Halloween

I know several of my family members don't feel about Halloween as I do -- now, not as I did when I was a child.  That aside, I must reference my niece's BLOG for today where she talks about her children going from house to house.  Her son didn't want to go out in the daylight, and so they left near sundown so he could have some time in the dark.

All I wanted to say was that when I was growing up, I NEVER went out in the dark, and I was always angry with my mom and dad for not allowing me to do that.  At least on that day I was.  But at night when I was counting up the money I had collected, surveying all the great candy bars I had gotten, and looking at that apple taffy I got at Gardner's I knew my parents were the best.

You see, if I had waited until dark, I would have missed out on the great candy bars, because after talking with several of my friends who only went out after dark I found out that the great candy bars were gone by dark.  Same with the money places.  And, ditto with Gardner's and the apple taffy. 

So, while I didn't like what my mom and dad insisted on, and while they were just trying to protect me, I suppose, I see that they were smarter than I thought, and because of their insistance on me going out before dark, I was able to collect the best of the best of the candy, money, and that wonderful apple taffy!

Before I sign off, I have to apologize for any misspellings.  Apparently Blogspot doesn't have spellcheck any more, so I may have some words wrong.  So sorry.

ttfn

The sooner you get to sleep...

...the sooner it will be morning.  How many mothers have said that to their children on a night when the children are so excited about something, like Christmas?

I know my mother did.  The first time I recall was on Christmas Eve.  I was, of course, watching through the window next to the bed looking for that sleigh and then the noise on the roof.  This was about 9 p.m.  Of course I was antsy, and mom came in and told me "The sooner you get to sleep, the sooner it will be morning." 

Well, I still think about that since I really don't sleep well at night.  I keep repeating the mantra:  The sooner you get to sleep, the sooner it will be morning.  I know it works, but for me, now in my dotage, getting to sleep at all is the problem. 

Elder folks don't sleep, they nap.  

ttfn

Kicking leaves

Who doesn't remember walking along the sidewalk or across the lawn and kicking the leaves that had fallen from the trees?  I recall doing that.  When that time arrived, we knew it was time to grab the rake and scoop up the leaves in the front yard into piles and push the piles into the street. 

This morning as I was looking out my sunporch window I noticed that my yard was covered with leaves.  The trees are getting barer by the minute since we have a steady "blow" of wind at about 15 mph, and are expected gusts later today in the 40s.  Can't wait. 

I'm watching the sliders on the porch to make sure they down bow in because of the wind like they did when Ike went through.  The wind is howling -- folks that just means it's noisy -- through the area between the buildings, and i'm thankyou I don't see any shingles lifting from neighboring roofs. 

I guess reminiscing about kicking up the leaves as I walked to school or ran across the yard to visit a neighbor is a Runnemede thing.  I sure know I wouldn't be out there kicking up leaves any more.  The knees don't go that way any more.  LOL

ttfn

I lost my list

I had a list of items about which I wanted to write.  I lost it.  Well, misplaced it.  I'll find it one of these days, but not today.

It's a beautiful fall day here in Northern Kentucky, the leaves are still hanging on the trees, barely.  I know that after tomorrow's weather comes through all the leaves will be gone.  We're supposed to have t-storms and high winds.  Today, though, is a good day to get outside and enjoy the porch. 

Wish I was still at 116 E Second and enjoying that porch. 

I recall that Alan's and my first home had a wonderful front porch and the children were either babies, toddlers, or very young when we lived there, and the porch was the perfect place for them to play as long as the temperature was conducive to outdoor play.  That house was NOT in Runnemede, but it was a Runnemede-type home, old, in need of some repair, not exactly a money-pit.  But, I loved that house.  Of all the places we've lived, I loved that house more than any other.

Yes, even more than the home where I grew up.  And probably more than the home where I now live, which I really, really am enjoying in my elder years.

At this point in the year, the windows on the Pike in Runnemede would have been painted by the 8th graders with Halloween pictures on the inside.  The bad kids, or children whose parents didn't care, were getting their eggs ready and stashed for their mischief-night escapades.  It was considered a right of passage, I supposed to go down on the pike and egg the Halloween windows, so that on Halloween, they were a mess.  I never heard of toilet papering a tree until we moved out here.  Do they do that back east?

I never participated in the egg throwing, but I suppose my brothers did.  We didn't have a car so we never suffered the egg-throwing in that way either.  When I finally got a car, on mischief night I parked it out behind the house between the house and the church where no one would see it.  It was safe there.  Dad would light up the house and watch the school across the street just in case.

It looks like that even without "my list" I can come up with something to remember about Runnemede, and this beautiful day in N. KY evoked those memories.

ttfn

Sunday drives

I don't know what brought this subject to mind a few days ago, but there it was.  It must have been something I was reading. 

I do remember Sunday drives AND Sunday drivers -- the butt of many jokes back in the slower days.

