Fire in the Hole

30 May

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

I’ve always had a hard time keeping the grass trimmed along our backyard chain-link fence line.  Nothing seemed to work.  Over the years I tried hand clippers, weed wackers, motor oil and just about everything else.

Well, one day I decided to burn a nice wide clear line along that fence.  My wife was standing by with the garden hose ready to make sure the fire didn’t get out of control.  I poured gasoline from a metal bowl along the fence line, let it soak in for a couple of minutes, stepped back and dropped a match onto it.  The grass was green, so after the initial “Whoof”, the fire burned slowly, just as I had expected and the results were pretty much what I wanted.  Except for small patches here and there where the grass was extra thick, my fence clearing job looked like it had gone quick and easy.

I waited for the fire to burn itself out.   Then as I walked the fence line, checking for any of the thick unburned tufts of grass, I’d pour a little more gas on them in preparation for re-burning.  I guess one of those tufts still had a glowing ember in it that I couldn’t see and as soon as the gas hit that ember, it flashed right up the stream of gas into the bowl I was holding.  I jerked back in surprise and splashed gas on the front of my shirt before I could let go of the bowl.  Now my shirt was on fire, and my wife yelled, “Get on the ground and roll.”  I kicked my legs out behind me to do a belly flop on the ground, and that’s when everything went into slow motion.  There I was suspended in mid-air with the front of my shirt on fire.  I couldn’t believe how long it took for me to get to the ground.  When I finally did hit the ground, my body smothered the fire fairly fast and with the help of my wife spraying me with the hose, it was over.

I jumped up, and ripped off my shirt, pulled up my undershirt and checked myself for burns.  The shirt was one of those 1960s polyester things and it had melted, sticking to my undershirt.  If it hadn’t been for the undershirt, I would have been burned pretty badly.  As it was the undershirt protected me from the melting shirt and I only had a couple reddish spots on my stomach.  Boy, was I lucky.  Or was Someone watching over this dummy?

As you might expect, I never used gasoline again to clear my backyard fence line. My Dad always told me that if I played with fire, I was bound to get burned. Dad was right.

Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. James 3.5 NIV

Tags: , ,

The Home of Heroes

28 May

We are celebrating Memorial Day with our guest  Patricia Franklin. I love home town  stories, hope you do too.

Our town, Pueblo, Colorado, has a designation as “The Home of Heroes.” Our river walk has a section called the “Walk of Valor.” We have four Medal of Honor winners from Pueblo, the most from any place in the U.S. Their statues are at one end of the river walk. On the trail, there is a pedestrian bridge called “Veteran’s Bridge.” It is the only monument in the U.S. to honor veterans from every branch of the service. Originally, you could place the name of a veteran on a plaque for $75 to help build the bridge, so we did that for my husband who was in the service. There is still room for more names, but the cost is a little more now.

Further along at the end of the “Walk of Valor” is a building called the Center for American Values. One of our local photographers took pictures of all the living veterans who were Medal of Honor winners and they are displayed in this building, which is laid out like a classroom. It is free and open to the public and they take school kids there and teach them about the constitution, etc. Some local citizens, including one of the Medal of Honor winners who lives in Pueblo put this in place.

Some firefighters from New York visited here last year and were so impressed that they wanted to give something to the city. They sent a steel beam that came from the World Trade Center. The grandkids and I  were here right after it arrived and it was sitting on the floor of the Center at that time. We actually touched it and unsuccessfully tried to lift it, Anyway, the firefighters came back last weekend and our fire departments, police and sheriff departments, veterans, citizens and visitors were all present and we had the dedication of the monument you see here, dedicated to 9-11.

Tags: , ,

Speak Up Saturday- Psychological Soup Pot

26 May

The first time I heard about Charlene’s soup pot, I knew I wanted to share her wisdom with my friends. Many of us have been placed in a care-giver position and been overwhelmed with well meaning advice

My Blog Soup

 Charlene Spangler

Writing a blog has been simmering in my psychological soup pot for a few weeks now. My mom asked me to write about my coping soup. I developed this mental strategy when my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. There was so much good advice and so many ideas coming at us with lightening speed, I quickly became overwhelmed.

When I tell people I will put their ideas or advice into my soup, what I mean is, “Thank you for your wonderful idea. I can’t respond right now because I’m on overload, so I will think on it for a while and see how I can incorporate your thoughtful tidbit”.

