Tag: childhoood memories

The same thing

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Six to one and half dozen to the other

Children say the darn-dest things! And sometimes those silly jokes from the elderly to the little child are pretty funny too.

Once upon a time immigrants could only come into our country from Ellis Island. The lady of liberty was their first greeting to a land of hopes and dreamers. And today no one can seem to agree if the “dreamers” should be allowed to stay or forced to go. Yet we have an aging population that will desperately need care in the next ten to forty years. Alhzeimer’s and brain degenerate dies eases just may need this flood of immigrant healthcare workers to take care of our aging population. That’s my own opinion.

Telling silly stories and ridiculous jokes is one of the elderly past times that I enjoy listening to but haven’t quite the knack for proper repetition. The older one gets the more common it becomes to have frequent repeating pun lines. Remembering them is the key to long life I think. One story thus repeated in my family is about Ole Olson.

In a small Norwegian settlement in the Dakota’s there lies a little cafe named Ole Olson’s Fine Cuisine. In it you’ll find everything from white sauce Norwegian dishes, to German dumplings, to Fine Chinese cuisine. Upon the visit to the restaurant an out of towner was overheard asking the owner how he came upon the establishment. Here is Ole’s reply. “Well, when I got to Ellis Island with my wife and child, we happened to fall in line with some very fine brothers from Norway heading to the Dakota territory. When we got up to the name taker, she asked my name. I could tell by the process, that though I spoke no English and neither did the brothers, Name giving was the proper answer. The gentlemen ahead of me replied- ‘Sven Olson’ and ‘Ole Olson.’ So I stepped up to the window and said ‘Siam Ting.’ I could not read or write English but was given a pice of paper for identification. I gestured to the brothers and Sven figured out what I wanted. He laughed heartily and slapped me on the back . ‘Ole we have another brother!” They insisted I come with them to Dakota, My wife Lyi and child Kyi became LeeAnn, and Kiya Olson. And we’ve been here ever since!”

I really do a better job of writing this joke than telling it. My dad and those out in western South Dakota can tell the joke in about two minutes. It took me nearly twenty to write it.

Here’s a much shorter joke I heard recently.

Q: Why didn’t the skeleton go to the movies? A: He couldn’t find anybody to go with.

As a child, sharing things with my sisters became a daily mealtime, snacktime and playtime reality. They being older than I, soon found that I was a very bad tattle teller and learned to exclude me from their schemes. I remember as a pre-teen my sisters getting jammed fingers in their fighting days. I found my six years younger brother to be an ample playmate. I could boss him around as long as I wished or until I compromised and played his way occasionally. Before he arrived on the scene while the tattle teller was still ruling within, my mother had to learn how not to referee the sibling rivalries. On one such occasion, she responded to my telling with “It’s just six to the one and half a dozen to the other.” I couldn’t believe that she didn’t see the same unfairness that I had. I stomped off angrily with “that’s the same thing!”

Indeed, the same thing.

While it may be difficult to understand that it rains on the just and the unjust alike, that the Lord gives wisdom to all those who seek it. That there are really smart people who are atheist and really smart people who give all the glory to God. While I am human and unable to fathom the deepest secrets of the Almighty God, perhaps it is the simplest things that get the mind stumped more often.

How did Siam Ting live his whole life as Ole Olson’s other brother? How do children have the same parents end up so totally different even when they grow up in the same house? How can six Cookie’s and a half-dozen Cookie’s be identical? How does the garden grow even when there’s so little sunshine and the rain never stops? How?

Why was it so hard to give up my helper Seymour eight months ago and I didn’t even shed a tear to give away the little want to be house cat that just can’t live in the same house as my husband? While I miss my helper from time to time, a needy cat is not on my to do daily list. Suga just really wasn’t letting me get anything done. She will make a nice house cat for someone else. In this case the feelings were not six for one and half a dozen for the other. I was definitely playing favorites with that adorable loving kitty. And it’s not fair to expect her to live at the threshold of “wanting” in the house in a world so cold, when someone else not allergic to cats will really enjoy her soft furry body.

And yet asking questions like these never made me any smarter. There are still people who think my opinion is invaluable. There are still times I fail to ask a question and guess very wrongly. There are still others who think life can be “qualified.” While the quality of my life isn’t the same as it used to be, my life still qualifies to be fed. Mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally I still have the same needs that I have always had. Being blind might be a physical challenge for me that leads me to tears, yet I will continue to have much of the same needs I have always had. May God spare me the thoughts and the pungent people who think about life in terms of quality. The struggle to win life’s battles will continue to make me want to fight for fairness.

