Author: lbeth1950

lbeth1950https://nutsrok.wordpress.comNow that I'm done with the bothersome business of workday world, I am free to pursue my passion, capturing the stories I've loved all my life. The ones you'll read on my blog are good old Southern stories, a real pleasure to relay. Here in the South, we are proud of our wacky folks. I've preyed shamelessly on my family, living and dead, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, often changing the names to protect the innocent and not so innocent. My mother illustrates my blog. I come from a rollicking family of nuts, hence the name of the blog Nutsrok Enjoy.
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Hard Time Marrying Part 10

For the first time in weeks, Anya slept deeply under the willows without fear of her captor.  In the fickle manner of West Texas, as the temperate day drew to a close, a cold wind swept in clouds from the North. She roused shivering as the rain peppered her with sleet. Knowing she’d die if she just lay there, she managed to rake a bed of leaves and burrowed in, somehow surviving the bitter night.  At first light, she emerged, battered but choosing life.  The day warmed as though there had been no icy storm in the night.

Despite the beating she’d endured, she walked through the hours, often falling, then struggling back to her feet in search of help.  Eventually, she stumbled upon a milk cow grazing in the distance.  Laboriously, she made her way toward It, hoping it wouldn’t wander off.  She stroked the gentle beast, before dropping to her knees, grasping an udder, and squirting warm milk into her mouth.  Strengthened by the cow’s life-saving gift, she leaned against the kind beast, comforted by its warmth..  Anya kept pace with the cow, occasionally milking her or resting while the the beast grazed.Thankfully, the cow didn’t object to her company.

As the afternoon shadows lengthened, the cow seemed charged with purpose and picked up her pace.  Anya took hold of her rope halter to keep up.  As they climbed over a rise, a homestead came into view.  Anya released the cow and she picked up the pace, trotting with purpose as her bag with its engorged udders swung side to side.

Thanksgiving Jokes for Your Pleasure

  • “Why did the turkey bring a microphone?” “He was ready to roast.”
  • “Which side of a turkey has more feathers?” “The outside.”
  • “Is that your pop-up timer or are you just happy to see me?”
  • “What do you get when you cross a turkey with a centipede?” “Drumsticks for everyone!” 
  • “Why did the turkey stand on stilts?” “Because nobody eat flamingoes for Thanksgiving dinner.”
  • “What kind of turkey requires ID?” “Wild Turkey.”
  • “What did the turkey say when he met the president?” “Pardon me.”
  • “How does a turkey travel?” “By gravy train.”
  • “What do you call a turkey the day after Thanksgiving?” “Lucky!”
  • “What did the turkey say to his real estate agent?” “Turn-key only.”
  • “What’s a turkey’s favorite month?” “They don’t have one, but they prefer any other than November!”
  • “What sound does a turkey’s phone make?” “Wing-wing-wing.”
  • “What did the turkey say to the turkey hunter on Thanksgiving Day?” “Quack, Quack!”
  • “Why did the farmer have to separate the chicken and the turkey?” “He sensed fowl play.”
  • “What key has legs and can’t open a door?” “A tur-key.” 
  • “Why did they let the turkey join the band?” “Because he had his own drumsticks.”
  • “What happened to the turkey that got in a fight?” “He got the stuffing knocked out of him!”

Best Cat Cartoons and Jokes of the Day

can opener1can opener2can opener 3can opener 5can opener 4Funny quotes about cat owners

  • “You can keep a dog; but it is the cat who keeps people, because cats find humans useful domestic animals.”- George Mikes
  • “There are few things in life more heart warming than to be welcomed by a cat.” – Tay Hohoff
  • “The trouble with sharing one’s bed with cats is that they’d rather sleep on you than beside you.”- Pam Brown
  • As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat. – Ellen Perry Berkeley
  • “My husband said it was him or the cat…I miss him sometimes.” – Unknown

Read more: http://therealowner.com/humor/funny-quotes-about-cats-and-cat-owners/#ixzz3sSJa4CMV

Freight Train by Elizabeth Cotten

https://youtu.be/9ZzB9sJTu4M

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Elizabeth Cotten

Master of American folk music

Click to view slideshow

Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten (1895-1987), best known for her timeless song “Freight Train,”built her musical legacy on a firm foundation of late 19th- and early 20th-century African-American instrumental traditions. Through her songwriting, her quietly commanding personality, and her unique left-handed guitar and banjo styles, she inspired and influenced generations of younger artists. In 1984 Cotten was declared a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts and was later recognized by the Smithsonian Institution as a “living treasure.” She received a Grammy Award in 1985 when she was ninety, almost eighty years after she first began composing her own works.

Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Libba Cotten taught herself how to play the banjo and guitar at an early age. Although forbidden to do so, she often borrowed her brother’s instruments when he was away, reversing the banjo and guitar to make them easier to play left-handed. Eventually she saved up the $3.75 required to purchase a Stella guitar from a local dry-goods store. Cotten immediately began to develop a unique guitar style characterized by simple figures played on the bass strings in counterpoint to a melody played on the treble strings, a method that later became widely known as “Cotten style.” She fretted the strings with her right hand and picked with her left, the reverse of the usual method. Moreover, she picked the bass strings with her fingers and the treble (melody strings) with her thumb, creating an almost inimitable sound.

Libba married Frank Cotten when she was 15 (not a particularly early age in that era) and had one child, Lily. As Libba became immersed in family life, she spent more time at church, where she was counseled to give up her “worldly” guitar music. It wasn’t until many years later that Cotten, due largely to a fortunate chance encounter, was able to build her immense talent into a professional music career. While working at a department store in Washington, D.C., Libba found and returned a very young and lost Peggy Seeger to her mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger. A month later, Cotten began work in the household of the famous folk-singing Seeger family.

The Seeger home was an amazing place for Libba to have landed entirely by accident. Ruth Crawford Seeger was a noted composer and music teacher while her husband, Charles, pioneered the field of ethnomusicology. A few years passed before Peggy discovered Cotten playing the family’s gut-stringed guitar. Libba apologized for playing the instrument without asking, but Peggy was astonished by what she heard. Eventually the Seegers came to know Libba’s instrumental virtuosity and the wealth of her repertoire.

Thanks largely to Mike Seeger’s early recordings of her work, Elizabeth Cotten soon found herself giving small concerts in the homes of congressmen and senators, including that of John F. Kennedy. By 1958, at the age of sixty-two, Libba had recorded her first album, Elizabeth Cotten: Negro Folk Songs and Tunes (Folkways 1957, now reissued as Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs, Smithsonian Folkways 1989). Meticulously recorded by Mike Seeger, this was one of the few authentic folk-music albums available by the early 1960s, and certainly one of the most influential. In addition to the now well-recorded tune “Freight Train,”penned by Cotten when she was only eleven or twelve, the album provided accessible examples of some of the “open” tunings used in American folk guitar. She played two distinct styles on the banjo and four on the guitar, including her single-string melody picking “Freight Train”style, an adaptation of Southeastern country ragtime picking.

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As her music became a staple of the folk revival of the 1960s, Elizabeth Cotten began to tour throughout North America. Among her performances were the Newport Folk Festival, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the University of Chicago Folk Festival, and the Smithsonian Festival. Her career generated much media attention and many awards, including the National Folk 1972 Burl Ives Award for her contribution to American folk music. The city of Syracuse, New York, where she spent the last years of her life, honored her in 1983 by naming a small park in her honor: the Elizabeth Cotten Grove. An equally important honor was her inclusion in the book I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America, by Brian Lanker, which put her in the company of Rosa Parks, Marian Anderson, and Oprah Winfrey.

Cotten’s later CDs, Shake Sugaree (Folkways, 1967), When I’m Gone (Folkways, 1979), and Elizabeth Cotten Live (Arhoolie 1089), continued to win critical acclaim. Elizabeth Cotten Live was awarded a Grammy for the Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording in 1985.

Elizabeth Cotten continued to tour and perform right up to the end of her life. Her last concert was one that folk legend Odetta put together for her in New York City in the spring of 1987, shortly before her death. Cotten’s legacy lives on not only in her own recordings but also in the many artists who continue to play her work. The Grateful Dead produced several renditions of “Oh, Babe, It Ain’t No Lie,” Bob Dylan covered the ever-popular “Shake Sugaree,” and “Freight Train”continues as a well-loved and recorded tune played by Mike Seeger, Taj Mahal, and Peter, Paul, and Mary, to name a few. Libba’s recordings, concert tours, media acclaim, and major awards are a testament to her genius, but the true measure of her legacy lies with the tens of thousands of guitarists who cherish her songs as a favorite part of their repertoires, preserving and keeping alive her unique musical style.