I have many pots of soup:.my home, family, job, tasks, and future. Each soup has its own base, stock, or broth. Ingredients and seasonings are added as they come along. My current home soup might be that the lawn needs to be replaced. That’s a big pot of soup. The ingredients are cost, time, design choices and such. Some ingredients, like choosing the type of grass, cook quickly like noodles and can come out of the pot in no time…That’s easy. There is only one type  of grass that will work for our yard. Other ingredients are, like carrots, tougher and take longer to cook. Do we save up (takes time) or borrow (costs more), which is best for us?

Just like mom’s chicken noodle soup, giving my coping soups some time and letting the ingredients blend and mature usually makes for a better outcome than trying to please everybody and respond immediately to all. It also makes people feel better for their ideas to be accepted even if they have to wait for results. Now my blog soup is done. I hope it tastes good.

Psalm 19:14

Tags: , , ,

Sour Cabbage

24 May

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I titled my blog Old Things R New because I want to learn the old ways of growing and preserving foods as well as  growing and using medicinal herbs. Recently I read “A Luminous Future” by Teodor Flonta. The book is set in the late 1940’s through the early 1960’s in Romania. I was fascinated with the foods he ate during that time, in particular, sour cabbage. In “A Luminous Future”, Teodor’s mother would ask him to get a sour cabbage out of the barrel for dinner. I love learning about different methods of food preservation and since Teodor is on twitter I was able to ask questions and he graciously answered.

            “Sour cabbage: take a whole cabbage, cut out the stem, get in the middle of it where the stem was and clean very well the white matter – you obtain a hole like a cone – fill that hole with coarse salt and place the cabbages on the bottom of a barrel next to each other, then you add other layers of cabbages on top until you fill the barrel. Then you add a handful of pepper whole grain, some horseradish, the root, and cover the cabbages with water. Then you place a plank or a lid on top of the barrel and on top of the lid you place a rock or something heavy to keep the cabbages pressed. That’s it. After 2-3 months your sour cabbage is ready. Among the cabbages you can put carrots, green tomatoes, turnips and they’ll be sour too and are quite good in winter. So, the juices the cabbage release and the water, plus the horseradish and pepper do the trick… you don’t need anything else to preserve them in.”

Of course, my next question was how do you eat it? Do you eat it cold or cook it?

“The cabbage can be eaten raw, as it comes from the barrel, like pickles. Or you can add a bit of oil and pepper like you do with salads. Ariella (wife) uses cumin seeds also and no pepper. Then you can fry it with mince meat or ribs or pieces of pork meat… first fry onions until translucent, add the cabbage, 2-3 bay leaves, 10-12 pepper grains, the meat and let it simmer for 40 minutes or so. It is delicious.”

I love the idea of going to a barrel and grabbing out a spicy cabbage so I am looking around for a small barrel. Thank you, Teodor for sharing your knowledge. Teodor and I also discussed preserving meat by larding. I am sure I will be writing about that in the coming weeks. “A Luminous Future” is a wonderful non-fiction novel and I highly recommend it.

If anyone has any tips for preserving or medicinal herbs, I would love to hear from you.

 

Tags: , , , , ,

Death Valley Run

23 May

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

The first year we lived in Los Angeles my wife and I were  living on a tight budget and I was riding my 1955 Harley Davidson motorcycle most of the time.  I was going to college full-time and working part-time while my wife was working full-time as a hairstylist at a fancy salon. By the time I graduated, she had earned her PHT (Putting Hubby Thru) degree. I made some friends in the local motorcycle club, and one weekend they invited us to go on the annual Death Valley Run .   It was summer and hot in LA, so we figured it would be super hot on the desert.  Early that Saturday morning after borrowing a buddy seat, we rolled what few things we thought we would need in an old army blanket, and set off to meet our group at the starting place.

It was a spectacular sight. The line of motorcycles went on for miles.  I had never seen so many in my life. Over 1500 motorcycles of every possible description and 2500 people were all going to the same place on the same two-lane road.  We rode in groups stopping only at the checkpoints for lunch or gas.

We arrived at the Furnace Creek Ranch area (elevation 79’ below sea level) to find everything organized for us riders to have a BBQ meal and a night’s entertainment. Unfortunately, we had spent our money on gas and lunch and couldn’t afford the BBQ. Also, we hadn’t known to bring camping gear. We went into the camp store and bought a can of chicken ala king, asked the clerk to open it for us, and went off to eat it with a stick we found lying on the desert.

When we went back to the big campfire, we joined in the entertainment. They had a “Most Beautiful Leg Contest” (for men only), and my wife talked me into entering because she said I had good-looking legs.  Well, guess what?  The object of the contest really was who had the ugliest legs.  I didn’t win.

As the sun went down it started to cool off,  by 10:00 pm it was downright cold.  Most everyone slept in tents or on the ground but we only had  one blanket and no air mattress under us.  That was a rough night.  We tossed and turned trying to stay warm, all the while shifting from one position to another to find some softer rocks to lie on.

