Normally I'm a fairly patient person. Normally I'm pretty Hum-De-Dum when it comes to driving. Normally I don't care what the person in front of me is doing or how slow they are doing it. I must be having an off week.
All week long Shirley and I (Shirley is my car and that is her name because as written in our family by-laws: "He or she who paid for the vehicle may name it whatever he or she pleases") have been getting sandwiched in a parade of slow drivers. The first time it happened I laughed it off. The second time I was mildly irritated. Things somehow snow-balled after that. And today was the Grand Finale.
After dropping off the recycling (which I had forgot to do for like, the past 7 months resulting in a packed full car that looked like something off of "Hoarders-Buried Alive") I had to drop off stuff elsewhere, then head across the mountain to pick up our taxes.
It was on the windy road leading up to the mountain that they got me. Yep. I was cruising along and lo and behold, what do I find in front of me? A dark blue Altima. A very nice car, mint condition, and going 35 mph. And what do I spy in the driver's seat? The profile of an older gentleman and beside him a Blue Haired.
Oh goody, I thought.
As we poked on up the windy mountain we (me, Shirley and Mr. Altima) found ourselves behind yet a SLOWER vehicle. We did 20mph the whole way up the mountain. Shirley was indifferent, but I was getting annoyed and thought that maybe some U2 would cheer me up. Since we were practically at a stop anyhow I figured it was as safe a time as any to dig out my cd & pop it in the stereo. Sing to me Bono, and I will let your Irish voice lift me high above this ridiculousness that is driving in front of me!
Normally this is the part where I veg out, relax and warble along at the top of my lungs, not caring what the idiots in front of me are doing. But as I said, for some reason, this was not a normal day. I was still white-knuckling Shirley's wheel even though the Edge was playing "It's a Beautiful Day."
Three hours later, at the top of the mountain, the pokey-poke holding up me & Mr. Altima pulled over. Maybe he was lost. I didn't stop to find out, Mr. Altima and I were picking up speed finally and my faith in mankind was somewhat restored. For about 15 seconds.
That's when me & Mr. Altima crested the mountain and he put on his brakes immediately so we could go very slowly down the other side. It's a straight shot, you really can't goof it up. There are no twisty turns on the other side of the mountain. Go Baby Go!
Well, I thought, maybe he'll turn left at the bottom where it Y's off. No. Indeed he did not. He turned right. Which is the direction I wanted to go. It is 6 miles till the next stop sign. I was just grateful he didn't leave his turn signal on to blink at me obnoxiously for the next 10 minutes.
Upper Snake Spring resumes in twisty-turni-ness and the speed limit is 45mph. We may have been doing 40 and this was unacceptable for me. (Once again, I don't know why I was having this desperation to get GOING, I'm really not a speedy driver to begin with.) Bono was crooning to me that he still hadn't found what he was looking for and I screamed back: Me neither- I'd like a passing zone PLEASE!
We came to the delicious place on the road where a speed limit sign clearly states END SPEED LIMIT 45!
Yay! "LET THOSE PONIES RUN PAP!" I yelled to Mr. Altima, "GIVE YOUR HORSE THE REINS!!" Unfortunately, his head was turned the opposite way looking at some rural scenery and failed to see this notice. The Blue Haired's cataracts prevented her from seeing it also.
I may or may not have been making some horrible faces at this point. U2, then decided it would be quite hilarious to sing me "You've got to get yourself together, you've got stuck in a moment, and you can't get out of it.." Not funny guys, I thought back, what I got stuck in is a sight seeing tour with no passing zones. I then began considering the cost of getting Shirley fitted with a cattle catcher, like on the front of trains, so I could just start ramming people like this out of my way. (KELLY CHRISTINE! - that's what my mom always said when I would say something inappropriate, so I felt like I should interject that for her.)
Over hill and dale we went. Slowly. I shouldn't have done it but I finally zinged around Mr. Altima & Mrs. Blue Hair when I had a chance. Shirley put her six cylinders to work and we passed that egg-timer. And delightfully drove 57mph the rest of the way to town.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Cove Colloquialisms: How We Talk 'Roun' Here
I never knew I talked funny until my senior year when, as proud officer of the FFA, I was privileged to attend the National FFA Convention in Kansas City, MO. As we intermingled with kids from other chapters, a fellow from elsewhere in the nation said he liked my accent. ?? I was not aware that I had one. I thought they had them. And apparently we also talk slower.
When I meet someone new who's not from Around Here, I try to speak in a non-regional dialect. But the effort is such that eventually I find myself talking the same way I always do. I was very, very impressed when in one of Stephen King's books (I've read so many that now I can't remember which one) he actually used some of our sayings and even printed them the way we say them. (Yay Stephen!)
Don't get the wrong idea here, we don't sit around on our porch wearing bib overalls and playing the banjo (we lack the musical talent) but we do talk a little different. We add letters that don't belong, subtract letters that should, and make up our own words. Here are some examples:
CRIK - (creek) "I'm gone down to the crik ta do some fishin'." (I'm going down to the creek to do some fishing.)
