Month: January 2025

Mission

What is your mission?

I hope I leave the world a better place.

The Mystery of the Monogram on a Toilet Seat

My mother often said, “If you have kids, you can’t have anything else.”  Well, she was wrong.  We had a new toilet seat.  After installing it, Daddy looked around, stared us down, and threatened.  “I’d better not see anybody’s initials on this seat!”  Where did that come from?  I’d never heard of anybody putting initials on a toilet seat.

I went about my business, that toilet seat and  initials, foremost on my mind.  I wrote LDS in my “Night Before Christmas” book, LDS in the sand under the big shade tree, scooped up some mud and wrote LDS on the dog house. Still unsatisfied, I heated the ice pick on a stove burner and burned LDS on a green Tupperware tumbler.

Feeling strangely unfulfilled and restless, I couldn’t think of a thing to do.  Billy was off somewhere playing with Froggy.  Mother and the baby were taking a nap, so if I stayed in the house, I had to be quiet.  I slipped in the kitchen to see if there was any Kool Aid miraculously left in the pitcher.  No luck. Dejected, I went to the bathroom.

There it was calling to me, pristine in its unblemished beauty.  The new toilet seat!!!  I sat down, my bare bottom luxuriating in its cool smoothness. I got up, locked the door, and turned the seat up. Making sure no one was looking through the window, I got Mother’s eyebrow pencil out of the medicine cabinet and wrote LDS in tiny letters where no one would ever see it.  Terrified, I erased my crime.  The finish was dull from pencil smears. My heart pounded!  I was caught!  I got tissue and buffed it off.  Thank goodness the shine was back.  Relieved, I sat on the side of the bathtub to catch my breath.  A nail fell out of my pocket and clattered to the bottom of the tub.  Never has the devil so possessed a soul.  Grasping the nail, I scratched BRS, Billy’s initials, on the toilet seat.  Horrified, at the enormity of my crime, I tiptoed past the room where Mother and the baby still slept.  By this time, Billy and Froggy had gotten back.  We were throwing mud balls at each other when I heard a shriek from the house.  “BILLY RAY SWAIN!!  You come here this minute!”  I didn’t need to go in to know what was wrong.  I heard “Spat! Spat! Spat!” and in a few minutes he was out, still snuffling.

“What happened?”

“Mother whooped me for putting my initials on the toilet seat. I told her I didn’t know how to write but she said, ‘Who else would put your initials on the toilet seat?’ “

How long could it be before she found the Tupperware?

The Good in the Boogerman

I was tantalized by the occult when a child, Naturally, since I was raised by a good Southern Baptist mother, I was deprived of as much supernatural exposure as Mother could manage. Fortunately, Daddy’s mother was extremely superstitious.

It goes without saying, Mother would never contradicted her to her face. Sometimes when Mamaw had a gaggle of grandchildren running wild around her, she’d launch into a ghost story, usually purported to be true. The wild grandchildren would immediately settle down at their mother’s knee to listen, enchanted and big-eyed with belief

Mamaw petrified us with tales of ghosts, spirits, deranged ax-murderers, boogermen, and bodies found in wells, totally unconcerned about the nightmares she was inspiring.

As soon as she could, Mother initiated damage control. “There are no ghosts or Boogermen!”

To this day, I don’t know why Mother took that stand, considering the good effect fear of ghosts and the boogerman had on those wild kids. Mamaw knew exactly what she was doing.

Sing at the table

Sing in the bed

Boogerman’ll git you

By the hair of the head!

Living Long

What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

Like most, I would only like to live a very long life If I were able to take care of myself. I don’t want to be a burden to anyone.

Uh oh! (I hope it’s ok to post this riotous post I read on Quora.)

I was at the grocery store. Maybe it was a case of being at the right place at the right time, but still….

So what happened? Well, the stuff that the woman wanted was on the very top of the shelf, she tried to “whack it down” with her cane. Instead, they went back behind, way out of reach. Well, this guy asked her “Ma’am? Which one did you want?” She pointed it with her cane.

This guy (taller than both of us but still short), climbed up and grabbed (she wanted 2) and using one hand to try to bend over to give her two cans, lost his balance, and he grabbed the first thing he could, I was wearing a tank top, so he grabbed my tank top and my bra, ripping it as he lost his balance (but I broke his fall by “catching him”).

By this time the Store Meat Manager (he saw what happened), rushed over. The guy was fine, but the first thing he said was

“OOPSIE MA’AM, I DIDN’T MEAN TO POP YOUR BOOBY!”

I had to pull my tank top up (he broke my bra and the upper right side “strap” of the tank top), using my arm to hold “what’s left of it” to cover my boob!

Meat Manager, he was red-faced and pulled me over behind the display rack (canned goods) and ordered an employee to grab something. It was a spare t-shirt, size XXXL, with the store and the slogan saying ‘I’VE GOT THE BIG MEATS’

REALLY? I am sorry but customers and a couple of other employees who saw this guy almost crashing to the floor… were cracking up!

That same guy, he wasn’t hurt, but he was still embarrassed, pulled out his wallet and a bill folded up into my hand and he left the store (leaving his few items behind). I thought maybe it was $5 or $10 to replace the bra and tank top. I really didn’t need it, so I just put it in my shorts pocket and totally forgotten about it.

FAST FORWARD: I didn’t put those shorts on for a long time, I wore them for about 2 hours, and just folded them up and put them in the drawer. Once winter was over, we were all going to go fishing, I pulled those shorts out and there was the bill, still in my pocket, and I laughed – couldn’t believe I had forgotten it, but when I opened it up, it was a $100.00 bill!

Organization

What could you do differently?

I could and should organize my writing. I am totally spontaneous plunging headlong into whatever is on my mind. That works just fine except it leaves me with a mass of material that I have intentions of getting in a book. I will prioritize organization.

The Journey to My First Bike: A Childhood Story

Despite not getting a one fot Christmas, I was obsessed with learning to ride a bike. In case you didn’t know, kids with bikes aren’t interested in sharing them. I couldn’t just borrow an hour of “bike time.” I felt sure that the hard part was getting my hands on a bike, not the learning part.

Finally, my hopes were realized. My dad decided to visit an old Navy buddy. Conveniently, the family had three boys in my age range, each with a bike. I was in heaven. There was a bike available to me at all times. I didn’t waste the opportunity. I’d push a bike alongside a fence, or porch and push off. In my frantic determination to learn, I could actually ride by to evening of the first day. I spent the remainder of that trip in non-stop riding.

My parents were impressed that I’d learned to ride. My success made me even more desperate. The following Christmas, I actually got a bike! It wasn’t the blue Schwinn Spitfire I’d been hoping for but a perfectly adequate used bike with a new paint job and new tires. I was ecstatic! It was a bike! I felt like I’d been given wings.

Billboard

If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

I hate freeway billboards.

Wheels

By the time I was in second grade, it seemed like all the town kids had bikes. I was wildly envious of them parking their bikes as I stomped off the bus like the clodhopper I was. Fortunately, bikes were off limits on the playground so I didn’t have to feel deprived about that.

Of course, as Christmas approached, I started in on Mother. I knew just what kind of bike I wanted, a blue Schwinn Spitfire. A realist, Mother let me know I definitely wouldn’t be getting a bike.

“Can’t Santa bring me one?” I asked.

“No, parents have to help pay for the things Santa brings. We don’t have the money.”

That cleared up all my questions about Santa Claus. I wanted to stamp my foot and say “Darn!” but I knew better.