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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Goody, Goody! Goody, Goody!

The first and last days of school I got called down for running my mouth, and probably every day between. Born without a muffler or filter it paid off handsomely if not happily.

My sister, Phyllis, on the other hand was the model of decorum and every teachers’ darling. It was unlikely she ever got scolded, but she often had to be told to “let someone else answer.” Of course, she knew all the answers, since she did all her homework as soon as she got in from school. From her earliest days, it was obvious she’d be a wonderful teacher, which she was. All her games revolved around playing school, especially after my teacher relatives passed discarded textbooks on to us.

Many of those books were still in use in our classrooms. Imagine her joy when she poured over them and started school way ahead of her class. I was not so much interested in the textbooks and playing school. That’s where our trouble lay. She expected me to be her perfect student, as we went from reading to math to science to geography.

I was all in to the reading lesson, but ready to go when we moved on. That wasn’t how her school worked. She’d get her fly-back paddle after me, so school was over and the fight was on. I never hung around too long. She’d go to Mother to back up her discipline and get disappointed time after time. Homeschooling just didn’t work for her.

To my great joy, Phyllis did get in trouble one time. In the first grade, she shared a desk with Richard. Travis sat right behind them. When Mrs. Hanks passed back their work, Phyllis and Richard got an A. Travis got an F. Phyllis and Richard turned around and sang to him, “Goody, goody Travis.” Mrs. Hanks called them to the front of the class and made them sing to each other, “Goody, goody, Phyllis. Goody, goody, Richard.”

Of course, Phyllis came straight home with the story of how she’d suffered, only to get more trouble. That took care of their classroom “Goody, goodies” but I think I still heard it at home a few times.
Desk

Perfect Happiness

It is so easy to make Bud a perfect meal, I don’t know why I don’t do it every night.

There are several interchangeable choices. All I have to do is cook steak, chicken, roast beef or pork, ribs, or meatloaf with gravy. My second decision is between rice, stewed or mashed potatoes. The third decision is the side. Black-eyed peas, always Bud’s first choice, either pinto, lima, red, or green beans.

Of course, we need a bread. Biscuits, cornbread, or rolls are always fine. Should I feel particularly industrious, dessert is in order, preferably homemade apple pie or yellow cake with buttercream frosting.

I can throw all the salad in the trash. Oh yes, Bud always volunteers to make the gravy if its not cooked along with the meat.

Fire!

I was not envious of Bud when I was a kid. He lived directly across from the Baptist church. He’d never have been able to come up with an excuse to skip church if his feet worked.

As was usual in that day, the parsonage was alongside the church. Also, as usual, the preacher’s kid was a rotter. Although there were no kids his age at the Bethea household, they’d made the mistake of tolerating him, so he haunted Bud’s poor sisters. He never bothered to knock, just made himself welcome.

One day, he showed up just as they were taking brownies out of the oven. The brownies were intended for an upcoming social event. Nonetheless , without waiting for an invitation, he helped himself. Finding them to his satisfaction, he remarked, “That was good. I’ll have another.”

On another occasion, he let himself in the front door without invitation, as usual, announcing he had a box of matches. Cognizant it was the fall of the year with tempting piles of dry leaves lying about the yard, one of the girls reminded him to keep those matches in his pocket. Her direction went in one ear and out the other. Within five minutes, he was tearing through the house shouting, “Fire! And I don’t know how it got started!”

A dash of Maxine

Literature

What was your favorite subject in school?

I loved reading. I used to tear through the stories in my reader. My favorite reader was Runaway Home. The father took a year off work to paint. The reader detailed their adventures while traveling the country in a camper. It seemed like a dream come true. I did not enjoy the reading aloud in class. I read ahead while trying to pay just enough attention to hear when I was called upon. It must have been misery for the poor readers waiting for their turn to read. I dreaded it along with them, knowing they’d have to laboriously stumble through a paragraph or two. I stayed in trouble for dashing through my work so I could pull a library book out of my desk.

Blind Jokes

Blind date. Why don’t blind people skydive? It scares the heck out of the dog.

What did the blind man say after being handed a cheese grater? “That’s the most violent book I’ve ever read.”

What has two eyes but can not see? Stevie Wonder.

