Month: July 2015

Mr. Bradley and the Old Floozies

reblogging an older post from Nutsrok

lbeth1950's avatarNutsrok

Repost:

Mr. Bradley died!! Mr. Bradley died!!

This was unbelievable! I had seen people get shot on “Gunsmoke,” but I’d never known anyone who had actually died. I knew I was supposed to cry when someone died but I couldn’t manage it. First of all, Mr. Bradley was an old grouch. He wore khaki pants and shirt and an old gray felt hat with oil stains around the hat band. He was really selfish. He had built us a chicken house. When I went out later to

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Cousin Mavis and the Heartbroken Philanderer

imageMany years ago, I had a Cousin Mavis, who’d inherited a really nice farm, together with her brother Beau, in an idyllic mountain valley.  She married Lloyd who greatly admired her farm.  They had a daughter, Sally.  Mavis quickly took issue with her husband’s carousing and tossed him out.  Quite willing and able to take care of herself, she continued to live happily on her farm with her brother Beau and Sally.  Beau did the majority of the farm work while Mavis taught school and kept the house running,   The three of them had a good life together, bumping along quite satisfactorily.  Beau never married though he was happy to keep company with a widow lady, saying, “No house was big enough for two women.”  In truth, I’m sure he felt he already had a wonderful homemaker who shared his expenses, a doting niece, and a prosperous farm he had no wish to divide.

Her husband, Lloyd, was never quite reconciled to the divorce, realizing what a mistake he’d made in losing Mavis.  Though he never lost his penchant for women and drink, he bought land just across the road, building a house there so he’d have a chance to worm his way by into Mavis’ affections and be in his his daughter’s life .  Little Sally saw her father daily, just like he’d planned, but Lloyd made a point to keep an eye on what went on at Mavis’s place all the time.  Unfortunately, this gave Mavis a bird’s eye view of his social activities, not a wise move for a man seeking forgiveness from a wronged wife.  Despite his many raucous parties and interesting friendships, he was forever hopeful, lo these many years later, that today Mavis would welcome him back into her loving arms.  Whenever an unfamiliar vehicle drove up, Lloyd was sure to amble over to check the guest out.   The first time we visited her, Mavis said, “Oh Lordy, here comes Lloyd to see if y’all are my boyfriend.”

Mavis, Beau, and Lloyd lived this way for more than fifty years, till the lovely Sally finally inherited both places, uniting them, as Lloyd had always hoped.

Kids Will Be Kids

imageWhen I was a child on the farm, we frequently had goats, enormously vivacious and entertaining creatures. Even when grown, they still maintain their curiosity and energy, climbing and bounding around.  The kids are irrestible, never tiring of butting, play fighting, and romping until they exhaust themselves, then falling in a heap to sleep.  It always amazed me, the way they butted their mothers so rudely while nursing. The wonder of it was, as the kids aged, we always had adorable new kids to play with.

Once, we had a nanny who lost her kid at the same time another kid was orphaned.  The obvious answer was to have her adopt the orphan.  Daddy rubbed the orphan with her dead kid, then forced  her to let the adopted kid nurse.  It was difficult going for a few feedings, but once she accepted the kid, she didn’t want it out of her sight.  She followed it at play, bleating, unlike the other nannies who enjoyed the herd’s company, glad to let their mischievous offspring romp.  She continued to nurse that kid up until after she had another, when they had to be separated, to keep from starving the new kid.

Ancient Proverbs: 23 – The Irish.

Love this from Americana Injusticana

Americana Injustica's avatarAmericana Injustica

“You’ve got to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”

~ Irish Proverb

(Of course, I must give a shout out to my one and only “Irish Super Woman”, Tric!!!)

You wanna talk about “ancient wisdom”?…this proverb is enough to stop a clock with its truth. ;-)

The Celts have been faring the elements of nature and humankind since the dawn of time, it seems. The Irish, especially, are a very wise and old bloodline in our species of human beings. The history of pre-Celtic Europe remains very controversial to date; but according to some scholars, the common root of the Celtic languages, a language known as Proto-Celtic, appeared sometime amidst the Bronze Age around 1200 BC. They mastered engineering feats that were leaps and bounds ahead of their’ times. The folklore belonging to the Irish is unmatched, in my opinion – I even gave…

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Joke of the Day

Mike met his badly battered friend Bryan at the bar one Saturday night.

“Faith and Begorrah, man.  What happened to you? ”

“Mike McGarrity came at me with a baseball bat and caught me with no way to defend myself.”

image“Good heavens, Bryan.  Don’t you know better than to let yourself get caught with nothing in your hand!”

