I make no apologies.

I came upon this little bit of whimsy among my writings, and thought it might be fun to insert it here, since I have no particularly urgent thoughts to send forth into the world. I wrote it for my writing class and read it with some gusto, I remember.

I make no apologies for what I will shortly read here. The purpose of my reading this is to astonish, confound, outrage and indeed befuddle the listener. Better scholars than I have pondered the murky and Byzantine words I will reveal to you and have come to the conclusion that there is no conclusion. So I will read.

“ I am always feeling each kind of them as a substance darker, lighter, thinner, thicker, muddier, clearer, smoother, lumpier, granulater, mixeder, simpler, like every kind there is of earth or of anything and always I am feeling in each one of them their kind of stuff as much in them, as little in them, as all of a piece in them, as lumps in them held together sometimes by parts of the same sometimes by other kinds of stuff in them . . . . . . . . . some are always whole though the being in them is all a mushy mass with a skin to hold them in and so make one.”

Great writing? It made the author famous and wealthy, and has perhaps never been completely read by anyone. I refer to the novel (?) “The Making of Americans” by Gertrude Stein. If she could do it, so can we! Go, fellow writers, go!

And so I remain, happier, sadder, kinder, meaner, gooder, badder, smarter, dumber, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

I flung this little missile forth, partly as a rebuke to our most sincere teacher, who earnestly wanted us to imbue our writings with more emotion. We try, Scott, we try. Being staid, self-contained Senior Citizen types, we do the best we can.

I wake up at last

Tonight I feel as though i were crawling out from under a rock, having hidden there for far too long. I have been languishing idly in front of the television, not really watching any particular program, just passing the time. For the last few days I have slept until ten in the morning, only rising when the aroma of fresh coffee entices me out. Thank goodness for my little dog, she at least gets me up at last!
I think the president's speech last night woke me up or at least aroused my interest. It is impossible to listen to him and remain bored. We are indeed living in interesting times. Whether or not he succeeds remains to be seen, we can but wait and see.
Hard as times are now, it really was worse during the thirties, from 1929 to about 1942. People simply had no money, for food, clothing or shelter. Children would come to school with nothing in their lunch pails and sit outside alone so no one would know they weren't eating. We lived close enough to the schoolhouse that we could go home if we had no lunch and often we would eat hasty pudding or pop corn for our lunch. We were infinitely better off than many of our neighbors though because we always had milk, eggs, potatoes, and sometimes pork or venison. Hoboes often came begging at the door for food and I don't think they were ever turned away. They had to eat on the porch. They never got to come in the house.
It was against the law to kill deer during the "closed season" after about Thanksgiving time, but no one honored that edict, and whenever a deer was killed the whole neighborhood shared in the feast. Once in awhile someone would be caught and fined, but it only happened to my father once in the many long years that he hunted and I think he had to pay a fine. I no longer have a taste for venison but we welcomed it with gusto back then.
I hope the weather clears up and I can get out tomorrow and enjoy the sun. Take care and keep in touch.

Memories

Writing about the Lunar Moth in my last blog reminded me of my hobby of collecting beetles. Since we had no radio, TV or computers, not even a telephone, we developed various ways of amusing ourselves. My older brother collected butterflies and moths, and I still remember seeing the poor things struggling to get free of the pin with which they were pinned to the display board. I suppose my beetles suffered in the same manner. My younger brother collected Indian arrow heads and had quite an extensive collection. Since we lived in what had once been Indian territory, the Indian arrow heads were all over, just waiting to be collected. They were made of flint and were very skillfully fashioned.
We didn't really appreciate the fact that our grandparents and parents were part of history. We knew that our Great-Grandma had hidden the Indian chief in her cellar when the whites were hunting for him, and that at that time there was a bounty on dead Indians but we simply accepted it as a fact of life. Things had calmed down by the time we came along, and the Indians were confined to a reservation some miles from the little town where we went to High School. There was still a lot of prejudice against the Indians, and when one of the town girls married a man who was of mixed blood, she was scorned and ostracized beyond all reason. The fact that he bacame a successful business man and provided for her very handsomely made no difference to most of the residents of that little town.
There is still a certain amount of prejudice even in this day and age and there are still reservations where Indian tribes live. Why these reservations are still inhabited I cannot say - surely the people would be better off being absorbed into the mainstream of the population. Except for those who own the casinos, of course.
Well, no great words of wisdom came to me tonight, just to be thankful that there is a warm fire in the wood stove and the cat and dog are in their beds and I will shortly be in mine. Good-night.

