Tag Archives: Family Life

The Shock of My Life

3 Sep

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill

When I was about 6 years old, my sister, Judy, and I went to spend the summer with our grandparents on their farm on the south side of San Antonio, TX. Grandpa and Granny had a cow, some chickens, several peacocks, a goat and a large Victory Garden where they raised a lot of the vegetables they ate. We had a free run of the place, all day every day, once we had finished our assigned daily chores. What a grand time we had. One of the things I remember about our stay was, every morning my Grandpa would milk the cow, bringing in the pail of milk for Granny to strain, through cheese cloth, before putting it away in the refrigerator for the day. My sister and I had our own small drinking glasses, and would stand at the counter waiting for our morning glass of warm milk, right out of the cow. I’m not so sure I would consider that a “treat” nowadays, as we did then. I never did learn how to milk that cow. It seemed like a lot of work to me.

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One of our chores was to gather the eggs every morning. There would be a dozen or so eggs to find and some of the chickens didn’t want to get off the nest. When they pecked at me, it hurt, and I would sometimes throw an egg at them. Of course, when Granny found out about that, there was the green willow switch that found the back of my legs. That went for chasing the Peacocks around the yard too. But, they were better flyers and usually made it high into one of the trees before I could get even close to them.

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You might find this hard to believe, but the neighbor down the road from Granny’s house had a couple of very old Giant Century Plants in their front yard, and we smaller kids liked to climb up the pedals and slide down them. They had thorns down the edges of the pedals, but they had been worn down over the years and were dull, so with practiced skill, we could slide down them without getting scratched. I have never seen a Century Plant that big since; not even in pictures on the Internet, if in fact that is what they really were.

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But, the thing that gave me “The Shock of My Life” was of all things, an old metal bed frame and springs. Yep, an old metal bed frame! A couple of the older boys had scrounged up a car battery, along with an old Ford Model “A” coil (and I don’t know what all else), and had somehow wired it all up to that metal bed frame. Then with the operator holding onto one of the wires, we would all line up, holding hands, and he would grab hold of the bed frame. We all jumped and the girls screamed, as the electricity went thru us. But why was the last boy in the line jumping around so, I wondered? That is, until it was my turn to be at the end of the line. When that jolt got to me, let me tell you, it was electrifying!

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I guess you could say I got my Electric Shock Treatments early in life. DiVoran says, “Maybe those electric shocks had a calming effect on you, and that’s why you are so laid back.” Maybe she has something there. Who knows? I’ll never tell.

 

—–The End—–

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The Wise Old Owl

29 Aug

From My Heart

Louise Gibson

author of Window Wonders

 

 

 

Years ago an anonymous writer

penned a short poem about the

merit of measuring our words.

 

“A wise old owl sat in an oak,

The more he saw the less he spoke.

The less he spoke the more he heard.

Why can’t we all be like

that wise old bird.”

 

There is a connection between wisdom

and limiting what we say.

It is wise to be a good listener

while holding our tongue at bay.

 

Be sensitive to the needs of the

one you are speaking to.

Listen to what their heart is saying

before expressing your point of view.

 

Footnote:

Although there is a time to be quiet

and a time to speak (Eccl.3;7)

choosing to speak less allows us to hear more.

Tree with owl

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To Kill or Not to Kill

25 Aug

My Take

DiVoran Lites

 

Author, Poet and ArtistWhile Jay, the owner of the pest control company (a sweet, older gentleman, who has been around for a long time) was here, we asked him if he’d consider taking away the Cuban tree frog that lives in our shedlette and dispose of it for us, but he said regretfully he couldn’t. I didn’t hear the reason, he was talking to Bill then. But later he wanted to talk to me about it. He had answers but none of them would suffice.

“Throw a towel over it, catch it, and let it loose in the woods.

“Can’t do that, it’s an exotic.”

“There’s lots of woods around here.”

“It will breed and take over more territory.”

“Oh in that case it will have to be …” I wish I could recall his euphemism for killed.”

“Yes.”

We really shouldn’t let it live. Billy, my ecologist son, and I have been discussing for years what to do with it. Another man he knows has a system for getting rid of them. We discussed taking it to him, but my grandchildren begged us not to. We wouldn’t have anyway, that’s the big problem, really, we can’t kill things.