The next morning as we headed back toward L.A. the group was much smaller and spread out.  After an hour or so, our buddy seat was really bothering us, so I decided to change positions and let my wife drive for a while.  We were cruising along on this gently curving two-lane road trying to keep up with our small group.  Everything went well for about 20 minutes, until we topped a rise and the road curved sharply off to the left.  As we neared the curve, the motorcycle kept going straight.  The curve was getting closer by the second.  I reached up to take my wife’s hands off the grips, but she was frozen with fear.  I threw all my weight forward and to the left as I tried to twist the throttle closed under her hand.  It was close!  It was very close!  We almost went off the road.   If we had, at that speed, we would have probably flown a hundred feet in the air before hitting the ground.  I don’t want to think about what we would have looked like after such a fall.

After we were stopped and got our breath back, I asked my wife what happened.  She said, “I don’t know.  Every time we came to a curve I just thought to myself, turn, and we turned.”  Then it hit me.  I had been sitting there on the back unconsciously leaning whenever we came to a gentle curve, and my position and extra weight had taken us around the curves.  When we came to that not-so-gentle curve, my position and extra weight weren’t enough to overcome our speed and we were almost toast.  There is no question in my mind that Someone up there was watching over us that day.

Needless to say, I drove the rest of the way home, and my wife decided she didn’t want to drive my motorcycle any more after that.

Tags: , , , ,

Jazz Song

21 May

My Take

DiVoran Lites

Listening to jazz on Pandora I heard, “A good gal (or a good guy) nowadays is hard to find, you always get the other kind.” But did the jazz masters get it right? Well, maybe yes and maybe no.

For a wedding gift my best friend gave us a plaque with two Amish people facing each other with their hands behind their backs kissing chastely. The plaque said, “Kissin’ don’t last, cookin’ do.” I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. Thank heavens we two old codgers are still kissing, but there are some things in our relationship that may last longer and matter more in the end.

First, of course you have to have real, true love or a good potential for it. Then you both have to have a similar sense of humor. One night when Bill and I were two teens out for on date, we got to giggling and couldn’t stop. That was when I began to suspect he was the guy for me.

You need to be able to talk to each other for a long time about more subjects than cars and whether your bathing suit makes you look fat.

You need a common sense of values. The Bible says, “Be not unequally yoked.” What that means is that the more your backgrounds are alike the better chance your marriage will have. If you’re a Christian you’re far wiser to marry a Christian from the start. People don’t change nearly as often as we think they do.

Look for mutual courtesy, plain old please and thank you, with some genuine apologies thrown in when needed. I love you always goes down well, and in some ways is the greatest courtesy of all.

Now a few don’ts: Don’t marry anyone who is full of bitterness or self-pity. Complaining is your first clue. They may wrench your heart and they may have you convinced they can’t live without you. They make you think you’re the only one who can help. Nope, it doesn’t work that well. You’ll discover that if you don’t fall for it they’ll replace you in a trice. Try it if you don’t believe me.

We know to avoid active substance abusers. They might get well someday, but we’re more likely to become enablers than we are to see them heal.

It helps if two people have compatible views on earning, saving, paying, giving. Money is a big marriage buster, but you can get a lot of good out of it if you know how to handle it.

So that’s it. Perhaps a good mate is hard to find, but it’s not true that you  ALWAYS get the other kind.

Tags: , ,

19 May

write2freeu

I started writing Maternal Secrets approximately five years ago. One of the reasons it took me so long to write it was because I was weighed down by what other people would think about my writing. I was consumed with what my pastors at the time, past church friends and others in my Christian community would say. I found that I was using a lot of clichés that people who don’t go to church and are not indoctrinated into church social culture would know nothing about. I even altered the story line. The funny thing is after numerous re-writes and peeling back the layers of the story, I found myself back to the original story that I believe I was destined to write.

So now with book two, Maternal Instincts, I have decided to take the limits off. If I want my writing to transform as well as entertain readers I…

View original post 270 more words

I’m Looking For a Few Good Authors

17 May

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I’m looking for a few good authors. I’d like them to be no older than forty years of age. I’ve reached the time of life when the authors I spent my youth and middle age with are dying.  It just isn’t right.  One should never outlive their children or their favorite authors. I will tell you who my favorites are and you can tell me yours.

My all time favorite author is D.E. Stevenson. Here is what Wikipedia says about her. D.E. Stevenson was born in 1892 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was educated at home by governesses. She started to write at eight, but because her parents and governesses disapproved she had to do this in secret. She later wanted to go to university but her father refused, concerned about having an educated woman in the family. Stevenson was married in 1916 to a captain in the 6th Ghurkha Rifles.

