nibble some fresh sweet organic grass, Precious said no to Momma. Why Momma I can have artificial dyed Easter grass delivered prepackaged to our house by accessing a site on the web. Soon Precious was spending 24 hours a day on her Blackberry and eating all that artificial grass. Then one day Poppa Peter Rabbit and Momma Patty Rabbit took a good hard look at Precious and discovered that she was no longer precious and cute. She was pretty peaked looking. In fact, she was downright Phat with a capital P! Why right under their bunny noses Precious had put on 30 pounds! She was absolutely obese. Then the very unfortunate day came when Precious could not even fit her bunny body on her little white bike that was in Poppa Peter's bike basket.

And the very last straw came the day Precious demanded that Peter and Patty Rabbit sign up for FIOS so that she could have even faster internet service. So Peter biked on down to the Manassas City Hospital on Sudley Road and talked to the nutrition and exercise department about Precious's weight gain. When Peter got home he told Patty that he learned they would have to give Precious some hard love. No more internet. No more web searching and blog browsing. No more prepacked artificial Easter grass for Precious to consume while surfing the web. There could be no more riding on the little bike in the basket on the big white bike because she couldn't get her Phat bunny frame in that basket. Precious was going to have to hop off the computer and go outside and get lots of fresh air and exercise as well as find her very own organic grass from the lawns for munching. And Peter told Patty that they were not the only parents with an overweight child. He said he learned thru the hospital nutritionist that 25% of four year olds in the U.S. were obese and likely to become diabetic. What a shame. What a shame.

Precious didn't like exercising and hopping around yards to get her own Easter grass to eat but she didn't like being the Phatest little bunny on the block either. She had really liked being precious and cute so she agreed to sign up to be on that new reality show called The Biggest Loser Bunny.

That was a great decision for Precious. She got the encouragement and training that she needed and she worked her little bunny tail off. Soon she was the winner of the show and on to another reality show called The Bachelor where she met the cutest fellow named T. Boone Pickens, The Third. Precious now lives in Dallas, Texas on the same cul de sac where both T. Boone Pickens, The First and former President George W. Bush reside. Precious has become a respected hospital nutritionist and is helping Laura Bush plan healthy homemade retirement meals for her husband George. Meanwhile back in Manassas, Virginia each year all the Easter Bunnies on Sudley Road have an Easter Parade where they walk their white bikes along Sudley Road. That's what you see in the top photo: The Easter Parade Walk.

The End

I want to thank Fishing Guy at That Is My Blog for leaving a suggestion for the middle and end of my bunny story about Precious. Thanks FG!

Jeanine Is A Good Listener

Today is Palm Sunday so at mass we listened to the Gospel of the Passion and Death of Jesus according to Mark. This reminded me of my daughter Jeanine and something that happened on Palm Sunday when she was barely three years old. We were standing for the reading of the gospel at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fairfax and the various readers were making their way thru this long, long gospel. Jack was holding Jeanine in his arms and Jennifer standing next to me. When the reader came to the part of the gospel where one of the high priests sent to arrest Jesus along with Judas reacted by cutting off the ear of one of the men. Jeanine screamed with all her might and in her loudest three year old voice exclaimed for the whole congregation to hear: "He cut off his ear!" I even think that the priest at the alter heard her make this protest.

This led to two quick reactions. First, anyone who had been half asleep while the gospel was being read was now wide awake. Second, the indignation of this little three year old to the ear lopping turned into muffled giggles that grew louder and louder. Jack and I were between a rock and a hard place. We too were awaken from our gospel reading stupor and we too had a bad case of the giggles. When mass was finally over I whispered to Jack that at least she is listening and paying attention in church.

This also reminds me of another time Jeanine was listening hard to what was going on around her. We had gone in to the Children's Museum in D.C. one Sunday when they were putting on a little show for the kids that included both a protagonist and the antagonist. I don't remember the name of the play or the characters but I do remember that Jeanine who was just two at the time was listening to the bad guy talk and she wouldn't have any of it. She kept yelling at the top of her voice: "You bad, bad man! Bad man. Bad man." Jack moved to the back of the room but Jeanine continued the good verbal fight with the bad guy. So much so that Jack soon had to remove Jeanine from the performance. Jennifer and I stayed to watch the ending but all I can remember now is that Jeanine was giving it to that bad guy. The moral of this story: don't mess with Jeanine.

