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Title: Gotta Be Over 40 to Understand
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Published: Jun 9, 2006
Author: unkonwn
Post Date: 2006-06-09 13:05:30 by Jethro Tull
Keywords: None
Views: 3292
Comments: 232
Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't get food poisoning. My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat a bite raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper, in a brown paper bag, not in icepack coolers, but I can't remember anybody getting e.coli. Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then. The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system. We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of hightop Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built-in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened, because they tell us how much safer we are now.... Flunking gym was not an option... even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything, and she could even give you an aspirin for a headache or fever. I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself. Oh yeah..and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed! We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked! Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat. We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either, because if we did, we got our butt spanked there, and then we got butt spanked again when we got home. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a "dysfunctional family". How could we possibly have known that we needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes? We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?
Poster Comment: LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA, AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T---- SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING
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#184. To: Dakmar (#183)
Off to Gitmo with you, commie! ;)
i'm starving now!
My 1992 Saturn SL2 was the first new car I bought, and also the second car I had bought with less than 100,000 miles on it. I delivered 'Za (Snowcrash reference) for a couple of years and had a stable before I left. They were so cheap and easy to work on, and the insurance (liability) and registration was cheap too, that I couldn't help myself. In 1990 I had 1970 1/2 RS Camaro (oh, my baby, and I sold her prior to moving!) Air shocks, Berlinetta leaves and station wagon coils, Eagle ST's, Cam, headers, shift kit (a must for any automatic performance, economy and life wise). My God, that car would cruise! NW of Bergton to Fairfax Station in an hour and ten minutes once. Phaedrus would know that ride :-) "To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods." -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"
Handing the secret police ice cream cones doesn't work as well if you don't get it on secure video.
Quit bogarting that peace, Herbert!
My Mom's sister is moving up to Washington. A road trip will soon be in order. After working this thread, I do believe I'm going back for reunion time this summer too, pain in the ass of flying be damned too!
"To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods." -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"
Probably, with difficulty. There is always hope, because that's part of what originally sent us on the quest. Along the way money, a house, TV, "stability", "security" etc... co-opted us. That's a heavy burden to extract from, particularly if you have the obligations of spouse and child. I've always tried to have an "out", a goal that I was working for that would be the endgame of the working and buying. I've jokingly pegged that as beating the age my Dad's Dad retired at, 48, after 33 years in the Navy (lied about age). The root goal is to have a free and clear farm property whose taxes are paid by an escrow account in perpetuity and where, if they desire, my parents can live on. We're not big on parking the elders in storage lots, even approaching the 100's, the grandparents are still on their own (though Pop's recently bought an apartment in a facility where there's on call help).
"To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods." -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"
Yeah, that was my life too. I remember being chased home by kids who were my best friends again the next day, but I cut through someone's yard (this was in second grade, btw). The guy had set up a trip wire with a little slope and broken beer bottles with their sharp end up. One went right into my knee (I still have a chunk of glass there) and I pretty much ran home with it sticking out, blood everywhere. My mom took me to the doctor, where I got the dreaded tetanus shot (about three feet long, as my second-grade eyes remember it) and a bandage. No lawsuit. A month later, us little kids broke every window in that freak's house and ran away. A couple of the older kids helped. He never put up a kid trap again. And the cops asked no questions.
No FREAKIN' way. Today, there are lots of people who are literally sociopathic. They would pick your pockets if you were laid out. You can see it in their demeanor and eyes. One of the reasons you have that now is because people aren't comfortable with metting out minor punishments to other peoples kids. They fear legal action. In the "day" if you caught your kid and the Jones' kid sniping apples off the neighbors tree, you'd switch them, and tell the Jones kid to go tell his father what he did, and he'd do it! His dad would give him another! Now, his father or mother might read you the riot act... MANY areas in the past had tight communities where people would come running to aid the fallen or the misfortunate. You can track the decline merely through the destruction of the nuclear family...
"To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods." -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"
Oh... I'd better not mention the Beer/teryaki/garlic/ginger and secret admixture marinade that I've been soaking some Elk steaks in along with the rubbed Elk roast and Elk burgers for a metal detecting outing in the Sierra tomorrow then...