Isn’t that an  amazing bio? She died in 1973 after writing forty novels. It took me years to find all her books but I think I may have read almost all of them and she is one of the few authors I collect. Her books transported me to the gentle countryside of Scotland into the lives of everyday people getting into scrapes  and of course, food was mentioned a lot, which explains to some degree my fascination with her books.

After Stevenson there is no particular order to my favorite deceased authors. I do genuinely miss Eugenia Price. The St. Simon’s Trilogy was a favorite for myself as well as my daughter, requiring a girl’s weekend to St. Simons Island to visit the marshes and cemetery we felt a bond with. Even today all I have to say to my daughter is “John died” and we tear up. Now that is writing. Savannah Quartet is not to be missed either. I went to Goodreads to skim some reviews and refresh my memory and I was saddened to see how hardened some readers are. They can’t relate to a time when human honor and duty were valued.

Eugenia died in 1996 and was buried in her beloved Christ Church cemetery on St. Simon. I foresee another trip to the island to visit her grave. She is buried step away from the pastor she immortalized in her books.

Since I have a self-imposed five hundred-word limit for my blog posts, I can see this will have to be continued. I would love to hear from you. Which authors have you read for years and now they are gone?

: Christ Episcopal Church

: Christ Episcopal Church (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tags: , , , , ,

A Gator in the Street?

16 May

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

We live in a small Central Florida town in an older subdivision that is quiet and pleasant.  We have a few feral cats, the odd neighborhood dog and even one guy down the block who has chickens and a rooster that we can hear crowing in the morning.

One day I happened to look out my front bedroom window and thought I saw an alligator walking down the sidewalk in front of our house. Surely, my eyes were playing tricks on me. I grabbed my glasses and ran out the front door to get a better look.  Well, it wasn’t an alligator; it was a 6-foot Iguana!  Where in the world did that thing come from?  And where was it going?  The Iguana was just slowly walking down the sidewalk as if it did it every day.

It was heading for the woods just two houses away and I didn’t think it would be a good idea for it to be wandering around out there possibly scaring hikers to death.  So, I walked around and headed it off and It went for our neighbor lady’s front yard.  Uh oh, I hoped she didn’t come out of the house just then.  Oh good, I remembered she wasn’t home.

I watched as the creature crawled up onto her front porch and from there onto a bench. It placed its front feet on the windowsill and gazed in as if looking for someone.  I finally remembered the guy down the street with the chickens and just knew somehow that this thing was one of his pets.  I hurried down the street to his house and knocked on the door.  There was no one home.  A van in the driveway had a business logo on the side and a phone number, so I called and sure enough, the Iguana was his. He said he’d come right away and get it.  When I got back to the neighbor’s, the Iguana was still standing on the bench looking in.

When the pet master got there, he picked up the Iguana as you would a cat or a dog and a strange thing happened, it turned from a grayish/brown to a bright green right in front of my eyes.  What was that about?  Had it been scared and lonely? Did it change colors because it was glad to see its owner?  I was amazed. Do Iguanas have feelings? I don’t know.  Do you?

Tags: , , ,

What’s Wrong with Potatoes Anyhow?

14 May

My Take

DiVoran LItes

I was just talking to my cats, Lily and Jasmine. I said, “keep on swimming, keep on swimming,” (Dorrie to Nemo)  but they are cat couch potatoes and didn’t know what I was talking about, couch potatoes don’t swim or even do much of anything else, that’s how they got their reputation as couch potatoes. I know, I know, cats don’t swim much either…some cats do and I’ve seen tigers…oh, never mind.

Anyhow, I have a couch I call, guess what? I call it my potato couch. I was showing it to a friend one day, and she gently reminded me that people are not made to lie about but to be up and at ‘em. She is so productive, creative, and organized. I envy her a little.

As for me, I have my couch rigged where I can lay full-out with my T. V. on a table at my feet (fairly big screen) and watch BBC dramas and Masterpiece Theater. Well, it’s cultural, isn’t it?

How did potatoes ever get the reputation for being useless, anyhow? What about French Fries, baked potatoes, shepherd’s pie? What about potatoes being filling and nutritious, especially if they are all you can afford, because they are cheap, or used to be. Bill says the term probably came from people who lie down to eat potato chips and watch T. V. I’m fond of potato chips and I’m just as fond of my potato couch and I love seeing my beautiful cats lying around like gorgeous sculptures ‘cause they go with all the furniture and they go with me, too.

Full-out on potato couch

Tags: , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →