100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD -- according to "TIME"

No, I didn't count them.  (Image from Muy Interesante, 1993)

Yeah I got my TIME the other day. I have listed the names that I recognized without any prodding.
I don't know why I know some of the names, but because I decided to be honest I listed them.
I am still trying to figure out why Secretariat hasn't ever been listed.
Anyway, here are the names I recognized out of 100:
Charles and David Koch
Scott Kelly
Tim McGraw
Angela Merkel
Bob Corker
Elizabeth Warren
Xi Jinping
Jeb Bush
Raul Castro
Kim Jong Un
Benjamin Netanyahu
Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama
Mitch McConnell
Ruth Bader Ginsberg
Jerry Brown
Malala Yusafzai
Pope Francis

That's 18.  With Man 'O War and Jackie Robinson, I get 20.

I remember growing up and thinking the world of certain people.  It was really uplifting to be able to know a fact or two about Bobby Doerr, for example.  Fortunately for me, EFR Dion thought highly of Bobby Doerr too.  I could go through a list of names that mean nothing to anyone at this time, but I won't because I have learned my lesson about this influential people myth.

Early in my life I came to know that one of the people whom I admire the most could not even pronounce the words Bobby Doerr, and wouldn't have recognized them had they been before his very eyes in the English language newspaper of the day.  Here was this hulk of an old man who was living a wonderful life, surrounded by loving children and grandchildren and he did not even know Bobby Doerr whom I idolized.  It was OK for him to not know Ted Williams.  EFR Dion and I both knew that he was a bum anyhow.  The fact that my Grandfather didn't know these people but still led a productive life did teach me a lot.  It did not keep me away from him.  Oh, no.  I couldn't get enough of him.  I still enjoy his spiritual company every day of my life.
So, what's with this influence philosophy?  Am I missing something because I only recognize 18 names out of the 100 that I suppose I am expected to not just recognize, but feel their influence?  I looked at the cover of the magazine and I asked myself whose face that is.  I read down the list and I was lost.  Not a single name jumped out at me from the "cowboy song" singers; not a single name jumped out at me from the French national soccer team; doesn't Michael Jackson play basketball any more?  Oh, and Cousy?  I really miss Maurice Richard too.
According to this list, I am not being influenced by anyone important.  To that, I said, YYEESSSS!
Obama?  Netanyahu? Kim Jong Un?  Bob Corker?  Hillary Clinton?  Hell's bells!  My life sure is a mess.  The only powerful vibes I get from anyone on the list is the Italian Catholic guy from Argentina and the teen ager from Pakistan.  Why do I like them?  Why do I know who they are?
Easy:  They speak truth to power.  Plain and simple.

Yes, my friends, the Time 100 and the Time Person of the Year don't move me any more.  What moves me now is my self determination, my unwaverably positive self-esteem and my unshakable faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Everything else is pure dust and ashes.

So that's my thought for the day.  

SEXUAL HARASSMENT TRAINING IN CALIFORNIA

Skillpath.com

I had an interesting experience today.  After ten years of significant activity on the campus of our local parish church, I went to the diocesan headquarters for a training session regarding sexual harassment.  It was rather somewhat disorienting being in the audience rather than at the front of the room.  I have done this type of training many, many times along the path of my work history.  

But, and get this, I never presented this training in a room where there were nuns and priests sitting around the same tables. I don't know why, but that was somewhat disconcerting.  I can't help but wonder if Sister Mary of the Holy Archangel Michael ever did accuse Father Noah of the Leaky Ark of creating a hostile workplace environment for the good sister because of his over-use of the scatological expletive common on many church campuses.  I certainly hope not.

These days a full day training seminar on sexual harassment is a piece of cake.  The topic that really keeps things hot, I think, is child molestation.  I say that "I think" because I have been absent for any and all of those for eons of being around the Church.  I have had my fingers printed, my pulse taken, my blood pressure verified, my BMI statistically analyzed, my DNA distilled and filtered and my name analyzed on Google, all to no avail when it came to finding me with my hand in the child molestation cookie jar.  

So there!  

Oh, by the way, I do have a wonderfully kind and loving cookie jar right here at home.  Ol' Grace, the famous Vox Cucinae.  

PSSST! DO YOU KNOW ANY BAD WORDS?