"To wield onself -- to use oneself as a tool in one's own hand -- and so to make or break that which no one else can build or ruin -- THAT is the greatest pleasure known to man! To one who has felt the chisel in his hand and set free the angel prisoned in the marble block, or to one who has felt sword in hand and set homeless the soul that a moment before lived in the body of his mortal enemy -- to those both come alike the taste of that rare food spread only for demons or for gods." -- Gordon R. Dickson, "Soldier Ask Not"
no, you better not. i just had to settle for some M&Ms. :P
I don't have to wait for an 'old timer'........LOL.........those that know me know that my 93 year old Dad lives with me. Born in 1913. Didn't know what a car was til 1926. Laid brick in the streets of Dallas, TX, with his grandpa, when he was 15. Worked for the CCC program--I think that was in Colorado. Did a little boxing.........broke horses.........near dead ringer for Roy Rogers. Was asked if interested in doing stunt work for Roy and some other western heros. BEsides farming, he knew stone masonry and concrete work. Living in so-cal, he did masonry work for a number of stars as well as a number of wannabes. Dad actually was care taking a doctor's ranch in Montana when he was 83 years old. In his later years, I found that he was telling 'tall tales' to a bunch of the people I used to know in Montana--sort of around the old stove at a mercantile. I've got this real thing about 'lying' (reason I detest clinton and bush so very much). Lying is one of the few things I can honestly say I HATE. Anyways....... Back to the mercantile. One of the times I had went over there to check up on him, one of the folks had told me about Dad telling them about shooting coyotes from the back of his horse when he was young--and yes, doing it with the horse at a gallop or full run and him sitting backwards. I was really embarassed and was apologizing to Debbie and asking her to tell the others I really am ashamed of him for telling these whoppers. Debbie got quiet a moment and said that I should knock that shit off; that they all know this story and many others aren't true. But they appreciate the role of a story teller, a yarn spinner.......that they're truly few and far between nowadays. I felt about an inch or incha and a half high. Shortly after that, the doctor's wife sent me a copy of an essay her high school son had written as a class assignment on 'an older person who has affected your life'.or something like that. Teddy wrote about my Dad and the positive influence he had on him; that he first met my Dad when his mother had sent him out with cold water to my Dad at the tractor. Teddy was shy and wouldn't look up, so my Dad squatted down to his level and after thanking him for the water asked why he wouldn't look him in the eye, that that is the way real men are supposed to do. This essay goes on to mention a number of other things--including a lesson learned about doing a job and doing it well or not even bothering. And then the young man closed by telling how he and his older brother used to giggle and carry on about Dad's tall tales--and how they appreciated the time he spent with them; they knew these tales weren't real.....but he spent time with them. Dad's in his twilight now--acting more the child now with me the parent. I study genealogy and have had interviews with him. And the information gleaned is so neat. I really think if offered the chance he'd give a trip in a space ship a try. He's gone from horses and mules to wagons to cars to trains to airplanes to jets. And, of course, he's seen space ships. I have an uncle who tape recorded my grandfather in 1967 and my grandmother in about 1982. When I started the genealogy journey, the uncle sent me copies. You cannot image the joy--well, maybe you can--of hearing his voice again. Especially hearing him talk of his parents, especially his father, who served in the Civil War. And my grandmother.....bless her heart. She never spoke ill of others and she had the most marvelous tinkle of a laugh. Uncle captured that on the tape. I cry every time I play it........
Bacon grease is a must.........unless of course you've friend up a batch of chicken. :) My MOM was and is the best. I had to have been probably 40 years old before I finally got the hang of making gravy without lumps. I am not, never was, and don't want to be the cook that she was. I've heard the word scrapple, but couldn't tell you a thing about what it is. Right now my mind is a blank. I know minudo has tongue in it. Never tried grits.....at least not that I can recall. My husband was a southern boy, a Virginian, but he was the pickiest man alive. He didn't even like the sound of the word. And speaking of him, was it you above that spoke of putting something in a POKE? That was one of his words! LOL. I never did figure out if his LAG bolt was a LEG bolt; or if my own LEG was a LAG!