Pics From The Past

Here are some pics from the past. Winter and spring sports teams at Russia Local High School. In the first photo the basketball team is proudly sitting behind the basketball trophy they won in the 1950-1951 season county basketball tournament. You can't gather from this photo how close to the school walls the basketball court was in that old gymnasium. I think it was just little over a foot from the court to the wall.


My brother Harold is sitting in the first row on the far right----#6. I remember that these guys spent a lot of time on our farm up in the hay mow above the milking parlor. Why? Because my Dad did the 1950 farm version of setting up an area for hoops play. Dad had oak flooring of all things installed in the hay mow, lights installed and a hoop set up so that the guys could play. I can still remember lots of cars lining our circle driveway on a Sunday afternoon and the hay bales being moved aside in the hayloft for a pick up basketball game. I guess the playing paid off for they won the county championship that year even though Russia was the smallest high school in the county. About 12 students in my brother's graduating class. I can't get over how short and snug the boys basketball shorts were back then compared to today. Today those big baggy shorts reach their kneecaps.

This is the Russia Local Basketball Team posing for their spring photo circa 1950-1951. This time my brother is the second one from the right sitting between Kenny Monnin and little Billy Groff. My brother was the team pitcher on the team. He used to practice all the time at home while we were milking the cows. I'm afraid to say that he used our bull as target practice with small stones from our gravel driveway. PETA would have been on Harold's case back then if they existed back then. All I can say is that this practice fired up our bull and made him extra mean. I stayed away from that bull! Some of the same fellas played on the baseball team as the basketball team. I think the coach might have been a Mr. Kavanaugh. Harold set up our big back yard (half acre or more) between the milk house and the woods as the baseball playing field. He created a visual infield by mowing that part of the lawn an inch shorter than the rest of the yard so the infield was a long oval with my brother pitching from the sandbag mound in the center. Stray balls would either bounce off the chicken coup to the right or land in the grassy lane leading to the woods. If someone hit a long one, it might actually land in the woods which insured a home run because you had to climb the fence to get to the woods. My dad encourged Harold's sports talents but he didn't baby him. No car to drive to school and to drive back home after sports practice or a game. Instead Harold had to do a quick walk home from Russia thru Floyd Monnin's farm to eat a quick supper and be ready to assist in milking all the cows at 5:00 P.M. sharp. After the war my Dad made good money milking cows. I wonder if milking is still as profitable today. At any rate I thought you just might enjoy these old sports photos from the fifties. And my how time flies! All these guys if they are still alive would be in their late seventies for sure.

Saturday Soup With Tidbits Of This And That

Today's blog post is going to be a Saturday soup with a few additional tidbits thrown in for nothing. Like take a look at this. This was in front of Shopper's Food Warehouse at Somerset Crossing in Gainesville, VA last month when I was rushing in with Jack to get supplies for our Octoberfest party. Well it looks like some type of racing car to me and when I looked closer I discovered that it must be a woman's car because I saw the name Bunny along the side of the car. Now what man would put the name Bunny along the side of his car? Now even the Easter Bunny would do that.

See. Here is her name up close with the hood up and the wheels and transmission down. Now isn't that strange. First the name Bunny and the Boys and then the car like this. It looks like a George Forman electric grill where you would pop in a piece of meat. I looked for Bunny coming and going from the store but never found her. But I'm still thinking about her. And I reckon that a lot of boys and men are too because they were flocking around that car like carrion birds with a fresh kill. Speaking of birds look below.

Yes, the day I wrote about missing Sarah Palin this guy showed up at our breakfast room window and made a hit on either Sarah or Sunny chipmunk! This was a very young and cold little Coopers Hawk and I don't think his hunting skills are too good yet so I'm hoping he didn't take Sarah Palin or Sunny out. And speaking of our dear Sarah Palin I'm taking a nap this afternoon so that I have enough energy to stay up tonight to watch Saturday Night Live. I just know that they are going to do a skit about the Sarah Palin interview where she is talking while countless turkeys are meeting the head chopper off man. By the way, what do you do for a living? Answer: I chop off turkey heads in a little metal funnel chute contraption. I know. I know. The poor man is just doing his job and next Thursday when we all sit down to our nice roasted Thanksgiving turkey we will be thankful that this man did his job. But the irony of this story it seems to me is the fact that this interview was called to show how the Governor of Alaska would pardon a turkey destined for the governor's mansion while countless other turkeys were being slaughtered in the background! Think about it a moment. I ask you now. Who was the biggest turkey in the video?