Hey, know what?  Ol' potty mouth here has in the history of these scratchings broached the daring topic/thought of bad words twice before.  Once here and another time here.
I admit that it was a long time ago and I also admit that I had forgotten about my forays into the foul words jungle.  The thought of discussing them (again?) came to me when I happened to see a question on a social network site that asked if there are any bad words.  Predictably, the answers came back with all the philosophical Sophistry that words are not bad or good since they are nothing but noise.  That got me to thinking about my "Bad  Word Autobiography."  It so happens that it does have stages in it.  Some predictable and others just slightly slipping into consideration.

The first stage is the one where you get caught by your mother at a moment when you thought that you were SAFE. It was on the sidewalk near the house.  I was sitting in the little red wagon that we had received for Christmas.  It was now Spring and we were playing horse and buggy.  It was my turn to be in the buggy and my brother's turn to be the horse. Of course I was unhappy with the gait of the "horse" and I was particularly short of a whip.  You know, the leather kind that you can snap across the horse's stern when things aren't exactly going to your liking.  But I did have the one in my mouth (still do) so I let the "horse" know in no uncertain, loudly shouted terms that I want him to move his *&^)$#@@ stern.
You know, "stern" spelled "A..:  Brit style, as in "Move yer bloomin' a...e" (My Fair Lady)
Well, this was at least two decades before Julie Andrews and My Mum happened to be near a window and just the right side of the house.  

The whole neighborhood reverberated with the screeching thunder of my mother's pet name for me, punctuated by the order, "Get in here."  The rest of the story can be handily wrapped up in the simple averrance that I developed an immediate distaste for Camay handsoap on that very day.  I know that the mental allergy to it is still sitting heavily on my being when I walk into a rest room in a family home where Camay is the bar soap of choice.  I find myself tasting my punishment all over again.  Imagine a lifetime of punishment for three words that were overheard by a foul mouthed parent (yeah, she had a vocabulary, especially in French).

For the rest of my young life I was a rather smooth talker.  I used to occasionally slip into fecal phonemes, but not too often.  So from about 10 to 40 I was pretty wimpy in my speech. Not my opinions, but my speech.

I had a bad moment for a few years, but not any more.  

Back to the "Bad Word" question.  I happen to agree that there are bad words.  Words are not just "noise."  They are also thoughts and a bunch of other things.  They also have a social dimension that can't be denied.  So yeah, I think that there actually are "bad words."
Take it from me, that Camay taste that I now have in my mouth is presently underlining the truth of that statement.

IS THERE A "WRONG SIDE" OF THE BED?

  Do some people subconsciously pick a side of the bed? 

Here I present to you a question that I ran across while surfing the Internet rather than dedicating myself to my work.  It made me laugh because it didn't ask the question in relation to the questioner's fixed vantage point.  Was she at the head?  At the Foot? Was the question posed from the sunrise side of the house or the sunset side?  Maybe it was from the North looking South or vice versa?  Was the question regarding whether or not one would prefer the topside or the underside?  Was it asked about the human side of the person with whom I share the bed?  Finally, why a side?  What do I answer if I personally insist on the middle?  I suppose that would leave me with other options, v.g. The topside or the underside.

Actually, I did get a kick out of this question.  I actually dodged the bedside part of the question and answered it to myself in relation to a decision  that the Voice from the Kitchen and I made many years ago.  She would occupy the available space to my right as I lay on my back and I would be at her left as she lay on her back.  As it turned out this contributed to the longevity of our conjugal union.  Neither one of us could get up on the wrong side of the bed because the body of the other half of the union prevents it.  Plus, we chose the right side by default when we chose the human side of our nocturnal sojourn.

So, there you go.  Just another of the "365 Thoughts" that have appeared here through the years.  This one is not native to me, but I got a kick out of playing with it anyway.  I have some more, so hang in there.  Some of them may even make more sense than this one.

ANONYMITY?

I have a few thoughts about Anonymity.




















Something struck me the other day.  It twanged my High "C" string because it is something that rarely goes out of tune in me.  I have oft repeated this conviction of mine, "Anonymity if the greatest obstacle on the road to progress."
I do not live the larger part of my life in anonymity.  I do try to protect my online banking account, but even that is not 100% sure.  

What usually happens in life is that an event tweaks your inner Ukelele and you get the vibes rubbing up against your tender queevates and you just have to get a laugh out if it because that's what keeps you sane.  Well, let me tell you a story.