What do you call Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles playing tennis? Endless Love

Yo mama so ugly the local peeping-tom knocked on her door, and asked her to shut her blinds.

The Best of the Best Relationship Memes

Rules Guys wished Girls Knew

 
1. If you think you’re fat, you probably are. Don’t ask us.
2. Learn to work the toilet seat: if it’s up, put it down.
3. Don’t cut your hair. Ever.
4. Birthdays, Valentines, and Anniversaries are not quests to see
if he can find the perfect present!
5. If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, expect an answer you don’t want to hear.
6. Sometimes, he’s not thinking about you. Live with it.
7. Don’t ask him what he’s thinking about unless you are prepared
to discuss such topics as navel lint, the shotgun formation,and monster trucks.
8. Get rid of your cat. And no, it’s not different, it’s just like ever other cat.
9. Dogs are better than ANY cats. Period.
10. Sunday = Sports. It’s like the full moon or the changing of the
tides. Let it be.
11. Shopping is not a sport.
12. Anything you wear is fine. Really.
13. You have enough clothes.
14. You have too many shoes.
15. Crying is blackmail. Use it if you must, but don’t expect us to like it.
16. Your brother is an idiot, your ex-boyfriend is an idiot, and your dad’s way past idiot.
17. Ask for what you want. Subtle hints don’t work.
18. No, he doesn’t know what day it is. He never will. Mark anniversaries on a calendar.
19. Pissing standing up is more difficult than peeing from point blank range. We’re bound to miss sometimes.
20. Most guys own two to three pairs of shoes – what makes you think
we’d be any good at choosing which pair, out of thirty, would look good with your dress?
21. Yes, and No are perfectly acceptable answers.
22. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.
23. Your Mom doesn’t have to be our best friend.
24. Foreign films are best left to foreigners.
25. Check your oil.
26. Don’t give us 50 rules when 25 will do.
27. Don’t fake it. We’d rather be ineffective than deceived.
28. It is neither in your best interest nor ours to take the quiz in
Cosmo together.
29. Anything we said 6 or 8 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. All comments become null and void after 7 days.
30. If you don’t dress like the Victoria’s Secret girls, don’t expect us to act like soap opera guys.
31. If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the
ways makes you sad and angry, we meant the other one.
32. Let us ogle. If we don’t look at other women, how can we know how pretty you are?
33. Don’t rub the lamp if you don’t want the genie to come out.
34. You can either ask us to do something OR tell us how you want it
done – but not both.
35. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.
36. Christopher Columbus didn’t need directions, and neither do we.
37. Women wearing Wonderbras and low-cut blouses lose their right to
complain about having their boobs stared at.
38. Consider golf a mini-vacation from you. We need it, just like you do.
39. Telling us that the models in the men’s magazines are airbrushed makes you look jealous and petty, and it’s certainly not going to deter us from reading the magazines.
40. The relationship is never going to be like it was the first two months we were going out.
41. Anyone can buy condoms.

It’s All Fun and Games till Somebody Loses an Eye

John Wayne“It’s All Fun and Games till Somebody Loses an Eye!”
I heard that warning so many times when I was a kid I could have sung it back to my parents before they’d finished, if I’d had a death wish. All I had to do was run with a glass, toss the scissors, or jump out of a tree on a kid to get them started. I was a smart, tough kid. I KNEW I wasn’t going to get hurt. I had the power of ten because my heart was pure. Well, maybe not pure, but I was sure I had the power of ten.
At any rate, only one time did I ever know of a kid to lose an eye from horseplay, and that circumstance couldn’t have been anticipated. Thankfully, I wasn’t involved. One of the neighbors had a large peanut patch. For those of you who don’t know, peanuts grow underground and have to be dug up. Mr. Jones had already harvested his peanuts and a group of neighborhood kids played in the field, an entirely harmless pastime. Had there been a crop left, it would have been a heinous crime, but the parents were sitting close by, drinking iced tea and watching the kids at their peanut war. They’d eat a few peanuts and toss a few. The greatest harm one would have expected would be a bellyache from too many raw peanuts. Unbelievably, a kid was hit in the eye with a peanut shell, scratching his eyeball. His parents rinsed it and sent him on his way, not thinking much of it. By the next day, the eye was swollen and infected. The boy ultimately lost his eye from that accident, a totally unexpected outcome.