Known to take food and territory from native flora or fauna, an exotic is a plant or animal that came from somewhere else. Sometimes they prey on the natives which further diminishes their numbers. In this case, the Cuban tree frog is helping destroy our beautiful little green frogs with the gold racing stripes live here. When we moved to Florida in 1965 the green ones were all over our porch slab. They clung to the sliding glass patio doors like suction ornaments. People had to watch their heads when they stepped out because the frogs were known to drop unexpectedly. Now we rarely see one, it’s not all the Cuban tree frog’s fault, pollution has done its worst.

Because of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), The National Wildlife Federation has three categories for plants and animals, 1. Extinct, 2. Endangered, and 3. Threatened. There is also a designation called Critical Habitat. Without the proper places to live and eat, any animal can become f threatened.

I didn’t have to explain all of that to Jay. He knew what exotic meant. He knew about ecology. He said, “I see what you mean.” I’ll be interested to find out what you’ve decided to do.

We may leave the frog out there, he’s been out there since he was a quarter of the size he is now. The thing is, he keeps waking me up with his far-carrying wee-hours croaking. If it were steady I could probably ignore it, but it’s not. It’s a continual call that gets you fully awake and then it stops long enough for you to go back to sleep. Once you do that it starts again. I do have earplugs. And I do have a conscience about plotting murder in the night, so I end telling Jay I’ve decided the Cuban can stay. I wonder how long they live. He has every kind of protection in the shedlette — plenty of bugs to eat, and perhaps a green tree frog for dessert.

http://www.fws.gov/ENDANGERED/laws-policies/index.html

 

Frog

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The Little Girl Down the Street

20 Aug

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill

 

When I was 5 or 6 years old my girlfriend from down the street and I enjoyed playing together most of the time. One of our favorite past times was making mud pies and eating them. I know, that sounds yucky now, but as I remember, that Texas mud was delicious. And I read, not too long ago, that the dirt kids eat somehow helps build their immune system to fight off unwanted diseases later in life.

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Well anyway one day, as I remember it, Patsy and I got in an argument over which mud pies belonged to who, and when Patsy couldn’t get her way, she grabbed my arm and bit me. I was shocked, and ran home crying. When I told my grandmother what had happened, she looked me in the eye and said, “The next time Patsy bites you, you just bite her back”. I told her I would do that, but I wasn’t so sure that was going to work, as Patsy could get really mad, and I could end up with many more and much na stier bites.

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Patsy was the only other kid my age in the neighborhood, and we were still friends, so I soon forgot all about the incident. The next time we had an argument about something (I can’t remember about what), Patsy got really mad, and it ended up with her biting me. She was surprised when I didn’t turn and run home crying. But, she was even more surprised when I grabbed her arm and bit her back. Now she was the one running home crying. I was kinda proud of myself for not being a wimp, and went home to tell my grandmother of my victory.

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Well, the celebration didn’t last long, because Patsy’s mother soon came storming down to our house wanting to know what kind of a “Little Brat” my mother and grandmother were raising anyway. Didn’t they know that boys biting little girls was “Barbaric” and not at all nice. After my grandmother related the whole story to Patsy’s mother, she just couldn’t believe “Her Little Princess” could have done such a thing. When she asked Patsy if the story was true, Patsy admitted it was, and her mother was shocked. After that, she calmed down and was actually embarrassed about the whole matter.

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I’m sure a lot of talk went on between the adults, once the whole story was out in the open, but by then Patsy and I were ready to be friends again, and we were sent outside to play. After that incident, Patsy and I must have had other arguments, but to my knowledge, none of them ended in us biting each other. It’s amazing for me to think back to that incident and realize how easy it is for a child to become a bully, when not confronted about their actions. Moreover, just how quickly a young bully can be diverted from continuing that bullying into adulthood, when they receive a dose of what they have been handing out to others.

 

—–The End—–

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Head Up and Locked

18 Aug

Author, Poet and ArtistBill is an airplane buff. We have a standard joke when someone isn’t paying attention. “He’s got his head up and locked,” we say. The saying is taken from faulty landings where the retractable tires don’t come down to support the plane when it lands. It’s a malfunction that can, and usually does, cause a disaster.

