Want To Hear A Story?

"People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality too. It goes from one generation to another."

    

 - Studs Terkel

Who doesn't? I mean who doesn't want to hear a story. Stories have been around, and I love to tell them. When you have lived this long(and I mean LONG!) you have plenty of fodder to fascinate or bore people, take your choice. My family would be the first to say, "Yeah, he talks too much!" 8-))

But that is ok. I could tell you of the time my Dad hoisted me on the back of a calf in Arizona up at the Mountain Cabin, or maybe the time, when a young lad, I was crawling across a fallen tree to get over a medium sized creek on a hike in the mountains and rammed a broken branch, just missing my eye, into the side of my head. Those are all fun to tell and of course, the storyteller can really exaggerate if he/she wants to. But how about those days when I would fish for crawdads down in the irrigation box among the orange trees in my  home town. What is a crawdad?Well it looks like a miniature lobster, brown and has claws that can deliver a sharp pinch. How about when I raised chickens, and saved a neat little chicken from his carnivorous brothers and sisters, and I trained him to sit on my arm. How cool is that?--a full grown chicken sitting on your arm. Has that ever happened to you? Stories, if true, often reflect our life and its activities. I think often writers use their life experiences to develop their stories. ("A Movable Feast") by Ernest Hemingway. Then there's the time Barber Shop owner Charlie(I was a shoeshine boy in his barbershop) told me to go down the street to the furniture store and see how much they would pay for the hair clippings that I would sweep up from the Shop floor, to use to stuff their sofas and chairs. 8-)) Good old Charlie, really got one over on me with that! And no they didn't pay!! Yes, I went down the street and asked them!!

And then there was the time I fell in the lake trying to tie up my Dad's boat as we came into the dock! Now that was really funny, and did I ever make a big splash! I remember my Sister and I as young kiddos, skating around the block there in my home town, with our clamp on rollerskates, what a fabulous time, even when I fell and tore the knee out of my jeans and bloodied my knee. It was superbly fun! I know, I know, I didn't finish any of the stories. But maybe someday.........

And then there was the time when I visited my Grandfather and we went out in his workshop, had some of the worst coffee in the world 8-))) one could ever have, and he told me a bit about his life. What a fab storytime that was. He is gone now, but I have that story forever in my mind.

I remember going to the Ranch in Arizona, and the first thing my Sister and I would say to another Granpa was: "Can you get the horses, Darlin' and Chub for us so we can ride?" And he would!

"The story — from Rumplestiltskin to War and Peace — is one of the basic tools invented by the human mind, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories."
    

 - Ursula K. Le Guin 

Well thus goes the story-telling for today. Hey, I want to tell you a story: The first time we saw our Grandsons after they were born. Now that was a thrilling story! Now we see them on the computer screen when we do Skype or Facetime. How wonderful is that? And seeing our daughters, just after their arrival into this world at their respective hospitals. Wow! How cool is that!! Later from the Story-Den.

Someday maybe I will finish the above stories(now they are teasers).

How Fun Is That!!

What Is Happening?

This is indeed one of those weeks one later wonders about! Where is the world going? And when funny things happen, I always think a bit about them for days, trying to figure out what the heck is happening. When I was a boy,  my family absolutely loved artichokes. In fact, when we would have them for dinner, of course with other foods and a main course too, my Mom would cook 4 of the strange medium sized veggies. She first would soak them in water in the sink to get all the bugs out of them. Then into the hot water in a pot on the stove for awhile. Then they would be served to the table. Each of the 4 of us would have our dinner plate in front of us, and there would be a small salad type bowl to each persons right. That is where the artichoke would go. We would eat them with mayonnaise and/or butter. As a boy, I was wild about them and ate them very well. How do you eat an artichoke?Well, liken it to a monkey or some kind of wild animal in a forest primieval!! You grasp each leaf individually and pull it off the ball like orb of dark green leaves, of course avoiding the sticker in the end of the leaf. You drag the leaf through the butter and/or mayo and then place the leaf, the end you are not holding, in your mouth between the upper canine teeth and the lowers. You then pull with all your might, while biting down on the "meat" of the leaf, and you have a mouthful of pasty, green STUFF in your mouth. This you do over and over until most of the leaves are gone. You stack the used leaves up somewhere by your plate or somewhere! The true aficionado, of course, when all leaves are done, goes for the heart of the artichoke, and my Mom and Dad loved that part of it. I wouldn't touch it.  The heart is located between the stem and the bottom row of leaves, and takes a bit of cutting to get to. Well that is it. I don't know how many artichokes we ate over the years growing up, but it was a very large number. Do I like them today? NO. Would I eat one today? NO. Would I eat one if someone offered me a large sum of money to do so. NO.............wait a minute. Maybe..........depends on how large a sum.  8-))))) I have a somewhat strange type of reputation around my family about types of food I totally reject: peas, corn off the cob, squash, and the like. Well, they can add artichokes. It will never be on my menu. We were in the SuperMarket today stocking up the larder(we must eat, musen't we???) and I saw a lovely display of artichokes. Ah----a teachable moment in life. I selected a very nice globular green one and said to my wife, "Now these are the leaves you eat, and the heart is down here, do you want to try one?" "Of course not," she said.  And my teachable lesson was done. Artichokes, make a lamp outta them or something! They are not for me!