After his slam dunk dive that missed the target the Cooper's Hawk flew to the lawn and just sat there shivering and looking up at me thru the window. I was trying to get a photo shot fired off with my little Mickey Mouse camera that doesn't ever get good details in these incidents. A little blurry and out of focus thru the glass. If you click on the photo, you will get a little more detail.

Now look at this. I know I'm jumping all around from one topic to another but how else are you going to make a Saturday Soup With Lots of Tidbits. This old fashioned truck was parked outside Wegman's Gourmet Grocery Store in Gainesville, VA the day Dickie and I got busted for using our cameras in the store! I still think that was the funniest thing that has happened to me in a long time. I could just see Jack having a conversation with the judge.

Judge: "Why are you here?"

Jack: "Uhh...well, I need to post bail for my wife."

Judge: "Was it stealing dope?"

Jack: "No, sir. It was stealing an image of the grocery store.

Let me just add that thru my little gadget that tracks visitors to one's blog I discovered that I had at least a dozen visits from folks up in Rochester, NY. after that blog post. I don't know anybody up in Rochester, NY but I do know that that is the headquarters of Wegman's Grocery Store. So maybe Dickie and I are still not out of the woods yet. By the way here 's a tidbit of info. The busiest Wegman's in the nation and the one that generates the most money is the one located in Fairfax County, VA near Centerville. There people do walk in and order the $700 a pound French truffles to go along with their $1000 a bottle French Burgundy wine or French Champagne. That's a fact.

Next I want to thank everyone who stopped by my blog yesterday and left a comment about my father's baby photo in honor of his birth date. The old fashioned Wegmans truck reminds me of a story that was told at least a million times in our home when I was growing up. I really wish my Uncle Nick, my mother's oldest brother who was both a great reader and story teller, could tell this story to you. Well, you just have me to tell you so here goes nothing and the story:

Both my mom and dad were newly weds of the depression era as well as farm folks so every single time we made a trip to visit my mother's two brothers "who left the farm!" we took half the farm with us in the car. Vegetables from the garden, fruit from the orchard and rich cream and butter from our dairy plus a ton of canned fruits and vegetables that my mom had canned so well. Why? Because my mom and dad felt very sorry for those poor folks who had left the riches of the farm to live and work in the big city of Dayton or the little city of Fairborn, Ohio.

Well, this particular trip must have happened soon after my mom and dad got married because there were no kids that I'm aware of along for the long slow ride to Dayton from Willowdell, Ohio in my father's Model T Ford. I do know that my dad was the chauffeur for his in-laws, Frank and Ellen Dapore. Normally on these long road trips the men sat in front and the women sat in back. On this particular day everyone was seated when either my mom or my grand mom realized that they had forgotten something that they wanted to take to their "poor city relatives". So they quickly and quietly hopped out of the car and headed back inside the house to get what they wanted. In the meantime my father and my grandfather were in a heated discussion about something. They were probably talking politics and/ or farming or how the current politics was impacting their farming. Anyway without looking back they pulled out from the farm drive and tooddled on down the gravel road towards the big two laned paved road coming up on their journey to Uncle Nick's house in Dayton.

In the meantime my mom and grand mom exited the farmhouse and looked for the Model T Ford. No Model T Ford. What! Where did it go? And where on earth are Leo and Frank? Then my mom and grand mom looked down the road and saw thru the dust cloud that the Model T Ford was stirring up that Leo and Frank were heading to Dayton without them! And knowing how those two men could talk and talk without including them in their important men's conversation (Remember that this was not too long after women got the right to vote and men still probably thought that women didn't know anything much about politics or farming for that matter.) they decided that they better grab their goods and make a run for it. And that's exactly what they did. They ran with all their might for nearly half a mile to catch that Model T Ford. When they finally came alongside the car they were panting beat the band. And when my dad and my granddad saw them they wondered why they were running instead of riding. Why are you outside the car? Why aren't you in the backseat of the car where you belong. For heavens sake, get in and and close the doors and let's get rolling or we will be late. We have a long trip ahead of us.