First, you need to know that Sunday afternoon naps were almost a religious thing in our household.  Okay, for the adults, but the children?  Not so much.  So, if someone in our town or a family member who owned a car offered to take a few kiddies on an afternoon drive, it was a go from the first offer.  No thinking there.  Most of the time mom went with us.  When my youngest brother was just a little tyke, it was usually me and my sister, and maybe my little brother, as opposed to my youngest brother.  All the children were younger than I, so to differentiate between brothers is difficult to describe sometimes.

Anyway, someone would pick us up after dinner (leftovers from Saturday night's supper) and take us for a drive.  A slow, meandering drive down country roads.  There WERE such things as country roads in South Jersey back in the 50s.  Looking at a map was not an option.  We had no designated place we wanted to see.  We didn't care if we were just driven up to Suicide Hill, given a couple of boxes to slide down on, and play at the Hill for an hour or so, then take a few twists and turns around Runnemede and Barrington before coming home..  Mom and Dad got a brief respite from the four children.

I recall a couple of drives though, specifically, around South Jersey.  There was a lady in our church called Miss Brown.  She lived in Swedesboro, another small South Jersey town, and she would every once in a while eat dinner after Sunday morning church with the Misses Dodge, who lived down on the pike, and then pick us up for a Sunday afternoon drive.  Mom ALWAYS went on those drives because she loved where we would end up -- at Miss Brown's.  She lived on a creek or river, down there, I was never sure, and mom loved her garden.  Miss Brown would vary the route from time to time so we didn't get to her home by the same roads, until the end, then we all knew where we were, and we all loved her yard, and yes, even her tiny little house.  I think we all remember her back room, which was really an enclosed porch, but it must have been heated, because I don't recall it ever being cold out there, but then maybe we didn't visit her in the winter.  Who knows?  It was a long time ago.

Another drive I recall was the zig-zag drive.  Uncle El (Wentzel) took us for a drive in his green car, I think it was a '49 or '50 Chevrolet, four door.  Not the boxy one, but the one just before that.  I could certainly look it up, since my husband collects books about old cars, but then I'd lose my chain of thought. 

This one Sunday, Uncle El offered to take us on a zig-zag ride.  What's a zig-zag ride?  Well, one of us would yell out, at his signal,  "Turn right here, Uncle El!"  And, he'd turn right, and we'd drive for a while, then he signal again,  and the loudest person would yell out "Turn left here, Uncle El."  Amazingly we never got lost.  Perhaps he knew what we would say before he signaled anyway, and always knew exactly where we were.  He owned a moving company and probably knew all the roads down in South Jersey, even without a map.

As for Sunday drivers -- well, they became a rare breed in the 60s and the 70s, but you always knew who they were because you'd be tearing along on a back road, and bam, you meet up with a slow driver who was just rambling along and then after several minutes of frustratingly slow driving you'd pass that driver, just knowing, yep, it was Sunday, and the couple in the car was just taking a drive.

I loved those days.

ttfn

Sunday saying

I think I missed last week because my sister was here and I wasn't BLOGging while she was with me.  So, this weeks saying is -- wait for it!

It's flu season.  A lot of people are sneezing.  You'll hear "God bless you" or "geshundheit" often.  But not in our house.  No siree, Bob. 

I guess because of World War II, my father wanted to put aside all things German.  Now, we still had some family sayings that came from the Pennsylvania Dutch, but in fact, dad's family all came from Bavaria -- isn't that Germany?  My father, however, was always an American.  Not German, not Italian, not Pennsylvania Dutch.  He was an American.

My mom's family was Italian -- all of them -- the whole brood.  And while very few Italian sayings came down through the family line -- well, there are quite a lot actually -- one saying that my father picked up on and said anytime someone sneezed was:  Dio ti benedica, (pronounced dee uh duh benna deech).  I quickly learned to say that instead of "God Bless You" when someone sneezed, but apparently, I was the only one in our family that did, except for, of course, my mother.

So, my sister sneezed last week, and I said, "Dio ti benedica," and she said, "Huh?"  I had to explain it to her, so I guess the Italian saying didn't sink in.  Now, there's a reason for that.  Because my father was into homeopathic medicines we were rarely sick.  Few sniffles and sneezes, I guess.  But there had to be enough for me to pick up on the Italian "God bless you".

Go back to October 29, 2007 and read more about this particular family saying.

ttfn

Phil

Phil wasn't born near Runnemede, but he lived there for about three months when he was a baby.  He's  my oldest child. 

I recall one time he and I were on a bus on our way into Philadelphia.  He was around four years old at the time.  There was a man sitting on the bus, and my son just had to talk to him.  Phil was very talkative when he was little.

He went right up to that man and he said:  "You sure do look like Jesus.  Are you he?"   Please notice the second sentence.  I had been correcting him on that for a few weeks, he got it correct.

So, Phil waited for the man to answer, which the man didn't; he just ignored this little pip-squeek.  Then Phil said:  "I don't think you are, because Jesus would never smoke, and you're smoking.  Don't you know that's bad for you?"

That's today's remembrance.

ttfn