WARSH - (wash) "I warshed Elmer's close but thur steel greasy." (I washed Elmer's clothes but they are still greasy.) Some pronounce it worsh instead of warsh. I have friends who've tried their best to break me of this habit but no matter how hard they try, I still say warsh. Once when we were little kids, one of my cousins wanted to write "Wash Me" on the back of my mom's Volkswagon Rabbit and they asked me if it was spelled with an "AR" or an "OR." Dummy me, I had to really think about it before I remembered the "R" doesn't even belong. HA!
POP - Around Here we call it Pop instead of soda. "Grab me a pop outa the fridge."
REDD- The correct spelling of this word eludes me since we've never spelled it, only said it. And apparently no one else says this except for Around Here. It means "to clean up." Example: When I was little we were down in Virginia at my uncle's house. I said to the visiting neighbor kids "We'd better redd up around the pool." They said "What??" I said "We'd better redd up around the pool here." (thinking that adding "here" would make my point clear.) Finally they said WE DON'T KNOW WHAT REDD UP MEANS! So I said "WE'D BETTER PICK UP ALL THESE POOL TOYS AND PUT THEM AWAY!"
IGGLE - (eagle) "Didja see that iggle flying aroun' down by the gap?" (Did you see that eagle flying around down by the gap?)
We also have a habit of dropping the "h" off of words like "his" or "hers". The "h" gets lost on the word that precedes it. Such as:
Person 1: "What's yur husband doin' taday?" (What's your husband doing today?)
Person 2: "I dunno what'ese gettin' into." (I don't know what he's getting into.)
Example 2: "Whats'er problem?" (What's her problem?)
GETTIN' INTO - (doing) When we say this we don't literally intend to climb into something. We just mean "What are you doing?"
HUH - This can be a question OR a statement. We say this when we can't think of something else to say in response to a statement by someone else.
Person 1: "That water jus came through n warshed the bridge out." (That water just came through and washed the bridge out.)
Person 2: "Huh."
HOW 'BOUT THAT - used similarly to Huh as a question or a statement. This is the other go to when you have no other response. Sometimes we use them together.
Example:
Person 1: "Didja see Bernice's boy made the honor roll" (Did you see Bernice's boy made the honor roll?)
Person 2: "Huh. Wool how 'bout that." (Huh.Well how about that.)
WOOL - (well or we'll) Sometimes we say "well" but it sounds more like wool, as in the above example.
KELLER - (color) "Getcher crayons n wool keller." (Get your crayons and we'll color.)
YINZ - (You ones) Down south they say "Y'all", our version is "You'ns" often pronouced as "Yinz". "Whad're yinz doin' this afternoon?" "Do yinz wanna come down 'n' swim?"
PUNKIN' - (Pumpkin)
We have a bunch of words that sound exactly the same as other words, even though I think, they are supposed to be pronounced different. Some flaming examples:
Close - Clothes (both pronounced "close." I don't know where the "th" got to.)
Cow - Kyle (both prounounced "cow")
Owl - aisle (both prounounced "owl")
Our - are (both pronounced "are")
Pool- pole (they both sound the same to me, aren't they supposed to?)
Dawn - Don ( both pronounced "Dawn")
Pitcher-Picture (both pronounced "Pitcher")
Other weird things we say:
"Fred's came down for supper this eve'nin'. " (Fred and his family came down for supper this evening.) Fred is used as a plural even though Fred himself is obviously singular. Hence the 's on the end. Another example:
Ronald's came by n picked chestnuts today." (Ronald & Margie came by and picked chestnuts today.) The whole household is included in these statements but for some reason we use the first name instead of the family's last name. *Note: Fred and Ronald really are our neighbors so the likelihood of both of these scenarios are realistic.
I'm sure there are other ones that I've missed. I really can't linger though, us 'n Fred's is gettin' together tonight for Desperate Housewives so I must skedaddle.
When I meet someone new who's not from Around Here, I try to speak in a non-regional dialect. But the effort is such that eventually I find myself talking the same way I always do. I was very, very impressed when in one of Stephen King's books (I've read so many that now I can't remember which one) he actually used some of our sayings and even printed them the way we say them. (Yay Stephen!)
Don't get the wrong idea here, we don't sit around on our porch wearing bib overalls and playing the banjo (we lack the musical talent) but we do talk a little different. We add letters that don't belong, subtract letters that should, and make up our own words. Here are some examples:
CRIK - (creek) "I'm gone down to the crik ta do some fishin'." (I'm going down to the creek to do some fishing.)
WARSH - (wash) "I warshed Elmer's close but thur steel greasy." (I washed Elmer's clothes but they are still greasy.) Some pronounce it worsh instead of warsh. I have friends who've tried their best to break me of this habit but no matter how hard they try, I still say warsh. Once when we were little kids, one of my cousins wanted to write "Wash Me" on the back of my mom's Volkswagon Rabbit and they asked me if it was spelled with an "AR" or an "OR." Dummy me, I had to really think about it before I remembered the "R" doesn't even belong. HA!
POP - Around Here we call it Pop instead of soda. "Grab me a pop outa the fridge."