Of course, when they finally arrived on Uncle Nick's front porch they had to tell him the story. And my Uncle Nick listened, embellished the tale and it became one his favorite stories to tell when he visited us in later years from his retirement home in Florida. We kids all knew the story by heart but every time Uncle Nick told the story we laughed harder than the previous time the story was told. We could picture the men talking, the women running and panting and crusty Grandpa Frank Dapore scolding the women to stay in the backseat for heavens sake!

Now I was going to give you a great Saturday Soup recipe but this post is getting just too long so I'll save the recipe for tomorrow's blog post. But here is a short recipe for a fresh cream dessert that is decadent. I now call it Backseat Dessert.

Backseat Dessert

One half of box of graham crackers pulverized to gravel consistency.

(Remember the gravel roads back then.)

One carton of rich and heavy cream and half a stick of pure butter.

(Remember the Ohio dairy farm folks.)

One large can of crushed pineapple drained.

(Remember the exotic big city of Dayton, Ohio where Uncle Nick and Aunt Ruth could find canned pineapple on the grocery shelves.

One half cup of sugar and one teaspoon of French Vanilla.

(Remember our French ancestry from French-Comte region of France.)

Directions:

Mix the crushed graham cracker crumbs with the pats of butter.

Place half the crumbs on the bottom of a glass dish.

I remember that we always used to use one of those square green depression glass refrigerator dishes that had a glass cover.) Save the rest of the crumb mixture for the topping.

Now whip your real and heavy whipped cream in your electric mixer. Add the sugar and vanilla and stop mixing once you achieve nice cream peaks. Remember we are aiming to make dessert and not butter. Beat too long and you will have made real homemade butter which is also a good thing to make and eat.

Drain your crushed pineapple well and add to the whipped cream mixture and then spoon this into the glass dish. Sprinkle the remaining graham cracker "gravel" on top. Chill well and serve. Delicious.

And just as my Uncle Nick could embellish a true story so could my mom embellish this easy but delicious dessert. Sometimes she would drain marachino cherries and place them on top of the "gravel" for a little extra color. And I have learned that if you add some microwaved melted chocolate chips to the whipped cream you have turned this into a Chocolate Mousse. Very French! Sprinkle some coconut on top of top gravel and you would have something I would call German Chocolate Cake Mousse.

The Sarah Palin Problem

We have two very active chipmunks in our yard. I named the first one Sunny because he liked using my lawn furniture this summer for sunbathing. When I noticed that Sunny got a girlfriend early this fall, I named the second chipmunk after the Alaska governor who was running for vice-president on the republican ticket. In fact I think I blogged about Sunny and Sarah making out on my patio and I thought they needed to get a motel room. Well, about the same time that the real Sarah Palin was having her vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden, my chipmunk nicknamed Sarah Palin got herself into some big trouble at the rodent proof? bird feeder by the breakfast room window.

I looked out the window one morning and I saw that Sarah Palin had climbed the pole and was helping herself to some birdseed on the outside ledge of the bird feeder. She was eating and eating and getting nearer and nearer the open holes. The next thing I knew she was creeping into the hole and popping up on the inside looking out at the world. Oh, no, those sunflower seeds must really be tasty I thought to myself. Either that or else she is planning a seed heist and planning to plant the seeds somewhere in my garden. At any rate, I kept watching while I was having my morning coffee to see exactly how she was going to get out of this bird feeder. Well, she tried and tried but she couldn't quite get her little head back thru the holes no matter how hard she endeavored to do so.

What do you do when you see a chipmunk stuck in a bird feeder? Call the Orkin Man? No, No! You call the fairy godmother, Jack, to go rescue her.
And that's what I did and that's what Jack did. Sarah Palin was freed and she ran off fast without even a thank you or a wink! You betcha, this is a true funny critter tale.

News Flash: If you want a really good story with belly laugh moments go down my blog list and click on Twobytwobytwo, home of the lady with not one, not two but three sets of twins! Heaven help Cindy! She has written the funniest story about her one daughter.

The Cat Who Thinks He Is A Dog

This is the most famous cat in our golf course community of Piedmont. Let me introduce you to Sundae. Sundae is a cat who thinks he is a dog. Not only a dog but the alpha dog in a household that does have two actual dogs who are beautiful border collies. He has become the celebrity in our community. Everybody knows Sundae.

