Memories! - AND Memories? Part Deux

This is an addendum to my previous blog :

It is 10:30 pm on a Friday night. I had cleaned out the refrigerator of old home cooked meals from last week when my son was home. One meal was meatloaf and scalloped potatoes; one of my favorites. The Corelle casserole dish I used to make the scalloped potatoes was one I was given as a present at my original wedding. It was a present from Uncle Doyle. I met the man exactly once in my whole life. He was my sister's uncle by marriage, so no real relation to me. But from that one meeting and the stories I had heard - I loved the man, and he gave me a present just because I was related to his niece-in-law. I didn't even get presents from REAL relatives at my original wedding. But HE came and gave me one - no reason, no invitation. I think he was just that nice. I smile even when I just think of his name. He is long gone, but his memory is not.

When my original marriage imploded, I got rid of everything – with the exception of the casserole dish from Uncle Doyle. I could not part with it. I loved this man I did not know. I don’t know why I am so attached to him. It just is one of those things you accept as a part of you.

So, I was washing the dish tonight thinking of Uncle Doyle. Wondering if I would be able to get to know him in heaven; wondering if my sister’s family even knew I had this attachment.  Did it matter?

No, indeed it doesn't, because this is MY memory and I revel in it every time I use this dish.

Thank you Uncle Doyle. Love you! I can’t wait to get to know you sometime!

Memories! - And - Memories?

I always find it interesting how siblings can grow up in the same home, with the same parents, doing mostly the same things, at the same time and yet not have the same memories! Sure, sure, there are the things EVERYONE in the family remembers because whatever happened was monumental or life changing, but the little day to day things, that possibly happened repeatedly, are sometimes not remembered by all and maybe even only by one.

Take the insurance man. Apparently he came to our house every month to collect his blood money and I don’t remember a thing about him. I am not saying that I just don’t remember his face, (so if I was ever asked to pick him out of a line up in the event that he had become a criminal and I was the only person on the planet that could identify him, he would be able to continue on his felony rampage unstopped because of my less than stellar memory), I mean I don’t remember that he existed! He could be the Invisible Man for all I know. YET, my sister has a story about him, his repeated visits, and our cap gun (a metal, very real looking fake gun) that made me laugh out loud. But until she blogged it, I had no idea it happened or that he existed. (http://gracefulgrandma.blogspot.com)

I remember the milk man – the goat milk, milk man. Oh my gag. My mother thought I was the scrawny one and forced (she loved to impose her will on the weaker humans she made) me to drink the nastiest milk ever milked into existence. That nasty elixir tasted like I was downing the goat in its entirety! Hair, hooves, insides, outsides, and upsides down! I still roll my eyes and literally cringe when I think of having to drink that. Mom’s sage advice for drinking? Hold your nose. Negative. Make chocolate goats milk. Negative #2. That just tasted like you dipped the poor beast in Hershey syrup before you tried to ingest his/her essence – even if you held your nose. Or crossed your eyes, or twisted your legs, or bent in half. NOTHING helped trying to swill down the most vile liquid known to man.

Then there is the Charles Chip man. Oh how I loved seeing that truck stop outside our house. If you have never eaten potato chips from a can of Charles Chips, you have not lived. Seriously. I believe God himself invented and ate those chips and wanted humans to know the pure joy of crunching His heavenly creation.

 That is it. That is all I remember in the parade of salesman visiting our humble abode. I am sure there was the occasional vacuum cleaner sales man, or Watkins man, or Avon representative. But I don’t remember them. I know they existed at the time and that is where my memory banks end. My sister – remembers them all.

I wonder if she remembers when I stole her – never mind. No sense bringing THAT up!!! And if you talk to her, don’t mention the knife either…


P.S. Read about the insurance man in her blog: http://gracefulgrandma.blogspot.com/. It is well worth your time!!

Raccoon

I just thought I should let everyone know that the raccoon came today in the mail.

At work.

It was definitely NOT still frozen.

EGAD.

Get Your Hands Off Me, You Damned Dirty...

I was just reminiscing about a drive in theater my family and I used to go to while I was growing up. I know I saw lots of movies there because I still sing the concession song in my head and can remember the PIC commercial – PIC – It don’t work, so doooon’t you believe it – it doooon’t work. But then the bug coughs and gasps and stretches out his little bug arm and dies. Of course PIC works! That dead cartoon bug just convinced us it does!