Dream on.

Ode to Chivalry and Stupidity

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When not to stay home

Yep, my husband is a re-born Knight from the Middle Ages. Nothing will stop him in his tracks. He is like a bloodhound on scent when he is on a mission of kindness.

As a young lad, he and his brother out-foxed the coyote, the deer, the pheasant and the snowstorms. There wasn’t a school snow day that they didn’t go hunting. Rather playing in the outdoors was not a sport as seen in the winter Olympic. Weather, wind, snow, and ice were just an excuse to trap some poor animal trying to beat the elements.

Not to be called an anti-hunting activist, I am thankful that my great white (snow covered) hunter can save my pets from preying beasts.

Knighthood and kindness has not been killed. This is proof that chivalry still exists every time old-man-winter tears his ugly head. The blowing snow has never been a foe to my beloved.

Until last Monday night.

Stupidity

Stupidity and chivalry really are synonymous.

Okay, maybe that was a little to blunt. Like the edge of that fish fillet knife buried in the tackle box in the closet. In all of our married years, i don’t think it has ever been out of it’s leather sheath. Oh, well. If there were no mosquitoes in the fishing world maybe fishing would be more appealing. My poor dear really hates mosquitoes. That’s why winter sport hunting has been more fun.

However, the last time there was a license on the table was for the Canadian whites that come through. And if I had any patience for soaking the wild meat longer and making it more taste worthy, perhaps my love would have brought more bunting home for his little ones.

So there, you have the old hunting fail stories. He and his brother used to have a lot fun going after critters. When livelihood comes into challenge because the critters are after the livestock, suddenly it’s not so fun anymore. We have lost lambs, ewes, ducks, geese, chickens, pigs, piglets, and kittens to wild coyote or fox. There just aren’t as many young teen males interested in late night rendezvous to go after a coyote or wild dog. There are times we can hear the coyotes calling to each other over their food.

So we took the blizzard warning quite seriously. Until it quit snowing. Then it just seemed right to go help scoop out the elderly and the invalid. Not in that order of course. The only reality in the whole thing, is that after scooping himself out of the snow bank, my dear hubby was feeling quite elderly and invalid!

There is a little book that we bought many years ago that was one of the girls favorite winter reads. The title is “The Snowplow.”

An ode to the evenings true knight in armor would definitely involve the sound of a Diesel engine and the impressive sound of the snow being chewed up and spewed out like a dinosaur-ish volacanic monster!

These last few days recovering from the shoveling has taken longer that it did years ago. I use to shovel out my own foxhole in a snowdrift just for fun. Now it took me three days to get an adequate path to my greenhouse that doesn’t include snow in my toes by the time I get there. Recovery to me is never about just resting and watching television. My preferred mode is crochet and a book to listen to while sitting with a warm buddy next to me. Thank goodness with Honey’s sprained toe/paw, she has been more willing to help keep me warm.

The above project is one that began nearly four years ago. I finally decided to just finish it as a set. Fingerless mittens, visor hat with buttons, and a turtle neck warmer should come in handy for the next blizzard event. Perhaps, Monday nights events will keep us closer to the cabin next time..

Chasing leaves

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Why does the wind get to have all the fun

The other morning when my daughter and I shared breakfast table time, she began laughing our loud and proclaimed, “that little black kitten is chasing leaves.”  I was amused by her joy at the cat’s expense.  


Chasing leaves might be an endless game this time of year.  With the high wind warnings on the weather radar, this week brought the new carpet to the backyard quite quickly.  I was amused to catch a glimpse of our five month old golden-doodle chasing a leaf today also.  Not so amused to be aroused at sunrise with her ferocious  barking at the deer in the yard through the picture window in the living room.  Chasing things must have been “in the wind” today as a neighborhood black doodle came through the front yard later after said-same deer!

Chasing leaves is how I feel about cleaning this time of year.  The crumbles, and dusties of fall find their way into the house as readily as those pesky little Asian beetles.  Once the harvest begins the little imposter ladybugs must find a new home.  Mine seems to be the best, I quess.  Once the leaves get blown across the township, maybe the cleaning will let up.  But I hear snow might fly first and then it won’t be so easy to remove the soggy mess.