This morning, friends from our church needed a ride to the doctor. The pastor usually hauls people around, but he had conflicting appointments. He would have asked Bill to take them, but Bill was out of town, so he asked me. He wanted to give me directions to their home on Pine St., but we had taken them home once and I knew where it was. Besides, years ago, I drove to Pine frequently because a woman in my Sunday School class lived there. But as I drove without coming to Pine, I realized something was wrong.

My friends were going to a drop-in clinic and didn’t have an actual appointment, so I didn’t panic. I decided to call the friend who used to live on Pine. She said I had to take a street with another name in order to get to Pine. I don’t know what else she might have been going to say, though, because I cut her off, saying, “Oh yes, I have a perfect picture of it in my mind, thanks, goodbye.” So I went back up the road looking for the street she mentioned. I saw the street I remembered, but the name was different. I turned anyway and then turned again. Nope it wasn’t Pine. I knew though that I was within inches. I asked a workman that looked sort of like my grandson, and he was kind enough to look it up on his GPS. He showed me that I had turned one block too soon.

Finally, we made it to the doctor. And what did I learn from the experience? I learned that I have a bad habit of knowing I know things when I don’t know at all. I’m praying that Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Way, the TRUTH and the Life, will wipe out all the thoughts that I think are right and show me His way. One of my most fervent prayers is that He will continue to remind me that in order to know I must not assume that I know, I must ask. I think today will be a great reminder and although I’m not proud of myself, I thank Him for it.

keep asking

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Transition to Maine~Part 2

17 Aug

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

JUDY

Finally assigned quarters on the base (Loring AFB), we began the process of arranging our lives to this new place. We lived in a two-story row house (18 “houses” or apartments, within each row – directly across from another set of row houses), and ours had been added on – giving us a half-bath and a laundry room downstairs, right off the kitchen. We considered ourselves fortunate for that addition – the houses on either side of us did not have the add-on, and the only bathroom was upstairs.

The base housing was not in very good repair – especially on the outside, and was scheduled for refurbishment the summer we arrived. Here are some before and after pictures.

 

Before
After

 

The military had contracted with a Canadian company to do the work. Nothing wrong with that – except they were on Atlantic time, and arrived about 6:00 a.m. local time. We kept hearing stories about people asleep in their upstairs apartment, awakened to find Canadian faces looking in their windows!   We made sure we had the windows covered.

Of course, just covering the windows didn’t help with the sound. They were removing the old siding in preparation for new siding. It looked really nice when they were done, but BOY! was it loud in the mean time!

Since we had only been able to ship 2,000 pounds to Germany, we had left a lot of our household goods at my mother’s house in New Mexico. Now was the time to collect everything that was ours, and start using it all. So we had to find a place for all the china, crystal and sterling we had been given as wedding presents. The apartment was partially furnished, so we only had to purchase a minimum of furniture. We were furnished a dining room table and chairs, sideboard and two beds. Fred built a “hutch” for the sideboard, and we stored the crystal there.

We purchased a sofa (110″ long) in electric blue, with a matching high-back swivel rocker. We also purchased a 12′ X 15′ rug to go in the living room. It was such fun arranging all that stuff.

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Fred’s parents and an aunt and uncle arrived the middle of October, hoping to see all the gorgeous fall colors – but they were about a month too late. Fall hits in early September in northern Maine. But we had a nice visit with them, anyway, taking them to our favorite restaurant in Canada, York’s. York’s had a set menu – only five items. But they had corn fritters the size of a baseball, served with real maple syrup – as many as you wanted to eat. You could have one serving of any of the five entrees, and if you were still hungry, you could have a half-order of anything except the steak. I really learned to love lobster there! And what was neat was that they split the lobster in half, and all you had to do was pick out the meat! No cracking there! Unfortunately, they closed down mid-October and didn’t open again until Mother’s Day. The roads were just too impassable, so they had no customers.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~To be continued~~~~~~~~~~~

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A Bean Canning Fiasco

14 Aug

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I'm a winner

This week started well. I was busy with #MondayBlogs (if you are on Twitter check this out on Monday) and Mike went out to pick the green beans on our extremely tall green bean bushes, more like trees. As an aside, we learned from this and will NOT use ten foot poles again. Monday Blogs tend to make me anxious, so many blogs and tweets, so little time, so I took a break and helped Mike string and snap our unexpectedly large picking. We had a grand time sitting on the back porch, rocking, snapping and talking. By the time we finished I decided it was too late to can them and popped them into the refrigerator to work on the next morning.