REDD- The correct spelling of this word eludes me since we've never spelled it, only said it. And apparently no one else says this except for Around Here. It means "to clean up." Example: When I was little we were down in Virginia at my uncle's house. I said to the visiting neighbor kids "We'd better redd up around the pool." They said "What??" I said "We'd better redd up around the pool here." (thinking that adding "here" would make my point clear.) Finally they said WE DON'T KNOW WHAT REDD UP MEANS! So I said "WE'D BETTER PICK UP ALL THESE POOL TOYS AND PUT THEM AWAY!"
IGGLE - (eagle) "Didja see that iggle flying aroun' down by the gap?" (Did you see that eagle flying around down by the gap?)
We also have a habit of dropping the "h" off of words like "his" or "hers". The "h" gets lost on the word that precedes it. Such as:
Person 1: "What's yur husband doin' taday?" (What's your husband doing today?)
Person 2: "I dunno what'ese gettin' into." (I don't know what he's getting into.)
Example 2: "Whats'er problem?" (What's her problem?)
GETTIN' INTO - (doing) When we say this we don't literally intend to climb into something. We just mean "What are you doing?"
HUH - This can be a question OR a statement. We say this when we can't think of something else to say in response to a statement by someone else.
Person 1: "That water jus came through n warshed the bridge out." (That water just came through and washed the bridge out.)
Person 2: "Huh."
HOW 'BOUT THAT - used similarly to Huh as a question or a statement. This is the other go to when you have no other response. Sometimes we use them together.
Example:
Person 1: "Didja see Bernice's boy made the honor roll" (Did you see Bernice's boy made the honor roll?)
Person 2: "Huh. Wool how 'bout that." (Huh.Well how about that.)
WOOL - (well or we'll) Sometimes we say "well" but it sounds more like wool, as in the above example.
KELLER - (color) "Getcher crayons n wool keller." (Get your crayons and we'll color.)
YINZ - (You ones) Down south they say "Y'all", our version is "You'ns" often pronouced as "Yinz". "Whad're yinz doin' this afternoon?" "Do yinz wanna come down 'n' swim?"
PUNKIN' - (Pumpkin)
We have a bunch of words that sound exactly the same as other words, even though I think, they are supposed to be pronounced different. Some flaming examples:
Close - Clothes (both pronounced "close." I don't know where the "th" got to.)
Cow - Kyle (both prounounced "cow")
Owl - aisle (both prounounced "owl")
Our - are (both pronounced "are")
Pool- pole (they both sound the same to me, aren't they supposed to?)
Dawn - Don ( both pronounced "Dawn")
Pitcher-Picture (both pronounced "Pitcher")
Other weird things we say:
"Fred's came down for supper this eve'nin'. " (Fred and his family came down for supper this evening.) Fred is used as a plural even though Fred himself is obviously singular. Hence the 's on the end. Another example:
Ronald's came by n picked chestnuts today." (Ronald & Margie came by and picked chestnuts today.) The whole household is included in these statements but for some reason we use the first name instead of the family's last name. *Note: Fred and Ronald really are our neighbors so the likelihood of both of these scenarios are realistic.
I'm sure there are other ones that I've missed. I really can't linger though, us 'n Fred's is gettin' together tonight for Desperate Housewives so I must skedaddle.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
A Comprehensive Guide to the Past for Generation Z, Part Dos
Time for another trip in the Way Back Machine, which if it was built prior to the late 60's, may not have any seatbelts. You see kids, people weren't always horribly paranoid about having proper safety gear and killing their entire family in a car wreck. There were less distractions in those days so parents just left their kids roam around the car whilst mobile. My husband fondly recalls trips in the old Malibu with his family where he layed on the back dash.
Cup holders were not standard features in cars back then. No one ever just thought to themselves as they were driving, "Hmm, I think I'll swing in here to the Piggly Wiggly and pick me up a Coke, I'm thristy!!"
No. If you were thirsty you waited till you got home.
Anyone brave enough to stick their hand under the smelly vinyl passenger or driver's side front seats would probably find the following items: An old 8-track tape of the Eagles (left behind by the car's previous owner), a mystery car part that no one was quite sure about, a handful of change, a ten year old stick of stale Black Jack gum, and a roach clip (also left behind from the car's previous owner.)
As for car seats- those were only used on days you had time to strap your kid into them. If you were in a hurry the kid got socked onto the back seat & told to hang on honey! You could even hold a baby in your arms in the front seat of the car. Imagine!
There were no automatic windows back then either. You had to put your hand on this little knob and roll the window up and down yourself. This is how we used to fight off the obesity epidemic (that and not having cupholders for our Cokes.)
Most car interiors were made of Hot Vinyl, usually black for maximum hotness. And I don't mean sexy hot, I mean, scorch-the-back-of-your-legs-with-third-degree-burns-if-you-were-wearing-shorts-hot. That made for a fun family vacation! Pile in the car kids- we're gonna drive you around till you're hot, sweaty and cranky!