We first met Sundae soon after we moved into Piedmont. Late one night the doorbell rang and I answered it. Soon as I did so this woman throws this big black and white fur ball into my face and says here is your cat that I found on the street so I'm bringing him home to you. What? While I proceeded to tell her that we don't own a cat Sundae proceeded to walk big as you please into my living room and park himself under an end table like he really did belong in my house. So this stranger and I both then proceeded to chase Sundae around and around the living room until we caught him. Then the woman apologized for disturbing the peace and left with Sundae. I soon forgot about this handsome black and white cat until our paths crossed at the end of my pipestem. This time I learned that Sundae had two siblings, an all grey cat and a pretty calico cat.
And at this second encounter I met Sundae's first family which consisted of a plumbing businessman, his wife and their five small children. I soon discovered that this family never allowed any of the three cats to be inside their house. The cats were assigned living quarters in the garage and the cats even had their own kitty door attached to the garage door. Now when the cold winter months would come sometimes one and sometimes two and sometimes all three cats would wonder across the pipestem to what became known as Sundae's second family's home. The second family would feel sorry for all three cats and bring them into their house to warm up a bit. These visits became more and more frequent and longer in duration. Soon the first family and the second family who were on very good terms realized that the cats really wanted two homes so they agreed that joint ownership might be ok. So now the cats had homes on both sides of the pipestem and I had three cats to watch as I did my gardening since both owners still allowed them to be free roaming cats. Cat life went on like this for about a year or two.

Then the pretty calico cat that I liked to feed in nice weather on my patio suddenly disappeared from sight. So I thought the calico probably had been unlucky one day and gotten itself run over by a car. Much later I learned that my very next door neighbor who also lived on the pipestem had decided that she liked that pretty calico so much that she was going to claim exclusive ownership to it. She took the calico inside her house and that calico cat never came outside again until this family moved away to Houston, Texas. I don't know how she worked this out with either the first family or the second family but I guess she did. I do know that she even renamed the cat Peaches. (The first name I don't remember.) Peaches went to Houston, Texas and became a cowboy cat.

A more dramatic development in our neighborhood cat story occured when the first family moved to Florida and left the two remaining cats with the second family. The second family went from on again off again foster parents to the neighbor's cats to full time official adoption parents. And by now these two cats had names. The gray cat who was skitish and shy was called Greyson. The big black and white fur ball who wasn't afraid of anyone or anything was called Sundae. And he has become the most famous cat in Piedmont and I personally think he thinks that he is a dog.

He is not top cat in my opinion. He is top dog. Let me explain. From my breakfast room window I can see this pathway that is in the bottom photo and I can watch everybody walk their dogs. Now when I watch the second family take their two border collies for a walk I also get to see Sundae going for his walk too. Maybe he thinks he is a dog because he sees that he is black and white like the border collie. I don't know. But I do know that he is just as faithful as the postman delivering mail. He comes and goes every day. He never fails to walk. And bless his heart, he goes in all kinds of weather: hot, cold, rainy, snowy, icy, you name it and he is scampering along after the border collies. It is the funniest thing to watch. I've now seen it hundreds of times but it still gives me a chuckle.

Look again at the bottom photo. ( You may need to click on it to see what I'm describing.) On the right are Sundae's second family and my good neighbors, Bob and Maura, and the two border collies. They are waiting for Sundae to catch up to them. (I had detained him by taking his picture with my camera.) Sundae always walks about ten paces behind the big dogs. If they start to go faster, he speeds up. If they start to go slower, he slows down. But he always keeps a distance of ten paces behind the dogs.

You should see this pet parade at different times of the year. In the spring when the birds return you can tell that Sundae would like to chase a bird but he knows that he is a dog so he has got to do what a dog has got to do. Walk. In the summer when it is hot you can tell that everybody is about their business and can't wait to get back to the air conditioned house. In the fall they are all trudging thru the fallen leaves. And in the winter they are all slip sliding away thru the snow and ice.

Guessing Games I Answer

Here is the correct answer to what this electrical contraption is. It is a De Laval cow milking machine circa 1948 that was used on our dairy farm in Ohio. In the past you all must have milked cows or been to your local county fair because you all answered correctly. I must admit that Abe cornered the market on the most surprising comment with his guess and Wanda came in second. Now that you all are winners you can read this story about my husband Jack. This true story occurred to my Jack one hot night in late August of 1964. Read on to find out what happened to Jack.