Chasing leaves right out of fall and into winter reminds that there are some decoration changes to be had soon.  While my sister’s have fall birthdays and enjoy putting up all of their fall what-nots our early in September, my birthday is in spring.  So having a “forever-spring” greenhouse is far more fascinating than rearranging all of my surfaces to make room for a seasonal decoration theme.  However, I have always loved playing in the snow and my snowman collection will have to come out soon.  The law of flat surfaces is alive and well in my home, so there will be a big cleaning festival before the collection can find its winter place on those spaces.

Chasing leaves back into their pile might be fun as a child when the joy of scattering them as one jumps into the mound, but as an adult getting the unruly back into submission is less captivating.  Today as I observed my puppy’s lack of restraint when greeting newcomers it occurred to me that perhaps it might be easier to put the leaves back on the tree than to get her to sit when every ounce of her being springs forward at excitement.  We set up class for her and I for the next six weeks.  We will soon find out of getting her to obey is something like trying to gather leaves into a pile with a northwest gale!

So while you consider the change of the seasons, find a few leaves to kick around.  Be a child for a few minutes as you kick up some joy.  Imagine yourself stronger than the wind as you puff at the pile!

Bow  the knee

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Or throw a temper-tantrum

Lately there has been a lot of movement towards protesting. Or perhaps I could say throwing temper tantrums. 

As a child I was an expert at screaming fits. My mother says the first two years of my life were spent crying. Sometimes we blame my ears, my illnesses, or my older sisters. But I use to tell my children they would have to find a better way to get their way because I was an expert at temper tantrums. I told them my mother couldn’t take me to the store until I was eight years old because by then I had finally been able to use words rather than fists and feet on the floor! 

I find no real benefit to protests. To me it is just an adult temper tantrum. 

When I first saw the bow of the knee during the national anthem, my mind began reeling with all these implications. First of all I thought that bowing the knee was a sub-servient statement. 

This made me so confused. To me  the thinking behind those who did this was completely backwards. History tells us that the reason  our founders came to this country was that they no longer wanted to “bow to the  king” of England. Our country would be an equality-standing as equals kind of place. 

So that is why our national anthem played at so many millions of events has an etiquette of standing. If we take to the knee is that not a return to servitude?

History can never be erased. 

The past is there loud and clear. Or it is silenced by the voices of the present and those future generations are not allowed to learn from it. The past is a grand teacher of so many lessons. 

The first protest to our anthem seemed completely in-appropriate to me. It is a protest against the past. Who has ever been able to bring back the dead?  Can we ever tell someone in our past not to birth us?

This whole protest thing is so confusing. Even the fight to remove statues of dignitaries. I am reminded of the Equptian leaders erasing all monuments to the previous tier and replacing them with the present head of state. Thoughts of dictatorships and portrait murals come to focus. Memories of falling debris as the Iraqi citizens toppled their dictators regime. 

I thought I lived in the United States of America-not the Middle East. 

If we bow the knee and choose to take on servitude once again is this  really a free country or is it a country of slaves? We have the freedom to choose our present and our future. The past however is not ours to choose at all-EVER!

Chose to stand as equals. We do not serve the whims of a king, a president, or an inadequate congress. We can vote, we can petition, we can make phone calls, we can protest, demonstrate and even riot. But there are always consequences for our actions. 

Consequences on a large scale that future generations may chose to scream so loudly against that the past will be forgotten. 

I chose not to forget the past. To remember that others made decisions that in their time seemed appropriate. And today I will chose to stand against the childish protests of our generation. I will continue to live my life in peaceful protest against the whims and winds of the masses to rewrite our rich history. Like it or not the past has its mistakes. I will not mistake the in-obvious bow-of-the-knee as a peaceful demonstration of ones opinion. Do something else that speaks louder. Call your representative. Write a letter copy it a thousand times and send it to all the newspapers, or social websites, or start a petition.  Or maybe read a book to a little child?

Do something! Don’t bow on an act of servitude. Those days are past!

When I bow the knee it will be an act of prayer. I will not bow to the statues, monuments, or idols of this day. Like Daniel in response to the King, I will continue to pray to my Creatir. Asking the King of my heart what appropriate responses are to the behaviors of this present age. 

And I will invite others to find answers to the questions of this generation. Our decisions today will effect the future. And someday “when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord” I wii bow in humble adoration, thankful that my mistakes are erased in the cross of Christ. 

Maybe this whole protest thing is a little too big for my country mind to grasp. But I have learned there are a better ways to get what I want than by falling to the floor and kicking with all my might and screaming  obnoxiously. Sometimes a plate of cookies is all it takes. 


Maybe I should be the cookie lady at the next local demonstration.