I don't think you'll regret it..........unless of course the TSA makes an example of you and strip you nekkid and check all yer internal parts before allowin ya to git on da plane! Then, I would suspect you would be damning them.
Excellent post..........and right on!
LOL..........
Outstanding post! That's exactly the way I remember it. I grew up in a small village of about 350 people. We did have an elementary school and I remember one winter my buddy and I got antsy and went to the playground and smashed all the snowmen and snow forts that the kids made during recess. We didn't think any one seen us but when I got home my parents already knew what we did. I got it from them and the school's principal when I went to school the next day. If we would have had a cop, he would have kicked my ass too. Besides that incident, it was a great place to grow up. Somebody in the village was always watching out if you had a problem. Every adult was your surrogate parent. We had two small mom and pop general stores. One is still there and the other one closed about 2 years ago. Sometimes, I go out of my way and drive through there just for all the wonderful memories. It's still pretty much the same as it was back then except for a few housing developments in some old corn and tobacco fields. We had scrapple(someone mentioned it). I loved it when I was kid, fried with pancake syryp. I can't stand the stuff now. That was one of those concoctions made from meat scraps when the locals would butcher. It was cheap and we were poor so it was a staple when it was available. I sure eat one of those 3 cent 'Lunch bars' in the green wrappers. They disappeared years ago. With three empty soda bottles, I could buy two of them!
If I had one, I had a half dozen. Did your arm feel like an elephant sat in it for a few days after? Talk about ache.
Back then they had those huge needles that were never sharpened. I can still see them suspended in that container of alcohol waiting for the next victim. They hurt like hell.
1950 Mercury 4dr (suicide type) flat-head V8, 3 speed overdrive tranny. 1964 Buick Riviera - yes! 1967 MB 230SL 1975 BMW 2002 It just became transportation thereafter.
I should have gone to my 40th HS reunion last year - from all reports, everyone had a super time...
Good luck with the folks - it can get challenging as time takes its toll. I've certainly come to grip with my own mortality after my parents had no further use for their earthly shells...someone observed that we are not our bodies, which will one day die; but we are what's inside of us - some call it our soul, that lives on forever, wherever it goes, and in the hearts and minds of those who are left behind.
I'd like to go to mine just to laugh at the jocks that got big, fat and bald. Also, those snob cheerleaders who also aquired big fat asses and turned into wrinkled prunes.
I miss my '64 Chevelle SS. That car took one hell of a beating. A 283 was a great engine.
Oral histories are an invaluable, wonderful link to our past.
My classmates that came to Dad's funeral said that everyone had had enough life experiences so that the ones that were snobs back when, were friendly and generally just happy to be there...but from the CD that I got, some of my fellows could lay off the GoldenCorral buffet and mix in the occasional garden salad.
Your high school must have been different than mine. Even though I had some good pals et al. the jock/cheerleader culture was pure elitist. They thought they were better than everyone. I went to 35th my reunion and nothing changed. I'll never go to another one.
They certainly are, Jim. I found in my genealogy researrch that back in the days of the WPA and CCC, those FDR programs, that some of the 'make work' jobs included sending people out into areas of the country where they would interview elderly people, and other specialized groups, i.e., native american indians. And then would write the interview up. One of my problems in genealogical research is that I can get side-tracked when I find something interesting. So............while I was stumped on finding any information which would relate to the dates or near places that a particular set of ancestors who went from Texas to Oklahoma, I came across these "Indian Papers".....really interesting interviews, and which apparently was widened to include other people from the area. I started reading one to sort of get an idea of what life must have been like for my great grandparents and their family even before Oklahoma begame a state-- when it was still Indian Territory. A rather exciting discovery was that one of the interviewers was also a gentleman who had notarized a number of papers for this particular set of great grandparents I was looking for. Even more exciting was to come across an interview of the wife of one of these great grandparents sons! Of course, trying to find out how couples met or fell in love or married back in that day is a lot harder than today where there are so many ways to leave this information for the world to know. But there it was--all laid out for me. She even provided dates! AND, it turns out her father was my great grandparents best friend! I had his name all over the notarized papers of my great grandfather as a witness. And he had even known him at Fort Belknap down in Texas!