Then there was the smell. It may have been from the asbestos stuffed vinyl seats or it may have been from the previous owners (the one with the roach clip) but there was an unmistakable used car smell back in the 70's/80's. It reminded you of B.O. mixed with cologne, mixed with hot vinyl, mixed with anti-freeze. A potpourri of weirdness. The only way to get rid of it was to hang a green Royal Pine air freshner on the rear view mirror, which only exacerbated the situation to such a degree that one could actually get sick just from smelling it, and then you'd have the puke smell to add to the mix.
Oh and television! A true delight. There used to be no color tv's, only black and white. And they weren't ginormous flat screens. They were square-ish and weighed a thousand pounds. Especially the floor models. Every Saturday morning I would bounce out of bed and race into the living room to turn on the tv and watch cartoons. Ours was a tiny little thing and since they hadn't invented remote controls yet, my little kid fingers couldn't grasp the tiny knob to turn the tv on. But my Pap loved me and rigged up a cord switch so I could turn it on that way.
So out I'd go and turn on the tv. Then I'd go get breakfast while it warmed up. Cause back then tv's didn't turn on right away. They sort of hummed around (kinda like these twirly light bulbs they invented lately and are trying to make us switch to) and then you'd get a picture but it would go away and then it would come back but then it would "flip" where the picture would just keep flipping onto the screen so you had to reach behind the tv & adjust this little knob that some how made the picture stay still. Once you got the picture to stay still, you sometimes had to back the knob up a bit to get the picture centered. Otherwise the bottom half of your cartoons would be at the top of the screen and the top half would be at the bottom like some sick magician's trick.
Saturday was a very magical day. It was the ONLY day a week when you would get to watch cartoons. Back then there were no cartoon channels, no satellite tv, (although the US did go through a phase for awhile when those huge space-like satellite dishes were popular) and cable tv was for rich kids. (As you can probably imagine, we did not fall in that category, why do you think we drove around in used smelly vehicles?) So Saturday was the one day a week when networks would play cartoons from 7am- 12 noon. When the Action News For Kids show came on, you usually got up and called it a day, cause no kid wants to watch the news, even if other kids are presenting it. Plus that marked the end of Saturday cartoons for the week.
Saturday morning cartooning was such a sacred ritual that I continued it well into my married life.
Cup holders were not standard features in cars back then. No one ever just thought to themselves as they were driving, "Hmm, I think I'll swing in here to the Piggly Wiggly and pick me up a Coke, I'm thristy!!"
No. If you were thirsty you waited till you got home.
Anyone brave enough to stick their hand under the smelly vinyl passenger or driver's side front seats would probably find the following items: An old 8-track tape of the Eagles (left behind by the car's previous owner), a mystery car part that no one was quite sure about, a handful of change, a ten year old stick of stale Black Jack gum, and a roach clip (also left behind from the car's previous owner.)
As for car seats- those were only used on days you had time to strap your kid into them. If you were in a hurry the kid got socked onto the back seat & told to hang on honey! You could even hold a baby in your arms in the front seat of the car. Imagine!
There were no automatic windows back then either. You had to put your hand on this little knob and roll the window up and down yourself. This is how we used to fight off the obesity epidemic (that and not having cupholders for our Cokes.)
Most car interiors were made of Hot Vinyl, usually black for maximum hotness. And I don't mean sexy hot, I mean, scorch-the-back-of-your-legs-with-third-degree-burns-if-you-were-wearing-shorts-hot. That made for a fun family vacation! Pile in the car kids- we're gonna drive you around till you're hot, sweaty and cranky!
Then there was the smell. It may have been from the asbestos stuffed vinyl seats or it may have been from the previous owners (the one with the roach clip) but there was an unmistakable used car smell back in the 70's/80's. It reminded you of B.O. mixed with cologne, mixed with hot vinyl, mixed with anti-freeze. A potpourri of weirdness. The only way to get rid of it was to hang a green Royal Pine air freshner on the rear view mirror, which only exacerbated the situation to such a degree that one could actually get sick just from smelling it, and then you'd have the puke smell to add to the mix.
Oh and television! A true delight. There used to be no color tv's, only black and white. And they weren't ginormous flat screens. They were square-ish and weighed a thousand pounds. Especially the floor models. Every Saturday morning I would bounce out of bed and race into the living room to turn on the tv and watch cartoons. Ours was a tiny little thing and since they hadn't invented remote controls yet, my little kid fingers couldn't grasp the tiny knob to turn the tv on. But my Pap loved me and rigged up a cord switch so I could turn it on that way.
So out I'd go and turn on the tv. Then I'd go get breakfast while it warmed up. Cause back then tv's didn't turn on right away. They sort of hummed around (kinda like these twirly light bulbs they invented lately and are trying to make us switch to) and then you'd get a picture but it would go away and then it would come back but then it would "flip" where the picture would just keep flipping onto the screen so you had to reach behind the tv & adjust this little knob that some how made the picture stay still. Once you got the picture to stay still, you sometimes had to back the knob up a bit to get the picture centered. Otherwise the bottom half of your cartoons would be at the top of the screen and the top half would be at the bottom like some sick magician's trick.