AUDIO

Album Cover

Freight Train

Elizabeth Cotten 

Audio Player

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

2pounds fresh cranberries

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup orange juice

1 box jello

Bring all ingredients to a boil. Simmer about 10 till berries are tender. Add 1/2 cup wine if desired.

Either turn into a serving dish to chill or put in jars. I make ahead and can. To can, submerge in cold water. Bring to a full boil for 10 minutes to seal jars. This makes an excellent hostess gift.

Don’t get distracted and boil over like I did. That insures an extra half hour of cleanup.

I doubled the batch and have six pints.

October

What’s your favorite month of the year? Why?

I love October with its cool blue skies and cooling weather, such a relief from the blistering summer heat. The leaves are turning. The breezy days stir excitement. I feel so much anticipation for life.

Best of all, there is always that first day when the sky is heartbreaking blue, the promise of a new season.

The Quirky Dining Adventures of My 96-Year-Old Mother

I am running a series I originally did in 2016.   Just so you know, Mother is thriving at ninet-six.

Mother is ninety-something years old and enjoys the health and enthusiasm of a ten-year-old, with a few added quirks. Let me preface this by assuring you, I don’t mean her mind is going. She hasn’t changed in all the years I’ve had the great fortune to know her. Also, I am not complaining about her, just passing on a few things I’ve learned a person will experience should they spend a little time with her.

Lunch out with Mother always starts with an understanding. I understand I will be paying unless she tells me otherwise ahead of time. Let me give you a little background. She is a tightwad. When we stop for a cup of coffee, she always holds her little yellow change purse where I can’t see it, pretends she has no change, even though it’s bulging, and asks, “Can you pay for my coffee? I hate to break a dollar for coffee.” Technically, this is true. She never said she didn’t have change. She just hates to break a dollar for coffee. If we went to a car dealership, she’d say, “Can you get this. I hate to write a check for a car.”

First of all, bathrooms are a priority at every stop. In the name of good hygiene, a bathroom visit is the first order of business at a restaurant. Handwashing before a meal is a laudable practice. As soon as we get in line for a table, or are seated, Mother makes a bee-line for the bathroom. This is not out of the norm. The minimal bathroom visit is thirteen minutes. This includes waiting in line, stepping back for anyone in distress or with children, conversation with other bathroom goers, and meditation and stall inspection time. Then she has get in line to soap, wash, dry, and inspect her hands,face, teeth, and general appearance before leaving. It goes without saying, she steps out of line at any opportunity, giving up her spot to any and all, in the name of kindness. (Kindness to the public, not her party) Eventually, she rejoins her party at the table, after we have put the server off a time or two.

As often as not, we’ve already ordered beverages, which include an iced tea for her. This implies someone else will be picking up the tab for lunch, since Mother has no intention of ordering tea. “It’s too expensive. I’ll have tea at home.”
She peruses the menu while regaling us with tales of those she observed or became acquainted with in the restroom or enroute back to the table, fascinating fare. I am not kidding. She has come back with people’s life history, including tales of running away with the circus, being born with an identical twin incarcerated in one’s body, to miraculous spontaneous cancer cures. I have no idea how she elicits these stories. Eventually, she chooses her choice of the chicken and vegetable offerings of the day, to the relief of the server, and turns her attention to the other diners.
There’s always a story. She sees someone she knows, someone who looks interesting, or someone who reminds her of her Cousin Kathleen from Virginia, and she’s off. “Remember how Cousin Kathleen always shut everything down to listen to her “bituaries” (obituaries) on the radio, and was so full of stories about all the dead people? She knew all the recent and ancient gossip on everybody and resurrected it when their obituary aired.” Cousin Kathleen did know a lot of great stories. It was interesting to hear about the spicy pasts of her octogenarian neighbors, proving there’s definitely nothing new under the sun.

Mother enjoys her food, and is a slow eater. I usually finish my meal and have dawdled over two or three glasses of tea by the time we let the server know Mother needs a takeout box. She loads it up with her leftovers, and anything left on our plates, eventually rounding up enough for two or three meals at home. “If you’re not going to eat that chicken, I’ll put in my takeout box…and if you don’t want the rest of your salad, and that roll……..”
By this time, someone in the group has confessed that they will pick up her tab, though she protests unconvincingly, just for the sake of good manners. She was “raised right.”