I was cruising along in the "social media ocean" on a site that I have come to enjoy.  It is called "Quora", a plural form of "Quorum" and I find it interesting.  It is a question and answer format a little bit in the style of Wikipedia.  Many of the questions come under the shade of anonymity.  I don't ask questions.  I answer them when I see that I am competent to do so.  I have been doing this for about two months now.  I have also come to know that I have garnered a small following of "regulars."  
This participatory activity and the four active blogs that I manage have pretty much wiped out any hope (if any) that I ever had for anonymity.

Here is the "Tweaker":  I am looking to start Angel Investing. How can I get a deal flow, and get my name out there?  Asked by "Anonymous."
How is "anonymous" going to get his/her name "out there?" Sure has me beat!   I am sure that the angel investors are scrambling around in their offices with their checkbook in hand wondering where they should send their money in response to this dynamic individual's anonymous query on the World Wide Web.

I have long ago succeeded in getting anonymous email forwarders off my electronic door stoop by responding to all and daring them to sign their stercus taurorum before sending it to me.  

It used to be a little more difficult to be anonymous.  You had to write things down in your own hand; you had to mail it and the post office would have the origination point clearly stamped so as to cancel the postage; if you were lucky enough to have a telephone, that wouldn't help because your voice would be a give-away.  
Speaking of telephones and anonymity.  Did you every try to see if you could really disguise your voice if you spoke through a towel while on the 'phone?  I did.  I tested it by calling my friend at an off hour.  I was glad to hear that it had been his mother to answer.  Surely she had been fooled.  My joy was short.  I heard her say, "Donald, Paul is on the 'phone."
So friends and neighbors, boys and girls, "ladies and gentlemen and all ships at sea," tell the truth and sign your name to it.  It is the guarantee that those who come to your funeral will not be crying.  Come to mine first and you'll know that I am right.

WASH HANDS...YOURS, MINE, HERS, HIS...GOOD, NOW GO BACK TO WORK

I am not making this up, I saw a sign in a restaurant rest room about one week ago and it said exactly what you see here.  For some strange reason, it got me going.  I got back to the table and where my two sons were seated along with the Voice from the Kitchen.  Since it was in the period before the food was served I decided it was safe to mention my reaction to the sign.  WRONG!  
I mentioned that I had found it a little humorous that the English communications skills of the person leave so much to be desired.  We laughed about some of the messages that we saw in the language.
Employees only?  No. 1 son says, "Of course, if you're not an employee somewhere you can't afford to eat here."
Employee?  What about the people at the table with the slob customer who comes back with grimy, streptococcus hands?
The Voice from the Kitchen asks, "Whose hands are they supposed to wash?"  You might know, the tiny lady sitting deep in the corner of the booth found the most challenging interpretation of the sign.  
Actually, the conversation continued in typical Dion fashion.  Since we are no longer sitting at the table, the crude innuendo and the substitute words for various and sundry bodily functions dictate that I no pursue the topic any further.  Probably not a bad idea.
I have had similar experiences in other parts of the world, but I think that what happened this time is worth remembering.
So, I leave you for now.  My life is getting a little looser lately, so I hope to be back.  I have a ton of stuff I want to tweak you with.  

WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

Sit atop the hill that God gives you and take it all in, all the time

I am a person who has seen many people come and go in and out of his life.  I was reminded of this the other day when Loraine told me where she is now living.  It made me think of my life story and the parade of people who have marched through it.
In the first place, I was a stranger to many of the young people with whom I grew up.  I lived in one town and went to school in the city across the river.  The children around where I lived spoke only English, a language that I had to learn.  They went to the local public school and I went to the parochial school across the river.
When I graduated from the eighth grade, I went to a boarding school Catholic seminary instead of to the local high school.  At that point I was separated from the people with whom I had studied for eight or nine years as well as from the local people with whom I had played while at home from school.

In the seminary, people dropped out regularly, never to be seen again.  I was in the seminary for twelve years and this pattern never stopped.  Along the way, I was assigned to study in Rome, Italy so I had to leave the United States.  I said my goodbyes and one of them from a closer than average friend was his saying to me, "We're laughing and smiling now, but we may never see one another again."  We never did.  He died young.  
Of course, the people I came to know while studying in Italy are for the majority scattered all over the world.  Many of them quietly in their grave.
Along the way I made friends in Italy, France, Spain, Mexico, Canada, the Philippines, Japan, Madagascar, Brasil and other places around the globe.  