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Tuesday morning, I cleaned my kitchen making sure I had plenty of room to wash the beans and then began the canning process. I was expecting around eight pints but by the end of nine pints I had a lot of beans left. No worries. I decided to  start the others in the pressure canner then jar up the rest in quarts. I had five quarts!

I can outside using a Coleman stove and my husband set it all up for me. In my haste, I neglected to look at the pressure gauge. It was new last year so I assumed it was fine. We waited for the canner to vent, put the jiggler on and sat down to wait for it to work it’s magic.  I was dreaming of bragging about my beautiful green beans.  All was good until my husband said, why is the pressure gauge on fifteen? I, of course, suggested he had the flame turned up too high. After much “fiddling” we decided the pressure gauge was bad.

I was distraught? No, frustrated is a better word. I called the Macon County Agricultural Extension Office for advice. ( Surely there is an acronym for that?) and was told that Debbie the canning girl was not in, call tomorrow. Tomorrow? I had two canners of beans NOW. In the end, I cooled the pints(and myself) and put them in the refrigerator. I  froze the quarts. (That is a long  tale too traumatic to speak of at this time)

I am happy to say, that Wednesday, my husband was able to tinker with the gauge and zero it out and the MCAEC ^^^^ confirmed it was now accurate. I didn’t trust it though, so I pulled out one of my mother’s old canners with a weighted jiggler and finally canned the beans. The next time we pick, I think we may just eat them all week and share with whomever will take them!

9 pints

I totally forgot to tell you about Gus. We call him the best porch dog ever. He belongs to the neighbors but comes to visit while they work. He was with us the whole time, faithfully offering his head for a pat and ears to scratch.

photo 2

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My Western Trip Part~15

13 Aug

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

Bill

 Heading back west from Meteor Crater, I passed signs for roads leading to some of the most unique sounding towns, such as Two Guns and Twin Arrows. Then a little ways farther down the road, I passed a man carrying a cross with wheels on the long end. What a sight that was. It reminded me of Arthur Blessitt, who carried a cross from the west coast to the east coast of the U.S. back in the late 1960s. When I got to Williams, AZ I took another little side trip, north on S.R. 64 to Valle, AZ to visit the Planes of Fame Air Museum. This museum has a couple of the planes that are special to me, one being General Douglas MacArthur’s Lockheed C-121A Constellation (N422NA) that he named “Bataan.” The other is a Pacific Air Lines Martin 4-0-4 (N636X) that I worked on at the Los Angeles International Airport in 1958-1960s while I was attending Northrop University.

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Next door to the POF Air Museum is the Grand Canyon Valle Airport, which has a very nice collection of vintage aircraft and vehicles. Their movie and airline famous1929 5-AT-C Ford Tri-motor (N414H) is painted in the colors of Scenic Airways (predecessor to Grand Canyon Airlines), and among its many other awards, won the National Aviation Heritage Invitational (NAHI) Howard Hughes Trophy at the 2012 Reno Air Races.

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Then I headed west on I-40 again, this time toward Las Vegas, my beginning and ending destination for this trip. I passed thru Ash Fork and Seligman before stopping at the Airport in Kingman, AZ to visit the Kingman Army Airfield Museum. But again, they were closed that day, so I continued on into Kingman to visit the Powerhouse Route 66 Museum and the Kingman Railroad Museum.

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Since time was beginning to get a little tight, I didn’t spend a lot of time in those two museums, but got back on the road for Las Vegas. I made it into town in time to visit the National Atomic Testing Museum, which documents the history of U.S. nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), which was originally called The Nevada Proving Grounds. The NTS is located in the desert only 65 miles north of Las Vegas, and has been the location for 928 nuclear tests of all types and sizes, since the first detonation on January 27, 1951. This includes above-ground, underground and atmospheric tests.

