What Did It Look Like?

My mother was so talented. And she loved to write.

Mom mostly wrote short stories. I was quite young when she had a couple of her stories published in women's magazines.

Once she was very late coming home from a meeting with a publisher. I was about 6 years old and it was the very first time I made supper for the rest of my family.

I made a gourmet meal of scrambled eggs and toast. I am still proud of myself.

Back to Mom's stories. I have never seen anything she had published. I am guessing it may have been a little too racy for little eyes.

I have read other things Mom wrote. She has great stories. I am in awe of her brain.

However... my mother never met an adjective she did not like. She can use 30 different words to describe a pencil. It drives me insane.

It makes me think of the Elizabethan writing style. I felt that was too descriptive too.

It just goes to show that although I am like my mother in many ways description is not one of them.

Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush

Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,
The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.
Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,
So early in the morning.

source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/miscellaneouslyrics/childrenslyrics/herewegoroundthemulberrybushlyrics.html

Most of us have heard that song. Many of us sang it to our babies.

My grandparents as you know had a farm. On the farm were a lot of mulberry trees. The trees gave us red, black, and white mulberries.

White mulberries are larger but not as sweet and juicy. The black ones taste the best to me.

Grandpa hated the mulberry trees. Birds like the berries. Unfortunately their droppings stained whatever they landed on. It seemed like there were droppings on everything... laundry on the line to dry, the picnic table in the back yard, and machinery. He did not like cleaning the tractor seats every morning.

There was a big mulberry tree in the front yard. Grandpa decided it had to go. He cut it down.

To make sure it would not grow back he then chopped the stump into pieces. For good measure he poured lime on it to completely kill it. It was gone.

After a few years sprouts began to grow. It was not long before the sprouts were about seven feet high. Mulberries that grew on it were sweet and juicy. Best of all they were easy to reach.

Grandpa was not happy but he gave up. He had created a mulberry bush.

Three Billy Goats Gruff

I have insisted that each new baby in the family hear the same song as their first song. I sing The Unicorn to them. It is now tradition. 

I sing that song to them often. Of course there are lots of other songs too. Grandma cannot carry a tune but she sings at the drop of a hat.

My second grandson was walking through the room one afternoon. The radio began to play The Unicorn. My grandson got a shocked look on his face. He looked at me and saw I was not singing. With a puzzled look on his face he looked at the radio. Then he looked at me. Then he looked at the radio. Me again. Radio. Me.

 I know he was happy when the song was over.

I also love to tell stories and nursery rhymes.

For some reason I remember telling my second grandson Three Billy Goats Gruff when he first came home from the hospital. 

I told all the babies stories. I taught them nursery rhymes. I sang to them. All the things I did with my own children. Life is good.

By the way for anyone who would like to sing or tell stories to children they are available online. All of them.

Memory

My oldest son has an astounding memory. He remembers things from when he was a toddler.

Sometimes it can be a bit frightening. I will say, "You are too young to remember..." He always remembers.

Recently we were talking about the apartment we lived in when he and his first brother were born. He says he remembers the apartment. He also remembers the apartment my parents lived in when they first moved to Detroit.

Then he really shocked me. He had a memory of wandering around an apartment he did not know.

I had completely forgotten about that!

I did not know he knew how-to open the door so I had not locked it. I was tending to his new brother in the bedroom. 

He opened the door and went exploring.

When I went to the living room to check on him. There was no HIM there. I looked through the whole apartment. No him.

We lived on the third floor... no elevator. There were stairs at either end. What if someone had snatched him? What if he had gotten out and fell?

I rushed to the hall outside the apartments. No baby boy. I started to run toward the stairs at the back.

Suddenly I noticed an open apartment door that was open. I went over and knocked being ever so hopeful that they had rescued my baby.

There was my son wandering around. He did not touch anything. He just wanted to look.

No one else was there. He had tried the doorknob and it opened. 

I snatched him up and took him home. Of course I explained to him that he could not just go into someone's home without an invitation. 

As I said before I did not remember this until my son brought it up I was astounded. I had completely forgotten the whole thing.

And from that time I made sure the doors could not be opened by little hands.

Croak

One town I lived in our house was on the main street which was a part of the main highway, We were the last house on our side of the street. It was a great place to live.

My favorite place to be was at the very top of a huge tree. It stood at the corner of our driveway. It was quite tall. Years before someone had placed two boards across the very top which made it comfortable to sit there.

I spent a lot of time up there. It was a small town and I could watch the happenings downtown.

I could also watch the comings and goings of the boy next door. He was much older than I was and I knew I had no chance. He sure was pretty to look at.

We lived in a 2-story house. It even had running water in the kitchen. The cursed outhouse sat out back.

We were also on a 2-phone party line. The other phone belonged to the drugstore.

Like most of our neighbors we had a root cellar. It was like the one in The Wizard Of Oz that Dorothy could not follow her family in when the tornado came. People also stored things they had canned and apples and potatoes in there.

I love rainy weather. When we got a good heavy rain there the toads emerged from all the root cellars. There were thousands of them.

The road in front of the house was completely covered with the little critters. Each one was about 2 1/2 inches long. All of them making the highway look like ocean ripples.

Unfortunately it was the highway. Every now and then a car would drive by. All you heard was POP, POP, POP.

All those poor little toads exploded from the pressure of the car tires.

The next morning we went out to see the carnage. There was no evidence of popped toads anywhere.

Got any ideas where they went? I do not.

Timmy And The Hershey Bar

 My nephew was always getting into mischief. He was a good boy. He just had a lot of energy. As you know an energetic child needs to be busy. 

If he is not given something constrictive to do he will find something to do. And his something will probably get him in trouble.

Timmy was about 8 years old. He loved watching movies using the VCR

Timmy had a Hershey chocolate bar. Hershey bars are a flat piece of chocolate. The VCR tape is flat.

Why he put the bar into the machine we will probably never know. The chocolate melted everywhere.

My sister tried her best to clean it out. That VCR never worked right again.

Timmy is in his mid forties now. He does not remember why he did it. I think it was because it was there.

The Ly Situation

I have another complaint. Ly.

Two innocent little letters. They are so often misused.

My example is the word bad.

If you feel bad you might be ill. Feel better soon.

If you feel badly you are not doing a good job. Think about it for a second. If you are holding a baby badly you might drop it. If you are bad at holding the baby have someone show you how. (Or you might drop it.)

To explain better bad is an adjective used to describe a thing. Badly is an adverb which describes an action.

I hope I was clear enough. We all need to speak more correctly.