The mystery about this is that all these people, many now nameless for loss of detailed memory, still remain a part of me.  I remember the classmates with whom I was in school in New Hampshire, in Rome and even some in the community college that I attended for three semesters in San Diego.  I remember the missionaries with whom I lived and worked.  I remember the teachers who formed me, from the kindergarten on.  I remember the girl that I escorted to the junior senior dance in the eighth grade.  I remember so many people and I more than remember them, I live with them in spirit.

I worked for thirty plus years in the electronics manufacturing industry.  I worked for many companies and with many good people and with many who might be considered somewhat less than good.  I still stay in contact with many of them, the good and the not so good; the beautiful and the not so beautiful; the honest and the not so honest, but every one, human and a work of God.

I thank God that my faith in Him and the Communion of His people keeps them all alive in my heart and soul.  I am never alone for the Church is always my home and its saints are my constant companions.  And, you know what?  Even the ones whom I didn't like and for whom I certainly will not cry when they answer the Curtain Call are treasures for which I thank God.  Not just because they make for good story telling, but most of all because I remember the lessons that God taught me through them.  From this perspective, they too are gifts from Him.  

So whoever you may be, wherever you may be, always keep every soul with whom you come in contact as a treasure in your heart and your soul.  Each and every one is a gift of God to you.  Yes, every one, even those you've been trying to forget.  They too are in your memory for a reason; God's reason.  Seek it out and it shall be unveiled to you.  Trust me on this one.

TEXTING ENGLISH, ETC -

i tried replicating this on my cellphone and literally went incredibly crazy trying!!!!

hi gd am b at u soon
or if I get a txt from the pi - gud am kmsta kyo

Now, look, I can read and write cursive in a language or two, but I have to admit that I sometimes get lost in "txtglish, txtgalog, txtikano, txtanish, etc."  I thought it was bad when I would get stuff like, ROTFLMAO, or maybe even just LOL to say nothing about what might be the difference between :) and :-) or even ;-) or :o.

i have been falling into the habit of not punctuating anything and just rolling along writing away with not a capital letter not a comma or anything just plain old words strung together for the recipient to decipher and if you think that it makes it hard for you to understand the string of thought or maybe i should say thread as is the present custom you should try me in french with no accents and no cedillas and it gets even worse in spanish with no til on the n and no accent on the verbs to differentiate for the tense and the mood o yeah grt stuff ohhh!!!!~~

Back to normal, if you don't mind.  This all got started in me when I ran into a piece on the Internet about the deterioration of the English language as it used to be called back about 50 or 60 years ago.
The author was talking about how words today don't mean what they used to mean even though they are still described in the dictionary the way they were back then.  He gave the word "literal" or "literally"as an example.  Then as I was reading another article, not a satire like the first one, I ran into the word "incredible" used in the wrong way, just as the word "literally" is used the wrong way so often.  My example was like, "He was incredibly old."  Hmmm, sounds like me.  Except I am credibly alive, so something, somewhere has to be out of sync here.  Besides, my birth anniversary is just around the corner, and that is a real and credible date.  It says so right there on the calendar.  So there.
But my incredibly, literal favorite is when I am filling out a form and the information to be provided is "Gender."  There is never enough room to write "masculine."  By the same token, there is never enough room to register the complaint that I am not a grammar classification.  Nope, not me.  I am a real, no holds barred hot blooded French Canadian male with the attributes to prove it.

So, my 21st century friends, neighbors and relatives, you have to bear with me because I am not going to stop punctuating my writing.  I am going to try to be true to the grammar rules like I know them.  I do not use plural pronouns to signify singular antecedents and when I want to use a relative pronoun, I will still use "who" for people, and not "that."  Believe me, I don't care what you think about that. My numb and arthritic fingers make touch errors, but my mind is still clear and I strive to keep it under control...and I tell you that sister Mary of the Holy Guardian Angels never taught me anything but right grammar, French or English.  So there.

So, all of you, have an incredibly great time, and I mean that, literally.

TELEPHONE POLITENESS, WHAZZAT?