“Well, I did have Mrs. McGarrity’s breast in me hand, and a thing of beauty it is, but not of much use in a fight!”

Curtis, the Church Lady, and Pecan Pie

imageWith thirty years in nursing, you can well imagine I have my share of strange stories.  I worked in acute dialysis in the hospital, so knew my patients very well.  We talked about their lives, familis, dogs, whatever was on their minds.  One of my favorite patients was Curtis, a huge man, perfectly delightful, but developmentally challenged.  His thinking was about on the level of a eight-year-old.  Curtis had somehow gotten credit at a furniture store, bought a houseful of furniture, and not made a single payment.  He was being hounded for payment, so decided the best course of action was to go in the hospital, where he wouldn’t be bothered. When he told the nurse at the outpatient dialysis clinic he needed to go to the hospital, she explained he couldn’t be admitted unless sick.  He did some thinking and called her back to his chair telling her he had something for her.  (I can’t imagine how she fell for that.). He dropped an impressive lump of excrement into her outstretched hand and was admitted into the psychiatric unit of the hospital in short order.

He was happily ensconced at the hospital, soon moved to the medical floor.  One day he walked into my unit asking for a large patient gown.  He went on his way.  Curtis was not on my mind when I heard a lady out in the hall exclaim. “Oh my God! Take it!”  It seems she had been bringing a pecan pie to her hospitalized friend from church when she encountered seven-foot-tall Curtis, walking naked down the hall, looking for hospital staff to help him with his gown.  Curtis, hadn’t seen a pecan pie in way too long.  He dropped the gown, grabbed the pie and raised a clumsy fist when the poor woman resisted.  She gave up on the pie and fled shrieking.  Eventually, the whole thing smoothed over.  Curtis had his pie and his gown.  The hospital gave the lady another pecan pie and an apology.  By the time Curtis got home, his furniture had been repossessed, so he wasn’t harassed any more.  They all lived happily ever after, except of course for the nurse who got a handful of doo-doo.

Twenty-five Dollars

imageTwenty-five dollars doesn’t sound like enough to change a life, but for me it was.  I was the second of five children and desperately wanted to go to college.  Fully understanding my family’s financial situation, I knew they couldn’t help me.  My older sister was in her fourth year, an exemplary student and model of decorum, she’d Continue reading →

Nosey Old Biddies

imageMy two grandmothers were a lovely pair.  Saccharin sweet to each other, they sat with veiled claws, looking for a chance to swipe at the other.

Grandma:  “Well , you looking healthy.  I believe you put on a few pounds.”

Maw Maw: “No ma’am.  My weight’s been falling off some.  I got some old dresses I was gonna offer you, but ‘pears now they might be too little for you.”

GM:  “Your’s would be way to big, but I don’t need ’em anyhow.  My son took me shopping and bought me six dresses when I was out at his house.  He could have just bought me a bus ticket, but he wanted to come get me in his new car.  It sure is good to see your kids doing good, isn’t it?  Did your girl, Bettie’s, husband ever get a job after he lost that one last time I was down here?  Now isn’t he the one who drinks a little?””

MM:  “None of my kids drinks.  You must be think in’ a’some o’ yore folks.  Jack’s moved to a job makin’ twenty more a week.  My young’uns might not’a gone to college like yourn, but they all got good jobs. I brought a cake.  I know Pore Ol’ Bill loves a cake an’ Kathaleen don’t have him something sweet ever’day like I always did!”

If not interrupted, this could go on indefinitely, trading swipe after swipe.  Mother tried to intercede if she heard Grandma might be about to hit the motherlode, ferreting out just how long Cousin Yvonne was married before the baby came or discover that Cousin Ross was in the pen for robbing a filling station.  Should all else fail, Grandma could hit us kids up for tidbits of information that could be stitched together to satisfy her curiosity.

MM:  b

Joke of the Day

heaThree people die, a Doctor a school teacher and the head of a large HMO, when met at the pearly gates by St. Peter he asks the Doctor ‘what did you do on Earth?’

The Dotor replied, I healed the sick and if they could not pay I would do it for free. St. Peter told the Doctor, ‘you may go in.’

St. Peter then asked the teacher what she did, she replied, I taught educationally challenged children. St. Peter then told her ‘you may go in.’

St. Peter asked the third man, ‘what did you do?’ The man hung his head and replied, ‘I ran a large HMO.’ To which St. Peter replied, ‘you may go in, but you can only stay 3 days.’