Your experience sounds like mine........though I have never gone to a reunion, nor do I plan to. I went to a high school that had a lot of kids from the entertainment industry attending (movie and music). The one exception to that crowd was the girl I shared hall and gym lockers with the entire jr. high and high school years with. Her mother was an artist. While she essentially hung out with that clique, Carole was a good gal......and all lthese many years later, we stay in touch via Christmas cards and letters......and the last few years even with emails. From what she says, it seems like nothing has changed with the 'old' bunch. It sure has with me. I wouldn't be the least bit shy about telling them off or what to do and where to go. :)
Hell, we may be relatives - I remember my mother's parents telling us about the days when they lived in the Indian Territory before crossing the Red River to settle in Fannin county, TX. There's still scads of Rays and Dentons and their descendants living there today.
Were we ever snookered. Thanks for sharing that nice photo too.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. – James Madison
My beloved Grandpa Taylor was born in Bonham, Fannin Co.! But he wasn't the family I was searching for at the time. Grandpa Taylor's daddy was the pow in the civil war. I am sure, somewhere along the way, that I have seen the Denton name though! Now the great grandparents I was looking for may well have gone thru there. I found land records for them in Atascosa County. And census records and some of their private writings indicate they also were in Clay County, and Denton County (or was that the city/town of Denton), but they moved to Oklahoma, or Indian Territory as it was at that time. This great grandpa has such an interesting story (as much as I've found thus far).
Goosebumps here. The Taylor's are still going strong in Fannin county: my brother married a Taylor lass from a little town named Ector, just west of Bonham.
Does the name McKay ring any bells? Or Coleman?
No, but I'll ask my brother - his MIL, now in her mid-eighties, is still doing well in Ector, and they may have some information for you.
Off topic - morning, Loddy!
:)
The McKays are direct line. Colemans are not, though they figure into some of the family story. When the greatgrandfather Taylor moved to Texas after the death of his first wife, he settled near Fannin County. Met and married a Jenkins. They had 5 kids, IIRC, and she died when the youngest was a wee baby. The Jenkins and Colemans (apparently related) took the kids to raise. GG Taylor at some point moved to Fannin County where he met his 3rd wife, who was a McKay, and is my line of descent. They had a slew of kids. Some of the time, some of the others came to live with them, though they went back and forth, it seems. Small worlds happened even back then. GG Taylor was in the civil war. One of the soldiers he met up with in those days was a T. McKay. GG Taylor was from Arkansas; I think McKay was Mississippi. GG Taylor was one of the last exchanges of prisoners. He kept fighting though til the end of the war. Then married, and his wife died while pregnant with their first baby. He apparently was beside himself with grief and moved away to Texas to start fresh. As I said above, the second marriage occurred. And then the third marriage. Turns out in this last marriage that T. McKay and his new wife are brother and sister! They had not kept in touch after the military experience. But the McKays had moved 'west' as did so many of the Southerners after the way; that they went to Texas, and then found each other was quite a find. In their latter years, they settled in and died in and around Rains County.
ha! the last one i went to was my 25th. the turnout was so disappointing. most of those who showed up i barely knew in HS and so many i wanted to see didn't come. it sure wasn't worth the expense i went to see and be seen. i shopped in Beverly Hills and bought a red leather miniskirt with matching cropped jacket for that reunion! what a waste.
Good morning, Christine :)
I'd forgotten about the Jenkins in Fannin county: there was a family who had a farm about half a mile from my grandparents place - Merle & Elmer, they are somehow related to us by marriage; distant marriage, thank goodness and RIP.
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between being stumbled over or being kicked.
#185. To: Axenolith (#181)
#186. To: Esso, Phaedrus (#158)
The sticker price of the new 1980 Chevy Z28 I bought was well under $8,000. Don't remember exactly what I paid for it.