A Hot Night In Missouri

(Alternate Story Titles At End Of Story)

There was a little boy and his name was Jackie Lee and everyone just called

him Jack. He was born in Missouri and went to school to learn the 3R's: read'in, riting and rithmetic. When he graduated from Hale High School he wanted to go to college and learn some more read'in, riting and rithmetic. So in the summers while in college he found a way to make money for some of his college expenses.

He got a job working the graveyard shift in a milk processing plant where he bagged the dried milk being processed and kept the milk tubes from clogging up with dried milk. One hot night in late August Jack was really really busy. Some of the milk tubes kept clogging up while other milk tubes kept pouring out dried milk for Jack to bag. This went on and on and on so Jack kept running around frantically clearing the tubes and bagging the milk. He was hoping the day shift worker would show up soon.

In the meantime he waited and waited and bagged and bagged and cleared and cleared but no one came to relieve him. He was the only worker in that section of the milk plant that night and the only phone in the milk plant was locked up in the plant office. What was our young Jack to do. He didn't know. Finally Jack got very very tired from working so hard all night long. He wanted to go home and go home now. He was not interested in dealing with the dried buttermilk that had caused the milk to fly out the tubes to the great beqond of Missouri. So Jack decided to just leave the plant and let the processed dried milk fly out into the town air. What was wrong with that? He was not at fault he thought. The problem was the machinery when switching from reguler dried milk to dried buttermilk and he was not the plant's machine mechanic to fix the problem.

And remember this was 1964 and the Environmental Protection Agency that Jack would later work for had not been created yet and a young Al Gore growing up in Tennessee had not dreamed up his save the earth campaign yet. Besides cellphones hadn't been invented yet either and remember the plant's one phone was locked up in the plant office which wouldn't open till nine A.M. And did I mention that Jack was mighty tired. So what would be the harm of leaving the job unattended while the dry milk escaped into the air above the town. No harm indeed Jack thought but little did Jack know about Murphy's Law that states that what could go wrong will go wrong and what has already gone wrong may go from bad to worse.

So Jack was just expecting a little milk white dust storm that morning. But suddenly all hell broke loose when the weatherman reported morning rains for the Hale and Clillicothe areas. Well, before Jack could blink an eye and jump in his sister's car and head home to the family farm a little black rain cloud formed above the town and Jack was like Winnie the Pooh with that rain cloud over his head. Excepting now there were two rain clouds: a little black rain cloud rolling into town and a big white milk cloud rolling out of town. The real trouble began when the two clouds met.

Soon rain started falling and falling fast. Then dry dried milk started falling and falling fast. And then wet dried milk started falling and falling fast. Soon it was a total white out. Milk was now coming down hard on everything. Milk rained down on houses. Milk rained down on cars. Milk rained down on dogs and cats. Milk rained down on people standing outside in their yards. Soon milk was running down the sidewalks and into the town gutters. Jack decided it definitely was now time to make a break for it so he got in his car and drove thru milk soaked streets to get out of town. He was so embarrassed but he didn't care. He was going to run away from that milk plant job and he did! The very next day Jack returned to his college studies at Central Missouri University. And he promised himself that he would study read'in, riting and rithmetic even harder his sophomore year so that when he was a grownup he would not have to earn his living by working in a dry milk plant. And he did study the 3R's very hard his sophomore year at old CMU and the next summer he found a different summer job. He learned to pump gas at the local gas station for folks sitting in their cars doing absolutely nothing. But that is another Jack story for another day. End of this Jack story. Alternate Story Title: The Day It Rained Milk

Second Alternate Story Title: Abe Lincoln has just suggested this: Missouri Milk

And let me report that you are now reading the revised edition of this true story. I must have listened to Jack over the years tell this story a million times but I must have tuned out while listening because I got a few details wrong. This did not occur in Hale, Missouri. It occured in Chillicothe, Missouri. Jack just explained that Hale, Missouri was way too small too have a milk processing plant. You had to go over to the big city: Chillicothe, Missouri to find a good paying summer job at $2.50 per hour! That's because it was a plant with a union to negotiate job salaries. And this occured between his freshman and sophomore year in college not right after graduation from Hale High School. Right out of high school Jack worked at the Hale Locker Plant cutting up and wrapping beef and pork for farmers who had their animals butchered at the Locker Plant. This must be true because Jack does know his cuts of meat.