But I am getting sidetracked. We saw dozens of movies there, but the only movies I really remember seeing at the Garden Theater was the weekend they ran the “Planet of The Apes” trilogy. Heaven…pure heaven. Charlton Heston all shirtless and action hero like and other actors dressed up like apes, all hairy and realistic looking for the time. Could there be a better way to spend a Friday night? You obviously don’t know me if you think there is any other answer but - NO. As I was reliving the ape movies I got to thinking about what if in the future some idiot ape took dinosaur DNA and remade dinosaurs (shades of Jurassic Park only with more apes) and then the dinosaurs took over the earth and astronauts from our time took off thinking they were going to land on one planet far, far away but instead their space ship malfunctioned and they went forward in time and landed back on the very same planet they left from but this time the dinosaurs had now taken over and eaten all the apes. See those apes weren’t as smart as they thought they were or they wouldn’t have messed with dinosaur DNA.

I can just hear Charlton say, “Get your hands off me you damned dirty (maybe he would say scaly) dinosaur!” BUT – what if it was a T-Rex? Could that educated T-Rex population have been smart enough to figure out a way to make longer arms for their generation so that they indeed would have hands long enough to put on Charlton Heston? Debatable.

You know what? No matter how much I like this premise, it just won’t work. I can’t think of a single dinosaur that could put anything around Charlton Heston - and get away with it. Especially if his side-kick astronaut was Chuck Norris...

Now we are talking movie history!! And the Oscar goes to……

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.”

Conversation last night: 

Me: I ordered a taxidermy raccoon from eBay.

My Husband (we shall call him “Boy” from now onto make things easier): Great! Where are we going to put him?

Me: In the freezer.

Boy: Why would we put him in the freezer? To scare the corn?

Me: Well, um, I accidentally ordered a live, dead raccoon that needs to be stuffed, not one that already is.

Boy: Silence

Me: I have no excuse, I didn’t read carefully enough. But I only wasted $50.

Boy: Shaking his head. I don't want to talk about this anymore.

Me: Can we give him to Arthur? Wouldn’t he eat him? He likes raccoon meat.

Boy: No we can’t give him to Arthur. Do you even know how old this thing is or how it was killed? And I told you this is so ridiculous I don't want to talk about this anymore!

Me: Silence

Boy: What if he is thawed out when we get him? Can they even send something like that through the mail??

Me: I guess…

Boy: What if the post office thinks the raccoon is a cover for drugs and raids our house after we get it and tries to tear apart all our taxidermy searching for nonexistent drugs because they think we are the fence for the frozen nontaxidermied raccoon drug cartel?? What if they have been watching this guy for years because he is a mail bomber and he sends his bombs in dead frozen animals – and now they think we are his new trainees? What if it thaws and starts to stink and they think it is a dead body part. Oh my God, what were you thinking???!!

Me. Um

Boy: UM? All you got it ‘um”? From now on eBay is dead to you – like the raccoon.

 

 

Squirrel

It is 8:15, but it feels like midnight - or - 3 days from now. I am wondering about 'happy'. My uncle drills into my head that all you need is PMA - Positive Mental Attitude. He repeats it like you can just decide you need to be happy and presto - it happens. I was wondering today though, if you were not born to a certain disposition and that is what you have for your life. You can try to outwit it, outsmart it, decide differently, and berate yourself into change but like other quirks of life, you cannot outrun it, and you begin to believe you are born that way and destined to be that way until you die. I vote with the quirks. You are stuck with it no matter what you want to believe or change. Tonight, my predisposition has taken over. I cannot wish, will, or urge what I wish I was like to take over what is really inside me. I know you know how I feel. 

Squirrel!!!!

Too Late

New favorite saying:
 
It is never too late to be what you might have been.
 

Additions:
 
It is never to late in the day - to start your day.
 
It is never too late to believe that something that isn't happening for you now won't happen for you in the future.

It is never too late - in fiction or in real life - to revise.
 
It is never too late to do something good as long as you are breathing.
 
For 'playing' - it's never to late to start and there is no right or wrong way to do it.
 
It is never too late to eat dessert.
 
It is never too late to believe what you have never believed.
 
It is never too late to stop thinking it is too late.


To quote Marvin Webster - "Y'all think about it."