To be fair, I cropped out the credit for the picture -- Morsy I.M.

Something happened to me about 30 minutes ago that I have to tell you about.  I have decided to put it here rather than on "Crusty Kurmujjin" because it is rather humorous...if you come at it from my end.  So hang on to your hats and glue your false teeth in, cuz here we go.
Calling all,
Cold callers,
Telephone spammers and slammers,
Robo callers, both human and electronic,
English language callers,
Quasi English language callers,
Church going callers,
Political party callers,
Poll taking callers,
Phishing callers,
Solar system callers,
Communication system callers,
Sheep callers,
Hog callers, as well as the occasional yodeling caller that slips through.

Do not expect a friendly voice at the other end of your ear if the other end starts with 925 and ends in 079.  No way.  So start from there and be sure that either my warped sense of humor or my acidic sense of sarcasm, not to mention my thunderous sense of anger, will be punctuated by a sudden dark silence [there is no "hang-up" bang with cell phones :-(].  

That's what you can expect from me, unless the results of your solid family upbringing shine through, starting with an instantaneous friendly greeting.  If you are nothing but the extension of a robo call, you're doooomed with absolutely no redemption possible.  NONE.  Not even if I am too slow to disconnect and you happen to pipe up quickly enough with a cheery greeting followed by, get this, your name, and the name of  your p...no, sorry, employer.

What just happened to me broke every single one of my personal guidelines.  No, there was one that was obeyed, "Thou shalt not call after 19:00 hours - 7:00 PM."  So, back to the moment we're talking about.
1. The initial 5 to 7 seconds of silence for the switch from computer to human.
2. The flood of quasi human oral noise that could only be understood by one of similar species.
3. MY loud voice saying, "Who the hell are you?"
4. More incomprehensible jabber followed by MY, "Shut the hell up."
5. Silence for about 3 - 5 seconds, then, "Oh, sorry sirrr."
6. "No you're not.  You don't have enough manners in you to be sorry.  If you ever call this number again, you had better be ready to practice the basic rules of telephone communications politeness."  This punctuated by the lack of a "hang-up" bang but the emphatic presence of the totally black cloud of doomsday silence.

After this, the Voice from the Kitchen arrived from her stint in the gainful employment world and she caught me smiling like the Cheshire Cat.  She knew that it was not her arrival causing the smirky smile.  So, she asked.  I kid you not. I confessed.  I actually told the truth, the whole truth, right to her face.

That's when the incongruity of my behavior of barely five minutes before her entry struck us both. Well, actually it struck her and she began to rain baseball sized hail and brimstone pellets on my totally laughter consumed being.  Here I was telling some poor soul who is trying to make a living (honest or not, doesn't matter) to be POLITE while I was being a top ten candidate of BOORISH behavior in the 21st century.  I hope that after she hung up, the caller who had just been abused found a way to see the same humorous side of the happening that we did.

Really, lady, that's just the way I am.  Just ask those who know me, especially my kin.

I WANNA LEARN MORE -- REALLY? -- WHAT? -- HMMM, LEMME SEE...

Of course you do.  So don't we all. But you know what?  I hear this a lot.  I hear it practically every day.  Every day! Now look, it's been a long time since I came to the conclusion that the world is full of people who never threw the pointy hat away when they were let out of the classroom corner.  But I didn't ever think that there would be so many asking me to teach them something that they could learn simply by looking out the kitchen window.
That's only one of the foibles.  What about when someone buys a new gadget and unfolds the little paper that has the directions of how to put the thing to use and still can't get it done?  
"Hey, You, [yes, that's my name] how do I get this thing to work?"
 "Hmmm, lemme see...Oh, right here, slide this little guy over to the right and you're in business."
"Neat-oh! how dz'ya do that?"
"I read the directions."
"I wish I could do that, but I don't understand technical language .  I guess I should learn how to do that."
To which I find myself thinking more than sometimes, 
"Phew, I'm glad I don't have a doctorate!"

Most of the time I hear it from church goers.  "I wanna learn something new."  Oh, that's a good one.  I jump all over this one.  
"Dz'ya go ta church yesterdee?"
"Uh-Huh"
"What did Jesus say to the Pharisees yesterday?"
"Jesus talked to the Pharisees yesterday?"
"Yep, sure did.  You were there right?"
"Yyyeeahhh, I was."
"Looks like you missed an opportunity to learn something new."
End of that conversation.