Saturday was a very magical day. It was the ONLY day a week when you would get to watch cartoons. Back then there were no cartoon channels, no satellite tv, (although the US did go through a phase for awhile when those huge space-like satellite dishes were popular) and cable tv was for rich kids. (As you can probably imagine, we did not fall in that category, why do you think we drove around in used smelly vehicles?) So Saturday was the one day a week when networks would play cartoons from 7am- 12 noon. When the Action News For Kids show came on, you usually got up and called it a day, cause no kid wants to watch the news, even if other kids are presenting it. Plus that marked the end of Saturday cartoons for the week.
Saturday morning cartooning was such a sacred ritual that I continued it well into my married life.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
FAQ's
Q:Am I really welcome to your psychosis?
A: Indeed. Misery loves company.
Q: What is this "Follow by Email" crap you stuck over here at the left hand side?
A: I'm not totally sure but I think it's for if you'd like to receive an email when I stick something on here.
Q: Will it give me a virus?
A: No but you may get ringworm.
Q: What do the "sociable" buttons do?
A: They socialize you. It's for people who don't get out much due to their own psychosis. You can Digg or Stumble Upon, Twitter, or Facebook this blog to your friends, but only if you really want to. There is no Evil Blog Dicatator who is going to make you. I'm actually surprised that enough people (all three of you) are reading this that I need to do a FAQ post.
Q: Do you have other stuff on here, like old posts, or is it just this drivel?
A: Oh, it's all drivel but if you look at the left hand side, then scroll down, underneath Old Fat Gladys you will see where it says "archives". Click around there and you will find even MORE drivel to enthrall and delight.
Q: Why are there ads listed here also? Are you a sellout?
A: Yes. But not a very good one. For me to make any money requires people to be interested enough in those ads to actually click on them. And I know I never click on any ads, so unless it's something you're really interested in, I don't expect you to either. Plus it would probably take 10,000 clicks to equal a dollar so I'm not too worried about it.
Q: Shouldn't you be downstairs making sure your supper isn't burning?
A: Yes. But you are more important to me than my beef flavored Ramen noodles.
Q: I thought the Schwan's man was just there. Didn't you get something from him? Why aren't you cooking that?
A: He was. We're really having hamburgers and french fries. I was just kidding about the Ramen noodles so you'd feel bad and start clicking on ads.
Q: That's not cool.
A: Sorry.
Q: Sometimes I want to leave a comment. Can I?
A: Yes! Please do! It's been so long since I set this up that I can't remember exactly what it asks you, but I think you have type in some of those letters and numbers that look like they're reflecting from a fun house mirror. I really don't remember.
Q: What good are you then?
A: Not much apparently.
A: Indeed. Misery loves company.
Q: What is this "Follow by Email" crap you stuck over here at the left hand side?
A: I'm not totally sure but I think it's for if you'd like to receive an email when I stick something on here.
Q: Will it give me a virus?
A: No but you may get ringworm.
Q: What do the "sociable" buttons do?
A: They socialize you. It's for people who don't get out much due to their own psychosis. You can Digg or Stumble Upon, Twitter, or Facebook this blog to your friends, but only if you really want to. There is no Evil Blog Dicatator who is going to make you. I'm actually surprised that enough people (all three of you) are reading this that I need to do a FAQ post.
Q: Do you have other stuff on here, like old posts, or is it just this drivel?
A: Oh, it's all drivel but if you look at the left hand side, then scroll down, underneath Old Fat Gladys you will see where it says "archives". Click around there and you will find even MORE drivel to enthrall and delight.
Q: Why are there ads listed here also? Are you a sellout?
A: Yes. But not a very good one. For me to make any money requires people to be interested enough in those ads to actually click on them. And I know I never click on any ads, so unless it's something you're really interested in, I don't expect you to either. Plus it would probably take 10,000 clicks to equal a dollar so I'm not too worried about it.
Q: Shouldn't you be downstairs making sure your supper isn't burning?
A: Yes. But you are more important to me than my beef flavored Ramen noodles.
Q: I thought the Schwan's man was just there. Didn't you get something from him? Why aren't you cooking that?
A: He was. We're really having hamburgers and french fries. I was just kidding about the Ramen noodles so you'd feel bad and start clicking on ads.
Q: That's not cool.
A: Sorry.
Q: Sometimes I want to leave a comment. Can I?
A: Yes! Please do! It's been so long since I set this up that I can't remember exactly what it asks you, but I think you have type in some of those letters and numbers that look like they're reflecting from a fun house mirror. I really don't remember.
Q: What good are you then?
A: Not much apparently.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
A Comprehensive Guide to the Past for Generation Z (those born in the 90's), Part Uno
Gather 'round kids. Aunt Kelly is going to tell you a tale.
Over the weekend my bff & I were talking and perhaps it was the box of Red Delicious that was making us a bit reflective, but she mentioned how kids these days don't appreciate going out to dinner like we did when we were little. That sparked a rant on my part about cell phones and how much I hate texting in the work place which went on and on till we were distracted by something else then couldn't remember what we were talking about (it happens.) We decided that there is a whole generation of young people who know absolutely nothing about us or where we came from. Most of them are really great humans, they're just totally clueless.