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I began the next morning by turning in the rental car (3356 miles), and then it was stand in line for baggage check-in, Security checks, and wait for my Southwest flight back to the “Green” of Orlando, FL and home. We had made arrangements for my sister Judy and her husband Fred to meet DiVoran and me at Sonny’s BBQ for dinner upon my arrival, so we had a great dinner of Baby Back Ribs, with all the trimmings. Then it was onto S.R. 528 and east to Titusville for a good night’s sleep in my own bed. Boy did that feel good! I really enjoyed this trip, and am looking forward to the next one, but DiVoran says I will need to cut back a little on that one. I hope you have enjoyed reading about “My Western Trip” as much as I have enjoyed writing about it.

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—–The End—–

 

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I Say Tomahto…You Say

10 Aug

 

SUNDAY MEMORIES

Judy Wills

JUDY

 

I’ve done a number of things in my lifetime, some enjoyable, some not so much. But God has been good to me, and I have had more of the enjoyable ones.One of the fun things is to be able to travel the world. Well, I’ve not been to Asia, but going to Europe was wonderful. I’ve been as a “tourist,” and I also have lived there. I certainly never dreamed that I would live in another country – and I’m sure my mother never thought I would, either. She commented once that I had really “adjusted” well to military life – all that moving around, especially since I grew up in one town and house.

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And so it is that I enjoy hearing European accents in those around me. Fred and I enjoy hearing all the different languages and accents of those we pass while we are doing our thing at Disney. We can tell what season it is by what languages we are hearing.

We’ve known several military couples where the husband was American, and the wife was British, or German, or…..   One especially comes to mind. We were living in Panama City, Florida, on Tyndall AFB.

As a member of the Officers Wives Club, I had chosen to work in the Thrift Shop on Base. It was a fun thing to do and I was able to meet lots of people. The customers were not limited to officers – it was open to everyone. The proceeds went toward scholarships for the high schoolers. So it was a bit of a win-win situation.

One of the wives who worked along side with me was British. She was a quirky, fun person to be around. One thing she told us once has stuck with me all these years. Her children were rather young (elementary school age, I believe) at the time. In her son’s class was a young girl named Kirsten. Linda had a hard time remembering how to pronounce her name, and her son fussed at her. He kept saying, “Mom, it’s KIRsten…KIRsten….not KRIsten!” Her response was, “Well, you know I grew up in another country, and I sometimes have a hard time pronouncing your American names. For instance, I say tomahto and you say (she pointed to him)…. (and he said) tomato. I say bahth and you say (she again pointed to him)….(and with a cheeky grin he said) (wait for it…………) shower!”

 

We’ve had a good laugh over that one through the years.

 

 

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Busy,Fun and Throw Back Thursday

7 Aug

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I'm a winner

Onisha Ellis

This past week was fun and busy. My aunt and cousin came to visit. We ate a lot of food and especially dessert! My aunt is a great cook and I try to learn something from her whenever we are together. My cousin is a talented crafter. I shamelessly took advantage of her to get some bows made for Christmas. In addition, she learned how to make those ruffled scarves that are so popular and she made two of them for me. Don’t tell Rebekah, but they are for her.

photo photo 1

The last Sunday they were with us, I suggested a Sunday afternoon drive. Does anyone remember doing that back in the 1950’s? We had a delicious buffet lunch in Franklin at The Boiler Room, then loaded up in Mike’s truck and headed for the hills.

We decided to take one of our favorite quiet drives, Balsam Mountain road off the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is a one-way drive through natural forest. It does not have spectacular vistas but it is perfect if you want the whole woods experience without snakes and bugs. Just before the entrance to the drive is a fantastic picnic area. Fantastic if you like a quiet picnic in what looks like an enchanted forest. The tables are big stones set on stones with logs for benches. We loved it. Next we left the picnic area and began the drive.

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Time to wrap up this post. We are going to a picnic tonight by the creek of someone at church. Since today is Throw Back Thursday I will add  that  thirty or so years ago, I was busy with another creek bank. My friend Sharon and i worked with the children in our church on a musical, “Down by the Creek Bank” My favorite line from the play is “aren’t the stars pretty?”. I’m not sure I can stay awake long enough to view the stars tonight!

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