Ready for snowy days, fireplaces, and nesting.
This Thursday’s Throwback
18 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
Say hello to two of my great-grandmothers. Of the four I was blessed to have, the lady on the right is the only one I remember. Great-Grandma Cummings was the mother of my WWI soldier grandpa, and she was as sweet and wonderful as they make them. Great-Grandma Somerville on the left was a midwife and ran a boarding house and she too was amazing. The grandbabies they’re holding may be my Uncle Bob and Aunt Bette — waiting for Baby-Aunt Barbara to weigh in on that.
Great-Grandma Somerville used to tell her new mothers, when she helped them bathe, “I’ll wash down as far as possible and up as far as possible, and you can wash Possible.” She makes me think of Rose Kennedy without all the money.
So many destinations …
14 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
If you were offered the chance to spend a week here,
would you go?
Friday fun on a Saturday …
06 Dec 2014 Leave a comment
A young guy from North Dakota moves to Florida and goes to a big “everything under one roof” department store looking for a job.
The manager says, “Do you have any sales experience?”
The kid says, “Yeah. I was a vacuum salesman back in North Dakota.”
The manager’s unsure, but he likes the kid and figures he’ll give him a shot, so he gives him the job. “You start tomorrow. I’ll come down after we close and see how you did.”
His first day on the job is rough, but he gets through it. After the store is locked up, the manager comes down to the sales floor to check on how the kid did on his first day. “How many customers bought something from you today?”
The kid frowns and looks at the floor and mutters, “One.”
The manager replies, “Just one?!!? Our employees average 20 to 30 customer-sales a day. That will have to change and fast if you want to continue your employment here. We have very strict standards for our sales force here in Florida. One sale a day might have been acceptable in North Dakota, but you’re not on the farm anymore, son.”
The kid takes his beating, but continues to look at his shoes. The manager feels kind of bad for chewing him out on his first day, so he asks half sarcastically, “So, how much was your one sale for?”
The kid looks up at his manager and says “$101,237.65.”
The manager, astonished, says, “$101,237.65?!? WTF did you sell?”
The kid says, “Well, first, I sold him some new fish hooks. Then, I sold him a new fishing rod to go with his new hooks. Then, I asked him where he was going fishing and he said down the coast, so I told him he was going to need a boat. We went down to the boat department, and I sold him a twin-engine ChrisCraft. Then he said he didn’t think his Honda Civic would pull it, so I took him down to the automotive department and sold him that 4×4 Expedition.”
The manager says “A guy came in here to buy a fish hook, and you sold him a boat and a TRUCK!?”
The kid says, “No, the guy came in here to buy tampons for his wife, and I said, ‘Dude, your weekend’s shot, you should go fishing.'”
A Fairytale for Throwback Thursday
04 Dec 2014 6 Comments
Once upon a time, there lived a handsome young man of steel who told a little white lie about his age, joined the Army at seventeen, fought at the front during The War to End All Wars on many fields of battle, came home intact in mind and body, swept a lovely fifteen-year-old store clerk off her feet, married her straightaway, and started a dynasty. Thus reads the CliffsNotes version, you may thank me after the test.
But before that, a lot of other things happened.
And while those things were happening, the young man was growing steely because clearly he had good genes plus a step-father who was certifiably unhinged. When the lad in our tale was less than twelve years old, his step-dad took him to the barren plains of eastern Colorado to “prove up a claim” and homestead it, worked him like a dog, left him there and went home to Kansas. But not before taking a pot-shot at him off the porch that put a hole through his hat and knocked him flat in the hard Colorado dirt.
The boy lived out there in that little shack by himself, with the heat and the wind and the wildlife, until somebody came for him. Whatever steel he wasn’t born with must have crawled into his bones in those months, and it never left him. I know this because he was my grandfather and I know he never lost his metal, his discipline, or his looks. He and my grandmother raised six sons and three daughters, all worth knowing in their own right. Grandpa knew how to do everything and Grandma knew the rest, so there was always food on the table and a good roof on a house full of voices laughing, crying, arguing, singing, talking, yelling, but mostly laughing. Smart funny people, this dynasty.
It’s my favorite fairytale to slip into on cold gray days because it’s all true. And a thing to love is that with everything Grandpa survived in his years, he never got smelly and mean-spirited and old on the inside. He and my grandmother both figured out how to stay alive and BE alive and how to pass that on. Pretty cool.
Let’s go walkabout …
30 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
So many questions. Where are we? Is this real? Does it matter? Can we stay?
Do this!!
29 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
Thank you to my friend Jeffrey Frank for this excellent idea. Terrific way to use leftovers.
If all the dressing vanished on Thanksgiving Day, make your favorite stove-top stuffing mix and bake it into waffles. Tear turkey into small pieces and heat with the gravy. Pour over waffles and top with a scoop of mashed potatoes with more gravy drizzled over the top. Be thankful. Again. Some more.
From Buffalo to Kokomo …
23 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take you to
Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo Montego,
baby why don’t we go
Ooh I wanna take you down to Kokomo,
we’ll get there fast
and then we’ll take it slow
That’s where we wanna go,
way down in Kokomo.
Warming up my pitching arm …
06 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
Good morning on another Throwback Thursday!
Four generations — my Great-Grandpa Somerville, my mom, my grandmother, and baby me.
Grab your glove, I’m throwing it back …
30 Oct 2014 2 Comments
My Aunt Bonnie, who was so very cool, my cousins Vickie and Bruce, and little me next to our grandparents’ house on a summer day, sometime before 1950.
Playing for Time 
Join the conversation …