Just the other day, I had to go to the Bank. I learned as a boy from my Mom and Dad, whenever you go somewhere special like the Doctor, the Bank or Downtown, you kind of want to look nice and civilized, so you kind of dress up. When arriving at the ATM line, yes I said line, as people must have come into some money, I took my place and waited. A senior citizen gentleman was next to me, and I must have looked ok to him, cause he said something like: "I don't mind waiting cause I am retired and have plenty of time. Yesterday was a holiday so they couldn't do the Banking then." No way was I going to let him do a one-ups-manship on me. I looked into his midwestern eyes(could tell by his accent) and said, "I have been retired 13 years." No response. Then out of the double Bank doors came a young college type lady, dressed casually, until I looked at her feet!!! She had been inside the Bank in her "lovely" fuzzy house slippers!!!!!!!Yes, I said fuzzy blue house slippers!!!! How crazy is that? Will the next craze in this college community be to go to the Bank or Theater or Store in your PJ's??? As a matter of fact one of my daughters says she sees them in PJ bottoms and slippers all the time in coffee places and downtown. Can't you just see it now. Joe Jones call his girlfriend at the dorm, "Hey Sadie, how about going out for coffee? I'll be right over." Sadie says, "Just a moment I need to change clothes." Joe says, "Ok, make it casual." She answers, "Ok, PJ's and Slippers." How cool is that?? Well for the young ones, it is cool. For us ancient ones, it boggles the mind. But lots of people say we older folks have boggled minds anyway!! I am going to put on my slippers now and go run some errands. The PJ's--no way!!

      A Digital Camera

I love photography! What a medium-the PRESENT becomes the PAST, and you can view your photos for many years. My wife and I have been doing more genealogy, and we can view photos of our distant ancestors that we have obtained from different sources. What excitement that can generate. Once I sent my long lost cousin in Michigan a photo of myself, and she said that "you look like the men in the family for sure." How interesting that is as throughout my life, people always said I looked like my Dad. Even at Dad's funeral, one of the pall bearers sidled up to me and said, " Bob, now that you have gained some weight, you sure look like your Dad!" Wow, huh, WHO has gained weight?? Me, NO WAY! But what a  nice thing to say I looked like Dad all those years. I love it. He truly was a handsome and neat looking fellow. Knowing my Grandfather George, I could look at his face and see glints of my Dad's caricature. I am very fortunate to have known both of them.

Gosh, have I gotten off the track! Last night, we happened to be out with some of our extended family at a restaurant. I had my iPhone along with the cam built in and took some photos of the group. I always believe when it comes to photography, take it, take it, take it!! How many times I have waited and the hummingbird or hawk flew away!!! Sad, but true. Digital photography has played havoc with the film industry. I mean the kind of film you might put in your old "point and shoot" cam. It is practically gone. The clarity of the photos is far superior to the old film cameras. 

When I take photos I love to just take them. My Wife and Daughters will testify to the speed of my finger on the shutter when they are in the room and I take the photos! But I have those photos held tight in history to view again and again. How great is that! I have virtually thousands of photos of flowers. Wow! that is a lot of flowers.

When I traveled in Europe as a young man(doesn't everyone these days do that?) Well, they sure didn't then. I had to borrow the money for the trip from a bank. The President of the Bank was the one I talked to in our small town with 2 banks, and he approved the modest loan, and his comment to me was, "You are doing something I wish I had done many years ago." Loved the trip! And no digital camera-my Dad loaned me his old(today it is) Argus C3-35mm cam, which of course took film. I took lots of film rolls with me and mailed them home in special mailers for development. Worked great! See photo of the camera below:

But, I love the convenience of digital. I will never use anything else. It is the only way to go for me. Oh, I have one of my Dad's first Kodak Reflex Brownie cameras. Yes, film! It is neat to study and look at and tell stories about, but not to use for me. Dad loved photography too and was an excellent photographer.

And can you imagine that a phone can now have a camera built in?? Take a look at a couple of my past blogs here. You will see from whence I come, and I will tell you it is a long time ago. That was the time of the non-dial phone where you spoke to a live operator. Wow, most kids would say today, "You are kidding us-a live operator, no way."