I don't want to belabor the point too much, but I do have another one that I hear a lot: "I wish I could learn Spanish."
Huh?  Spanish?  Here in Southern California?  Not a chance, not here!  
I hear this so often, that it chokes me every time because I know that the speaker is just making small talk conversation.
People who talk like that don't have a clue of what it takes to learn another language.  Right, Donna?  Right, Kimberly? 

It's an interesting world that we live in.  I won't make it any more interesting for you by telling you that I'd like to learn more math.  Now that, my friends would be pure Stercus Taurorum from the Pisces himself.  Right, Laura?  Laura knows how futile that statement would be since she wasted a ton of time trying to explain "x" to me over her kitchen table some years ago.
So, no, I don't ever say "I want to learn something new."
I just look out the kitchen window and it works all the time. I can prove it...just ask me about the sex lives of hummingbirds.

SLOW FOOD

I received this list of "When I was a young one growing up..." and I decided that the person who generated it had left out some items that are dear to me.  I have written about them here and there in the blogs that I maintain, but I decided that since my brain was already on the train because of the email, that I would send the entire "meal" to you all.

NOTICE:

There are many of you who are reading this who were not born and brought up in the USA.  If you want to share your dearest nostalgia filled memories, send them and we will all enjoy them on this blog.

SLOW FOOD

'Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?'

'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,'

I informed him.

'All the food was slow.'

'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?'

'It was a place called Home,'' I explained. !

'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.

But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it :

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card.

In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck.

Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer.

I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow)

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 9.

It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a..m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.

I was 21 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called 'pizza pie.' When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home but milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers-- I delivered a newspaper, 7 days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get up at6AM every morning.

On Saturday, I had to collect the 49 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren

Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES from a friend :

My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Colabottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it.. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old ...

I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

Don't forget to pass this along!!

Especially to all your reallyOLD friends

I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but, I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God. - Abraham Lincoln

That's the email.  Since I do not have any REALLY OLD friends I am sending this to all my readers, young and not so young.  

What follows is real life.  I did not make any of this up.  I couldn't...my brothers and sister are watching me! :-)

​My response to the email.

I am not going to forward this before adding my own non anonymous and very real memories about growing up​.  They came to me as I was going down the list above.

I shared a room with my brother.  When boy #3 came along we made room for him.

I was 12 before my parents relented and allowed us to have a radio in our room.  9:00 PM curfew on it. no weekend exceptions except for the Joe Louis /Jersey Joe Walcott fight.

No, it didn't have FM - that wasn't invented yet.

I went to school on the city bus, got there for the 8:00 AM start and didn't get out until 3:30.  

When I or anyone else misbehaved, we got whacked with the ruler.

If you didn't have passing grades, you were held back.

I remember that when I got to be in the 6th grade, at the end of the year, the 6th, 7th graders helped to clean the school to put it in "moth balls" for the Summer.  I was a member of the volunteers who reported one week early to get it out of "moth balls" for the September opening.

Hey, I even remember that the comedians on the radio never got beeped!

I was forbidden to listen to Bob Hope because he was too racy.

I was in 2nd year high school before we got a television. (Now it's been 5 years since we have a television in the house!)

I saw two movies before I was 12, "Dumbo" and "The Song of the South."  Miraculously, both were in Technicolor...Yep, Technicolor...they don't call it that any more.

We had to obey the air raid sirens and shut off all the lights or risk getting a citation from the air raid warden for violating national security.

Every home had a clothes line...the sun dried scent came from God, not out of a box.

If you had a back yard it had a Victory Garden where you worked with your parents to make the garden produce your vegetables.

I played baseball in the summer time.  I walked to the play ground and back home.

I got my first two wheeler bicycle at age 13.  When I got old enough, 15 or 16 I guess, I could pedal my way to the "away" games at fields up to 5 miles away.  (Al, for us that was Woodlawn, Center, and in my case, Fairview.)

I also remember the country going crazy on August 15, the day we were finally not killing nor getting killed any more in World War II.

Talking about that, what ever happened to the "Draft."  

I remember when all airplanes had propellers and all train engines ran on steam.