And the get away car belonged to Jack's sister Judy and her husband Wayne.

Do You Remember Black and White TVs?

Are you old enough to remember the good? old days when the family had only one TV in the home and it was in black and white? I do. I also remember sporting events on TV and what would occur at our house to my dismay. But first, let me explain this photo. This is an old photo of my now deceased brother, Harold (Hal) Lawrence Gariety. Harold loved sports and he loved playing baseball in high school and in the U.S. Army. And while serving in the army Harold was stationed in Sendai, Japan where he played on an army team called the Black Knights. This is a photo of my brother in the Black Knights uniform in Japan. Harold was one of the team pitchers. This was probably the spring of 1955.





Now when I was growing up I didn't like any sport, especially baseball, because my three older brothers would insist that our family watch any sporting event on our black and white TV instead of any reguler show like a comedy, western or variety show. So I didn't enjoy watching the Cincinatti Reds or the Cleveland Indians play. Totally boring in my opinion. And when my brothers, especially Harold, took over the TV I would stalk off to my room to read a book. Maybe that is how I fell in love with books and reading. It was my refuge from my brothers and sports on TV.


Now in the spring when we would gather wild strawberries and had to de-stem them we would enlist the aid of Harold. He wasn't crazy about this task but my mom prevailed and Harold helped my sister and I do this task. Well, just to pester my older sister, Mary Ellen, and myself he would place the de-stemed strawberry bowl half way across the room and give each strawberry a pitch into the bowl. Some were curve balls and some were sliders or knuckle balls but all looked like fast pitches to me. I always felt sorry for those poor little strawberries being slammed into the bowl with a fast pitch. But in spite of their smashed appearance those tiny wild strawberries were the sweetest things to taste. Much much better than the big luscious looking strawberries you find in the grocery stores today that look good but have a bland cardboard box taste.

When Toys Won't Stop Talking

Last night I must have been in a deep deep sleep after the basketball games because I failed to hear it but Jack did. We have in our family room in a corner some toys and a little baby seat/walker for our grandson. The baby seat is all about Baby Elmo. Well, for some reason that is unexplainable to us the baby seat started talking last night without any prompting. Jack couldn't figure out who was in the house giggling and laughing like a baby. He went downstairs to investigate this mysterious noise and found the Baby Elmo seat doing the talking so he turned it off and went back to bed to sleep without all the giggles.

And this occurrence reminds me of another toy that acted up years ago. Our second daughter Jeanine fell in love with this big beautiful talking doll and told us that that was the only thing she wanted for her next birthday. And after I priced the doll I exclaimed that that was the only thing she would get for her birthday because it cost over a hundred dollars. Well, to make a long story short some time after she got her doll for her birthday one night
she came into our bedroom around 2 A.M. crying hysterically: "I'm frightened Daddy. I'm scared Mommy. I don't want that baby doll anymore. She is scaring me to death. She won't shut up Daddy! What am I going to do Mommy? I can't sleep like this. Do something quick Daddy! "

Well, when all else fails hit the batteries and take them out. And that's what my husband did. To this day everyone in the family calls that doll the doll from hell but actually it was from China.

What To Do When It Is So Hot

The heat this week in Northern Virginia is oppressive to say the least. Thank goodness we have a nice home with air conditioning. I just hope we don't have a power black out this week. When it is this hot I start to remember other times that I have been hot, hot, hot!!!!!!!! When I was little and living on a farm in Ohio we had to keep the windows open and pray for a breeze because we didn't have any air conditioning back in the '50s and '60s. When we couldn't fall asleep upstairs we would go down to the cool and damp basement and sleep on an old couch. One of the hottest farm jobs to do in the summer was unloading a wagon load of hay with the help of an elevator. The one on the wagon had it the easiest. The ones in the hay mow really sweated through the undertaking. My Dad always insisted that everyone have a nice cold glass of homemade sweet lemonade before heading back out to the hayfield. I still remember the lemonade recipe:
4 lemons rolled then cut and squeezed
1 and half cups of sugar
and enough water to fill the pitcher to the very top