My Grandsons do photography with their iPods. And their Mom is also into digital photography! They do well too. How great is that!! Taking after the Grandfather! I love it!!

Gotta go take a digital photo of the wife. She is in the kitchen cutting up the stew meat for her delicious home-made stew. How interesting is that!!!!!????  8-)))))

Enjoy the day!

A Teacher Looks At The Past

I used to be in what I call the school business. I taught for many years. Why am I writing about this? Today when I went in for a Doctor's appointment, I was escorted, as per usual, back to the exam room by a technician at the Dr's office. Somewhere deep in this ancient mind, I thought she looked familiar. And she was!! She recognized me immediately and called me by name. Mr._______, did you teach at ______ School? Yes, I answered and told her she looked familiar and lo and behold she did attend that school, and was in the classroom next to mine. In fact, one of her best friends was in my classroom and she promised to say hello to her for me. Wow! This really gets one who has taught that long! You remember all the kids as they were in your classroom at age 10 or 11. And when you see them as adults, you must ask them things like, "Tell me your name." "Whose class were you in?" and so on. This has happened before, and always did to my Dad in our hometown when I was young and would go downtown with him on errands. We would see his former students and they fondly greeted him and remembered him.
It really makes you think of the past, present and the future when you see and talk with your former students. What a pleasure to know they are doing well. I like that. The Technician had lots of nice things to say about me as a teacher and I appreciated the comments. Sometimes it brings a tear to ones eye! And it did!

"A teacher affects eternity, he/she can never tell where his/her influence stops."

A Technological Revolution

What Technological Revolution?........................

 OR

Is a Smart Phone only for a Smart Person??

The phone rang as I was sitting relaxing on the couch last night. It was not the standard ring one might expect. It sounded like "Duh-Duh-Duh-Duh............ if you can imagine. For you see I had just installed the theme from the old TV series, Twilight Zone! It was a rather late evening call, and as I picked it up and answered, I wondered who would be calling so late at night. Well, it was my wife and she was sitting 10 feet away from me in her recliner, with her Smart Phone in her hand. She was testing my newly downloaded Twilight Zone ringtone. Where are we? What year is it? My confused mind flows through the idea of having any other ring on a phone except the old "Ring-Ring" from many years ago in our small house in the small town where I was born and grew up. 

You see, if you look at the picture of the phone above that is exactly the kind of phone we had in that little house. Except there was no dial. When you wanted to call you picked up the receiver hanging there like a ripe banana, and waited for the Operator to say, "Number Please" and you gave her the number you were calling. My friend's Mom was named Thelma and she was the operator most of the time at the phone company down in the small town center. We would say, "Hi Thelma, what time is it?" or something like that and Thelma would tell us. We were on a party line--no you party animals!! That is not where the party is!!! 8-))) That meant that one or more households shared that line with you and your ring tone was a different number of "ring-rings"! And if you picked up the phone and there were voices talking, that meant that one of the other parties was using the phone and you were to hang up and wait. As you can see, I come from the old, very OLD days. How old? I never can tell anyone, but I do remember seeing soldiers marching down our narrow street during World War 2 to bivouac down at the local high school. So there, that should give you an idea.

Yes, we have newish Smart Phones and boy are they something!! We were at the Mall yesterday, and I called my wife to check on her for lunch time. Well, with the Smart Phone, since she didn't answer I left a message on her Voice Mail. Can you see that we are building a completely new set of vocabulary words with these Smart Phones?? "Voice Mail, text message, contacts, smart phone" and the like.

Back to the earlier story, as I sat on the couch, my Wife announced that she had downloaded a new Ring Tone for her Smart Phone! And she asked, from 10 feet away in her recliner if I could call her and see if it worked. It was the Downton Abbey Theme from the recent TV series, so I did. The phones worked perfectly, and my mind swam through the convenience of our Smart Phones, and I thought, Is a Smart Phone only for a Smart Person??? Well don't ask me if I am smart? Maybe 8-)))) By golly, now that I think about it maybe I should have downloaded the theme song from the Film Rocky, Sly Stallone's series done several years ago.

It took me several months/years to get used to people walking around the Super Market and Malls and the Streets of our City talking out loud with earphones of some type on their Smart Phones. I saw one this a.m. at the Super Market, and I still wanted to say, "Excuse me were you talking to me??" I suppose I will never get used to that, but maybe I will. I do have some earphones and a Smart Phone.

Hmmmmm..............in thinking about it, I say: Smart Phones Rule! I wonder if they have them in the Artic?"

Oh excuse me, the Twilight Zone is ringing on my Smart Phone. I know who it is: It is my Sweet Wife calling from the garage, the washer drain must be stopped up again!!!!!!!!