Smoke

 My sister no longer smokes. For a time she smoked heavily. She and her youngest son lived near me. He spent a lot of weekends at my house. I was happy to have him.

My nephew was in middle school. He and my oldest son were out shopping together one day. My nephew had a confession to make.

He was in danger of being expelled from school. One of his teachers had him called to the principal's office. The teacher accused him of smoking.

The thing is that my nephew has never smoked. He did not want to hurt his mother's feelings so he did not tell her.

My sister's smoking was leaving a strong smell of smoke on everything in her house including her son's clothing. That smell made the principal threaten him with expulsion.

My son told me what his cousin had said. I said I would take care of it.

I went to my sister's house. She is a good housekeeper. She loves her sons and is a good mother. However she kept her home closed and no fresh air flowed through. 

I told her what was happening to her son at school. Of course she was horrified. A smoker does not know how the smoke smells or how strong it can be.

So my sister stopped smoking. She aired out her house. She cleaned all the surfaces she could clean. She washed all their clothes.

My nephew had no more problems at school. He still does not smoke.

Military Funeral

 Have you ever been a part of a military funeral? It is one of the most beautiful, most moving, most painful rites to endure.

My brother was killed in Viet Nam. He was only20 years old.

My father was so hurt and so proud. I do not remember seeing him cry before or after but he cried with a broken heart that day. He had been in the Navy during World War II and had seen some of the horrors of war. He never thought it would happen to his son.

In a case of military death an officer knocks on the door to inform the family. Mom was home alone that day. The officer waited with her until Daddy could get home from work. He then answered questions and tried to help them make decisions.

They decided on a military funeral.

My brother had a friend who idolized him. The friend tried to enlist in the Army. He felt that if he was a soldier he would go to Viet Nam and protect my brother.

The problem was that he was extremely overweight. The Army would not take him.

He went home and proceeded to lose about 150 pounds. The Army was then happy to have him. He was still in basic training when my brother died. 

My family wanted him to be with us for the funeral. The officer said he would make the request but the Army hardly ever allowed anyone to interrupt basic training. My brother's friend was made a pallbearer and grieved with us. The funeral service was sad as all funerals are. Then the Army took over

The pallbearers carried my brother with the military guard around them.

After a short service at the grave site the soldiers removed the flag from my brother's coffin. They carefully folded it and presented it to my mother.

Then they began playing Taps. I always thought it was a haunting song. That day Taps just cut into our hearts.

The twenty-one-gun salute was almost like being shot. 

I must tell you that the military funeral is so magnificent. It is so painful. I hope it will never be a piece of your life.

Ka-Boom

Every once in a while my youngest brother would spend the night in the living room on the couch. He was watching television and fell asleep.

In the morning he would wake up and go about his day. My brother was around 10 years old at the time.

One morning he overslept. Mom went in to wake him.

She noticed a hole in the storm window above the couch. It had not been there before.  The window itself was not damaged.

Looking further Mom found a bullet between the windows. It was simply lying on the sill. 

There was an empty apartment building across the street and down the block a ways.  It seemed that the bullet came from there.

Someone was probably playing with a gun. They fired it into the empty outside not thinking it would travel for a distance.   

Luckily a bullet decelerates over a distance. By the time it reached the window of my parents' home it did not have enough speed to enter both panes of glass.

My brother was so fortunate. He could have been seriously hurt.

After that Mom made sure he slept in his bed in his room. 

Grandma's Grandfather's Clock

 Grandfather's Clock

My grandfather's clock was too tall for the shelf

So it stood ninety years on the floor

It was taller by half than the old man himself

But it weighed not a pennyweight more

It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born
It was always his treasure and pride
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

Ninety years without slumbering
Tic toc tic toc
His life's seconds numbering
Tic toc tic toc
It stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died.

In watching its pendulum swing to and fro
Many hours he had spent when a boy
And through childhood and manhood, the clock seemed to know
And to share both his grief and his joy

For it struck 24 when he entered at the door
With a blooming and beautiful bride,
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

CHORUS

My grandfather said that of those he could hire
Not a servant so faithful he'd found,
For it kept perfect time and it had one desire
At the close of each day to be wound

At it kept to its place, not a frown upon its face
At its hands never hung by its side
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died

CHORUS

It rang an alarm in the still of the night,
An alarm that for years had been dumb
And we knew that his spirit was pluming for flight
That his hour of departure had come

Still the clock kept the time
With a soft and muffled chime
As we silently stood by his side
But it stopped, short, never to go again
When the old man died"

                             by Henry Clay Work

I do not know if Grandma's grandfather's clock came from her grandfather. I tend to doubt it but I do not know.