So kids, and by kids I mean "Everyone Younger Than 30 But ESPECIALLY Those Who Are in Their Late Teens And Early Twenties" the following post is for you.
Back in the day (every old codger starts their stories like that, it's in the Old Codger Handbook), before computers were found in every household (GASP!) we used to go to a place to look things up called the "Library." Libraries were awesome places that looked like Barnes & Noble only they smelled funny, there was no coffee barista, and you didn't have to pay to take the books, they were free.
There was a lady who worked there called a "Librarian" which means she was not a Democrat or a Republican. The Librarian believed in two things: Being Quiet, and Being Orderly. When you were in the library you tiptoed around and tried not to make any noise. That meant no talking. If a librarian would have caught you talking or texting on your cell phone (which never happened because they weren't invented yet) she would have confiscated it and thrown it in the Raystown Lake. Cause you didn't mess with the Librarian. And your parents wouldn't have called her up whining about it either. Back then parents left you run free and if you got in trouble you were on your own.
If you were at the library and wanted to find a book, you went to the "card catalog" which was a big wooden box with a million recipe cards in it. The recipe cards didn't have recipes on them though, they had the names of all the books in the whole library. You had to use your fingers (those things you text with) to manually (that means by hand, not by computer, cause there were no computers back then either) thumb through each card till you found the name of the book you were looking for. They were listed in alphabetical order because the Librarian believed in Order. THEN you had to go to wherever in the library the card told you to go to find that particular book, leading you in a scavenger hunt to find the "H" shelves.
There was a whole system for book filing and finding invented by Dewey Decimal, who was very popular with the Librarian Party and raised a lot of money lobbying for them. He later fell from grace when he was charged with unleashing the bookworms that sparked the Great Bookworm Pandemic of 1945. Chaos ensued as the little devils chewed through hundreds of books before they were caught by Agnes, the librarian at that particular library who tried to contain them with ether before she herself succumbed to the fumes. Agnes would have been alright but when she passed out, her lit cigarette accidently ignited the Overdue Book List and caught the place on fire. (Back then it was alright to smoke in public. See what your missing kids?) It was all downhill from there with firemen and police and flaming bookwarms running amuck.
But I digress. Enough about Agnes.
Let us move on to other things you have no clue about. Cassette Tapes. These were played in "cassette players" or "boom boxes." Boom boxes were about the size of a labrador retriever. You carried them on your shoulder with Madonna singing "Like A Virgin" at top volume. They ran on 27 size D batteries. Or you could plug them in the wall if you didn't lose the cord upon purchase. Batteries were cooler though cause you couldn't walk down the street very far if you chose to plug it in. However, the con to using batteries was that they only lasted about an hour, maybe two if you were listening to the radio instead of a cassette and just buying batteries alone would literally bankrupt teens who would then have no money left to buy new tapes with, forcing them to make horrible mix tapes off the radio complete with d.j. interruptions.
A storebought cassette by an actual artist, such as Eddie Money or Duran Duran, had a Side A and a Side B. One side had about 5 songs on it. When those songs ended, you opened up the tape deck, took out the tape, flipped it over and played the other side which usually contained about 7 songs instead of 5. I don't know why.
One of the cassette tape's biggest problems was the tape itself. It would get "eaten" by your stereo and you'd have to spend hours fishing it out without breaking the tiny tissue paper-esque tape. The result looked like a mound of brown Easter grass. Once you got the tape out of the implement that had eaten it, you had to spend the next two days manually (remember that word from earlier?) winding the crinkled tape back into the cassette. If you were crafty you stuck a pencil in the winding hole and twirled the pencil. If you didn't have a pencil you had to use your finger which was no fun cause the spokes on the winding wheel would poke you and it took way longer.
Cassettes were the predecessor to the CD which I realize is now outdated. And before the cassettes we had "records" which were like huge black cd's that you put on a "turn table" or "record player" and played by asking your Dad because he could smell you looking at the turn table and if you even thought about using the record player by yourself he would yell from elsewhere in the house "DON'T TOUCH THAT- YOU'LL SCRATCH THE RECORD!!"
Record scratching was followed by paddling which is something else that may be foreign to you. Because back in the day, parents would grab their kid and whack them on the butt if they didn't listen. Time Out hadn't been invented yet and I still question its effectiveness.
And since I've been informed that you all have short attention spans, I will stop here. But there will be more to come. Feel free to comment at will or even better, share me with your friends. There are Facebook, Twitter, etc. buttons at the top left of the screen and also at the bottom. Click on it. I'm ready to go global.
Over the weekend my bff & I were talking and perhaps it was the box of Red Delicious that was making us a bit reflective, but she mentioned how kids these days don't appreciate going out to dinner like we did when we were little. That sparked a rant on my part about cell phones and how much I hate texting in the work place which went on and on till we were distracted by something else then couldn't remember what we were talking about (it happens.) We decided that there is a whole generation of young people who know absolutely nothing about us or where we came from. Most of them are really great humans, they're just totally clueless.