Mother disappears to the bathroom for her post-prandial visit, “as long as we had to wait for the check.” The check came while she was gone. She came back, totally surprised to find me paying check. “I didn’t know the check would come so soon. I’ll pay you back later…….
It’s always easy to tell I am supposed to pick up her ticket. If she intends to pay, she lets me know before getting to the restaurant. “Now don’t try to pick up my ticket. I’m paying my own today.” This usually happens when it’s her trip to the doctor or her special errand. I am content to pay for her meals forever, it’s such a pleasure to still have her company.

Quite often, a stranger, usually a man in his sixties or seventies from a nearby table insists on buying her lunch, just because they’ve enjoyed overhearing her conversation at lunch, often saying she sounds like their mama. They were “raised right.”
Another trip to the bathroom is in order before we hit the road. Another thirteen minutes, while I pay the tab and keep up with her takeout box. Finally, torn from the bosom of all her new friends, ready for the next step. ………..To be continued

Now I Understand!

1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

2. I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather.. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

3. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

4. Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. “Yes” is the answer.

5. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
6. We live in a society where pizza gets to your house before the police.

7. Women might be able to fake orgasms. But men can fake a whole relationship.

8. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on the list.

9. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

10. If I agreed with you we’d both be wrong.

11. Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

12. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

13. War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

14. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

15. Children: You spend the first 2 years of their life teaching them to walk and talk. Then you spend the next 16 years telling them to sit down and shut-up.

16. Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should both be changed regularly, and for the same reason.

17. My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.

18. Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.

19. The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

20. Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good evening’, and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.

21. Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.

22. If sex is a pain in the ass, then you’re doing it wrong…

23. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

24. If God is watching us, the least we can do is be entertaining.

25. If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea… does that mean that one enjoys it?

26. If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of payments.

27. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

28. How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

29. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station..

30. Some people are like Slinkies … not really good for anything, but you can’t help smiling when you see one tumble down the stairs.

31. Did you know that dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish?

32. A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that you don’t need it.

33. I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks.

34. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

35. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says “If an emergency, notify:” I put “DOCTOR”. What’s my mother going to do?

36. I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian

37. A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.

38. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

Hard Time Marrying Part 9

traveling-medicine-show1No mother had ever loved her.  A woman or two passed through, but none of them stayed long.  Ever since she could remember, she’d trailed Pa at his blacksmith or on the homestead though some days he didn’t speak five words to her.  As she got older, she picked up a little cooking, but neither of them did more than they had to in the house.  She was near thirteen when Bessie and her three boys moved in homestead after marrying Pa, Bessie railed at the filth in the house and set about teaching Anya housekeeping with a ready back-hand.  She wasn’t partial to the girl, backhanding her own boys just as often.  When Bessie’s baby girl was born a few months later, she carelessly handed it off to Anya, taking it only to nurse.  For the first time in her life, Anya knew love, never leaving her new sister in Bessie’s way.

Bessie remarried quickly after Pa was kicked in the head by a horse and liked Anya even less after she caught her new man looking Anya’s way.  Within a month, she’d handed Anya off to a Snake Oil peddler passing through.  He warned her not to try to get away.  “I done paid good money for you.”  Anya endured his drunken assaults and those of men who paid him for her time.  After the most brutal beating and rape she’d yet endured, he passed out from his own “Snake Oil.”  Fueled by adrenaline and the knowledge that it was now or never, despite her useless right arm, Anya dragged herself to the wagon, took his pistol from under the wagon seat, aimed at his head and pulled the trigger.  It kicked her backwards against the wagon.  Desperately, she pulled herself up, took the shovel propped against the wagon wheel, steadied herself as best she could, and bashed in his skull.  Repositioning herself, she took another go at him, knowing if he lived, he’d kill her.

With agonizing effort, she pulled his old horse next to the wagon and slid over from the step.  Fortunately for her, the horse was old and docile or he’d have never tolerated her clumsiness.  Popping the reins, she gave him his head.  From time to time she’d nod off and awaken to find his head drooping, as he rested along with her.  Urging him on, they’d travel a bit more till he sensed she wouldn’t notice his dawdling. In that manner, they traveled on through the night and early morning.  As her fatigue and pain got the better of her, she spent less and less time pushing him.  He ambled along and grazed as he pleased with no interference from her.  She slid from his back as he made his way down a little slope to a stream.  She drank beside him and crawled into the shade of a willow to rest.  Somewhat interested, he watched his fellow traveler, then began grazing further and further along the stream.  It was a good day to be a horse on the loose.