I also can remember two extremely hot days in Arizona. The first occurred in the '70s but let me tell you first about the one that occurred in July of 1989. My husband and I had taken our two daughters to Arizona for a long visit with friends and relatives. While in Phoenix we wanted to show our girls the campus of Arizona State in Tempe. Wow, was it hot in Tempe in July of 1989. Temps each day were approaching 116 degrees. Now that is hot, hot, hot! My husband always likes to say when people gasp at that number that it isn't so bad because it is a dry heat not a humid heat like back in the southeast. Well, let me tell you how you too can experience a dry heat----set your oven on 116 degrees and after the oven warms up put your hand in the oven to see how it feels. Now try to imagine how your whole body would feel in the oven. That's Arizona in the summer. Here are some more heat experiences in Arizona in July:

Use oven mitts or gloves to touch your car handles after a day of work or sightseeing.
You can burn your hands on the car doors. Erma Bombeck wrote about that.

Don't ever open a car sitting in the sun and just hop in to drive. Open all the doors and let
the built up heat escape first.

Don't sit down in a hot car that has leather or vinyl seats while wearing shorts. You will grill
your legs and buttocks to a crisp.

Don't ship your pet by air to or from Phoenix's Sky Harbor in July heat. If the plane sits
on the runway the poor pet will be baked to death in the cargo hold.

Try not to fly in the heat. Heat can stress the metal of the plane and lead to an accident.

Well, I think you get the picture. Arizona in July is hot, hot, hot! So here we are in Tempe on the campus of ASU and we are showing an amazed nine year old and a stupefied thirteen year old the sights. How hot was it? It was so hot that all of us decided then and there that if we managed to get to our car and to get the car cooled enough for entering and driving, we would never ever in a million years consider sending our daughters to school in Arizona. The problem was reaching the car without passing out in the heat since many of the campus buildings in the summer were locked so we couldn't rely on walking through buildings to get to the car. We used our campus map to plan strategic moves across campus: walk along the overhang of this building till you get here, then walk quickly as you can in this heat to reach those palm trees for shade, then walk by the trees next to that building over there, etc. We finally were able to do a retreat by car from ASU and our two daughters promised themselves and us that they would not apply to any Arizona universities. Suddenly the University of Virginia and James Madison University started looking pretty good. And that folks is how we avoided paying out of state college tuition. It just took one trip to Arizona in July to do the trick.

My other story about Arizona summer heat occurred one August day in 1975 after I returned from summer school at the University of Kentucky. Jack's mom mentioned that there used to be an old marble mine in the mountain range near Bowie and the Cochise Stronghold. Well, before we had thoroughly thought through this plan, we jumped in the truck and set out to find the marble mine and our fortunes. Mom directed my husband on where she thought that marble mine might be. Soon we had left the paved highway and were on dirt roads and then we were bouncing and banging around over no roads---just rocks and cactus. Then Jack's mom announced that this was just the beginning of the trail and that we were all going to have to get out and hike the rest of the way on foot. On foot! Well, my flip flops were not exactly hiking boots. Mom had on sensible mom shoes and Jack had on his sneakers so they were in better foot gear than me. So we walked and walked and walked and climbed and climbed and climbed but we didn't see anything that looked like a cave opening with a marble mine inside. We did run into some billy goats and some aggressive female geese that were intent on blocking our path by biting our legs and butts. This last experience led to a hasty decision to give up on making our fortunes by finding that marble mine. In the meantime the hot sun was bearing down on us. In the shade it must have been at least 100 degrees and remember that we didn't have shade. We just had rocks and cactus and heat. Why we had left in such a rush of enthusiasm that we didn't even have hats, water or sunscreen for protection. If I am ever in a presidential debate and someone asks me to give a past mistake I won't pull a Gulliani. I will answer immediately that my big mistake was making that trip with my husband and mother-in-law to find that marble mine near Bowie, Arizona. What a stupid thing to do. We did finally make it on foot back to the truck and we did a reverse trek over no roads, then dirt roads to interstate #10 and Mom's house trailer in Bowie. Jack and I both agree that the best shower we ever had in our entire married life was after that little adventure in the desert.

So what to do now that it is so hot outside? Stay inside and don't get any bright ideas. Just chill out like your house pets. They know better than to go out in this heat except for a quick trip to the outdoor potty.