So kids, and by kids I mean "Everyone Younger Than 30 But ESPECIALLY Those Who Are in Their Late Teens And Early Twenties" the following post is for you.
Back in the day (every old codger starts their stories like that, it's in the Old Codger Handbook), before computers were found in every household (GASP!) we used to go to a place to look things up called the "Library." Libraries were awesome places that looked like Barnes & Noble only they smelled funny, there was no coffee barista, and you didn't have to pay to take the books, they were free.
There was a lady who worked there called a "Librarian" which means she was not a Democrat or a Republican. The Librarian believed in two things: Being Quiet, and Being Orderly. When you were in the library you tiptoed around and tried not to make any noise. That meant no talking. If a librarian would have caught you talking or texting on your cell phone (which never happened because they weren't invented yet) she would have confiscated it and thrown it in the Raystown Lake. Cause you didn't mess with the Librarian. And your parents wouldn't have called her up whining about it either. Back then parents left you run free and if you got in trouble you were on your own.
If you were at the library and wanted to find a book, you went to the "card catalog" which was a big wooden box with a million recipe cards in it. The recipe cards didn't have recipes on them though, they had the names of all the books in the whole library. You had to use your fingers (those things you text with) to manually (that means by hand, not by computer, cause there were no computers back then either) thumb through each card till you found the name of the book you were looking for. They were listed in alphabetical order because the Librarian believed in Order. THEN you had to go to wherever in the library the card told you to go to find that particular book, leading you in a scavenger hunt to find the "H" shelves.
There was a whole system for book filing and finding invented by Dewey Decimal, who was very popular with the Librarian Party and raised a lot of money lobbying for them. He later fell from grace when he was charged with unleashing the bookworms that sparked the Great Bookworm Pandemic of 1945. Chaos ensued as the little devils chewed through hundreds of books before they were caught by Agnes, the librarian at that particular library who tried to contain them with ether before she herself succumbed to the fumes. Agnes would have been alright but when she passed out, her lit cigarette accidently ignited the Overdue Book List and caught the place on fire. (Back then it was alright to smoke in public. See what your missing kids?) It was all downhill from there with firemen and police and flaming bookwarms running amuck.
But I digress. Enough about Agnes.
Let us move on to other things you have no clue about. Cassette Tapes. These were played in "cassette players" or "boom boxes." Boom boxes were about the size of a labrador retriever. You carried them on your shoulder with Madonna singing "Like A Virgin" at top volume. They ran on 27 size D batteries. Or you could plug them in the wall if you didn't lose the cord upon purchase. Batteries were cooler though cause you couldn't walk down the street very far if you chose to plug it in. However, the con to using batteries was that they only lasted about an hour, maybe two if you were listening to the radio instead of a cassette and just buying batteries alone would literally bankrupt teens who would then have no money left to buy new tapes with, forcing them to make horrible mix tapes off the radio complete with d.j. interruptions.
A storebought cassette by an actual artist, such as Eddie Money or Duran Duran, had a Side A and a Side B. One side had about 5 songs on it. When those songs ended, you opened up the tape deck, took out the tape, flipped it over and played the other side which usually contained about 7 songs instead of 5. I don't know why.
One of the cassette tape's biggest problems was the tape itself. It would get "eaten" by your stereo and you'd have to spend hours fishing it out without breaking the tiny tissue paper-esque tape. The result looked like a mound of brown Easter grass. Once you got the tape out of the implement that had eaten it, you had to spend the next two days manually (remember that word from earlier?) winding the crinkled tape back into the cassette. If you were crafty you stuck a pencil in the winding hole and twirled the pencil. If you didn't have a pencil you had to use your finger which was no fun cause the spokes on the winding wheel would poke you and it took way longer.
Cassettes were the predecessor to the CD which I realize is now outdated. And before the cassettes we had "records" which were like huge black cd's that you put on a "turn table" or "record player" and played by asking your Dad because he could smell you looking at the turn table and if you even thought about using the record player by yourself he would yell from elsewhere in the house "DON'T TOUCH THAT- YOU'LL SCRATCH THE RECORD!!"
Record scratching was followed by paddling which is something else that may be foreign to you. Because back in the day, parents would grab their kid and whack them on the butt if they didn't listen. Time Out hadn't been invented yet and I still question its effectiveness.
And since I've been informed that you all have short attention spans, I will stop here. But there will be more to come. Feel free to comment at will or even better, share me with your friends. There are Facebook, Twitter, etc. buttons at the top left of the screen and also at the bottom. Click on it. I'm ready to go global.
Monday, March 14, 2011
God the Father and the Godfather
Last week it was my turn to be worship leader at church. There are several people who kindly volunteer to do this each week on a rotating schedule and they were running low on kindly volunteers so they asked me if I would be willing. The purpose of the worship leader is to sort of hang out up front and introduce the next thing that's going to happen in church. Kind of like an emcee of sorts. Only instead of being up there the whole entire time, your just there until it gets to the part where the preacher preaches the message, then you hand the whole deal over to him and go sit down with the rest of the flock.