Access to books

I have hit upon a source of amusement (quite by accident) and am having a nice relaxing time for myself tonight. I have discovered that I can sometimes pull up entire books to read and am at the moment indulging myself in reading that old childhood book "Little Women" which I read many times as a child. Since i went to a poor country school until i graduated to high school, we were limited in our choice of literature and I must have read each of the available books a half a dozen times or more. I read "Treasure Island"' while a blizzard raged outside and the colorful pictures and descriptions were a source of great amusement. We pored over my Grandpa's Zane Grey books and read "True Confessions" which we purloined from our teen-aged aunt. I still read just about anything i can get my hands on and thank goodness my eyes are still pretty good. When my Grandma got a library card for me I was in Seventh Heaven.
Today was a quiet, rainy day, made cozy by a fire in the wood stove and the antics of our little dog. This will be a mini-blog, hope all is well with my readers and that you will still keep in touch. Bye

On the Loose

When I am too lazy to think up a new theme, i go to my documents file and copy something down from the past. I did this tonight and hope nothing objectionable shows up in it


is
On The Loose

In days gone by, we used to sing a little ditty that went like this:
“What makes a lady of eighty go out on the loose
What makes a gander meander in search of a goose
It’s not the season, the reason is plain as the moon
It’s just Elmer’s tune.”
This meaningless little tune popped into my head this morning and caused me to ponder. What does a lady of eighty DO when she goes out on the loose? We know what the gander does, and it is not a pretty sight. The goose never seems too pleased about it, either. But a lady of eighty? The thought boggles the mind.
Does she go out on a search for a seventy-year old toy boy still hot to trot? Will she remember what to do if she finds him? Or does she bust into a disco bar and dance herself into tachycardia? Or find an ice cream parlor and treat herself to a double hot-fudge sundae and end up in a diabetic coma? What would I do if I heard Elmer’s song and went on the loose?
Eighty-year-olds, or eighty-five or eighty-seven year olds are capable of amazing feats. My eighty-seven year-old cousin flew down to Mexico and went scuba diving with her son-in-law. Another cousin climbed a mountain. My sister, at eighty-five, eloped with a wealthy gentleman who had come to her hometown to bury his first wife, and they are kicking up their heels all over the place. What would I do if I heard Elmer’s song?
To start with, I would sleep late. I would turn the clock to the wall and let myself indulge in my fondest fantasy – a day of doing absolutely nothing.
I would recklessly drink two cups of coffee, and resist the urge to unload the dishwasher. I would neither swiffer the floors nor vacuum the rugs. I would pet the cat and go outside to the rose garden and sit and watch the butterflies and humming birds. I would eat when I chose and what I chose. If the time seemed to drag and I got bored, I could go inside and watch a movie on television or take a walk down by the creek. I might meditate down on the bench under the redwoods and listen to the wind chimes above.
What would my husband be doing while I indulged myself so shamelessly? He likes to cook and would probably go into the kitchen and bake a cake or cookies. He would listen to his book tapes. He would take a nap. He would miss me not a whit.
So why don’t I go ahead and just do it? I haven’t yet heard Elmer’s tune and until I do, I am locked into my old routine which isn't all that bad, anyway. Night all. Keep in touch.

this blog has objectionable content

When I clicked onto my blog, I saw a sentence directly above my blogspot, in blue print, saying "You clicked onto this blog as having objectionable content." Ye Gods! What have i done now? I scrolled down a few blogs and saw nothing particualrly objectionable, having been rather benign for the last few blogs. But what did it mean? Did it mean that someone else found my blog objectionable? Or had I inadvertently pushed the wrong key and marked another blog as being objectionable?
I do try to be entertaining, titillating even, since that is the purpose of blogging. But I couldn't for the life of me think what had prompted that sentence to appear. Does anyone who reads my blogs know the meaning of that misterious sentence?
Since i am an old lady, I have of course experienced many things, most of which were perfectly innocent. My husband and I were very young and inexperienced when we married, and as far as I know, we were faithful to one another. i used to compete in public speaking and was not above telling jokes, some with shocking content, but i try to control myself in my blogs. So I throw myself on the mercy of my readers. Was it my essay on feet? Or my story of the beauty contest? Or is that mysterious sentence just a mistake? Let me know. I will await enlightenment eagerly. Take care and keep in touch.

football

I have let several days go by without blogging, my only excuse being that I had the "blahs". I shamelessly reclined on the sofa with a heating pad under my leg, treating my tendanitis with rest and heat, and to my relief it has gotten somewhat better. This morning I swiffered the wood floors and vacuumed the carpets and now I am ready for the super bowl! Why i enjoy watching humans bashing each other around a ball field, I do not know, but it does provide entertainment. We lead quiet and peaceful lives here, so we take whatever opportunity is afforded to amuse ourselves.
When I went to college 65 years ago, I was on the college newspaper staff and one of my assignments was to cover the football games between my college and various other colleges here and there. It was a plush assignment, since I knew nothing about the rules and had to consult with the quarterback after the game to complete my story. Needless to say, I developed a crush on him and imagined myself hopelessly in love, even though I knew in my heart that he longed for the head cheerleader. He was a skillful passer but somewhat on the crabby side and often hurt my feeling grievously. I was much relieved when I was given another assignment more in tune with my knowledge.
I never really liked high school but flourished in college. It was a small college, and I only got to go for a year and a half, but I remember it with fondness. I worked for the art teacher and met a good many artists and musicians, including Marian Anderson and Thomas Hart Benton. When war broke out and a severe shortage of teachers developed, I was "drafted" to go out into the teaching field, and to my regret never returned to college. I finally graduated with a degree when I was 65!
But that was then and this is now. I didn't enjoy teaching and only taught for two years and then moved on to other careers. I still feel sympathy for all teachers, though, it is one of the hardest jobs in the world.