1970 Plymouth Fury I (should have been the trip to Alaska for 5 of us but roached an oil pump and spun the crank and didn't have time to repair). (Free)
1972 Datsun 510 sedan, chopped and prepped to sport up ($150).
1973 Datsun 510 Wagon, chopped, Pirelli's, 2 inch custom exhaust ($300).
1976 B210 2 door ($200).
1976 B210 4 door ($100) the primary 'Za delivery machine. The ultimate in cheap transport. You can do brake pads in the field in 20 minutes on this car. I sold it to a near deaf co-worker who still had it a couple of years later battered as shit but still running and getting 35+ MPG.
1984 Trans AM ($5,000) Should have kept this one too, second year of the 4 speed automatic so the bugs were worked out. T Tops, Alpine, Eagles. Awesome long distance runner and little kids remark "You have Kit!" too :-)
#187. To: Esso (#184)
#188. To: rowdee (#160)
Your lips to Gods ears...
#189. To: lodwick (#161)
Is it possible to go back?
#190. To: Jethro Tull (#0)
#191. To: Indrid Cold (#169)
Truth be told, the "old days" probably sucked just as much as nowadays, it's just selective memory that makes them seem better.
#192. To: christine (#185)
i'm starving now!
#193. To: Axenolith (#192)
#194. To: Axenolith (#174)
#195. To: Axenolith (#181)
#196. To: Axenolith (#188)
After working this thread, I do believe I'm going back for reunion time this summer too, pain in the ass of flying be damned too!
#197. To: Axenolith (#191)
#198. To: christine (#193)
no, you better not. i just had to settle for some M&Ms. :P
#199. To: Axenolith, all (#191)
#200. To: Mekons4 (#190)
I got the dreaded tetanus shot
#201. To: Jethro Tull (#200)
I got the dreaded tetanus shot If I had one, I had a half dozen. Did your arm feel like an elephant sat in it for a few days after? Talk about ache.
#202. To: Axenolith. Drivers here (#186)
Cars I miss -
#203. To: Axenolith (#188)
I do believe I'm going back for reunion time this summer too, pain in the ass of flying be damned too!
#204. To: Axenolith (#189)
We're not big on parking the elders in storage lots, even approaching the 100's, the grandparents are still on their own (though Pop's recently bought an apartment in a facility where there's on call help).
#205. To: lodwick (#203)
I should have gone to my 40th HS reunion
#206. To: lodwick (#202)
#207. To: rowdee (#194)
I have an uncle who tape recorded my grandfather in 1967 and my grandmother in about 1982. When I started the genealogy journey, the uncle sent me copies. You cannot image the joy--well, maybe you can--of hearing his voice again. Especially hearing him talk of his parents, especially his father, who served in the Civil War. And my grandmother.....bless her heart. She never spoke ill of others and she had the most marvelous tinkle of a laugh. Uncle captured that on the tape. I cry every time I play it........
#208. To: Grumble Jones (#205)
I'd like to go to mine just to laugh at the jocks that got big, fat and bald. Also, those snob cheerleaders who also aquired big fat asses and turned into wrinkled prunes.
#209. To: lodwick (#208)
#210. To: lodwick (#207)
Oral histories are an invaluable, wonderful link to our past.
#211. To: Grumble Jones (#209)
Even though I had some good pals et al. the jock/cheerleader culture was pure elitist. They thought they were better than everyone. I went to 35th my reunion and nothing changed. I'll never go to another one.
#212. To: rowdee (#210)
I started reading one to sort of get an idea of what life must have been like for my great grandparents and their family even before Oklahoma begame a state-- when it was still Indian Territory.
#213. To: Axenolith (#152)
Yea, we really move up in the world when we give up the local modest job and strike out for far away lands and riches...
#214. To: lodwick (#212)
#215. To: rowdee (#214)
My beloved Grandpa Taylor was born in Bonham, Fannin Co.!
#216. To: lodwick (#215)
#217. To: rowdee (#216)
Does the name McKay ring any bells? Or Coleman?
#218. To: lodwick (#217)
#219. To: rattler (#218)
A happy Saturday back at'cha.
#220. To: lodwick (#219)
#221. To: lodwick (#217)
#222. To: Grumble Jones (#205)
#223. To: christine (#222)
#224. To: rowdee (#221)
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