I'm so old, I remember the way the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Red Sox in the seventh game of the 1946 World Series.  It was an October day, not November.  I remember it like it was yesterday.  But, in fact, at my age, even yesterday is getting pretty fuzzy.

There were only 16 major league teams then.  The Boston Braves were my favorites.  They only played 154 games per season.
My favorite professional ball players were Birdie Tebbetts and Bobby Doerr even though they played for the Red Sox.
Ted Williams was a bum, as far as I was concerned.  We didn't go to Boston often.  It was a nearly three hour drive to cover the 105 miles.
Professional football was not a significant attraction. Boston had a team.  I think it was the Redskins.  As I remember it, they were bad and weren't making any money.

I remember when Dick Tracy had a wrist radio connected to the Chief.  In fact, I remember when "Peanuts" was just being published and "Snoopy" walked on all four legs.

I remember when the daily newspaper went from 15 cents to 25 cents for 6 days and my father stopped delivery he was so mad.  The humorous part of all this is that he could only hold out for one week!

I was 11 years old on the night when our youngest sibling was born and none of us even knew that Mom was in the "family way."

Let me put a final period to this by saying that we old people don't talk about the "Bad Things" we did because we know that it would only make you young people laugh that we could even think that what we did was actually bad.

With memories like that, I can go happily to my eternal rest, so don't "Cry at my Funeral."

THIS WAS DONE WHEN I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE CLEANING HOUSE

ME & "The Voice from the Kitchen"

This is one of those things that crops up on you when you are cleaning house.  You're doing it not because the place is dirty, but because you were told to do it.  So you do it until you get to finding something of great value, like a great picture of the person who ordered to clean up in the first place.  That is the beginning of a great day on the cleaning up circuit.
There are several more of these snap shots in a million places around the house.  This, despite the fact that there must be another million snapshots captured in electronic bits on flash drives, SD chips and in the cloud, that just have to be printed in hard copy so that "I can have an album."  Dream on dearest!  You have so many pictures captured on electronic media that it would take an album the size the Louvre Museum to capture them all in anything more substantial than ions and neurons and isotopes.  I have come to the conclusion that the great blessing of snapshots is that they give me a break when I start to clean house.  I always start in the places where I opine that there is the highest chance of finding interesting old snapshots right here!  Wow, got it, here's one of gran'ma Dion.  Don't believe me, here, take a look ... See, I told you.

Edward - Gran'ma - Ray

There are all kinds of things that you can find when you're cleaning house.  Heck, you can even find pictures of people whom you don't know and maybe never knew.  The worst part about that is that some of them look sneakily like someone whom you SHOULD know.  Now that is a guilt trip sneak attack.  Be careful not to ruin your day.  Here, let me try to do it for you.  I'll start you off with an easy one.

Lea - Ora - Rose
You name the guys

One is Theo and the other one is a guy whose name I have honestly forgotten.  If it comes back to me I'll let you know...I know his surname was Snowman,  O, I got it now, Everett.  See, I told you that was an easy one.  Now you get to guess where he was from and where he ended his days.  Do you know who was married to whom, by name of course, in the picture?
Somewhere in this ocean of faces, there is a Cecile, a Gloria, a Lionel, a Donald, a Mina, a Betty, an Al and a few more besides all the poor anonymous ones who have gone before us even though they have contributed to the shaping of who we are.  In some ways it is a good thing that I don't have some of the elements of the "shaping."  You know, stuff like the suit coats, suspenders, hats, full length dresses and a bunch of other stuff.
Now I know that ther are many of you who don't know these people in particular, but if you are an adult of any age, you know what this is all about.  It is about the human condition.  It is the river of humanity of which we are part.  You have the same mysteries in your lives.  You have similar collections of numerous faces, bodies, poses, geographic puzzles, old cars, funny hats and crazy hair do's.  Sometimes you see a 100 year old picture and you know exactly who the captured face belongs to, only to be disappointed at the five year old picture of your long lost cousin whom you can't recognize because the picture is five years old but the cousin is 75.

All of this tells you that I did not get much house cleaning done.  The Voice from the Kitchen is not going to be happy that I spent my time with photos and then ruined the rest of the day writing this silly blog post.  I can't help but think that I had better keep looking over my shoulder because she's out to get me, 4 SURE!