So I said OK! I may have even said it in capital letters with an exclamation point because I was very excited at the prospect of having a captive audience who would be morally obligated to sit there and listen to me ramble for fear that if they tried to get away the mighty hand of God might come crashing down and shoo them back into their seats.
Now may be a good place to interject that although I am TOTALLY into the whole public speaking thing and have no qualms about standing up there in front of everyone (my leader at Dale Carnegie informed me that I have no comfort zone)- I have the speach abilities of a stroke victim. I get so excited that PEOPLE, REAL PEOPLE are going to have to sit there and listen to ME that the thesaurus in my head goes into overload. My vocabulary is way too large and every word I want to say evades me, but I know that there IS a certain word that I'm looking for and my brain races around ("Lycos, go FETCH!") while my poor, poor mouth tries to keep up.
But this past week I thought maybe I could outsmart myself. As a worship leader you have three basic prayers: the Invocation (opening prayer), the Offeratory Prayer (where you pray over the offering) and sometimes the Benediction (the closing prayer.) Now, at our church, the worship leader is free to pray these in any way they choose, so long as it's appropriate. So I, being sneaky, and knowing I need to outsmart my stupidness, wrote out a short Invocation, Offeratory, and Benediction.
I knew that I would be able to cheat and read the Invocation and Benediction prayers, but the one that sort of worried me was the Offeratory prayer. Cause for THAT one, you're standing there in front of the ushers, not behind the podium, and there's no place to hide a little piece of paper with a prayer on it. So I spent the morning repeating and rehearsing my offeratory prayer.
It was exactly like the beginning of the Godfather where the big dude, Luca Brasi, is sitting outside the Corleone house during the wedding reception and he's there muttering to himself the same sentence over and over: "Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your house on this day of your daughter's wedding..." He practices for ever and ever and finally goes in to see the Don and.... screws it up. ("Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your daughter's wedding on the day of.... your daughter's wedding....") But the Don is very understanding and doesn't mind.
That's pretty much how my experience went. I muttered my little two sentence prayer over and over and over all morning long. Then I got up there and.... had no idea what I was going to say. I just went blank. Nothing in my head but the sound of crickets chirping. So I just made it up, stammering as I went. God seemed pretty ok with it and the congregation didn't really mind either. Or at least they were polite enough not to stare at me when church was over.
So I said OK! I may have even said it in capital letters with an exclamation point because I was very excited at the prospect of having a captive audience who would be morally obligated to sit there and listen to me ramble for fear that if they tried to get away the mighty hand of God might come crashing down and shoo them back into their seats.
Now may be a good place to interject that although I am TOTALLY into the whole public speaking thing and have no qualms about standing up there in front of everyone (my leader at Dale Carnegie informed me that I have no comfort zone)- I have the speach abilities of a stroke victim. I get so excited that PEOPLE, REAL PEOPLE are going to have to sit there and listen to ME that the thesaurus in my head goes into overload. My vocabulary is way too large and every word I want to say evades me, but I know that there IS a certain word that I'm looking for and my brain races around ("Lycos, go FETCH!") while my poor, poor mouth tries to keep up.
But this past week I thought maybe I could outsmart myself. As a worship leader you have three basic prayers: the Invocation (opening prayer), the Offeratory Prayer (where you pray over the offering) and sometimes the Benediction (the closing prayer.) Now, at our church, the worship leader is free to pray these in any way they choose, so long as it's appropriate. So I, being sneaky, and knowing I need to outsmart my stupidness, wrote out a short Invocation, Offeratory, and Benediction.
I knew that I would be able to cheat and read the Invocation and Benediction prayers, but the one that sort of worried me was the Offeratory prayer. Cause for THAT one, you're standing there in front of the ushers, not behind the podium, and there's no place to hide a little piece of paper with a prayer on it. So I spent the morning repeating and rehearsing my offeratory prayer.
It was exactly like the beginning of the Godfather where the big dude, Luca Brasi, is sitting outside the Corleone house during the wedding reception and he's there muttering to himself the same sentence over and over: "Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your house on this day of your daughter's wedding..." He practices for ever and ever and finally goes in to see the Don and.... screws it up. ("Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your daughter's wedding on the day of.... your daughter's wedding....") But the Don is very understanding and doesn't mind.
That's pretty much how my experience went. I muttered my little two sentence prayer over and over and over all morning long. Then I got up there and.... had no idea what I was going to say. I just went blank. Nothing in my head but the sound of crickets chirping. So I just made it up, stammering as I went. God seemed pretty ok with it and the congregation didn't really mind either. Or at least they were polite enough not to stare at me when church was over.
And Yet Another Tribute to Ramen Noodles
My friend Carrie sent me this link. If you are on a Ramen Noodle diet it may throw some variety into your otherwise bland and dreary life. Hopefully the link will work and I won't be fined for some copyright infringement.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mattfischer.com%2Framen%2F%3Fcategory_name%3Drecipe&h=be4e1
Enjoy.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mattfischer.com%2Framen%2F%3Fcategory_name%3Drecipe&h=be4e1
Enjoy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)