What I do know is that it was beautiful. The wooden frame always shone. The gold toned chains inside always sparkled. The hands on the face always told the correct time. Or course we were not allowed to touch it.

The clock needed to be wound once a week. Grandma opened the glass door in the front.  She pulled on those beautiful chains. Somehow that rewound it for another week. I was mesmerized. 

I am guessing that the clock was sold in the auction when they sold the farm. 

I often think of that magnificent clock. I hope it is still as loved as Grandma loved it.

Lefty/Righty

In high school we studied genetics. My biology teacher was a brilliant teacher. He was also quick to let us know he was always right but that is another story for another day.

We learned about DNA which was a fairly new idea. Humans have strands of 23 traits. One strand inherited from the mother and one strand inherited from the father curve around each other. Those determine eye color, hair color, and whether or not you can curl your tongue.

Some traits are dominant and some are recessive. In other words brown eyes are more likely to be inherited than blue eyes.

One of the most impressive examples is handedness. If a person is left-handed both genes have to be for left-handedness. I am left-handed. For me to be left-handed each of my right-handed parents had to have a hidden left-handed gene. I therefore have two left-handed genes.

I married a right-handed man. He had lefties in his family so the possibility of him having a hidden left-handed gene were strong.

According to my high school biology this is a grid of possibilities that my children would be left-handed.

                                                       LL    LL

                                                RL   LL    LL               

                                                RL   RL    RL

This shows that if I were to have four children two would be left-handed and two would be right-handed with a recessive left gene. 

Well I have four children. Two are left-handed and two are right. Interesting?

Snacks

I am certain you are tired of me telling you that my family did not have much money when I was a child. What I do not mention is that there were few ready to make foods. Those available were too expensive.

We made everything from scratch. Cakes, pies, and cookies we just "whipped up". Sliced bread was available and inexpensive but I enjoyed making it so we had homemade bread and sweet rolls every week.

In the evening we watched TV or played games. Snacks were made for us to nibble.

Popcorn was cheap and easy to make. We heated lard in a pan then put in the corn. The pan had to be shaken or the popcorn would burn. After it popped it went into a big bowl and was salted. Mmmm-mmm.

Add fudge to have an even better treat. Fudge was basically sugar, cocoa, and water. It is cooked to the right consistency. Oh but we are not done yet. It still had to be stirred (constantly) until it began to stiffen. Then it is poured into a dish to set. Cut it into squares. It is a great snack.

One year Daddy bought a bushel of popcorn still on the cob. We were going to save money on popcorn. All we had to do was shell all the popcorn off the cobs. The problem is that popcorn is really hard and really stuck in the cob. We shelled all night and still were not done. I had a blister the size of a marble on my thumb.

Taffee was especially fun. We did not have it often. Mom would cook it up. Then we would cover our hands with butter. Each of us got a piece about the size of a teaspoon. We worked it and pulled it until it hardened.

Sometimes we got lucky and were given a large piece. More than one person was needed to pull the taffee. It was always fun.

A Bit Of Music History

In the 1960's there was a group named Tim Tam and the Turn Ons. Their biggest seller was Wait A Minute.

The group was formed when the six members were in high school. They were all from Lincoln Park, Michigan. That is a suburb of Detroit.  

They made other records of course. I am sure you can find them on YouTube if you wish to hear them.

One day I was driving through Lincoln Park and saw something that amused me. There were two apartment buildings next to each other. Their names were on the front of the buildings right over the entrances.

One was named Tim Tam. The other was Turn Ons.

I used to drive by them often just because the names amused me.

The group had invested some of their earnings into the buildings. It was a smart move.

Many years later they sold the investments. I guess the new owners did not take care of the properties. The tenants were evicted. The buildings were demolished.

City officials made a day of it. They each took a turn with sledgehammers. It was a day they called a reverse ribbon cutting. Each of them got their pictures in the paper.

Emotional Vampires

Do you know someone who is always unhappy and willing to share that unhappiness with everyone? My sister calls them emotional vampires.

These are people who are forever negative about everything. If you are enjoying a song they do not like the lyrics or music. If you are watching a movie they have a running narrative about the plot, acting, and script. They criticize the way other people look, dress, eat... all of it.

It is exhausting to be around an emotional vampire. Any happy or positive thoughts you have are sucked right out of you. Eventually you feel as miserable as they do.

I am normally a very happy person. I have good reason to be. Of course I have unhappy times. Deaths and illnesses come to mind. We grieve and survive.

I have known emotional vampires. I avoid them when I can. 

I am so wretched in their presence. If you are an emotional vampire STOP. If you are near an emotional vampire RUN. We need peace and harmony.