You want more pictures?  Don't look at me.  Go to your own attic::-)

SOMEONE GOT BLESSED ON THANKSGIVING -- THIS IS A BLESSING?

http://undoratrace.quora.com/The-man-who-
found-this-wallet-is-a-liar-and-a-thief

We start this 
article with a
story...







Before you continue reading what I am about to narrate, I suggest that you read the story to which you will be brought by clicking on the link just below the picture.  You 
will get more out of what you read below.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the United States.  That means that on this day we are committed to thanking God for the material and spiritual gifts that He has showered upon us in the year just past.  The Atheists also express their gratitude in the manner that they choose. I just thank God that I have the health to follow orders from the Voice from the Kitchen.  That's at the root of this story.  It takes place in the very environment that I described to you yesterday.  So, brace yourselves, this is a true story coming your way.

The person in charge of the household celebration had gone to the supermarket down in the valley.  There she bought a thermometer that she was sure would help to measure the inside temperature of the turket meat that she was going to prepare.  I was about other matters when of a sudden she asked for my thermometric engineering expertise.  
"Honey, how do I use this?"
"Hmmm, what's it for?
"You know, to see how hot the turket meat is."
"This is the wrong tool.  It can't do what you want."
"But it says 'Oven thermometer' doesn't it?"
"It sure does, but what we should have is a 'Meat thermometer' the one that has a long spike on it."
"Oh, I didn't know."
"I'm running now.  This will only take a minute."
"Oh, and by the way, please get a bag of ice and some ice cream."
"Now it's gonna take 30 minutes.  OK?"
"Go.  Go."

So, I go.  I have two options.  I go for the one that I think is going to be a slam dunk.
Ten minutes into the foray I realize that I not getting anywhere in this store, Rite Aid, the one with the French Canadian sounding Manager.  Langevin, from yesterday.
So I walk four doors down to the Chinese super market.  This, I am sure is the jackpot for the thermometer.  Don't forget the ice cream.  Not a hot item in a Chinese place, (Did I say hot?) but they will have to have a meat thermometer. 

Since I am wearing sweat pants without a pair of pockets, I take a shopping cart and put my wallet on the baby seat part in front of the handle.  I run to all the relevant places and find nothing.  Finally, I ask a stocker and he says, "We don't have."  So I park the cart and decide to run back to Rite aid for the ice and the ice cream and perhaps, find the thermometer.  I no sooner go through the Rite Aid door that I realize that I do not have my wallet.  

Aaaabout FACE...zoom over to where I had parked the cart.  No cart.  To security. Tall, handsome, young African, not Somali, wrong kind of nose, I get beyond that and ask about my wallet.  Nope.  To the Customer Service.  Nope. They request that I leave my name.  I do.  D-I-O-N, that's French, I say.

Security says, "Vous parlez francais."
 I say, "oui, et toi, Côte d'Ivoire?  Camaroune? Algérie? Maroc? Congo?"
Bingo, Congo.  We exchange more words in French.  As we're doing that he spots a cart with some baby chinese cabbage laying over my wallet.  He goes over, grabs the wallet and gives it to me.  I open it.  Oh Yeah! I just made my Thanksgiving contribution to a poor soul who needed it more than I.  Everything else is intact. Security and I make a few wise cracks in a language that you don't understand, and we take leave of one another.  I head for Rite Aid, buy the ice cream and ice.  I also find out that they have just sold their last thermometer...the one that could have been mine.

NOW, you think that I'm making this up.  Hey, old people like me don't have that good an imagination.  One last stab in the deep dark corners of Joe's (Jose's, really) 99¢ store.  
"Buenas tardes, Jose."
"Buenas tardes, Señor."
"¿Tienes termometros para medir le temperatura de carne en el horno?" (Do you have meat thermometers?)
"Si! Muchos.  ¿Caro o barato?  (Yes! Many.  Dear or cheap?)
"Cheap."
"$3.50."
Great day.  Robbed twice in a half hour :-)

Hey, there's a happy ending.  The ear to ear smile on the queen when she beholds my conquest.  

Happy ending 2.  She still doesn't know the wallet story.  
Oh, that 15 minutes I was talking about?  Try 60 after all that.

I hope that you enjoyed the introductory story.  No, my wallet did not have $800.00, not even $80...half of that at most...But like I say, someone got to eat better because of it. As a sign of gratitude, the person left me all my important, non cash, items.

Thank God.  It's only money.